Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to commend the Closing the Gap report, to commend the work of our government and to commend the work of the previous government. Today, I want to focus on the positives and what we are doing together, on both sides of politics, to close the gap. Yes, there is some disagreement, but what we need to focus on—and what I am going to focus on—is that we as a nation are embracing the very hard work that lies ahead in closing the gap.

Yesterday, we heard two very fine speeches from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. For the Prime Minister, this is personal. The Prime Minister has brought Indigenous affairs into his department. He has a deep commitment; he has passion. He has appointed a parliamentary secretary, Alan Tudge, responsible for Indigenous affairs, working alongside Minister Scullion. For the Prime Minister and for our government there is a deep and very strong commitment to closing the gap.

For me, this is also personal. I think each of us has had their own journey in embracing the many challenges in the way in which Indigenous Australia has been disenfranchised and damaged in the past. I guess my journey began in the early 1990s when I was studying law and I was given an assignment to do about terra nullius at a time when I did not know what terra nullius was. It was before Mabo was handed down. It was an extraordinary eye-opener to me as to what our First Australians had endured, how they had lost their lands—the gross injustice.

I remember that in the mid-1990s I was a radio host working for 3AW in Melbourne, and I was quite passionate about Indigenous affairs and about reconciliation. One of the managers called me in and said: 'Sarah, we're not sure that you're connecting with our audience. We want you to talk more about the cost of broccoli and other matters that connect with the people listening to your show.' I said, 'This is so important.' This is so incredibly important, and I think that in the last 20 or so years, as a nation, we have been on a positive journey, and more and more people have joined that journey.

I was very proud in the mid-1990s when my mother was appointed the Victorian minister for Aboriginal affairs. During her term she led the apology on behalf of the people of Victoria to the stolen generation.

I worked for an organisation called National Indigenous TV. That was an incredible time for me. It gave me such an important education on the significance of opportunity. NITV was all about giving young Indigenous men and women the opportunity to do great things, to work and to tell their stories. During that time, there was a particular day that I will never forget. It was the day of the national apology. It was a magnificent day, and it was a magnificent credit to former Prime Minister Rudd. There were tears flowing in the offices of National Indigenous TV. For me, it was overwhelming watching those faces. I was very proud to call myself an Australian on that day.

At the same time, when I travelled to Alice Springs as part of my work, it was distressing beyond belief to see two- and three-year-old children walking down the main street in the mall in Alice Springs, following their mothers and fathers who could barely walk because of the amount of alcohol that they had consumed. There was a profound issue with neglect of the children, and I found it very, very difficult to look at and to watch.

I think as a nation we have made some very hard decisions about alcohol in Indigenous communities. I know that the intervention has been very difficult for some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but I strongly support the work of the previous government and this government in addressing what is a critically important issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I am particularly proud of our commitment—and it is a bipartisan commitment—to recognise the First Australians in our Constitution. There is very significant work going on at the moment to progress that. Again, I remind the House about how significant it is that the Prime Minister is leading the charge in the recognition of First Australians in our Constitution.

I want to remind the House also that we have some very strong commitments to Indigenous affairs. We are honouring our key election commitments, and they include moving the administration of more than 150 Indigenous programs and services from eight different government departments into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; establishing the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council; implementing the $28.4 million Remote School Attendance Strategy; commissioning a review of Indigenous employment and training programs; providing $45 million to fast-track the implementation of a demand-driven vocational training and employment centres training model; providing $5 million to support the design of the Empowered Communities initiative; and working to build support for a successful referendum to recognise the First Australians in our Constitution, as I have mentioned.

We have made good progress in closing the gap—child mortality rates and access to early education. But we have a long way to go, particularly in areas such as in halving the employment gap within a decade, where there so far has been little progress. That is why our decision to end the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous school attendance, and to see 90 per cent of attendance, regardless of the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, is so significant.

We recognise that education is fundamental to opportunity—to closing the gap. If young Aboriginal children are not at school, they are not receiving an education. I was very pleased to see again the bipartisan approach on this additional target announced by the Prime Minister yesterday.

A good education for children in Indigenous communities gives them great capacity to seek employment in the future. I have seen firsthand at NITV what a good education and opportunity can lead to. Education is very much the future. I think there is renewed vigour and energy to target truancy, to make parents accountable and to ensure that children of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander descent have every opportunity to learn, to be inspired to learn, to prosper, to go to university and to be the best they can be.

More work needs to be done. I am very proud to be part of a government that is so focused on closing the gap. I commend this report to the House.

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