Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] After some three years of consultation and achieving the support of key Aboriginal land councils, it would appear that this bill, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021 is okay, that it's worth supporting. However, what I think about this bill—and in fact what anyone in the House who is not of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage thinks—is in some ways quite irrelevant, because the only thing that really matters is what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people think of this bill. It is up to them to decide what good policy is and what their needs are.

To tease that point out a little more: it's been the paternalism of what I might call old white men over 233 years that is at the heart of the problems with public policy and decision-making regarding our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. When you drill down to all the problems and deficiencies and the enduring and chronic disadvantage that has been suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our country, so much of it goes to that paternalism over hundreds of years. It helps to explain why so many of the indicators remain so bad and remain unaddressed and why year after year in the parliament, when we have the Closing the Gap speeches and lots of hand-wringing, the indicators don't change that much. We're in the practice of, once a year, looking at those indicators—education, employment, health and so on—and then forgetting about them for another year, so many of the problems go unaddressed. I think we should be talking about those stats every day of the year until they get better.

We—people like me and my colleagues—should be ashamed of these indicators every day of the year until they markedly improve, until we can finally stand in the parliament and have a Closing the Gap speech that we can be so proud of and to say, 'We have finally, working together, ensured that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the equal of the rest of the community of Australians in every other way'; that we won't have to be ashamed of the fact that, for example, the life expectancy of kids aged up to four years in our Indigenous population are twice as likely to die as non-Indigenous children in this country; that we won't have to talk every year about and be ashamed of the fact that Indigenous Australians die on average about 10 years earlier than non-Indigenous Australians in this country; that we won't have to talk every year, it seems, about how when it comes to all chronic diseases, with, I think, the exception only of cancer, Indigenous Australians are so much sicker; that the likelihood of circulatory disease for Indigenous Australians is twice that for non-Indigenous Australians and that among Indigenous Australians the likelihood of kidney disease is 11 times as high as that being experienced by non-Indigenous Australians; and that the suicide rate for Indigenous Australians is double that of the general population.

When it comes to education, only about 60 per cent of Indigenous students in this country finish year 12, compared with almost 90 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians The employment-to-population rate for Indigenous Australians—youth through to retiring age, around mid-60s—is about half the rate for non-Indigenous Australians, which is about three-quarters. The median weekly income for Indigenous Australians is about two-thirds of the median weekly income for non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous children are about 10 times as likely as non-Indigenous kids to be placed in out-of-home care in this country.

And, of course, so much has been said about justice and incarceration, for as long as anyone can remember, and, frankly, things haven't got any better. Indigenous inmates account for about a quarter of Australia's prison population, even though only about two per cent of Australia's adult population are Indigenous adults. I will say that again: the Indigenous prisoner population throughout all of the jurisdictions in this country is about a quarter of the entire prison population, when about two per cent of Australia's adult population is Indigenous. Equally horrific is the fact that, for children aged 10 to 17 years old, the detention rate in the justice system is 26 times the detention rate for non-Indigenous children.

So who is to blame for this? Who is responsible for this? Well, it is not our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It's not their fault; it's entirely the responsibility of the paternalistic and often old white men—to use that term again—who, for 233 years have been normally thinking they are doing the right thing but just as normally completely missing the mark, not actually sitting down with First Nations people and saying: 'How can we help? What do you need? Please design it for us and we will support you in every possible way to eventually end the enduring and endemic disadvantage that's experienced in this country.'

It's not as though we haven't had the answers at our fingertips over the years. Decades ago the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody did a very thorough examination of the issue and laid out dozens of strong recommendations to start to wind back the shocking prevalence of Aboriginal deaths in custody. But, to this day, none of the significant recommendations have been implemented. We know about justice reinvestment. There are so many clever people out there at the moment researching and coming up with blueprints for effective justice reinvestment to keep people out of the justice system—to improve their lives, to keep them out of prison, to keep them out of being in custody. We know the answers, but we ignore them. We know for a fact that raising the age of criminal responsibility would go quite some way to dealing with the incarceration and detention rate for youth and the way in which that sets those unfortunate young kids on a pathway of bad outcomes.

I lament over 200 years of paternalism from people like me telling our First Nations people what they need instead of asking them, 'What do you need?' and 'How can we support you?' It's in this context that the 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention was so important. It was so important that the government, the opposition and all members of the House would get behind the Uluru Statement from the Heart, because there was a wonderful opportunity to listen to first Australians and to finally find out what is needed and how we can help. It is a terrible thing that the government is yet to sign up to a voice to parliament. It's a terrible thing that the Makarrata commission has not been established. These are the sorts of reforms that are needed in this country.

We need a speedy and full implementation of Uluru Statement of the Heart, including—just to be very clear here—a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament. What that looks like should be what First Nations people want it to look like. If they want it to look like what we have in the New Zealand parliament where seats are reserved for the Maori, I will support that. I will support whatever they want that will turn around over 200 years of persecution, disadvantage and shocking policymaking. Regrettably, though, the Uluru Statement from the Heart remains stalled. There is some work and some talk. I note that the minister, who is a good person, is trying to do good things, but the whole thing is stalled. So I again call on the government, in the last days of this parliament: let's lay down some clear markers about what the future looks like. Let's have a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament. Let's have a Makarrata commission. Let's do whatever else we can do. And if we don't have the time to implement the changes in the next couple of months, maybe six months, then at least lay down the markers and have bilateral support for that pathway forward so the next parliament and the next government—whoever it is—knows that they have bilateral support, unanimous support, in the House to bring about the reforms that are necessary.

In closing, I make the point that this is a good bill. It's three years in the making. It does have the support of the big land councils, and that's good. I think it's a credit to everyone who has been involved. Sure, we can always do things better. In fact, I've heard from some constituents that they regret that this matter will be dealt with in such little time today. I assume that there couldn't be more people involved in the debate. But generally it's a good job.

I do take this opportunity to emphasise what I think is a central part of the explanation for the continuing chronic and entrenched disadvantage of First Nations people in this country, and that's the paternalism that has characterised it up until now—too many old, white men making decisions for our First Nations people, instead of sitting down with our wonderful First Nations people and working with them to deliver what they want and what they need. An important step in that direction would be sitting down and saying: 'Right, how do we deliver the Uluru Statement from the Heart? How do we have a constitutionally enshrined, permanent and powerful voice in the parliament? How do we have a commission of some kind to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling?' I call on the government. I know the opposition is onside on this. We just need the government to get on side and then we can go into the next parliament with a unanimous response and maybe start turning these things around. Maybe we won't have to—for the next who knows how many years—put up with more and more of these completely unsatisfactory, shameful reports on closing the gap.

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