Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the minister's contribution to this discussion, and I will raise in my contribution a couple of the issues which he has referred to. Yesterday in the House of Representatives in the debate on the MPI, I had the opportunity to speak on the Closing the Gap statement. In that speech I made it very clear that there was a disproportionate impact, evidenced in all the material that's provided through this statement, on people who live in very remote and remote Australia. These are largely the constituents in my electorate of Lingiari, over 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal people.

What this document says very clearly is that Aboriginal people are the most disadvantaged people in the country and that their life outcomes are a lot poorer than the rest of the community's. According to this document, the life expectancy gap between Aboriginal people living in remote or very remote communities and people living in the rest of Australia is around 15 years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males are living 8½ years less than those in metropolitan centres.

There are real issues here, and I don't think that the responses from the government thus far have indicated any capacity to address those issues. I understand and I totally applaud the move going forward to work with COAG and the Coalition of Peaks. I think that's a very positive step. But let's put this in context. The minister, in the contribution he made just before me, said that he wants Aboriginal people to work with government to action change and to share priorities, and he wants the government and those people to not be afraid to learn from each other. I applaud those statements. The fact is, though, it's not what's happening.

In the Northern Territory, there have been cries for help around health infrastructure, around housing, around roads and around all the social determinants that create the environment in which people might get a better health outcome. They've fallen on deaf ears as far as this Commonwealth government is concerned, despite the fact that there is a one-off agreement with the Northern Territory government to provide some money for remote housing.

What's happening at the moment will not address the changes that are required to deal with those communities—to get the outcomes the expiring Closing the Gap targets had as objectives. We here are all responsible for this, and we need to do better. I'm hoping that the revised Closing the Gap targets are coherent. They include justice targets and they include targets on the number of kids being taken away from their families. Those sorts of targets should be included, because they need to be. But, at the same time as we are doing that, the government is taking action which is totally against the desires of Aboriginal people.

There is now no guarantee, as a result of decisions made by the Attorney-General, to provide ongoing funding to Aboriginal legal services around this country. The decision has been taken to stop funding the family violence legal service peak body in this country. This has been done by this government. On the one hand, you can say, 'We want to walk with you and listen,' but it's very different when policy decisions are being made in various portfolios that impact upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—First Nations people of this country—and no notice is taken of what they're saying.

Yesterday, I gave two examples of how Aboriginal people in my electorate and across the north of Australia have made it very clear that they don't want the rollout of the cashless debit card. They don't want it. But, despite the fact that they don't want it, there is an aspiration, desire and will by this government to override their views and say to them, 'You're going to have it whether you like it or not.' There is absolutely clear evidence that the income quarantining that has been imposed upon Aboriginal people is impacting upon the lives of Aboriginal families and on their health outcomes—that's very clear—yet this government is blind to what's happening. I'm pleased that the minister has got these aspirations of walking, listening and learning, but it requires action, and that action must be taken.

Yesterday I referred to action which had been taken by a previous government. You'll recall that the first Hockey-Abbott budget took $500 million out of the First Nations budget. One of the items that they hit was an antismoking campaign. Thankfully, bringing down smoking in Aboriginal communities is now seen as very important, but Joe Hockey said that it was a waste of money. There are people in this place who are advancing the argument for it and doing the work on the ground, where the Aboriginal people are, who said to Mr Hockey: 'You're not listening to us. You've not heard what we're doing and you don't know what we're doing. You're just saying that what we're doing is useless.' That isn't the case.

At the time, this was in 2011, Ian Lacey, a person who I know well, said: 'We visit schools, youth detention centres and sporting clubs—a huge range of community events—every day to explain to our people that high smoking rates are one of the key causes of our low life expectancy. We also work on improving nutrition and increasing the amount of physical activity our mob engage in. These are the key lifestyle changes that they require.' That's what they did, yet it didn't stop the Treasurer of the day saying that it was a waste of money. It's been proven not to be a waste of money. Ian works for the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health in Brisbane, which was established in 2009. It has operated in South-East Queensland for 10 years now. The Indigenous population of South-East Queensland is 100,000 in 2020. That's 40 per cent of Queensland's First Nations people and 11 per cent of Australia's First Nations people.

In 2009, when the institute was established, they had five clinics operating in South-East Queensland. Today, they have 20. This is all coming from within the Aboriginal community. These are changes that they are making, and I know that the minister, who is not here, acknowledges the importance of the work they have done. They have established a very important health-justice partnership, supporting Indigenous families with legal education and advocacy via their own community legal service. That is something that they are funding in this health precinct. It's very important and something for us all to learn from.

IUIH have increased the number of preventative health checks delivered in South-East Queensland by over 4,000 per cent. This is driven from within the community. I know about it because I had the privilege, as the minister, of providing the initial funding for it. They've closed, as a result of their work—this one organisation comprising Aboriginal health services from South-East Queensland—the health-adjusted life expectancy gap 2.3 times faster than predicted trajectories. This is enormous. The IUIH jobs network increased the number of jobs from 200 to 1,300. That's 1,300 people employed, 700 of whom are First Nations people. They've halved the preterm birth rates.

What these people are doing is interrupting—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:19 to 11:30

I want to conclude my contribution by going back to where I started, about the government saying they wanted to look, listen and learn—walk with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. The very first thing they need to do, then, is recognise the Statement from the Heart; implement a voice to the parliament and have it constitutionally entrenched; and have a makarrata commission and truth-telling. If they can do that, they'll have listened to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. At the moment, what they've demonstrated is that they're not prepared to listen to those arguments and the plea from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people right across this country to do something that they want rather than what the government wants.

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