Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the Commonwealth Closing the Gap Implementation Plan, and I ask leave of the House to make a ministerial statement relating to the report.

Leave granted.

Here and in other locations around Australia, our parliament draws together to remember, to reflect and to remind ourselves of at least 65,000 years of stewardship by the original custodians of this land—Indigenous peoples who love this country, its lands and its waters and have cared for it since time immemorial. We pay our respects to the Ngunawal people and our First Peoples across our great continent and to their elders past, present and emerging. Here and elsewhere around the world, Indigenous Australians are serving in our Australian defence forces, protecting Australians and advancing our interests in a world that favours freedom. Over in Tokyo, Patty Mills leads the Boomers today.

On this day, I also honour the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who serve in this parliament, in both chambers. The Minister for Indigenous Australians, the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians are two historic figures of this place and of our nation of whom we can be very proud. I honour Senator Dodson, Senator McCarthy, Senator Lambie and Senator Thorpe.

COVID restrictions mean we cannot be joined in the chamber here today by Pat Turner and her colleagues across the Coalition of Peaks, but I want to pay personal tribute to them and to Pat, in particular, for the partnership being built together, the trust being established and the respect being shared. It is already bearing fruit.

I've always said that closing the gap is, at its core, about children. The ultimate test of our efforts is that every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boy or girl can grow up with the same opportunities and the same expectations as any other Australian child or, to put it a different way, that any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child can walk uninhibited in two worlds and feel at home wherever they walk in our country.

This month marks 50 years since an Aboriginal Australian first spoke in this parliament. Neville Bonner was born on a small island at the mouth of the Tweed River. His mother gave birth to him in a gunyah under a palm tree. She wasn't allowed in the local hospital. Neville's schooling was patchy. His mother died when he was 11. For much of his childhood, most schools wouldn't take him. He hit the road with a swag at 15. As a young man, Neville tried to enlist to serve. He was rejected—again, because of the colour of his skin. From his earliest years, Australian society told Neville Bonner he could not walk freely in two worlds. Daily injustices fuelled by institutionalised discrimination followed him through his life. But, like Ken, like so many others, Neville found a strength to rise above it, to claim for himself the truths of a free nation.

In remembering Neville Bonner, we need to remember the full story: the derogatory names he was called because his politics didn't fit the zeitgeist—Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price can testify to that; and the colleagues who treated him as an equal in the chamber but never saw fit to invite him out for dinner or a drink. Old Parliament House has in its collection Neville's diary and pillow. In the diary Neville reflected on the isolation of Canberra, and the pillow was there for the late night sittings. He knew there was nowhere else for him to be than in his office. As Ken says, what a picture of loneliness: progress and cold-heartedness side-by-side. What a missed opportunity to listen and to learn. That failure to listen and to learn has been part of our journey for too long.

Thirteen years ago the parliament rightly apologised to the stolen generations. So many of us stood here. It was a moment of great reckoning. It was a moment of grace. But, in the years that followed, the Closing the Gap process, borne of the best intentions, remained hard of hearing. We still thought we knew better. It was why our government brought together a new 10-year national partnership agreement, signed by all Australian governments, the Coalition of Peaks and the Australian Local Government Association. From that partnership, the National Agreement on Closing the Gap was born. Today, we make the promises of that agreement real, with the presentation, as tabled, of the first Commonwealth implementation plan. In financial commitments, partnership, shared accountability and scope, this is the most significant and comprehensive response to closing the gap that our government has ever provided.

Our Senior Australian of the Year, Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann, speaks of the concept of dadirri, a word spoken by Aboriginal people in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory. What dadirri refers to is a deep inner spring inside us. It's the pursuit of inner deep listening. Miriam-Rose says we call on it and it calls on us. With the implementation plan I table today, we are making good on our commitment to do things differently: a path that requires deep listening, dadirri, that requires learning, accountability, transparency and a genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders and organisations—a partnership generations overdue, built on mutual respect, dignity and, above all, trust. I'm under no illusion that this will happen overnight. As Pat Turner says, the path being forged is rocky. But, with the Coalition of Peaks, the states and territories and local governments, we're working together to smooth that path.

The true value of the national agreement is who it empowers and what it inspires. In a significant departure from what we've done before, each of the states and territories and the Coalition of Peaks will be responsible for their own actions and their own plans. Another departure is that all of us will be independently and collectively accountable. I will table an annual Commonwealth progress report around this same time every year. Each of us, the states and territories, will separately deliver ours, and all of us will reprioritise our investments to do things that we know will work.

