Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to represent an electorate with a very long and rich Aboriginal history and heritage. I have said it in this place before, that I am particularly proud of my family's heritage in connection with the community in which I live. But my family's connection with our community, although deep, is not a patch—it does not go near—on the connection of local Aboriginal families whose relatives' and ancestors' connection with our community dates back 7,000 years: countless generations of people who have developed, nurtured and passed on customs, language, laws and heritage that, importantly, still exist today and which make up the great fabric of the wonderful community in which I live. Their influence on the electorate of Kingsford Smith and, indeed, on our nation is everywhere.

The Aboriginal people have contributed so much to the development of Australia—to the way in which we live on this land, to the way in which we farm the land and to the way in which we fish in coastal communities. They have such a rich and wonderful heritage, a heritage which we all should be very proud of—the oldest continuous culture in the world. If Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have contributed so much to our nation, then why on earth is it that we have failed them so dismally? Why do we continue to fail them in the manner that we do?

Why is there still a gaping chasm in the difference between living standards of Australians of Indigenous heritage and those who are not of Indigenous heritage? Why are Aboriginal men incarcerated in such numbers in jails throughout the country? Why is it that a child born to an Aboriginal woman is half as likely to live as a child born to a non-Indigenous woman? We owe much to the original inhabitants of our great country, but tragically in our efforts to close the gap, to raise the health and life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to that of the non-Indigenous population, we continue to fail them.

Released on Wednesday, 11 February, the Close the Gap report showed efforts to raise the living standards and health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have come up short, with the nation off track to meet half the committed targets. Indigenous Australians can expect to live 10 to 17 years less than other Australians. Babies born to Aboriginal mothers die at more than twice the rate of other Australian babies, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates of preventable illness, such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.

There has been little ground made in halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children. And equality in employment is still a long way off. A high rate of domestic violence continues to plague Indigenous communities. An Aboriginal woman is 30 times more likely to know the pain and fear of family violence, and 15 times more likely to be driven from her home as a result. These figures paint a disturbing picture and send a clear message that more must be done to help Indigenous communities. The starting point needs to be the restoration of the $500 million in Indigenous funding and support for Aboriginal Australians that was cut by the Abbott government in their most recent budget.

In mid-August last year I was fortunate to visit the remote Northern Territory community of Ntaria, where, as a guest of the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy, I volunteered at the local primary school. It was my job to not only help promote and encourage healthy living, education and employment for the young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students but also to experience firsthand the challenge of improving educational standards in remote Aboriginal communities.

Over the course of the week that I spent in Ntaria, I was fortunate to meet some very special people, and some very frustrated people. Many of the teachers told me of the difficulties they faced in educating students who would make progress with reading or maths in one week, only to then disappear for a week before returning once again behind the eight ball. That perfectly highlights the challenge of Indigenous education in remote communities. How do we provide these kids with a decent education that offers them all the opportunities other Australian kids are afforded through their education? And how do we allow them to maintain that very important connection with their land, their heritage and their culture? That is the challenge of Aboriginal education in remote communities.

There is little doubt that a truly needs-based funding model would go a long way to improving the educational outcomes for these kids in remote communities and many more throughout Australia. The teachers in Ntaria told me that resources make a difference. The more resources they can devote to kids in education, the better the outcomes will be. It is unfortunate that the Abbott government has not only cut funding for Indigenous programs; it has also cut funding for education, and children will suffer if the final years of the Gonski reforms are not funded by the Abbott government as was proposed in the last budget.

All the problems with the current system, which have been perfectly highlighted by the Gonski panel, were acutely on display during the week that I spent in Ntaria. The teachers were stretched to the limit, and as a result the kids are receiving a substandard education. When Labor came to government, the literacy and numeracy results from some schools clearly demonstrated that in many areas—particularly low socioeconomic areas or areas where there is a high Indigenous population, a high population of kids from a non-English-speaking background or a high population of kids with disabilities in schools—they were falling behind. In a developed nation like Australia it is simply not good enough for us to allow our education system to fail our kids, particularly when we know what the cause of that failure is: a lack of investment in education—in support for kids with special needs, for kids with disabilities and for Indigenous kids throughout our community.

That was why the Rudd government implemented the Gonski process, to inquire into the deficiencies in our education system and, more importantly, to fix those deficiencies in our education system. We can do better. That is what Labor sought to do in government, to implement those Gonski reforms, which would make a difference in Aboriginal education. The Abbott government's abandonment of the Gonski funding model in the final years and their harsh education cuts may condemn many Indigenous students throughout Australia to continued poor outcomes and a continuation of the tragedy that is Indigenous remote education.

More broadly, the Abbott government funding cuts have exacerbated a number of problems in many Indigenous communities. For example, the rate of jailing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has almost doubled in the last decade, yet the Abbott government has cut funding for Indigenous legal aid. How can we expect to reduce the rate of incarceration for people from Indigenous communities if the support for proper legal advice is being cut by this government? The Abbott government must recommit this funding and recommit the nation to achieving equality for Australia's—and indeed Kingsford Smith's—original inhabitants.

Justice must also be included as a benchmark for closing the gap. Around three in every 100 of our population are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, yet they are more than a 25 in every 100 of our prison population. More needs to be done in all areas. We need to work together and come together to fix the great injustice that is the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

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