Aussie billionaire launches campaign to boost school attendance in outback

One of Australia's richest men, mining billionaire Andrew Twiggy' Forrest, has launched a new campaign aimed at boosting school attendance in outback Australia.

Forrest, a Western-Australian mining billionaire and well-known philanthropist, has proposed that families only be eligible for government welfare payments if they ensure their children attend school regularly.

Forrest has called on the Federal government to employ this new policy to fight the trend of "rank child abuse", where thousands of Australian families on welfare payment have failed to send their children to school.

Forrest's campaign would mean these parents who allow truancy to be cut off from receiving Family Tax Benefit payments of up to 5087 thousand US dollars a year per child, until their children's attendance improves.

"The stupid, soft-minded policies which are creating this huge gap are denigrating and decimating our kids," Forrest told NewsCorp on Thursday.

The head of Fortescue Metals Group believes the government should implement a similar welfare threat as it did behind the "no jab, no pay" vaccination campaign, which came into effect January, and resulted in parents losing their welfare payments if their child was not up to date with their vaccinations.

Forrest, whose wealth is estimated at 2.5 billion US dollars, believes this approach could be used to protect children from a failed education.

"If you don't immunise your child, your child has a distinct chance of being OK," he said on Thursday.

"But if you don't educate your child, if you don't send your child to school particularly if your child is your daughter you are allowing her to be set adrift in a sea of uncertainty, a sea of vulnerability.

"She will have to rely on others to get whatever she can get to sustain herself."

The passionate Australian, who spends a lot of time in indigenous communities, has been urging for welfare penalties associated with school attendance since 2014. He argued there is now more technology to adopt the strategy.

"We can forgive us our past, but not any further. The technology is available to us to really ensure kids get to school," he said on Thursday.

Another key of Forest's campaign is to end "soft racism", with a particular focus on some indigenous communities where a lower school attendance may be accepted compared to other areas.

"There is an underlying racism across Australia. There are schools which have different targets for attendance: one for non-indigenous pupils and one for indigenous pupils in the same school."

"(There is a) 95 per cent target for school attendance in Canberra, a 72 per cent target for Darwin. Now what that is saying is, in Darwin it's OK for kids to miss three days in every 10.

"We have low expectations. And it's that soft racism I think can be arrested."

Twiggy' Forrest is reportedly planning to launch a TV advertising campaign raising awareness for the plan. Endit