Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have certainly mentioned makarrata and funding allocated to makarrata. I was speaking about life expectancy. We need a voice because the suicide rate for our people is twice as high. We need the Voice for people like Kaya, Betty and Adele Sandy, who lived at Doomadgee in north-west Queensland. All three women had been diagnosed and lived with rheumatic heart disease four years. Tragically, all three women died from complications of rheumatic heart disease in 2019 and 2020. It is a disease that has all but disappeared from non-Indigenous communities. Ms Sandy was 37 and the mother of four children. I know their loss is still felt in Doomadgee, and I extend my sympathies to their families and the entire community.

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