Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, I am hearing only mutterings about these very important issues from those opposite. We have set about resetting our relationships with Indigenous Australians and we have set ourselves very tough and measurable targets right across the board because we know how important it is to improve service delivery. We also know how important it is to reset our relationship. We have decided to overhaul the way we deliver services and infrastructure, especially in remote parts of Australia. Remote parts of Australia deserve the sorts of services and infrastructure that exist in similar sized country towns in other parts of Australia. We are delivering in the areas that are so critical to making sure that children have a safe place to grow up, investing $5.5 billion in remote Indigenous housing and making sure that when we do this we deliver it with secure tenure so that we protect assets and make sure that houses are properly maintained. These are difficult reforms that are so important to the future of Indigenous people.

There is a major reform program in health for Indigenous people. The minister at the table, Minister Snowdon, is helping to drive this to make sure that we prevent and better manage chronic disease and that we address the needs of hearing and vision impairment and dental health services, particularly for children. We are establishing 35 new child and family centres in areas of need, focusing on antenatal care, pre-pregnancy, teenage sexual health programs—the list goes on in health.

It is the same in education. We understand just how important it is to deliver early childhood education to all of our four-year-olds, particularly to Indigenous children in the most disadvantaged parts of Australia. This government has significantly expanded the Indigenous Employment Program. We have reformed the Community Development Employment Projects Program to make sure that we demonstrate that we can support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people getting decent pay for a decent day’s work, not getting second-rate pay.

We have understood how important it is to do the hard things about healing, uniting and restoring human dignity and cultural pride—working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on Indigenous languages, addressing the difficult task of bringing back Indigenous remains from overseas, and making sure that we develop a new voice with a new national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative body. We are establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation with a strong focus on the unique needs of the stolen generations.

These are just a small number of the significant reform issues that this government is pursuing with vigour and determination, unlike the nasty attack that we saw from the member for Warringah, who seems to want to bring to this House today only an attitude of negativity. We have heard not one idea from the member for Warringah that would put him forward, in any way, as a future Leader of the Opposition—which, I must say, I thought must have been behind his putting such an extraordinary item forward as a matter of public importance. This government will continue to pursue our vigorous reform agenda. (Time expired)

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