Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak today in relation to the Closing the gap report. It is a very disappointing and profoundly despairing document that we have seen handed down by the Prime Minister today. I am aggrieved about it, and so should many people be aggrieved about it. This is a government that came in, I think, with the best of intentions to reform Indigenous affairs but unfortunately, in its first budget, cut $534 million from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs across the country. It did not listen to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and in the first budget it cut $15 million out of assistance that had already been budgeted for by the previous Labor government for the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, the peak Indigenous body. Thereafter it established an Indigenous advisory council that really represented no-one and continued to claim that there was an efficiency dividend in relation to these budget cuts only.

The truth is that the Closing the gap report today is really the consequence of so much mismanagement across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. I say that because the report is stark. It says that target after target is not being attained. We are seeing a failure to halve the gap in child mortality. We are seeing failures in terms of closing the gap in life expectancy. We are seeing failures to close the gap in school attendance. We are seeing failures to close the gap in reading and numeracy for Indigenous students. We are seeing failures to close the gap in terms of employment. The words 'not on track' are littered through the report.

This backs up the Auditor-General's report. When I was the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, I wrote to the Auditor-General requesting that the Auditor-General turn his mind to the preparation of an audit report in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy, the centrepiece of the Abbott and now Turnbull government's Indigenous affairs policy. Much fanfare heralded the Indigenous Advancement Strategy in May 2014. They committed $4.8 billion over four years from 2014-15, cutting $534.4 million over five years, much of it in Indigenous affairs and much of it in preventative health programs.

The consequences were that many organisations that had been working in community control across the country failed to get the funding program that they needed in terms of certainty and employment. The outcomes were therefore a consequence of the failure of the Abbott-Turnbull government. In 2014-15, the first year of the strategy, the department focused on transitioning 3,000 funding agreements across the country. The Auditor-General found:

… the department did not effectively implement the Strategy.

A failure of administration. Also:

The department's grants administration processes fell short of the standard required to effectively manage a billion dollars of Commonwealth resources. The basis by which projects were recommended to the Minister—

Senator Scullion—

was not clear and, as a result, limited assurance is available that the projects funded support the department's desired outcomes. Further, the department did not:

•assess applications in a manner that was consistent with the guidelines and the department's public statements;

•meet some of its obligations under the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines;

… … …

•establish performance targets for all funded projects.

The performance framework and measures established for the Strategy—

the centrepiece of the Abbott and Turnbull government's Indigenous affairs policy—

do not provide sufficient information to make assessments about program performance and progress towards achievement of the program outcomes.

This is a damning report by the Auditor-General of the government's whole strategy in Indigenous affairs.

The grants administration was appalling. There was a kit provided before the opening of the grant funding for these organisations which are at the front line of delivering services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and whose main work is about closing the gap in Indigenous disadvantage. Approximately half of the applicants under the grants program of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy did not meet the application documentation requirements. There may be benefit in the department testing its application process with potential applicants in future rounds.

There was an inconsistency with the guidelines in the internal guidance. So this is the consequence of this government's Indigenous affairs policy. We are seeing it today. The best I can say about this report is that it actually looks like a report. In previous years we have had what looked like a brochure—a brochure that nearly had more pictures that words on it—that had been handed down as the Closing the gap report. It is a damning indictment of this government's Indigenous affairs policy.

I have been with the member for Lingiari when the minister talked about resetting, restarting and renewing in speech after speech. How many more times is this government going to do that? They have failed to acknowledge their failures this area, but at least the department has agreed with every one of the recommendations of the Auditor-General. So there is hope yet that the government may get this right in terms of Indigenous affairs.

In the time remaining, let me say a few things about what they could do in this space that might actually help. How about refunding the National Congress of Australia's First People the $15 million that Labor made a commitment to do? How about showing the respect towards the Redfern Statement that they fail to do in the last election campaign? I went to the National Congress of Australia's First People and announced Labor's policy in Indigenous affairs and showed respect for that, as I showed respect for the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people who are the custodians of this particular place. I pay my respects to them today. I showed respect in Redfern for that.

The recommendations of the peak bodies across the whole area, from Family Violence Prevention Legal Services through to the First Peoples Disability Network, the National Congress of Australia's First People, the Lowitja Institute, the Healing Foundation—they all stay the same thing. They all say: 'Across the forward estimates, how about you restore the funding cuts? How about you actually reform the Indigenous Advancement Strategy? It might be a good idea to listen to what Labor has been saying for about four years and listen to what the Auditor-General has been saying. How about you actually do what you said when you were in opposition and have failed to do now you are in government: how about you develop justice targets for closing the gap? How about you take funding Family Violence Prevention Legal Services seriously? How about you actually meet under COAG and put this on the table at COAG meetings?'

We know that, in some parts of the country, Indigenous men are more likely to go to jail than to go to university. We see that an Indigenous woman is 34 times more likely to be hospitalised by partner abuse than a non-Indigenous woman; an Indigenous adult is 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than a non-Indigenous adult; an Indigenous child is 24 times more likely to be in detention than a non-Indigenous child. This is a national shame, a disgrace and a tragedy, and the government is not taking it seriously.

The government should also be doing something about the number of Indigenous kids who are more likely to be living not with their parents but in out-of-home care. They are 10 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous kids We have tens of thousands of Indigenous kids across the country who are vulnerable and at risk in this area, and we need to establish a national target in relation to this issue. The government should be listening to SNAICC, the peak body that has been talking about this time and time again, but the government is refusing to listen.

How about empowering Indigenous girls through education? How about doing a Clontarf-type program for girls, like the Stars Foundation, and roll it out across the country? Do you want good practice? Look at what they are doing in the Northern Territory. Do you want to talk about best practice? Look at what the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health is doing with the Deadly Choices program in preventive health, in empowering young people and making them proud, and in supporting culture and community-controlled health services. Look at what they are doing, do good practice and fund them. That is what the government should be doing.

