Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Prime Minister's Closing the Gap statement.

In February 1965, students from the University of Sydney set off on a bus trip across New South Wales. The Freedom Ride, led by Charles Perkins and the Student Action for Aborigines group, went from town to town in country New South Wales protesting racial discrimination against Indigenous Australians. The ride was a watershed moment in Australian Indigenous affairs, and I am proud to say that Kempsey in my electorate played a key role in that important event. Last week, I attended the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Freedom Ride in Kempsey. Fifth years on, the Closing the Gap report makes clear that we still have much work to do in addressing Indigenous disadvantage.

In reading the Closing the Gap report, two important things stood out. First, the report makes it clear just how vital it is that we close the gap between living standards for Indigenous Australians and the wider Australian community. Closing the gap will have a material impact on the lives of thousands of Australians. Second, we have a long way to go if we are to close the gap, particularly for those Indigenous Australians living in remote communities.

Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is 10 years lower than for the rest of the community. In every state and territory, school attendance rates are lower for Indigenous children than for non-Indigenous children. In the Northern Territory, an Indigenous student in year 10 is 31 per cent less likely to regularly attend school than a non-Indigenous student. In very remote areas, only 34.9 per cent of year 7 students met or exceeded the minimum standards for reading in 2014. This is a great concern. How can a young person make their way in the world if they cannot read? How does an Indigenous child grow up to become a leader in their community if they cannot read? How can a young Indigenous apprentice become a tradesman if he cannot read instructions? How can a young Indigenous student become a nurse if she cannot read textbooks or labels? We must get more Indigenous kids to school so that they have the literacy and numeracy skills that they will need to survive in the modern world. As the Prime Minister said last year:

… it's hard to be literate and numerate without attending school; it's hard to find work without a basic education; and it's hard to live well without a job.

The report is particularly relevant to the area which I represent, which includes Dunghutti country around Kempsey, Gumbaynggirr country around Coffs Harbour, and Yaegl country in the north. According to the 2011 census, more than 8,000 residents in the area that I represent identify as being Indigenous. This means Cowper has the 11th highest proportion of Indigenous residents of all federal electorates. As is the case throughout Australia, Indigenous Australians live throughout the communities that make up my electorate, but there are a number of communities with significant Indigenous populations, including Bowraville, Kempsey and Bellbrook. It is in communities such as these that continued efforts to close the gap will deliver improved quality of life and new opportunities.

I am particularly pleased to see innovative new policy approaches involving the whole community delivering results in Cowper. In Kempsey, I have been a strong supporter of the Macleay Vocational College, which provides an alternative education model for high-school students who have not succeeded at other schools. The college is not limited to Indigenous students, but many of its students are Indigenous. The school provides a unique supportive environment that has allowed many students to thrive when the traditional education system has failed them.

I am also very pleased to see the establishment of a VTEC program in Kempsey. The VTEC model provides specific training and support to an Indigenous job seeker, with the promise of an actual job at the end of the training. This model requires significant commitment from government, local businesses and the wider community, but it works. VTEC is no 'training for training's sake' arrangement. There are no dead-end courses. The program provides a genuine opportunity for a young Indigenous job seeker to build a prosperous life. We are on track to have more than 5,000 individuals trained into real jobs by the end of this year through the VTEC system around the country. This approach is vital, because meaningful, sustainable employment is ultimately the key to solving Indigenous disadvantage. Families with a regular wage can afford good food, health care, proper housing, education and the opportunities that many of us take for granted. The VTEC model has been rolled out in 28 locations around Australia, with another one in the pipeline.

But it is not just VTEC that is making a difference in Indigenous employment. In my portfolio, I am determined to make a difference in ensuring that more Indigenous people progress from welfare to work. Most Indigenous job seekers live in regional and metropolitan Australia, where they receive support through the employment services system. Around 76,700 job seekers on the current JSA case load identify as being Indigenous. That is around nine per cent of the total case load. If we are to close the gap, it is vital that more of these job seekers find and keep a job. To support the employment of more Indigenous job seekers, the government has included specific reforms to boost Indigenous employment outcomes in the new employment services system that will start on 1 July this year.

For the very first time, the employment services system will include targets for Indigenous employment. Employment services providers will have clear benchmarks for Indigenous employment, and they will be made accountable for achieving those benchmarks. Providers will not be able to pay lip-service to the important task of getting more Indigenous job seekers into work. Providers' performance relative to Indigenous employment benchmarks will be reflected in the star ratings system. The star ratings system helps job seekers make a decision about which provider will best meet their needs. A low star rating can also lead to a loss of business share for an employment services provider. For these reasons, providers will have a material interest in ensuring that they help more Indigenous job seekers on their journey from welfare to work.

To support providers in this important work, the government is providing wage subsidies for employers to take on more Indigenous Australians. Of course, we also need employers to partner with us, and I am pleased to note that many large companies have clearly stated intentions to take on more Indigenous Australians. Companies such as Qantas, Westpac, Leighton, News Corp, Telstra, Shell and many more are coming on board with this important duty of getting more Indigenous job seekers into work. We know that many other employers, particularly the small and medium businesses that make our economy tick, are also doing their bit to support Indigenous employment. But we need more businesses to come on board. The new employment services system starting on 1 July is the perfect opportunity for a business to start a relationship with a provider and begin to give more Indigenous job seekers the opportunity and the benefits that work can bring.

