Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

We're at the halfway point of the decade-long Closing the Gap agreement, and, as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, I stand to express my party's concern about what has sadly become an annual ritual consisting of solemn expressions of dismay and concern about the gap and of cherry-picking and self-congratulations on minor wins, yet little progress. This year the Prime Minister described closing the gap as a national test, a generational task and a moral imperative. He talked about listening to communities, investing in codesign and entrusting the coalition of peaks—noble rhetoric from our Prime Minister, a bunch of nice words.

Yet the latest report released by the Productivity Commission makes for another sobering but predictable read. Only four of the 19 targets are on track to be met by the time the agreement ends in 2031. Indeed, based on the date, this Productivity Commission report suggests that we have been marking time, even sliding backwards, even since last year, when five of the 19 primary targets were on track. Closing the Gap has been a bipartisan policy for almost two decades, and, yes, both sides of politics have failed to deliver on it whilst in government.

The bringing in of the Productivity Commission by former coalition minister Ken Wyatt was a welcome move because at least it brought some rigour and accountability to what, in essence, is an aspirational policy. But this year incarceration rates are up, suicide rates are getting worse and even the expectation for healthy baby birth weights has slipped, according to the ABC's Indigenous affairs team. Yes, let's celebrate because we're making progress on Indigenous land and sea rights, and we're getting some more rangers, but I would suggest incarceration rates, suicide rates and birth weights are of much more significant impact to the lived experience of Indigenous Australians.

The Prime Minister used his Closing the Gap speech to warn about the rise of white supremacy in Australia, citing the disturbing incident in Perth at an Indigenous rights protest where a man allegedly threw a homemade improvised bomb device. The Minister for Foreign Affairs referred to this event in her contribution. The man has been charged; the matter is being fully investigated by the security authorities, and that's as it should be. This is our democracy and our institutions doing exactly what they're meant to do. But with respect, Prime Minister, the alleged action of a lone lunatic racist, at a protest about Australia Day, is a long way from the violence and abuse of women and children, widespread substance abuse and premature deaths that are happening in so many Indigenous communities right now.

Indigenous affairs in Australia has long been a battle between two different ideologies—one that says Indigenous citizens are lifted up through a recognition of their rights and one that views Indigenous disadvantage as something that can be fixed with practical approaches of houses, jobs, education, homeownership and economic opportunities. The Australian's Indigenous affairs correspondent, Paige Taylor, recently wrote:

When Australians said no to a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice on October 14, 2023, politicians from the left and right understood this as a rejection of the rights-based approach to Indigenous affairs.

According to Ms Taylor, Labor committed to 'practical reconciliation' in which ministers spoke about the importance of closing the gap and avoided conversations about treaty, truth-telling and anything else that could be interpreted as special rights. I absolutely agree with that, but the reality is not enough is being done. Practically nothing is being done. Aboriginal women are experiencing extreme violence in their communities, and that requires intervention.

Labor will spend $218 million on a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander plan to end domestic and sexual violence. That sounds like a lot of money, but it's a 20-year plan. Let me put that in context: that is a third of what's going to be spent on a study into high-speed rail between Sydney and Newcastle in the next two years. They're going to spend a third of what they're spending on the high-speed rail plan to end domestic and sexual violence against Aboriginal women in the next 20 years.

It's often forgotten that my party, the National Party, represents all of the electorates with high proportions of Indigenous Australians. We've had exemplary Indigenous affairs ministers and shadow ministers who've made major contributions to the portfolio. But we know an audit of the spending has to be done as a matter of urgency. We have spent $50 billion to $60 billion on Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander affairs, and our suicide rates are going up; birth weights are going down; incarceration rates are going up. We are not closing the gap despite all of that money and all of the goodwill and kind words.

I've been a strong supporter of this policy since 2019, when I was the minister sent to Tennant Creek, after the horrific rape of a two-year-old, to sort something out and to make a change. When I got on the ground and spoke to those delivering services to that community, they did not want extra roads. They did not want treaty. What they wanted was service provision in the gaps. We had Territory government services, Commonwealth government services and non-government services all going into the same places, and there were significant gaps that these babies were falling through.

The one recommendation of the Barkly Regional Deal that never got done was the one that was the cheapest, which was to audit the service provision and fill the gaps. It's an indictment, and I've no doubt that the current minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, whom we've heard from today, is strongly motivated by similar sentiments to improve the lives of Indigenous people. However, this portfolio, probably more than any other, requires more than a listening ear. It actually requires a minister who's prepared to intervene, when required, when things aren't workings, when money is being wasted, where vested interests have a stronghold and where nepotism is rife.

While Closing the Gap has been bipartisan policy for a long time, maybe it's time we all admitted failure and made some fundamental changes to this policy. Let's be practical. Let's be strong. But let's not pretend things are improving when they're not. Most of all, let's be honest: we're widening the gap; we're not closing it.

I would suggest that everyone in this place is committed to reconciliation and to all Australians having access to services and opportunities if we're actually going to be a prosperous, safe and cohesive nation going forward, but the definition of insanity, according to a guy a lot more clever than me, Albert Einstein, is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result. If the test of a good society is how the most vulnerable in your society are treated, then I think it's time we changed what we are doing. Instead, we stand up year after year, no matter who's in government, and say we're committed to closing the gap while we see the targets go in the wrong direction, waste $50 billion to $60 billion of taxpayers' money and see the heartache out in communities as women and children, in particular, suffer as they do. I think it is an indictment on all of us.