Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge the Kulin Nation, the traditional owners of the land in the area which I represent, and pay my respects to the elders. According to David Horton’s encyclopedia, it was these people I have just referred to with whom John Batman dealt in 1835, when he believed that he had bought the site of Melbourne. Last week, in fact, we saw a momentous and long overdue event take place in the House when the Prime Minister apologised to the stolen generations. As the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, said:

We acknowledged the past and laid claim to a new future of shared opportunity for all Australians. We did it to go some way towards righting past wrongs, to complete ... unfinished business. We did it to build a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians based on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility.

I add my wholehearted support to that apology. It was long overdue and a credit to our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, that he made it a priority on the first sitting of the 42nd Parliament.

In fact, it is just over 40 years since the referendum of 1967 that asked for a repeal of section 127 of the Constitution, which stated that Australian natives shall not be counted in the reckoning of the numbers of the Commonwealth. Before this there was a 10-year campaign by the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Then the referendum was held in Australia. That referendum was overwhelmingly endorsed, by 90.8 per cent of the voting public. The 1967 referendum deleted section 127 of the Constitution. But, 41 years later, Indigenous people die 17 years earlier than other Australians. Forty-one years from our acknowledgement that no longer were Indigenous Australians to be numbered amongst the fauna, they are still disadvantaged.

Could there be a starker reminder of inequality in Australia than the massive gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians? They suffer more diabetes, heart disease, the ravages of Third World diseases like rheumatic fever and trachoma, more infantile deaths and hospitalisation, more violence, more accidents, more mental health problems, more substance abuse, more unsanitary living conditions and more years in jail.

The Productivity Commission report Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage showed that there is still an overwhelming and unacceptable gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in health, education and employment and income. Nearly 20 years after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended prison as a last resort, between 2000 and 2006 there was a 32 per cent jump in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders locked up. Indigenous students are only half as likely as other Australians to complete year 12 in education. The unemployment rate for Indigenous Australians is still three times higher than for other Australians, and the yawning income gap between us is a disgrace. I think it is a disgrace that we spent so much of the last 10 years clarifying policies to an electorate that does not understand some topics, yet we found it so hard to utter those two syllables: ‘sorry’.

I believe that the issue of the apology has enlarged the hearts, the hopes and the pride of Aboriginal people beyond any measure that I as a non-Aboriginal Australian could have imagined. I believe we were all surprised at the outpouring of interest and the almost sense of relief that the deed had finally been conducted. I do not believe that saying sorry is window dressing; I believe it is a circuit-breaker. By acknowledging wrongs and assessing honestly and rigorously what needs to be done, we move forward. I believe it is the first mile post of a spiritual highway, the way back home for thousands of broken egos and brutalised childhoods, of people so long accustomed to being treated as second class. I believe that saying sorry begins the reconciliation, the building of trust, the mutual respect and the acceptance that can address the underlying discrimination which is a key impediment to the employment opportunities of Indigenous people.

Until recently I was a union leader, so employment and workplaces were my business. At the end of last year I looked at what was happening work wise to Indigenous people 40 years on from the referendum. I know that people were happy to boast about Australia’s record low unemployment, but it is not low for everyone. Indigenous people are three times more likely to be unemployed than other Australians and their participation rate only ranks at three-quarters of the average. Of those in work, they are most likely to be employed in low-paid public sector jobs or in low-skilled jobs in the private sector, with Work for the Dole schemes accounting for an ever-increasing share of Indigenous employment. But, surely, if this is a lucky country Indigenous people would be earning the same as the rest of us. The answer should be yes, but in the year 2004-05 Indigenous people on average earned $278 a week less than the rest of us.

I believe that the employment policies of the last 11 years have failed Indigenous Australians, especially if we judge them on what is a pretty fundamental indicator: how much you earn and how that flows on correspondingly to a reduction in poverty. When over half of the pay packets of Indigenous Australians in fact comes from government pensions and allowances we have a problem. The Productivity Commission revealed that in the 10 years to 2004 Indigenous workers had no measurable real increase in income. If you are an adult in Australia aged 45 to 54 and you are not Indigenous, you are likely to earn nearly 2½ times what your Indigenous counterpart of the same age earns. How could this be happening in the golden years of prosperity? It defies belief. I believe we need to inquire into the pay inequities and the factors at work here. Surely this will be a role for the new government. Labor knows that a mark of a fair and just society is how it treats its most disadvantaged citizens. Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin have committed Labor to closing the 17-year life expectancy gap, starting with Indigenous children being born today.

The Labor government’s initiatives are about making sure that every Indigenous mother and her child have access to comprehensive child and maternal health, home visits, early childhood development, universal preschool for four-year-olds, intensive literacy and numeracy intervention, health care, parenting support and education initiatives in cooperation with state governments and local communities. It is all vital but, to me, education is the key. It is certainly key to creating projects and employment opportunities and to laying the groundwork for a brighter future based on equality and partnership. There are many mistakes to rectify, but I believe that the apology was an enormous step. I believe the healing has already begun.

I would like to mention a good friend of mine, Colleen Marion, who once said:

Having been brought up in a large family in remote Queensland, living in a tin hut, I loved the fact that our family spoke our language, hunted our own food and lived traditionally. All aboriginal kids should experience that lifestyle.

Colleen, who lives in my electorate, now runs a wonderful place called the Gathering Place in the suburb of Maribyrnong, just outside my electorate in my colleague the Hon. Nicola Roxon’s electorate of Gellibrand. Official estimates are that the Indigenous population in the western suburbs of Melbourne number around 3,000, although the Gathering Place thinks it is closer to 4,000. The Gathering Place provides a very good model of intervention which actively assists in practical ways the lives of Indigenous Australians. This place provides accessible services, including a family support unit; a GP clinic, home and community care programs; playgroups; justice and youth workers; and many more.

The service has been growing rapidly. For instance, in the last 12 months there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of clients accessing the Gathering Place services. A year ago, 70 to 80 clients were attending the clinic every month and now it is 140 to 150. Many of them have complex chronic diseases and social circumstances which require referral to services and also support to attend these services. An intake worker assesses every new client to ensure the issues are identified so that appropriate services can be offered. The demand has grown so much that they are expanding from their current premises and have set up a satellite service in Werribee in the Hon. Julia Gillard’s electorate.

I was honoured to invite and host Colleen Marion here in Canberra for Sorry Day. She is a magnificent and caring woman who opens her heart for all. The joy and solemnity of Sorry Day touched us all and I think the repercussions are beginning to ripple across the waters of our community immediately. According to Colleen’s Gathering Place:

Since the Australian Government’s apology to the stolen generations the gathering place has had an increased number of people from stolen generations approaching the service for support. The apology has been an important step for these people in acknowledging their history to improve their well being.

I heartily support the motion of the Prime Minister in making an apology to the stolen generations. I commit myself wholeheartedly to this new and more hopeful chapter in Australia in celebrating our ongoing story of reconciliation with Indigenous Australia.

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