Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2007, the Council of Australian Governments committed to closing the gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians. In 2008, during his apology to Indigenous Australians, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised to deliver a report card each year on the government's efforts to close the gap. For over a decade now we have sat in this place listening to report after report, speech after speech, from government after government. And as we listen, risking becoming numbed by statistics and disconnected from the reality of the human lives they represent, around us in this building over 2,500 clocks are ticking out the time, letting us know as each hour passes that we still have not turned the tide on Indigenous disadvantage, reminding us that a nation not yet reconciled isn't truly whole and reminding us that, for eight long years, Liberal coalition governments have kicked the can down the road on responsibility for and progress on closing the gap. Last week, Prime Minister Morrison delivered the latest iteration of this report. Sadly and disturbingly, the data shows that massive disadvantage remains and that on many of the targets there has been no substantial change.

For so many First Australians, life is deprived, frightening and unjust. They are still far more likely to be jailed, far more likely to die by suicide and far more likely to have their children removed than non-Indigenous Australians. Out of the 17 targets, only three are on track. As my colleague in the other place Linda Burney pointed out: even if the adult incarceration goal were to be met, the rate would still be more than 11 times higher than that of the non-Indigenous population; even if the youth incarceration goal of a reduction of 30 per cent by 2031 were to be met, the rate would still be more than 12 times higher than for the non-Indigenous population; and, even if the out-of-home-care goal of a 45 per cent reduction by 2031 were to be met, the rate would still be five times higher than for the non-Indigenous population.

This year, Mr Morrison presented the parliament with a new agreement: the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, a full and genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in making policies to close the gap. It is a welcome step, but should it really have taken eight long years to work that out? Lasting change will only stem from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people having a genuine say in the policies that affect them, a voice that will help to finally end what the Uluru Statement from the Heart describes as 'the torment of our powerlessness'.

In north-west Tasmania, we have a wonderful organisation called No. 34 Aboriginal Health Service. They encourage their community to achieve better health outcomes by offering a wide range of medical, support and referral services, as well as programs to improve health and wellbeing and promote connection to country, culture and community. They look to reduce the barriers for clients to access medical care, and to facilitate pathways that are culturally safe and easy to engage with.

At one of their events I attended recently, we were invited to watch a film made by Arts Health Agency in collaboration with No. 34 staff and clients—one of a number of projects that they had made together since the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Part of its strategy was to maintain connections through art-making, story-telling and the sharing of knowledge. The film project was made with the women's group narta sista, most of whom live with chronic health conditions. It explores their deep connections with each other and how a health service supports their social and emotional wellbeing. It looks at the present and the past. It looks at the way the removal of children by white authorities, as well as other racist policies, divided families and still does to this day—how these policies separated whole communities, so sisters, aunties and cousins would cross the street and not acknowledge one another because one was whiter than the other. The film is also a conversation about what the women are learning from each other and what kind of 'old' they want to be in the future. What does cultural care look like as we age?

I want to thank narta sista for their generosity in sharing their stories. I felt deeply honoured to hear them. The film strengthens their solidarity and resilience, and the women of narta sista are proud of their achievement. The film is part of their voice and their truth. They have the power to decide how, when and even if to share their stories. That power is incredibly important, because only they fully understand the torment of the powerless, which they have known.

There are many good and healing stories in places like No. 34, and there are other signs of hope. The Liberal Premier of Tasmania has recently appointed Tasmania's former Governor Kate Warner and law professor Tim McCormack to lead talks with the state's Aboriginal community in an effort to find a path to reconciliation and a treaty. If the Liberal Premier of Tasmania can do that, then I dream that I might one day hear the words 'voice, treaty and truth' uttered by a majority of those on the other side of this chamber. Honestly, it baffles me why a request to consult people on matters that affect them is seen by some here as such a big ask.

It was a grave disappointment to hear the Prime Minister last week rule out the First Nations voice to parliament before the next election. Voice means First Nations people having a say in decisions, policies and laws that affect them. After centuries of violence, theft and dispossession, isn't that the least that we can get sorted—not a third chamber of parliament but a mechanism safely enshrined in our Constitution: a place to talk and a place to listen, a place that cannot be swept away every time the political tide turns? Voice, truth and treaty—First Nations people have asked for these things, demonstrating an extraordinary patience, a patience that Linda Burney describes as so great that it counts as an expression of profound generosity.

Most of my colleagues know that I'm a pretty impatient person. Once I can see that something needs doing, I can't see the logic in delay. As I walk around this parliament building, its walls adorned with so many breathtaking works of Aboriginal art, as well as those 2,500 clocks, which seem to be ticking louder than ever, it feels as though time is slipping away. But sharing stories and truth takes time—healing takes time—because there is so much to find out. A makarrata, a coming together after a struggle, is a beautiful concept that a Labor government will make real. An Albanese Labor government will establish an independent makarrata commission as a priority, to oversee processes for treaty-making and truth-telling. It will also work with a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament. Closing the gap requires tangible action, which Labor will deliver, such as: doubling the number of Indigenous rangers; setting a target to increase First Nations employment in the Australian Public Service to five per cent; supporting the good work of many of Australia's largest employers to increase the rate of First Nations employment; improving access to training and apprenticeships for First Nations people; addressing the market in fake art, which robs many First Nations artists of income; supporting growth for Indigenous owned businesses in domestic and international trade; reaffirming the importance of Indigenous rights in future international trade agreements; and providing an additional $10 million each year for Indigenous protected areas.

