Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for his question on this very important topic. Firstly, I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today—the Ngunawal people—and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I also would particularly like to acknowledge Senators McCarthy, Dodson, Lambie and Thorpe in this place.

The release today of the Commonwealth's Closing the Gap Implementation Plan is a really significant milestone in achieving the targets of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which came into effect last year. With the release of the plan we are committing more than $1 billion in new measures to support the achievement of closing the gap measures, and we're turning our commitments made under the national agreement into practical and real actions. This plan is about real reconciliation, how we get there and making sure all governments are held to account—state and federal—whether through delivering new health clinics and housing for health professionals to close the gap in relation to life expectancy, initiatives to lift participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in quality and culturally appropriate early childhood education and care services, or the Territories Stolen Generation Redress Scheme, which supports healing for Stolen Generations survivors.

We will deliver the outcomes and evidence fund to incentivise evidence based service delivery and deliver tangible and improved outcomes to support child and family safety. We are providing an additional $254.4 million for infrastructure and to better support Aboriginal community controlled health organisations so they can continue to do the critical work they have been doing very successfully over recent years. And we're investing $160 million in new funding to ensure the best start in life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through a range of different initiatives. Most importantly, we're doing this together. This plan is co-designed and it will be co-delivered.