Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Commonwealth Commissioner for Children and Young People Bill 2010. I just want to give a little bit of history in relation to Australia's commitment to intro­ducing and establishing this type of body. Australia, of course, ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990—it was under the Hawke government—thus committing to enshrining that every child has rights under the convention. One of our obligations in relation to this signing of the convention was to introduce the ability to establish a federal or Commonwealth commissioner position who could advocate for, look after, represent and speak for the best interests of children and young people in Australia. That was over 20 years ago and yet here we are today still debating whether this is something we should do. We signed up to it in 1990. Today is 1 March 2012. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and a lot of proposals have been put on the table in this place. We have heard already today that a number of other senators in past years have introduced legislation to do exactly this. We know that the current Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, introduced legislation in 2003 to establish a national children's commissioner. We know that in 2008 Senator Andrew Bartlett introduced legislation to establish a national children's commissioner. We know that during that time our own Leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, introduced legislation to establish a national children's commissioner.

In 2010 I reintroduced a bill to establish a national children's commissioner. That bill was sent off to a Senate inquiry, which was conducted over the March period in 2011. There was a lot of consultation and a lot of support. In fact, the only bodies that disagreed with the establishment of a national children's commissioner were the government's own departments. Every other organisation that submitted to that inquiry said this was something whose time had come; this was a position that needed to be established. But, of course, we went through the process of inquiring into this legislation, to work out the best way to deliver it. That is why there have been amendments circulated in this chamber today: to deal with the tweaking and changes that were proposed in that consultation period.

Last year, the United Nations human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, was in Australia. She is the UN's peak spokesperson on human rights in the world. She urged the government directly that it was time that Australia stopped dragging its feet on establishing a commissioner and got on and did it. It was something Australia still had not done and there was really no explanation for it. She directly urged Prime Minister Gillard that the government should get this done.

We have heard today from senators on both sides of the chamber—the government side and the opposition side—that, despite 10 years of debate on this issue, they still want more. The issue of the rights of children, the rights of our young Australians, is still being put in the too-hard basket. It is all very nice for members in this place to stand up and talk about how much they would like to recognise the rights of children and how nice it would be for Australia to catch up with other countries around the rest of the world that have done this, but not one of the people who stood in this place today suggested a way forward. Not one of these people who spoke about how wonderful it would be to have a national children's commissioner will, when I complete my speech, vote to allow the Senate to move to the committee stage so we can deal with the concerns that both sides have.

I want to bring to the chamber's attention that, following the Senate inquiry and following the call by Navi Pillay from the UN human rights commission last year, a coalition of over 40 of the country's leading children's rights and young people's advocacy groups got together and said, 'We need to get this done. We support a children's commissioner and here are the things we would like the parliament to consider in amending and adopting this legislation.' There has been a lot of talk today about the fact that there needs to be consultation. That is exactly why the entire NGO sector in relation to children's rights and young people's advocacy in this country have put together what they want this parliament to do. They are asking this parliament to vote on this legislation, debate the amendments that they have outlined and get on with the job we said over 20 years ago that we would do.

I will go through the list of those organisations because they are very important to this idea of consulting with our community and ensuring that this is a national priority for us. They are: the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies, the Australian Council of Social Services, the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, Children with Disability Australia, Create Foundation, Families Australia, the Foundation for Young Australians, the Human Rights Law Centre, the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network, the National Children's and Youth Law Centre, the New South Wales Centre for Advancement of Adolescent Health, Oxfam Australia, People with Disability Australia, Playgroup Australia, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Refugee Council of Australia, the Salvation Army, Save the Children, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, St Vincent de Paul's national council, UNICEF Australia, the United Nations Youth Association, Uniting Care Children, Young People and Families New South Wales, Uniting Care Australia, World Vision Australia, the YMCA and the list goes on.

The recommendations from these organisations are in this bill and the circulated amendments. I am very sorry to hear that the government and the opposition have made it clear that they will be voting down this legislation because they do not want to take up the recommendations of these groups or have this debate in this chamber today.

I remind people why it is important not just that we signed up to this 20 years ago but that in today's context we still need to strive for the establishment of a Commonwealth commissioner for children and young people. Let us look at some of the harsh realities of the Australian community facing our young people. Australia is ranked 20th out of 27 OECD countries for infant mortality, and that jumps significantly once you talk about the health of young Indigenous children and Indigenous mortality rates. Who would the largest group of homeless people in Australia be? They are the 12- to 18-year olds. The largest group of homeless people in our country are our young people, our children. We need to tackle this. We need somebody to advocate. We need a body that we as parliamentarians agree can be empowered to take on these issues and reflect on our legislation, our laws and our policies and on the directions and the priorities of government and our parliament.

The 2008-09 report stated that there were 32,641 children who had confirmed cases of abuse or neglect. Only five per cent of young Australians are Indigenous, yet they make up half of those in juvenile detention and almost 60 per cent of detainees who have not been sentenced. In the 2008 UNICEF report The Child Care Transition Australia was ranked 22nd out of 24 developed countries for child care and early learning. We need to do better this.

