Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Last week’s apology here in this parliament to Indigenous people, to the stolen generation, was an important turning point in our nation’s history. I take this opportunity to personally thank the Leader of the Opposition for supporting that motion. In this parliament we used a solemn occasion to do something about setting to right some of the wrongs of the past. It provides us all, as the parliament of this country and as the government and the opposition, a way to carve out a new future for Indigenous Australians.

The future, from our side of the House, lies in the question: how do we now close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians? How do we close the gap in terms of life expectancy? How do we close the gap in terms of infant and child mortality? How do we close the gap in education outcomes and employment outcomes? These are the critical benchmarks which will be applied to us as a government in the future, as to whether our policy settings succeeded or failed. It is important that we, therefore, as a government embrace every practical measure available to us to achieve those targets within the time frames that we have put clearly on the public record.

My colleagues in the cabinet and the ministry have been hard at work putting forward measures which are aimed explicitly at helping Indigenous communities in education and in other areas. For example, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs announced jointly last week funding for an extra 200 teachers for the Northern Territory. In my travels to the Northern Territory in recent months, we ran into teachers who had come to Darwin from remote communities. You cannot get past a single conversation without one of them raising with you: ‘We do not have enough teachers in this community,’ or, ‘We do not have enough physical resources to ensure that kids are being taught in the school in our community, or enough housing for our teachers.’ It is time we began to act in these areas.

On top of that, the Minister for Health and Ageing announced funding of $50 million to reduce alcohol and substance abuse, given its impact on Indigenous families in particular. Furthermore, we have a commitment of $48 million to support welfare reform trials in Cape York communities.

Last week in the parliament I also announced my intention to establish a new joint policy commission on Indigenous housing, to be co-chaired by me and the Leader of the Opposition. I have had the opportunity now of sitting down on a couple of occasions with the Leader of the Opposition to begin discussing this through, and I look forward to those discussions, as I hope they will continue next week and the week after.

Together with the minister for Indigenous affairs, I will be visiting an Indigenous community tomorrow in New South Wales to begin looking at specific needs for Indigenous housing in those communities, as well as related questions concerning health, education and physical safety and security. I would also hope that, if discussions between the Leader of the Opposition and me come to a successful conclusion on the joint policy commission, into the future and the weeks ahead we will have an opportunity jointly to visit Indigenous communities around the country and to examine first-hand their particular housing needs.

This is simply a start to what will be an ambitious program of work on behalf of the government. We know that the aspirations of the nation and Indigenous people, which were raised as a consequence of the events in the parliament last week, now have to be met through a program of practical action. Targets have been set and time lines have been established. We now have to roll up our sleeves and do it. Tomorrow, the minister and I will begin that process. We hope in due season, if it is possible to reach conclusion and agreement between us on the shape, architecture, composition and precise operating arrangements for this joint policy commission on Indigenous housing, we will be able to do it conjointly into the future as well.

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