Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make remarks on the Closing the gap: Prime Minister's report 2016. I attended the House of Representatives and listened with a very keen ear to the report from both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. I want to put some remarks on the record about the devastating reality that still presents for our first peoples in term of the terrible gap in life expectancy. I would like to reflect in this contribution this evening on the appalling statistics that we are hearing put before us.

Senator Lines' presentation just moments ago talked about the level of imprisonment amongst young Indigenous people across Western Australia. When we go to these areas we hear stories about the fact that imprisonment often happens to these young people because they have not been able to learn to read, so they drive without a licence and they end up in jail with a series of fines. Part of the reason they have not learnt to read is that they could not hear properly at school. Funding for health matters in profound and possibly transformational ways. The reality is the gap is still far too large. That is what I took away from listening to the contributions of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition this year in the other place.

There are initiatives that change how our first peoples, the Indigenous peoples of this country—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders—can think of themselves and share what they understand with the rest of us. I want to pay tribute to the investment made by a number of governments, but particularly the Rudd/Gillard government, in making a home for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance and Skills Academy, known as NAISDA, which is in the seat of Robertson where I live on the Central Coast.

Last year young people from right across Australia who attended NAISDA gave an end-of-year performance. At the end of the very first half of that performance, which was entitled collectively as Kamu and was directed by Frances Rings, there was a dance called 'To Close A Gap?' It was part of a larger work that was envisioned by the choreographer Ian RT Colless. Some of the AV and the audio that they used was from Queen Elizabeth's 1954 visit to Australia. They positioned 'closing the gap' in its historical frame about this ongoing silencing and description based on Australian law about what Aboriginal people are and who they are at the heart of their identity. The dance that they shared with us was a powerfully political statement about exactly what Senator Lines closed her contribution with—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have had, and continue to have, so much done to them rather than by them, and that it is not just for the benefit of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but for the rest of us that we need to lift our vision of ourselves as Australia about what is possible, what is right and what is fair.

This type of artwork and telling of what might be possible and reflecting on what has gone wrong is very powerful. That those young people chose the words 'to close the gap' tells us that something important is going on every year in this parliament when this report is handed down. It is a report card for a nation—a report card that reminds us that we are failing. We are failing to achieve equity and fairness for the first peoples of this nation. If our desire is really—genuinely—to close the gap, I think we could say that this government proceeds at its peril with the continuing cost-cutting drive in such important areas as health and education, because these are vital and transformative elements of anything that is going to improve the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

When we in this place hear talk of millions and billions of dollars being slashed here and there, the message does become unwieldy and lost in the huge list of zeros and figures in question. But when we talk about things in smaller amounts it means that those cuts become more tangible on the ground. I was recently given an anecdote by far-south-west-Sydney doctor, Dr Fred Betros, who likened the health system to a flowing river. He said that people move through the health system to the areas that they need: into the emergency department, if need be, through wards out into the community. That connection can only work for all people if there are no logjams. But cuts have been felt most deeply in the areas of community nursing and mental health, in which the illnesses of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are profoundly overrepresented.

We have seen community nurses' cars taken away because of cuts inflicted on them through this government's austerity drive. As those nurses and mental health workers are less mobile and can only see 40 patients a week instead of the 100 that they were seeing, for many of these elderly and Indigenous people a simple procedure like having a dressing changed once a week has now become impossible. In the grand scheme of things, when billions and billions of dollars are being talked about, a simple procedure such as that might seem inconsequential, but it is something that is connected back into the hospital system. Back at the hospital the doctors are reluctant to release elderly, immobile patients who they feel will not be able to have access to proper and regular visitation by community nurses, particularly if they are not able to do that with cultural safety for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of our country. Consequently we have people staying in hospitals, and bed block follows. Bed block connects to the hospital emergency department out through the door into ramping—all these things are linked.

The statistics that we saw in the report to the parliament just a little over a week ago reveal the impact of federal government cuts to these vital services that are absolutely at the heart of what is required to close the gap. This year's Close the Gap report reveals that just two of seven targets are on track to be met. This is a sobering reminder that the uncomfortable and persistent gap remains when it comes to Indigenous disadvantage. Progress in closing the gap should always be celebrated and in key areas—including employment, life expectancy, reading and numeracy—sadly, we find stagnation. This year's report is a clear warning to the Turnbull government that if they continue to cut and pay lip-service to genuine engagement and authentic partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the risks to closing the gap are only going to increase.

There is just one target that Australians can be confident is on track, and that is the reduction in infant mortality rates by more than 33 per cent. I truly celebrate this. In terms of long-term progress there has been a narrowing in the gap in year 12 attainment, with a significant boost to the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students completing secondary schooling. I note today that Stan Grant, himself a graduate of high school, who was inspired by a teacher and went on to do amazing things, is an inspiration to young people to take up the opportunity of education and further education. But I have to say to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that an Aboriginal child facing the thought of a $100,000 degree is not going to see that as being very appetising or very accessible to them. Those gaps in what young people think of as possible are the barriers between where they are now and where we might hope they will be.

It is very important to note the announcement that Labor will invest an additional $9 million for optometry and ophthalmology services and prevention activities to close the gap in eye health and eliminate trachoma. We cannot close the gap while Indigenous incarceration and victimisation rates are at national crisis levels. So between health, incarceration and education we need to do much better as a nation, and I look forward to the 2017 report. (Time expired)