Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

Tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of the apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the stolen generation that was given in this parliament. It was a symbolic day and much has been said about that. It was an important day in history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but in my view it was also a very important day for non-Indigenous Australians. We all recall that day. It was an important day and one of the days that I think all of us will remember long after we leave this place. It was a day of tears and reflection, but it was a day of hope and a day of focusing on the future.

I think it is a day when many non-Indigenous Australians, potentially for the first time, truly engage in issues that affect our first peoples in this country. It is a day when some of the divisions of the past—some of the very unpleasant, horrid and hurtful divisions of the past—are put aside. It was a day when the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Rudd, committed to the Closing the Gap strategy as well. He laid out a strategy that would identify targets and strategies to achieve those targets. That is the way we will close the gap.

It is important today, on the sixth anniversary, that we actually do receive the sixth report on Closing the Gap. I think it is important to recognise that a single target and a single strategy on its own will not close the gap. It has to always be a coordinated approach, where the strategies complement each other, and where we are not doing one thing with one hand and on the other affecting the community with another strategy that does not work. It is really important that this work be designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. If we do not do that, there will not be ownership. It will not feel as if this is a shared vision and a shared goal to achieve equality across all Australians.

I also want to say that the type of engagement that we have with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has to be local; it has to be open and honest. I really do urge people against the use of the word 'consultation'. I am a former primary school teacher. Attendance at school is a necessary condition of getting an education. You simply cannot learn if you do not go to school. Children have to go to school to learn. In that vein, Labor welcomes the target to achieve improved school attendance.

But in saying that, I want to reserve my opinion about the strategy that will achieve that. School attendance officers—some of them are in Queensland—are in place now. I have been a schoolteacher; I have gone and got kids too. But you have got to have a relationship with children and their families in order for those children to come into your classroom. I hope that this strategy works. I hope that this strategy will mean that our children will come to school and want to come to school. I think that we probably need to look a little bit deeper into some of the reasons why those children are not attending school.

We have to look at what is happening in our schools. In saying that, I want to commend the many, many fantastic teachers who work in Indigenous schools and with Indigenous children, and who are achieving great results. I particularly want to commend the work of Indigenous teacher aides, as they are called in Queensland. Without them, we could not do our jobs.

But I am concerned, as our opposition leader Bill Shorten identified this morning, that today—school started a couple of weeks ago—we are hearing reports that we have fewer teachers in our remote schools and, as Senator Peris has identified, fewer teacher aides. We all know that the relationship between a teacher, the teaching staff and a child is the biggest indicator of a fantastic educational outcome. We have got to build on that relationship to get the results that we are looking for. I commend all those who work in that space.

I also want to identify in the health space that increasing life expectancy is the ultimate goal. That is where we have all got to focus. To get there, we have got to focus first of all on children. I am pleased that the report identifies that there has been a reduction—and, in some states and territories, a massive reduction—in child mortality. That is great and that will achieve great results. I also want to note the work that is being done to reduce tobacco use by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That is a great outcome. We know that the use of tobacco by Indigenous peoples is at a far higher rate than non-Indigenous peoples. We know that that directly results in a decreased life expectancy.

Like Senator Peris, I am concerned that if alcohol is not managed all of the work that we do—this is the point of coordination that I am talking about— to focus on child health and to focus on reducing tobacco usage will be for nought, particularly in our remote communities. The figures that Senator Peris quoted in the chamber are horrifying. We must work better to control alcohol use by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In saying that, can I commend the people who work in Aboriginal health and the people who work in our Aboriginal medical services. Particularly, I want to commend Indigenous health workers. There is a lot of research that shows that employment of Indigenous health workers will result in fantastic outcomes or much improved outcomes for Indigenous people. Indigenous people, unsurprisingly, want to get health advice from people they trust—we all do. They want to get their advice about their health outcomes from a person who understands their circumstances.

I join with Shayne Neumann, the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs in the House of Representatives, when he identifies that we must be looking at incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Particularly in remote areas, they are—the word is almost hard to find—unconscionable. We cannot sit around knowing that 80 per cent of the people in some of our prisons are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Therefore I am very concerned about the cuts that we have seen to Aboriginal legal aid. I think there is absolutely a direct link between people who are not getting quality legal aid services and more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our jails.

The target that Labor proposed, which we should put into place along with a strategy to achieve it, of improving access to disability services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is one that I would commend to the government. From the work that has been done we know that access to services by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability is much lower, for a whole range of reasons. There are cultural reasons and there are access reasons. Unless we put a target in place and a strategy to address it then we will not to achieve equity and fairness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have a disability. In that sense I commend the First Peoples Disability Network, a new peak body in the disability space, for the work that they are doing to educate in many respects disability service providers about the way they need to engage with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and make sure that their services are culturally appropriate.

Finally, I do believe that constitutional recognition is an essential part of achieving not only the practical outcomes, the real outcomes, the on-the-ground outcomes that will change people's lives, but also the sense of inclusion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will feel when they are finally recognised in the Constitution. Congratulations to Reconciliation Australia for the work that they are doing to pave the way for that outcome to be achieved. As Mr Shorten said this morning, this is a responsibility not just of the parliament but of the whole community.

Question agreed to.