The government should also be looking at doing something about glaucoma, which is a Third World problem that is still in Australia. They have to address that issue. Sure, Hugh Taylor and other people have been doing great work in that area, but we have to do so much more to address the fundamentals, the basics, of that. If you look at addressing those fundamentals, you will do better. How about funding Indigenous education under the Gonski needs-based funding, which will help 195,000 Indigenous kids get the education they need? If you look at the fundamentals and the social and economic determinants, then you may close the gap. Then the government will have something to be proud of, and so will we as a country.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, custodians of the land on which this parliament stands. I also acknowledge the Wiradjuri people, who represent the Riverina and Central West area that I proudly represent in this place.

Since the redistribution of the electorate boundaries a lot of people have asked me: what does the bottom of the electorate around Yerong Creek and Wagga Wagga have in common with the top of the electorate of Forbes and Parkes and right up to Peak Hill? It is true that the Central West relates more to Orange and Dubbo, while the southern part of the electorate around Wagga Wagga relates more to the natural geographical area Riverina, coordinating with the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, as well as the Snowy Mountains areas of Tumut and Tumbarumba. But the one thing these areas have in common is the fact that they are all Wiradjuri country.

I also acknowledge the member for Lingiari. Forty-two per cent of his constituents are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I know the great work that he has done not just in his electorate but on a national stage to help the plight of the Aboriginal people he represents, and I acknowledge that.

As the small business minister I also want to acknowledge the fantastic work that Senator Nigel Scullion, the Indigenous affairs minister, has done for procurement for Aboriginal small businesses, because we know that the best way out of welfare is a job. We know that the best way to get ahead in this world is to have income, to run a business and to be able to make a profit that way.

The original target set for contracts for Aboriginal procurement in 2015-16 was 0.5 per cent of Commonwealth domestic contracts. This acknowledged the very low base, given the Commonwealth procured only $6.2 million from Indigenous businesses in 2012-13. In just the coalition's first year we have so far surpassed the targets. Under the coalition's new procurement policy, the Commonwealth has awarded more than 1,500 direct and indirect contracts to almost 500 Indigenous businesses. These contracts are worth a total of more than $284 million—almost 46 times the value of Indigenous contracts awarded by the Commonwealth in 2012-13. That is a credit to Senator Scullion.

The coalition is immediately bringing forward to this financial year its 2020 target to award three per cent of contracts to Indigenous businesses, nearly three years ahead of schedule.

Although more than half—56 per cent—of the total value of Indigenous business contracts were awarded in the building, construction and maintenance sector, what makes the IPP so remarkable is the range of businesses which have successfully tendered for work under this policy. These include businesses which produce information and communications technology products, as well as service providers in the recruitment, legal and financial industries. Through the Council of Australian Governments we are continuing to work with the states and territories to get them to introduce their own Indigenous procurement policies, and I call on them to redouble these efforts.

I want to acknowledge some of the Aboriginal people who are making some really good initiatives and being really fine role models in the Wiradjuri areas that I represent—namely, Kath Withers, Isabel Reid and Gail Clark. Each of them do wonderful welcomes to country. Whether it is Australia Day or any other event that is going on in and around Wagga Wagga and Coolamon, these three wonderful Aboriginal elders are always there and always talking about inclusivity and the need for all of us to be united.

We heard from the previous speaker about Clontarf, which has a great program at Mount Austin High School—a fantastic rugby league program—which has been rolled out to get more Indigenous youth not just playing sport but interested in turning up to school and participating in that way that makes sure they get a great education. We heard from the Prime Minister today about how education is the great enabler for Indigenous youth.

Stan Grant senior—father of Stan Grant, who we know through the media—has done some great work with a couple of editions of the Wiradjuri dictionary to make sure that the language used over thousands of years is in a form that not only is able to be used now but will last forever. Hugh Wyman, Vietnam veteran and a great mate of mine, is always helping out Aboriginal youth by talking about the great positives there are in society today and getting the younger generation interested in taking part in everything that is happening not only on a sporting front but also, particularly, in military representation and making sure that Aboriginal veterans are always at the forefront of our minds.

As I say, I represent an area in New South Wales which is large and diverse but which is all Wiradjuri country. The 6.1 per cent of the population in the Riverina electorate is made up of Indigenous people. As the Prime Minister and others have mentioned today, closing the gap remains a priority for this government; it remains a priority for our parliament.

To reiterate some of the key highlights of the report released today, as a nation we have made progress in specific areas. There have been significant improvements in the proportion of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds achieving year 12 or equivalent. At higher levels of education there is almost no employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. There are significant improvements in health. We have seen a significant decline in mortality rates, greater access to antenatal care, reduced rates of smoking, reduction in mortality from chronic diseases and declining infant mortality rates.

Just before I came into the chamber to talk on this important motion, I met the chief executive officer, David Butt, and senior policy adviser, Alexis Mohay, from the National Rural Health Alliance, who outlined the key priorities of the alliance. One of those is to improve the health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which worsens with increasing remoteness—and the member for Lingiari would know that better than anyone. The alliance says in its key priorities document:

We need greater focus on improving child health, education and well-being and to support Indigenous families to give them the best start in life. It should involve a holistic early childhood strategy which informs high quality, locally responsive and culturally appropriate programs with stable, long-term funding.

One of the other key priorities of the five that the National Rural Health Alliance—a former chairman of which is Doctor Paul Mara from Gundagai in my electorate—says are important, is supporting:

…the best start in life for mothers and babies, focusing on the first 1,000 days—from conception to the age of two.

