Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I too want to add my remarks to this Closing the Gap debate today on the anniversary of the apology to Australia's stolen generations. It was a real privilege to be part of the Rudd government at the time this apology was made. Today I want to turn to things more practical that very much stand in the way of making progress on that promise we made back in 2008. I really want to turn to some of the practical issues that affect Aboriginal peoples, particularly in remote places in Western Australia, and some of the reasons why we simply will not make progress on the Closing the Gap targets if we continue with the lack of commitment and leadership from a Commonwealth government that doesn't want to fund things like municipal services and remote housing.

I had the great privilege of visiting remote communities just last week out in the Kimberley. We have a state election coming up. The federal election commission handles enrolments for the state election. It is of great consequence and appalling, to my mind, that the federal division of Durack is the constituency with the lowest enrolment in the country, which in large part comes down to a lack of servicing for remote Indigenous communities, a lack of commitment to the special effort required to ensure that all Australians, in particular First Australians who live in remote places on their own country, are enrolled to vote. For Indigenous Australians in remote communities, English will be not their second language but their fourth or fifth language, with their other languages all being the local Indigenous languages and Kriol, which they first and foremost speak.

I could see in the communities that I visited—and I want to pay special attention to Balgo—what a difference improvements to the quality of housing had made to the lives of many there, yet the problem of overcrowding, deteriorating housing stock or housing that hadn't been upgraded is an extreme and continuing issue. In addition, we also see out at Balgo a need for improved water supplies and water security. They desperately need access to renal services in Balgo. I spoke to one elder who was terrified at the prospect of needing to leave her community and needing to leave the young people there without the cultural leadership that elders like her were handing on to young people. She could see countless examples before her of the elders that had to leave those communities in order to access renal services. They have set out to raise some $2 million so that Purple House will be able to play a role in their community in providing those services.

It really does set us a challenge that we must meet in the delivery of government services. On an issue as important as housing, this Commonwealth government has stepped away from an ongoing commitment to remote community housing. They have stepped away from funding critical municipal services, including things like water. It is very difficult to see how the government's rhetoric in relation to Closing the Gap can be anything more than that.

I visited the community of Mulan. It was delightful to see the terrific work being done there by Indigenous Protected Areas rangers. They've just rediscovered the night parrot and they're really excited about their traditional custodianship of their lands. The Indigenous Ranger Program is a terrific program, which is, indeed, funded by the Commonwealth government. Yet critical to the sustainability of those programs are the people who work in those programs being able to live in a sustainable community that is properly serviced with clean water, adequate housing and adequate community facilities. For example, in the community of Balgo, I saw that the older women were staying, in an aged-care context, in the women's housing facility and that the renal and aged-care facility that had been built and set up for future services was not being used at all. In the communities of Kalumburu and Balgo their requests for men's shed funding from the Commonwealth had been refused and rejected.

Today, in making these remarks, I really want to underscore and underline the importance of the participation of First Nations communities in the decisions that affect them. I really want to commend Senator Dodson and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy for the work that they have done in this regard. In particular, I commend Senator Dodson, in his role as the shadow minister at the time, for his ongoing commitment to fighting for direct representation for First Nations communities so that they can have oversight of and participate in the decisions that affect them.

We are yet to see the next iteration of the government's Indigenous voice to government. I look forward to being updated about that. The government said that the voice is a voice to government; it's not a voice to parliament. The government cannot stop agencies and people that this parliament calls from giving evidence, lest they want to interfere with the independence of that voice. So, on this anniversary, I very much look forward to continuing to work with First Nations communities and ensuring that we continue the fight to have the gap—which is very evident in people's life outcomes in our nation—closed and addressed.