Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present ministerial statements as listed at item 13 on today's order of business.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the ministerial statement on Closing the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Leave granted.

In beginning to address this particular issue, I would like to table the Shadow Report 2013: On Australian governments’ progress towardsclosing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenousand non-Indigenous Australians. It has been circulated to all members of the reps.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have also tabled the shadow report in responding to this statement for the last number of years, so I appreciate the opportunity to table it again It is very important that we see the opinions of organisations that are working outside of the government on whether we are closing the gap or not. I would first like to comment on the Prime Minister's Closing the Gap statement, some of the issues that were addressed in it and what was left off. It was very disappointing that the Closing the Gap statement did not address the very significant issues and the very high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in this country. It was completely fascinating that that issue was not addressed—I will come back to this issue particularly—nor was the issue of the National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap in Indigenous Health Outcomes. The funding for this program runs out in 2013. While I acknowledge that there is currently work being done on the Indigenous health plan, I know that it is one of the issues that comes up in the shadow report,whose most prominent recommendation is that that issue needs to be addressed. But that was not addressed in the Closing the Gap statement. I would have thought that, given the importance of closing the gap, given the importance of this statement, that issue would have been addressed in the Prime Minister's statement.

One of the other issues that is touched on in the statement but does not lead to a sense of security in terms of the impact that this particular program is having is addressing the enrolment of children in preschool and in school. While the numbers of kids that go through the door and then enrol are counted, we are still not getting a measure of what impact that is having. What are the genuine progress indicators, and what are the genuine outcomes that are coming out of that program while the government fails to address issues such as hearing loss and the impact of otitis media on the these children? You can get the children into the classroom; but, unless they are addressing those issues and enabling those children to catch up because of the impact of the hearing loss, we are not going to get the significant benefits from that program.

The other things that the Prime Minister conveniently did not address were the issues around income management. Since this place rose at the end of last year, we have had two reports that are very significant when we are talking about the impacts of income management. Of course, income management was continued under the Stronger Futures program and it has also been continued under separate legislation. The evaluation of the new income management, which was released at the end of last year, said:

The report shows that there is no measureable and clear evidence of any positive impact of income management. Those who do support the scheme tend to do so because of benefits such as fee-free banking, similar benefits they receive through voluntary income management or Centrepay arrangements.

A small number perceived that it increased their ability to purchase food, but there was no reduction in the extent to which they report running out of food. Furthermore, the evaluation says, 'Although there have been some strong perceptions of wellbeing of children in the community, such perceptions do not necessarily line up with objective data.' It says, 'There is little evidence to date that income management is resulting in widespread behavioural change either with respect to building an ability to effectively manage money or to building socially responsible behaviour.' It says, 'Indigenous people in NTER areas felt significantly more discriminated against than those in the contrast group; for many there is a strong sense of having been treated unfairly and being disempowered.' So here is a report, after five years of income management in various guises, saying, 'Sorry, there is no effective evidence.' Then a report came out just last week from the ANAO on the administration of income management in the Northern Territory. Firstly, it says the cost per person per year in remote areas is $6,600-$7,900. I tell you what: there are many people that have said to me that they can think of better ways of spending that money to the better advantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That is a lot of money for a program that there is no evidence works. Is it any surprise that the Prime Minister does not address those issues in the Closing the Gap report? Here is one massively expensive program—over $410.5 million over the next six years is budgeted for this program. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister does not mention in her Closing the Gap speech when it does not work and that nearly half a billion dollars could be spent on much better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders?

I would like to come to the shadow report, which looks at the progress of these indicators. The key highlighted recommendation that Close the Gap campaign steering committee calls for is that the National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap in Indigenous health outcomes be renewed to ensure policy and program continuity past 2013 with funding maintained at least the same as allocated in 2012-13 when adjusted for inflation. That is absolutely critical. They also call for a systemic national approach to social determinations and, very importantly, Closing the Gap and related programs to be quarantined from budget cuts across all federal, state and territory jurisdictions. And they are very concerned about the reported recent cuts. Of course, the federal government did cut funding to Aboriginal programs in order to pay for Stronger Futures. So we are seeing Aboriginal programs—some of the leadership programs and other programs—that have been cut because of Stronger Futures.

In the shadow report under 'Progress against the COAG Closing the Gap Targets' there are comments about meeting the early childhood targets. They say:

While in absolute terms the overall trend is to increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander longevity, the capacity of these gains to close the gap remains an issue.

If current trends continue, under-five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mortality rates may fall within the range of the COAG Target to halve the gap in under-five mortality by 2018. However the relative lack of progress in recent years and the widening differential on the critical factor of low birth weight cause concern.

Other areas that remain a concern include the level of investment in ongoing health programs. Again, that is why they are calling so much for a commitment by government now to funding the ongoing health program. They say:

When the significantly greater need for health services resulting from poorer health status is factored in (the Campaign Steering Committee estimates this is at least double as a general rule) the relative lack of total funding available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health is evident.

Of course, this issue was not addressed in the government's Closing the Gap statement.

