Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the government closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage and working in partnership with Indigenous communities to tackle the scourge of alcohol?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. And I thank him, too, for his real interest in issues of reconciliation and advancement of Indigenous Australians in his own electorate. I have witnessed that with my own eyes.

Today I was very pleased to be able to present to the parliament the fifth annual Closing the Gap statement. It is a very clear-eyed and factual account of where our nation is in trying to attain our Closing the Gap targets to make a real difference to the lives of Indigenous Australians, to make a real difference to things like life expectancy, educational attainment, employment and health—things we know will make a long-term difference to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.

As a government we are 100 per cent committed to closing that gap but we are not romantic or starry-eyed about how difficult this is. It requires deep thinking, it requires consistent effort, it requires hard work and it requires partnerships around the country with state and territory governments, with Indigenous Australians, with their leadership and with communities around that nation. It requires that kind of effort to make a difference.

But we can say to ourselves that a difference is being made. And I was very pleased to be able to report to the parliament that we have, on schedule, hit the first of the Closing the Gap targets, and that is to make sure that children in remote Australia—Indigenous children—get the benefit of preschool. And I was able to tell the parliament about a young girl called Curtisha who is now getting the benefit of preschool when her mother did not even get the opportunity to go to school. That is a change across a generation—a mother who missed out on school, a daughter getting to go to preschool and therefore being ready for school.

But I also had to report to the parliament my very grave concerns that the policies of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory are putting the alcohol industry first and Indigenous kids second. I have called on them to reinstate the banned drinkers list because we know that that was working. I want to confirm to the parliament today that Minister Macklin has written to Chief Minister Mills under powers granted to her by the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act to stop the reintroduction of alcohol to Indigenous communities without the approval of the minister.

We need to stop the rivers of grog. We need to stop this going backwards in the Northern Territory. We need to sound the words of caution to Queensland and we need to maintain our focus on closing the gap.