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

It's with really mixed feelings that I stand in this House, yet again—this is possibly the seventh time I've stood in this parliament to do this—to make a response to the Closing the gap report, and each and every time we have failed. We have utterly failed in terms of bridging any kind of gap for the seven measures that were laid down clearly following that historic apology in this parliament, when we were asked to make a commitment towards the monitoring and assessment of Indigenous disadvantage.

That process really mapped out a number of the key indicators. They were around life expectancy; child mortality; school attendance; reading and numeracy; employment; early childhood; and the attainment of year 12 or equivalent. These were all very practical measures that the parliament agreed to in terms of monitoring and measuring, and it is utterly tragic that after 12 years we are not on track for at least five of those seven targets, including life expectancy, child mortality and employment. That is an utter indictment on all of us, that 12 years later we're on track for just two of those targets.

I think the Leader of the Opposition was correct when he stood in this chamber, saying that the problem is not that those targets were too ambitious—we should not fall into that trap, that these goals were too big for this nation to set ourselves—but rather that we simply failed to meet those targets. That failure is ours, not that of Indigenous or First Nations people in Australia.

The other observation I would like to make now is that many Indigenous First Nations people have commented that they struggle with some of the close the gap language because it's a deficit language. It fails to acknowledge or work on those things which have been embraced positively and the great achievements within the First Nations community. That is very true, but there are also some growing and terribly worrying signs that this gap is indeed increasing and widening under the watch of this government. One only need look at the shocking incarceration rates in Australia, the terrible suicide rates for First Nations people and, indeed, the absolutely abominable rates of children being removed from families and placed in out-of-home care. These are three issues that worry me deeply about how we could even contemplate a closing of the gap when we see before us the disadvantage which has resulted from more than two centuries of dispossession, discrimination and racism. Indeed, at times it was a very violent oppression on those frontiers. This is the very sad history of that 200 years of colonial engagement, and now we are seeing the disadvantage in those communities, in many of our communities, growing.

When First Nations people gathered to talk about what their hopes and aspirations might be over a long period of time—we have come to know this as the Uluru statement—people reported back to this parliament a number of, in my view, very modest asks. One was to seek to have a voice in this parliament—that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be consulted on the issues and policies that were directly impacting and affecting them and that they would have some mechanism to have a voice to parliament on those issues. Tragically, this was dismissed in circumstances that I think were grossly unfair. There were wildly inaccurate allegations at the time that this request for a voice to parliament was somehow the creation of a third chamber. We know this to be untrue. I think even those people who first thought that have subsequently acknowledged that that was not the case; I thank the member for New England for correcting the record and saying that he had got that wrong. Nonetheless, there was a lot of damage done. Within days, there was a complete rejection of the elements of the Uluru statement. These were issues that hurt deeply for a number of First Nations people.

The other element in the Uluru statement concerned truth; I touched on this a little bit earlier. We as a nation have to confront what has been a very uncomfortable truth around the ongoing impact of colonisation in this country. As uncomfortable as that truth might be from time to time, it seems to me that it is impossible for a mature nation to be a confident nation, with a genuine partnership with its First Nations people, if we cannot be honest about the history that brings us to the place we're at now. Truth-telling is a very important and, indeed, powerful acknowledgement of the reality of our shared histories in Australia.

The other component of the Uluru statement, of course, was the makarrata—the treaty or agreement making. It's been the subject of great debate in Australia for decades and decades. It seems to me that, until we can mature as a nation to the understanding that we would have confidence in allowing self-determination of our First Nations people, we still have a lot of growing up to do if we can't find ways to adequately accommodate in a mature manner with First Nations people an agreement of some sort about the way that we continue to coexist in this nation.

So, rather than standing in this Chamber year after year discussing the ongoing failure—and this is our failure—to reach these targets, perhaps it is time that this government rethinks its relationships with First Nations people, rethinks its initial dismissal of the Uluru statement and the modest requests that were asked in that statement, and really begins to think: 'Well, you know what? After all these years, what we're doing has failed First Nations people. It's not working. It is time.' Instead of talking about a reset on closing the gap, I think it's time for a reset on the original relationships between First Nations people and the remainder of the Australian nationhood. Self-determination shouldn't ever be just a theoretical concept; it needs to be set in practice. We should have that trusting relationship: both in ourselves as mature citizens, but also in our First Nations people and that they certainly do have the answers. And this is the complaint about deficit language: First Nations people have said, time and time again, 'You need us to be able to take control of our own lives and destinies.'

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