Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation and Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to indicate my support for this motion in a generous spirit and in the hope that we will see further concrete improvements in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In 1924 the United Aborigines Mission opened a mission facility in Oodnadatta. This facility later moved to Quorn, in the lower Flinders Ranges, and after that to Eden Hills, in my electorate, in 1944. It was known as the Colebrook Home. Matron Ruby Hyde and Sister Rutter ran the Colebrook Home for most of its early 30 years. They were well regarded, and this was their life’s work.

Originally, the children taken to this home were Arrernte, Arabana, Antakirinja or Pitjantjatjara in background. The children attended school on site because the local primary and secondary school would not accept the Colebrook children. Later, older girls attended Mitcham Girls Technical High School and the boys went to Goodwood Technical High School. Between 1943 and 1972 some 350 children lived at this site. The home produced nurses, schoolteachers, kindergarten directors, social workers, welfare and liaison officers, missionaries and tradesmen. Amy Levai was the first primary schoolteacher of Aboriginal descent in South Australia, in 1963. She was from the Colebrook Home. Lois O’Donoghue was the first Aboriginal nurse trainee in South Australia, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1954, and Australian of the Year in 1985.

The Colebrook Home was closed in 1972. It was razed in 1973. There is now a memorial in remembrance of the Aboriginal children who lived at the Colebrook Home. So in the electorate of Boothby there is an understanding of the events of this generation of Aboriginal children. In fact, in 1997 the local community held a barbecue for former residents of the Colebrook Home, expecting 500 people to attend. It was attended by over 2,000 people.

But in reading the history of this home there are a number of different threads that one can take. Firstly, as I mentioned, there are positives and negatives here. That the children were removed from their families from the point of view of race is something we find distasteful and unacceptable today, but there were positives which came out of this experience as well. As I mentioned, this was the lifework of the people who ran this home. They were very much focused on seeing that the Aboriginal children who attended the home would have careers, jobs and a place in society.

So let us take the opportunity presented by this motion to move forward on a whole number of areas in Aboriginal affairs. I welcome the comments by Noel Pearson and the work that is done by the Cape York Institute in recognising the problems of welfare dependency and passive reliance, which have bedevilled many of our Indigenous communities. I think his thoughts are a very welcome contribution to the debate.

I also note that, in the Productivity Commission’s 2007 report Overcoming indigenous disadvantage, there are a number of key indicators in Aboriginal communities which are improving. For example, in the 10 years leading up to 2004-05 there were large falls in unemployment rates for Indigenous men and women. The unemployment rate fell from 30 per cent in 1994 to 13 per cent in 2004-05—still too high, but a dramatic fall from where we were. Also, the proportion of Indigenous adults living in homes that they owned or were purchasing increased. The number of Indigenous adults with a certificate III level or above qualification increased from eight per cent to 21 per cent over that 10-year period.

Child health has improved over this period, but infant mortality rates are still too high, at two to three times the level of the non-Indigenous population. But, less encouraging, there are a number of areas where there has been no change. There has been no change in the incidence of low birth weight babies and there has been no change in the prevalence of hearing problems. And there are a couple of areas where there has actually been, on the basis of the Productivity Commission’s 2007 report, a deterioration, including a whole range of crime statistics and also domestic abuse.

I remember well, as a medical student, seeing an infant from Ernabella—from what were then called the Pitlands, I think, and are now called the AP lands—with whooping cough. That is a disease that is preventable by vaccination and yet is far too common in our Indigenous communities. That was probably, as a medical student, the first Aboriginal patient I was involved in the care of. Later, as a doctor, I remember having many Aboriginal patients from South Australia and the Northern Territory—patients with kidney disease, patients with vascular disease.

We do see, and it is well known in a whole range of areas, that the health of Aboriginal people is much worse than that of the rest of our community. We see a greatly increased rate of kidney disease, and there are indications that the rate of kidney disease is actually increasing amongst Indigenous people. We have seen in recent times increased hospitalisation of older Indigenous people, and that is actually associated with poor environmental health, including housing and sanitation.

As previous speakers have said, the life expectancy for Aborigines is 17 years less than for the total Australian population. It is 18 years less for Indigenous males, who have a life expectancy of 59, compared with 77 for non-Indigenous males. Indigenous females have a life expectancy of 65, compared with 82 for non-Indigenous females. These have been mentioned as areas which need to be addressed, and they will be able to tell us if we are getting anywhere. Diabetes is three times more common amongst the Indigenous population.

In the area of education, I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments about preschool education. I do make the observation though that for over 30 years Aboriginal three-year-olds in South Australia have been able to access state kindergartens and this is actually given as a great example of something that works in that 2007 report of the state of play in Indigenous affairs by the Productivity Commission. Across Australia, only about a quarter of Indigenous children currently attend a preschool. So it is an area where great improvements can be made. But, as I said, in my own state there has been provision for that for over 30 years.

In the area of employment, labour force participation rates for Aborigines is 58.5 per cent compared with 78.1 per cent for non-Indigenous people—still way too low. The unemployment rate is 13 per cent—still three times the rate for non-Indigenous people, but the participation rate has increased over the last 10 years. In recent times, we have seen a number of positive examples of companies taking their own initiative to increase the number of Indigenous people in their workforce. I think of Rio Tinto, one of the corporate leaders for the Indigenous Employment Program. There are a number of other corporate leaders in this program. In the mid-1990s at Rio Tinto fewer than one in 200 of their workforce was Indigenous; now approximately seven per cent of their workforce is Indigenous. Their subsidiary Argyle Diamonds want to see their Indigenous workforce increase to 40 per cent by 2010.

The Prime Minister in his remarks also identified housing as an important area for improvement which needs to be addressed by this commission. It is well known and it has been well known for over 100 years that housing plays a critical role in health. A recent article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health entitled ‘The state of health hardware in Aboriginal communities in rural and remote Australia’, by Paul Torzillo and others, describes a survey of over 4,000 homes in the Territory and in four states over an eight-year period. What they found was a disgraceful state of housing in Indigenous communities. They found only 11 per cent of houses passed an electricity safety check. In 50 per cent of houses, a child or baby could not be washed in a tub or bath. There was a functioning shower in only 35 per cent of houses and only six per cent of houses had adequate facilities to store, prepare and cook meals.

In the areas of health, education, employment and housing, while there are positive signs that we can point to, there are also a lot of improvements to be made. I take this opportunity to say that it is critical that we as a federal parliament continue to work so that we do see improvements in the health, education, employment and housing of our Indigenous communities.

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