We heard the Prime Minister annunciate this very message in his wonderful speech today. The alliance believe that the best investment in the long-term health and wellbeing of children, Australian's future, is in ensuring that they have the best possible start in life. There would be no-one in this room, no-one in this building, who would not agree with that.

The alliance argues that we should build on the First 1000 Days program, which targets Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as an exemplar program to support women and children across all communities.

But other key factors of the report released today are that reading and numeracy are improving for Indigenous children, and that is a wonderful thing. There has also been a significant increase for Indigenous female employment over the longer term.

Whilst we celebrate our achievements, as a government and as a parliament we do not hide from the fact that there is much more to do to support our Indigenous population. In the Riverina and central west, there are areas in which we need to improve. Some I am hopeful we can address, including encouraging better school attendance. As at 2015 in the Riverina, 87.4 per cent of Indigenous children attended school compared to 92.6 per cent. Supporting Indigenous people to find work—the Indigenous unemployment rate is 17.1 per cent compared to 4.9 for the non-Indigenous population. Those figures certainly give us room to improve.

On a national level, the government has targets. These targets are important and focus our attention on the areas in which we, as a country, need to do much better. The government will continue to work to halve the gap in child mortality for Indigenous children under five by 2018; close the gap in life expectancy by 2031; have 95 per cent of all Indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025; close the gap in school attendance by the end of next year; halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy for Indigenous students by next year; halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020; and halve the gap in employment outcomes by 2018. They are big goals, and I appreciate some of them are long-range goals, but they are goals that we must achieve, not just for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but for all communities, because together, as one, we need to do these and together, as one, we need to stand as a nation that is proud of our record for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I firstly acknowledge the traditional owners of this great land that we are on, the Ngunawal and the Ngambri people, and acknowledge the traditional owners of all Aboriginal lands—all Aboriginal nations—right around this country, most particularly in my own electorate of Lingiari, which traverses 1.34 million square kilometres, one-sixth of Australia's landmass, and has a sizeable proportion of the remote Aboriginal population.

I thank the member for Riverina for his contribution. I will come to a couple of points that he made shortly. I also acknowledge the member for Blair's contribution.

I will say at the outset that I watched both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition today and I thought they both spoke well. I was particularly impressed by the Leader of the Opposition's commitment to two new Closing the Gap targets. The first was the justice target, which I think was long overdue. The second was the issue to do with out-of-home care, which is a vexed issue but something that we must confront as a nation and something that is long overdue.

I do, however, want to concentrate most particularly on two elements of the Closing the gap report, which I commend the government on. It is, as the member for Blair said, actually a good report because it lays down, in a very bare way and a very straight way, the issues that are confronting us in our attainment of these targets that are before us. I want to talk in particular about the life expectancy target and the halving the gap in child mortality in 2018 target. I just make this observation about the child mortality target: this is the first year that we have gone backwards. In the nine years, this is the first year that we have gone backwards. The key point that the report points out is:

The target to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 is not on track this year.

As I say, this is the first time. We know that they have declined. On the surface, we seem to be doing well, but, if we are actually going to meet these targets, we need to do a damn lot more. It is of particular interest that many people now have started to twig that, if we really want to have an outcome here, we have to actually invest in what works.

The report itself talks about the need to focus on preconception and maternity-care services through to early childhood services for children up to eight years of age. I agree with that, and it is something I know is at the forefront of Labor policy. We have taken a decision to take this early childhood area very seriously and support the First 1000 Days proposals, which are now well and truly within the lexicon of the health debate and something we should be supporting.

If we are ever going to close the gap in this infant mortality space, and more importantly close the life expectancy gap in the longer term, then we must make sure all children get the best start in life. This means starting to communicate with parents-to-be prior to conception, working with them for the first thousand days and looking at opportunities that exist—as has been happening in the congress, the Aboriginal health service in Alice Springs—using the Abecedarian model of education opportunity for kids 18 months and older. We must actually channel kids so they get the health care they require and, at the same time, the education opportunities that will benefit them and make sure they grow up into healthy adolescents and then adults.

That is of primary importance, but what goes with it is a whole lot of other things. We need to make sure that housing is being properly addressed and that there is food security. But all the wraparound things that go to making sure a young child is in a safe, caring environment, can live a productive life, learn well, be healthy at the end of their adolescence and enter adulthood with the opportunity for further education are fundamentally very important. If we do that properly then closing the gap will be something we can achieve.

Whether we hit it in 2031, however, is a very different question, because that is probably the most difficult target for us to achieve. This report outlines, in particular, that if we want to close the Indigenous life expectancy gap:

… Indigenous life expectancy would need to increase by 16 years and 21 years for females and males respectively, with average annual life expectancy gains for Indigenous Australians of between 0.6 and 0.8 years required.

That is a really difficult task, but it is not beyond us to address it. It requires us to take seriously the addressing of the continuing issues of chronic disease and further addressing the issue of tobacco consumption, which is highlighted in this report.

I will just add, as an aside—it is not my desire to politicise this debate—that the Labor government, and I as the minister, introduced anti-smoking measures which measures were pilloried by the then shadow Treasurer, now ambassador to Washington, who did not believe we should be funding these programs. How short-sighted he was, because what this report points out, very starkly, is that these programs and other preventative health measures are the things we should be investing in if we want to make sure that the diseases which are now so apparent amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are to be addressed.

I want to quote from Dr Fadwa Al-Yaman, an Indigenous health expert at the ANU and also with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. She said, referring to tobacco and, most importantly, to higher cancer mortality rates that they:

… were largely a result of more prevalent risk factors such as smoking, cancer not being detected until later stages, inadequate education about health risks and issues with access to healthcare.

Unfortunately, time is too short for this discussion because there are many components for us to get to the nub of this to address it properly. But what we must do is what the Leader of the Opposition said today, which is that we need to work with those things that actually are working themselves and that are getting the better outcomes.

