Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We had the privilege of being part of the fifth anniversary of Closing the Gap. This is without doubt an incredible achievement, not just for the parliament but for our entire nation. Closing the Gap is an important bipartisan effort that recognises that the way forward will depend on people working together, irrespective or race or background, to improve education, health and quality of life for all Australians. It is an effort that, I am pleased to recognise, both sides of the political spectrum are striving towards. As the Prime Minister said in her speech:

… the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of this country have decided to walk the path of reconciliation together.

Importantly, the Prime Minister acknowledged:

The mistakes made in one generation are being repaired in the next. The gap is being closed. So for all the challenges we will inevitably encounter between now and 2031, this is a moment to savour. Not just because we reached a target but because we showed what we can do together.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, also rightly acknowledged the hard work that has gone into achieving the progress that has been made so far. Mr Abbott said in his Closing the Gap speech:

There is a new spirit in this land. There is a new spirit which reaches out to embrace the indigenous people of this country, so different from the spirit that was abroad when the Prime Minister and I were young. It is a tribute to so many people in this place and around our country that that is now the case.

I rise to add my voice to the support of the many in support of the continued work to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I am pleased to see the involvement of parliamentary colleagues over the term of this parliament making contributions to those debates on many fronts. We see positive changes in the number of Indigenous Australians in employment, with 47 per cent of Indigenous Australians now in mainstream employment. That is significantly up from five years ago. It means that they participate in the economic opportunities that this country affords those who wish to take the pathway into different jobs and ultimately earn incomes that benefit their families.

I also raise my concern that we do not lose focus at this critical point in our endeavours. I think if we take the headline messages out of both those speeches and walked into communities and the suburbs where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families live, we would see a gap that we would find hard to comprehend, given what we have heard in the parliament. Some of that gap is around missed opportunity in respect to education.

I also look at the incarceration rates that are continuing to climb in every jurisdiction. That means you have young Indigenous Australians taking a pathway into corrective services and, in some instances, into recidivism where their incarceration rates become cyclic. They spend time out and they go back in. It is an opportunity that is lost in terms of the hope and aspirations that we desire for all young people.

When I look at the Australian Public Service, I see Indigenous Australians employed within a number of agencies but there are very few in positions within the Senior Executive Service where they are contributing to not just the debate on the needs of Indigenous Australians but also the debate on the needs of the Australian public through the agency in which they work. For example, the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health focuses on the health of Indigenous Australians and yet in its history I have never seen any Indigenous person appointed to the most senior position within the organisation or to the branch manager positions within state and territory offices. I have seen them appointed to levels much lower than that, which is a pity.

If we are truly closing the gap and changing the mindset we would have developed the capability for them to participate anywhere within the public sector. I hope that in 10 years we do not have identified positions within the public sector, that what we have is the same strategy that applied when we focused on equity for women. We did not create positions that were made for women as we do with Indigenous Affairs. Within the decade what I want to see is an Indigenous person holding a position at the deputy secretary or secretary level of a Commonwealth agency on merit and on the basis of the skills and capability that they bring. Although we have had gains, they are not significant enough to be uniform across the board.

We are closing the gap, we are making tremendous gains in leaps and bounds. But if we take the whole spectrum in terms of housing, community infrastructure and the number of people who are progressing in their quality of life, we see some disparities still. I would hope that, when we achieve the targets we have set under the national partnership agreements and through the COAG processes, we do not overlook all of those other factors that come into play. If we halt that then we will see a discrepancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. What I would also hope is that in the future Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs become the lesser pathway for progression within Australian society and a greater pathway of opportunity is created in a much broader context. I am always concerned, when we walk into Aboriginal communities, whether we really see the true story. That is why I have been a strong advocate of members of this parliament getting out into their electorates and identifying the gaps themselves. It is when you go and visit constituents, work with the organisations in the process of meetings, and understand the challenges and things that we have to change, that you will really see the gap close in a number of areas beyond just the five aspects we have targeted to achieve.

My concern is that some of the true nature of what is happening at our regional and remote Aboriginal communities is not accurately reflected in data. One of the things I love about data is that you can collect data, analyse it, bring it into a national construct and see where we have made change and differences, just through the trending of data. It is when we dig down and go back to the realities of families and communities that we see there are still gaps yet to be addressed. In a bell curve, 25 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have made significant advances, both within their career pathways and in the income that they bring home on a fortnightly basis. They are highly successful and they do the same normative things as any other Australian family whose members work full-time—although there is still a cultural obligation that you support and help family members. I suspect that that is why you do not see too many Indigenous Australians as millionaires: because we tend to have a cultural obligation of sharing the grief and pain.

As part of my work on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, I have seen with my own eyes the work that still needs to be done in our country. I have listened to community members and service providers on the ground, who work hard to achieve improved access to services that many of us take for granted. There are still people living in abject poverty with no help and no hope for a better future. There is a sense of futility for some individuals because they see no horizon of hope from where they currently sit within the context of the continuum of opportunities that prevail within our broader Australian community. Many Indigenous people are living under substandard living conditions relative to other Australians in all settings—rural, regional and remote.

Only recently, I met with a group of Indigenous leaders in my own electorate and they talked about the substandard housing that some of them are living in and their frustrations in working with government agencies to try and remedy the problem. One of the elements that I really appreciated when the NPAs—national partnership agreements—were being framed was that the National Indigenous Reform Agreement had a set of principles as to how government agencies would work with Indigenous communities, organisations and people, whereby they were equal partners in shaping the way programs, services and initiatives would roll out to make a difference. Sadly, that has not occurred to the extent that I would have thought.

Life expectancy, employment rates, childhood mortality rates and literacy rates still show a marked difference between our Indigenous Australians and the rest of the Australian population in rural and remote regions. We still have a distance to travel to close the gap in Australia. We still need to fight for many families and young children who are facing an upward battle to have access to the same healthcare and education as children living in the metropolitan areas. One of the key challenges that still remain, as I said earlier, is the youth incarceration rate. I once participated in a review of imprisonment programs, and the element that came through in that was the normative thinking and expectation that imprisonment was a pathway in life—that it was just the normal process of living.

We have really got to focus on dealing with that issue. We also need to initiate long-term, lasting change. One excellent example of this is the training of Indigenous doctors. Doctors are making a tangible, positive difference in closing the gap. I saw the beginnings of the medical school in Newcastle, where Dr Sandra Eades graduated as one of the first Indigenous doctors. From that grew the pathways for many others. We now have in excess of 120 doctors. Kelvin Kong in New South Wales has completed the requirements to be a surgeon.

So we have made strident gains in some key areas but we need that uniformly. We need to see individuals go into the financial sector and into areas that will generate opportunities for a rethinking of the contribution that can be made through the financial gains available to all of those who seek to invest and seek those opportunities. Young men and women are establishing their own enterprises and are being successful in a slow and steady way. Joe Proctor is a financial adviser and investor with Macquarie Bank. Terri Janke is the owner of Terri Janke and Company. Natalie Walker is the CEO of Australian Indigenous Minority Supplier Council. David William is from Gilimbaa. Quinton Tucker is at BYAC Contractors. All of them are employing other Indigenous Australians as part of their workforce but are engaging external people to skill them. Eventually they want to become strong economic entities in their own right to participate not only in the mining boom.

Isabelle Adams at Vision Network has had her own consultancy company for some time and has made a tremendous contribution to some of the reforms. Whilst we can acknowledge that we have closed the gap in some key areas, there is still much more work to be done. There needs to be a greater effort of consistency. The other element that has to be considered as a gap is the active participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being equal partners in the delivery of government services and programs. There is still a desire for the control to sit with state and Commonwealth government agencies. If the change occurs then we will see real ownership of many of the facets of the gaps that are still there and I think we will see improvements within the decade that parallel the achievements we have made thus far.

I hope that we see within the next two terms of parliament further reporting on other key areas that demonstrate that we are on the path to success and that we are on the path where all Indigenous Australians work very closely and are part of the leadership of this nation in every field of endeavour—not just in Indigenous affairs but in the institutions, the financial structures of this country and the corporate sector. I congratulate both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their fine speeches that reflect the gains we have made thus far.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow the member for Hasluck in this important debate on closing the gap. He is the only Indigenous member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which is an indication of one gap that we need to work to close. Were Indigenous Australians to be represented in this place in proportion to the number in the Australian population there would be at least five Indigenous members in parliament and many debates, this one included, would be richer for that. I hope we will see Nova Peris joining the next Senate, but we still will have further to go. It is an indicator of how many of these gaps take too long to close.

I am proud to represent an electorate which is the home of the Ngunawal people. Often when I am looking for stories of Indigenous Australia I turn to Stories of the Ngunnawal, an excellent book which discusses some of the stories of the Ngunawal elders. One story by Dorothy Brown Dickson reminds us of how tough it was for some of the Ngunawal people. Ms Dickson grew up in an Aboriginal reserve in Yass. She refers to how tough life was for the young men. She says:

They couldn't have a drink in peace. They had nowhere else to have a drink and socialise as they weren't allowed in the pubs. People would come up there all the time arresting them, and taking them down to the lock-up. When the police needed slave labour to look after their yards and cut wood, there always seemed to be someone in jail to do it.

She goes on to say:

Even the shop-keepers were prejudiced. You had to wait until the white people were served first in the shops. When Aborigines went to the picture theatre they had to sit down the front by themselves. And the welfare would come up there all the time, checking on people.

She goes on to talk about her friend Betty Russell, who she used to walk to school with. She says:

One afternoon I went to Betty's place. Betty was quiet and her mother was sad. I asked What's the matter?' Betty said the welfare was sending her mother and brothers and sisters to Walgett. I was really sad. It really broke my heart but nothing could be done. I never saw Betty for years after that.

It is vital that we report to parliament on progress on closing the gap. Progress on closing the gap is a multifaceted challenge. It involves issues of the heart, such as the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in the Constitution; symbolic acts of recognition, such as our existing practice of acknowledging traditional owners of the land in formal speeches; and perhaps in the future other practices, such as that adopted across the ditch, of dual naming of places. Today being Canberra Day it is appropriate to note that Canberra is the only Australian city that carries an Indigenous name rather than the name of a European settler or a respected European. We ought to have more cities in Australia carrying traditional Indigenous names.

I wanted to speak today about a number of pieces of work being done to close the gaps. They are not all directly connected with one another, but I do not think many of these efforts to close the gap are directly connected with one another either. One issue that I have been active on as a member representing a large number of public servants is ensuring that the Australian government meets its target of 2.7 per cent Indigenous employees in the Australian Public Service. This is of particular concern to me as a result of an issue raised by the CPSU here in the ACT recently—that the share of Indigenous public servants in the Australian Public Service has not been increasing but in fact declining, falling from 2.4 to 2.1 per cent. In an effort to work out what we can do to increase the share of Indigenous employees I wrote to all ministers asking what strategies they are employing to improve the share of Indigenous employees in their departments, and I thought I might share some of those strategies with the House today.

Several departments have structured mentoring, leadership or buddy programs for Indigenous Australians, focusing on career development and ensuring retention. Other departments hold national conferences for their Indigenous employees as an opportunity to share ideas and experiences. Some departments have Indigenous apprentice, cadet and graduate programs as well as particular Indigenous strategy teams within their human resources divisions. In certain cases those human resources divisions have developed memoranda of understanding with Indigenous studies centres at universities as a way of partnering with those centres to get talented university graduates. There are departments that already exceed the 2.7 per cent target and are aiming higher. They have set aspirational targets for 2015. One minister has an Indigenous advisor working on his staff and has had that advisor for a number of years. Several departments participate in the Learn Earn Legend! Work Exposure with Government program, administered by DEEWR. It is a program that aims to give Indigenous Australians exposure to work in the offices of parliamentarians and in the Australian Public Service.

