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

I start by recognising that this week is the 17th anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. My own mother was an example of that. She has since passed, but she often used to say, 'I will not let my children live vicariously in my trauma,' and she refused to reflect any stereotype.

The first job of any government is to keep Australians safe. The job is to do better, not to do things everyone knows will make a situation worse. The job is to focus on priorities the evidence says you must focus on. Labor, you've made progress in the Closing the Gap targets worse when you removed the cashless debit card. You made progress worse, too, when you watched the now decimated Northern Territory Labor government lift alcohol restrictions. You made it worse with your $450 million failed Voice referendum, because you were completely distracted—along with the leadership in those same organisations on the frontline of Closing the Gap. Those three things almost guaranteed the annual Closing the gap report was not going to read well. There are some good stories in there, sure, but you lack a focus on accountability and that has meant it's not a better read.

These annual reports are a continuation of our commitment, shared by all in this chamber, to do better by Indigenous Australians, but it's not on track—still only five targets have been met. There are more targets either going in the wrong direction and not on track or there is no data to determine change. And its representation in this report does not tell us by how much it has changed, if anything, within those targets. We are only expected to believe you.

The report handed down today is more of an election campaign pitch than it is about data that is useful. It is not nearly as comprehensive or informative as previous Closing the Gap reports. Box-ticking Indigenous Australians is most likely skewing the data—that is truth-telling. The data is deficient and accountability is becoming unclear. Who is this agreement actually with? Who is responsible for it? This report is 11 pages shorter, 10 per cent less detailed, than the previous year. How is that possible with so much more to do? It is not a true reflection of what is happening. Even the Productivity Commission says to 'beware of the aggregate'.

Closing the Gap is a national snapshot. In some areas, progress is of course so much worse. Sadly for everyone, the Prime Minister is not prepared to address the foundation issues that matter most in closing the gap. This includes the performance of the frontline organisations—the ones who get the funding and who exist to deliver the services. Every Australian deserves better. Victims-survivors and locals who live in communities—from Cairns to the Kimberley and from Ceduna to Katherine, where these outcomes have gotten worse—deserve better from all of us. They deserve better from the federal government, the state and territory governments, local governments and organisations, and from the individuals themselves.

There remain several targets with no data. How can that be so when family violence is such a driver of poor outcomes across all targets? Worse, there is flip-flopping, doublespeak and dodging from the Prime Minister. 'If things aren't working, we'll change them,' he said. There is no evidence that the Prime Minister is doing that at all, and he continues to refuse coalition calls for an audit. In central Australia, the Prime Minister last week tried to sell an existing funding stream for remote communities as if the $842 million was new money. Some of it is, but the truth is most of it wasn't. Much of that funding already existed in the budget and was a continuation of the Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment agreement, which has been negotiated with the Northern Territory for remote communities since 2016. This agreement is a little different, though; it includes Aboriginal peak organisations of the Northern Territory. I acknowledge the funding in it for family and children centres in 12 communities and additional funding for language and men's centres, but your announcements do not provide detail, and your record of implementation is very poor.

The Albanese government, much like the leadership in those Aboriginal community controlled organisations, was distracted by the Voice referendum from its core business. All of you should have been focused on your day jobs, improving the lives of Indigenous Australians and not being a political megaphone for the Labor Party. In this chamber, Labor and the Greens have repeatedly refused our motions for an audit into the organisations responsible for delivering outcomes for Indigenous Australians. How can you continue to do that given the very public shortcomings of several key organisations under your watch? The most spectacular belong to NAAJA, which exists to provide legal advice to the most vulnerable people in the Northern Territory. Federal funding was wasted on a temporary ice skating rink in Alice Springs in the middle of summer and bus services that run until four o'clock in the morning in some areas. That does nothing for children's safety, nor does it do anything to help those kids get themselves to school.

Sure, you have bipartisan support for Closing the Gap but not for wasteful spending that does nothing to assist the most vulnerable and funding that is actually an enabler of further dysfunction. It was your government that failed to stop the NT Labor government ending those alcohol restrictions. You are wedded to ideology rather than evidence. It has resulted in immediate and horrific impact. There was a 77 per cent increase in family violence in the months that followed. There was increasing crime across the Territory, with more children on the streets than in school, too terrified to go home because of alcohol fuelled violence. In the same financial year the restrictions were lifted, there were some 62,000 hospital admissions in Alice Springs, a town of just 29,000 people. Your inflation, which has been higher for longer, has cost Australians dearly—and none more than those in remote and regional areas, who do it tougher. In October, regulator ORIC stepped in to investigate three community stores in South Australia, my home state, at Amata, Indulkana and Pukatja. Court fines and penalties of $32,000 were imposed for failing to comply with reporting obligations. Add to that legal expenses and all the unnecessary and avoidable costs that no doubt are passed onto already struggling and unsuspecting customers.

You talk of tackling food security but fail to tackle those very obvious things that are right in front of us now. We know the Albanese government removed the cashless debit card in communities that wanted it and now refuses to rule out disbanding income management in the Northern Territory entirely. When you do that, you will again condemn the gap to further widening. You must not end income management. The PM went to the last election promising to end income management, but he knows his experiment resulted in worse outcomes for everyone, so he's now hesitant to do anything until after the election. Tell them you plan to do the same again, only after the election. The consultations on ending income management for 29,000 people in the Territory ended on 6 December last year. We know your Labor stacked parliamentary committee concluded with a recommendation to end income management. You only have to go to the parliamentary website to find that.

To close the gap we must combat the drivers behind violence in Indigenous communities. Alcohol is the most significant driver of them all. The Prime Minister's inaction on alcohol access in the Territory is unforgivable, and the victims of this inaction are vulnerable women and children. Ninety per cent of men incarcerated in the Northern Territory are there due to family violence related offences. Alcohol was the main driver of that violence. The Prime Minister is right to focus on early childhood and education as a vehicle for advancement, but you can't ignore the facts. Aboriginal children are on the streets, not in schools.

I want to refer to a distressing element of the 'Help Way Earlier!'- transforming child justice for safety & wellbeing report released by the National Children's Commissioner last year. It told some truths about what children thought. They said that being in custody was safer than living in their own homes. It's a truly appalling state of affairs. It is time to get Australia back on track with practical action for Indigenous Australians that deals with evidence and not emotion.