Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I respond to the comments made in the matter of public importance by the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs by saying that we on this side of the House not only come with a strong commitment to find grounds for bipartisan approaches to this issue but also recognise that we do not have the answers. I also strongly say to the minister that, if we do talk about walking together, we do it in a way which acknowledges that some of the differences that we have about ideology and approach should not blind us to the needs that Indigenous communities have, including the ones that he spoke so strongly about in the House.

I remind the minister that many of us here have had a long and abiding concern, interest and connection with these issues, so we are very aware of the level of abuse, suffering and hurt. We are well aware of the level of dysfunctionality that some communities display and we have given some thought to what the best means might be for governments to address this issue. We say to the minister very clearly that it will not be sufficient—notwithstanding the strong fervour that he has for addressing law and order, and I take nothing away by that comment—to confine his approach and the government’s approach to those law and order issues, although they need addressing. It will be equally essential to go to the matters that we have put up for debate and discussed in this matter of public importance.

Here is the test for the government and for the minister. For 10 years a number of ministers have held this portfolio and the Prime Minister himself has committed himself to the cause of true reconciliation with the Aboriginal people of Australia by federation, but within that 10 years, on indicators of health and life expectancy, Indigenous people have continued to go backwards. That is the direction they have headed in. In order to address that particular aspect of what has happened to Indigenous people, we must look at the underlying issues and we must recognise that these issues have a historical component that attaches to them. The problems that the minister spoke about in places like Wadeye and the Alice Springs town camps are the product of generations of governments’ mistreatment and neglect. As long as there is no national strategy to deal with those problems which addresses not only the necessary observance and proper respect for law and due process within the criminal justice system but in addition the causes of violence and abuse, backed up with the resources to do the job including realistic and measurable goals and time lines at the summit that the minister is going to hold, then these problems will continue. That is the minister’s challenge.

Let us recognise that some of these debates can waylay us. A debate about political correctness or customary law and the impact that it has on the criminal justice system is a debate that we can have, but it is not the key debate. The key debate is how a First World country can allow its first people to live in Third World conditions and to suffer the matters that the minister referred to. As the minister knows, there have been some 40 reports since 1990, and I think 21 reports in the last two terms of this government. There are plenty of answers in there for this minister. Many parliamentarians on both sides of the House have used their good intelligence and their commitment to Indigenous people to consider how these issues should be addressed. What has happened to those reports? What has happened to those recommendations? What has happened to those submissions?

I was interested to hear the Co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Mark Leibler—whom the minister will know—make the point just last night about reconciliation being ‘a journey for all Australians as joint navigators’. He went on to observe:

Governments must acknowledge, privately and publicly, that the necessary immediate law and justice response needs to be supported by properly resourced action to address underlying causes.

We need some proportion in this debate, and I hope that we can bring it in the call that my colleague the member for Lingiari made and in the responses that we have heard from Minister Brough. Not every out-station is a living museum and not every settlement is dysfunctional. Numerous homeland centres around Yirrkala, for example, in north-east Arnhem Land are happy and healthy places. Papunya, often mentioned, is getting on top of its petrol sniffing problems. In my electorate of Kingsford Smith, parents at La Perouse are making solid efforts to get their kids back into school for the long term.

It is true we do need to square up to the violence that the minister refers to. We need to take responsibility as members of political parties, and governments also need to do that. But let us be clear: the rate of Indigenous youth in jail is already alarmingly high. Is the suggestion I hear coming from some quarters that we will simply jail all these kids and that they will now sit in jail for the next five, 10 or 15 years? At what cost to them and at what cost to the community? We need better interventions, more policing and more rehabilitation measures. We need state governments and bureaucrats to step up to the mark and we need the Commonwealth to lead the effort.

I do note and I do say very strongly that the reasons for the high levels of unacceptable violence and sexual abuse against women have already been identified and reported on. The minister spoke of the Australian Institute of Family Studies. It reports that there have been many years of inaction. Surely that is the point here. I hope, Minister Brough, that when the Prime Minister gave you this portfolio you said to him, ‘Don’t take it away from me. I want to keep it for as long as I can so that I can get the job done.’ I think, Minister, we need to ask you whether you will push hard for some of the budget surplus to be invested in making Indigenous people and Indigenous communities healthy. The AMA have done much good work on this and they continue to provide their report cards to government. They say again and again that health care and preventative health care remain consistently underfunded. This is something that the Commonwealth could address, and it could address it now.

You raised good points in the discussion about housing, but are we simply saying that we are not going to provide levels of housing that all other Australians in similar conditions and circumstances would receive until specific instances of criminal violence, damage or destruction are dealt with? Surely that is not what the minister is proposing here. We must commit necessary resources. If we do not, we are just going to be treading water on addressing the underlying causes of violence and abuse.

The Treasurer in question time took a question on comparative economies. I cannot remember exactly what his answer was—I do not want to endorse it—but I think we should ask the same question about comparative countries as they address issues of Indigenous people. Let us look at Canada, a comparative country. Let us look at the efforts they have made. Let us look at the money they have spent. Let us look at the resources—the significant additional resources—that they have committed to health. Let us look at something else that they have done which we need to do—let us look at the fact that they squared up to their past. They did not try and provide their own perspective on the past; they squared up to it. In squaring up to it, they recognised that people had been hurt—people had been terribly abused in the schooling system there—and that those people needed to have that hurt recognised and acknowledged by the national government and policies put in place, resourced and supported to enable them to come to terms with that hurt and to rebuild their lives so that they could make a decent contribution to Canada.

As we look at the statistics in Canada, we see that by taking that decision—in other words, by adopting both reconciliation and practical measures—the Canadians have succeeded in arresting the decline and have improved the conditions for their indigenous people, something which in Australia, to our great shame, we have failed to do. So, Minister, why not use the national summit to come up with a national strategy on violence and abuse which includes realistic targets and time frames and measurable goals? Why not include Indigenous leaders in that summit? I say finally: if we are going to move forward, why not look at ways in which Indigenous people can meaningfully engage not only in your summit but also as part of a national representative body which they support and develop which would enable them to work hand-in-hand with governments as both embark on this important task together?

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