The Closing the Gap report is sobering. We have undoubtedly made progress in some areas, but in others we are either stagnant or going backwards. There is too much at stake to give up. Our only option is to improve our efforts and press on. I believe we are moving in the right direction. Indigenous affairs is now prominently located within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The government is firmly committed to improving school attendance. We have the resources on the ground, making sure that kids go to school. The reduction of the huge number of Indigenous funding programs and policies their refocusing into more flexible support for practical, proven measures is a good step. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan is supporting Indigenous communities to manage their health and wellbeing. As I mentioned, we are taking action to improve indigenous employment outcomes. As a nation, we owe it to the men and women like Charles Perkins who fought to end discrimination to finish the job they started and close the gap.

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

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this place, the Ngambri and Ngunawal peoples, and pay my respect to their elders, past and present, and their future leaders. I would like also to acknowledge the traditional owners of my home town of Newcastle and the wider electorate, the Awabakal, Worimi and Wonnarua peoples.

It is fitting that we begin the parliamentary year with the annual Prime Minister's report on Closing the Gap, symbolically reminding the parliament and the nation of the importance of our collective efforts to close the gap. It is an opportunity to take stock of our achievements, focus on the challenges ahead and recommit ourselves to the Closing the Gap targets.

In the words of the Prime Minister, the seventh Closing the Gap report is 'profoundly disappointing'. We are not on track to achieve most of the targets. Just two of the original targets, relating to child mortality and year 12 attainment, are on track to be met. In life expectancy there have been modest gains, but progress will need to be significantly accelerated if the gap is to be closed by 2031. Other targets in relation to early childhood education and literacy and numeracy have either not be met or are not on track, while employment outcomes have gone backwards. The gap is not closing in these areas and there are other areas, not currently measured, that we are failing to address altogether.

We still do not have, for example, justice targets included in our set of measures, yet the Productivity Commission's 2014 Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report makes clear that justice outcomes continue to decline, with adult imprisonment rates worsening and no change in high rates of juvenile detention and family and community violence. Read in conjunction with the Social justice and native title report 2014, the need to include justice targets in the Closing the Gap targets could not be made clearer.

Having failed to meet five of the seven existing Close the Gap targets, we are going backwards on a number of fronts. The Prime Minister's report on Closing the Gap clearly shows that we cannot afford the government's massive cuts to Indigenous programs and services. We simply cannot afford any further cuts that threaten our hard won, albeit limited, progress to date.

In May last year, this government's first budget, handed down by the 'Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs', included more than $534 million of cuts to programs that supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, leaving many Indigenous services with an uncertain future. In Newcastle it meant the end of the successful Deadly Choices program that aimed to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to make healthy choices for themselves and their families—to stop smoking, to eat good food and to exercise daily. Last year in my Close the Gap address I praised the positive effect Deadly Choices was having in our community. Today I lament its demise.

Deadly Choices was not alone. A total of $165 million was cut from Indigenous health programs, including other preventative health programs such as the Tackling Smoking and Healthy Lifestyle program. This is despite the government's election commitment to maintain funding for Closing the Gap health programs. The Family Violence Prevention Legal Service had a $3.6 million was cut and there is no future funding certainty beyond 30 June 2015 for this vital service impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children escaping family violence. A raft of cuts were made to community legal services, including $15.6 million from community legal centres, $13.4 million from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, $21.5 million from legal aid and no funding certainty for legal centres past 30 June 2015. Funding was cut for municipal and essential services for remote communities. Western Australia has threatened to close up to 150 remote Indigenous communities as a result of the funding cut. Cuts were made to Prisoner Throughcare and anti-recidivism programs. The national partnership agreement on Indigenous health outcomes was not renewed, leaving the Close the Gap health targets without a nationally coordinated approach to achieve them. The commitment to a justice target under the Close the Gap framework was abandoned. The National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee was axed without warning and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Equality Council was also axed. And the so-called Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs made no mention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when he set out his vision for Australia at his Press Club address earlier this month. This is the incomplete, but nonetheless bleak, rap sheet of this government's record on Indigenous affairs over the last 12 months.

The Prime Minister's report is an important aspect of how we assess progress on closing the gap, but this report should not be read in isolation. Other independent reports produced must also be considered, including the Productivity Commission's Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report, the Close the Gap Progress and Priorities Report and the Social justice and native title report. All three reports, released in the last 12 months, touch on the progress that has been made towards a number of the Close the Gap targets, but emphasise that more needs to be done and that there are worrying signals in a number of areas.

I would like to touch on some of the findings and recommendations of the Social justice and native title report 2014, authored by Mick Gooda, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. He delivers a critical assessment of what these cuts to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services and programs have meant on the ground and builds the case for a Closing the Gap target on justice. In his report, Mr Gooda said:

The past year has been characterised by uncertainty and upheaval for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island People.

He added:

Overall, this upheaval and lack of clarity is deeply worrying and is causing widespread uncertainty and stress, particularly amongst our communities.

The report makes a number of recommendations, but today I will focus on one area in particular that is a matter of national importance and must be addressed urgently.

