CLOSING THE GAP - SPEECH TO THE SENATE

This Parliament meets on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and we pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

It’s a Parliament that also has the honour of representing the traditional owners of this entire continent, a land with which the First Australians have been intimately connected for over 65 thousand years

The Yuin people in the South East and the Yawuru people in the North West.

The Yolngu people of Yirrkala in the North, and the Muwinina people in the South.

The Noongar people of the South West, and the Meriam Mir in the Torres Strait.

The Kaurna people in South Australia, and the Pitjantjatjara people of the central desert and many more.

It is important that we recognise and honour the culture and heritage of all our First Australians.

And it is important that we recognise and mourn the indignity and the suffering that they have endured since the colonisation of this ancient land.

The arrival of disease, the expulsion of peoples from their traditional lands, the separation of children from their parents, the loss of identity and the marginalisation of entire communities decimated our first peoples.

This is what Prime Minister Keating acknowledged when he spoke at Redfern twenty five years ago and declared;

 “The starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.”

It was this recognition that Prime Minister Rudd brought to account when he issued the Apology to the Stolen Generations ten years ago.

We remember that day – a day of remembrance, a day of sadness, and a day of extraordinary nobility and a day of grace. For the First Australian peoples found it in their hearts to accept the apology offered by the government on behalf of those who had brought such suffering. In the spirit of healing, the First Australians rose above grievance and resentment to accept our sorrow.

But saying sorry is not enough and whilst repentance is one thing, doing something about it is another. So it was Prime Minister Rudd who set about repairing the injustice of two centuries, who set about restoring equity to peoples who had been dispossessed.

He, with Jenny Macklin’s strong support, had the courage, foresight and imagination to institute the “Closing the Gap” program to redress disadvantage and inequality through a targeted program of action that would tackle the key areas in which the prospects of Indigenous Australians had to be improved.

The “Closing the Gap” report card is mixed, and all of us share in the responsibility for this. But I must say that achieving these deliberately tough goals was made so much harder by this government’s cuts of $500 million from Aboriginal programs.

Senator Dodson, who will follow me in the debate, hit the nail on the head on Friday morning. Quite appropriately, he hammered the Prime Minister for walking out of the Closing the Gap Campaign meeting early – as though Indigenous issues were a lower priority than anything else.  He said:

And that’s the point – we’ve got to get real. And this government has to get real.

So let’s have a quick look at the government’s performance in this critical area.

Last year, only one target was on track – the target to halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020.

Four of the seven “Closing the Gap” targets are not on track. They are, Life Expectancy, Employment, Reading and Numeracy and School Attendance. Three of these targets were due this year.

The remaining three targets that are on track are Child Mortality Rates, Early Education and Year 12 Attainment.

You will note that only two of these targets are really about Closing the Gap: life expectancy and school attendance. Early education specifies a 95 per cent participation rate. And the other three are soft targets – halving the gap rather than closing it.

If we are serious about its ‘refresh’ then it must create more opportunity, not less.

And the key to creating opportunity for First Australians is to empower them to take control of their own lives, to manage their own affairs, and to plan their own futures – all of this with the support of the government, but not under the direction of government.

We all know what doesn’t work: top-down decision-making, bureaucratic, centralised service provision and the exclusion or minimisation of Aboriginal authority and participation.

As Senator Dodson said this morning: all of this is about the future of Aboriginal people “having a quality of life in this country, and for all of us in politics to ensure we can collaborate in an effective way with the states and with Aboriginal organisations to get these results”.

So what’s the alternative? What does Labor intend to do?

First, we want to press ahead on “Closing the Gap”, meeting real targets and improving outcomes for First Australians.

Second, we want to back that up with complementary actions that address the consequences of discrimination and disadvantage.

Today, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, announced in the House that a Labor government will establish a Stolen Generations Compensation Scheme.

Over the past decade, state governments around the country – both Labor and Liberal – have established different forms of compensation schemes for members of the Stolen Generations.

They remain a work in progress, but we do know there are around 150 members of the Stolen Generations who were the direct responsibility of the Commonwealth Government, who have received no financial compensation at all. They are still waiting for “sorry” to be matched by making-good.

