Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this place, the Ngambri and Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects to elders past and present and their future leaders. I also want to acknowledge the traditional owners of my own home town of Newcastle and the wider electorate, the Awabakal, Worimi and Wanaruah peoples.

I was very privileged to spend almost a decade of my life living and working in remote Aboriginal communities, primarily in the Kimberley region of WA. And it was there, immersed in community life and Indigenous culture, that I gained some very valuable lived experience of a very different way of life and a very different cultural world. Despite sharing this same continent for the entirety of my life, I learned of the profound differences in the life that I had enjoyed and the life that is so often lived by those in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The gap in overall health and access to health care is one example, as well as the inequity in life expectancy, the infant mortality rate, the lack of employment opportunities, and the poor access to education for both young and old. It was during this time that I made a very personal commitment not only to try to re-educate myself about some of those issues but to play a very active role in doing what I could to remove inequality and injustice among my fellow Australians wherever I see it.

In 2008, as a nation, we took our first formal step to address this inequality. The national apology, delivered by the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was long overdue. But it was no less significant than if delivered decades earlier. We needed to say sorry. It was unfinished business that needed to be addressed, and I am glad we did that. The signing of the Close the Gap statement of intent by the then Labor government and the Liberal opposition on the same day was a watershed moment of commitment from our nation to formally address the wrongs of inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. A pledge was made to remove the inequality in health status and life expectancy and to improve access to mainstream services. We have built on that commitment, with further targets set on access to education and employment. Regardless of the new targets set—extensions made to the commitment—the essence remains: closing the gap is first and foremost about justice and inclusion, opportunity and equity.

Last year the first Closing the Gap target was met. Every preschooler living in a remote community now has access to early childhood education. That is a great achievement and certainly one worth celebrating. But meeting a target is one thing; maintaining the level of access is just as important. Ongoing Commonwealth funding is needed to ensure that successful, evidence based programs that have already been established may continue to operate and indeed be improved upon. Yesterday I met with members of SNAICC, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, who are concerned about the ongoing viability of some 38 child and family centres across Australia and indeed many other early childhood services in our nation. The funding basis for these centres is currently under review and due to end on 30 June this year. These centres play a vital role in the communities in which they exist, allowing integrated and flexible service delivery of early childhood education and health initiatives. Their role extends far beyond child care for preschoolers and indeed extends to the broader ecology of the community.

This morning I got to meet again with some of those women I met with yesterday at the breakfast. Naomi, who was working from one of my old home towns of Fitzroy Crossing, reminded me of the crucial work she is doing with many of the young mothers who accompany the children who come to these services. So we definitely should not be thinking that these services are some kind of drop-off place for childcare provision; the entire family becomes involved. And the people working in these centres are amongst the most academically as well as culturally aware and adept people available to be working in the communities.

So the delivery of the early intervention initiatives like the work Naomi was doing with the young mums, as well as going out into communities and doing that, is assisting greatly in transition-to-school programs and is directly linked to improved outcomes at schools—we have evidence suggesting that now—and helping to build the relationships between the community and the formal school setting. The centres also play a key role in employment and training for adults, and they are real opportunities that also heighten access to higher education and training and certification.

Those centres are not just in remote areas, of course; they are also in communities like my own, in Newcastle, where I am really fortunate to have two centres that are run under that banner. One is the DALE young mothers program in Waratah. And there is also the Awabakal MACS children's service at Wickham. Both of these are really in danger without this assurance of some continuity and security of funding. Since 30 June is not too far away, if we are serious about meeting these targets and closing the gaps in these areas then we need ongoing security for services like this.

So I am calling on the government today to give assurances to those communities that house these centres by committing to their ongoing funding through dedicated pathways to give them the flexibility they need to deliver these vital services. I urge the government to commit to the SNAICC's proposal for a 10-year sustainable funding model for an integrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and family services.

The Gonski report also identified the link between low levels of achievement and educational disadvantage, particularly amongst students from low socioeconomic and Indigenous backgrounds. It is of great concern that that framework for a fairer funding model, which had specific loadings for disadvantage—such as the number of Indigenous students at a school, levels of English proficiency, literacy and numeracy—is now deeply under question. The government went to the election last year with a commitment to the Gonski report and these recommendations, but now we know—after the election—that it is a very different story.

In 2013, Labor proposed three new measures that should be added to the Closing the Gap agenda. I would urge the government to adopt those alongside their own additional proposal that the Prime Minister announced yesterday in relation to school attendance rates. One of the additions is an increase in Indigenous participation in higher and further education. I am very proud that in my own electorate of Newcastle we have the University of Newcastle, which is known as Australia's leader in tertiary education for Indigenous education. The Wollotuka Institute at that university now has more than 1,130 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who have graduated and more than 800 students currently enrolled today. We have trained more than 50 per cent of the Indigenous doctors for the whole of Australia—a very proud record.

I would like to note another fantastic program that is operating in Newcastle that is looking to close the gap: the Deadly Choices campaign, which was launched by the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health and funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. Deadly Choices aims to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to make healthy choices for themselves and their families: to stop smoking, to eat good food, and exercise daily. Last week, the Deadly Choices commemorative rugby league jersey was launched in Newcastle as part of the Festival of Indigenous Rugby League. That festival is a wonderful exhibition of how sport, physical activity and positive role modelling can make a difference to the lives of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. These sorts of choices will help close the gap.

Finally, I endorse the words of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday in reaffirming our commitment to take that next long overdue step to reduce inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and that of course is constitutional recognition. Certainly, Labor believes the proposed constitutional change should be guided by the recommendations of the expert panel, and all of those sections that were listed yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition are extremely worthwhile. In addition, the lack of funding now for community legal centres and the removal of funding from Aboriginal legal services is of great concern.

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