Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise today, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this parliament meets, the Ngunawal and the Ngambri people, and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. This land, our nation, was, is and always be Aboriginal land. I rise as a representative of and as someone who has always lived on the land of the Kulin nation. To the west of the Werribee River, Wathaurong people stretched as far as the Otways and down to the Bellarine, home to the Marpeang balug clan. East of the river is home to the Kurung jang balug clan of the Woiwurrung language, who stretch out to Kororoit Creek and as far north as Melton. East of our river, the Yalukit willam clan stretched as far as St Kilda, speaking the Boonwurrung language. They inhabited the land between Kurung jang balug to Port Phillip Bay. My home is by the Werribee River, and that river was the meeting place of the clans of the Iramoo plains. In making my remarks today, I pay my respects to Indigenous people of these lands and to the First Australians from country across Australia who live and work in Wyndham.

Twenty-seven years ago, Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating stood in a park just kilometres from where European settlement began and urged us to recognise our dark past. The Redfern speech spoke to me. It was a call to action that set the path to reconciliation, and 12 years ago this parliament finally responded to the calls for an apology and said sorry. The declaration of sorry was proudly hung in the school where I worked, and it still catches my eye and my heart when I see it in school foyers now. Twelve years after Prime Minister Rudd's monumental apology, that day of healing, that day the truth was told, a day when the Parliament of Australia finally admitted that past actions were wrong, we mark again today the need to close the gap and check our progress. But after 12 years of the Closing the Gap process, the truths we read and the lack of progress we see in this year's report can only be summed up as inadequate and unworthy.

The facts are these. The child mortality rate has not been halved; in fact, the gap has widened since 2008. There's been no improvement in the past five years on school attendance rates. Halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy has not been met, despite slight improvements. The Indigenous employment rate has only increased by less than one per cent. There's been no progress made on the goal to close the life expectancy gap. Alarmingly, incarceration rates of First Australian men, women and children continue to rise.

For too long, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have had their way of life determined by those sitting in this House. While more recently they have been in the room, it is questionable whether they have actually been heard. Let's be straight: to take real action to close the gap, we must begin with listening to First Nations peoples. The only way our legislators can listen to First Nations peoples is if they have a voice—a voice to the parliament that is constitutionally enshrined. It's time we took the Uluru Statement from the Heart into the hearts of us who are here, to make laws and to close this gap.

Paul Keating, in Redfern, said it best. If we can be leaders around the nation, if we can do great things for our world, how can we be so behind when it comes to our First Nations Australians? The lack of progress is disappointing. In this House I felt deep shame when I heard our Prime Minister suggest that we should cave in and give up—give up on fairness and equality. No, Prime Minister, we can't throw up our hands and say it's too hard. We need to reach higher, strive harder, work smarter, to meet our collective best and our targets. We are an ambitious people—we always have been—and we should not baulk at closing the gap. We should continue the journey to reconciliation. We should enshrine the voice and hear and speak the truth. Until we do, our potential as a nation and our job in this parliament is incomplete.

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