It’s time that the government lived up to its rhetoric and that is why Labor will offer each of the survivors removed from their families, country and culture an ex gratia payment of $75,000, and a one-off payment to cover funeral costs.

As Mr Shorten said, compensation is about resolving some of the unfinished business of the apology. I also note that this promise meets an original recommendation of the Bringing Them Home report from over twenty years ago.

Sadly, these payments come too late for many members of the Stolen Generations.

We also have recognised that the trauma of forced removal reverberates through the generations. Hence, a Labor government will also provide $10 million to programs that assist with the healing of Stolen Generation members and their descendants across the nation. This will be administered by the Healing Foundation.

Reconciliation and making amends are not just about confronting the failures of the past. They are about ensuring that such failures are not repeated.

Today, there are over 17,500 First Nations’ children who are growing up away from country and culture - twice as many as ten years ago, when “Closing the Gap” began. Twenty years ago, 20 per cent of the children in out-of-home care were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Today, it’s 35 per cent, and rising.

The Northern Territory Royal Commission into Juvenile Detention highlighted the stark reality that incarceration is the lot of far too many young people from broken homes and dysfunctional families. It isn’t acceptable because jails are not places in which young people should be growing up. We all have to do better and that is why Labor has called for justice targets.

I disagree fundamentally with the minister’s statement today that such targets are “daft”. They provide accountability. They provide an objective measure by which governments of all political persuasions and at all levels can work to improve outcomes for our young people.

We also call on the government to provide new funding for the Remote Indigenous Housing Program, because without a roof over your head you can’t be healthy, you can’t receive education and you can’t be safe. It is a fundamental right and we are astonished on this side that the government isn’t prepared to indicate ongoing Commonwealth support for this program.

Many children in out-of-home care lead lives of trauma and broken trust.

We need to understand that, when we talk about achieving a certain goal by 2028 or 2030, it is these children that we are counting on to get it done.  We’re putting our faith in these kids getting a great education, finding decent jobs and being role models for others.

There’s nothing more important than the safety of our children, and there is no time more precious and more influential than the early years of life.

As I said earlier, the solutions to the issues identified by “Closing the Gap” must be authored, owned and controlled by First Australians. This includes a meaningful say by First Australians in the decisions that affect their lives – a Voice to the Parliament.

The Statement from the Heart delivered at Uluru was not what many expected. But after decades of parliaments delivering well-intentioned, incremental disappointments, who are we to say that this idea is too big, that it is too bold and, the refuge of many scoundrels, that it is unconstitutional.

Who are we to say that, when it comes to constitutional change, we’re capable only of minimalism? Who are we to tell the 1200 delegates from 12 regional dialogues to go back to the drawing board and try again?

As the Leader of the Opposition has said, it’s time for us to be better and braver. It’s time we took the Statement from the Heart into our hearts and worked together to deliver on its key recommendations:

[if !supportLists]·         [endif]A voice enshrined in the Constitution;

[if !supportLists]·         [endif]A declaration to be passed by all Parliaments acknowledging the unique place of the First Nations in Australian history, their cultures, their connection to the land;

[if !supportLists]·         [endif]And a Makarrata Commission to oversee a process of agreement-making and truth-telling.

This is not much to ask.

The Statement from the Heart calls for what both sides of this House say we are committed to – a genuine partnership, real empowerment, and solutions constructed by First Nations people.

Six months ago, after Garma, the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister proposing a Joint Parliamentary Committee to put momentum behind Makarrata and to work towards finalising a Referendum question.

That invitation stands.

Bipartisanship does not mean an agreement to do nothing and if the current stalemate cannot be broken, if the government cannot reconsider its rejection of the Statement from the Heart, we on this side will not let the matter rest.

The next Labor Government will as a first step, look to legislate for a Voice to Parliament.

I was in this Parliament on the day of the Apology and I count it as one of the finest moments that I have been privileged to witness, if not the finest.

I have also been here at every Closing the Gap speech since that time and I have heard some wonderful speeches. I've heard many fine words but we have heard a lot of defence and justification for results which have not been good enough.

So now we need to listen, not just talk. The Gap can be closed and it is our First Australians who will show us how.