Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

So, here we are again: another year on, and not a lot has changed—not enough, if your life depended on it; not enough, given the level of resources directed at it. In any language, on any measure, it's just not good enough. How is the gap to be closed when the targets for the next generation are the ones that are not on track, and in fact they are going backwards: justice; child development; children in out-of-home care; and health and wellbeing, including suicide? I'm going to focus on those four targets, because they're the ones that are worsening.

Justice is outcome 10. A read of the report shows it outlines strategies that relate to when an individual is already in contact with the justice system, rather than to what keeps them out of it. If you were to drop into the Alice Springs courthouse today—like I did a little while ago—there would likely be more children in the courthouse than there were in child care. If you actually look for yourself, this devastating reality is in plain sight, and if the Labor Party, the Greens and Senator David Pocock and the do-gooders got amongst it, they'd see it, too. As the shadow minister, my focus will be on children being in school rather than on the streets and on adults who can be at work and not on welfare, and not on an employment program that's not really employment. When we do that, the cells, the courtrooms and the correctional services will be less crowded with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Thriving children is outcome 4. Your cognitive ability and capacity to learn is directly impacted by your exposure to trauma, substance misuse and violence. When you have been roaming the streets all night to avoid the chaos at home, there's little hope of respite unless someone responsible and accountable steps in. Families keep it together when they get help when they need it, from people experienced to deliver it. Replacing parental responsibility with government programs is not a sustainable long-term solution. It's more honest and meaningful when we stop counting enrolments and start counting attendance, and when we focus on outcomes, not outputs.

Outcome 12 is on children in out-of-home care. Children exposed to violence, or who experience violence, make up the greatest number of children now in the care of the state. When progress is made on the drivers that contribute to family violence, every headline number, in reports just like this one, and every life should change for the better. When you are more likely to be removed before the age of one, and the system locks you in and your family out, then the challenge for recovery and healing is so much harder. For the children, for the families, for the taxpayer, more focus on the work to reunite families, where it is safe to do so, must be where much of the work is done, because that's better for everyone.

Outcome 14 is suicide and mental health. None of these outcomes can be addressed in isolation, because the ultimate demonstration of failure is when an individual loses all hope. The service delivery silos, competition for resources and inaction on calling out those services who are not delivering as they should just add to the scale of harm. Stop shying away from talk about sexual abuse, because that only protects perpetrators and does nothing to help survivors break their silence. Want to close the gap? Don't close your mind from making the tough decisions. When Labor and the Greens do things that make them feel good, rather than doing good, people get hurt. Things don't change, and gaps don't close.

The foundation of this government's Closing the gap report is the announcement of 3,000 so-called real jobs and $700 million—another long-promised announcement, complete with a slogan, 'Real jobs, proper wages and decent conditions', and, in true Labor style, an absence of detail and no real modelling. The key to improving lives is addressing domestic and family violence, and addressing that would be better for everyone, not just Indigenous Australians. The target of reducing all forms of violence by 50 per cent by 2031 simply won't be achieved without the reintroduction of the cashless debit card, because removing it has caused chaos. The statistics will tell you that the levels of violence have gone up.

The Closing the gap report is all about strategies, statistics and statements. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want the same things as everyone else, and often that is forgotten in this debate. It is the most marginalised within this cohort who need our greatest attention and must remain our focus. Without greater accountability across all governments and service providers, there won't be the scale of change that is needed. It starts with examining and auditing what is bleedingly and painfully obvious.