Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Closing the gap—Prime Minister’s report 2010. It is a great honour to be a member of the Australian parliament and a great honour to be a member of a government that is very committed to making a difference in the lives of all Australians but particularly those of people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds. The statistics show that overwhelmingly they have lower life expectancy, worse health outcomes, worse educational outcomes and worse employment outcomes. As a government we are very much committed to ensuring that we work on the practical responses to those issues. But, importantly, we also recognise that in working to develop plans to fix these problems we need to recognise the hurt in Aboriginal communities because of successive governments’ failure to apologise for past policies that really damaged many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This report has been given in the second year after the historic apology that was part of this government’s first sitting. As a new member of the class of 2007, I participated in that historic day, when the Prime Minister and the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Nelson, came together to apologise on behalf of the parliament to Indigenous Australians. It is very fitting that the Prime Minister should report at this time, just prior to the anniversary of that day, two years on from 13 February 2008. As the member for Leichhardt, representing so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not only in the city of Cairns but up through remote communities in Cape York and the Torres Strait, I look forward to participating in a celebration of that day and that event.

I was very lucky this year to be invited to an event being held by the Wuchopperen Health Service—a very well-established and respected health service in my electorate—of Cairns, and its chairperson, Ms Julieanne Boneham. I sat down with elders and others who really experienced the benefits of that apology and talked about how it impacted on their lives and what it meant to them. I think what people are really looking for now is the practical measures that we are taking to build on what was a very important day a couple of years ago. The government is very committed to making a practical difference to Indigenous people’s lives. The Prime Minister in his speech, as he went through the statistics, recognised that this was going to take a long time but also that good things were happening. We are improving school attendance in Cape York Peninsula. We are improving school attendance in the Northern Territory through the Northern Territory emergency response, in which a bipartisan approach was taken. We are looking to put that response on a more sustainable footing with legislation being debated in the other place. We need a bipartisan approach to dealing with Indigenous affairs. We need a bipartisan approach to closing the gap in Indigenous life expectancy. The legislation that is before the House will ensure that welfare reform moves forward and moves beyond Indigenous communities. We are looking for support from the opposition because the benefits will flow to others in the broader community, as well as continuing to flow to other Indigenous communities that currently are not benefiting from the opportunities that welfare reform income management provides.

Last week I was lucky enough to travel up to the Cape to visit Bamagoo and Injinoo, where I opened some facilities at the Injinoo Primary School campus which were a direct result of our Building the Education Revolution funding and part of our economic stimulus package. It was great to get up there. Their school is doing a great job. I congratulate Ken Maclean, the Head of Campus for the Northern Peninsula Area School, Trish Blackman the Head of Campus for the Injinoo Junior School campus, and also Jeffrey Aniba, who could not come along, who is the chair of the local community education council and who is doing a lot of work to ensure the committee is working effectively with the local school. It is right—and I know opposition members have been making comments on this point, and I do agree—that we need to provide a great education environment and new facilities are part of that. Providing additional funding to improve quality through our SES funding to the schools which particularly need additional support is important and many schools in my electorate have received that funding. But we also need to make sure that kids come from families and housing that provide them with an environment which enables them to get an education. Our land reforms—and we are working in partnership with the Queensland government in my electorate—our investment in new Indigenous housing and our welfare reforms are all critically important. We need to take a holistic approach to closing the gap in Indigenous life expectancy. It was great to get up to Injinoo and to Bamagoo to talk to people about what we can do in the education sector.

Last week I also visited Lockhart River on the way back to Cairns—it was a busy week, last week. I was down in Canberra by Friday for the hearing with the Governor of the Reserve Bank. I know that people are looking to see the new housing in the Lockhart rolled out expeditiously and are looking forward to the benefits of it. We have not seen these sorts of investments in housing previously under any former government that I am aware of. It is a historic investment and housing is critically important to closing the gap. To do that we need to complete our land reform process in partnership with the Queensland government. We want to move away from a collective ownership of land in Indigenous townships and ensure that we can get 40-year leases and 99-year leases that enable more social housing to be built in places like Lockhart and all of the communities in the Cape York Peninsula. They have never seen this sort of investment in housing previously. We want to see those houses being built and we are working in partnership with the Queensland government on that critically important task.

As I said, income management is being trialled in four welfare reform communities in Cape York—Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge. That work is rolling out. It is about making sure that families are spending their money on food, clothing and school expenses and getting their kids to school. Alcohol management plans were in place in Aboriginal communities in the Cape York Peninsula long before the Northern Territory intervention. That was the work of Noel Pearson and the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership working in partnership with the Queensland government. Those reforms need to continue.

When you put in place those sorts of reforms you need to provide services to support them. That is why we built wellbeing centres. That is why we are funding the Royal Flying Doctor Service at Apunipima Cape York Health Council to deliver support services as part of these reforms. They are critically important in an overall plan to make a difference to the lives of Indigenous people.

The government has also brought in reforms in relation to CDEP so that people do not get caught in a program that is not leading to longer term employment. Given history, their circumstances and the numbers of jobs that are available, there will be people who will get caught in a longer term welfare dependent situation. But we need to make sure that young people in particular are not moving into that, and that is what our CDEP reforms are about. We need to do more to make sure that Job Services Australia agencies are working effectively with the new CDEP contracts. There needs to be more work done on that.

I congratulate Minister Macklin. Whenever I take up an issue with her she is keen to listen to me and look at how we can respond and do things better. I know that Minister Macklin and Minister Arbib will continue to make sure these reforms are rolled out and improve the lives of Indigenous people.

If we can create better housing and other infrastructure in communities we can ensure that law and order is in place. That has happened in Cape York with alcohol management plans, and there is an increased investment in policing, with new police stations and police housing being built in these communities. If we can ensure that welfare payments, where people are dependent on them, are being spent on food and clothing and that people are getting their kids to school, then we can ensure that in the longer term people’s health will improve. That is what the statistics show. More kids will go to school when they get a better school environment. We are building infrastructure and providing support for schools to employ new teachers and improve curriculum.

It is not going to happen this year or next year, but in the next 10 to 20 years we will see the statistics improve. As the reports come in year after year, we will see the gap in Indigenous life expectancy, education outcomes and health outcomes improve because the government has embarked on a holistic approach around housing, health, education and employment. It is really about a significant partnership between us and Indigenous Australia. I am committed to that. I want to have a long career in this place. The former member I think had 12 years. If I have that long—and, touch wood, I will; there is an election later this year—I want to be able to look back as the member for Leichhardt and see a significant change in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in the communities in my electorate. Hopefully, I will have made a small contribution to that.

In the end individuals change their own circumstances and lives. What governments can do, though, is enable that change to happen, and that is what the Rudd government is committed to doing. We want to partner the opposition when it comes to important issues like income management and welfare reform. We want to work with them cooperatively. That is what I encourage them to do—make a difference and work with us to close the gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Debate (on motion by Mr Craig Thomson) adjourned.

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