Within his report, Mr Gooda highlights the shocking overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as both victims and offenders in the Australian criminal justice system. Indeed, in his view, it is one of the most urgent human rights issues facing Australia. Nationally, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults are 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous Australians, while around half of the young people in juvenile detention facilities are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. This, coupled with the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are hospitalised for family violence related assault at 31 times the rate of non-indigenous women, is truly damning. Mr Gooda further pushes for the long-held view that Closing the Gap targets on justice are needed and, along with the Close the Gap Progress and Priorities Report and the Productivity Commission report, makes the case for a justice measure to be introduced.

In August 2013, the coalition committed to 'provide bipartisan support for Labor's proposed new Closing the Gap targets on incarceration rates'. I welcome the government's position but, unfortunately, we are yet to see any progress on this. So it should be of no surprise to the House to learn that the Social Justice and Native Title Commissioner has this year had to recommend:

The Australian Government revises its current position on targets as part of Closing the Gap, to include holistic justice targets aimed at promoting safer communities.

I could not agree more.

In spite of all the cuts to funding, there is some tremendously good work being done on the ground by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. I attended the launch last week of the Deadly Dolphins' kids' swimming program in Mayfield. The Awabakal Limited and the Cancer Council New South Wales were working together to promote three key aims for the local community on water safety, getting active and being safe in the sun. There is also another terrific program being run called the Indigenous Marathon Project. I am very fortunate to have a constituent from my electorate, the Newcastle Citizen of the Year and wheelchair champion Kurt Fearnley, as an ambassador for this program.

In closing, it is important to acknowledge that, yes, there has been some limited progress in two out of seven of the target areas that I referred to earlier. Clearly, we need to step up to the mark. I would like to close with the words of Dr Tom Calma, a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, who rightly observed:

It is not credible to suggest that one of the wealthiest nations in the world cannot solve a health crisis affecting less than 3% of its citizens.

We can and must do better.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was first elected to this parliament I was a member of the then House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, and that committee was undertaking an inquiry into Indigenous health. We visited areas in Australia from the most remote to regional, rural and metropolitan, and we identified that there were significant health problems in those communities. It did not matter whether it was in the most remote part of Australia or in metropolitan Sydney, Indigenous Australians had poorer health outcomes across the board compared to non-Indigenous Australians.

We are here tonight speaking to theClose the Gap Progress and Priorities Report, which is a step forward in that this report has to be tabled every year in parliament. However, I find it really disturbing that we are here in parliament debating key areas where we have failed to meet most of the targets in closing the gap on Indigenous health. We have only met two out of the seven targets. I read through this report and looked at the health indicators and outcomes that have been achieved. It is really important that we do have measurable outcomes in this report, but I cannot believe that I have been in this parliament now for over 16 years and that one of the first issues I became involved in was the poor state of health of our Indigenous Australians and the need for us to work and act on that and make a difference. Then today I stand here and I look at the figures for things like cardiovascular disease and see the difference in rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. I see the high levels of treatable and preventable conditions that Indigenous people have and the difference between their outcomes and those of non-Indigenous people. For instance, the gap is widening in the area of diabetes by 35 to 44 years. In the Indigenous population nine per cent of those aged over 35 have diabetes in comparison to 8.2 per cent in the non-Indigenous population, and the rate is even greater as age increases. The difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with early onset of kidney disease is incredible. It is the same with cardiovascular disease: 32 per cent of all Indigenous Australians have high levels of triglycerides, compared to 14 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians.

I know that the health of Indigenous Australians is an area of great concern and I know that this side of the House is totally committed to addressing that. But we still have a very high level of smoking among our Indigenous population; obesity is greater among our Indigenous population; and alcohol consumption and risky drinking is an area that has been addressed but not adequately. When this government discontinued the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee, I saw that as a retrograde step, and it is recommendation 3 of the steering committee's Close the gap report that it be reintroduced.

There have been some gains, and it is important to acknowledge those gains but also to emphasise that closing the gap really needs a whole-of-government approach and funding to address it. Our federal government, our state governments and our local governments need to all come together and make this commitment, and remain committed to the COAG process. It is vitally important that the Australian government continue to show leadership in the COAG Closing the Gap strategy, as was identified in recommendation 2 of the Close the gap report.

But, to make a real difference, there are some key areas that we need to address. One of those key areas is health. We need to say it is not good enough that, because you are an Indigenous Australian, you are going to be sicker and you are going to die earlier. Our Indigenous population do not have the same opportunities as other Australians. Education is also vitally important, including getting children to school. Getting adults into work and building safer communities are all really important initiatives and strategies. But you have to build those things on a healthy society and a healthy population, and you cannot separate the two.

Unless more than lip service is paid to these issues, unless the $534 million of funding cuts to programs is reinstated, I have concerns about this country's ability to ensure that Indigenous Australians have the same opportunities, the same health outcomes and the same educational outcomes as non-Indigenous Australians. And there are issues about access to education, because an Indigenous student might enrol in a school but there are a number of other aspects that will determine whether or not that young person is going to embrace and utilise the educational opportunities that are available. There is a strong association, as was pointed out in the Close the gap report, between family functioning and truancy. Household stress, housing issues and family crises are the most important predictors of school nonattendance. We need to address the core issues, the family issues and the social issues, that impact on that young person's ability to embrace education.

