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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask him to please outline to the House how the Morrison government's first Commonwealth implementation plan to deliver outcomes under the National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap will work to give our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities the same opportunities and expectations as any other Australian.

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

I thank the member for his question and for his passionate work in the many Indigenous communities up in his very large electorate in South Australia.

In about five minutes time or less the Australian Olympic flagbearer, and proud Indigenous Australian, Patty Mills, will be leading our Boomers in their semifinal at the Olympics against the United States. He will be leading his team there—his Australian team. Today, here in Australia, in our national parliament, we took another very important step; a very important step to work together as one team in this country to close the gap for Indigenous Australians. I want to thank the Minister for Indigenous Australians and I particularly want to thank Pat Turner, the leader of the Coalition of Peaks of Indigenous organisations, with whom—together with the state and territory governments, and local governments—we have formed this team. We have formed this partnership because we have learned that we must work better together and work out a better way to actually deliver on this important objective of closing the gap.

And that's what we've done. In the new Closing the Gap initiative we have shared goals with Indigenous Australians, we have shared responses, we have shared responsibility and we have shared accountability. We are all in to address the very urgent and important issue of closing the gap. One of the most important jobs of a government and, indeed, of a Prime Minister is to focus on this issue as an enduring issue—to close that gap to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians so that every boy or every girl who are an Indigenous Australian can grow up with the same opportunities and with the same expectations as every Australian.

There will be discussion of those goals and those targets, and some will say that they're not enough and some will say that they are too little. But what these goals are is shared. These are goals and targets that have been agreed between Indigenous Australians, the Australian government, the state and territory governments and at the local government level that we can work together to achieve. For the redress for Territorian stolen generations people there is some $378.6 million. There is $250 million and more for renovating health clinics and housing health professionals, to get those services to Indigenous Australians. There is $122.6 million for early childhood education and access to support for children of those ages. There is $745 million to support maternal health and infant health, $75 million for country boarding schools and so much more.

This is a team approach to addressing this task. It's an approach that sees the responsibility of all Australians brought together to close that gap. That is the important job in which we're engaged.