There is also work being done across the APS through its Diversity Council to make diversity issues visible, and there have been efforts to make sure that public servants are offered leave for cultural and ceremonial purposes which are appropriate to the needs of those employees. Those include up to two days leave with pay for participation in NAIDOC Week activities and cultural and ceremonial events.

The targets are 2.7 per cent for departments that were below that threshold as at 2009, or a 20 per cent increase for departments that were above the threshold. I do hope that we will see the share of Indigenous employees in the public sector track upwards, perhaps even through use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recruitment agencies, better working with existing Indigenous staff to design and deliver cultural appreciation training and through identified Indigenous positions—meaning not that the person who is successful in getting the position need be Indigenous but that they must understand Indigenous issues and take responsibility for communicating effectively with Indigenous people. Such positions may well be an important step towards increasing the share of public servants who are from an Indigenous background.

A second issue to which I want to draw the attention of the House is work being done by Canberra public servant Daniel Billing, which has been publicised in the Canberra Times by their excellent education editor, Emma Macdonald. Mr Billing is working to provide home Kindles to Indigenous students. He noticed how his own seven-year-old took to the Kindle intuitively and enthusiastically, and so came up with a plan to fund Kindles for Indigenous students in an effort to boost their interest in reading. The ACT's only participant is Forrest Primary School sixth-grader Yulcailia Hoolihan-Mongta. At the time she received her Kindle, the 11-year-old had a reading age of nine and spent just 45 minutes a week reading. After 12 weeks with the Kindle she has increased her weekly reading to two hours and 20 minutes and gained about a year's worth of reading activity—a year's worth of reading activity just in that three-month period, according to her teacher, Gemma O'Brien.

I commend Emma Macdonald for her work in publicising the Indigenous Reading Project and Daniel Billing for his activism, as well as the many generous philanthropists who have donated towards it. But one philanthropic body is notably absent, and that is Amazon.com. Amazon.com has Australian sales, I would estimate, of around $1 billion a year. Based on the available estimates, they hold about one-10th of the $13 billion online sales market. And yet Amazon.com pay no GST, they pay no company tax and they make no charitable donations to a single Australian charity—$1 billion in sales, and not a cent in charitable donations. I asked Amazon.com how they could defend this, but I got no comment. I think this is unacceptable; I think Amazon ought to recognise their duty to Australia to behave as a good corporate citizen. And I cannot see a better charity for Amazon to support in Australia than the Indigenous reading project. So, as a Kindle user and a keen consumer of their products, I do encourage Amazon.com to become a better Australian corporate citizen.

Third, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the July 2012 report Evaluating new income management in the Northern Territory: First evaluation report by J Rob Bray and co-authors. This is an important report because it cuts through much of the ideology that has surrounded new income management in the Northern Territory. It focuses on the empirical evidence relating to income management.

It notes that there are few consistent impacts of new income management. Instead, there have been diverse outcomes. The report notes wide and inconsistent views and experiences of income management. There have been many who wish to remain on the program, which has had a positive impact on their lives. There has also been a statistically significant improvement in the ability to afford food among those in the treatment group relative to the control group. There were other positive and negative aspects noted. The Basics card has been valued, but the loss of autonomy resented. Some subject to income management have noted that they find it restrictive or frustrating. There is a sense of a disempowerment.

We need more empirical evidence of this type. I commend Minister Macklin for commissioning this important research. It is only through taking a clearheaded look at the empirical data that we will be able to craft better policies. If closing the gap were easy, it would have been done by generations past. It is because this is a difficulty task that we set ourselves to it.

Finally, let me acknowledge the Indigenous softball program, which I had the pleasure to be engaged with at the Hawker Softball Centre at an event last year. Softball has been a leader among sports in engaging with Indigenous Australians, particularly women's softball. There are Indigenous softball clubs springing up across urban, regional and remote Australia. I commend the work of Softball Australia in this area. Sport can help change lives and provide a sense of self-esteem and an enthusiasm to be involved in the community. Sport will play an important part in helping to close the gap. I commend the statement to the House with a sense of optimism about the goals but also with clear-eyed realism about how far we have to go.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also appreciate the opportunity to speak in relation to the Prime Minister's fifth annual statement on Closing the Gap. In doing so, I would like to commend both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the manner in which they contributed to the debate in February this year. Both the tone and the content of their respective speeches to the parliament reflected very positively on them and on their efforts to address Aboriginal disadvantage throughout our nation.

Much has already been said by other speakers about the successes and the failures in reaching the ambitious targets set in 2008 in relation to life expectancy, mortality rates, early childhood education, reading, numeracy and writing, year 12 achievement and employment outcomes. I would like to acknowledge the Prime Minister's comment that this will be the work of an entire generation of Australians. We should not become disheartened by any early setbacks or indeed become complacent about any of our successes. Every gain in this space will be hard won and it will be difficult for us to consolidate those gains. As the Prime Minister said:

Let's always remember: closing the gap is not inevitable. Keeping it closed is not inevitable either. We must guard our gains and never allow a backward step.

Similarly, the Leader of the Opposition remarked in his speech that this must be a national project with a focus on results on the ground. As he is a member who above all others in this place has lived the creed in terms of going out and working in the Indigenous communities and delivering practical results on the ground, I will quote from a speech by the Leader of the Opposition in which he said:

… the sad truth is that it is easy to spend money but it is hard to make a difference. That is why it is so important that we focus on not just what is happening here in his building, what is happening here in the administration, but what is happening on the ground. The focus should not be on what Government is doing but it must also be on what people are doing in response to the initiatives of government, because it doesn’t matter what we do in this place. All our fine words, all our noble sentiments don’t matter if adults aren’t going to work and if children aren’t going to school.

I endorse those comments from the Leader of the Opposition. This is about making a real difference in the lives of Aboriginal people throughout Australia.

I have said repeatedly in my time in this place that you do not need to travel to rural or remote communities in the Northern Territory to witness Indigenous disadvantage in Australia. Regional towns right throughout Victoria, including in my own electorate, and right through New South Wales and Queensland provide examples of Indigenous communities struggling to meet ends meet and get ahead in their lives.

I do endorse the building blocks of the Closing the Gap initiative, which have been supported through the COAG process. It is about early-childhood development, schooling, health, economic participation, healthy homes, safe communities and governance and leadership—governance and leadership from this place and also from the communities themselves. These building blocks are very easy for us to talk about because they do make sense. It is a matter of getting the kids to school, healthy, at an early age and making sure that they are actually attending school by giving them that good start in life so that when they reach those early years of education they are ready to learn. It is helping them and their families to value an education with the prospect in the longer term that at their education or training journey there will be a real job for them, and they can have their own economic independence.

I believe that we have a role in this place to help provide the leadership, but it has to be in partnership with the communities that we are talking about. There must be a level of responsibility accepted by the community leaders themselves, by the individuals and by the Aboriginal elders to help their own communities. I think we have a very important role in this place by helping to provide the framework to ensure that there is a safe living environment for those people.

I want to talk about a slightly different gap from the nature of other speeches that have been made this evening and earlier, and that is the gap in Aboriginal participation in the social and civic life of our communities. I would argue that the relationship of most white Australians with Aboriginal people does not really extend beyond the abstract. We might cheer for them in their sporting pursuits, whether it be in the AFL or in rugby league, and some of us may have the opportunity to work with Aboriginal people in their professional capacity. We do get the opportunity to read about their issues in the media, in particular the Australian has done an extraordinary job in recent years of highlighting areas of Aboriginal disadvantage in our nation. I would argue that most of my colleagues in this place—and, in fact, most of my white Australian friends—would not have a single Aboriginal person they could say is their personal friend. I would argue that most of us have never actually sat down and had a cup of coffee or shared a meal with an Aboriginal person or their family outside, perhaps, the professional role they may have in the community. There is a real social and civic life gap in the lives of Aboriginal people and the relationship with white Australia. I think there is an enormous gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and there are very few opportunities at the moment for that social engagement, particularly, I would argue, in our city or suburban locations.

It is probably a bit different for us who are fortunate enough to come from regional towns. We are often involved more directly in our communities, whether it is through our sporting or community activities. I would argue, still, that it does not always extend to a friendship or a social engagement between white Australians and Aboriginal Australians. Once the footy game is over there is very little actual social interaction. I think it is to our enormous loss as a nation that we do not find the ways to bridge that gap. It is a gap that, I think, all of us can address in our daily lives. There are simple things like making sure that the young Aboriginal children in our communities are involved or included in our sporting clubs, that we actually invite the young Aboriginal children to our own children's birthday parties and go out of our way to make sure that those bridges are built across the cultural divide. I think we can extend the hand of friendship beyond the grand speeches that we might make in this place or the grand gestures of the Apology by the member for Griffith. These are all important gestures but, unless they are backed up by practical action on the ground by each and every one of us, it will all be for naught. It is all about taking some small and practical steps to understand each other and to show respect for one another.

I had the good fortune as a young person growing up in Gippsland to know many Aboriginal people and to still regard them as both friends and family members. My family link, if you like, is through my dad's cousins, Jack and Edna, who fostered and provided safe homes for many Aboriginal people. In times of great need they provided refuge for young Aboriginal people. Theirs is quite a remarkable story. My Uncle Jack was prisoner of war in the Thai-Burma Railway. He was a POW for several years yet, when he returned, despite experiencing all the atrocities endured on the Thai-Burma Railway, he harboured no ill-will towards his Japanese captors, which I find quite staggering. When he returned to Australia he had a renewed commitment to serve others who were less fortunate than himself.

His calling, as he described it to me once, was to work with Indigenous people. He moved his family to a little place called Newmerella, which is on the outskirts of Orbost, not far from the banks of the Snowy River, and during his lifetime he either fostered, adopted or provided refuge for up to 20 Aboriginal children. It is an extraordinary life story. He was able to provide for them with his wife, Edna, and their own children a stable, safe family environment for these young Aboriginal people who could not, for whatever reason, live with their blood relatives in the township.

Those young Aboriginal people were part of my formative years growing up. We spent a lot of time with them quite often because, obviously, with a large number of children in his own house, Jack and Edna needed a bit of respite and some of the young Aboriginal people would come and stay at our place in Sale in the school holidays. So we had a lot of exposure and a lot of experience with young Aboriginal people, and we regard them as our cousins. I am sure there was no actual blood relationship at all, but we regard them as cousins, and to this day I still regard them as my cousins. Many of those young people went on to achieve good educations, they went on to achieve stable jobs and they have been able to fully participate in the economic and social lives of the Gippsland community. At the same time, they have been able to retain their cultural identity. This is a microcosm of what can be achieved by working in partnership with Indigenous people in their own communities—making sure that they are healthy, making sure they have had the chance to go to school and achieve an education or training and then have the realistic aspiration or expectation of achieving a job at the end that time.

Just a month ago, I introduced the Prime Minister to one of those kids—one of those young Aboriginal people. I should not call him a kid because—his name is Lionel De Carcass—he is actually 50 now. When the Prime Minister visited Heyfield, I dragged Lionel out of the crowd and made him come over and say g'day to the Prime Minister. It was a great moment, and Lionel got his photo taken with the Prime Minister, and I am hoping that Lionel still votes for me in September. Nevertheless, he had his photo taken with the Prime Minister and it was a lovely moment. Lionel trained as a builder, he has gone off and worked in the mines and now he works as a cultural liaison officer with the Department of Sustainability and Environment. He has been a terrific role model for other young Aboriginal people in the Gippsland region. He has raised three successful children who have all done well in both their education and their employment. I wonder many times, when we see the extent of Aboriginal disadvantage and Indigenous disadvantage in my community, what he would have achieved and what his brothers, sisters and kin would have achieved without Uncle Jack and Aunty Edna's guidance.