To help us understand what the evidence says and our progress, the Productivity Commission will release an annual report on the outcomes and priority reforms. The first of those reports was released last week. On life expectancy, we're doing better but we're not where we want to be. On getting kids into preschool, we're tracking well. On incarceration rates, we're not achieving what we need to. On youth detention, we are making progress, but the data tells us we still have a long way to go. As well as the annual reports, the Productivity Commission will also present an independent review once every three years. After each report by the Productivity Commission, an independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander report will deepen the data and give us a picture of the change happening on the ground. Overall, it will be a far more rigorous assessment of the data, and the data will be updated in real time for all Australians to see.

We have many years of hard work ahead of us, as we have behind us. The first Commonwealth implementation plan with more than a billion dollars worth of new targeted measures lays the foundation for this work. The plan is an overview of Commonwealth actions to close the gap. It's aligned to the four priority reforms and the 17 socioeconomic outcomes set in the national agreement, including new target areas, such as justice and Indigenous languages. Critically, the measures we're funding reflect a sharpened set of priorities. Again, we haven't defined these priorities unilaterally. Instead, they are priorities offered and agreed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples themselves.

The first of these new priorities is simply to collaborate better and to do that by building better structures for genuine partnership and joint decision-making. That's why we have our joint council, co-chaired by Ken and Pat, that includes ministers from each state and territory, 12 members of the Coalition of Peaks and a representative from the Local Government Association; equal representation right around the table. The joint council builds on the partnerships that are happening at the jurisdictional and Commonwealth levels. The joint council is meeting tomorrow to commence its work, bringing all of the implementation plans together to form a thorough layered national plan.

The second priority is to build up Indigenous organisations to empower community controlled sectors to do what they already do best: deliver the services that support closing the gap. The example I keep going back to is the outstanding job the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health organisation has done during this pandemic. The contribution of Pat Turner, Dawn Casey and NACCHO in keeping vulnerable Australians safe has been nothing short of extraordinary. The fact that no Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person has died from COVID-19 in Australia and there have been no cases in remote communities is one of the most significant pandemic achievements Australia has had. Indigenous Australians have been six times less likely to contract COVID-19 than the wider population. That shows what happens when we work in partnership, but we must invest in the capabilities of such partnerships. That's why this implementation plan includes $38.6 million for an outcomes and evidence fund. It will support genuine co-design between government and Aboriginal controlled organisations and other local providers to deliver the best possible services for families and children. This goes to the heart of the third priority area, which is about transformation of government. We seek to understand in detail how our systems can knowingly or otherwise perpetuate racism. The new chapter of closing the gap simply won't succeed without it.

The last priority reform area is about data. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations need to be able to collect, analyse and use their own data to meet their own needs. In this new plan, with a billion dollars in new measures, one measure will mean more than any other. That relates to the stolen generations. What happened is a shameful chapter in our national story. We have already confronted it with a national apology. But our deeds must continue to match our words. Earlier this year, I met with the Healing Foundation and listened to the stories, not simply stories of the past but stories that continue to reverberate throughout the generations.

Today, I announce that the Commonwealth is investing $378.6 million in a new scheme for the stolen generations, for survivors who were removed as children from their families in former Commonwealth territories: the Northern Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory and, here in the ACT, the Australian Capital Territory. The scheme will involve a one-off payment in recognition of the harm caused by forced removal, and it will give each survivor the opportunity to, should they wish, tell their story and receive an individual apology. This is a long-called-for step, recognising the bond between healing, dignity and the health and wellbeing of members of the stolen generations, their families and their communities, to say formally not just that we're deeply sorry for what happened but that we will take responsibility for it.

I turn now to the other aspects of the Commonwealth implementation plan, tangible actions that are directly linked to clear targets that will be held accountable for in the years ahead—measures that are new, in the priority reforms of justice and languages, and measures that need continuing investment to deliver a longer term impact. I've spoken already about investing in the community controlled sector. The Commonwealth is providing an extra $254.4 million towards infrastructure to better support Aboriginal community controlled health organisations to do their work, their critical work, on their terms.