He point to the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations around this country and the magnificent work they are doing to improve the health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people right around this country. They are the best examples of comprehensive primary health care in the nation. What we do not want is for them to be white-anted by some competitive-funding model, which has the potential to happen. So I say to the government: invest in what we know works. I am sure that if we do that, we can get better outcomes all round.

I note also—and the Leader of the Opposition spoke about this today—that there are programs that actually do work well.

The Deadly Choices program through the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health, which the member for Blair referred to—a highly progressive organisation—started with four health clinics in Brisbane and now has 18, delivering comprehensive primary health care across the urban population of Brisbane for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—some 50,000 to 60,000 people. The number of health checks is increasing. I note that one of the very positive signs that come out of this report today—something which I think we all should take note of—is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander one- to five-year-olds have the highest immunisation rate of any group nationally, and that has a lot to do with the work which is being done by these health organisations, and we need to commend them for it.

As I said, there is a lot more we could say about this, but one of the things we on this side of the chamber are determined to do is to try not to politicise this debate. We will be critical of the government for bad policy and, we will say, poor decisions, but it is my intention to work as closely as I possibly can as the shadow minister who is responsible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. We have had discussions about working together to try to get the best outcomes we possibly can across this parliament. That is not to say we will agree with everything and it is not to say we will not be critical, but we can attempt to work together in a constructive way for the benefit of the nation, and that is something this parliament should be doing in any event. Similarly, we have started discussions with the minister who is responsible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, Senator Scullion, about having a similar approach, trying to make sure that, where there are points of difference, we put them aside and try to do the things we can agree upon so the benefit goes to the whole community.

I say again that we have a lot to do in this country if we want to achieve the objectives that are set out in the Closing the Gap targets. I commend this report, but most importantly I commend the new targets, which have been stressed by the Leader of the Opposition—that is, new targets for justice, hearing and out-of-home care. We can do this, but we have to be listening and working with Aboriginal people, not telling them what is important. They know what is good for them. We need to work with them to get the best possible outcomes that we can.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, like my colleague the honourable member for Lingiari, support the previous speakers that have spoken so eloquently on this topic to date. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on this very important issue, which I believe goes to one of the most important societal issues that we face in Australia. In the first paragraph of my maiden speech, I said:

The lot of our Indigenous peoples has been racked with poverty, ill-health and lack of opportunity since European settlement.

As we have learnt from today's report, our work is far from done in achieving some semblance of equality. We can and we must do much better.

I have a very simple mantra when it comes to representing the people of my own constituency. In all of my work on behalf of the people of Fisher, I aim to help make the Sunshine Coast a great place to learn, a great place to work and a great place to retire to. In short, I want to help make Fisher the place of choice for education, employment and retirement. As parliamentarians, we collectively owe that same duty to all of our nation's First Australians. When I was a young barrister, I was regularly briefed by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service. I represented a number of our First Australians when it was necessary for them to interact with the courts. I saw firsthand the struggles that many of our Indigenous people face with imprisonment rates far, far in excess of the non-Indigenous population. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my friend and colleague Tim Hishon, who is the leader of ATSILS on the Sunshine Coast, and his team and the great work that they do for Indigenous peoples on the Sunshine Coast.

I learnt through that contact that all Australians, whether Indigenous or not, thrive and prosper when they are given access to a quality education, when they have access to meaningful and productive employment or the chance to create their own, and when they are able to save for their own future.

A lack of proper education and training, a lack of purpose in our prime years and a lack of independence in our twilight years are the enemies of a good quality of life. Though sometimes we hear a great deal about what sets First Australians apart from their country men and women, we all share those fundamental truths. Though cultures and approaches to meeting these basic human needs have varied by place and time and continue to do so, all successful societies have sought to give their people the knowledge they need, a way to support their families and dignity in their old age.

When we assess the results of this annual report, we should review it against those three tests. Are we as a federal government helping Indigenous Australians to get the education they need to succeed? Are we helping to create the conditions where they can access good jobs and create new jobs themselves? Are we ensuring that Indigenous Australians have access to the good health care and the financial provision they need to enjoy a long and fulfilling retirement?

Like others, when I make this comparison, I find in the data from this report a great deal of work to do but also a lot of individual success to celebrate. Most importantly, I find hope for the future. The statistic that I believe should make us all cautiously optimistic is the fact that, for those Indigenous Australians who have a tertiary education, there is next to no employment gap. We should take a moment to consider the implications of this fact, remarkable in the scale of achievement it represents and a sad reminder that this should need to be an achievement at all. Where Indigenous Australians have been able to access fully the high-quality education that our country provides, they have also succeeded in finding work to the same extent as non-Indigenous people. We know well the benefits that flow from this.

Sadly, the statistics from the report demonstrate that, once you drill down below tertiary education into the vocational education sector, certificate IV and certificate III, the numbers drop off somewhat significantly. For instance, for certificate IV level education, there is a 12 per cent gap. For certificate III, there is a 12 per cent gap. Once you get down into year 11, there is a 24 per cent gap. So there is much work to be done at an educational level.

Repeated studies have shown that even short periods of unemployment can cause all types of individuals and their families to suffer poverty, housing stress, family breakdown and social isolation. People out of employment are statistically more likely to access healthcare services and are more likely to suffer from a range of chronic illnesses both mental and physical. Long-term unemployment makes individuals in all communities significantly more likely to be involved in crime, while, for children growing up in jobless households, rates of behavioural problems, alienation and future unemployment are materially higher.