What was great about that relationship was that it provided structure to their lives, and for a lot of Aboriginal people in my electorate there is a lack of structure. They lack positive role models. There is, unfortunately, an intergenerational welfare dependency which has developed over 20 or 30 years, and it is a blight on our community that we have not been able to help these people and rescue these people from their perilous situation. So I welcome this opportunity in this place to talk about the Closing the Gap initiatives but in doing so I hope that we continue to remember that the these fine words we hear in this place need to be backed up with action on the ground.

It concerned me as I prepared my notes for this evening's comments that, with the exception of the member for Hasluck, we have a lot of white voices in this place talking about Aboriginal issues and not enough Aboriginal people themselves in this building making a contribution to our nation's great democracy. I thought rather than just have me talk about the Closing the Gap initiatives, I would ask a few of the Aboriginal people in my community for their comments on how they thought we were progressing after five years. I asked several people in the community for their responses, and they were generally quite positive in the fact that they thought we were making progress and that we were actually heading in the right direction with the Closing the Gap initiatives. But there was, of course, a cautionary note that more needs to be done.

One of the young men I spoke to was a fella by the name of Will Carter. Will, typical of a lot of the Aboriginal boys in my community, is a gun footballer. In fact, I think he has won quite a few club best and fairests and a couple of league best and fairests as well. Will now works in the employment industry for young people, not just Indigenous people but other young people as well. He says, in relation to Closing the Gap, that it does have the right intentions—he is heartened by that. But he says that there needs to be more of a focus on the placement into jobs with the generous employers that have been so willing to be part of something so big and there are other ways it could be better approached in terms of getting the major multinationals like Coles and Woolworths involved more directly in our community. I take up Will's suggestion that the major multinationals have a lot more to offer in making sure Indigenous young people have the opportunity to get casual work and then go on to full-time employment.

He also makes the point, and I think it is a very good point, that Reconciliation Week and other activities need to be driven by the young Aboriginal people in our community. The best place to start is the education system. He believes there are great opportunities to ensure that young Indigenous people still appreciate their own culture but also have the willingness and expectation they will gain paid employment.

Some comments I received were from a lady by the name of Aunty Phyllis Andy. Aunty Phyllis is an absolute doyenne of my local community and an elder of the local Aboriginal people. She works with the Lakes Entrance Aboriginal Health Association and makes the point that the East Gippsland region is going from strength to strength but trying to deal with the demands of health, housing and education has become very difficult for the Lakes Entrance Aboriginal Health Association. She calls on both state and federal governments to renew their focus in the growing health needs of our community.

The last person I consulted was a fellow by the name of Wayne Thorpe, who does some great work in my community. I will quote directly from Wayne's brief email to me.

As my uncle said to me, which way is best for Aboriginal people? One way open the gap. Culture will close the gap for our people. Kids need to learn culture as well as adults. We have tried the Australian western values. It is Aboriginal culture that will fill the empty void created in our lives. When our cultural beliefs are respected and are part of our daily lives then we can engage in the other cultures of Australia.

That was from Wayne Thorpe, who is a traditional custodian of the Gunai people. These are wise words from people in my community. The general response I receive is that we are making progress. It has been a long journey and it has been extremely painful at times, but we must continue to work together for the benefit not just of Indigenous people but of the broader Australian nation. I commend the motion to the House.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start by commending the member for Gippsland. I thought that was an outstanding contribution. In my 17 years, as of 2 March this year, in federal parliament, I have not sensed such a unity between the parties on any issue as on this issue. I think it is a great thing for our country and it is an opportunity to take some really significant steps. We have done a lot, but there is a long way to go. My contribution today will focus on what I believe to be a necessity in the Closing the Gap targets—that is, added to those six specific targets, we should be adding the target of reducing both victimisation and incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

In terms of victimisation, statistics show that Indigenous people are almost twice as likely as non-Indigenous people to have been a victim of physical or threatened violence. Indigenous women are 31 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be admitted to hospital for injuries caused by assault. Their children are 31 times more likely to witness their mum, their grandma or their sister being the victim of an assault than the broader Australian community. In remote areas Indigenous people are hospitalised as a result of family violence at 35 times the rate of the rest of Australia. In Indigenous communities the victim and offender are intimate partners 60 per cent of the time as compared to 24 per cent of the time for non-Indigenous Australians. Indeed, in the case of homicides, similarly, 60 per cent of homicides in Indigenous communities are between intimate partners whereas it is one-quarter of the homicides in the broader community. These are appalling figures, and there is no question that the people who commit those crimes should be incarcerated. That is unquestionably an appropriate response to those crimes.

Equally, we need to assess whether our strategies are appropriately graduated. There is a strong argument that high levels of incarceration, particularly for minor offences such as traffic offences and non-payment of fines, may ultimately undermine our objective of safer communities. For instance, in New South Wales I think you have to get about 120 hours of driving experience up before you get a licence. The expense of that for some members of Indigenous communities is prohibitive. If they are at a remote location and they require transport, whatever may be the need of the journey, they will frequently drive unlicensed. The consequence of that is a fine if they are apprehended. The consequence of non-payment of those fines, in some states at least, can be incarceration. There are strategies in place, and a number of volunteers are now in Indigenous communities teaching young people to drive, to prevent the rate of fines and, consequently in some communities, incarceration. That is a lateral approach to imprisoning young people because they are driving without a licence.

I can give you some of the percentages in terms of the broader community. Today Indigenous Australians make up only 2.5 per cent of the population but they account for 26 per cent of the adult prison population. The incarceration rate of Indigenous adults is 14 times higher than non-Indigenous adults. Between 2000 and 2010 the rate at which Indigenous women were incarcerated increased by 58 per cent. That is, in our most recent past decade, the rate of incarceration of Indigenous women increased by 50 per cent. The rate at which Indigenous men are incarcerated increased by over a third to 35 per cent.

Of greatest concern, however, is that those figures are even higher for Indigenous juveniles. Only five per cent of young Australians are Indigenous, but half of the young people in detention—in prison and juvenile detention—are Indigenous. Indeed, Indigenous young Australians are 28 times more likely to be in detention than non-Indigenous Australians. We have apologised, and we had reason to apologise, for the stolen generation. We are at the precipice of a lost generation because of the rate of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. In fact, Indigenous young people are more likely to be incarcerated today than at any time since the release of the reports of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody more than 20 years ago. In other words, the situation is getting worse; it is not getting better, and this is not good enough.

Experts have talked about the marginal effect of incarceration in terms of reducing crime. Indeed, evidence suggests today that excessive imprisonment rates, particularly for those relatively minor offences that I have referred to—fine default, traffic offences and so forth—may actually cause more crime in the longer term. Professor Dave Brown, who must be getting on a bit because he taught me at university, makes the point that prisons can become schools of crime which result in the fracturing of family and community ties, hardening and brutalisation, and poor mental health outcomes for those who have been incarcerated. After an offender is released they are likely to have lost essential life skills, have an increased reliance on criminal networks that they have built up in prison, and experience reduced employment opportunities and access to social programs. This is a profound and worrying situation in Indigenous communities because it simply leads to recidivism, where they go around the cycle again and then end up in either juvenile detention or prison. Prof. Brown also points out that studies have shown that there may be a tipping point for certain communities where, once incarceration reaches a certain level, crime in the community will actually increase. Instead of it being a deterrent, it becomes a rite of passage where it is an expectation—or indeed a thing of pride—to have served your time in prison, as opposed to what we know: that prison should be very much a deterrent and very much the local community saying that this conduct is unacceptable.

Concerningly and tragically, this trend is intergenerational. The Corrective Services NSW Women's Advisory Council's submission to the Doing Time inquiry, which was a report of this parliament—and I commend that report to all members; I think it is an outstanding report—gave the account of one of their experts. The expert said, 'When I was going to Mulawa prison,'—this is the women's prison—'a young woman came up to me and introduced me to her mother and grandmother, who were also incarcerated.' Three generations: grandmother, mother and child were incarcerated. They had all been in custody and were all in Mulawa, in the women's jail, together. It was not remarkable to them; it was simply something that happens. That is three generations, all living generations, incarcerated in the women's prison—and I spoke earlier about the rates of incarceration of Indigenous women increasing 50 per cent from the period 2000 to 2010. If we do not turn these trends around it is difficult to see—if not impossible to see—how we are going to make the other Closing the Gap targets in terms of health, in terms of education and in terms of employment if we do not have functional communities.

In the Prime Minister's Closing the Gap speech she referred to the need for there to be an availability of places in educational institutions, and the Leader of the Opposition said that yes, there needed to be places in those educational institutions for young people. But he went a step further: he said that there need to be places and those kids needed to turn up. I say that they are both right, but I go a step further: not only do they need to turn up, but they need to be functional—and I can give you a firsthand example of that. When I was Attorney-General, I was taken on a tour of Kununurra one evening by police officers in Western Australia. The first thing those police officers did was take me where there were Indigenous youths on the streets—some as young as seven, they pointed out to me. The police were obviously worried about that because of the welfare of the young people, but also from the point of view of what those bored young people may get up to on the street. The next thing they did was take me to their homes a few blocks away, and that provided the answer: drunkenness was rife, with all its associated ugly antisocial behaviour; the noise, the tension—quite frankly, the sense of bedlam—was profound. I am not a small person, but there is no way that I would have walked down those streets. In fact, it was distressing to see that those hardened police officers became quite emotional in advising me that the kids we saw in the streets had to wait until alcohol induced sleep had set in before venturing back through the streets to their homes. Yet those kids were expected to turn up at school the following day and be functional. Clearly, in the circumstances that I saw, that was going to be an impossibility.

There are a number of successful programs. Indeed, in Kununurra, I was able to fund a program that was a drop-in centre so kids, instead of being on the street, could drop into the centre; that is one of the advantages of being a minister. I returned 12 months later and saw the centre up and running. It was pointed out to me that the cost to government of the centre was some $200,000 a year. It was pointed out to me at the same time that the cost of the centre, with capacity for 50 kids to drop in, was the cost of incarcerating one Indigenous youth. That was an example of a successful program and there are obviously more sophisticated programs to prevent recidivism that require the intervention of social workers, employment experts and so forth.

There are a number of very successful programs around. As the member for Gippsland pointed out, the vital importance of those programs is that they are being developed in partnership with Indigenous communities. My fundamental point is this: there are many, many examples of very successful programs, but unless and until we make a specific target for Closing the Gap to reduce rates of victimisation—that is, people who are victims of crime—and rates of incarceration of Indigenous Australians, we have Buckley's of making the other Closing the Gap targets.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my contribution I will not recount some of the known challenges that we as a nation face in ensuring that our Indigenous brothers and sisters achieve all that they are capable of doing. I hope to point to some opportunities that would bring about the kind of change that we all aspire to but in some respects the Closing the Gap account provided to the parliament reflects modest progress in these areas.

The speeches delivered by the parliamentary leaders were excellent. I am reflecting primarily on the Leader of the Opposition's eloquent words about the importance of work. Some years ago I had the honour and privilege of being concurrently the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs with oversight responsibilities for AusAID and the Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Affairs. One thing that frankly bewildered me was why the two policy groups did not speak more with each other to learn from each other's experiences and draw insights and inspiration from what was succeeding. As I represented our nation at the millennium development goal discussions, I had the honour and privilege of speaking in Jakarta for our region and at the UN headquarters in New York about progress. There I could point to the hundreds of millions of citizens in our region that had lifted their lives out of poverty. There was no magic bullet to doing that. It was enabled by the only durable strategy in human history that has ever worked—that is, sustainable economic growth.

