Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not the first Closing the Gap speech that I've heard where the observation has been made that more needs to be done to actually allow Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population to have a greater say in the programs or the initiatives that governments undertake that affect them. I've heard this a number of times now. A number of us heard how it's important that communities have a greater sense of control and ownership and that communities drive the direction of the funding that is allocated to ensure their needs and aspirations are met. I begin my contribution reflecting on that and by asking the question: why? The question is directed specifically to this: in an environment where these questions are being posed, people are being asked why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are not given greater say and control in terms of the funding that's, in particular, driven by the Closing the Gap initiatives.

For the first time in this nation we have, proudly, an Aboriginal Minister for Indigenous Affairs. And for the first time we have, at the same time, an Aboriginal shadow minister for Indigenous affairs as well. Yet neither of them has been accorded the opportunity to deliver a formal Closing the Gap address. The Prime Minister delivered it and the Leader of the Opposition delivered it; we did not have Aboriginal people standing at the dispatch box delivering those speeches. It would be a powerful reflection, I would submit, that Aboriginal people get to report on whether or not the things that have been said would be done, would be achieved and would be set aside to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are being achieved. For those people who say, 'Well, it's important for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to deliver those speeches,' I would say this: if that's the case, why is the most pre-eminent economic document of the country, the budget, delivered not by the Prime Minister but by one of the Prime Minister's ministers?

If this document is supposed to be a powerful representation of parliamentary and administrative will to ensure that we work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to see an improvement across a range of measures then I think this should be done. I certainly think an Indigenous Minister for Indigenous Affairs and that person's counterpart should be accorded that respect. They should be able to speak up for their communities in this most fundamental of ways. Clearly, we are not achieving. In many respects, yes, we have made some progress, but we need to do more. I must say, too, that, as I was listening to the Prime Minister's address, I could not shake the feeling that we were being prepared for something which would be akin to maybe, possibly watering down the targets and not setting the ambitions.

And I also have to say that it was very telling that, when the Leader of the Opposition, Labor leader Anthony Albanese, said that these are not someone else's targets but our targets that we are failing, the opposition itself spoke unanimously as one to say, 'Yes.' It was not because this was a partisan point that was being made—I would actually stress that nothing could be further from the truth. But there's certainly a very strong feeling amongst many of us in the opposition and, I suspect, amongst many in the government as well that we can and should do better and that there should be no dilution of the targets whatsoever. We should press for better because the reality is that, when we look at the way that things have happened, we are done with turning our back. As a nation, we have turned our back on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders for too long.

Even simply on the history of this nation we have done this. I read two powerful books in the course of the last 12 months. One was written by Stan Grant quite a few years ago. He reflected on the fact that he felt he had not been made aware of his history growing up and, when he had been made aware of it, had been quite moved by it. He also felt as an individual that he should be able to express quite clearly his dissatisfaction with the way that he and the people that he loves have been treated and the way that they have been in times past, and we as a nation should be able to face up to this without any sense of guilt. The other was Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu, which a number of people have said has moved them. But in particular that book highlighted the fact that so many of us as a people are completely and utterly unaware of the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lived their lives in very complex systems prior to colonisation. To recognise this is not some failing of the nation. It is not an admission of guilt. It is not assigning blame. It is just doing the right thing respectfully by people and ensuring that, in many respects, what had been undertaken before by refusing to acknowledge what had happened prior to the arrival of the British in this nation was, in a way, a mechanism to deny legitimacy to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This is important in the context of what we are going through now in that Closing the Gap is not some sort of mechanistic, bureaucratic or consultant-led initiative where we tick a few boxes. This is about understanding that what has happened in the past has contributed in many respects to the disadvantage we see today and that in acknowledging this, as I said earlier, people should not feel blame—for example, when we are discussing the verses of the national anthem or the day on which Australia Day falls. There are some people who will attempt to claim that in some way, shape or form people today are being made to feel that they are responsible, that they should wear guilt and that they are to blame. No. This is about respect. This is about fundamentally acknowledging the pain of peoples before us, that if the roles were reversed and we had experienced this we would do it. If you don't think it's important that that be done, why do you go to Anzac Day ceremonies? For the same reason that we respect the sacrifice and the pain that was inflicted on one generation of Australians through that conflict we should acknowledge what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people went through and we should also acknowledge through the Closing the Gap process what we are failing to achieve.

There should be two things that happen. We should not just simply have the idea—I must say this is something that we have wrestled with for many years—that the only way we'll fix things is through practical reconciliation. As a people we are moved by symbols. We are absolutely moved by symbols. It's why we have the Australian flag in the corner. It's why we have the coat of arms up there on the wall. It's why we do the prayer and the acknowledgement of country every day. Symbols matter to people. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the issue of recognition in our Constitution is an important thing. It should not be reduced to: 'We don't need to do this; we need to achieve practical reconciliation first.' We should do both things. We in this nation should be able to do that and we should be able to find a way—recognising the Uluru statement and the statement from the heart—to incorporate an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice in this place in the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are calling for.

Someone in my office has done a lot of work to go through the Closing the Gap speech and pick out key stats, and I thank him for his work. But I felt that in terms of closing the gap and where this sits in our reconciling with the people who were in this land first we need to do better and we cannot see a watering down of the targets. We cannot walk away from our failure in meeting those targets or in acknowledging the pain of peoples who were here before us, and that ambition in this space is something we should walk towards, not away from.

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