Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be able to rise again to talk about the progress—and there has been a little bit—we are making in closing the gap. I would first like to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunawal and Ngambri people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and future and recognise this always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

As my colleague and the Australian Greens leader, Christine Milne, said this morning at the Closing the Gap breakfast, the Australian Greens have been strong supporters of the Closing the Gap campaign and the Closing the Gap initiative. Even before that was adopted by the government we were campaigning for this process. It is important to remember that tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the apology, something people had been working on for decades. We need to remember and be careful that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. I express my deep concern about the number of Aboriginal children that have been taken into care in certain states around this country. I think we will potentially face the same situation again. It is very important that on this day we remember that and make sure we put policy provisions and programs in place to ensure that the number of children being taken into care is urgently reduced and we put in place programs that support and nurture parents.

We welcome the government's statement today outlining the progress made. We welcome the opportunity each year to focus on what progress we are making. On that point I welcome also the report of the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee. It used to be called the shadow report, but it is not called that anymore. I recognise its importance in informing what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities think about progress against the targets to close the gap. As I do every year, I seek leave to table the progress and priorities report of 2014 of the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee. I have given the whips from the coalition and the ALP copies of the report.

Leave granted.

This is an important day to draw attention to the progress that has been made and particularly highlight the areas where we still need to make progress. Whilst there is unity in purpose and commitment to close the gap amongst politicians and the political parties in this place, that does not mean and should not mean that there is unity and agreement with the approach. In fact, it would be a failure of this process if we were not being rigorous in our analysis of the approaches that are being taken to the policies that seek to close the gap. I, like other members of the Australian Greens, have been critical of some of the approaches. I continue to be critical of approaches that are top down, paternalistic and punitive. Our concerns about income management, which is an example of that, are well known.

While we absolutely share and acknowledge the need to increase school attendance, I flag the concern here that, unless we ensure that education is delivered in a way that meets the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, it will fail. There is no use just sending truancy officers to get kids into school if those kids do not have the right curriculum and there is not a bilingual approach. It will not ensure that more children complete their education. I have outlined my concerns in this place many times about children not being able to hear. Unless we address that fundamental issue, we will not address the literacy and numeracy concerns and skills of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Yet I see very little moves to fund that area.

It is essential that we have long-term investments and long-term commitments. We need to remember that we are in this for the long haul. Senator Milne this morning, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and speakers here in this chamber just now have highlighted there is still a much higher burden of disease—2½ times that of the non-Aboriginal population. This for a start clearly shows we have a long way to go. While there has been some progress with decreasing mortality rates in Queensland and the Northern Territory, there have been no significant changes in the other states.

Clearly, we need to keep going. At this stage, unfortunately, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan and the National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap in Indigenous Health Outcomes have expired. Despite our supposed commitment to these targets, we in Australia have been unable to reach agreement at COAG and the states and territories still have not completed their commitments to the next health plan for 2013 to 2023. If we were serious about this, we would have signed on as those programs expired. Unfortunately, we are still hanging out for that agreement. I suspect we will still be hanging out for the agreement on early childhood development for Aboriginal children as well, which has just expired as well. How long are we going to have these gaps in these programs and in reaching agreement? I am very pessimistic about how soon we are going to sign off and properly implement these programs.

We are pleased to see that there has been some move, but we are picking up on the call from the steering committee, who were very clear in their report that they need to see the Abbott government set out a clear time frame of 12 months for the national implementation of a strategy for the delivery of the health plan. Prime Minister Abbott has promised to focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues in his first term as Prime Minister. He obviously needs to make sure that the states and territories are also on board and that everybody is committed to delivering those outcomes.

We cannot be serious about addressing closing the gap unless we have signed off on that issue. It is clear from the steering committee report that getting sign-off and implementing the health plan are absolute priorities, so we endorse those moves. We also are concerned, as is the steering committee, about potential cuts to funding, like the PBS's, that had been canvassed by the Commission of Audit. The PBS and those sorts of services are very important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The Prime Minister mentioned some new targets in his statement to the parliament this morning. The target that he missed out is the justice target. We need this if we are to close the gap in this country. It is the shame of Australia that we have such a high rate of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders across the board, but in particular young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. When are we going to see a commitment across Australia to a justice target and to ending this atrocious record of incarceration in this country? One of the programs that we should be investing in is justice reinvestment. We have had an inquiry into it—Senator Penny Wright led that inquiry—and the evidence is clear: we need to be investing in it. And what will drive that investment is having a target as part of the Closing the Gap targets. It is absolutely critical. I repeat: unless we address this issue, we will not close the gap. The Greens will continue to support the Closing the Gap campaign. (Time expired)