Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

During National Reconciliation Week, I think it is appropriate to support this motion. We need to take every opportunity to acknowledge the important contribution that Indigenous Australians have made throughout the history of our country, to acknowledge the important history and the achievements of Indigenous Australians. I also want to take the opportunity to reflect on our history, to express contrition, to say sorry and to reaffirm our commitment to closing the gap—to making sure that we do everything we possibly can to give our brothers and sisters of Indigenous background the same opportunities that those of us not from that background enjoy in our country.

National Reconciliation Week is a very significant week in the life of our country. It is my honour to be the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. I will talk in a few minutes time about what we are doing in our inquiry into the incarceration of Indigenous juveniles and young adults.

When I was elected in November 2007, I came to this parliament on the first day, in February 2008, acknowledging that it was our party's policy to say sorry. I knew that was important. Ipswich, where I live, has a very large Indigenous community. In fact, in the whole Ipswich-Logan corridor there is a very large Indigenous community—and great workers. Indeed, the electorate of Blair is named after Harold Blair, an Indigenous opera singer, civil rights campaigner and former Labor candidate who grew up in the Purga Mission south of Ipswich. I pay tribute to the Purga elders who are still there doing good work and the great organisations in my electorate like the Kambu Medical Centre, which provides health services, dental services and a whole range of allied health services to the people of the western corridor and Ipswich. But I did not really realise the implications of saying sorry in my heart. I knew it in my head. I want to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, now our foreign minister, for expressing on behalf of our country that we are sorry. It was a brilliant and moving speech. I would have to say that, apart from that, the two greatest speeches that I have heard in my lifetime are the 'It's time' speech by Gough Whitlam back in 1972, when I was a young fellow—that was pretty good—and Paul Keating's Redfern speech, which was simply superb. Mr Rudd made his apology speech on 13 February 2008, and it was extraordinary. He acknowledged the mistreatment of the stolen generations, that blemished chapter in our nation's history, and the fact that it was time for our country to turn the page. He apologised for the laws and policies of successive governments which caused profound grief, loss and sorrow, especially the removal of Indigenous children from their mums and dads. He said acknowledgement was the first step towards reconciliation and a future in which the injustices of the past would never be repeated.

But there could not have been the sorry speech of former Prime Minister Rudd without the sorry speech, if I can put it like that, of Paul Keating. He talked of Australia as 'truly the land of the fair go and the better chance'. He gave that speech in Redfern, which was an appropriate place to do it, on the occasion of the Australian launch, on 10 December 1992, of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People in 1993. He wanted to recognise the plight of Aboriginal Australians, and he said these words, which I think bear repeating:

… the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.

It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask—how would I feel if this were done to me?

Mr Keating went on to say:

I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit.

All of us.

You can see what a wonderful speech it was. And the speech of former Prime Minister Rudd could not have happened without that earlier speech.

We must never, ever again pursue policies of discrimination. We must redouble our efforts to close the gap. Two centuries of white settlement have brought great benefit to this country, and we embrace with pride and respect what we have done, but there has also been heartache. We have caused grief and despair and loss—the loss of language and the loss of loved ones stolen away. There are huge gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. There are areas of disadvantage: life expectancy and lifestyle, alcohol and abuse, family violence and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, education and employment, health and home, and income and incarceration.

It is that last matter, incarceration, that I want to look at for a couple of minutes. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs is about to table a report that acknowledges, in the 20 years since the report by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the shameful history under all governments of our record with respect to the incarceration of Indigenous youth and young adults. Prisoner census data shows that, between 2000 and 2010, the number of Indigenous people incarcerated increased dramatically—Indigenous men by 55 per cent and Indigenous women by 47 per cent. It is a sorry state of affairs and, with Sorry Day just past, it is appropriate to acknowledge this shameful state of affairs and commit ourselves to working in partnership with our Indigenous brothers and sisters to close the gap.

I would like to acknowledge a couple of people who came forward to give evidence on the record in the inquiry. There were so many across about 110 submissions and 17 public hearings, including a roundtable in Redfern which was quite poignant and moving. Shane Phillips, from the Tribal Warrior Association in Sydney, is mentoring young men to be productive and strong leaders in their communities. Duncan Smith actually taught the committee a traditional song from his homeland to take to New Zealand when we engaged with the Maori leaders there. He runs an enterprising dance and culture business here in Canberra. But there are so many other notable people and organisations across the country, including in my home state of Queensland, up in Cape York, and in my electorate as well. People involved in mentoring programs, family support, maternal and child welfare and health services, and, I have to acknowledge, the Aboriginal Grannies—they are groups across our country who work at change at a local level. That is why it is so important—because Indigenous women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of spouse or partner violence than non-Indigenous women.

Our inquiry heard some pretty shameful statistics about the rates of detention and incarceration. But we heard some inspirational stories as well: people from Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds who are focusing on the future, yet facing the past and trying to move on. We will focus on prevention and early intervention; we will identify strategies to reduce the alarming detention and incarceration rates across the country. Two statistics are most stark to me—the detention rate for Indigenous juveniles is currently 28 times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous juveniles, and for Indigenous adults of 17 to 24 years of age it is 15 times the rate. What a tragedy.

Our inquiry brought together magistrates, state police, NGOs, academics, social researchers, drug and alcohol counsellors, justice organisations and so many others involved in diversion and intervention. The problems surrounding juvenile justice, incarceration and alternative strategies to divert people away from incarceration are very complex and longstanding. But we must harness the knowledge and commitment of all of us, particularly those who work in the field, to bring real change and opportunities for the future.

We in the federal Labor government are committed to finding solutions to reverse the trend of increasing numbers of juveniles and young adults of Indigenous background being entrapped in the criminal justice systems across the country. I am thoroughly offended when I hear law and order campaigns perpetrated and perpetuated by political leaders and parties, particularly at a state level, when they want to simply whip up hysteria in their campaign for votes. This has often resulted in more young people and young adults becoming involved in the criminal justice systems in this country.

We are committed to breaking the cycle of Indigenous disadvantage, intergenerational poverty and the cycle of offending and recidivism. We are committed to increasing educational retention and expanding employment opportunities. We need to provide better homes and better health for Indigenous people across the country, to provide accommodation options for Indigenous young people at risk and after release, and to ensure rehabilitation and appropriate health care.

It is very easy to say sorry. I was not planning to make any political points in this speech but when I heard the member for Leichhardt ranting and raving in his criticism of us, and of the Queensland state Labor government, I have to say that the former Prime Minister John Howard never seemed to be able to say he was sorry. Those words never seemed to pass his lips as he floundered and fumbled on Indigenous issues and affairs. I am proud to say that we did, as the first act that we could undertake legislatively, in February 2008, simply say 'sorry'.

The tears, the pain and the anguish we saw that day was mingled with joy and happiness, relief and elation, not just here but back in our schools, our communities, our business places and our homes. That is a start, and only a start, as we tackle these Indigenous issues. It is appropriate we redouble our efforts to ensure that we do close the gap. It is not just rhetoric. It becomes reality.

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