Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to make comment on the Closing the Gap report but, before I do that, I just want to say thank you to Senator Peris. That is exactly what we need to hear in this parliament. Like Senator Peris, Senator Siewert, my colleague Senator Wright and others, I was there this morning at the talks that were given and I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President, it was like being in a parallel universe. We had the Prime Minister standing there making his speech, and people were being polite, because he is the Prime Minister, but I can tell you that the allied health workers and the people who are working with and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities were frustrated to death. I can tell you that that the fact is, they are living a different reality from what was being talked about—and everyone was clapping politely. And it just is not true. What was being said is just not true.

I think we need to listen. Senator Peris has spelled it out, but so too did Mick Gooda. Speaking last year about his Social justice and native title report last year, he said:

It is not okay that in 2014, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, of all Australians, are the most vulnerable, the least healthy, the most imprisoned, the most likely to die in prison, the most at risk of child abuse or neglect, the most likely to be homeless, the least likely to be educated or employed, or the most at risk of domestic violence

That is the reality. It is no use standing up and saying that you can take more than half a billion dollars out of support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and programs and suggesting that you are not undermining the capacity for people to bring about change. That is the hypocrisy. Everybody in the room this morning knew full well what had happened in the budget. They also knew full well that it had been a year of trauma, of upheaval, of uncertainty; of tearing down of long-term thinking, programs, and evidence-based work. And I can tell you, people still are saying, 'exactly what happened with the budget last year?' Mick Gooda went on to say:

It is not okay that our communities' views are ignored in decisions that affect their lives and their land. It is not okay that our communities are not equal partners in the decisions made to better improve their own lives. It is not okay that our peoples are not the recognised custodians of, and remain separated from, our land. And it is not okay that racism still defines many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's daily lives.

He went on to talk about his report at the end of last year, but he also said that he had spoken extensively about what he was calling 'the muddled narrative' of the Australian government's approach; and about how we are now experiencing one of the largest upheavals in Indigenous affairs and how this upheaval is causing immense anxiety and stress amongst our communities. He went on to talk about how over 150 programs and activities have been transferred to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet—involving over 1,400 organisations with nearly 3,040 grants and contracts—and about how these 150 programs will be collapsed down to five, whilst dealing with a budget cut of over $400 million across the next four years. Now, how can you expect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to know what is going on! Nobody knows what is going on with the collapsing of all these programs and the taking of money out of these programs; nobody knows how they are to be supported. Mick Gooda went on to say:

I would argue that the more far reaching the change and the more drastic the budget cuts, the more engagement is needed with the community and its representative organisations.

He went on to say that engagement has been conspicuously absent, before and after the announcement of these changes.

How can they possibly create positive outcomes when the government is determined to slash these programs—to slash the money supporting them; not to consult with or even talk to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are going to be impacted by them; and then to stand up and make motherhood statements about 'going to govern the country from East Arnhem Land'? Frankly, if the Prime Minister thinks it is enough to say he is going to East Arnhem Land, he is going to observe the disaster that he has put in place. He is taking away, for example, programs to assist people in not smoking—and I could not help but pick up the irony this morning. What was being bragged about is what is a very modest improvement, but nevertheless an improvement, in life expectancy—of 1.6 years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and an improvement of 0.6 years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women—yet of course, it is a 10-year gap when compared with the non-Indigenous population. There is a slight improvement in life expectancy. And there have been reduced rates of smoking during pregnancy and, in terms of smoking overall, there has been a reduction in the rate of 10 per cent over the last decade. Might you not think that a program that had resulted in a reduction in smoking of 10 per cent in the last decade, a reduction in the number of women smoking during pregnancy and so on, might have contributed to the modest life expectancy improvement? Yet we still have abolition of preventive health care services. All the Allied Health people—the doctors—who were there this morning were saying: 'We need preventive health care. We need assessment. We need not only acute care for heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes, but preventive health care as well.' They were talking about assessment and assistance in those communities.

We have also given Rosie Batty the Australian of the Year award to highlight the issue of domestic violence, family violence. I am really proud of the fact that Australia has done that. But, at the same time, this government has slashed funding to legal services for violence in Aboriginal communities. Why would you take away the legal support services for people who need them the most? This makes no sense. It suggests a government that is completely out of touch with what is required in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Of course, there are many other things in the report that are well worth consideration, but, from the Greens' point of view, this has to be long term. There has to be national leadership. It was done before through COAG, but now nobody knows who is leading this program. You have to have buy-in from the states and territories, and it was there. Far be it from me to praise COAG—let me tell you, it is a black hole that nothing ever comes out of. Nevertheless, in this sense, it at least got buy-in to a national program, a national plan, where states and territories had some buy-in, some contribution and some consistency.

But now we do not even have that. We need a long-term national plan. But no national plan can work unless it is funded. You cannot stand up and say you are doing everything to close the gap when you are taking more than $500 million out of programs that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and collapsing them into the Prime Minister's office under five programs that nobody understands and without any consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That is a recipe for complete failure. In this year's budget the government must, first of all, restore funding to the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee and reverse its cuts of $130 million over five years from the Tackling Indigenous Smoking program. As I said, there are a number of other areas that they need to put money into to address—preventive health care, chronic disease, more assistance with numeracy and literacy and putting in targets for justice. Why wouldn't you, in Closing the Gap, have targets for justice? I will finish by asking people to reflect on something Mick Gooda said:

It is shameful that we do better at keeping Aboriginal people in prison than in school or universities.

This is something the whole country needs to think about. We need justice targets to get Aboriginal people out of prison. If as a country you do better at keeping Aboriginal people in prison than in school or university, the system is broken. That is what we need to be thinking about on this day of Closing the Gap.