Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a real honour, as a senator for Western Australia, to represent the many, many First Nations communities and lands across my home state, and it's a privilege to do that here on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. I want to particularly extend my respect to elders past and present in delivering this contribution.

The National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026 brings the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to the forefront. Our government and this parliament have a responsibility to listen and to take action. Australia is home to the world's oldest continuing culture. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have lived on this land for at least 65,000 years, a fact that should be a profound source of pride for all of us—one that places a clear duty on us in this place to protect and preserve that culture. But we have too often fallen short in delivering for First Nations communities. Our systems fail Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children too often. The scale and urgency of those failures is profound, and we must do better. In my first speech to this chamber, I said I wanted my son to know that I was here to represent not the kids like him but the kids who were not as lucky as he is. It should not be the case in our great country that my son has more opportunities than the children of our First Nations people.

The path forward is clear. Reconciliation and progress will only be achieved by working with First Nations communities and by listening to First Nations people. The data is clear. The gap between First Nations children and their peers is deeply troubling. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are significantly overrepresented in out-of-home care, in the juvenile justice system and among those disengaged from education.

I spent my childhood years in Kalgoorlie, on Wangkatha country, and I want to talk a little bit about the voices of some of those kids in a report that was released a couple of years ago. In that report, First Nations young people talked about feeling like they weren't being listened to and like they didn't have the same opportunities that their peers did. I think that it's a real great shame that kids, whether it's in Kalgoorlie or other parts of our country, feel like they are not being listened to—like they are not being given the opportunities that other children are given. Communities and children tell us that they need us to do better.

For the last two years, the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People has been doing important work. This bill establishes a national commission as an independent and permanent statutory agency. It will have the power to conduct inquiries, make recommendations to government and engage in public advocacy. It will be able to engage directly with children and young people, to listen to their experiences and to bring their voices into the rooms where decisions are being made. Critically, it will be the only body at a national level with a sole focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. This is the result of the advocacy of more than 70 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous organisations from around the country—a tremendous effort—who have advocated for this for a long time, and it is well overdue.

When communities are empowered to lead, outcomes improve. We have seen it. In community controlled health organisations, in Indigenous ranger programs, in language revitalisation efforts around the country, the proof is there. Solutions designed with and by communities work, and this bill is how we embed that principle permanently so that no future government can sideline the voices of First Nations children when making decisions that impact their lives.

We don't have to look far for this work, which is being done around the country. The Goldfields Aboriginal Language Centre has been quietly doing extraordinary work for more than a decade, preserving and revitalising 12 First Nations languages in the Goldfields, working directly with elders to ensure these languages are passed on to the next generation of children. Language is culture; culture is identity—and that is the foundation of children's wellbeing. In the Pilbara, the West Pilbara Mobile Children's Service has spent over 13 years bringing early childhood education directly to remote communities, going to families rather than waiting for families to come to them. It is the only mobile service of its kind in the region, and it works because it was built around community. In the Kimberley, organisations like the Joombarn-buru Aboriginal Corporation are working with young people at risk of disengagement, not by punishing them but by investing in them, teaching them life skills and building their futures, keeping kids connected to their communities rather than cycling them through systems that continue to fail them. In Perth, on Whadjuk-Noongar country, organisations like Wungening Aboriginal Corporation and Koya Aboriginal Corporation are delivering culturally safe community-controlled services run by mob for mob, grounded in lived experience and deep cultural knowledge. These organisations do their work quietly; they don't often make the news. But they are changing lives every single day for Aboriginal children in Western Australia.

We cannot go back and change the decisions of the past. But we can make sure that children who are in school right now, sitting in classrooms in Kalgoorlie, in Broome, in Hall's Creek, in Fitzroy Crossing, in Arnhem Land, in Redfern, grow up in a community that sees them, in a country that listens to them, and puts them first. That is what we are seeking to address in this bill. Of course, it's not an immediate fix. No single action of the government ever is. But it is a commitment to put these children first and to listen to their voices when we are making decisions.

The Liberal Party once shared this commitment. In March 2022, the Morrison government proposed a national advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in their proposed 2022-23 budget, which, of course, they were not able to deliver, because they were so wholeheartedly defeated at that election. I wonder why they have changed their minds, why they no longer think that Aboriginal children and young people deserve an independent resourced voice to provide advice and advocacy for government on the issues that matter. I wonder why they don't agree with the more than 70 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations who have been advocating for this kind of work to be done for a very, very long time. So I urge the Liberal Party to support this bill as a genuine step towards the Australia that we all say that we want to build, one where the oldest continuing culture on Earth is not just celebrated but listened to, where reconciliation is not a destination we talk about reaching but a practice that we live every day.

I'd like to end by thanking everyone who has been involved in the very long time advocacy into this issue and in particular to the work of SNAICC, but I also want to acknowledge the many First Nations Australians who have bravely and fiercely advocated and shared their stories. I am proud to be part of a government that doesn't shy away from the tough issues and that supports First Nations Australians but is willing to be held accountable by those communities, to listen to their voices and to listen to the children whose futures depend on us getting this right.