Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The intent of this bill is to transition the national commissioner from its current status as an executive agency to an independent statutory agency. The bill defines the commissioner's objectives as promoting, improving and supporting the rights, safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, while driving greater accountability for policies impacting this group. Key functions of the national commissioner will include coordination among government entities, providing advice to the Commonwealth, undertaking education programs and engagement with Indigenous children. This bill states that the national commissioner is to 'perform functions and exercise powers in a manner that recognises the need to protect and promote the cultural identity' and to do so 'consistent with the promotion of human rights.'

This bill and this government are concerned with one thing only, and that is identity politics. The bill—and I repeat these words—states, 'to protect and promote cultural identity.' This bill fails to address where this government is imminently failing to close the gap. Only four of the 19 targets are on track, and that's one less than last year. Youth detention is up 11 per cent. Preschool attendance is down 2.6 per cent, and 1.2 per cent fewer children are commencing school developmentally on track than in 2022.

Creating a new $33 million commission will not change this trajectory. Only practical, localised action will. The reality is that this government and those whose lucrative salaries within the Indigenous industry depend on the taxpayer dollar sing from the same songbook. That is that colonisation is the only cause of the demise of Aboriginal Australians and our children, that victimhood is somehow supposed to form part of our identity, and that the only way to fix the bottomless pit of problems is to segregate our society and pour more money into the bottomless pit.

This bill is yet another example of the Albanese government prioritising symbolism over practical action. The bill stipulates that the commissioner must be of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. This is segregation. There is no evidence to suggest that being so will at all improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children—as we can see, the Closing the Gap targets are only growing wider—especially when we know that such a symbolic position is usually occupied by an individual completely removed from the circumstances of children living under the confines of traditional culture and customary law. These are laws that negate the rights and freedoms of girls and women. These are laws that force girls into arranged marriages to much older men. How lucky for these girls and women that the objectives of this government and this commissioner will uphold the backward aspects of this culture—culture that I've lived and breathed, culture that women in my family have lived and breathed and been subjected to.

In this chamber we've heard the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, talk about the intervention and how it supposedly shamed adults. But the minister failed to admit that it was the Northern Territory Labor government at the time—in which she was a minister—that sat on its hands and did nothing about the Little children are sacred report. It was this report, highlighting the astronomical rates of child sexual abuse and STIs found in Aboriginal children, which was the trigger for the federal intervention.

In 2023, Indigenous children aged zero to 17 were 12.1 times as likely as non-Indigenous children aged zero to 17 to be in out-of-home care. In 2022-23, the primary types of abuse or neglect for children who were the subject of a substantiated notification were as follows: neglect was nearly 29 per cent for Indigenous children and nearly 17 per cent for non-Indigenous children, physical abuse was around 12 per cent for Indigenous children and 14 per cent for non-Indigenous children, and sexual abuse was seven per cent for Indigenous children and 9.5 per cent for non-Indigenous children.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 5.6 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be subject to a child protection notification but 10.8 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care. In 2023-24, around 42,100 Australian children were confirmed victims of abuse and neglect—that's about seven per 1,000 children. For Indigenous children, the rate was much higher, at around 33 per 1,000 children. For non-Indigenous children, the rate was about five per 1,000. This means that Indigenous children are around six to seven times more likely to be victims of substantiated abuse or neglect. This is utterly unacceptable, given Indigenous children represent almost six per cent of all Australian children, yet they make up 43 per cent of all children that live in very remote and remote Australia.

This government and their big bureaucracy aren't interested in the causes that lead to suicide, higher rates of youth detention or developmental delays in education. This government and their big bureaucracy aren't interested in why the gap is widening. This government turns a blind eye when individuals with disgraceful backgrounds who have been charged and convicted with heinous, violent crimes are able to maintain leadership positions within statutory Commonwealth authorities. It's problematic that this government doesn't just turn a blind eye to the behaviours of these individuals but celebrates these individuals, and it's problematic when these individuals are respected and revered under traditional culture. This is the culture that this commissioner is tasked with protecting and promoting.

