Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to the 2019 Closing the gap report. In doing so, I acknowledge that we meet on the lands of the Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and any elders in the chamber observing the Senate this evening.

I want to start by thanking both Senators Dodson and McCarthy for leading the way and for contributing so much to Labor's agenda. I listened to the contribution of our leader, Mr Shorten, today in the other place, and it absolutely had the voices of Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy—and, indeed, that of Ms Linda Burney, the member for Barton—in it. They've made a real change in how Labor speaks and have made a change in our direction. I also acknowledge, of course, Mr Ken Wyatt, the member for Hasluck.

I stand here today with a vested interest in closing the gap. Some of you have heard me speak before about my granddaughter, Charlee. She's Gidja, from Turkey Creek in Western Australia. Many generations ago her grandmother was taken from Turkey Creek and settled in Broome. As the family looks through historical bureaucratic records, as Senator Dodson pointed out earlier in his contribution about the time when First Nations people's lives were controlled by the state, they are piecing together that Charlee's family comes from all over the Kimberley, including being incarcerated on islands at some point. But at some point Charlee's family moved down to Geraldton. We think her great-great-grandmother was taken by boat down to Geraldton. In Geraldton there existed on the fringes of the town what was called in those days a native settlement. There are pictures of Charlee's grandmother living in a tin hut with nothing on the floors. That is a couple of generations ago.

So I have a vested interest in closing the gap, because I want Charlee to succeed. I want her to do well. I want her to achieve everything that she's able to achieve. She's smart and she's sassy and she's well able to stick up for herself. But at the age of 14 Charlee has been to many, many more funerals than I have ever been to. At 14 she knows that her uncles and aunties have taken their own lives through suicide. She's witnessed that. She's been part of that. That is part of what happens in her family, very sadly. But her family is also a very proud family, and everyone in Geraldton, Broome and other parts of Western Australia knows the Gregorys, because they are a fine family. Like many other families, they're a fighting family. They have gone on to have a lot of achievements, but they have also suffered racism. Charlee suffers racism. She's had kids say to her at school, 'Oh, you know, you're all right—as an Aboriginal person.' Why should a 14-year-old have to bear that burden? She's been stopped by the police in Geraldton when she's gone home for school holidays because she's with her cousins, and they don't want them in McDonald's and they have herded them out. Many times I have told Charlee that is absolutely unacceptable and she needs to call it out, but it's almost as if it's what she expects. I remember one day saying to Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy, 'This is what happens to Charlee,' and the sad thing was that they weren't surprised either.

So when Mr Shorten said today that racism is still alive and well in our country, it is indeed. It has been part of Charlee's very short life at the age of 14, and as much as I drum into her that that is not something she should put up with, that when the police move her and her cousins on from McDonald's in Geraldton, she needs to tell her mother, because that is unacceptable. I know that that is what she faces at the age of 14, despite having a lot of ambition and promise.

I want to also talk about two things that both Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy said. Senator Dodson posed a really important question: who closes the gap? Indeed, if we're to be successful, I think it's time that we tried to answer that question. As I said earlier, Senator McCarthy said that the targets haven't failed; we've failed the targets. Of course we saw in Western Australia a shocking, shocking history of suicide, including young children. We have just seen a coronial report into that. That coronial report said—lo and behold!—we need First Nations people determining their own futures. Guess what? That was said by a highly educated white magistrate. I can tell you it's something that First Nations people have been saying for generations: they're our problems, and we know the answers to them.

I was very proud last year to be part of a First Nations women's meeting in Perth. We produced this document, which has been presented to Tanya Plibersek, the member for Sydney in the other place, as something for Labor to take and acknowledge. More than 100 of these women came together in Perth from all over Western Australia. They put forward not only issues but solutions for children, youth and learning; for health and ageing; for human rights, treaty and constitutional recognition; and for social and emotional wellbeing. They talked about effective programs and policies. As Aboriginal women, they carry a great burden in Aboriginal communities, but they had all of those solutions. Today the contribution that I want to make is along the lines of the contributions that we have heard from Senator Wong and our leader, Bill Shorten. We just haven't done enough.

Indeed, a couple of weeks ago I participated in a silent vigil outside the District Court of Western Australia, as a Catholic priest who raped young women in his care at the Wandering Mission pleaded guilty to historical charges of sexual abuse. That young woman was damaged for life. She was told through confession that it was her fault. As the judge says, one can only imagine the intense turmoil that that young woman suffered. But guess what? The court was stacked against her because, in the end, the judge accepted that the 80-year-old priest, who has been charged with more than one case of sexual assault, at some point had paid her a measly $4,000 and had shown remorse. Never mind that this historical case of sexual abuse against this young woman at Wandering Mission has defined her life. This bloke got a suspended sentence and he's now back in Victoria. Three people have been charged out of Wandering Mission. Many girls and many First Nations girls were sexually assaulted from the age of five up to about 15 or 16, when they left that mission, yet we don't have one person incarcerated. We get a judge who acknowledges the absolute trauma that this young woman experienced—a young girl, as she was at the time—and yet he gets off scot-free.

So yes, racism is alive and well in this country. First Nations people do not get the justice that those of us with white skin get. We have a lot of work to do. I am keen to be part of a Shorten Labor government in the future that will, in consultation with First Nations people, start to address the wrongs that have carried on for far too long.