Without work, of course, individuals are also unable to set aside the money they need to support themselves in retirement. For those First Australians who have a tertiary qualification, they are now able in our society to secure the life benefits of good-quality, meaningful employment just as non-Indigenous Australians can. Their hard work, skills and commitment are being recognised and utilised by employers. This has come about through the effort, ambition and determination to succeed among First Australians themselves. They also have been supported in their achievements by government through its targets for Indigenous procurement and employment and by the concerted efforts of corporate Australia.

This development is the model and the inspiration to show us what can be achieved together and how. At its heart is the individual educational success of hardworking First Australians. We should therefore welcome the fact that the government's Remote School Attendance Strategy has helped to reverse a long-term decline in school attendance in remote communities. We should welcome the increases in reading and numeracy among Indigenous children and the high percentages now enrolled in early childhood education.

Most of all, we should welcome one area—and it is an important one—where we are currently on track to meet our 2020 target: the increase from 45.4 per cent in 2008 to 61.5 per cent in 2015 in the percentage of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds who have achieved their year 12 or equivalent. These figures represent the gap of the future, though we should celebrate the achievements of our young Indigenous Australians and acknowledge the progress that is being made, at the moment—but, at the moment, the gap remains too large.

When it comes to the test of employment, the situation is similar. Progress has been made since '94, as we have seen among tertiary educated Australians. The employment gap has almost been overcome, and in the past 30 years there has been an overall increase in the Indigenous employment rate. However, the fact that since 2008 that rate has been decreasing is one of the most concerning figures in this report. On all sides of the House we must refocus our minds on how to overcome this worrying trend.

Finally, on the test of retirement, again, we see hope for the future. As the employment outcomes for tertiary educated First Australians improve, so too will their ability to save for their retirement. Beyond that, the total Indigenous mortality rate has declined by 15 per cent over the last 17 years, and rates of smoking are also down. These statistics represent a longer, healthier and more comfortable retirement for many Indigenous Australians now and into the future. However, once again, a great deal more work is needed. We need to significantly improve employment rates, in order to help more families contribute to super, and we need to close the gap further on access to health care, to support longer and more active lives.

In summary, on our tests of education, employment and retirement we have come a long way in recent years and the government should be commended for its focus on these issues. Sadly, however, the task ahead of us remains as large as that behind. I am confident, however, that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs are pursuing the right approach, strengthening ties with First Australian representative groups, committing to programs like Empowered Communities and moving toward enablement rather than transactional government.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Prime Minister's Closing the gap report 2017. Where are we today? It is 2017, and we are inching slowly towards closing the gap, but, as we have all heard today from the Prime Minister, there is no doubt that we need to do more today. Yes, we are making inroads into education—as we heard from the Prime Minister today, there is now no gap between tertiary educated Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians in terms of employment outcomes. That was a good start, which is fantastic news, but there is still a massive gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians when it comes to both getting into tertiary education and completing tertiary education.

We have missed our targets on child mortality, education, life expectancy, employment, incarceration rates and literacy. Indigenous Australians are 2.8 times more likely to commit suicide than non-Indigenous Australians. As long as there remains a gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, I commit to working to close it. I am very proud of the decision we have taken to have a suicide prevention trial site in the Kimberley and in the Mid West, and I look forward to working with both of those working groups.

We—not just as the government but everyone in this place—really do need to do more. We need to live and breathe this issue, just as our First Australians live and breathe their plight every day—morning, noon and night. As the Chair of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs, I strongly encourage every member of this House and the Senate to acquaint themselves with the issues that Indigenous Australians face every day and to consider how they themselves might foster the grassroots growth and support that is required to make a real dent in regard to the issues that we are discussing today.

The Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs released an interim report last May on the first steps for improving educational opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students—and we have continued with that inquiry this term—which included a number of recommendations on how we might help address some of the issues that we are seeing in this report that we are discussing today.

Education is the key to this. Education creates job opportunities, which flow into health outcomes, social outcomes, social welfare outcomes—all of it. The first recommendation in the report of the standing committee was around changes to ABSTUDY and a redesigned system, making the program more accessible and more workable. The government has gone some way to addressing this recommendation already, which I will touch on a little later.

My electorate of Durack has the third-highest Indigenous population of any federal electorate in Australia, and it includes some of the poorest and most disadvantaged Indigenous Australians in this country. Some of the worst health gaps, employment gaps and education gaps are found in parts of my electorate. It really is very heartbreaking and pitiful.

Another recommendation in the interim report was to redirect funding for furthering programs that directly relate to Indigenous girls' programs—we hear a lot about boys' programs—like the Girls Academy and the SHINE program, which I am a huge supporter of; the SHINE program is based in my electorate, in Geraldton. As our future mothers, it is critical that these young Indigenous women get the education they deserve—no less—so that they can be the future leaders in their communities, and so that they can fulfil their own dreams.

Just recently I put my money where my mouth is and hired a 17-year-old SHINE program graduate to work in my electorate office in Geraldton. Let me tell you: she is an absolute cracker and she is going to become an incredibly valuable member of our team. What an opportunity, and she has grasped it with both hands. We are all so proud of her. I encourage all members of this House and the Senate to think about the commitments they make in public and think about employing a local Indigenous lady or man in their office, because we can all be richer for this experience. I put the challenge to my colleagues that they too might be able to take that opportunity.

There is no lack of will to change the outcomes for Indigenous Australians. There is no lack of funds available to change the outcomes for Indigenous Australians. But there has been a lack of change in the day-to-day lives for Indigenous Australians; there is no denying that. This is not a partisan issue. This is not a coalition versus Labor argument. It is not even a state government versus federal government argument. This is an issue that every Australian feels very deeply, one way or another, and it is an issue that I feel very deeply. But as long as this gap exists, the poorer our country will be for it, because there is untapped potential. Even from a pure economic perspective, there is untapped potential, especially in northern Australia.