The plan also has a new focus on justice. Of course, the Commonwealth doesn't manage those justice systems. Where the Commonwealth can make a difference is in bringing people together. That's what our justice policy partnership hopes to do, and it will be on the agenda at tomorrow's joint council meeting. The Commonwealth was also in a position to provide additional funding for some of the services it supports, so in this first plan $9.3 million is there for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services to better manage complex cases in coronial inquiries. And there is $8.2 million for family dispute resolution programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. This all feeds into the new targets we've set—that by 2031 we will reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults incarcerated by at least 15 per cent and the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in detention by 30 per cent.

Up until now we've put the economic and social determinants of health at the centre of our approach. Today we understand that cultural determinants of health are important too, because a person's sense of community and culture is inherently bound to their physical and emotional wellbeing. It's bound to their dignity as a human. Earlier, I used the word 'dadirri'. Dadirri is one of the thousands of Indigenous words and concepts that are a gift to all Australians—concepts that can never adequately be translated into English and tell us so much about the nuanced and powerful connections First Australians make between self, community and the land. These words are part of the rich inheritance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, an inheritance that Closing the Gap will, from now on, specifically seek to protect. At the latest count, there were 123 Aboriginal languages still being spoken. Of those, only 14 were considered strong. Our target is a steady increase in the number and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages being spoken between now and 2031, and we're committing $22.8 million to support this effort.

Then you have the areas of long-term impact. The first is ensuring the best start in life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The Commonwealth is investing more than $160 million in this effort. This includes the early childhood package announced yesterday: some $122.6 million to lift participation in quality and culturally appropriate early childhood education and care. Our investment also flows into school education: initiatives like building on-country boarding schools, to which we're contributing $75 million; city-country school partnerships, an investment of $26 million; and 'scaling up success', an investment of $25 million to make sure primary school kids are taught using the best evidence based programs.

To keep women and children safe, the plan is also investing in supporting Indigenous families with complex needs. Again I want to emphasise that this Commonwealth implementation plan, and the proposals in it, forms just one part of a larger whole. There are 10 implementation plans like it, one for each jurisdiction, the peaks and the Australian Local Government Association. All of them will be presented to the joint council meeting tomorrow, and all of them will be tracked and further shaped as we learn more about what is working and what needs to improve. To go back to Pat's words, 'The road ahead will be rocky.' I don't doubt that. We don't expect to see clear improvements immediately, but I think the approach we've got now gives us the best chance.

On occasions like this, we quite rightly focus on the gaps that we need to fill and look to the places where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders do not have the same opportunities as other Australians, and it's right that we do so. But let us not forget the richness and achievement that also inspires us. Across this country in most fields of endeavour, we are seeing confident, strong and empathetic Indigenous leadership emerge. We see it expressed here in this parliament, with voices adding to our national life and politics, the arts and business and sport. May our country be a country of voices, not silence, because liberal democracies are all about giving a voice. In our country, it is also dadirri—the deep listening of soul, a listening that is not rushed; rather it is careful; it is thoughtful; it is considered.

I can report to the House that the Minister for Indigenous Australians has received the Indigenous voice co-design process final report. The report was submitted by Senior Advisory Group co-chairs Professor Dr Marcia Langton AO and Professor Tom Calma AO, following 18 months of extensive engagement and co-design. I want to thank them and the members of the co-design group for the care they have brought to this task. We will consider the details of the final report and respond in the future, following consideration by the cabinet. The first step was to define the detail of an Indigenous voice. An Indigenous voice will contribute to achieving the Closing the Gap outcomes by providing avenues at the national, local and regional levels for Indigenous voices to be heard, including to provide feedback to government on closing the gap. Once a model for the Indigenous voice has been developed, all governments will need to explore how they can work with the voice to ensure that these views are considered.

Some might want this process to be faster. I want it to be right. We have to learn from each other, and we will, as we walk and reason together, side by side, as sons and daughters of this great continent.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by acknowledging that we meet on the land of the Ngunawal and Ngambri people—land that was, is and always will be Aboriginal land. I pay my respect to their elders, past, present and emerging. I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today.

