Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Youth) Share this | Hansard source

They need action, Member for Durack. And they certainly deserve more than legislation constructed to sound transformative while offering little substance to turn the dial on disadvantage. They need a government that's focused on outcomes, not headlines. We haven't seen that yet—not once from this Albanese government.

After carefully considering the bills, the detail of the proposed commission, the consultation undertaken and the record of this government, the coalition will oppose this legislation. There's no question that improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children must be a national priority. But the evidence is clear: under this Labor government, outcomes are simply going backwards. They're all spin, no substance—again, headlines, not the work.

Under Labor's watch, four Closing the Gap targets are worsening: adult incarceration, children in and out of home care, children commencing school developmentally on track, and suicide, which is very sad. Youth detention is up 11 per cent. Preschool attendance is down 2.6 per cent—and that was a big increase under the Morrison government—and 1.2 per cent fewer Indigenous children are developmentally on track when they start school. Child safety indicators are worsening, and the system is not responding quickly enough, yet the government's answer is another national bureaucracy rather than directing resources to the frontline services and communities where they are so desperately needed.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly pointed to structural change as the solution. But, in reality, structural change without functional outcomes is absolutely meaningless to a child living in overcrowded housing, exposed to violence, not attending school or, indeed, removed from their family. Structural change, Prime Minister, is not about building structures. It's about deploying the efforts of existing structures to maximum effect and dealing with those organisations you fund that are not contributing as intended. Because you are distracted, because you won't focus on frontline responses, we cannot support this.

This bill is not the answer. It's not even remotely the answer for those children who are in need. The government argues this bill would create an independent and empowered national commissioner by transitioning the current executive agency into a statutory authority. But when we look closely, it becomes clear this is not a commission designed to fix a failing system; it's a commission designed to look like reform. The commissioner's functions mirror what already exists across multiple Commonwealth, state and territory bodies. These functions include coordination, research, inquiry, advocacy, providing advice to government, engagement, programs for children and education initiatives. These responses are about talking action, not taking action.

The bill adds extensive, compulsory information-gathering powers, including the ability to compel individuals or organisations to provide information or appear before hearings, backed by civil penalties. But who could the commissioner be consulting that's not captured in consultation that governments and others undertake already? It will cost $33.5 million over the forward estimates, and it adds yet another layer of bureaucracy on top of a system already saturated with commissions, councils, working groups, peak bodies, statutory offices and advisory structures. This is just another expansion of the Albanese Labor government's big government policy.

What the bill does not add is a single measurable, practical improvement to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people who need a response now. This body duplicates existing roles and function. It duplicates the work of the National Children's Commissioner, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and the multiple Indigenous-specific children's commissioners already operating in the ACT, in Queensland, in South Australia and in Victoria. It overlaps with the Department of Social Services, which is already required to consult children and young people. It holds few functions not shared by state and territory child protection, education, youth justice and health agencies, where the real levers sit and which states and territories control.

This new commissioner's work is essentially about consultation, providing advice to government, undertaking research and advocacy. As the gap continues to widen on the Albanese government's watch, there is no gap that this commission will fill. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring existing bodies do their jobs. The government's focus must be on ensuring resources are applied where there is potential for the greatest and most immediate change, and that is in frontline services on the ground.

This commission reinforces and replays the Albanese government's track record of creating Canberra based structures to respond to community based challenges. It is bureaucracy masquerading as reform. The government says the commissioner will coordinate the efforts of states and territories, yet the bill offers no explanation of what powers or mechanisms the commissioner has to do so. There is no detail on how an educational program will be delivered across diverse remote communities nor an explanation of what unique power the national commissioner will have to speak directly to children when every government agency and independent commissioner already has that capability.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people regularly report consultation fatigue. It's unclear how the national commissioner will not just be an additional outreach body, consulting the same people on the same issues. Indigenous community leaders are clear, and their message is consistent: ample consultation has been done. It's now time for action, and it's time for implementation and respect for the work that has already been done, not time to reinvent the wheel.

It's extraordinary that this government's primary justification for this bill rests on consultation that was limited in scope, circular in nature and heavily reliant on advocates who are already supporters of the concept. The person most consulted ahead of establishing the commission was the same individual appointed as the inaugural commissioner, Sue-Anne Hunter, fresh from her previous role as commissioner of the Yoorrook Justice Commission. The government relied heavily on a single one-off First Nations Youth Roundtable, tied closely to SNAICC—again, one of the most vocal proponents of this commission. Stakeholder diversity was limited, and alternative perspectives, including from frontline workers—such as child protection case managers and school principals in remote communities—and families themselves, were not meaningfully included. You would think that they know what they're talking about. They're living it. And yet, against the evidence, this government claims the bill reflects the voices of children.

This national commission will be rich in symbolism but devoid of practical measures. We see this so often under the Albanese Labor government. Symbolic policymaking for the headline has become the hallmark of this government. The bill uses expansive language about human rights and cultural identity but fails to address why children are unsafe, why school attendance is failing, why youth detention is rising or why entire communities are struggling to maintain stable environments for their young people. The government cannot continue to ignore the real failures of existing systems only to shift accountability to a new body when those systems fail. The job of ministers in this government is to demand accountability, not divest it to someone else. The first job of any government, we know, is to keep its people safe. Protecting vulnerable children is not a job the Albanese government can outsource.