Actually closing the gap and improving these outcomes cannot be done by this parliament alone. It can only happen if we work with the Indigenous communities throughout this country, because it can only really be achieved if it involves and is driven by Indigenous communities and by the actions and programs that are undertaken by Indigenous communities in this country. The power needs to lie with Indigenous Australians. We do not need a patriarchal approach to closing the gap; we need to have a very inclusive partnership with Indigenous Australians.

We need to make sure that, in 10 years time, we do not have another person standing up in this parliament making the same speech that I am making, saying it is not good enough, we need to act on it, we need to change things, we have far too many Indigenous Australians in jail. It is just not good enough.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I begin, I acknowledge the power of my colleague the member for Shortland's speech just now and commend her for it. As she said, hopefully we will not be having this conversation and this debate in 10 or 20 years time. Even though there have been some developments and improvements under this latest Closing the gapreport, there are still some very stark differences between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities here in Australia, unfortunately, and this report highlighted that.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about the Closing the gap: Prime Minister's report 2015and I am proud to be part of a parliament that has continued to show bipartisan support for ending Indigenous disadvantage in this country. The different sides in this place often disagree on how we should meet these targets but we do agree on the need to get there, and that is important. The Leader of the Opposition said after the recent launch of this report, in his speech to parliament:

Today we promise to do better; we promise to do more …

And we must stick to that promise.

I commend the Prime Minister for following in the footsteps of his Labor predecessors by delivering the Closing the Gap report in person to the parliament—it strongly demonstrates the critical importance of these targets. Most importantly, it keeps them front of mind for the Australian community, it keeps them front of mind for the parliament and it keeps them front of mind for each and every one of the people who sit in this place—and for those in the gallery on the day the report is delivered it reminds them of the inequality that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It is a stark inequality in so many ways and in so many critical areas that means that Indigenous Australians are leading a life unfulfilled; they cannot realise their potential because of these discrepancies and inequalities that they face in their health, in their education and in so many other areas.

This year's Closing the Gap statement has unfortunately brought us mixed results. We have made some achievements, but there is a long way to go if we are to meet the Closing the Gap targets by 2030. In fact, we are on track to meet just two of the seven Closing the Gap targets. That is incredibly sobering. Here we are in 2015 with these targets that are admirable, ambitious and it is great that we have them, but, as my colleague said, the fact that we are actually having this discussion is deeply depressing for someone who is interested in shaping public policy and ensuring that every Australian, no matter what their background, no matter what their race, no matter where they live, has access to opportunity, to equality and to fairness.

I welcome the increase in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy between 2005-07 and 2010-12. We have seen an estimated increase in life expectancy of 1.6 years for males and 0.6 of a year for females over that five-year period. However a gap of around 10 years remains when you compare Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with non-Indigenous people. That is incredibly sobering. Here we are in this incredibly affluent nation with so much opportunity for so many, yet we have that 10-year gap. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have higher rates of cancer, higher rates of diabetes and higher rates of preventable diseases. They also suffer preventable deaths related to chronic diseases at rates that could be halved within three years through a much greater focus on access to appropriate primary health care services to detect, treat and manage these conditions.

The report looks to the Australian government for continued leadership as part of an overall national approach to Closing the Gap. This year's report has highlighted some disappointing progress; in fact, the Prime Minister described it as 'profoundly disappointing'. As I mentioned earlier in my speech, the Closing the Gap commitment to narrowing the gap or eliminating the gap, a commitment to true equality for non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians alike, I believe is strongly felt by members all around this chamber. That is why it is disappointing that the government had decided to cut $130 million from Indigenous health programs, that is why it is disappointing that the government has decided to cut thousands of critical Indigenous front-line services that would have helped in Closing the Gap, and that is why it is disappointing that the government has ripped $165 million from Indigenous health programs which would have helped in Closing the Gap. The list of cuts goes on: $13.4 million ripped from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services; $9.6 million cut from Indigenous language programs; $15 million cut from the only national representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples; the prisoner Throughcare and anti-recidivism programs have been cut entirely; and the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee has been axed, as has the Indigenous and Remote Eye Health Service. These cuts are having a dire impact on Australia's Indigenous community, and, as Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda said, this past year has been one of deep funding cuts, uncertainty and upheaval in Indigenous affairs.

These health statistics make for very sobering reading. It is unbelievable to think that here we are in 2015 with these sorts of figures. Yes the gaps have been narrowed, but I am looking here at low birth weights per 100 births. In 2011, in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities the figure is 11.1; for non-Indigenous, 4.5. We have a comparison of Maori and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy by gender from 2010 to 2012. For Maori males it is 72.8; for females, 76.5. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males it is 69.1, and 73.7 for females. With survival rates for cancers, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander survival rate for all cancers is 40 per cent; for non-Indigenous Australians it is 52 per cent. For lung cancer it is seven per cent for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and 11 per cent for non-Indigenous people. For breast cancer in women it is 70 per cent for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and 81 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. For bowel cancer it is 47 per cent in Indigenous communities and 53 per cent in non-Indigenous communities. For prostate cancer it is 63 per cent for Indigenous and 72 per cent for non-Indigenous communities. Cervical cancer is 51 per cent for Indigenous and 67 per cent for non-Indigenous. These gaps highlight the fact that there are still some significant areas that need to be improved.