One can transfer wealth between peoples or countries and that may mitigate some of the harm you see from abject poverty and many of the social challenges that have been discussed in this debate. But to achieve a durable lift in opportunity, in quality of life, in incomes and in living standards there is no substitute for economic growth. That was clear when we applied our policy minds and rigour to our overseas development assistance, but it seems to be something that we were not prepared to talk about in our own poverty alleviation and hardship challenges here. It was as if what worked for the away game we could not talk about for the home game. To this day, I remain bewildered about that disconnect—where the learnings are not cross-pollinating between our poverty alleviation and hardship actions overseas and what we do at home.

As I listened to the eloquent words of the Leader of the Opposition, it reminded me of a few insights that I gained over that time—insights that I urge the government today to embrace with much more vigour than I have seen to date. They were simple concepts that there is more opportunity to contribute to the economy than simply working for someone else. The Leader of the Opposition spoke eloquently about FMG and Twiggy Forrest's strategy, where he said, 'If I have the jobs I can train people for them.' That was an excellent insight into the matching exercise that is so crucial to having people see a pathway for their own improvement—in fact, how they can achieve their own sense of economic independence and individual self-determination.

It was contrasted with some of the aid initiatives, particularly in the Pacific, where we were training people for jobs that did not exist. It was a cruel hoax on people, to urge them to engage in study and training for years when there were no economic opportunities for which those learnings and skills could be applied when they completed their courses of study. Twiggy Forrest's and FMG's approach says, 'We have jobs; we will prepare people for them.'

But one thing that I am urging the government to take a look at, recognising the resourcefulness and resilience of Indigenous people and Indigenous communities, is the delicious opportunity for self-employment and small business formation. I know through my travels that major investments in communities with significant Indigenous populations would be welcomed more warmly where there were Indigenous economic opportunities arising from that investment. I know that even from CDEP programs, where you see Indigenous people engaged in support for their communities, they are using the very same skills which, if supported by appropriate guidance, advice and qualification recognition, could see those very same participants transform themselves into small business people—to be self-employed. This could transform, say, some home maintenance work in a CDEP program into a home maintenance business. Yet where is the support for that kind of transformation? Where is the effort for the Indigenous community to activate and to make their own self-employment and small business opportunities in our country and, in particular, in our regions?

I am concerned, and I think a lot of it is because the government, through its own rhetoric, often would not know enterprise if they fell over it. There is this conception that the only modality of economic contribution is a person working for somebody else. Yet we know that the entrepreneurs, the self-employed and the independent contractors are crucial to our economic prospects—the courageous men and women of small business who take risks to create opportunities for themselves and for those around them, and who add an economic vitality to their communities.

That is why I pay tribute to Debbie Barwick—she is the chairperson of the New South Wales Indigenous Chamber of Commerce—and to Professor Dennis Foley. He is a professor of Indigenous research at the University of Newcastle. They have been onto this for some time, and I hope their efforts get more encouragement than has been seen to date.

There is scope for it within existing funding. I am not here saying that there needs to be more money thrown at a policy solution that is not proven: no, that is not right at all. There are resources available—there is a head nod to this opportunity—but it is all backswing and no follow through. There is a need to follow through on some of the glib terminology that surrounds some program description that talks to self-employment, enterprise and entrepreneurship but then does not result in any meaningful and sustained engagement and support to see it actually materialise.

In the area of the Indigenous employment program there was a notional thought that about 80 per cent of that funding should go to employment and about 20 per cent to economic development—supporting the infrastructure that enables Indigenous people to create their own opportunities and their own businesses, and to give method and structure to their own instinctive entrepreneurial characteristics. We believe that, instead of that 80 per cent to 20 per cent split, about 97 per cent of that funding is going to employment programs and a small fraction, around three per cent, is going to economic development. Yet—I go back to my original observation—economic growth has been proven throughout the ages to be the only durable way of sustainably lifting economic opportunities and alleviating poverty.

Why has the government frozen some Indigenous economic initiatives? Organisations have gone through extensive tender processes to get on panels, to have someone to hear them, only to be told that the government is not in a position to support them, and that there has been overspending in some areas—an excessive commitment of resources to employment and nothing left in the cupboard to support economic development. Big, profitable companies have been supported in implementing employment strategies, yet we have not seen any support of substance going to organisations like the New South Wales Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, a trusted, active and proven organisation to which Indigenous people can turn to support their own small business formation and self-employment opportunities.

Parliamentary inquiries have identified this opportunity, yet the support is not there. Even the 2008 draft, through to the 2011-18 Indigenous Economic Development Strategy under priority 4, supported the need for a commitment to organisations and agencies that could provide a one-stop shop to support Indigenous people in organising themselves and engaging with commercial opportunities, with self-employment and with small business start-ups. Yet that head nod, that acknowledgement, has not been followed through with resources. This is not to discount the action needed to alleviate the harm that others have talked about. This is about constructive steps to restore the hope that things can be better, to provide a purpose for learning that might see academic participation increase and to provide context and meaning to the encouragement from, for example, the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in his observation about joining up the Closing the Gap education initiative to encourage a greater degree of vocational and higher education participation.

It is about saying enterprise and self-employment is crucial to the economic future of the Indigenous community but it needs support. There is chapter and verse on how—and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, in their inquiry into being 'open for business', developing Indigenous enterprises in Australia, showed this—big corporates would love to interact with Indigenous enterprises as part of their rounded approach to their economic life and to the key performance indicators they communicate to their shareholders, and on the idea of Indigenous business chambers, hubs and one-stop shop models. This is supported by the Minerals Council, which points to that very policy measure as being crucial in ensuring that small businesses are run, owned, operated and guided to the benefit of Indigenous people and in ensuring that Indigenous people are able to take up economic opportunities.

In Message Stick's submission to the committee inquiry, Michael McLeod and Dug Russell, talk about the need for government to understand business and entrepreneurship and to put in place support programs that would see young Indigenous people not only recognise sporting excellence as a way out or an opportunity for individual self-determination and economic independence but also celebrate the heroes of Indigenous business. Young Indigenous boys and girls would be able to see someone had already walked that path and created opportunities for themselves and their communities. It is a grossly underdone area of the suite of policy tools that are broadly badged as the Closing the Gap initiatives. I urge the government to get behind that excellent work that Debbie Barwick and Professor Dennis Foley have undertaken.

In the few minutes that are left I want to point to another area where I think there is great hope, and that is private sector collaboration. I touched on it in terms of enterprise, entrepreneurship and self-employment, but I will go further. In my own community, two outstanding local people, Mr and Mrs Paul Williams, are providing Indigenous education opportunities through their philanthropic efforts in the Woomera Educational Scholarship Trust. This is a remarkable, selfless and generous statement by two local members of our community who have been very successful in their business careers and accumulated wealth that they want to put to virtuous and worthy causes. They have chosen to provide outstanding educational opportunity for young Indigenous people at some of the nation's leading schools, in particular the Peninsula School in my electorate of Dunkley.

They provide for tuition support where Indigenous people, largely from the north-west of Western Australia, come as boarders. The private trust also has to fund travel home for students who would otherwise be eligible for ABSTUDY and therefore able to reach out for travel expenses to return to their families with stories of their educational success and to reconnect with their communities where they are outstanding role models and inspirations. Yet if that same opportunity was funded publicly that travel expense would be funded and supported by the taxpayer.

I think that private philanthropy which provides world-class education opportunities for Indigenous students should be supported, whether it is funded by the taxpayer or by remarkable individuals like Mr and Mrs Williams. I have written to Minister Garrett saying this has to be a bureaucratic oversight, that surely we want to support this sort of private initiative. Doing so would open up an opportunity to provide another scholarship for another young Indigenous person to go back to their community as a remarkable role model and a statement of what application and commitment and making the best of the opportunities within your reach can do for you. That is a message I would like to see more of in Indigenous communities. There are some examples.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate in response to the Prime Minister's report to the parliament on the Closing the Gap report for 2012. The annual report to parliament has occurred each year since Prime Minister Rudd offered the official apology to the stolen generation on behalf of the nation in 2007. I was very pleased, as I am sure many of us were, to have been able to be present in the chamber on this very significant and moving occasion. At the time I said:

… there is so much that was stolen because of these policies and it is so important that we reach out. We do … through to an ongoing commitment to make sure that Aboriginal people's opportunities in our country are improved.

I finished my contribution with the comments of many of my local constituents who also wished to express their support for the apology and the commitment to closing the gap. I concluded:

There is no doubt that each of us in this place will be particularly keenly endorsing and supporting the current government's commitments to closing the gap so that the apology issued last Wednesday will actually be the beginning of a whole new period for Indigenous Australians and an opportunity for them to take some of the many privileges that are their rights as citizens of this nation.

In 2008 the Council of Australian Governments agreed to a set of targets which included firstly, the close the life expectancy gap within a generation—that is, by 2031; secondly, to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five by 2018; thirdly, to ensure access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities by 2013; fourthly, to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children by 2018; fifthly, to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020 and, finally, to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians by 2018.

Subsequent to the apology and the COAG agreement, both Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard have provided a full report to the parliament on the release of the Closing the Gap report each year. On 6 February this year, Prime Minister Gillard provided the most recent accounting for 2012.

In introducing her report, she told the House:

Closing the Gap is a plan of unprecedented scale and ambition, a plan not only to uplift the lives of Indigenous Australians but to do so in a shared endeavour of partnership and respect. That high level of ambition commits us to two decades of annual reckoning until we bridge the gulf that stands between us. Few if any of the men and women who sit in this parliament today will still be here when a future Prime Minister delivers the final Closing the Gap statement in 2031. A short walk to this despatch box that we hope will mark the end of a monumental journey. Wherever we are on that day, the people of this land will want to hear one thing. That we have, at last, accorded Indigenous Australians the health care, education, job opportunities and community services they deserve.

This is a legacy that I am sure any of us would be pleased to see outlive each of our individual careers.

This is a significant year. As the Closing the gap report identifies, it is the 20th anniversary of the Native Title Act being passed, it is the fifth anniversary of the national apology to the stolen generations and it is the year in which the first of the targets set back in 2008 will be achieved: ensuring all Indigenous four-year-olds living in remote communities have access to early childhood education within five years—that is, by 2013. In her speech, the Prime Minister reported that the Closing the Gap target, for all Indigenous four-year-olds living in remote communities to have access to early childhood education, will be achieved this year. This is particularly important, as it is well established that the early years are critical to the establishment of healthy, happy children and that being well-prepared for formal education is an invaluable investment that more than returns the cost of the investment.

The Closing the gap report itself identifies that children who attend quality preschool programs are more likely to be successful at school, stay in school longer, continue on to further education and training, and fully participate in employment and community life as adults. The report identifies the following achievements:

Data from 2011 reveals that 91 per cent of Indigenous children in remote areas are enrolled in a preschool program. This data, consistent with the governments' commitment regarding delivery, indicates that the target of 95 per cent enrolment will be met this year. The Government is working with Indigenous communities, large and small, to ensure children are enrolled in school and get to school and that the benefits of attendance are realised. Providing access to quality preschool programs is an important basis for better school attendance.