The harsh reality of the COVID-19 pandemic means that so many who would be here in this chamber are instead in their electorates across Australia. Each one of them is on the land of one of the great mosaic of First Nations that make up our great continent. I pay tribute to Minister Ken Wyatt, to shadow minister Linda Burney, to Senator Patrick Dodson, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Jacqui Lambie and Senator Lydia Thorpe. The fact that the Prime Minister and I could outline so many names over such a recent history shows that progress is being made, and I look forward to welcoming Marion Scrymgour and Donisha Duff into this chamber after the next election. I thank all our Indigenous representatives for their commitment, their passion and their dedication, not just to Indigenous Australians but to all Australians who they represent in this chamber and in the Senate. I thank them for their commitment, their passion and their dedication. I pay tribute to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who gave me my proudest day in this parliament when he delivered the national apology and initiated this important process on the journey of national reconciliation. I acknowledge the First Nations people who, like many parliamentarians, are watching from afar.

Tonight, when these speeches are done, I ask that you turn your eyes upwards. From Arnhem Land to Cape Leeuwin to Bruny Island, the sky will, clouds willing, fill with constellations. Many of them we know by the names bestowed by early astronomers in what we think of as the 'old world'. Here, in a world in fact far older, astronomers also saw patterns and stories in the night sky—some different, some uncannily similar. But those first astronomers here looked not just to distant suns but to the shapes formed between them—most famously the Emu, which stretches vast and black across the Milky Way. The more you unpick the findings of those early stargazers—whether they were Greek or Yolngu, Wiradjuri or Babylonian—the more it becomes clear just how much unites us. Across continents, across millennia, they found stories. They found points of navigation. They found the changing of the seasons and the very passage of time mapped out.

The light of the sky has underscored the common bonds of our humanity, and yet we are still in so many ways apart. Despite occasional flashes of hope, we aren't coming as close together as we need to. Like the gulf between the stars, the distances that separate us do not budge. This year's delayed Closing the Gap report gives indications that we are letting this harden into a state of permanence. More than a year after the new Closing the Gap agreement was signed, First Nations people are still far more likely to be jailed, far more likely to die by suicide and to have their children removed than non-Indigenous Australians. Out of the 17 targets that have been set, only three are on track. Dwell on that: three out of 17.

Ordinarily, we would be making these statements around the anniversary of that apology—each time we hear rhetoric that all too rarely has its counterpart in action. We are yet to find within ourselves even a fraction of the courage shown by members of the stolen generations on that magnificent day for our country in 2008. They came with grace and patience to this parliament which, for so long, had been the pinnacle of a system that had simply failed them. That indictment falls on both sides of this House; governments of all persuasions have failed First Nations people. We cannot rest on the false laurels of anniversaries. We cannot warm our consciences with the annual ticking of a box. Nor should we take false comfort from the linguistic sleight of hand that is the word 'gap'. A gap is something that is easily crossed or closed. The unflinching litany of lopsided statistics before us make it clear that this is a chasm. As I said recently, we remain committed to our position on stolen generations reparations—and we very much welcome the government's announcements here today. But we are surrounded by unfinished business. Even worse, we are surrounded by business that hasn't even been started.

It doesn't have to be this way. Earlier this year I had the enormous privilege of travelling to Uluru with my dear friend the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians. There we sat down, along with the member for Lingiari, with the traditional owners at Mutitjulu. They explained the importance of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and how disappointed they are at how little movement there has been on it. They also spoke about the importance of employment and opportunity for their young people. They spoke about housing and the massive problems they have in those communities. They too are looking for a way forward.

It is more than two years since this government said it would change the approach to closing the gap and I want to acknowledge the role played by the Coalition of Peaks, led by the remarkable Pat Turner. But there is still no measurement of progress on the four priority reforms: shared decision-making, building the community controlled sector, transforming government organisations and shared access to regional data. These are meant to form the backbone of working with First Nations organisations and to underpin the path to self-determination. I share concerns that this hasn't moved beyond rhetoric.

The government has reset most of the targets, essentially sweeping prior failures under the carpet. It might be a good marketing exercise but it is yet to deliver.

Earlier this year, as we marked the 13th anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations, I said that we had to look to the removal of Indigenous children going on right now. Last year's Family Matters Report, put together by the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, tells us that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children represent 37.3 per cent of the total population of all children removed from their parents. They represent just six per cent of our child population. Let that sink in. Between 2013 and 2019, the rate at which those children had been placed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers actually fell from 53.6 per cent to 43.8 per cent. If we don't address this, we will have the makings of another apology in the future. And it is a challenge for all of us here to make sure that we address this.

We can find a way forward: methodically, practically, realistically. The new targets include the social and cultural factors which determine overall health—things like housing, access to services, child protection, family violence, culture and language, and land and water rights. There is no pathway to ensuring First Nations Australians live as long and as healthy lives as non-Indigenous Australians without steadily addressing each of these interconnected targets.