The government need to be looking at what they are investing in and what programs they are currently taking up to address closing the gap, because their current programs are misguided. The government refuse to really deal with the significant policy measures that are needed. And today we had the government coming out and saying that they were going to get tough on the licensees in Alice Springs. That is great; they have needed to do that for a very long time. They have had the Stronger Futures legislation for eight months, and they are only now starting to look at whether they can use it—when, clearly, they could use that program. That was put in place, supposedly, to do that.

The government still refuse to look at some of the key issues that communities are calling for—that is, a minimum floor price; looking at takeaway-free days in the Northern Territory and Alice Springs; and looking at reducing the number of licences that exist. These policy measures have been consistently called for by the community and this government have refused to do anything about them. Rather, they continue with flawed programs for which there is absolutely no evidence base. How many more reports do they need to show that income management does not work?

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the ministerial statement on closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and the Prime Minister's report of 2013. I would like to commend the Prime Minister and the government. I think this is a very important document, and every year that goes past it is a more important document because it provides us with trend lines so that we can, with some confidence, know whether or not we are actually going to meet the targets in 2030. That obviously allows us to provide some priorities in where we put our resources in this area.

I would like to go through some of the indicators—though not in the order provided in the Closing the gap report. The first is life expectancy and the second is infant mortality. The reason that I mention those two first is that I think there has been quite a deal of success in those areas. I do not think anyone has any doubt that life expectancy—certainly in the Northern Territory jurisdiction—is going up, and there are no issues that are going turn it to trend down again. So, in effect, we are above trend line. There are no issues around that that I think are going to stop us meeting that benchmark. The second is infant mortality. That is a little bit more problematic in the return on the data. Whilst that is on track, it is not quite above trend. From the experts I speak to, I think we could all reasonably say that they are two indicators that we are not going to have to worry about, though that does not mean that we should take our eye off the ball. We are actually going to meet those targets. They are the only two that are really on track.

One of the other indicators is access to preschool. We have, as is declared in this report, met that target. It is a target that is probably one of the easiest ones, because it is not a social target. It is normally a bricks-and-mortar target. We know it is about putting resources aside for staffing, buildings and processes. Australia has a right to be very pleased that the vast majority of Indigenous people now have access to a preschool. But, of course, access is not the only thing. It is very important but, as the Prime Minister mentioned in her ministerial statement, we need to go from access to attendance.

Given that the target regarding access to preschool has in effect been met, I think it would be quite reasonable—given that this is a guiding document that informs Australians and will both inform and guide future parliaments about where we place our resources—in future documents to deal with the issues around attendance in these preschools. Instead of just ticking off, 'Yes, we have got a line item and we have built them and we are happy now,' we should think about having an additional one to deal with how those preschools are going. I will leave it to the experts to find benchmarks that would give us an indication of the success or otherwise around attendance.

The next indicator is the 16- to 24-year-olds with year 12 or equivalent. This is a sad reality, and it really irks me, because without attaining year 12 or equivalent, it really makes it hard to take up what we normally say are opportunities—for example, the opportunity to see the world and travel. For that you need to have funds and to have funds you need to get a good job and you need to be very competitive. We have had a two per cent increase in five years. We are not on track. We are not going to make it. We really need to put a lot of thought—not more resources but a lot of thought—into that. It is not only about a two per cent increase in five years. Just over 50 per cent of the Aboriginal population actually gets a year 12 leaving certificate—against 86 per cent for everyone else. It is hard to see the other side. Eighty-six per cent of mainstream people expect to receive the Higher School Certificate and go on to have a whole range of choices. They expect to get automatic entry to vocational education, entry matriculation and a choice of professional life. But only 50 per cent of Aboriginal people are going to get that.

The last of the indicators is the employment indicator. There have been minor improvements, but I think everybody would acknowledge that this is not even close to being on track. We are not going to make the target. There is no question about that, and there has to be significant change. These things interact. If we do not get an increase in the number of Aboriginal people completing year 12, we are certainly not going to get an increase in the employment area. These things are all interlinked, and it is very important that we work on those two areas.

We have come out with a book, and I commend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. We all talk glowingly about this and we all need to feel good about ourselves. To be frank, there are two indicators that are generally going to look after themselves. One is a building program; we finished that. That leaves only two indicators, but we are not going anywhere on them. We are not going to hit the target. We are not going to close the gap. I think that a lot of intellectual horsepower is going to have to go into it. It is not just about more money; we need to start thinking of innovative ways in which we can make changes in these very, very important areas.

Of course, there are some complementary reports that can give us an idea about how well our first Australians are progressing in these areas. Certainly from the perspective of Northern Australia, the NAPLAN results are downright depressing. There are many areas that just say, 'We have done school and we can't read and write.' I am even more saddened by the fact that a child can manage to get to the end of primary school before someone says, 'No, you can't read and write.' There is a systemic failure through the education system in some areas, and that has to be rectified as soon as possible.

It is very good to have this data, and it becomes more valuable and more practical over time. It does help us manage what we do. But I have a concern that the headline figures may well obscure something that is happening on the ground. For example, in year 12 acceleration. Yes, we crept forward two per cent; I suspect it is probably more than that in metropolitan areas, and I suspect it is going back rapidly in very remote areas. I think, in terms of a suggested improvement in how we may look at these matters, we need to disaggregate the data so that we are better able to target our resources where they need to be deployed and where the effort really needs to be targeted.