I want to turn to what we should actually be doing to address the massive gap we see year in, year out—a situation going backwards under Labor. In my last term, the coalition fought to hold a royal commission into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children. The need for this royal commission still exists, but is completely ignored by this government and this bill. The bill does not detail how the commissioner has a unique power to speak directly to children, and in my experience there has never been an appetite for this government and its supporters in the Greens and some of the crossbenches to speak to child and women victims of cultural practices that deny their human rights. So excuse me if I have no faith whatsoever that this entity and the commissioner will genuinely listen to these voices and advocate on behalf of them when their only focus is the so-called impacts of colonisation.

I know of many stories from the lived experience of such girls and women who have been silenced. There are stories like that of my niece—known as Ruby, as reported in the Australian in 2022. In the remote Northern Territory town of Yuendumu, where my family are from, Ruby, then just 15 years old, was beaten and raped by her own father. Ruby recounts trying to tell her family in Yuendumu of the horrific abuse she was suffering, but says they didn't want to believe her. Incredibly, Ruby found the courage to speak up, and two years later, at just 17 years old, she testified against him. A judge in the case said the abuse had been protracted and prolonged and had involved the use of weapons.

I know of another case where, from the age of six, a girl was raped and abused by her cousin—a man 12 years older than her. For seven years, this young girl was tortured, frightened and in need of help, with no-one to turn to because too many community and family members turned a blind eye. It was only after leaving her home and moving interstate with a family member that she was able to find an adult who would help her.

More recently, as has been reported in the NT News in September last year, a 28-year-old man raped and impregnated a 13-year-old girl that was promised to him as part of a family arrangement. This young girl was forced into this marriage—as is the case with most arranged marriages under traditional customary law, which my very own family members have been subjected to, including my own mother. We're talking about real people here.

In 2008, in the Northern Territory, another 13-year-old girl was impregnated by a 20-year-old under similar arranged marriage circumstances. This time, this case was briefly reported on by the ABC. There was no public outrage by the activist class, social justice warriors or even the feminist movement. In all of these cases mentioned, and more that I personally know of, these voices have never been championed by Labor, or by the Greens in that case. In fact, last year, the current member for Gwoja in the Northern Territory, Chansey Paech, in response to the forced arranged marriage and rape of the 13-year-old said:

I want to know whether Senator Price has made any mandatory reports about these matters and whether she has raised them directly with the CLP Minister for Child Protection Robyn Cahill or is she simply grandstanding again?

In answer to him, yes, I have—many times. In fact, I've done more than that. I've spoken to previous Labor child protection ministers in the Northern Territory, specifically regarding these issues. I've sat in court in support of such victims. What has Chansey Paech done aside from deny it is a problem at all and gaslight victims instead? What has he done aside from condemning me for sharing my lived experience? He also says, 'Senator Price's suggestion that "Aboriginal culture condones the abuse of children" is a harmful myth which has been debunked.' He described my remarks as 'divisive' and 'deeply offensive'. He said:

Comments like this not only vilify our culture but also undermine the hard work being done by families, communities, and frontline workers to protect children and keep them safe.

Let me say that your comments, Mr Paech, silence and deny victims and support perpetrators. Mr Paech has never lived under the confines of traditional customary law and nor will he ever, yet he is a Labor leader.

Then there's the former human rights commissioner, Mick Gooda, also of Indigenous heritage. During his tenure as the commissioner for the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, he didn't even bother, for the duration of the royal commission, to look into arranged marriages under customary law—nor did he do that in his broader role as a human rights commissioner.

I'm therefore not convinced this government is vaguely interested in these realities and the causes that widen the gap. We need an audit into the spending in Indigenous affairs instead of wasting more taxpayer dollars—another of my attempts at trying to get this government's support that was shut down, along with the Greens. Why would they bother? We could have had a royal commission into the sexual abuse of Indigenous children occurring right now, but this government and the Greens and crossbenchers shut that down. Regressive aspects of traditional culture must be expunged from Indigenous communities today—communities out of sight and out of mind for all of you across from me—but they won't be while those in positions of power continue to turn a blind eye to all manner of sins that continue to thrive under regressive aspects of traditional culture.

A key reason the gap hasn't closed is a political class that romanticises traditional culture—that stands here and expresses its respect for elders past and present. That romanticism puts a force field around the most objectionable and violent behaviours that are at the very heart of Indigenous disadvantage. It's time the romanticisation ends; it's time to accept the truth. The truth is that $30 million plus and a sparkling new children's commissioner designed to make this government appear to be doing something are yet another waste of taxpayer dollars that will not improve the lives of Indigenous children in this country.