It has been more than 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its findings, along with 339 recommendations. Tragically, hundreds of First Nations Australians have died in custody or in police pursuits since then. I commend the Change the Record movement here, and the Black Lives Matter movement internationally. I know we have to start somewhere. I know small steps are important. But some of the new targets do not go far enough. Even if the adult incarceration goal were to be met—a 15 per cent reduction by 2031—the rate would still be more than 11 times higher than it is for the non-Indigenous population. Eleven times higher. Even if the youth incarceration goal were to be met—a 30 per cent reduction by 2031—the rate would still be more than 12 times higher than it is for the non-Indigenous population. Think about that. This is a 10-year target—a target for all of us as a nation, as well as both sides of this chamber. And, yet, it envisages an incarceration rate for our youngest Australians who happen to be Indigenous that is 12 times greater than it is for the non-Indigenous population.

There are proven ways to reduce the causes of incarceration and deaths in custody. I have announced a plan to turn the tide on incarceration and deaths in custody, building on the success of the existing justice reinvestment programs in Bourke by tackling the root causes of crime and reoffending, which include rehabilitation services, family or domestic violence support, homelessness support, and school retention initiatives. Where we see programs that are working, we should try to replicate them. A Labor government would ensure coronial inquests into deaths in custody are properly resourced and include the voices of family members and First Nations communities. Labor will provide specific standalone funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services to ensure First Nations families can access culturally appropriate, timely and fair legal assistance before, during and after all coronial processes. And Labor would ensure that deaths in custody are nationally reported in real time. It is extraordinary that, in 2021, this counts as an innovation.

The Indigenous Ranger program is a hugely successful environment and employment program which Labor invested heavily in when we were last in government, and we will do it again. Labor will double the number of Indigenous rangers to an equivalent of 1,800 full-time positions by the end of the decade to help protect and restore both our biodiversity and our cultural values. Likewise, funding for Indigenous Protected Areas will be increased by around 50 per cent to ensure appropriate management of these areas. And Labor will deliver the $40 million of cultural water promised in 2018 but not yet delivered by the government.

Australians understand the strength of connection to our country. Our farmers often say the land they work on is in their blood. We talk of knowing we are home when we feel the hot sand of our favourite beach beneath our feet so we should have at least a partial understanding of the depth of connection for those of us whose ancestors have been here for millennia. The Indigenous rangers program repairs our soils and landscapes, provides jobs, but, consistent with this year's NAIDOC theme, it also heals country and that cannot be separated from healing its people.

First Nations Australians have significantly lower rates of employment, lower rates of workforce participation and higher rates of unemployment across all age groups. The government's punitive Community Development Program has been a failure. It has caused real hurt in communities across the north and Labor will abolish it. In its place we will develop a new program, in partnership with First Nations peoples, which will be focused on jobs and community development. This program will be community based and run locally. Some of the largest and most significant employers of First Nations peoples are community controlled organisations which work across a range of sectors. They are central to self-determination and we will work with them to address their employment and training needs.

The First Nations population is young and rapidly growing and an increasing number will be moving into the workforce in coming years. Economic security and opportunity are fundamental to our wellbeing. The opportunity to share in Australia's good fortune should be available to all Australians. As employees, business owners and entrepreneurs, First Nations Australians should be represented at a level consistent with the First Nations working-age population. This is something for business and government to turn around together. I must say many businesses are already leading the way and I pay tribute to them. They are working with partnerships with Reconciliation Australia.

Labor in government will build on the good work of many of Australia's largest employers to continue to increase the rate of First Nations employment by introducing public reporting of the proportion of First Nations employees for Australia's 200 largest employers, in line with the reporting requirement for gender balance on boards. We will also work with those businesses to ensure the employment level of First Nations, working-age Australians is consistent with the share of population by 2030.

It is heartening that so many large employers already perform well and have reconciliation action plans in place that include employment targets, but we can and we should do more. Labor in government will lead by example. We will set a target to increase First Nations employment in the Australian Public Service to five per cent by 2030. Some agencies have already achieved that but overall the Australian Public Service employment rate is around three per cent.

