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

It's with mixed feelings that I rise again, this year, to speak on the Closing the Gap statement that was presented to the Australian parliament. Last Thursday, a very powerful presentation was made by the Social Justice Commissioner, June Oscar, in her capacity as one of the co-convenors of the Close the Gap committee, to those who were in attendance at the breakfast and presentation meeting around some of the very profound concerns that first nation peoples have in Australia with regard to the progress or, indeed, probably more accurately, the lack of progress that is being made on a number of fronts. This was not a platform for politicians to speak at—that was made very clear—it was an opportunity for Indigenous people to stand and speak freely to all of us who were able to be present there. I know the Prime Minister had some other commitments and had to leave early, and that was a shame, but a good number of us remained to really try to just listen. Indeed, that was the profound message that came from that event. As I said, it was shaped by Aboriginal people. The message very clearly back to politicians was, 'You need to sit down, be quiet, listen to what we have to say, reflect on this and be serious about a genuine partnership with first nation peoples to develop a pathway going forward and mechanisms to redress what can only be described as a grossly inadequate response to date to the challenge of closing the gap.' That was the profound message I took home. Closing the gap on Indigenous health, education and wellbeing in general must start with a profound commitment to close the gap, but it must also be founded on a respectful and genuine partnership with first nation peoples.

I'd like to turn now to the Close the Gap statement that was presented. As other speakers before me have acknowledged, there have been a few wins in the sense of some gains in some of those targeted areas. We are on track, as others have mentioned, towards halving the gap in child mortality. The most recent data showed that by 2016 that gap had shrunk by 32 per cent, which is an excellent outcome. The goal of achieving 95 per cent enrolment of Indigenous four-year-olds in early childhood education by 2025 is also on track. That rate is now at 91 per cent. Halving the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020 is on track. That gap has shrunk to 23.8 per cent. None of those gaps, despite the progress, mean that we should rest on our laurels, of course. We should not be satisfied until there is complete equity in all of these goals.

The very disturbing part of the Closing the gap report is seeing the consistent failure that we have had in the remaining targets. They are, of course, really critical targets around literacy and numeracy and closing the gap on employment. We've seen Indigenous unemployment rise. We are not closing the gap there. That is going in exactly the opposite direction to what we want.

We've also seen, regretfully, a sliding back on the life expectancy scale. We had an ambition of closing the gap on life expectancy by 2031, but we are clearly going in the wrong direction on that one. Indeed, Indigenous students are still 10 percentage points behind on school attendance rates in 2018, despite some inroads there. I think it is worth reflecting on what programs are in place around them now and why they are failing.

I put it to this parliament that the fundamental reason for those failures is that they are not community owned programs. They are not done in genuine partnership with Indigenous communities. I don't know how many times it takes for us to understand. I heard the Prime Minister standing up in parliament the other day repeating on a number of occasions, 'It's not doing things to Aboriginal people, it's doing things with Aboriginal people.' The only way to make that something more than cheap political talk is to start walking the action now. You cannot keep repeating that phrase and think it's going to somehow come true when your actions actually defy what you are saying in parliament.

The only way that we can close the gap on all of these important targets is with a very deep and respectful commitment to do so, but in a genuine partnership with Aboriginal people. I'm sorry that this government's inability to work consistently in a genuine partnership with first-nation peoples is deeply problematic. It is deeply problematic. When you do not have that partnership basis, when these programs are not owned by the communities in which you seek to implement them and when they are not systematically targeted programs delivered in coordinated ways, there is a problem, because all of the evidence tells us that you need each of those ingredients to be in operation in order to have a successful program. We know, for example, health issues cannot be adequately tackled without also addressing a whole range of other very key social and cultural determiners.

So, when this government decides to backflip on a commitment around a national partnership on remote housing agreement, that has profound ramifications for all of the targets that we're trying to achieve here. How on earth do we provide safe housing for children in communities while they are growing up when there are an average of 17 to 23 people living in any given home in a community? How do we expect kids to be able to do their learning at school and come home and do homework? The concept that there would be some quiet space to retreat to at home in order to do some homework is just ludicrous. I think the government's inability to make those connections between the programs that must be community owned, clearly targeted and coordinated carefully, and the outcomes that they desire is very problematic.

The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, made very clear in his comments around the Closing the gap report in parliament on Monday that, whilst we are very keen to work with the government to deliver better outcomes, this bipartisanship cannot be used as an alibi for inaction by this government. I join with the Leader of the Opposition to say that we wish to work with you to deliver better outcomes, but we are not going to sit by and wait for you guys to catch up. We don't have time for that. So I absolutely applaud Labor's initiatives in taking seriously the Uluru Statement from the Heart and those very real issues that were raised there before us. I am absolutely supportive of the idea of adding some additional targets around incarceration and out-of-home care to the list. I think the compensation packages in the Commonwealth jurisdiction for the stolen generations are critical, with money to the Healing Foundation. All of these are necessary— (Time expired)

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