There are programs that this government is delivering that are producing real results. The Indigenous Rangers program has been a fantastic success in my electorate of Durack, and I know there are many successful ranger programs.

I recently spoke on the reforms that the government is implementing to make university more accessible to Indigenous Australians, and this is an issue that I am deeply passionate about. These changes, based around changing the ABSTUDY program to be more workable and accessible to more Indigenous Australians, are aimed at improving Indigenous tertiary education participation and completion rates. As I said earlier, we know that tertiary-educated Indigenous Australians and tertiary-educated non-Indigenous Australians sit on an equal footing when it comes to employment opportunities. It speaks for itself.

We know that the benefits from employment are boundless. Full-time employment allows a person to realise their aspirations. It allows them to start a family on firm foundations. It allows them to enter the housing market. It allows them to take responsibility and ownership of their life. This legislation aimed to move away from judging our performance as a government by the number of Indigenous students, and to focus instead on Indigenous graduates. By focusing on Indigenous graduates, we can create educated Indigenous leaders, who can hopefully one day replace all of us in this place and carry on this work.

The Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, also made a statement to the Senate today regarding the government's work around this issue and has committed to identifying what programs work and what programs do not.

We need to support the programs that empower Indigenous people to make their own decisions, take ownership of their lives and their own communities instead of having well-meaning government and government departments telling them how to live their lives.

The challenges that Indigenous Australians face, they are significant and can be difficult to fix. We know that. This government needs to be robust in its leadership on this issue, and I sincerely hope that we are able to do that. It is not easy; I accept that. I do believe, however, that political correctness can get in the way of closing this gap. We must call the issues as we see them, be brave and work towards solutions without fear of offending our First Australians. We have been too soft—all of us have been too soft. We cannot continue to be soft, because lives are at stake.

The problems are not insurmountable. We have seen that. We are very slowly making progress, but it is not fast enough. Indigenous Australians are still more than 2.8 times more likely to commit suicide; they are overrepresented in our prisons; they have a shorter life expectancy than their non-Indigenous counterparts. But the reality is governments cannot do this alone. We do need a full court press to really close the gap and the disadvantage that Australian Indigenous people experience, and to achieve this, if we are doing it as a team, it requires local Indigenous leaders. They have got to step up to the plate. They have to step up, they have to speak out—and that includes those grassroots operators who often are the ones with the answers but who often do not get a voice. We as a government have got to make sure they have got a voice. In my electorate of Durack, I look forward to working with those people so that we can all make a difference and close that gap once and for all.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would certainly like to begin my remarks with an acknowledgement of the traditional owners of this place that we meet on, the Nambri and Ngunnawal peoples. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and, indeed, their future leaders. I would also like to take some time to acknowledge the traditional owners of my own home town of Newcastle and the wider electorate, which encompasses Awabakal, Worimi and Wonnarua people and their country.

It is a bittersweet experience to speak today on the ninth Closing the gap report, which provides some important feedback for us all in this House on the progress—or, as the case might be, lack of progress—towards redressing what is an enormous disparity in outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on a whole range of issues, but with a particular focus on the health inequalities. I would like to acknowledge at the outset and say thank you to the Indigenous men and women who took time to come and address us as members of parliament this morning in a ceremony in the Great Hall. They presented the Redfern Statement, which was a document crafted during the last election, to all members of parliament. It is a document that should be beyond party politics and divisions; it is something that each of us, from whatever seats we might occupy in this House, whatever parties we might belong to, can sign up to and subscribe to. The message I took home this morning from the presentation of the Redfern Statement was really just how urgent a need we have in this country to reset the relationships that we have with Indigenous Australians.

I will come back to that issue, because it is a challenging one. Indeed, it is very much a reason why I stand here, in my fourth year, speaking on the Closing the gap report in this parliament, because it gives me no pleasure to again report that we are only on track on one of the metrics in that Closing the gap report.

But it is important that we stand and confront those issues, because the Closing the gap report really reflects an issue that goes to the very core of our identity, to the significance of our identity, to our understandings of our history and, indeed, the building of our nation. So it does cause a little existential angst when we are being asked to look honestly and squarely at some of the really complex but deep and lingering impacts of a colonial history which is the founding basis of this nation.

It is uncomfortable at times—and rightly so—but it is something that we non-Indigenous Australians certainly have to face very squarely. As I said this morning, the message from the elders and senior people who contributed to the forming of the Redfern Statement is that we really need to bring some honesty to our debates in this House and the community. We need to acknowledge our failings, to redouble our efforts, to commit to breaking that cycle of failure, because it is an extraordinarily heavy burden that we ask Indigenous Australians to carry each and every year when we simply fail to live up to the targets that we have set ourselves.

There was much conversation today around the need not to be focused on the deficit side of people's experience or, indeed, the language that we use in our debates to acknowledge many of those achievements. I will come to some extraordinary achievements that are happening in communities and on the ground, but, again, I feel very strongly the need to emphasise the requirement for a really honest appraisal of the current situation and where we need to head from here.

Certainly, in terms of the targeted achievements, I think the Prime Minister this morning flagged a number of the areas where there was room for some optimism. The year-12 attainments are a target that we do appear to be on track for, and that is absolutely terrific news, but all of those other targets, many of which go towards areas around education, employment, infant mortality and life expectancy are still shocking and appalling, and none of us should rest easy whilst those inequities continue to exist in our community.

I am not going to go through each and every one of those targets—I think that there has been good coverage of those in the debates—but I would in my limited time like to take up the challenge that was presented this morning to talk about some of the successes in Indigenous communities. I really want to celebrate here in this national parliament the work of a number of programs that are happening in my community in Newcastle. I pay particular tribute to the work of Dr Kelvin Kong, a Worimi man whose life as Australia's first and, at this point, only Indigenous ear, nose and throat specialist has been dedicated to the eradication of ear diseases in Indigenous communities, which, as we heard from the member for Ballarat earlier on, is such a particular problem in so many Aboriginal communities.