I am personally very interested in the education based targets for the reason that educational achievement is inextricably linked to overall improvement in life outcomes. The report on the fifth target tells us:

Results from the 2011 Census show the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Year 12 or equivalent attainment is narrowing. In 2011, the proportion of Indigenous 20-to-24-year-olds with at least Year 12 or Certificate II was 53.9 per cent—a 6.5 percentage point increase on 2006. This means progress against the target of halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020 is ahead of schedule.

The report continues in addressing the fourth target, to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous within a decade:

… between 2008 and 2012 the percentage of Indigenous students at or above the National Minimum Standards in Year 3 Reading increased by 5.9 percentage points. However, overall progress is mixed. Of the eight cases where the NAPLAN results in 2012 can be compared to the progress points set for 2012, three results are above or close to the 2012 trajectory points. In the other five cases, progress will need to accelerate if the target is to be met.

In her speech, the Prime Minister reflected these mixed results, including the fact that 'in year 9 writing the 2012 gap is almost double that—35 percentage points' and that 'year 3 reading actually declined in 2012 after improving between 2008 and 2011'. The Prime Minister stated:

I cannot conceal that these literacy and numeracy results are a source of personal disappointment.

I feel that we would all share that disappointment and would have a determination to turn those results around and, very importantly, sustain the achievements that have been made.

The full report provides extensive details on the progress of all of the targets and the related initiatives aimed at achieving the target outcomes. I encourage members of the public who are interested in this issue to look at the full report. It is undoubtedly the case that health and life expectancy, housing and employment, and security and participation are all important components of a full life to which all Australians deserve access and which far too many Indigenous Australians are often blocked from achieving. To quote the Prime Minister once more, she said:

It is the work of an entire generation and work that has begun with us.

I feel that it is a heavy responsibility that we should gladly carry as it is inconceivable that we would put this task down and walk away, as too many have done in the past.

I commend the Closing the gap report to the House and, in particular, encourage people to remain committed to achieving the six targets, as I am sure that all in this House remain committed to their achievement.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Prime Minister's speech on Closing the Gap. I would like to say from the outset that the Parkes electorate, after the seat of Lingiari, has more Aboriginal people than any other electorate in Australia. According to the 2011 census, there are 21,891 Aboriginal people in my electorate. I take the responsibility of representing those people in this place very seriously. I also take it as a great honour to represent those people. But, unfortunately, an Aboriginal boy born today in the electorate of Parkes has a life expectancy 15 years less than a white boy born on the same day. The median age of Aboriginal people in my electorate is just 21. That indicates that the life expectancy is, indeed, very short of the other end of the scale.

I have been the member for Parkes for just over five years. Achieving things for Aboriginal people in my electorate has been my greatest challenge. I do not take any joy in the fact that, of the things I do as a member of parliament—things we can all achieve as members of parliament—I should be doing a lot better for Aboriginal communities. When representing Aboriginal people, it is all about personal contact. People ask me what the views are of my Aboriginal community, and I say, 'I haven't got an Aboriginal community; I've got a hundred Aboriginal communities.' Each of those communities is individual: each has its own thoughts, aspirations and problems. The nominated targets for Closing the Gap are very relevant to the people that I represent. This is not all about bad news. There are a lot of good things happening in my electorate. The Aboriginal Employment Strategy, which has been very successful, was spawned in the town of Moree.

When I go around my schools, I see that the student leaders and some of the younger people are doing remarkable things. There was a young lad I first met when he was as a student at Moree High School. Last year he was a member of the youth parliament, and he came to Canberra and he mixed it with the best. He now works for a department here in Canberra and is into a successful career in the Public Service.

But, as we talk about Closing the Gap, I think we need to do a lot better. There have been some government decisions made over the last five years that have been detrimental to some of my communities—for instance, the removal of the CDEP. While it was far from perfect, and while it was never intended to be permanent employment and in some cases ended up being such, it was at least something. When the CDEP was removed from the village of Toomelah, the overall situation in that community deteriorated quite a lot. Unfortunately, quite often, from Canberra, we do things with lines on maps. In 2008 Toomelah and Gunnedah—which was then in my electorate—Narrabri and Moree were no longer considered to be remote and so CDEP would be removed. Now that line has moved further west and the communities of Coonamble, Walgett and Lightening Ridge are going through the same pain. While in theory it may be fine, and these services will be replaced by other providers, it does not take into account the personal relationships that are involved in providing these services. In all these country towns, the personal relationships that you build over a period of time are particularly important.

The other thing is that, if we are going to do the best thing by our Aboriginal people, we must not accept lower standards than we would for the rest of the community. By accepting lower standards and glossing over the problems, and praising things that are less than adequate, we disrespect those people we are trying to protect.

Unemployment is a big issue and is at the core of a lot of the problems in my communities. But it is not that there is a lack of work—unfortunately, the nature of my communities, and the nature of employment with agriculture, is such that a lot of the work that Aboriginal people did has now changed. The real challenge is to give the younger people the skills required to take up those positions. It is a great disappointment to me that we have people from all over the world working during the wheat and cotton harvest, and in the foundries, the workshops and the mechanical shops in my electorate that could be done by local people—but that has to be addressed through education.

I would like to speak about another couple of issues. One of the programs I am working on at the moment is in relation to the coalition's Green Army policy, should there be a change of government at the next election. I would be very keen for a training program, particularly the Boggabilla-Toomelah area, into full-time work in skills of resource management—weed control, river bank stabilisation: outdoor manual work that would be appropriate and that these people would enjoy. On the Macquarie River trails there is a great program, RiverSmart, looking at highlighting the benefits of the river, basically to help ensure the health of the river but also to promote it for tourism. It is a wonderful opportunity for Aboriginal employment, not only in constructing walkways and things like that, but also in guiding and tourism type work. That is something that I certainly hope we can get off the ground.

Another shining light in my electorate is the Currawah Adventist Aboriginal College. The Seventh Day Adventist Church have constructed a boarding school at the village of Gongolgon which is about 100 kilometres south of Brewarrina on the Bogan River. I went to the opening of the school and I was very, very impressed with what the Seventh Day Adventist Church are trying to achieve. They are drawing children, mainly from disadvantaged families and dysfunctional homes, from right across eastern Australia and the children are going to the school in the middle of, basically, nowhere. Those school children went to Canberra last year. They were well presented, enthusiastic and keen to learn about our parliament. They were as good as any school that I have escorted around this building. They were a real credit to the teachers and staff at the Currawah Adventist Aboriginal College, and those boys and girls were also a credit to themselves. That college is in danger of closing. They were hoping for some sort of financial assistance, maybe through Aboriginal Hostels Limited, particularly from the government to keep going. They will be in Parliament House tomorrow or the day after for some meetings to try and obtain funding assistance to keep the school open. That is real benefit and real achievement and is making a difference in these young people's lives.

I would like to close by speaking about the Clontarf Foundation. I have just come from a function where the Governor-General was the special guest as the Patron of the Clontarf Foundation. Of all the programs I have seen since I have been an member of parliament in any sphere I have never seen a program that has been more successful in obtaining the outcomes that they desire than the Clontarf Foundation. The foundation have four academies in my electorate that have been open for less than 12 months. Last Tuesday morning I had the privilege of attending the Clontarf Academy in Moree. I went on the bus with the tutors and we picked up the kids from their homes. The sun was not up—it was pitch black—but the kids were ready to go. We had an hour of training in rugby league. It started off in Perth with Aussie Rules but it has been adapted in New South Wales to Rugby League.

Twelve months ago many of the boys were not attending school. One boy had missed a whole year of school. They were now enthusiastic and were attending school. They were polite and respectful and they had a real purpose in their lives. As a member of parliament very rarely do you actually get to see a program that works like that. There are many places where the Clontarf Foundation could roll out. At the moment, I think, there are 9,000 boys in the academies across Australia. The foundation have identified double that number that could benefit from the academy. I would recommend all members in this place to look at the work of the Clontarf Foundation. There is a great potential to help the boys in Dubbo, Wellington, Nyngan, Cobar, Lake Cargelligo, Condobolin, Narrabri, Walgett and any other number of possibilities. Tonight we heard from a man, Geoffrey, who is 28 and who started with the academy as a teenager. He was a wayward Aboriginal boy and is now fully employed as a boilermaker working in a mine. He has a partner and two children. The Clontarf Foundation have helped him all along the way and now he is being a real father to his son and daughter. He spoke tonight—and it is as good a speech as I have ever heard in this place—about his lifelong journey from an errant boy who was not attending school to a proud father with full-time employment raising two children in Western Australia, if anyone wants an endorsement of what this can do.

The apology given by Kevin Rudd in 2008 is still very special to the Aboriginal people in my electorate. They talk about it still. That was a milestone. But we really need to embrace programs that work. We need to accept no less a standard for our Aboriginal brothers and sisters than we do for ourselves, and we need to put our energy, our emotion and our commitment into genuinely closing the gap so that by the time these children are adults the Aboriginal community and the Australian community are one, in every aspect of their lives.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their fine speeches in parliament in relation to Closing the Gap targets, delivered annually. Across Australia, according to Reconciliation Australia, governments spend about $25 billion a year on programs aimed at closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. But, sadly, the trust between both groups is still too low, and there is still perceived prejudice between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Nearly half of all Australians believe it is harder to achieve success if you are an Indigenous person.

But we have seen some improvements. We have seen betterment of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but it has been too slow—painfully slow. We have seen reconciliation action plans initiate so many improvements in the lives of people, and I commend those companies—there are currently about 358 organisations with reconciliation action plans. These are focused on employment, Indigenous business and education, and there are even pro bono organisations. There are others concerned with cultural competency. It is known that reconciliation action plans improve the contact between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The attitudes—the pride, the prejudice—will go. And they improve trust. As the Chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in the House of Representatives, along with the deputy chair, the member for Murray, I have written to the presiding officers because there is no reconciliation action plan in this parliament. We are urging the presiding officers to think of a reconciliation action plan for this particular place.

There are a number of other things I want to say, but first I want to mention the fine speech by the former Attorney-General, the member for Barton, and commend him on his 25th Lionel Murphy lecture: 'Vigilance against injustice in the justice system'. As I heard him speaking tonight I recognised the tenor of that speech. I commend to those who may be listening, and to other members, this fantastic speech by the former Attorney-General in relation to the challenges regarding the injustice that is experienced by Indigenous Australians.

When we did the Doing time—time for doing report we discovered, as the member for Barton said, that in the 20 years since the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody the condition and situation for Indigenous Australians has got worse. Indigenous juveniles are 28 times as likely to be in detention as non-Indigenous juveniles. Indigenous juveniles make up more than one-half of the detainee population on any given day in Australia. Indigenous young adults are 15 times as likely to be in prison as non-Indigenous young adults. Sadly, the dysfunction continues across generations: poverty, despair and despondency—simply the expectation that as a rite of passage you would visit and live with your parents and grandparents in incarceration premises.

We made many recommendations in our report. These were motivated by the prisoner census data, which show that between 2000 and 2010 the number of Indigenous men and women in custody increased by 55 per cent in the case of men and 47 per cent in the case of women, and also that if you were an Indigenous woman you were 35 times as likely to be hospitalised by partner abuse as a non-Indigenous woman.

We made many recommendations to the government: endorsing justice targets that states and territories in the Commonwealth could come to, supporting an inclusion of safe community building blocks, and also putting serious money towards getting agreement across the jurisdictions for this. We also recognised the social norms that impacted families and communities through mentoring, sport and recreation: the fact that there were fewer people able to be mentors to Indigenous boys particularly; the fact that FASD—foetal alcohol spectrum disorder—was such a curse, particularly in Indigenous communities. I commend to the government the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, chaired by the member for Moreton, and its many recommendations in relation to FASD—a report which flowed from our Doing time report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. I commend the many recommendations made. The idea that finally FASD be recognised as a registered disability—that is, a condition for eligibility for support services in health and education systems—is something which needs to be done in this country.

