Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will continue with my speech earlier in relation to closing the gap. I note the comments of the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee co-chair, Mick Gooda, and the comments of campaign co-chair Kirstie Parker, who co-chairs also the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples. I am indebted to the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council for these comments in its most recent Justice Trends magazine. They made the point today that we need to redouble our efforts and not take the foot off the pedal with respect to funding in closing the gap. I note that the Prime Minister described the 2015 Close the Gap progress and priorities report as 'profoundly disappointing'. He has also been on the public record as saying that their Remote School Attendance Strategy has stalled and the evidence is quite erratic about its success or otherwise.

We need to redouble our efforts as a parliament and I urge the government to do so in relation to targets in closing the life expectancy gap, early childhood access, reading and numeracy, and employment, but I also urge them, as the Leader of the Opposition did today, to commit themselves to a justice target in closing the gap. The shocking rates of deaths in custody, the royal commission half a generation ago and the House of Representatives Indigenous affairs committee report Doing time—time for doing all reveal quite clearly the shocking rates of deaths in custody in this country. We have seen also the rates of hospitalisation and imprisonment in the Northern Territory. We have seen the comments made by many people that, in parts of the Northern Territory, misuse of alcohol results in violence and women from an Indigenous background being 35 times more likely to be hospitalised by partner abuse than non-Indigenous women. There are a whole range of things that we can do.

Kirstie Parker said in relation to what we are celebrating today, National Close the Gap Day:

My message is not to take the foot off the pedal at this crucial time, when we've seen small but significant gains.

Where there have been cuts or there is uncertainty around funding to health and related services, that has to be reversed, the funding has to be restored, so the considerable investment we've seen to date as part of a bipartisan effort is not squandered.

I agree with Kirstie Parker in relation to that.

Probably the biggest Aboriginal legal service in the country, the New South Wales-ACT legal service, sent a letter to the minister on 18 March 2015 that I have received, referring to the cuts we have seen in relation to National Close the Gap Day. It states:

The massive federal government funding cuts directly threat our frontline services, because as community organisation, everything we do is frontline.

National Closing the Gap Day celebrates a whole of government commitment to close the gap in Indigenous health equality.

However, outcomes in emotional and social wellbeing and mental and physical health are significantly reduced due to early childhood trauma, family violence and incarceration.

Our frontline services in children's care and protection, family law and criminal law address these areas where closing the gap outcomes are compromised.

I agree entirely with the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT).

I heard a speaker earlier talk about the fact that he would like a children and families centre in his electorate. We have 38 of them around the country, established when Labor was in power, and we think this is important when it comes to school attendance. It is okay to get the kids to school, and we support those types of efforts in the Northern Territory and elsewhere, but it is a matter of making sure you get kids prepared for school and families supported and that those schools are not defunded themselves. Sadly, I have to say that we have seen in some conservative states—Western Australia, Queensland under the former LNP government and the Northern Territory—money ripped away. I urge governments at state level and I urge this government to redouble their efforts on this day. When we recognise the apology delivered by Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister and Brendan Nelson as Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, I call on the government to redouble its efforts to close the gap. This should be a bipartisan commitment; it should be a national journey; but it takes all of us to commit ourselves in this place to that journey.