Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to this year's closing the gap report, which was presented to the Australian parliament by the Prime Minister about two weeks ago. Australia can never be the country it wants to be—a strong country, a truly multicultural country, a cohesive country—until we address this extraordinary national shame of the gap in life chances between Indigenous Australians and the rest of this country. It is simply not possible for us ever to reach that goal that so many Australians have for this country.

It is great to make a contribution to closing the gap because this policy itself—just the very act of saying that we are not going to stand still and we are not going to allow these gaps to continue—is a really important thing that the Australian government has done. It is absolutely extraordinary to think that before Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister that no Australian Prime Minister had stood up before and said we must close this gap, we are going to set targets and we are going to measure our progress so we can keep ourselves honest on this. I want to say to the Abbott and Turnbull governments: for all of the faults and flaws in their Indigenous policy, I am very grateful that they have maintained these closing the gap targets because, without them, this debate would not be happening in the chamber right now, Australians would not have the information that we have today about the direness of some of the statistics that came through in this report and, most importantly, the parliament would not be coming together to discuss this.

One thing that really bothers me as a member of parliament is that, despite the professed keenness and interest from many members of parliament from all sides of politics on this issue, it is something we hardly ever discuss in the national parliament. It is a real source of pride for me to see that the closing the gap statement just of itself requires the Prime Minister of this country and the opposition leader of this country to stand before the Australian people and to take some ownership and responsibility of the many problems we have in this area.

What we learnt in the close the gap speech for this year was sobering again, and it has been sobering every year that these targets have been in place. I want to start by talking about some of the things that are positive in the report and then some of the policy issues here because too much in Indigenous policy we dwell on what a terrible problem this is without talking about the things that we can do about it—and there are lots of things we can do about it.

Firstly, it was really terrific to see that Australia is on track to meet two of the seven major Closing the Gap targets. The first of those is child mortality—such an important one. All we are saying here is that Indigenous babies should have the same chance of getting to their first birthday as babies who were born of families of different origin. It is a pretty straightforward thing and I am so pleased to see that we are progressing on that gap. In year 12 attainment, we see the same thing. We are seeing slow progress, for sure, but we are making gains there.

But that is really the best of it because, when we look to the other areas of Indigenous disadvantage, we see that we are just not making progress towards those targets. Some may describe them as ambitious; I would not. Halving the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians should not be too much to ask, but it seems that is too much to ask of our policy environment today. When we look at really fundamental things—the access Indigenous children have to early learning; the access that Indigenous people have to the health services that they need to maintain a good life expectancy—one thing that I know is quite important to all sides of politics is that we are not making the progress we want in Indigenous employment. I think that most people agree that the pathway to a lot of other improvements in the lives of Indigenous people is to make sure that Indigenous Australians have equal access to jobs—and today we are failing on that.

One of the things that Labor has tried to highlight in the Closing the Gap speeches over the last two years has been the importance of including a justice target in the Closing the Gap targets. What that really means is that we see shocking differences in the rates of incarceration of Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians represent around three per cent of the Australian population, but they represent 27 per cent of our prison population. It gets even more gutting because half of those Indigenous people who are in jail today are under the age of 30. This is shocking, and it is related to every other of these indicators. How can we get the life expectancy outcomes that we want when there are so many Indigenous young people wasting years of their lives in jail? It is simply not good enough. One of the things that Labor has proposed in response to this very clear need for us to introduce a new target is just to say, 'Let's include it in Closing the Gap so it's something that we can track and monitor with the same vigilance that we look at these other key areas like life expectancy and child mortality.'

There are some other really important things that Labor wants to do in this area. One of the things I was really proud to hear Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, announce during the Closing the Gap speeches was that there will be an additional $9 million committed to trachoma treatment for Indigenous Australians. We know that Indigenous people, on top of all these other issues, are six times more likely to be blind than Australians who come from other backgrounds. It is not good enough, and treatment for eye disease needs money—it is actually that fundamental. We need doctors to be funded to go out to these communities and help Indigenous people get the eye services that they need. Something else that I was really proud of was to hear the opposition leader announce that Labor has set down a target date for the referendum which will consider whether there should be constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians. I am hugely in favour of this. I have spent some time living in north-east Arnhem Land and quite a lot of time working in Indigenous communities, and, despite seeing the very practical nature of the problems faced by people in those communities, I do believe that these big-picture reconciliation things really matter. We cannot fix more than 200 years of violence and dispossession just through improvements to government services. There is a deep wound at the heart of this relationship and it is not going to be fixed unless we see some real giving on the part of other Australians and some real sympathy and empathy in how we talk about Indigenous people and how we acknowledge them as our First Australians. So I am really pleased to see that the opposition leader is putting his money where his mouth is, in a sense, and saying that we are going to work towards a date here, because we have been talking about constitutional recognition in this country for a long time and it is time to do something about it.

I want to move away from Labor policy a little and just talk about some of the things that I think are really important in this area and that I hope to work on in the time that I am a member of parliament. One of the things I really believe, having worked with Indigenous communities, is that we must help Indigenous Australians have their own voice in this national conversation. One of the things that really devastate me is the fact that ATSIC—Indigenous self-government—was shut down quite a long time ago, and nothing has been built in its place. What we have now is three, four or five per cent of our population who are dispersed with such different interests and such different life experiences all over the country but who have no voice. What we see happening as a result is that politicians can pick Indigenous leaders who are saying the things that they want to hear and anoint them as Indigenous leaders. That is not good enough. I think that Indigenous people need their own voice and have a right to their own democracy, and I believe that means creating a structure that is similar to ATSIC.

We see problems with democracy in lots of other parts of our country. Mr Deputy Speaker Conroy, I know that in your state of New South Wales we have seen a few issues over recent years. But we do not shut down democracy. We do not take away people's right to be represented. I am really shocked that that has been allowed to happen to Indigenous Australians. We cannot solve this problem without them being our true partners in this discussion.

I want to briefly mention the important role of Indigenous girls and women in this discussion. One of the things that are guiding principles of our international development policy is that we invest in women and girls overseas because women and girls are shown to use the additional resources they have to invest in the health and welfare of their children, and that grows their own community in a really positive way. Yet we have not done the same thing for Indigenous women and girls. This is an obvious place for us to improve. I am pleased to see that Labor is supporting the Stars Foundation program, which is effectively like the Clontarf program but is for women and girls. It is doing great things up in Darwin, and I really want to see that rolled out more across the country.

I want to say one more thing to ordinary Australians about this problem: government is not going to solve this problem unless you work with us to express your outrage and your utter unwillingness to accept the situation as it is today. Sometimes people in this parliament say: 'Don't politicise Aboriginal issues. Don't politicise Indigenous issues.' Well, that is just ridiculous. This is a political problem. This is about who has power and resources in our community. Until the majority of Australians are willing to stand up with one voice and say, 'We have to do better; we must do better,' this problem is not going to get resolved. I want to encourage Australians to say, with me, that this is not good enough. I hope to see something better in next year's Closing the Gap speech.

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