6 Days to Get Home: Students Missing Charter Flights Because Seats Reserved for Indigenous Kids

‘My boys have been left sitting at the airport, bags packed, because they weren’t allowed on a plane with empty seats,’ Derek Lord.

MP Robbie Katter with airport worker and dad Derek Lord. Photo. Courtesy of Robbie Katter, member for Traeger and leader of the Queensland KAP

Primary school students are taking six days to get home during the holiday period because direct government-funded charter flights are only available to Indigenous students.

From Years 6 to 7, students in the small remote cattle town of Normanton generally attend boarding school in bigger towns such as Charters Towers—often needing to fly to return home.