Let me be clear: everyone in this place is on a unity ticket that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children deserve every opportunity to grow up safe, to grow up supported and to grow up thriving. But there is nothing in this bill that ensures outcome change. The Closing the gap report, due for release later this week, will likely try to gloss over worsening indicators for children in care, children developmentally on track and children experiencing harm. The government will attempt to point to this bill as proof that it's taking action to make a difference, but codifying a national commissioner with the power to write reports does not put a child in school. It does not remove a child from danger. It does not support parents to rear healthier, happier and safer children.

This position will cost the taxpayer millions but do nothing to address the issues most immediately affecting those Indigenous children and young people around our nation. Despite the best intentions, the national commissioner will not close the gap. The government must be judged not on the number of bureaucratic structures it creates but on the outcomes it achieves for the most vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people—those that need the most help or are in the most danger.

Currently, state and territory governments hold responsibility for the key systems impacting children: education, child protection, corrections and health. Nationally, the Department of Social Services, the National Indigenous Australians Agency and the Coalition of Peaks also hold major roles in supporting Closing the Gap outcomes. As Minister McCarthy stated when scrapping cross-portfolio Indigenous estimates last year, improving outcomes for Indigenous Australians is a whole-of-government priority. It is therefore those agencies that must be held accountable by her—by the minister—not by a third party, a so-called independent commissioner. This bill explicitly shifts that accountability away from government and onto the commissioner. It's a part of our Westminster system that the minister is responsible. We've seen this in portfolio after portfolio. We've seen it in environment and now we're seeing it in social services. It does so by establishing a body that will drive accountability for policies impacting this group. The only real opportunity that exists here is for responsible ministers to blame the commissioner, not the ministers responsible and the policy responses that contribute to making the gap much worse.

The cost of this commission, I will reiterate, is $33.51 million over the forward estimates and $9.33 million ongoing. The funding could instead support dozens and dozens of remote school attendance programs, fund additional child protection workers in crisis-level regions, strengthen domestic violence interventions, support alcohol restrictions and community safety plans, or provide early developmental support for vulnerable children. What about that organisation in the Northern Territory, Indi Kindi, that does fantastic work in the early childhood education and care space? Every dollar should go where it makes the greatest difference. That's why the coalition has always prioritised frontline delivery, not bureaucratic expansion—bigger government. That's what this Albanese Labor government is all about—expanding government jobs, spending taxpayer money on more wages for government jobs.

The coalition's position is guided by longstanding principles. Australia has had enough symbolic gestures. Real improvements demand evidence based interventions. The answer is stronger governance, performance monitoring and transparency of existing organisations, not additional bodies that diffuse responsibility. Funding must flow to organisations with proven governance and results, not those with the loudest voices, and the government must act to end funding to those whose operations fail the very people they exist to help. The coalition is focused on breaking welfare dependency, supporting families and ensuring children attend school—all protective factors that change trajectories and that change lives. Strengthening the family unit is absolutely what the Liberal Party stands for and what the coalition stands for. When we help families, we help children and we help communities. Finally, community-level challenges will never be solved from Canberra.

These principles stand in stark contrast to what this bill represents. The coalition has further, deeper concerns about this bill that must be addressed. This government has repeatedly elevated structures, panels and bureaucratic bodies in place of genuine engagement and measurable improvements. Across multiple areas, including family violence, youth justice, community safety and child protection, the Albanese government has consistently failed to listen to the voices of children. For instance, the University of Adelaide's report into the impacts of the cessation of the cashless debit card, vetted and watered down by the Department of Social Services, notably did not include a single child's voice.

If the Albanese government were serious about improving outcomes, it would prioritise practical, measurable interventions; it would introduce policies to improve school attendance, especially in remote communities where attendance rates have collapsed; it would strengthen child protection systems, ending the care criminalisation cycle where children in out-of-home care all too often end up in contact with youth justice; it would support early childhood development, ensuring every child commences school on track—as the National Children's Commissioner titled her landmark report, children need 'help way earlier'—and it would also confront the drivers of violence, not just talk about them. This means responding to the havoc wreaked by the Albanese government's reckless decisions to allow alcohol restrictions to lapse in the Northern Territory and the ideological removal of the cashless debit card, which was working. It was getting results. It is those things that contributed to the outcomes ending up much, much worse for remote Indigenous communities specifically. None of these priorities are meaningfully advanced by the creation of the national commissioner.

For all of these reasons, the coalition will oppose this bill. We oppose it because it duplicates existing structures. We oppose it because it diverts funding away from frontline needs—the Australians who need it the most. We oppose it because it shifts accountability away from the agencies responsible for delivering services. We oppose it because it relies on symbolic gestures instead of practical on-the-ground solutions. And, most importantly, we oppose it because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people deserve better. Australia's most vulnerable children do not need another Canberra based bureaucracy. They do not need more reports, more advisory bodies or more symbolic gestures. What they do need is functioning schools, safer homes, stronger families and accountable systems. They need their government to act, not to outsource.

This bill will not change outcomes. It will not close the gap, and it will not rescue a single child from neglect, from violence or from disadvantage. The coalition stands ready to support any measure that genuinely improves the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, but this is simply not one of them. It's time for greater accountability and a focus on ensuring existing bodies do their jobs. That's the only way to turn the dial. The coalition will not be supporting this bill.

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