For me, another horrifying statistic that has stayed with me from this report is that, sadly, Indigenous women and children are more likely to experience family violence than any other group in our nation. An Indigenous woman is 35 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence, and she is five times more likely to die. That figure is incredibly powerful, deeply disturbing and deeply distressing: an Indigenous woman is 35 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence and five times more likely to die. It is a chilling statistic, and we must do better.

In closing, I just want to acknowledge some work that is being done here in the Canberra community. I met this group of Canberrans when I went to the Closing the gap launch. It is a group called Solid Young Sistas and Brothas. It is a leadership and mentoring program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth from the ACT and surrounding New South Wales. The program supports these young people to connect or reconnect with their culture through components such as dance, language and other cultural performances. They are doing great work for the Indigenous community here in Canberra, and I commend them.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As other speakers have detailed, this, the seventh report, does have a few positive facets: as indicated, the improvement in life expectancy and, despite the continued abysmal situation, the improvement in regard to low birth weights et cetera. However, the context has to be a three-times-greater rate of suffering from diabetes, a two-times-greater rate of chronic kidney disease, two-times-greater risk factors for cardiovascular disease and, of course, the reality that all of those problems are interconnected as risk factors for each other.

The previous speaker detailed the life expectancy difference between New Zealand Maoris and Australian Indigenous people. The disturbing facet is, however, that, whilst we are still behind the New Zealand situation, it has actually, in a relative sense, deteriorated over the past few years. If we look at New Zealand Maori life expectancy, it improved significantly, by four years, over the period from 2002 to now. When we look at the improvements in Australia, they have been nothing like that.

In one sense, the condition of Australian Indigenous people is similar to the destruction by Israel this week of a number of Bedouin houses; the fact that in Japan people have books of surnames and genealogies to make sure they do not intermarry with Ainu; the situation in Botswana, where the government was going to deprive the San people of their living space for major game safari areas; and the situation in South America, where in Peru and Ecuador we see indigenous people marginalised and unable to participate in negotiations around oil and gas exploration. In one sense, Australian Indigenous people are part of a worldwide phenomenon of colonisation, deprivation and marginalisation.

However, what is disturbing is that, in a work back in 2007 by Freemantle, Officer and McAullay, done by the Kulunga Research Network and commissioned by Oxfam, the following realities were described:

The mortality rates reported in Australia for Aboriginal people are higher than those reported in New Zealand, Canada and the USA … Disparities exist in reported life expectancy … in the four countries. However, the highest disparity … has been reported in Australia … Infant mortality is also higher and the disparity greater …

Furthermore, there are:

… lower levels of access to health services than the general population, in some part due to residing further from health services and also as a result of socioeconomic status, availability of transport and ability to speak English …

So this country should be disturbed not only that our statistics are alarming but that they are very negative in contrast to indigenous populations in other First World countries that we might compare ourselves to.

I have, of course, noted reduced government expenditure in regard to many aspects of Indigenous people's lives. One that many members would have had their attention directed to today is the question of the Aboriginal Legal Service. An email today asking members to take up the issues noted that in the ACT and New South Wales there will be a loss of $3 million from the annual budget of the relevant Aboriginal Legal Service and that 40 of the 185 staff members will be looking for alternative employment at Centrelink.

The situation, of course, is interrelated to the health issues because of the high incarceration rate of Australian Aboriginals and the impact that has on families, lifestyle et cetera. In 1991, of course, we had a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. But the Australian Institute of Criminology, in 2013, could still detail that, whilst Indigenous Australians constitute only 2½ per cent of our population, they constitute over a quarter of those in the adult prison population of the country. In the Northern Territory, they are 30 per cent of the people and 82 per cent of the prison population. In Western Australia, they are three per cent of the population but 38 per cent of adults in detention. Due to the over-representation, whilst the percentage of deaths of Indigenous people in detention is going down, in absolute numbers it is going up. Between 2008 and 2011, of 159 deaths in custody 33 were Indigenous Australians.

What is disturbing, and interrelated to the question of health and services, is the reason why many of those people are in detention. In New South Wales, a survey of the prison population showed that 55 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and 64 per cent of women had a drug use issue which related to the offence committed. Fifty-five per cent of Indigenous male detainees and 48 per cent of women had self-reported mental conditions. So to reduce assistance to the Aboriginal Legal Service, in a country which has such abysmal, disgraceful, internationally embarrassing levels of incarceration and deaths in custody, would not really seem to be a very valuable addition to countering the health problems.

Of course, there have been suggestions as to where we should go. In the Summary of Australian Indigenous health, the following were put forward as being amongst the emphases that this country should have:

One of the other things that come out in all the health analyses in this country is that, if you have two people with a condition, the survival rate because of these factors for Indigenous Australians is very much lower. The other suggestion was:

We have mentioned many of the other health statistics, but I will just go through a few others in a disturbing picture.

