Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is the Auditor-General’s report into the whole-of-government Indigenous service delivery arrangements. These whole-of-government arrangements were put in place by the previous government a number of years ago and it is those arrangements that the Auditor-General audited and has reported on via this document. In the current context and the current political debate about Indigenous issues in Australia, one could focus on the negatives with regard to all governments, all political parties, as I myself have done a lot of times or one could seek to use the current political context and the current public debate around things to seek to point to the positive and the opportunities that it presents to us. I would like to do more of the latter. It does need to be said though, as this report indicates, there were a lot of failings with the so-called whole-of-government service delivery arrangements to Indigenous communities.

These were introduced with large fanfare—by Minister Vanstone, I think. There were a lot of very strong statements about people putting their reputations on the line and about making all these things work better. As it panned out, not only did it not make things work better but, at great expense, it actually increased the amount of red tape involved. And that is really saying something given the amount of red tape that is already in place for many Indigenous communities in remote areas such as the Northern Territory.

I do not want to use that simply to point-score against the previous government. I highlight it simply to emphasise a point that many people have been making of late: strong statements, words and commitments are all very good—and they are important—but we need to follow through by assessing what actually works on the ground. Strong statements have been made in the area of Indigenous affairs in the last year or two, and even yesterday and today in this chamber statements were made with regard to the stolen generations. People have used that issue to go on to a slightly related but very different issue of child protection in the Northern Territory today. All of the rhetoric surrounding that is one thing, but let’s look at the reality on the ground—at what is working and what is not. That is something we all need to do.

I also emphasise my view—it is a view I am willing to modify according to the evidence but I think the evidence, including in this report, backs it up—that one of the things that is most obvious about the parliamentary debate today and yesterday on the stolen generations issue is that the people participating on the floor of this chamber were a bunch of non-Indigenous people, most of whom have very little day-to-day contact with Indigenous people and Indigenous communities, blathering on about what we think the solutions are. I am not saying that our views are not important. I think they are reasonably important—I like to think mine are!—but they are not as informed and as important, in many respects in this area, as the views of Indigenous people, particularly those at community level.

Most often, the big failing with regard to the specific area of whole-of-government service delivery arrangements that this report was looking at, and also with regard to governments of all persuasions—and even with regard to parliamentary reports involving politicians of all parties, including the smaller parties—is that we do not listen enough to the people on the ground and follow through to work with them. Even when there has been a little bit of listening we say, ‘Thank you for that, and now here’s the solution which we are going to impose on you,’ rather than having the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples actively and meaningfully involved in an ongoing capacity in the delivery of services to make sure that they suit the particular communities, people, and circumstances of the various regions—not just culturally but, more broadly, economically, environmentally and socially. There needs to be an ongoing focus and an ongoing capacity for those views to be heard and to make a difference. They should not just be heard with someone saying, ‘Thank you for telling us your views,’ but with, ‘Your views will be acted on, or at least taken into account in a meaningful way.’

That is a key missing element. I think there have been some positive comments made by a number of people in this chamber and the other chamber over the last couple of days. People across the political spectrum, at least to some extent recognised that. Now there is a real platform—from a lot of the words people said today and yesterday—from which to build some positives for the future. Some strong commitments have been made and they need to be followed through. They need to be audited, as the Auditor-General has done in this case. The key thing is to maintain the focus, because what happened in this case, as happens in so many cases, is that the new whole-of-government arrangements were announced and there was a big fanfare and a lot of media coverage. There were a lot of strong statements, a lot of strong commitments and a lot of determination—I am sure it was very genuine—and then the focus shifted elsewhere. A couple of years later people said, ‘I wonder what happened to that?’ They have a look into it and find a report that says: ‘Well actually it was a disaster, not to put too fine a point on it.’

We have to have that continual focus day after day. It does not have to be on the front pages day after day—sometimes it is helpful not to have things on the front pages—but we do need to maintain our focus. The key call I would like to make to political parties and to the parliament—to the Senate in particular—is to keep the day-to-day focus on this issue as much as possible, to keep the point-scoring opportunities out of it and, as much as possible, to listen more to Indigenous peoples at the community level. As we all know, there is as much diversity of views amongst Indigenous peoples as there is in the wider non-Indigenous community about what will work and what will not. So we need to do a lot more listening.

There is such a big gap in the daily experiences and the reality on the ground for so many Indigenous Australians compared to all of us that it is unrealistic to expect people like us—those that advise us and people in government—to determine all the correct solutions without far more effective connection with, and involvement of, people on the ground. I think that is a key failing. It needs a shift in attitude and it needs a shift in where the resources are directed.

This audit report is valuable, not just because it points to the specific failings in the whole-of-government Indigenous service delivery arrangement but because it points more broadly to the lessons that can be learnt from mistakes. The mistakes that were made in this case were the same mistakes that have been made time and time again. These are not new mistakes; they are old mistakes being repeated because we do not go about things in the right way. In this area the processes are in some ways more important than the policies behind them, because if the process is good enough the policy will adjust in recognition of the reality on the ground. As the process identifies the flaws in the policy and adapts to the evidence of what is working and what is not, it will modify itself to work effectively.

I think there is a lot of commonality about the goals we want to achieve—eliminating the gap in life expectancy; significantly improving access to education; significantly improving employment opportunities; significantly improving housing arrangements; and maintaining and improving recognition of, respect for and acknowledgement of Indigenous cultures. The goals are widely shared. We need a better process in place to take account of what works on the ground so that we start moving towards those goals rather than spinning around and around in circles, which seems to be what we have been continuing to do. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.