Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I might move us on from the language of racism and division and the use of the term 'parasites'. Before I move my amendment I want to take the opportunity to commend the launch this morning of the first community controlled peak body, the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family, domestic and sexual violence peak. I very much welcome community controlled organisations leading the way. I'm also very conscious that we still have a funding gap for frontline services dealing with family, domestic and sexual violence, and we know that funding gap is even more pronounced for First Nations organisations. I commend the work of the FVPLS, the family violence prevention legal service, and their state organs right around the country. They deserve full funding and funding security, but today is a good start with the launching of that first peak.

I move the Australian Greens amendment (1) on sheet 3659:

(1) Clause 16, page 13 (after line 19), at the end of the clause, add:

Government response

(4) If a report given to the Minister under subsection (2) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government:

(a) as soon as practicable after receiving the report, the Minister must cause to be prepared a statement setting out:

(i) the Commonwealth Government's response to each of the recommendations; and

(ii) if the Commonwealth Government has not accepted a recommendation—the reasons for not accepting the recommendation; and

(b) the Minister must cause copies of the statement to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.

This amendment would require the government to actually respond to the recommendations of the commissioner that this bill is establishing as an independent statutory position. The bill allows the commissioner to seek information from governments to inform her reports and recommendations, but there is nothing in the bill to compel the government to actually respond to those recommendations. I think that is tragic and I think it is very easily fixed. The optimist in me thought it was an oversight; however, it seems to be by design, and I think that is heartbreaking. On a day when we are doing a good thing, to establish a commissioner to look into the needs of First Nations young kids, why the backhand to say, 'Yeah, but we're not actually going to be compelled to respond to your recommendations'?

This amendment would fix that. It would say that the Commonwealth does, in fact, have to respond to the recommendations. They don't have to accept them, but, if they're not going to, they have to provide some reasons why they're not going to accept them. We've given them enough time to do that: 15 sitting days after a report is tabled. That is time enough for considered contemplation and a proper response to what could be a really important role. As we've seen, shame is not enough to compel governments to respond. We've seen the powerful statements from the First Nations children's commissioners around the country, and in my second reading contribution on this bill I spoke into the Hansard the words of Queensland's commissioner Natalie Lewis, who asked, again, what it's going take for the Commonwealth to actually step in? Is it going to take Don Dale levels of human rights abuses? What about the winding back of the protections for kids being locked up in prisons like we've seen in many jurisdictions? What is it going to take for the Commonwealth to step in?

The New South Wales advocate Ms Robinson said a similar thing. She said that nobody gets hurt unless they yell and scream, and she was begging for the Commonwealth to fix that. So, when stakeholders called for this national commissioner, they didn't just want a figurehead. I'm sure Ms Hunter will do a great job, but they didn't want her to oversee business as usual. We need this role because successive governments have let down First Nations communities for so long, and we need this because the gap is not closing. It's getting bigger. That's why I moved a second reading amendment to say we should raise the age of criminal responsibility, because deaths in custody and the incarceration rates, including of young people, in First Nations communities are going up. That is not closing the gap; it is widening it. So we will be supporting this piece of legislation, but surely as a matter of courtesy if nothing else the government should be obliged to respond to the recommendations that the commissioner makes to government.

I did put this to government. I asked them to support this amendment. Unfortunately, their reason for not doing so—which they may well have changed in the meantime; I certainly hope so—at the time was, 'We don't have to respond to the Human Rights Commission either,' as if two wrongs make a right, and as if it's okay to ignore the Human Rights Commission, so it's okay to ignore the First Nations children's commissioner. Well, it is not okay. This is not a requirement for you to sign up holus-bolus to their recommendations. It is simply a requirement to consider them and give a response to them, and that is a reasonable ask.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 3659 be agreed to