Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to take note of the response from the Premier of Queensland, Mr Newman, to the National Close the Gap Day motion.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In the short time that is remaining before we break, I would like to take note of the response from Premier Newman, who does make some good points in his response to the resolution of the chamber on the National Close the Gap Day, if people recall. He points out a number of programs—in particular, the Deadly Ears program that combats chronic ear disease and prevents hearing loss. As people know, that is a particular passion of mine.

I would also like to point out some of the issues around the continuation of some of the Closing the Gap programs, the closure of which we may see tonight in the budget, one of those being the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development. We all know how absolutely critical it is that we address early childhood development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, because we know that it is the foundation of how they develop later. It has fundamental impacts on later-life opportunities and also breaks the cycle of intergenerational poverty and disadvantage.

It is particularly disappointing that it looks like this program will close, and I note that the Queensland minister for education, John-Paul Langbroek, wrote to the federal Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, last week warning that failure to renew the agreement at a critical stage of the program would potentially force the closure of some Queensland family centres. This would be heartbreaking given that these programs are starting to play such a critical role in addressing the gaps in early childhood development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

I have spoken in this place also of the Wyndham Early Learning Activity Centre in Wyndham in Western Australia, which was funded by this program and which after June is likely to have no further funding for any of the programs it delivers, making a complete waste of an excellent facility in Wyndham that provides critical support for Aboriginal children in the Kimberley and addresses the gaps in early childhood development.

There are myriad programs that this government is talking about potentially wrapping up into five or six programs in the budget. There are many, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are desperate to know what is going to happen to these programs and for the continuation of these programs that are absolutely critical to closing the gap. It will be a tragedy if we lose the centres that I have just referred to—the family centres that particularly address early childhood development and deliver programs that are absolutely critical to closing the gap.

If we lose these programs, we can kiss goodbye to being able to close the gap by the target date, because, as we know from the report that was tabled in this place a bit over two months ago, we are already behind. It showed that we are making some progress on some indicators, but we are simply not meeting many of the indicators on progress on closing the gap. Unless we have these centres, we will fail to close the gap—make no mistake.

We need to be keeping a sustained input into specific programs that meet Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander needs and not think that the government can mainstream these programs, which is what I suspect might happen in an hour's time when we hear the budget. They simply cannot, because they do not address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Question agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 18 : 30 to 20 : 00