We also need to look at better alternatives to Indigenous young people entering the criminal justice system. We need a more holistic intervention. The New Zealanders had Maori youth courts. We have not got much empirical evidence across the Tasman, but we can certainly see that the anecdotal evidence supports alternative systems for Indigenous people. Sadly—I did not intend to make a political speech here—the Murri courts in my home state of Queensland have been closed down by the LNP state government. This is a terribly retrograde step, a really bad result for the Queensland community, and I think it is going to cost the Queensland community not only in dollars but also in social justice.

We need to make sure that we look at education. One of the things we discovered was that schools which were connected to Indigenous communities did better—their kids did better. A perfect example of that is in my community. We have a very large Indigenous community in Ipswich; we have Indigenous medical centres and schools, but Leichardt State School—Lee Gerchow is the principal there—is probably as well connected to its 25 per cent Indigenous school population as any other school in Ipswich. The school's improved results since its better connection with the Indigenous community are outstanding. We have put a lot of money in there—$723,000 recently for support programs, mentoring and cultural improvements—but that is because the school took the initiative; that is important. We should focus more upon that in our school communities. Simple things like amplification devices in schools—too many Indigenous young people cannot hear properly, and we need to think seriously about that; more school pools and better pools and recreation facilities in Indigenous communities. Things like alternative accommodation—we found that too often Indigenous people had nowhere to go so were kept in detention—and alternatives for bail so that they can get out. We do not have the data collection in this country to see the full extent of the challenges we face. The member for Barton, in his fine speech in the Lionel Murphy lecture, talks about these issues. The government has taken up many of these things that we have recommended, and I urge it to be more vigilant about those sorts of things.

One of the things that our committee has recommended—the government is yet to respond; it is to do with Closing the Gap—deals with a report called Our land our languages. We dealt with what Paul Keating said in his Redfern speech:

… bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of Europeans …

Mabo was a very controversial decision on 3 June 1992. At the time of white settlement in this country, there were 250 Indigenous languages; there are now only 18 viable Indigenous languages in this country spoken across all generations. We have not done enough maintenance on the revitalisation of Indigenous languages. There is so much more that we can do.

In our report Our land our languages, we made an number of recommendations, including the recommendation to:

… include in the Closing the Gap framework acknowledgement of the fundamental role and importance of Indigenous languages in preserving heritage and improving outcomes for Indigenous peoples.

We have recommended twice now—twice—a national Indigenous interpreter service. We did it in our Doing time report—it had been done 20 years before in a previous parliamentary report—and we did it again in Our land our languages. We recommended to the government a national interpreter service, and I urge the government to think about this. Too many people go to jail, too many people get poor diagnoses on health outcomes—go to the Northern Territory and you will find this—and too many kids have an inadequate education because we have not got a national interpreter service. We need that, and we have recommended it to the government in the Our land our languages and Doing time reports.

We have, through the Doing time report, come up with another inquiry—it is underway and we are going to report in May—that is, the role of sport in closing the gap. The participation rate in sport for non-Indigenous Australians is 74.3 per cent, while, sadly, it is only 65.5 per cent for Indigenous Australians. The difference is even worse for Indigenous women. The reality is that not enough sporting organisations have reconciliation plans. The evidence we have heard in the public hearings is that the AFL and the NRL are doing a great job; they are doing great work. Some of the sporting organisations, at our public hearings and on the public record, could not even tell us how many Indigenous people play their sports. They could not tick a box; they could not tell us what efforts they were making to help Indigenous young people. There is not enough sporting equipment—not enough barbells and dumbbells, tennis courts, pools, football fields and basketball courts, not enough basketballs and footballs—and sporting organisations just go in there, fly-in fly-out, do a clinic, and then go away and leave these people on their own again.

Not enough effort is being made in sport to close the gap. I look forward to our report and deliberations. I expect it to be a bipartisan report, as were the other two. The member for Murray has been a tremendous advocate in this area; we have worked very closely on this issue. I expect some very strong recommendations from this committee in relation to this issue, but we have a lot to do. It is not just about plucking elite athletes from Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory to go and play in the NRL and the AFL; there is a lot more that we can do.

The member for Dunkley mentioned business. We are doing a lot in helping business. In my area, we have an Indigenous Business Enterprise Centre established with seed funding from DEEWR—federal government funding. We have seen 85 Indigenous people go into full-time work in 18 months in my community; the Ipswich Business Enterprise Centre has an Indigenous focus as well. I want to give an example of a particular individual. I am proud to say I have his painting of honey ants in my electorate office. His name is Robin 'Tallman' Wakkajinda and he is a local artist. He had drug problems and he had alcohol problems. He comes from Gayndah, from the Wakka Wakka Jinda tribe. He is a mentor. This fellow is a fantastic artist. He has turned his life around with the support of the local IBEC. He is a business success. I was pleased to be there with the Mayor of Ipswich, Paul Pisasale, to help open Robin's exhibition of his paintings at the Old Ipswich Courthouse. They are brilliant. I have seen this fellow go around with young Indigenous people in my community. They love him. Sadly, he is disabled in his hand, but he is one of the most brilliant artists you could ever see. His artwork sells for lots of money and he has turned his life around. He is a business success. He has talent, and with the support of great people like Clive Pearce, from the Ipswich Business Enterprise Centre, he has succeeded. This is the sort of help that we can provide.

The funding was given via a flexible funding pool to develop and pilot a unique enterprise program in Ipswich. This is an Australian-first initiative, and that is what we have got to do. I am all for rights, but we have got to have responsibility as well. People have got to pick themselves up. We can give them a helping hand to do that and we have got to get them on their way. We live in a free enterprise economy. People want to develop their talents and their dreams and their potential, and 'Tallman' is a perfect example. If we do this across the country, the member for Dunkley will be proved wrong. We can do it. We should fund it. Have a look at those reports. We should support the likes of the IBEC in Ipswich with additional funding. It is an Australian first. This should be a prototype for Indigenous business enterprise centres across the country. We should do it. I commend the Closing the Gap target. This will help in closing the gap if we do it across the country.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Regardless of where Australians live, there is little doubt they are moved by the plight of Indigenous Australia. Attitudes and knowledge vary markedly from our major cities where many people have met few Aboriginals and have little firsthand knowledge of the issues and circumstances facing people of Aboriginal descent, to regional towns and outback communities where residents deal with the reality of Indigenous communities living within their midst, with both the successes—and there are many—and the excesses and failures of the system and individuals and the penalties the larger community pays for those failures.

It was encouraging to hear the Prime Minister report the increase in mainstream Indigenous employment from 42.4 per cent in 2006 to 44.7 per cent in 2012. While I have no hard figures to back this up, I think I can see small but positive improvement in my major regional communities, in places like Port Lincoln, Port Augusta and Ceduna, where there is apparent growth in Aboriginal families with mum or dad, or both, at work, living in better housing, driving better cars and getting their children to school. There is still quite a way to go in many instances, but I sense that progress is being made.

Employment is simply one of the most important, if latter, keys to the puzzle. I say 'latter' because long-term productive employment is very difficult to achieve if an individual has poor education, poor language skills and a negative experience of being raised in a dysfunctional household. This is no truer with Indigenous communities than with the population at large. Not having a stable and loving household, good language skills and a reasonable education does not mean an individual cannot break the barriers and become a productive, fully integrated member of our society, but it elevates the degree of difficulty many times. So while the apparent rise in employment is encouraging, it is a concern that by far the majority of Indigenous jobs are in the government sector and, more particularly, in the Aboriginal industry. That sector should play an important role, but we will never achieve true equality in Australia until the workforce is truly integrated. While we have jobs that are perceived as black or white, prejudices are reinforced rather than broken down. It is important for the general advancement of Indigenous Australians that they are seen as 100 per cent part of mainstream Australia, and to do so they need to be represented in the mainstream workforce at similar levels to the mainstream population. However, I add a point of balance and congratulate those in the resources sector who have made a dedicated effort to raise Indigenous employment.

Overall, I am more encouraged than discouraged with the progress in employment in regional centres. However, it is in the remote communities where I fear outcomes are at best stagnant. All of the remote Indigenous communities in South Australia are in my electorate. Aboriginal communities like Oak Valley and Yalata in the west, Nepabunna in the central region and the APY lands in the far north are joined by regular towns of mixed populations like Coober Pedy, Oodnadatta and Marree. In all, those who identify as Aboriginal in my electorate make up about seven per cent of the population, or 10,000 persons. Of that, about 4,000 live in remote communities. The biggest group of these live in remote, isolated Indigenous lands, and by far the best known of these are the Anangu, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands in the far north-western corner of the state, where about 2,500 people live. The APY lands are by no means the only area where the problems exist, but they are a very useful tool for assessing the issues facing communities closer to the mainstream because they are in every way isolated from the rest of the state.

It is in the APY lands where the gap is the largest and, despite the very best efforts and an annual expenditure by the taxpayer of between $150 million and $250 million—it seems that no-one has any real idea how much—it is difficult to see progress. It is worth pointing out that this is around about $100,000 a head. Huge amounts have been invested in housing, schools and health clinics. While further housing would be desirable, these physical facilities are by and large very good—the kinds of facilities that most communities in Australia would be happy with. But it occurs to me that despite the best efforts of those who work within them, the net result in most cases is no improvement. There is a paradox that exists in these communities.

I try to visit the APY lands a couple of times a year. It is a one-week trip each time. My guess is that there are around about 80 different organisations on the lands, government and non-government, all trying to make a contribution to improving the lot of the locals. When I speak to people from any of these organisations they give convincing and enthusiastic evidence that they are making a real difference and closing the gap, if you like. I must say that when I look at the work most times I am convinced. However—and here is the rub—if all these programs and organisations were doing such a good job, then why aren't we making progress? Why in most cases are things getting worse? Why are there communities that are theoretically at least alcohol free with still unacceptably high levels of alcohol- and drug-driven violence? Why is there sexual assault on minors, very poor school attendance, astronomical incidence rates of diseases like diabetes and impaired hearing in up to 95 per cent of the children?

Noel Pearson has argued far more eloquently than I ever will that the root cause of these evils is passive welfare. He is right. Helping people is a double-edged sword. When we assume responsibility for a commitment in a person's life that would normally be their responsibility, we diminish their future obligation to perform the task. Eventually, if we do it often enough, everything becomes the government's responsibility.

Apart from the art centres, there are almost no business enterprises on the lands that provide employment outcomes that are not dependent on government. They are the only businesses on the lands that produce a tradeable resource, thus actually providing genuine market-driven work-related income to the communities. In the very high expense environment of the APY lands, even the art centres are not able to be self-supporting industries and require ongoing taxpayer support. However, they are the best that we have and I congratulate them for their progress and sincerely hope that the market will continue to support the growth of these centres. Virtually all other jobs related to income come courtesy of the taxpayer in industries providing services to the rest of the population or in environment driven jobs where locals are funded to care for country.

It is worth noting as this parliament is presented with more legislation on native title that the APY lands are owned freehold by the communities. That is not title guaranteeing access, not traditional ownership and not pastoral leases but the most secure title to land available—freehold. It was gifted to the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people by the Tonkin Liberal government in 1981. While I support Indigenous people to establish their links with the land, I send a strong word of caution to those who think that ownership in any form is the silver bullet that will address the breakdown of traditional culture. The APY lands are a 32-year demonstration that that is clearly not the case. In so many areas, things are no worse, and that is certainly in the area of employment, alcohol and drug abuse and levels of literacy.