We cannot afford to miss any opportunity to align the financial security of First Nations Australians with that of non-Indigenous Australians. That's why a government I lead would get behind inclusive growth for Indigenous owned businesses in both domestic and international trade and would re-affirm the importance of Indigenous rights, inclusive trade, sustainable development, traditional knowledge and the protection of the integrity of Indigenous arts and cultural products in future international trade agreements. We can better protect First Nations jobs and businesses that rely on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, culture and intellectual property. Labor in government will get on with a Productivity Commission inquiry into the market for First Nations arts and crafts. Fake art alone robs many Indigenous artists of income, and it needs to be stamped out. We will work with First Nations people to legislate protections for traditional knowledge and cultural expressions.

Underpinning it all is the Uluru Statement from the Heart—that powerful and eloquent invitation to us all to go further as a nation. It calls for three things: voice, truth and treaty. Let us have the voice to parliament, constitutionally enshrined, that First Nations people have asked for with a patience so great that it counts as an expression of profound generosity. It's not a big ask: 'Just consult us on matters that affect us.' It's not a third chamber; it is an act of generosity on behalf of a people who deserve at least this, but there's an argument for much more. If we are to finally consign to history what Bill Stanner called the 'great Australian silence', there must be a voice.

We can be proud of so much we have achieved in our history. But we cannot short-change ourselves. We must come to grips with our past. Frontier wars, massacres and dispossession must be part of our reckoning with the truth. But so too must be our triumphs and our blessings. As Senator Dodson has reminded me from time to time, amid the wrongs there was also great kindness. Without truth, we can never be all that we can be as a nation.

The Uluru statement contains another of the great keys with which we can unlock our potential going forward—a makarrata commission, which would oversee a national process of truth-telling, agreement-making and treaty-making. As a priority, Labor will establish a makarrata commission with responsibility for truth-telling and treaty. It will be established through a process of open nominations and review. The commission will facilitate local truth-telling and advise on a national framework for treaty-making, and it will work with a voice to parliament.

This is how we can go forward. Until promises are transformed into reality, a production line of announcements and re-announcements amounts to nothing more than building a mirage. When we have a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and we advance on the process of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including truth and treaty, people will look back like they look back on that day in 2008 when the apology was given in this chamber and wonder what the fuss was about; wonder why it was that we didn't embrace the opportunity to advance reconciliation, to bring the country together; wonder what all the fear campaigns were about; and remember, in the long period leading up to the apology, what some of our national leadership said would occur if that word 'sorry' were uttered in this chamber on behalf of Australians. We're stronger for it. We'll be stronger for it as well if we advance reconciliation through the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

I have great hope for our future. I'm an optimist. I think there is something better within our reach if we extend ourselves even a little. I'm also buoyed by one element of the present, and that is, as the Prime Minister said, quite frankly, the remarkable achievement of Indigenous Australians, community leaders and governments to keep COVID-19 out of those remote communities. We can be very proud of that as a nation. This is one more example of Australians being magnificent and working together in the face of the pandemic.

Let us work together for the future in that spirit. When the pandemic is behind us and we're all striving to lift ourselves beyond its effects, let's lift all Australians. The direction is lit for us clearly and brightly, like it was for those early astronomers. If you see the Southern Cross tonight, up there, resting upon the head of the emu, look to the most softly twinkling star within it. It is the one star of the Southern Cross that isn't on New Zealand's flag, but it is crucial on ours. A few years ago, the International Astronomical Union formally recognised that star as Ginan, the name given to it by the Wardaman people in the Northern Territory. To the Wardaman, it represents a red dillybag filled with special songs of knowledge. Let us be worthy of that star.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the Commonwealth Closing the Gap implementation plan.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the House take note of the document. The ayes have it. The Acting Leader of the House.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With that, I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the debate be adjourned and that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Mr Burke interjecting—

The Manager of Opposition Business—yes?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the standing order on misadventure, can I just ask that we deal with the motion originally, before that was just put to the vote.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That the House take note of the document?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right, and we ignore the vote that we just had and go straight to the motion that was moved by the minister—or I could now move that the debate be adjourned.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should be moving that the debate be adjourned.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes; I think so.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If that's okay.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He needs to withdraw his previous motion.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's why I was raising the standing order on misadventure, which allows us to deal with it.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that's right. I think that the Leader of the House is right; I think we can deal with it that way, because I haven't put that question.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. So I'll just move:

That the debate that we take note be adjourned.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Okay. The question is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to. All those of that opinion—sorry?

An honourable member interjecting—

Okay. The question is that the debate be adjourned and that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Question agreed to.