Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present responses to Senate resolutions as listed at item 13 on today's Order of Business:

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Bob Carr) to a resolution of the Senate of 14 August 2012 concerning polio eradication

Minister for Mental Health and Ageing (Mr Butler) to a resolution of the Senate of 13 September 2012 concerning suicide

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Bob Carr) and the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Ms Macklin) to a resolution of the Senate of 13 September 2012 concerning the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Office of the Premier of New South Wales, the Premier of Queensland (Mr Newman) and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory (Mr Mills) to a resolution of the Senate of 19 September 2012 concerning domestic violence

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the item Minister for Mental Health and Ageing (Mr Butler)—Suicide (agreed to 13 September 2012).

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the item Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Bob Carr) and the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Ms Macklin)—United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (agreed to 13 September 2012).

This is a motion that I propose to the Senate that marked the fifth anniversary of the development of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I note that both Senator Carr as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Ms Macklin as Minister for Families, Community Service and Indigenous Affairs have both responded to the motion. Senator Carr reiterated Australia's commitment to the work to promote human rights and human dignity of all Indigenous peoples, both domestically and internationally.

The motion specifically mentioned the International Labour Organization's Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989 and its ratification, and Senator Carr pointed out that the Commonwealth has just started talking to the states and territories about compliance and carrying out a comprehensive assessment of that compliance with states and territories before they move to ratify the convention. This convention came into being in 1989. I know that year very well; it is the year my son was born. It is 23 years ago, and we are only now looking at our compliance. It is exceedingly disappointing.

I will cover these points more extensively when I speak to Minister Macklin's letter, but it is interesting to note that the minister reiterates Australia's commitment to the promotion of human rights and human dignity of all Indigenous peoples, yet the government would not refer its Stronger Futures legislation to the human rights committee. I also note the numerous complaints that have been made internationally and to the United Nations by our own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about both the Northern Territory intervention and Stronger Futures.

I would like to concentrate on Minister Macklin's response to the motion. She is obviously coming from a very positive perspective, talking about taking the declaration seriously, particularly relating to the participating economic and social development and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in line with the government's commitment to closing the gap. However, she does not mention things like the deaths in custody, or the fact that most of the extensive recommendations by the Royal Commission, which are now over 21 years old, have not been implemented. She also conveniently does not address income management on which we will be having a substantive debate shortly after this debate. She does not mention that the Native Title Act needs some significant amendments and has never delivered fully on its promise to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. While the government has an exposure draft of legislation to amend that legislation out at the moment, that draft does not deal with the obvious issues that need to be dealt with—for example, reversing the onus of proof which is absolutely critical if we are truly going to deliver on the promise of native title.

Recently the ANAO report came out. This report looks at some issues surrounding the administration and performance of some of our agencies delivering Indigenous outcomes. One of the key points was that whilst you would expect FaHCSIA to take a leading role as it is our lead agency on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy, it is not taking a leadership role and it is not engaging properly. I believe one area that needs to be addressed is: how can this agency claim that it is taking leadership in this area when it is failing to adequately consult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? I have said in this place before and I will say it again: the government does not properly consult with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A key part of this declaration, of DRIP, is participation and consultation along with fully informed prior consent. Yet legislation that arguably is having one of the biggest impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to date is the stronger futures legislation and the past NT intervention. It is quite obvious from talking to communities in the Northern Territory that there has not been adequate consultation on this legislation and there was no fully informed prior consent, a key part of the declaration.

There is no way the government can say that it received fully informed prior consent to the stronger futures legislation. That legislation puts in place a number of punitive measures. I will not concentrate on income management because we are going to talk about that later, but one of the punitive measures is the legislation that is supposed to be getting kids back into school. There is a very simplistic approach to addressing the barriers to education, and it is quite obvious that attaining an adequate education is a major problem for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. You only have to read the 'Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People' report by Professor Larissa Behrendt, released not long ago, to see that only 47.2 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people attain a year 12 certificate, compared to 79.4 per cent of other Australian students. That is a vast difference. You have to look at that figure and say something is wrong here. Then when you look at the number of university enrolments you will see that only 1.4 per cent of university students are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. There are obvious barriers there that we need to address.

The declaration also puts a lot of emphasis on language, and it emphasises bilingual education. The 'Our Land Our Languages' report is very important. It talks about the importance of first languages and the importance of getting an education in a first language. It also points out the importance of first language in early learning environments. All these things the minister conveniently does not address in this report. The minister also does not address the fact that the stolen generations were not compensated. There was the apology which I acknowledge was a very significant moment in this country, but we did not go on to reparations. We did not go on to compensating the stolen generations for the disempowerment and the intergenerational trauma that that very poor part of Australia's history played and is continuing to play in Aboriginal communities.

The government did set up the Healing Foundation and put a bit more $26 million into the running of that foundation. It is important to note that the funding for the foundation finishes in June 2013. It is very important that the government commit to keep on funding that foundation, because that work is only just starting to bear fruit. It takes a lot for projects to gain the trust of the communities, and also for communities to develop community owned projects research has shown to be so important. These projects are one of the key things that research is showing to be important. If we are really going to get policies that adequately address the issues of Closing the Gap, of disempowerment, of intergenerational trauma, the key thing we need to be doing is empowering communities to develop projects and to manage the projects that are culturally appropriate for their regions. That is what the Healing Foundation is trying to do.