In Australia's health 2014, by AIHW, under 'Indigenous health', the largest gap in death rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians was in circulatory disease deaths, followed by endocrine, metabolic and nutritional disorders. Indigenous Australians were five times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to die from these. Indigenous children aged nought to four died at more than twice the rate of non-Indigenous children. After adjusting for differences in age structure and response rates, Indigenous Australians aged under 65 were more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to require assistance with daily activities because of disabilities. Two out of five Indigenous Australians aged 15 and over were current smokers. The proportion of Indigenous adults who smoke daily has decreased, of course, but is still disturbingly high.

In conclusion, there are some positives in this report. They do perhaps indicate that an emphasis on this—the fact that it is in the public domain, that people talk about it and that there is this annual discussion about it—has accomplished some gains. However, when we look at the poor base from which we are coming, when we look at international comparisons, when we look at the still very high mortality rates and the proportion of a wide variety of diseases, there is not much to really be joyful about. This does indicate a further need to focus on the issue, and it certainly will not be improved by very extensive cutbacks in expenditure in the area of Indigenous health in this first budget from the government.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start my contribution by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land, and I pay my respects to elders past and present. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister handed down the seventh Closing the gap report, a practice which has been a bipartisan commitment in this parliament. Both sides of parliament have adopted closing the gap as common ground. The disparity between the mainstream Australian and the Aboriginal community is and remains a blight on our society. However, with over $500 million being cut from Indigenous affairs programs, as announced in last year's budget, which will seriously impact on thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and threaten the provision of essential services, this is hardly a great place to start when we are here to talk about closing the gap.

I represent a very diverse community in south-west Sydney. More than 2,000 people in my electorate identify themselves as being of Indigenous descent. The majority of the Aboriginal people in my electorate live in Liverpool, an area of great diversity, but it is also an area that has a significant proportion of socially and economically disadvantaged families, many of whom struggle in accessing mainstream services such as health, education and employment.

Under the former Labor government, we worked pretty hard to implement the national Indigenous reform agenda in 2008. We identified the six areas of critical importance to Indigenous communities. These include life expectancy; the mortality of children under five; access to early childhood education; reading, writing and numeracy; year 12 attainment rates; and employment outcomes.

Seven years on, yes, we can see that progress has been made in high school attainment, infant mortality rates and early childhood education. However, there is no denying the fact that we have a long way to go in truly meeting our targets. The funding uncertainty for critical programs should not be allowed to frustrate our collective efforts in meeting our targets in this respect. Closing the gap is critically important and deserves a thorough review of the efforts to achieve these results.

In saying that, you just cannot ignore the fact that this government has slashed $165 million from the Indigenous health programs and is also cutting $3.6 million from the Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Program. Given the importance of this particular issue to my community in south-west Sydney, I would like to focus a little bit of my contribution on the prevention of family violence.

Indigenous women and children are more likely than other groups in our society to experience family violence. In fact, Indigenous women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence and/or die as a consequence. As a caring nation, we simply have a responsibility to put an end to these senseless acts of violence which divide many households, scar children and claim the lives of so many Aboriginal women.

For some time now I have been working very closely with a group called Sistas for Sistas. This group is led by Rosheen Saunders. Rosheen and her members have done a tremendous job in raising awareness of domestic violence in Indigenous families through a program called Aboriginal Women Against Violence, which is run by the Joan Harrison Support Services for Women, based in Liverpool.

Over the years, more and more Indigenous women, who have been victims of family violence, have come together to not only openly talk about their experiences but to also join the campaign against domestic violence. My community is very fortunate as we have a number of organisations and some exceptional people that are committed to making a difference to the lives of local Aboriginal people. This includes the KARI Aboriginal Resources, which is a leading Aboriginal children's service provider in New South Wales. This organisation has operated in Liverpool since 1999, recruiting and training Aboriginal foster carers and providing shared-care for Aboriginal children and youth requiring out-of-home care.

I would like to commend Paul Ralph, the founding member and current CEO of KARI, and his dedicated team for their efforts in safeguarding the rights of Aboriginal children. They are making a difference for the better in our community. My electorate is also home to the Gandangara Local Aboriginal Land Council, which provides a range of social services to the Indigenous community. I would like to acknowledge the great work being done by Jack Johnson, Nancy Davis and Rae Stewart for their vision in building the long-term independence Aboriginal people in my community.

When speaking about support to the Aboriginal community in south-west Sydney, I must acknowledge a very committed and most determined Catholic nun, Sister Kerry McDermott, a strong advocate with a compassionate heart and committed to raising awareness and understanding of issues relevant to our Indigenous community.

Sadly, many of these committed people are facing an agonising wait to find out whether the funding for their important services and programs will be continued. We just simply cannot afford to slash funding to vital services if we are serious about closing the gap. It is simply not good enough to say we are making progress; we need to be totally committed when dealing with this unjust and indefensible inequity in our community.

If the government is to be taken seriously with respect to closing the gap, I encourage it to reconsider the impacts that cutting vital front-line services will have on the wellbeing of Aboriginal people.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the heart of our country, our democracy and this parliament is a profound injustice. People now recognise that Australia was not terra nullius; it was not unoccupied when white settlers first came here. People now recognise that our history is one of violence and dispossession, which many people in this country and many First Australians feel deeply.

