Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the lands and the waters on which I speak today, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. I would also like to acknowledge elders past, present and emerging in my home state of Western Australia. I appreciate deeply the wisdom and the perspective that they share with me as I undertake my role as Greens health spokesperson.

I look at the collective action and progress on the Closing the Gap targets with dismay and deep frustration. I will focus my contribution today on access to health services and access to disability support services, including the NDIS, and particularly the ability to access these essential services while in prison. We must increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility. That must be an absolute priority for government at every level. We must also do so much more to reduce the number of First Nations people confined within the prison system.

Australia has the most people in for-profit prisons in the world. When I talk to members of the community, they are surprised to learn that people in prison do not have access to Medicare. They are shocked that Australia's universal healthcare system is in fact not universal at all. Health care is essential to the enjoyment of the human rights of all people, including people in prison. On average, people in prison experience significantly poorer mental and physical health than those in the general community and have more complex, longer-term health needs.

Healthcare services in prisons are funded by the state and territory governments, which effectively means that people in custody do not have access to any federal health care, including the Medicare system and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Extending Medicare services to people in prison would be a first step towards achieving better physical and mental health outcomes for people in custody. Introducing Medicare into prisons has broad support from Medicare and legal organisations. We must get this done.

Additionally, those in prisons have extremely limited access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Disabled people are overrepresented in the prison system. As a starting point, I would love to get our disability service provisions in this country to a place where every disabled person can access the therapies they need if they find themselves in prison, and the moment people are released from prison they have disability supports and services in place to enable them to thrive.

Today I am calling on the government to include in their Closing the Gap statements in the future an implementation plan and pathway to allow prisoners to have access to Medicare, the PBS and the NDIS. In closing, I will simply say this: Voice. Treaty. Truth.