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

I rise to make a senator's statement on overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. In Western Australia, at this stage last week, we heard Premier Barnett talk about his intention to close up to 150 Aboriginal communities. Also, just this week, we heard about the Kimberley Interpreting Service, which is a vital service that provides interpreters to a number of forums in the Kimberley, and in fact beyond the Kimberley. In particular, it plays a very important role in providing interpreting services to the justice system.

We know that it is very important that Aboriginal people have access to those services. The Kimberley Interpreting Service have experts in over 30 languages, and they provide essential services to Aboriginal people as they appear in court. I have met with them on numerous occasions and have, in fact, used their services. I have heard how important their role is in the way that they are able to present information to the court. I have heard of occasions where people have had an adverse outcome because they have not been able to understand what has been going on in the justice system.

It is in this context that I felt that I needed to make a senator's statement about this issue, and today of course we see the release of the Productivity Commission's Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage: key indicators 2014 report. While we have seen some improvement in life expectancy, young-child mortality—which of course is very important—year 12 attainment, postsecondary achievement and income levels, we cannot take that as being a success when you look at what has not happened. The point is that the gap in life expectancy and those other measures is not going to enable us to meet the target that we have set ourselves in closing the gap within a generation. While there has been some slight improvement, we are not—I repeat, not—on track to closing the gap in life expectancy and other areas in our commitment.

The areas that have got worse are mental health, suicide and self-harm, incarceration rates, and access to clean water, power and sewerage. It is 2014 and we have gone backwards in access to clean water, power and sewerage! There has been no change in the reading, writing and numeracy area; disability and chronic disease; and family and community violence. And it is unclear on employment, early childhood education, child abuse and neglect, and obesity and nutrition.

This is despite our efforts to close the gap and our commitment to that. It is quite obvious that we are not meeting our commitments with appropriate programs. Quite frankly, funding in Australia for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs is in a mess. We have had the government come in and cut over half a billion dollars worth of funding out of programs. But that funding was not done in a, 'Let's have a look at what's working and fund what's working,' way; it was: 'Let's narrow all the programs down, put them into some broadbanded areas and then get everyone to put in and apply for funding. We'll extend some of the funding in the short term while everybody then applies.'

What has happened? I think we have had over 3,400 applications for a limited amount of money. Organisations do not know if their programs are going to continue or not. There is some belief that the good ones will rise to the top and they are the ones that will get funded, rather than looking at whether they are going to fund some into the future. If the government is going to cut half a billion dollars—and in no way do I support that cut; it is appalling to think that we have seen this report that talks about how things are getting worse or how there has been no change or how we do not know what is happening—it actually needs to do it sensibly. You just do not slash in an ad hoc manner.

Of course, we have also seen the cut to legal services. We have appallingly high incarceration rates for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Not only has that increased for men but, alarmingly, it has increased for women. And there is absolutely appalling overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in the youth detention system. We know that engagement in that is likely to lead to further engagement as they become adults.

So what has this government done? Cut legal services. It has this flawed commentary that this is not going to cut front-line services, but everybody knows that it has. Family and community violence has got worse. What has the government done? Cut the funding to those programs. It is a completely flawed approach. Just in Western Australia—others are likely to happen as well—the Barnett government has now indicated that it will cut up to 150 communities. We all know what that dislocation will mean to the people who have to leave those communities: homelessness and the issues associated with homelessness. There are appalling outcomes for people who are living on the outskirts of towns—living in the long grass. We know that. So that is only going to increase the appalling outcomes that we already see. The Barnett government says that is because the federal government is only giving it $90 million to take over responsibility for the services in some of these towns. My question is: why did the Premier sign that in the first place, when he knew very well that those 150 communities were likely to be closed because there was not enough money? The Commonwealth also is not blameless here in the fact that it was only prepared to offer $90 million. It must have known full well that that would not deliver the sorts of services that people living in these remote communities need.

It is quite clear from this that measures like the intervention have not worked. We have not seen a turnaround here in incarceration rates and access to the sorts of services and supports that Aboriginal communities need. Again, that is a top-down approach that takes control away from communities and control away from people to make decisions over their own lives. Importantly, it has not delivered culturally appropriate, community-driven programs. We need to look carefully at the outcomes of this report to see how we can better invest the money.

All the funding was thrown up for whoever wanted to put in applications, and they were given a very short amount of time. I know from talking to organisations that they just put in a whole lot of applications that covered a whole lot of areas because they did not know what was going to happen as a result of this process. I have also had reports of where they know funding is going to be cut for very good programs. One service in Broome told me that they were extremely concerned about the ongoing future for their program for financial support and counselling, because the money that would normally have been used for one area has now been stretched over a whole region—in other words, a cut to those important financial services.

Emotional and social wellbeing programs that underpin a lot of the work that Aboriginal medical services do are being cut. I have had two Aboriginal medical services in Western Australia talk to me. One thinks it is going to lose about $800,000 and the other thinks it is going to lose about $700,000. That blows an enormous hole in their budgets, which then, of course, undermines the programs they can deliver that address things like chronic disease and disability.

Then there are the issues about employment. What is this government doing? Outsourcing the process on that to a billionaire, in the form of Andrew Forrest. Of course, he would know more than the experts know! And what has he come up with? The brilliant idea about the healthy welfare card when, plainly, income management is not working in the NT. Taking decision making over money and making a so-called cashless society will not address the underlying causes and the fundamental issues that we need to deal with in Aboriginal disadvantage.

This government, when it had the opportunity at the beginning of the year to commit to reduce incarceration rates, muffed it. It did not commit to a justice target. When Aboriginal organisations have been almost begging the government to put in place a justice target for closing the gap, this government did not do it: 'No. We will bring in the populist approach of a target for school attendance,' but the government will not address a justice target. That is a start in addressing incarceration rates.

We need more. This is a terrible report card and Australia needs to do better.