Further work that highlights some of the problems in delivering funding that will make a difference is in Olga Havnen's report. Until she was sacked by the Northern Territory government, Ms Havnen was looking at the provision of remote services in the Northern Territory. Her report clearly highlights fundamental problems with getting change on the ground and highlights the fact that we need to be doing things differently. I notice that this report is not addressed here. I also notice an issue about which I am particularly passionate, the impact of otitis media on Aboriginal children, is not addressed. These children have subsequent poor life outcomes. You do not have to be Einstein to realise that there is a high rate of people in the criminal justice system with hearing impairment—90 per cent of Aboriginal prisoners in the Darwin Correctional Centre have a hearing impairment. You do not have to be Einstein to work out that there is something going on. Why aren't we addressing that problem at source? We should not just be concentrating on health outcomes—although those outcomes are very important. We need to join the dots to look at how we then deliver early intervention in very early childhood to make sure those children are developing the language-processing skills that are needed so that when they start their first day at school they are ready and prepared, like their non-Indigenous colleagues. They need to be able to hear the teacher and understand the process. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I go back to the motion to take note of the response by Minister Butler on suicide agreed to on 13 September. I thank the chamber for leave to speak briefly in relation to the minister's response. Following on from the theme of Senator Siewert in her previous contribution about the lack of detail, I too would like to focus on some points in that area and on where Minister Butler has failed to provide necessary detail, particularly in relation to suicide prevention and what is being rolled out in this area. I remind the Senate that this motion was agreed to by the chamber, that it was about suicide and that it marked the important R U OK? Day, which was on 13 September 2012.

Importantly, that motion set out some vital statistics in relation to suicide and I would like to repeat those for the chamber. Today, six Australians will die through suicide and more than 200 will make a suicide attempt. One in four deaths among young people occur through suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of death for our young people aged between 15 and 24. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 44 and women under 34. Suicide currently ranks 15th in the overall causes of death in Australia.

The motion asked people to regularly check with each other—friends, colleagues, family—'Are you okay?', to start a conversation that could change a life. Basically the motion called upon the government to increase efforts to raise awareness about the problems and complexity of suicide, especially amongst our young people. The minister, in his very pithy response, simply referred to the National Mental Health Reform package, which he says will see a significant investment. I question that because of the very slow pace at which the rollout of this package is happening. I am not the only one being critical; it is very clear in the mental health community there is a lot of criticism of Minister Butler and his failure to roll out important programs, especially in the area of suicide prevention, and I will come to that.

This package, which was in the 2011-12 budget, came at the end of some very serious pressure on this government to actually take action in the mental health area. I remind the Senate that this came after two motions were passed—in this place and the other place, in October and November of 2010, respectively—where the coalition, with the support of Independents both in this place and the other place, were successful in getting these motions up, which, I remind the Senate, those opposite and their Greens alliance partners voted against. After sustained pressure by the mental health sector and efforts by the coalition to support that pressure, Labor was finally shamed into doing something on mental health in the 2011-12 budget.

As I have repeatedly said, and as is now being said by others, it is very clear that this was simply a smoke and mirrors package because despite the headline figure, which certainly looked impressive, the net spend over the forward estimates was only $583 million. Of course, once you take out $581 million from GP mental health services and allied health treatment sessions from the Better Access program it is very clear that this was simply a smoke and mirrors operation. What was worse was that these cuts were made without proper consultation with practitioners and caused enormous concern throughout the community, especially among mental health practitioners. Then, of course, we saw that in that first year—2011-12—there was only $47 million in new funding and almost $63 million of cuts from existing programs. What was very clear was that the government failed to properly explain how many of the 'new initiatives' were actually new money rather than simply recycled money, reannouncements and reorganising of the deck chairs.

Like just about everything that this government has done, it has the brush of the never-never about it, tainted with that possibility that things may happen into the future. Why do I say that? I say that because it is all tied up with a 10-year road map on mental health which, again, has been heavily criticised. One in five Australians need help now, Minister Butler. They do not need to wait 10 years for a timetable that this government cannot finalise and certainly has not yet been finalised despite all the talk that has occurred. Let me remind the Senate of some other important statistics. I mentioned earlier the six Australians committing suicide every day, but this is only the official statistic. It does not reflect the statistic that was referred to in the last National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing in 2007, which talked about the more than 360,000 people who had contemplated suicide that year.

So, every year we have 360,000 people who contemplate suicide. That statistic then goes down for people who actually take some action towards suicide, and ultimately we come to that 2,000-2,500 official figure of people who suicide. But, as practitioners in this area will tell you, that 2,000-2,500 figure is not reflective of the actual number of suicides and does not take into account many of the single-person fatalities that happen on country roads late in the evening and a range of other deaths in our community, which, sadly, get reported as accidental deaths but in reality are suicides. Indeed, I reiterate that it is vitally important that all governments work to ensure that a mechanism is put into place so that the actual figures and the proper statistics are reflected in the work that we do, so that we deal with the actual figure, not just the official figure, which we know is not really reflective of what is happening out there.

As I said, one in five Australians need help now, not to wait for a 10-year timetable. For those people suffering a mental illness today, for their families, their friends and their carers, regrettably all we see from this government is another hallmark smoke and mirrors trick. Let me take a moment to reflect on suicide prevention. I remind the Senate that in 2010 the big headline figure was about $277 million to be spent on suicide prevention, supposedly over the forward estimates. But in that first year, in an area where we know that moneys need to be rolled out, and we know they need to be rolled out quickly, unfortunately we saw only about $7 million of that being rolled out. Indeed, not even the amount that had been budgeted for in that year—$9 million—was spent. Naturally, this has drawn criticism from people like Professor John Mendoza and others in the mental health space who are understandably and justifiably critical of this government's failure to take definite action in this area. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.