Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for her statement. I congratulate her on the passion and commitment that she brings to this issue. One concrete, specific, tangible sign that the gap might actually be closing in one respect, if not in others, is the presence in this House of the member for Hasluck, Mr Ken Wyatt, the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives. Without in any way making a partisan political point, may I say how proud I am that it was the Liberal Party that brought this fine Australian into this chamber.

I sincerely congratulate the Prime Minister on what was a fine and heartfelt speech. I thank the government and commend the government for so many of the measures and initiatives that she outlined in that speech. I have to say, nevertheless, that there is a sense of disappointment about some aspects of the speech because, let’s face it, we are about closing the gap in life expectancy, we are about halving the gap in mortality rates and we are about ensuring access to early childhood education. We are about halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy. We are about halving the gap in year 12 attainment rates and employment outcomes—and there was very little specific information on exactly what progress has been achieved.

I accept the Prime Minister’s point that statistics are imperfect and incomplete. It may well be that it is very difficult to get a precise read on exactly how we are going here. Nevertheless, if we are fair dinkum, I do hope that successive prime ministerial statements on this important issue will give us more concrete data about specific outcomes towards these great goals that we all support.

On this subject we have heard a lot of fine speeches in this House over the years. There have been at least a generation of fine speeches in this House on the need for progress in this area. It is great that there are fine speeches; fine speeches are a credit to their authors. But the trouble is that talk in this parliament has not much translated into change on the ground and into progress in the lives of Aboriginal people. Good intentions are essential, and every single member of this House has an abundant well of good intentions in this area, but good intentions are not enough. The challenge is to turn good intentions into better outcomes. That is the test of our good intentions: do they translate into good outcomes? The Prime Minister, to her credit, recognises this; hence the attempt to get better statistics on all of this.

I do congratulate first of all the Prime Minister’s predecessor, the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, for the historic apology that he made in this House at the beginning of the last parliament. It was overdue. It was heartfelt. It was a great unifying moment for our country. As part of that apology he committed this parliament to an annual statement on closing the gap, and I congratulate the current Prime Minister for continuing that commitment. I also commend the Prime Minister for her recognition that this is a shared enterprise. The failures of government do not justify the failures of individuals and, similarly, the failures of individuals can never justify governmental neglect. That is an important recognition, a very significant principle, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister acknowledged that in her speech today.

We heard about more teachers. We heard about more visits to government services. We heard about more funding for maternal health services. We heard about supported playgroups. We heard about more encouragement for students to stay at school; more mentoring; more sport. I was particular pleased to hear about greater access to Opal petrol, because this was a scheme that I had much to do with myself as health minister in the previous government. There are more police stations—again, excellent to hear that this is finally happening; stronger alcohol controls—again, excellent to hear that this is going on; more people being assisted into work—what good news. But I have to say it would have been a more encouraging statement if we had heard more about how many people, having been assisted into work, are staying in work; how many communities with new police stations have seen an actual drop in violent crime; how many alcohol programs, having been introduced, have been accompanied by a reduction in substance abuse.

I know that there are thousands of people—public servants, people working with non-government organisations, volunteers—all working with high ideals and great professionalism to improve the lot of Aboriginal people. This is extremely encouraging. It is a tribute to the great spirit of Australian society. But I fear that not much is yet being noticed by people on the ground. I wonder how much real difference in the daily lives of Aboriginal people is being brought about.

The life expectancy crisis, the crisis which has spawned the close the gap movement, is a function of the educational crisis, the employment crisis, the housing crisis, the substance crisis and, in the end, the cultural collapse which, all too sadly, afflicts so many Aboriginal communities and so many people. This is what we need to address. And if all of these are not tackled, might we not be putting bandaids over the mortal wounds?

So I want to suggest, if I may, a slightly different approach, which the government might care to think about as it considers next year’s closing the gap statement. It seems to me that the basic test of any civil society is quite simple. Do the children go to school? Do the adults go to work? Is that community substantially free of the kind of trauma that indicates gross social dysfunction? Now we all know that for Aboriginal people school attendance rates are very low. We all know that for Aboriginal people unemployment rates are very high. We all know that this is exacerbated in Indigenous communities, and the more remote the community the worse the problem invariably is. Why don’t we set targets of 100 per cent school attendance? Why don’t we set targets of 100 per cent work attendance? And why don’t we say, ‘This is going to be achieved within 12 months’? Why can’t every Aboriginal kid in Aurukun or in Coen—where it is actually happening—be going to school every day of every week? Why can’t the standard that has been achieved in Coen and the standard which is improving in Aurukun be extended right around the country? And why can’t these statistics be published on a monthly basis so we know how we are going, not just in a decade, not in half a decade, but this month, next month, this year, next year? Why don’t we know how we are going? This, I think, would be a significant improvement in the way we measure performance in this area.