I had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting him and getting to understand just a small window into the life of Kelvin Kong when he took time to talk to me about the issues confronting the Aboriginal community.

He talked about the size of the problem around otitis media, in Newcastle, our region, and the work he undertook to shrink waiting lists of hundreds of Aboriginal kids who had been trying to see him for what is a very simple surgical procedure to restore hearing capacity for kids.

He has such a deep understanding of the lived experience of those kids and a profound knowledge of the world that is opened up to children once they are able to hear, and hear correctly, and opportunities that can unfold for them. He has done extraordinary work to reduce the incidence of otitis media around Newcastle, but he travels extensively across Australia to try to deliver and share his skills and expertise with as many Indigenous communities as possible. We should absolutely celebrate people like him and his work. Indeed, as a national government we should be providing whatever resources and support we can to ensure that ear health is right there amongst the priority areas for Indigenous kids in Australia.

Deadly Choices was also mentioned as a terrific program. It is—but, regretfully, due to funding cuts, that program was not kept on in my area of Newcastle, to the deep regret of many of us. There are many areas that do not get touched on in this report that are deeply serious issues for our Indigenous communities. They go to the continued forced removal of children from kin and country, the outrageous rates of incarceration for Indigenous people and the escalating levels of family violence. These are serious issues, serious challenges. They can be uncomfortable conversations that we have to have, but we have to have honest, open conversations and partnerships with our Indigenous men and women.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I rise to respond to the ninth Closing the gap report tabled by the Prime Minister today, I begin by acknowledging that we are meeting on Ngunnawal country and acknowledge and pay my respects to their elders, past, present and future.

Closing the gap remains a priority for the coalition government and I have been monitoring this report's progress closely in my time of representing the electorate of Robertson on the Central Coast and also as a member of the coalition's backbench committee on Indigenous affairs. There is a relentless determination that I see in this parliament to ensure that we do close the gap, which becomes more urgent with every passing year.

I know it is a priority not just for the Prime Minister and this side of the House but for all of us in this place, as has also been seen by the broad support for the Parliamentary Friends of the Close the Gap Campaign. The purpose of the group is to raise awareness of the national effort to close the gap as a forum for policy discussion, provide opportunities for local engagement with communities and ensure that we have the latest information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health initiatives and best practice outcomes. In fact, it is the areas of health, education and employment that so often provide the vital snapshot of where progress is being made to close the gap and where we need to further focus our efforts.

This year we have seen progress in the Closing the gap report in several key areas, which I wish to mention briefly. There have been significant improvements in the proportion of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds achieving year 12 or equivalent. At higher levels of education there is almost no employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. There is a significant decline in mortality rates—including in chronic diseases and infant mortality—a greater access to antenatal care, reduced rates of smoking and a significant increase in Indigenous female employment over the longer term.

I welcome these improvements and commend them to the House but, sadly, there is so much more work to do. As always, the response will require courage, collaboration and an awareness of the complexity of each issue. For example, the target to halve the gap in child mortality for Indigenous children under five by 2018 is not on track nor is the target to close the gap on life expectancy by 2031.

I echo the Prime Minister's genuine sadness on this point and endorse the need to escalate our efforts to reduce smoking rates during pregnancy, continue to improve immunisation rates, lift rates of antenatal care, reduce foetal trauma and keep our children safe.

We have seen improvements in reading and numeracy for Indigenous students, but this target is not on track. The national school attendance target is also not on track, while incarceration rates and rates of child protection are too high. While meaningful improvements are being made in many areas, today's report states that we are only on track to meet one of these targets. I am confident of the leadership of the Prime Minister in this area, with the support of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs and the member for Hasluck, Ken Wyatt, the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives and now the first Indigenous minister to be appointed to a Commonwealth government. Together, the task must be to stay the course, look at what has worked over the last decade and where greater efforts are needed.

One example is the Empowered Communities initiative, where we are supporting Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people to be at the centre of decision-making in their regions. The Indigenous-led model is now in eight regions across the country, generating strong Indigenous governance to build capacity and ensure more community responsibility for decision-making.

On the New South Wales Central Coast, the CEO of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, Sean Gordon, is leading this initiative with vigour. His response to the latest Closing the gap report was also that we must stay the course as a government in our effort and commitment towards closing the disparity gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Sean told me that, while there have been great improvements in some of the target areas, we must also acknowledge that there is still a lot more work that needs to be done, especially in the areas of early education and employment. Darkinjung is reporting real success in addressing Indigenous disparity through a fantastic partnership with Barker College and the establishment of an alternative schooling model, as well as a partnership with Lendlease to deliver employment and procurement opportunities on the Central Coast.

Also on the Central Coast we have the Barang organisation, forging strong community networks, developing local Indigenous leadership and optimising investments in the Aboriginal community. The Barang organisation is a fantastic organisation in my electorate on the Central Coast. It includes the extraordinary NAISDA Dance College, based at Mt Penang, and the Bara Barang Corporation, which provides services, like support for young people, through community and arts programs.

This local response to a national issue is seen increasingly across the Central Coast, where three key health providers have formed a partnership to develop, promote and implement strategies that will make a difference in the lives of our Indigenous community. The Central Coast Local Health District, Yerin Aboriginal Health Services, and Central Coast Primary Care are working together to improve access to education, employment and health services in our community.

The Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network is also working to develop a pilot project aimed at supporting Aboriginal health practitioners. The project aims to not only increase the availability of primary healthcare services in Aboriginal communities but support Aboriginal students through study into employment.

