Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Prime Minister, I table the annual report on Closing the Gap and accompanying ministerial statement, and I seek leave to make a very brief statement relating to the documents.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. I first acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we gather and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging, and I pay tribute to the First Nations parliamentarians here in the chamber for their leadership and contribution. I will speak but briefly, as Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy will speak for the government today because it is important that First Nations parliamentarians have their voice and perspective heard and that we all listen.

I want to make some brief points. Whilst the Closing the Gap report shows there has been some progress, on the majority of measures progress has been slow and even gone backwards. This government takes responsibility for where we go from here and for doing better. As the Prime Minister said today, so-called solutions conceived in Canberra and imposed on communities without consultation are more likely than not to end in expensive, ineffective, even counterproductive failure, but when First Nations people have a genuine say in policy design and an empowered role in service delivery, the results are remarkable.

The Albanese government is a government that listens to people with experience, with earned knowledge of kinship and country, of culture and community, and it is this which underlines our commitment to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament to empower First Nations people to take control of their own lives, not have policies and laws dictated to them by politicians. The Voice is about enabling a better future, a future in which the lives of Indigenous people in the community are improved, to achieve better outcomes in health, in education, in housing and to close the gap. That is why we believe it is so important that the call from First Nations to be heard and to have a voice is answered by Australians.