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

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the Apology to the Stolen Generations 13 years ago it was seen as a significant milestone in the nation's coming to terms with a sorry past. Out of the apology grew the hope and the expectation that we could now move forward and make change, that there would be a new relationship between First Australians and the rest of the nation. During the course of his contribution, Mr Rudd said that the core of this partnership for the future was closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities. Out of that grew the COAG agreement in 2008 for the Closing the Gap targets. There were six targets: to close the life expectancy gap within a generation; to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade; to ensure access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities within five years; to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children within a decade; to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 attainment by 2020; and to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade. As we know from the report of last year, we've failed dismally on all but two of those targets—sadly.

But there is no report to be tabled today. As the shadow minister said, that will now be put off until 7 August to reflect the agreement between the Commonwealth, state and territory governments and the Coalition of the Peaks with a set of new targets. What that does is break the nexus between the apology and the Closing the gap report. I think it's a way of diminishing the importance of the apology.

Significantly, through the 13 years since the apology, issues for the stolen generation still remain. There has been no compensation scheme for members of the stolen generation who are in the care of the Commonwealth, and there must be. It is a simple matter of justice, of what is right. I'm pleased to say I'm very proud that the Labor Party took to the last election a policy to provide such compensation. As we reflect on the lack of achievement since 2008, is it any wonder that First Nations people were driven to meet at Uluru and together produce the Statement from the Heart?

We had the fine words of Prime Minister Rudd, the high and noble sentiments, but, sadly, little has been achieved against those magnificent aspirations. Are we now at risk of another stolen generation? Twenty-four years after the Bringing them home report, First Nations children are nearly 10 times more likely to be living in out-of-home care in Australia. More than 20,000 First Nations children are in out-of-home care; that's about 30 per cent of the total number of children in out-of-home care, yet First Nations children represent only six per cent of the child population. As shocking as these figures are, they are getting worse.

Surely, we are better than this. What is it that prevents this nation from truly coming to terms with our past and, finally, acknowledging and dealing with the demands and aspirations of First Nations peoples in a mature and just way? Surely, we have an obligation to accede to the request for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, truth-telling and a makarrata. It is now past time we allowed our own obduracy and obstinacy to get in the way of simply doing what is right.

During the course of the Rudd and Gillard governments, I had the great privilege of being the Minister for Indigenous Health. At that the time we developed in partnership with Aboriginal communities across Australia the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2013-23. After we lost government in 2013, there was an expectation and bipartisan support that this plan would be used going forward by the government to be the framework within which its Aboriginal affairs health policy would be developed. Sadly, it appears not to have been the case. There has been no properly funded implementation strategy. There is now negotiation of a new plan, yet there's been no evaluation of the outcomes from the original plan that I'm aware of. Is that an indication of how sincere successive governments from the coalition have been in addressing the issues so readily and properly identified in the first Closing the Gap statement to the parliament by Prime Minister Rudd in 2008? I fear not.

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