In fact, in some ways I wonder if the granting of ownership has made things worse. One would wonder how that could possibly be. Perhaps there was an air of expectation that with ownership would come wealth and the work to generate that worth was expected to be performed by others. Certainly jobs on committees and on boards, accompanied by cars and travel benefits, are seen as real jobs. Jobs cleaning schools and health centres cannot be filled and have to be performed by teaching and medical staff. Perhaps it was the interfamily battles over the spoils that to this day debilitates attempts at governance. Appalling governance has led to repeated failures. The APY Lands Council, for instance, has once again just recently been bailed out by the state government to compensate for funds that have been lost to shoddy management.

If we are truly to close the gap, there must be a consolidation of the plethora of local boards ultimately funded by taxpayers on the lands. The amalgamated bodies must be given more responsibility but also face a far greater responsibility to meet the same demands of probity that local government must meet. If these bodies cannot meet those levels, as with any local government that suffers chronic failure, administration must be installed. Part of the malaise of remote Indigenous Australia is that we set a lower expectation of Indigenous communities. That is, we set the bar lower. Eventually this is totally unproductive and leads to accepting lower employment performance, lower standards in schools and lower levels of compliance with the law of the land. The idea that we accept this because people are Aboriginal is condescending. It is offensive and racist and should not be accommodated.

I will draw your attention to the schooling system for a short while. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent on schools on the APY Lands—in one case as much as $4 million at a school which is now closed barely four years later. Yet for all this expenditure, according to the study collated by Professor Mark Hughes, an academic extremely well regarded in this area, South Australia is the worst performing state in Australia in Indigenous education, according to the NAPLAN information. The schools in themselves are fascinating and seem to be mostly staffed by dedicated teachers. Teacher-student ratios are extremely low. Breakfast and, in some cases, lunch programs are common. A plethora of travel, excursion and life education programs exist. Yet attendance rates are appalling.

The attendance issue is exacerbated by cultural activities, with perhaps the most disruptive and unpredictable being sorry camps. These camps are yet another example of how the culture of the Indigenous peoples has been distorted by its head-on collision with the modern world. I visited a sorry camp that had been sitting for almost 6 weeks, camped in the rubbish which accumulates around such camps and within 800 metres of a small town with running water, toilets, housing and showers that was empty for the duration. There were infants in the arms of mothers amongst the flies and filth, and children some hundreds of kilometres from home, absent for weeks from their normal schools. Traditionally, the deceased would have been buried within a day or two. The cultural guardians of the Anangu simply must sort this issue out, and I acknowledge that they are making some efforts to do so in this area.

To return to the schools, apart from sorry, attendance is still an issue, and I am pleased that at least there has been a move to income management on the lands, albeit as a voluntary model at this stage. More than 250 people have signed on to the program, and it is at least implied that the compulsory management may be enforced if parents fail to get their children to school, although it is yet to be seen whether governments are prepared to commit to the tough love required to enforce this outcome. I watch that space.

Classroom teachers are faced with the dilemma of trying to get children to school with no other incentive than making learning a fun experience with small bribes. It is concerning to see children dribbling into schools over an extended period in the morning. This is hardly an ideal start to the day. The problem with having to be constantly entertaining and fun is that the core tenets of education get demoted. This is a tragedy because we know that those lessons are the ones which will, in the long term, deliver the mainstream jobs that I spoke about earlier. I have spoken before in this place about my visit to Cape York, and I am very pleased the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth is here to hear this. The Cape York Institute is run under the direct instruction method by Noel Pearson, and I can only say that all of Australia's remote communities should be interested in the package. I urge the South Australian government to at least make the package available at some trial sites in the state.

All of this raises this issue of the difficulty of ever closing the gap in this remote world where there is no genuine economy. Certainly we must support these communities and allow the adults of today to live their lives as best we can provide for. But every effort must be made to break the cycle and educate the next generation to equip the new generation, as Noel Pearson says, to walk in both worlds. That means having good English language skills. It means having strong basic maths and an understanding of the social demands of living in the outside community. Denying these children those keys means that they are tied to a region where there are few jobs, and it will condemn them to the uselessness of a life on welfare. I do not doubt the good intent of the political class in Australia to address the deep-seated problems of remote Indigenous Australia. But I think in so many cases we are addressing the symptoms rather than trying to apply a long-term vision to the issues at hand. What is needed is an independent analysis of the economic possibilities of the communities and honest assessments of the population these communities are capable of properly supporting, and then making appropriate and evidence-based decisions about their future. Maintaining, supporting and encouraging new generations to live in communities that cannot ever support them will not only destroy the individuals but will destroy the culture of those whose future we are seeking to advance.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to follow on from the member for Grey's contribution and spend a moment reflecting on and acknowledging some of those remarks that the member made. It is the case that he serves an electorate where there is a significant amount of social disadvantage amongst people, particularly those living on what is referred to as the APY lands. The member posed the question to the parliament: why aren't we making progress? He was also prudent enough to acknowledge that the political class, as he put it, does want to see delivery of greater achievement potential for people in regional and remote Australia for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but thus far, notwithstanding the amounts have been appropriated to the goals and the many programs and efforts of a range of successive governments both at the national level and at the state level, we cannot say with any great degree of pride that we have succeeded.

I do not presume to have the intimate knowledge of the member's electorate that he has, but I think part of the answer, particularly when we look at the educational attainment levels of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote communities, is the remoteness. The fact is that Aboriginal people are in a particularly difficult situation if they are still living effectively within clan culture on country and a long way away from the services and the economic and social activity that characterise our regional centres, our suburban Australia and our cities. The disjunct between the way in which people still want to live there and the way in which the remainder of the Australian polity organises itself is a great one.

Like the member, I have been to a number of communities and seen what I think are some signs of disengagement that are at such a level that you really do wonder what the prospects for young people growing up in these communities will be. At the same time you see underneath that the great strength of family and culture that has seen people occupy these lands for tens of thousands of years. In part it is the time that we live in, the time that we are here as legislators, as politicians, in this parliament when we are witnessing that great gap. I think it is to the parliament's credit and to the credit of governments that there has been a national intention to try and close the gap, recognising that it is there, and that the Council of Australian Governments itself, the highest council in the land, if you like, has set itself this task. But it is by no means easy and I do not think there are any quick or convenient solutions. One thing I do know is that we have to persevere, that we have to have open and honest dialogue. We have got to try policy initiatives but we have also at all times got to engage and involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the future.

I want to communicate to the member for Grey that I have had some invitations to visit the APY lands. I hope to get out to that part of Australia sometime in the not-too-distant future.

As I was remarking, the Closing the Gap framework has six targets set by the Council of Australian Governments. It is a national approach to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We did have some good news from the Prime Minister recently when she spoke to the parliament and reported on Closing the Gap and also an identification of the areas in which we need to do much better.

We do know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children do start school developmentally behind. So it was particularly satisfying that the Prime Minister was able to announce that the first of the six targets had actually been met, and that is that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander four-year-olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education by 2013. That is particularly important for the prospects of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on community, because it is at the very early stage of life when their brains are still in what is described as a high degree of plasticity, and also learning habits as well both of young people and mums in particular can be engendered and there can be confidence that when kids go into a schooling system, which is quite often subject to disruption, as the member for Grey pointed out, that they are able to still keep learning.

I also want to reflect on the levels of investment from government. I do sometimes hear contributions and read commentary about whether or not money is or is not well spent. What I can say is that with the investments we are putting in the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education, we are seeing more children than ever participate in preschool or kindergarten programs. So I think to that extent with this result it is definitely an investment that is bearing some fruit.

We are also on track to half the gap in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander year-12 attainment or equivalent attainment rates by 2020. That is pretty important, because the transition from school to work is one which is a significant and sometimes almost unreachable journey for many young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Halving that gap in year 12 attainment is a huge part in equipping them for the prospects of either future study or potentially work as well.

I want to quickly addressed in NAPLAN tests as well, because we did have disappointing results in the 2012 NAPLAN tests. I think it is important to remember that the trend from 2008 to 2011 was actually quite encouraging and we need to keep building on that. We will have ACARA, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, examine the 2012 student performance to see if there are underlying reasons in that result. I can actually identify some of the reasons, particularly in the Warlpiri triangle, where we have a growing population of young people enrolled in school but in an area that has been subject to some significant community unrest over the last 18 months to two years. There, I think, the opportunities that children had to attend school regularly unfortunately were reduced; notwithstanding that, we are seeing improvements, particularly in reading. We are seeing some improvements in year-3 reading both across Australia and more specifically in some of the states with a high proportion of Aboriginal kids in remote communities. We are also seeing some improvements in year-5 numeracy. But there is no question that there is much more to be done.

What do we need to do in terms of making sure that we are maximising the opportunities for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to both achieve well at school and go on to work as well? One of the things that has been particularly important has been to do work with another eminent Aboriginal educator, Dr Chris Sarra, and his Focus Schools Next Steps Initiative, to which we provided significant assistance—funding of about $30 million. There are a number of focus schools where the focus is particularly in this case on improving school attendance, on classroom engagement and the academic achievement of around 9,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. That is done in cooperation with states and territories who are running the government school systems where the majority of young Aboriginal students are, through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan agreed by the states to support children's readiness for school, building good practice in schools, developing community based school leadership and parental engagement, and boosting attendance and literacy and numeracy. There is significant investment from this government of around $128 million.

The plan identifies 55 actions at a national, systemic and local level. It has been endorsed by COAG. I think the key thing about the plan is that it is not just a bunch of words that governments have agreed to; it is a set of specific actions, which we need to see every single school that has a proportion of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students attending, apply themselves to. It is my intention, under the National Plan for School Improvement—the response by the government to the recommendations of the Gonski review—that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan will be given greater focus. I am disappointed that in some states we have not seen school systems apply themselves specifically to that plan, given the amount of work that went into it and the fact that it identifies the range of components that you need to have operating at the same time in a school setting over a consistent period in order to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student attainment.

As the members listening would know, we have investments in Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory, and that includes some school attendance measures which are described. And we are providing an additional 200 teachers for literacy and numeracy support. Of course, we have maintained support for the school nutrition program at a cost of around $9 million per year in the Northern Territory. People and members listening would know that this government—and governments in the past—have provided support through ABSTUDY. As well, we have provided opportunities for students to attend school through boarding facilities.

I want to speak briefly about attendance, because attendance is one of the greatest challenges in making sure that young Aboriginal students can progress through their school careers. Regrettably, attendance is poor from day 1 in year 1, and it gets worse by year 10. I can see, in Western Australia for example, government schools recording a gap of 13 per cent between year 1 Indigenous students and others. And that gap goes up to 24 per cent by year 10. The figures are actually worse in the Northern Territory.

My School reports attendance rates for all schools. For schools in Indigenous communities that have a 100 per cent, or almost 100 per cent, Indigenous school body, there is a year-on-year tracking of attendance. But the fact is that without attending school consistently, young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will not develop the skills and education levels necessary to effectively operate in the job market so that they can take care of themselves over time and support their families and their communities—nor will they reach their full potential. It is something that requires urgent attention. I know that it is on the minds of education ministers, teachers and others working in the regions but it is something that requires commitment by communities and families, as well, recognising that a good education for a young Indigenous student is a passport out of poverty. We do now have schools and teachers who are ready, willing and able to teach, but it is important, now, that the kids are at school.

