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

In relation to the response by the South Australian Minister for Education and Child Development to the Senate resolution of 10 May 2017 on the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children—which in fact was one of my motions—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The letter from the government of South Australia says, 'I note the Senate's resolution addresses a range of matters relating to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the child protection system. The resolution calls to state governments to implement the recommendations contained in 2016 Family Matters report on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child care as a matter of urgency.' And it says, 'I am pleased to confirm that the South Australian Department of Protection is a formal signatory to the Family Matters statement of commitment.' That is fantastic; I'm really glad that they have signed up. The letter says, 'More broadly, the department is actively working to reduce the number of Aboriginal children and young people in out-of-home care through this and a number of child protection reforms and initiatives.' I'm really pleased to hear about it. Unfortunately they don't go on to list the nature of the work that they are doing. That is particularly important so that they are actually addressing the issues that are culturally appropriate and addressing some of the causes for the escalating number of Aboriginal children going into out-of-home care. It's an area that I've brought up in the chamber before. If you look at the statistics over the three-year period between 2011-12 and 2014-15, for example, the secretariat, in their report on the Family Matters program, say that the rate at which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are living in OOHC, out-of-home care, increased by almost 22 per cent, while the comparable rate for non-Aboriginal children increased by only five per cent. That is the average across Australia. It is pretty shocking in my home state of Western Australia, where we have, along with the Northern Territory, the very dubious record of having the highest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children going into out-of-home care, and it continues to go up.

There are a number of really critical issues that need to be addressed if we are ever going to seriously address the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children going into out-of-home care. I will note here that the Don Dale royal commission reports on Friday, and I'm very sure that that report will be talking about many of the issues that I'm going to very quickly cover in my remaining time, because these are issues that have come up time and time again in the hearings that the royal commission has held.

First off, we need to make sure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander controlled organisations are making decisions and implementing programs, that they are the ones that are specifically running the programs and that they're community controlled. Time and time again we hear that that is what needs to be done, but time and time again governments, both state and federal, ignore that and take 'we know what's good for you' approaches. It is absolutely critical to ensure that we have peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children's organisations so that the childcare agencies are actually under the control of Aboriginal people. We need to make sure that programs are culturally appropriate and culturally based and that they're reconnecting children back to country. Again, what I've seen that's worked on the ground is where the programs are developed, run and controlled by Aboriginal organisations and contain a strong cultural element.

We also need to make sure that we are really strongly addressing prevention and early intervention. What we see time and time again is that those are the programs that are short-changed if it comes to cancelling programs or withdrawing money. It's always the early intervention and prevention programs that are getting cut, and we need to reverse that. We need to make sure that we have adequate funding going into those organisations.

One that you've heard me talk about again and again in this place and that I'm going to talk about until I'm blue in the face is making sure we're addressing Aboriginal children's hearing, because we know that that has a direct relationship to a whole lot of other impacts, including interaction with the justice system. It is absolutely fundamental that we address that particular issue, along with many others. Fundamentally, we need Aboriginal community controlled decision-making, otherwise we are not going to be making progress.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.