Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to participate in this debate, and follow the Leader of the Opposition, who was the first speaker in this debate on a matter of public importance. I congratulate him for a very eloquent speech, and for putting in proper context the need for constitutional change, and what we should be doing about it. I implore the Prime Minister to respond positively to the approaches the Leader of the Opposition has made directly to him to convene a meeting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and elders to sit down and talk about issues to do with constitutional change, and, no doubt, other issues such as closing the gap.

That is what I am going to discuss today. I want to thank the member for Blair and the member for Ballarat for their contributions. I thought they outlined, in a very succinct way, the issues which we need to confront in Aboriginal health, for example. I also want to acknowledge the member for Aston, the member for Hasluck and the member for Durack.

I would say to the member for Aston: you have a hard job to do—I respect that—but coming up here and trying to defend the Prime Minister's stupidity in making a statement around lifestyle choices was not a very good picture. I say this because last week I travelled around parts of my own electorate in the Northern Territory and visited small Aboriginal communities where people raised with me their concern about what was going to happen. Whether or not it was an accurate reflection of what the Prime Minister meant is not the point here. The perception in the community—this is the point—is that this is what is going to happen. That is the concern.

The problem we have here is that the member for Aston says that it is very important to talk to people. Absolutely! Why doesn't the Prime Minister sit down and talk and listen? He should look, listen and learn—very fundamental things—instead of opening his mouth and letting the wind blow his tongue around. That is the wrong thing to do. I say to him again: I am always prepared to take any member of the government or opposition to Aboriginal communities across the country—but most particularly in my communities—and show them how to talk and listen, because that is what it should be about. We should be very concerned about scaring people.

I want to make some observations about the health measures that have been taken by the government. I want to say to the Assistant Minister for Health, Senator Nash, that I am with her on their implementation of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan. If we are to bring about a closing of the gap in the way we want to do then adopting the health plan which we developed while we were in government is a very important step. I am looking forward to seeing the draft implementation strategy when she feels free to make it available to me.

But I also want to say to her that I congratulate the government on the guarantee of certainty at least—whether or not the quantum is sufficient is a different matter—for the core funding for Aboriginal community controlled health services across the country. There are issues around the funding of these health services in terms of the abysmal Indigenous Advancement Strategy, the confusion which has emerged as a result of that strategy and the loss of funding across communities around Australia as a result of that strategy. You cannot on the one hand talk about closing the gap and on the other hand cut the programs which are providing the services which will lead you to close the gap, which is exactly what this government has chosen to do. That is a mistake, and it just shows the folly of the decisions which have been taken by this government since it came into office 18 months ago.

The decision to transfer into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues was in part, I guess, motivated by the right ideals, but let's just be very clear: the health functions which are in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet should go back immediately to the Department of Health. That is very clear, because people are very concerned about the uncertainty that has arisen around these health measures that have not been funded.

I want to say also that the reason we can stand here proudly and say we are making improvements in many areas is the work of Aboriginal community controlled health organisations across this country. Their innovation, their respect now for good governance and their approaches to governance are to be applauded. Their service delivery models—which are amongst the best in the country, if not the world, in terms of primary health care—need to be applauded, as do the preventive health strategies they put in place, despite the frustrations of having $165 million taken out of that bucket of money during the last budget. They could do a lot better if the government were fair dinkum and did not cut those funds from the last budget, and they will do a lot better if the government puts the money back.

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