We are the Lucky Country. We have vast resources and vast wealth and we are an intelligent country. It is time that we started putting the rights of our youngest citizens—the rights of our children and the future of this country—a little higher in our national priorities. That means stopping with this delaying and saying it is all too hard for us to think about what advocating and being realistic about our commitments to the rights of children as outlined under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child would mean. We have to do that through the establishment of a children's commissioner.

There are four guiding principles in relation to upholding children's rights as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child: non-discrimination in the application of children's rights, the primacy of the consideration of the child's best interests, the child's right to survival and development and the child's right to participation in decision making. These are all things that we have to start taking seriously. These are four principles that should form the basis of our approach to protecting the best interests of our children and our young people.

In August 2011, Navi Pillay was visiting and she questioned why it was still taking Australia so long to move on this crucial issue, which should not be something that is particularly political in this place. I know we debate a lot of issues and get very hot under the collar about various things, but let us get real. This is about children's rights. This is about protecting our youngest citizens. This is about saying that, with our vast wealth and resources in this country, we know we can do better. We can promote the protections, rights and best interests of those who will take this country forward for generations to come.

In 2005, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child gave another nudge to Australia and said: 'You know what? You really need to get on with establishing this children's commissioner.' In October last year, the UN committee gave us another nudge and said: 'Come on, guys. Where is the commitment to fulfilling your obligations under this convention? Where is the process and the pathway for establishing a Commonwealth commissioner as required under the UN convention?' Today is 1 March, the deadline that we as Australia have been given by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to give an explanation of what we are doing to establish a children's commissioner to look after the interests of children and young people. I hate to say it, but I wonder what the report is going to say. On the day that we are meant to be reporting to the UN committee on our pathway, is the report going to say: 'I know we've been debating it for 20 years. We've had these various different bills. But, by the way, we voted down the legislation in the Senate today. It's going back to the backburner. It is back in the too-hard basket.' I do not think it is a very good reflection at all of where we have been able to bring this debate, considering we have had so much collaboration and consultation and we have so much support from the rest of the country and from those who know—youth organisations, young people speaking about this issue themselves.

Young people come visit us in this place, which is always a little daunting for anyone. The young people take time from their studies or their school holidays, taking a day off school because they think it is an important thing to come speak to their elected representatives. A number of young people have come to visit me and, I am sure, other people in this chamber, saying, 'Please; when are we going to have a voice in a national sphere advocating for our rights?'

I have of course circulated amendments in relation to the recommendations from the various consultations that have happened, and everybody has a copy of them. I seek leave to table the explanatory notes relating to the amendments so that everybody is very clear about them.

Leave granted.

This is an important issue for us in this place. We debate so many pieces of legislation that relate to all sectors of our Australian community, and there is rarely a piece of legislation that passes this place that does not have some direct impact on young people—some direct impact on children who have been born into this country who, perhaps because they are not age 18 yet, have not formally got a voice to participate in the democratic process. We pass pieces of legislation in this place on a daily basis that directly affect them now or will affect them into the future. It is time that we acknowledge that if we are to build or continue to build the Lucky Country then we need to do much better in advocating for the rights of children and providing a voice for those who are particularly disadvantaged and at risk.

My colleague Senator Siewert went through a number of the statistics relating to Indigenous children, and it is appalling. We all know that. We all talk very often in this place about how young Indigenous children are not getting the best deal they should from the Lucky Country. We know that we need to do much better when it comes to their health and education, but we also know we have to do much better in giving them a real voice advocating for their rights. When you look at those four principles—non-discrimination, the consideration of the child's best interest, the rights to survival and development and the rights to participation in decision-making—these are all things that we know, even just in relation to Indigenous children, that we have to do better on.

Then we look at all of the children associated with disability issues. We know that we have to be doing much better in giving them a voice and in advocating for their rights. We know that there are 500 or more children still locked in immigration detention centres in this country. Surely somebody needs to give voice to them as well? And it is not just about giving them a voice; it is about ensuring that there is someone there to tap the government on the shoulder every now and again and say: 'Hang on a minute—you've forgotten about the kids. You've forgotten how this will affect your youngest citizens. You have a responsibility to uphold their rights and do things in their best interest.'

We know that there is much, much more that needs to be done regarding the issues of homelessness, access to disability services, levels of education, the needs in relation to in-home and out-of-home care and Indigenous mortality rates.

I commend this bill to the Senate. A lot of work has been put into this, and not just by me and my colleagues. As I said, this has been 20 years in the making—being able to bring forward these issues. It is time that we actually stopped putting it off. It is time that we allowed for proper debate on these things so that we can actually start to move the issue forward.

I understand the concerns around amending things that need to be amended, so let us go into the committee stage and do it. That is not what is going to happen, because we know that the government and the opposition will vote against this legislation as soon as I sit down. I think that is shameful. I think that on the day we are meant to be reporting to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child about what steps we have taken to establish this body, that this is a pretty sad report.