The story we tell ourselves now could be so different. We could as a country have a prouder story to tell ourselves. We only have to look across the way to New Zealand where they recognised the injustices of the past and then struck a treaty that gave due recognition in principle and in fact to the first inhabitants of that country to see how we might start to take the first steps if we wanted to. But unfortunately we continue to deny that great injustice that is still at the heart of our country. And we continue to live with it every day.

When we compare the health of the first New Zealanders with the health of the First Australians, we can see very clearly that the failure to right that injustice is connected deeply and intimately with the health and wellbeing of people who are living right here and right now. What the Closing the gap report that we are speaking about here today evidences is that many things are getting worse for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country. Unsurprisingly, that is what happens when you rip desperately needed funding from the sector—and I will say a bit more about that in a moment.

But what we know from this report is that some things have in fact got worse. We know that we are not on track for progress on closing the gap on life expectancy in a generation, and that is something profound to recognise. Here, in modern wealthy Australia, we are not on track to close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation.

There has been some progress and some suggestion that we are on track in this report to halving the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade. That is worth celebrating. That is very important. But what we also know is that we have not met the target to ensure access for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities to early childhood education; we are not on track to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for Indigenous students; and we are not on track to halve the gap in employment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. And it is clear from this report that we will not meet our commitments to closing the gap unless we significantly change what we are doing.

One of the areas where we have made some progress—and you can see the disjuncture between the progress we are making and the actions the government is taking—is smoking. We have made some progress in cutting smoking. So what does the government do? They cut funds to the programs that address smoking in Indigenous communities.

Now, you ask anyone in the community and they will tell you that cutting funding to this program, when we are making progress, is an absurd thing to do and one that will hurt and that will have an impact. And we are not talking about minor cuts here. At a time when we are told we are not on track to close the gap we also have a government that takes $534 million out of programs—$168 million out of health programs alone; $34 million worth of cuts to legal aid and policy reform programs; and, appallingly, cuts to the National Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention Legal Services of $3.6 million over the next three years. Of course, the impact of those cuts is only compounded by other cruel cuts, such as the Medicare co-payments that the government is intent on pursuing. What is becoming crystal clear as you put the pieces of the puzzle together is that those who are the worst off will continue to bear the brunt of this government's agenda. If we keep doing what the government is proposing then we are going to keep getting results like this report back.

For example: this year the government has said there is a renewed focus on school attendance, but there is no recognition of the health and wellbeing issues that keep kids from being able to go to school. It is all well and good to say, 'We're going to force you to turn up,' but what are we doing about making sure that once they are there they learn and they stay? For example: we know that glue ear leaves many children hearing impaired and that it affects their learning, but that is still not being addressed. If you drag a kid to school but then you do not fix their ears so that they can hear and learn we are not going to close the gap.

Shamefully, we know that incarceration rates are still soaring and yet the government cuts legal aid and refuses to put in place a justice target. The government must include a justice target as part of the Closing the Gap targets. That would involve recognising the role of community services and early intervention in reducing the high incarceration rates of Aboriginal Australians, who make up 28 per cent of our prison population—28 per cent!

One of the things that we should do if we are intent on closing the gap is actually ask Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples what they think we should do and involve them. I suggest to the House that going and asking a billionaire—Mr 'Twiggy' Forrest—is not going to yield results, as opposed to going and asking people on the ground what they think we should be doing. When you go and ask a billionaire, you get the same answers back that we have heard the government espousing: so, a further tightening of income management, for example, even though we see very clear evidence that income management is not working. And that is no surprise, because you do not lift people out of poverty by taking away their rights and you do not lift people out of poverty by treating them like second-class citizens. But that is the approach the government persists with against all of the evidence. And if we persist with an approach against the evidence and if we persist with cutting funding we are going to keep getting reports like this back.

I conclude by saying that there is a much better story that we could be telling as a country if we took steps towards recognising our First Australians, if we took steps towards having a treaty—as other Commonwealth countries have done—and if we took steps towards properly funding the services that will make a difference in areas like family violence and health. Then we could be up here celebrating progress. It causes me great sadness that instead of celebrating progress we are marking the fact that we are not on track to close the gap of life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

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

I rise to speak on the Closing the gap report. I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks earlier in this debate.

I have spoken before in this place on a number of occasions about the great divide between urban and remote Aboriginal communities. In so many cases I think that in urban Australia we are making progress, even though for many of us it is not as fast as we would like. But I look at some of my communities, like Port Augusta, Ceduna, Coober Pedy, Whyalla—where the member for Brand, sitting at the table, comes from I know: a famous son of Whyalla!—and Port Lincoln, and I think that the Indigenous population is measurably better off than they were, say, 20 years ago. We saw much more engagement in community and I think we see people making a better fist of raising their families and getting their children educated. And while there is still a long way to go, if I look at those communities then I think the next great barrier we have to pass is on the employment front.

When I say that, the rates of employment are rising and they are getting stronger. But in my mind many of those jobs are government jobs or in the Indigenous industry. I will celebrate the day when I walk into all the shops and businesses of the area and we have Aboriginal workers working in all of them, because this is when we will know that they have really crossed the final barrier, as it were.