These are local projects that involve boosting health, employment and education outcomes for local Aboriginal people. In light of the ninth anniversary of the apology to the stolen generation, this ought to be a reminder that, while we recognise the importance of words, we recognise that it will be actions that will set us on the path to closing the gap. We reaffirm and stand by that apology but use it as inspiration to press forward and ensure that closing the gap for our First Australians is, and will remain, a key priority.

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

At the outset, I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, the traditional custodians of the land in Canberra, but also the traditional owners of the wonderful community I represent in Kingsford Smith, the Bidjigal and Gadigal people.

Closing the gap begins with respect—respect for Aboriginal people, respect for their history, respect for their culture, respect for their connection to their country and respect for their precolonisation contribution to the development of Australia. At the moment, in our nation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still face discrimination in our community. In respect of the Closing the gap report that we are debating here this evening and the targets, there is still a hell of a lot of work to do before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are considered on a par with the health, welfare and educational standards of non-Indigenous Australians.

On average, Indigenous Australians die 10 years younger than non-Indigenous Australians, and this has not changed, fundamentally, since 1998; there has been no significant decline in child mortality rates since 2008; we are not on track to halve the gap in employment by 2018; and there is still a 10 per cent difference in school attendance. With reading, writing and numeracy it is only in year 9 that numeracy is on track to halve the gap by 2018. There is a long way to go and a lot of work to do if we are going to close the gap, and more work to do to respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This morning many of us attended a very humbling and important event in the Great Hall of Parliament House—the handing over of the Redfern Statement to the Prime Minister by leaders of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. The Redfern Statement is a statement that was drafted in June 2016, in the lead-up to the last election, by the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and signed by another 17 organisations that work in and around the Aboriginal welfare, health and education space. The policies of this document and its statements, basically, are encompassed in a few words: policies made with communities—rather than to communities.

The document calls for the restoration of the $500 million in cuts that were made by the Abbott government in their 2014 budget that have been maintained, and are supported, by this Turnbull government. These cuts are resulting in disadvantage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and are some of the reasons we are not meeting the targets that were set by the Close the Gap initiative many, many years ago. These include cuts to Aboriginal legal services, cuts to health programs, cuts to domestic violence programs and diversionary programs for at-risk youth.

The document includes a new justice target for Aboriginal incarceration. It is shocking that, upon graduating from high school, a young Aboriginal man is more likely to go to jail than to attend university and get a degree. That is something that Australia needs to be ashamed of and that we need to rectify. I am very proud to be part of a Labor team, led by Bill Shorten, that has recognised this and has said that, if we are elected to government, we will include a new target in the Close the Gap initiative: a justice target to specifically work to reduce the rates of Indigenous incarceration in this country.

The document also includes a commitment to justice reinvestment and diversionary programs that are working in many communities, and a standalone department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Currently, the work of government, in respect of delivering programs in this policy space, is part of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and we have seen what an absolute disaster that has been under the Abbott and Turnbull governments, with resignations, in-fighting and the Aboriginal community despairing of the way that this policy area is being managed by the Turnbull government.

The catchcry of the Redfern Statement this morning for those present was a very powerful one and a very insightful one, and something I certainly support—that is, we have the solutions. Aboriginal people and their communities have the solutions to many of the problems that have been identified in Closing the gap and that we all know about in terms of welfare, life expectancy, and educational and health outcomes. Aboriginal people have the solutions to many of these problems and they are sick and tired of being told what is good for them.

It goes back to the issue I mentioned in the opening of this speech. It is about respect. It is about having respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their ability to identify problems and issues within their communities and their ability to work together and to work with government at all levels to put in place solutions to deal with these issues and to get better outcomes. If we cannot trust Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to do this, if we cannot show them the necessary respect to give them this autonomy to find solutions to these problems, then we are not going to be able to work to close the gap on the issues and on the indicators that we are shockingly missing targets on at the moment.

I am very glad that this was a theme that was touched upon by Bill Shorten in his reply speech to the Closing the gap report this morning. He spoke about empowering communities, empowering Aboriginal people and, most importantly, listening and showing respect. This was demonstrated this morning when Senator Pat Dodson spoke to the Labor caucus about the campaign for Indigenous recognition and for closing the gap in this country. It has been proven that respect for Aboriginal people, listening to them and providing them with autonomy to come up with solutions does work. I point to two programs that I am very proud are located in the community of Kingsford Smith.

Peter Cooley and Sarah Martin are two Indigenous entrepreneurs who run a company called First Hand Solutions. They are the instigators of the Blak Markets at Bare Island, which have been very popular, and the Catch N Cook program. Peter came to see me to tell me some months ago about a program that was very important for young Aboriginal men who were falling out of the education system. It is again about Aboriginal people providing the solutions to these problems. Peter's focus is on getting those kids to connect again with their country and getting them to connect again with their culture. That culture and that connection with country—that inspiration about the Dreamtime, bush tucker and understanding of the land and country—can set people back on a path to education, bettering themselves and having pride in and being proud of their Aboriginal heritage and culture. I was very pleased that late last year Labor's education spokesperson, Tanya Plibersek, visited La Perouse Public School with me and spoke to Peter and some of the kids who have gone through that program and saw its success. It is something I am very proud of and am very proud is happening in our electorate.

The second program is the Aboriginal Health College, which is located at Little Bay in Kingsford Smith. Every year I go along to the wonderful graduation and see the many Aboriginal people who graduate from these programs with diplomas. There are training programs at all levels providing health education. They provide health programs throughout the country. Their catchcry is: Aboriginal health education in Aboriginal hands. There is no better way to put it. Each year I see the pride of the graduates, who have gone through and worked hard to get their certificates. The work they are doing in the community is inspirational. Once again it proves that Aboriginal people have the solutions. It is about respect, and that is what we should be focusing on in closing the gap.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6.30 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.