Another test of civil society is the maintenance of public order. How many Indigenous communities with significant social problems are still without a proper police station and are still without sworn police in residence? We need those figures. How many Indigenous tenants are paying even a social market rate for their homes? It was good to hear from the Prime Minister today that the new tenancy agreements provide for proper rental payments. How many houses are now subject to those new rental agreements? And how many of those rental agreements are actually being lived up to in practice? These are the sorts of statistics that we need if we are to be confident that all of our good intentions, all of our programs and all of our spending is having the result that all of us want to have.

How many trauma presentations are there at the clinics in Indigenous communities? It would be good to know these figures and it would be good to know how these figures are changing over time. I do not want to pretend that this is an easy challenge that I am suggesting to the government as an alternative. When I was the minister with whole-of-government responsibility in Cape York, I made these selfsame suggestions and, because most of these statistics were in the hands of the state governments, it was difficult to get hold of them. When I was the minister with whole-of-government responsibility for the APY Lands in South Australia, again I made these suggestions and, for much the same reasons, it was hard to come by these statistics. Frankly, these statistics will start off very embarrassingly, but we should move beyond our embarrassment to progress by collecting these statistics, publishing these statistics and improving these statistics. If that is what we really want to do to close the gap, that is what should be done.

The danger in all of this is that there might be an abundance of activity but not much change. The danger is that there might be too much philosophy and not enough common sense.  Again, I stress that I say this in a spirit of bipartisanship; I do not say this in a spirit of criticism of the government. Not only did I try to get these statistics collected when I was the minister; I tried to get senior officers of the government to live in these remote communities. How can you really understand what is happening in remote communities if you do not live there?  I regret to say my challenge to the senior officers of my former departments was not met with much enthusiasm. Still, if it is worth doing, it is worth persisting.

I agree with the Prime Minister that there is a new spirit and a new partnership in Indigenous affairs. I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to this encouraging new spirit, new partnership and new pragmatism in Indigenous affairs. The Prime Minister named some of them herself: Chris Sarra; Noel Pearson, who has been such a prophetic leader not just for Aboriginal Australia but for the entire Australian community; Warren Mundine, a former president of the Australian Labor Party and someone who I wish was in this parliament, who deserves the whole nation’s thanks and gratitude for his leadership in this area; Sue Gordon; Marcia Langton; and younger people like Wesley Aird. They all deserve our thanks and congratulations.

Yes, the former Prime Minister Mr Rudd deserves our thanks and congratulations, and even his predecessor, John Howard. He may have been a late convert to this particular crusade but he was sincere and part of the new spirit, the new pragmatism and the new partnership when it comes to Indigenous affairs.

I think that the new spirit is best enshrined in Noel Pearson’s resonant phrase ‘our right to take responsibility,’ which refers of course to his desire to have Aboriginal people empowered and in charge of their lives, not be as dependent as they have been for far too long on what other people have done for them. That is the great challenge for Australian government: how do we facilitate in the days, months, years and decades to come what Noel Pearson calls ‘our right to take responsibility?’

When the former Prime Minister Mr Rudd apologised on behalf of all Australians in this House, he said something which I think deserves to echo around this chamber again and again until this task which we are discussing today is complete:

…  unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

I would suggest that there is nothing that the former Prime Minister has said which is truer or more significant than this.

I want to suggest to the government in conclusion one final practical step that could be taken to convert the great symbolism of reconciliation into an even greater substance, and that is to tackle the problem of the Queensland Wild Rivers Act.  The Prime Minister paid very appropriate tribute to Noel Pearson in the course of her speech. As I said a moment ago, I doubt Australia has had a better or more inspirational leader over the last decade than Noel Pearson. There is almost nothing that Noel Pearson is keener to do than to overturn the impact of the Queensland wild rivers legislation on his people in Cape York. In the eyes of Noel Pearson, this reverses the decade-long struggle for land rights. Having won real control over their land, it has been taken away in the name of environmental purity.

I do not want to smash up the Queensland legislation altogether. That is not my intention. All I am seeking to do with the private member’s bill currently before the House is to ensure that it only applies to Aboriginal land where the relevant Aboriginal owners consent for its application. It is a very modest and very moderate bill that seeks to give back to the Aboriginal people of Cape York and elsewhere what should be their birthright, what should be their native entitlement to empowerment in their lives by using their land. That is what my legislation seeks to do.

I accept that it is very difficult for the government to support legislation which will impact on the work of the Queensland government. But I do think it would be a great and fitting sign of good faith on the part of our Prime Minister if she at least prepared to entertain change on this issue. As I said at the start, there have been many fine speeches in this House on this subject—many heartfelt utterances, much depth of passion and great sincerity. But let us translate that into the very best that we can do for Aboriginal people in our place in our time. That is why I think the wild rivers legislation should be revisited. I think that it would be a good test of the real quality and the real commitment of this parliament if we could find it in our hearts to pass this particular bill. Thanks very much.

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