But in remote communities it is a much more difficult task, particularly in those where English is a second language, despite efforts by both sides of politics at the state and federal levels. Many of these remote communities have far better housing than ever before, they have great health clinics, they have fantastic school buildings and they have good shops—even though often in the remote communities they are fairly expensive. For instance, I will speak of the APY Lands—they are probably the most famous group of remote communities that I have in my electorate, and quite well-known around Australia. It is 1,000 kilometres from Adelaide, for instance, before you get to the turnoff and then you can drive another 500 or 600 kilometres across the Lands. That is the route that all the groceries take. There was a time not very long ago, in fact, when the trucks were going to Alice Springs first, being decanted onto smaller trucks and then backtracking 500 kilometres to the same turnoff. You can understand why goods in the shops are expensive there, just as they are in many of my more remote farming communities.

They often have in these communities a challenging road. But they also have a breathtaking array of personal and family services, so many in fact that many do not know what the others do, even if they are operating in the same communities and even if their programs cut across each other. I welcome the comments and the intentions of Minister Nigel Scullion, who is determined to see all these services delivered into five common service areas, which I think should go some of the way to at least addressing these problems. These are small communities. They have subsidised arts centres, for instance, which are probably the most successful business model in remote areas. They have a raft of fully funded environmental jobs. When you sum all that up, it sounds like paradise. But unfortunately it is not. It is far from paradise.

I was not surprised when the Prime Minister expressed great disappointment with the number of Closing the Gap indicators that have not improved and that, in a couple of cases, have gone backwards. I spent seven years as a member representing these remote communities. While I have seen investment in the physical structures and investment in the human effort to try and bridge the gap, I have actually seen little improvement in individual outcomes. It is the old adage that we have missionaries, mercenaries and misfits, and I am pretty confident that in my seven years as member I have met all of these.

On the balance, most of the people working in these remote communities are there for the right reasons. They believe that they are making a real difference. When I sit down and talk to them individually, they tell me about their programs. I think, 'Gee, that is good. That ought to be making a difference. I can understand how you feel good about your program.' Yet if these myriad services in these remote communities are making a difference, why are not the individual outcomes better than they were 10 or 20 years ago? We seem to be making so little progress. We have to ask ourselves the question: why?

I come back in the end to the fact that we are maintaining communities where they have no chance of economic development. There is no natural economy. When I sit down with the leaders of these communities, they say, 'We want jobs for our children.' I say, 'What you want them to do?' There are no real jobs. There is a cattle industry there of sorts. If it was fully operational and running well, it might employ 50 people. There is a small arts industry. But after that there is not a natural economy and that is a problem.

We certainly cannot close down these communities. These are people's homes and we should support them there. But we really do have to make that step of educating a generation that has the ability as Noel Pearson would say 'to walk in both worlds'. We need a generation of remote Indigenous people that feel comfortable going into the white man's world, into the outside world to work. We can only do that through education.

I am a great fan of Minister Nigel Scullion's school attendance program. I just spent some time on the lands with Senator Scullion a few weeks ago. We visited two of the communities where the school attendance program was operating. On the day we were out at Pitjantjatjara, there were 51 out of 57 students at school. That is not a bad number; that is a pretty good number. If you are there and you go around the town with the attendance officers in the morning, typically they will pull the bus up outside of each house, toot the horn and say, 'Come on, you have got to get going.' Then they will come back in 10 minutes time. If no-one has emerged then they knock on the door and if no-one comes out then they will go out go inside and tell the parents, tell the guardians, tell the children they need to get out of bed because it is time to go to school. So 51 out of 57 is pretty good until you take into account that the six children who were not at school at Pitjantjatjara that day were not in community. They were somewhere else. Their parents are taken to taken them to the south and they were still away. I think three children were on cultural practices. So that means the school attendance program, if it was properly assessed, would have achieved one hundred per cent attendance on that day.

The next day we went to Indulknar and saw pretty much the same thing. I accompanied the school attendance officers around the town. When they worked out who was in community and not in school, their names were read out on the town speaker system so their aunties down the street could say, 'You get to school. It is a school day.' There is a lot of peer pressure starting to be applied. At Indulknar we had a lot more families still away. It is closer to the highway so they were still down south or wherever they might be for the summer. But we had close to one hundred per cent attendance for those children in community. Once again, that is a great outcome for the school attendance program.

But it still meant there were a lot of kids who were not at school on the day. That is about parental responsibility, about making sure that the parents are in community when school is in session. That is why I look forward to the rollout of the revamped RJCP program in July when those people on the RJCP program will have to attend five hours of work a day, five days a week. I have spoken to the minister about how this might be implemented. It was my suggestion that they should be given some time for cultural practices—maybe a week or two a year—so they could go to funerals just like the rest of us and during those periods they should be forgiven that non-attendance. But not for too long.

All the work periods should coincide totally with the school terms. So if families are away when school is in session, they will find their money will run out. They need to get back home into their communities to get back on their RJCP payments. That is the other side of the pendulum. When we can get those kids educated well enough to go away to high school and learn to walk in both men's world, that is when, I think, we will make real progress. I look forward to that day.

Question agreed.