Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

Can I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Wentworth, who we just heard from. I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we gather. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I recognise and pay my respects to the traditional owners of lands all across Australia. In particular, I recognise the Wathaurong and Djadjawurung people, the traditional owners of the lands that make up what is now the electorate of Ballarat.

First Nations peoples have called this land home for tens of thousands of years. Far back beyond recorded history, Indigenous peoples have lived their lives here. They raised their children, they supported each other, generations came and went and they developed their customs, traditions and practices, which today constitute the world's oldest living culture.

In more recent times, however, since the landing of Lieutenant Cook in Botany Bay almost 250 years ago, Indigenous Australians have had to battle against disease, discrimination, massacre and cultural desecration. This ongoing battle has left vast inequalities in the life expectancy, mortality, education and employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians when compared to others.

Last week the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition both spoke in the House following the delivery of this year's Closing the gap report. Sadly, what the report tells us is that the gaps are still too large and that First Australians are still experiencing inequality on a scale that is an embarrassment to our nation. The failure of our nation is incredibly stark. We've failed to address the gaps in education, in life experience, in employment and in lifelong health. Rather than making the nation more equal, in a number of cases we are moving further apart. As the Leader of the Opposition said in his response last week, we have all too often failed to address racism and cultural destruction.

Addressing this is an important task at hand, particularly when it comes to health. The evidence tells us that culture and strong identity are key determinants of good health. The healthcare system of our nation must be culturally safe and free of racism. All too often it is not. I would like to think that, as a nation, we are good at calling out egregious acts of racism, and as the shadow minister for health I think it is particularly true of our health professionals. However, the evidence is that racism does occur in our health system. This ranges from a lack of understanding that unequal need requires unequal care to disturbing incidents of individuals being denied care or medicines that they need, because they are Indigenous.

That people are to this day denied appropriate treatment because of assumptions about their culture or compliance or backgrounds frankly needs to be tackled head-on. A survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians last year found that a staggering 88 per cent of those asked reported incidents of racism from nurses, and 74 per cent had experienced racism when dealing with GPs. It is obvious that, if you experience racism at a hospital or in a healthcare setting, it's less likely that you'll go there for treatment. This is something that our nation must continue to address, and I commend the many, many health organisations that are tackling this issue.

But sometimes people aren't even aware that it's occurring. It's a key reason why we must increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at all levels of our health workforce. It is also why we need to make sure that there are reconciliation action plans across all of our health service providers. We know that it's important to do that.

It's also important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have a voice in what is happening about them. It is absolutely critical that we stop doing things to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and that we actually do things with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. In particular, we must engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership, and in the health space we have to understand the unique and important role played by our Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations.

I cannot see a better example across this country of the WHO's vision of universal primary health care than our Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations. They are providing incredibly important services across areas of early childhood development and across areas of healthcare need, both in prevention and in treatment, that are critical to this nation, and it is to them that we must look to help close the gap.

I think it's very disappointing that there are reports that the government is attempting to look with Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations at their relying far more on MBS billing to fund their services than the block grants that they currently receive, and there is currently work being done by the government to try to look at settling the funding formula for Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations going forward. I think that, if the government is pursuing more MBS billing and less gap grant payments, it is very, very mistaken in doing so, and it's certainly not something that I would support.

I think it is really important that we look more closely at how we can support and better promote Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations to help close the gap. They will be the key. They will absolutely be the key, and we need to strengthen the work that we do with them. As we know, we must confront our mental health challenges in particular that lead to the tragedy of suicide and address those diseases with a high prevalence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. A decade on, and with our nation on track to meet only two of the seven Closing the Gap targets, it is beyond time that we recommitted ourselves to doing everything that we can, understanding everything that we can, to actually ensure that we improve in particular the Closing the Gap targets when it comes to health. That will only happen when we work closely with Aboriginal-controlled community health organisations, when we work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and when we recognise that it is not our role here in this parliament to tell Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people how they should feel or what they should do or what treatment they should receive; it is up to us to actually listen.

We have had a very powerful message sent to us by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Uluru statement. It mightn't be everything that we in this place wanted it to be; it might be something different. But it's not our job to tell them that they got it wrong; it is our job to try and work out how we can improve and increase the voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the decision-making process—because we know that the more control people have over their own destinies and there own care the less likely they are to suffer health and mental health problems.

I again recognise that we have had the Closing the Gap statement to our parliament. I commit myself as the shadow minister for health—and if we are successful after the next election and I am in different role—to absolutely working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to close the gap in this nation.

See this speech in context