Listening to and empowering First Nations people will be at the very core of our approach to closing the gap and reconciliation. Australia needs a government that will deliver the Uluru statement in full—voice, treaty and truth. Only a Labor government will make that happen.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having had the benefit this morning of sitting in the chair—as you are right now, Acting Deputy President Chandler—and hearing the contributions on this very important debate, I was forced to cast my mind back to 2013, when I first came to this chamber, and my first speech in this place. In it I indicated that one of the things that concerned me was that the Closing the Gap statement, which was an historic event of 2007 and was replicated every year in the House, was actually not marked here in the Senate. I make this observation because it is several years down the track—2013 through to now—and today is, in fact, the first day that we are having a time-unlimited debate on the Closing the Gap statement. It's not February—we've changed so much, and here we are in August—but this will be an annual examination of the conscience of the nation. I use those words as a person of the Catholic faith who has that thing called the sacrament of confession. That's unfamiliar to many people, but it gives me a language to talk about the concept of reviewing and thinking about what is right action and what is good action. The question for us is: What is appropriate action? What is right and good action for the people of this country with regard to our First Nations?

This morning, Senator Siewert made a contribution, and she acknowledged the Lowitja Institute. She spoke about Lowitja indicating that there are ways of knowing, ways of doing and ways of being. That is the journey that we need to undertake as Australian people—to understand the ways of knowing of the First Nations peoples, the ways of being of the First Nations peoples and the ways of doing of the First Nations peoples—because God knows when we got here, at colonisation, we didn't look for the wisdom of a nation; we declared its absence.

Indeed, Senator Dodson, in his contribution this morning, spoke about the challenges that face us, even with these years and years of recognition under the Closing the Gap mantle. He spoke about the fanfare around the announcement, just last week, of implementation plans. He spoke about the first target, prescribing a 15 per cent increase in Aboriginal landmass to Indigenous rights and interests and a 15 per cent increase in their rights or interests in the sea, but he spoke about the incapacity to actually even agree on those targets in recent days. We can't do that. He said that the meeting agreed to defer, and I loved the expression of hope that he gave this morning that things can still be resolved. He said:

… I hope that goodwill will prevail. But this demonstrates the perennial challenge of negotiating at a table which rests on the unresolved legacy of terra nullius and the denied sovereignty of First Nations peoples.

There is the heart of the challenge we face.

We are making some progress. I note the difference in terms of how we acknowledge country and how that's happening in schools and at places where we gather around the country. But, in the same way that we need to make that an authentic gesture of acknowledgement—that the First Nations people are our First Nations—we need also to make sure that this annual report is not simply a box-ticking exercise. We need to guard against it becoming a pointless ceremony on which we should drop a few meagre words here and there. Of all the ministerial statements we review, this has primacy above all, in my view, given the outrageous realities of disadvantage that prevail after all these years of colonisation in our country. For ordinary Australians, five out of 1,000 children might be removed from their home. But for First Nations people, in 2021, 56 out of 1,000 children will be removed. I'm heartened by the acknowledgement of the suffering of the stolen generation, but it's not just one generation that has been removed. We're talking about 56 out of a thousand First Nations children being removed from their home today. This is an enormous challenge for us to face, and we need to make great changes to our policies to address that.

I want to acknowledge the contribution of Senator Bridget McKenzie, who spoke about education and its impact. Of all the things she said, I want to particularly note that she indicated that we need to close the gap at the beginning of life. I can only endorse that. I also want to acknowledge the contribution of one of the few speakers from the government who have come out today, and that is Senator Bragg, who spoke about language. What I want to do this evening is to put on the record what might yet be unknown to many First Nations people, and that is the experience that I had, and learned from, under the tutelage of my colleague in the Senate Senator Nova Peris, when we visited Elcho Island with the standing committee on health. It was the first occasion that I had been in a community where language—their own Indigenous language—was so prominent, and, because of her knowledge and her understanding of culture, Senator Peris revealed to me how important it would be if we were able to take the evidence in language, and that's what we did. We actually got a translator on the day and we took evidence in language. The day commenced with all the English—all the magic words that we say—but it changed, and the whole tenor of the room was transformed as First Nations people spoke to the parliament in their own language. We now have, within our standing orders—and perhaps this is not widely known—the capacity for all of our committees to take evidence in language and for that language to be reported and recorded in Hansard in language as well as in English. This is not only a just and right thing to do; this is a powerful thing to do—to recover language and to prize the multitude of beautiful languages of the First Nations people.

These are small things, and it will be a combination of many small things that will help us advance from this moment, when we can continue to hope and strive towards a better nation in which the glaring failure of our previous policies is writ large in the revealing of the Closing the Gap targets. There has been far too little progress on these matters over many years, but in the last eight years it's been a wholesale disaster. Last year, the government basically wiped the slate and re-established a different scheme where there would be 17 new targets. I'm heartened that three of those 17 targets were met: improving birth weight and early education attendance and reducing the number of Indigenous teenagers in youth justice. But it is horrifying to see the 14 commitments that are not on track. There has been no progress on Indigenous life expectancy, no progress on reducing the rate of overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in out-of-home care, and no progress on reducing the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults held in incarceration. And, tragically—

Debate interrupted.