I attended the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Conference in Darwin in 2011. We had a range of presentations, including by principals of schools where they had succeeded in bringing their kids through both primary school and secondary school by doing a number of things. They underscored the priority areas: readiness for school; engagement and connection with community; attendance, which I have referred to; leadership in quality teaching and workforce development; and consideration of the post-school opportunities. Where these six areas have been addressed by leadership in schools, through the principal and the teaching community, and where the community and family—and, where necessary, local authorities—are engaged, then we start to see a difference in education outcomes.

When I look at a school like Bega Valley Public School in New South Wales, where students are benefiting from strong leadership and evidence based whole-school processes monitoring performance, I see targeted support at the school, personalised learning plans and the employment of an Aboriginal school learning support officer—just those things. This is not that far from here—just down the coast—and what have we got? We have NAPLAN results show an increase in the proportion of students who achieve above the national minimum standards in year 5 in reading and numeracy by 26 per cent and 21 per cent respectively over 2008 and 2011. As well, the proportion of highest performing students in year 5 reading and numeracy have increased by 30 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Another example that is well known to some of us is Cairns West State School in Queensland—again, concerted case management, a teacher coaching program underpinned by high expectations, and significant improvements in results in the school.

At the end of the day, we will continue to commit ourselves to closing the gap. In this parliament, that is amongst our most urgent tasks. Some progress has been made. We acknowledge it and we welcome it, but we recognise that there is a great deal more that we need to do.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow my colleague the member for Grey and certainly the member for Kingsford Smith, the education minister. I know the work he has done through his music, with Midnight Oil, to help the Indigenous cause in singles such as The Dead Heart, Beds are Burning, and Truganini. We can all sing along—as I often do when I am driving to Canberra on a Sunday night—to Midnight Oil. I do not always agree with the member for Kingsford Smith, but certainly his music touched the hearts of many. At a time when Indigenous issues were far more controversial than they are now, he helped in some sense to close the gap before Closing the Gap really became a common phrase in Australia. I know he has worked as a parliamentarian since 2004, and I acknowledge him for that—for doing what he can to help bridge that divide between Indigenous Australia and the rest of society.

In 2008 the Council of Australian Governments committed to six targets to help close the gap for Indigenous Australians. These targets relate to life expectancy, infant mortality, education and employment. Closing the gap—Prime Minister's report 2013 outlines that there are still serious gaps across the board. Even the Prime Minister herself has stated her personal disappointment that it appears that they are failing to close the gap. I commend the Prime Minister for her words in opening this particular—I will not call it a debate—series of speeches. It is not a debate; it has bipartisan support, for something that really is important to all Australians.

I also recall the fine words of the opposition leader, who goes out of his way each and every year to live amongst Aboriginal communities to see how tough they are doing it. I know that if the coalition is fortunate enough to be voted in as the government and he becomes the Prime Minister he will do some fabulous work in this important area for all Australians and particularly for Indigenous Australians.

Currently Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders live substantially shorter lives than the rest of the Australian population—up to 20 years less in some cases, with the current gap generally estimated at 11½ years for males and 9.7 years for females. That is not acceptable—not in this day and age. It is simply unacceptable. Over the past 30 to 40 years there has been a decline in Indigenous mortality rates while life expectancy has increased, and that is good. While the rise in life expectancy is good, it will be challenging to meet the target. Whilst working towards increasing Indigenous life expectancy, non-Indigenous life expectancy will also be on the rise. The 2013 report says that the target of closing the gap on life expectancy will not be met until 2031, and that is still a long 18 years away. Health outcomes also need to be achieved to help combat mortality rates, with circulatory disease, cancer, injury—including, sadly suicide—respiratory disease, and endocrine, metabolic and nutritional disorders being the leading causes of Indigenous mortality between 2006 and 2010.

The target to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five years of age by 2018 is on track, thankfully, and can be achieved, based on mortality rates between 1998 and 2011 declining at a rate of 29 per cent, faster than the decline in non-Indigenous mortality rates. Ensuring access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities by 2018 is set to be achieved this year—and that is fantastic. The target sets the benchmark at 95 per cent. It is a shame it is not 100 per cent, but 95 per cent at this stage, given what would have been the case perhaps even only a decade ago, is still certainly a staggeringly good statistic.

Data from the new National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection showed that 91 per cent of Indigenous children in remote areas were enrolled in preschool programs in August 2011. The Prime Minister's report states this target will be met, based on the latest available data and the commitment by state and territory ministers to the target. Progress on halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for Indigenous children by 2018 has been only mixed, based on NAPLAN data. Currently, only three of the eight literacy and numeracy outcomes are on track to be reached by 2018. That is unfortunate. The data also revealed that Indigenous students in metropolitan areas are achieving significantly higher results in literacy and numeracy than those in rural areas. We all know that the tyranny of distance is such a factor in that regard. Seven per cent of constituents in the member for Grey's electorate are Indigenous and I know how remote some parts of his electorate are. I have visited those areas of the Northern Territory and Western Australia and even New South Wales and outer Queensland where the great distances are certainly a factor in disadvantaging Aboriginal children.

There is promising progress on halving the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 or equivalent attainment rate by 2020, with the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians closing by 4.3 per cent, whilst attainment rates amongst Indigenous students grew faster than amongst non-Indigenous students. However, to meet the target there will need to be continued rapid improvements from 2011 to 2016, according to the Prime Minister's report.

The 2011 census data shows the gap in total employment outcomes has widened since 2006 by 2.2 percentage points, which is due to a decrease in the proportion of Indigenous Australians aged between 16 and 24 against a rise by non-Indigenous Australians in employment. This data works against the target of halving the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians by 2018.

My electorate of Riverina had almost 7,000 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander persons identified in the 2011 census, with a very young median age of 20 and an almost 50-50 split between men and women. I spoke with Roger Penrith, who is the Indigenous community liaison officer at the Griffith City Council, to ask him what outcomes he would like to see achieved under Closing the Gap. Before I talk about Mr Penrith's comments, I should commend also the member for Gippsland on his extraordinary contribution to this series of speeches earlier this evening, in which he spoke of his personal experiences but also of the outcomes that they are achieving in his Gippsland electorate. It was, as I say, quite a remarkably good speech. The member for Gippsland always makes good speeches, but this one was of particular relevance. Anybody who is perhaps reading these words should backtrack in the Hansard to a bit earlier in the evening and read that contribution by the member for Gippsland. It was quite a wonderful speech.

Mr Penrith identified four key areas which need further attention in his local community. These were health, housing, community and aboriginality. Whilst there are some key improvements amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Mr Penrith mentioned that there are still a number of ongoing health issues that Indigenous persons in his area are struggling to overcome. Many people are still not seeking medical treatment for matters relating to the eyes, ears, nose and throat and in Griffith there are a large number of Aboriginal children who are not being treated for otitis media, an ear infection which can have long-lasting effects on hearing.

Many Aboriginal people are also not seeking dental treatment, which has the potential to create further health issues. Oral health is such an important issue amongst all Australians, but it is particularly important for Indigenous Australians. Whilst a simple filling may not seem like a life-and-death matter, the risk of infection increases and, in turn, has the potential to make someone extremely ill. If Aborigines were accessing dental care, this may be able to circumvent later medical visits for illnesses related to the initial problem.

The issue of child mental health, which Mr Penrith raised with me, has also been brought to my attention by many other Griffith organisations. People of Griffith would love to see a headspace organisation in their region. I have spoken to the member for Reid about a petition I have received with almost 2½ thousand signatures and he is helping me to ensure that it is tabled in parliament, because Griffith and the entire Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area needs such a facility to help give children, particularly Aboriginal children, a place to go to seek assistance in a friendly and safe environment. There are serious concerns about access to emergency housing for clients. Mr Penrith signalled that whilst there are houses designated for Aboriginal people these are also being offered to non-Aboriginal persons.

A wealth of talent and experience is held by many Aborigines within the business community. The Griffith City Council would like to see more enterprise opportunities made available by both state and federal governments for Aboriginal business, as well as more consolidated funding and better funding opportunities. Griffith is an extremely multicultural city—it puts out flags for 100 different nations on Australia Day. I believe it is the cradle for multiculturalism in Australia. There are concerns about non-Indigenous persons getting access to assistance reserved for those who are Indigenous. There is a feeling amongst the local Indigenous community that a more stringent process needs to be put in place to ensure that funding which is directed towards only those who are eligible and need it the most actually reaches that particular group of people.

One organisation in the area which is making great progress in helping Indigenous students gain year 12 qualification or equivalent attainment rates by 2020 is Tirkandi Inaburra, located between Coleambally and Darlington Point. Tirkandi Inaburra is managed by Anthony Paulson and is a community-run development and education centre offering Aboriginal boys aged between 12 and 15 a residential program aimed at reducing future contact with the justice system by strengthening cultural identity, self-esteem and resilience. I heard a lot of the speakers earlier this evening talking about the higher than proportional incarceration rates for Indigenous people. This is something that really needs addressing, not just by people in this place but by our state parliamentarians as well, to ensure that those incarceration rates are substantially lowered.

To be eligible to apply to become students at the wonderful Tirkandi Inaburra centre, the boys must live in communities located between the Lachlan and the Murray and between Balranald and the western side of the Blue Mountains. The boys must be prepared to make a commitment. They must be first time and/or non-serious offenders who are willing to make the shift to change their lives. They may be dropping out of school and are catching the attention of the police. If successful, the boys embark on a three- to six-month journey where they engage in educational, sporting, recreational, life, living skills and cultural activities which have been developed especially to develop their skills and abilities. The shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs and Deputy Leader of the Nationals, Nigel Scullion, has visited this centre and believes it is so good it should be replicated across Australia. It is unfortunate that this is currently the only centre in Australia offering this particular opportunity. We should be promising more such centres in an effort to help achieve the goal of more graduates by 2020 and, in doing so, to help close the gap.

Australia is on the way to closing the gap, but there is still significant work to be done by governments right across the country. Speaking of Tirkandi Inaburra, I had a visit on 20 February with the Clontarf Foundation's Chief Executive Officer, Gerard Neesham, its Chairman, Ross Kelly, and also Brendan Maher, who is in Parliament House tonight for a dinner for the foundation. It is an education and mentoring program for Indigenous youths to discuss plans to help better their lives and provide educational outcomes. I know the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop, has had a powerful influence over the years in helping to promote and fund Clontarf, which exists to improve the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal men and, in doing so, equip them to participate meaningfully in society. It has certainly played a great part in helping realise some of the Australian Football League dreams of young Aboriginal boys and it is now trying to branch into rugby league. If Aboriginal boys see that there is a pathway for them to a better life through sport such as football it helps their educational outcomes as well.

The foundation believes that failure to experience achievement when young coupled with a position of underprivilege can lead to alienation, anger and more serious consequences. As a prelude to tackling these and other issues, participants are first provided with an opportunity to succeed and, in turn, to raise their self-esteem. Gerard Neesham is a wonderful fellow. He is a former AFL coach. He is a wonderful motivator of people and he has a particular love and passion for improving the educational outcomes for young Australians, particularly young Aboriginal Australians. I commend him for his wonderful work with Clontarf. I hope the government sees fit to give Clontarf the funding it requires to help replicate this right across Australia. Gerard Neesham had important meetings in Wagga Wagga and throughout the Riverina to help develop the sort of program that is needed there. I commend Gerard for his work and I commend Clontarf for its involvement with Aboriginal youths. It is certainly helping to close the gap. Finally, can I say that improving the health outcomes for Aboriginal people is a wonderful initiative and we as parliamentarians should be doing everything we can to help that cause.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 22:06