If you look closely at this data and you take away those things that we are going to achieve, those last two indicators where we are simply not closing the gap, where we are not going to get there, are just fundamental to closing the gap on opportunity, and it is a real shame that that is not the case. I certainly look forward to seeing the 2014 data and I hope it is a substantive improvement.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the Prime Minister's attempt—in the middle of all of this, and it is all quite a respectable process—to take a cheap shot at Queensland and the Northern Territory about alcohol. We have those debates; they are robust debates, and they should be. But I saw it as a pretty cheap shot in order to impress people in some of the more populated areas around our south-east, in a political sense, rather than trying to provide this as something that has some gravitas and some independence and to try to keep the politics out of it. I was a little sad that the Prime Minister was not a little bit better informed with respect to her references to the banned drinkers register and the Northern Territory. There is quite a large body of data that I have seen and validated, that indicates that issues such as one person who was on the banned drinkers register has been arrested 117 times—each one of them when they were drunk—and the fact that 60 people on the register have been arrested over 2,000 times. At the end of the day, the motivation of the register was to stop people getting access to alcohol. Clearly it did not work at all. Everybody accepts that. So there has to be a better way.

Those people who are trapped in the system—they are sick. You cannot treat them in the justice system. You have to take them from the justice system and you have to rehabilitate them in the health system. That is what is happening in the Northern Territory. I commend the Closing the gap: Prime Minister's report 2013 to the House.

Question agreed to.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to take note of the ministerial statement in relation to International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation made in the House of Representatives on 6 February 2013.

I note that yesterday, 6 February 2013, was the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Mutilation. I would like to note for the record exactly what we are talking about when we refer to female genital mutilation. It is defined by the World Health Organisation as 'all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.' And when we talk about the procedure itself, it should never conjure up the idea that someone is lying in a hospital bed, that they have been properly anaesthetised and that a doctor is performing this procedure. When this procedure is performed, more often than not, the common tool of trade is a pair of rusty scissors, a sharp knife or, potentially at its worst, even a sharp rock.

It is estimated that female genital mutilation is practised in 28 countries in western, eastern and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australasia. It is also estimated that between 100 and 140 million women and girls around the world have experienced the procedure, including up to 92 million women and girls in Africa.

Perhaps the most abhorrent part of this practice is that, when it is carried out, it is mostly carried out on young girls up to the age of 15, not over the age of 15. Often these girls are much younger than 15 and, in many cases, are under the age of 10.

In relation to the number of girls internationally who are at risk each year of being subjected to female genital mutilation the World Health Organization estimates that approximately three million young girls worldwide will undergo the procedure each year.

The procedure itself has no known health benefits and is known to be harmful to girls and women in many different ways. To say the least, when you are having this procedure performed without anaesthetic, perhaps by a pair of scissors it is, without doubt, painful and traumatic. And the removal of or the damage to healthy genital tissue interferes with the body's natural functioning and causes immediate and long-term health consequences.

Female genital mutilation is a manifestation of deeply entrenched gender inequality and is recognised as a human rights abuse. It constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls. It is a violation of the rights of the child; the rights to health, life, security, physical integrity; and the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.

I personally hold the strong view that, as women living in a free and democratic society, we have a fundamental obligation to speak out and protect the human rights of women both here in Australia and overseas. This position is recognised by UN Women Australia, which has stated:

Australia is strategically positioned and has the ability to effect substantive change for the role of women at national, regional and international levels.

UNIFEM, which is now part of UN Women, considers there to be six forms of violence against women which must be stopped. One of these forms of violence is harmful, traditional practices, which includes female genital mutilation.

We need to stand up for the rights of women and young girls. We need to be prepared to recognise the reality

that female genital mutilation is being practised in Australia, notwithstanding that it is a criminal offence in each jurisdiction in Australia and notwithstanding that this is a practice which we as Australians find culturally abhorrent.

Just last year we saw the arrest of a number of people in New South Wales who had organised or carried out female genital mutilation. One of those who was charged with performing the procedure is a retired healthcare provider. Again, just last year, in my home state of Western Australia year, Western Australia police charged a couple, after it was alleged that they took their daughter, at the age of just one year, over to Bali for her to undergo female genital mutilation. They have also now been charged.

Surely, in 2013, with the technological, medical and social information that we have at our fingertips, the evidence is clear that this is a cruel and brutal procedure to force upon a child.

I would like to commend the World Health Organization on their ongoing work to meet the aim of eradicating female genital mutilation within a generation. Their continued focus on advocacy, research and guidance for health systems has already seen a documented decrease in the number of girls subjected to the procedure.

As has been said by many, including the Minister for Health, who speak out against this practice: one girl undergoing this cruel practice is one too many. One girl suffering from shock and ongoing infections as a result is one too many. One woman experiencing complications in childbirth or the death of a newborn child as a result of her having undergone female genital mutilation is one too many.

Question agreed to.