Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am Everest.
Speaker 1: To close the gap between Indigenous Australians and the rest
Speaker 1: of the community are not on track. They're actually widening.
Speaker 1: More original children are being taken from their families, who
Speaker 1: are ending up in prison, and suicide rates remain devastatingly high.
Speaker 1: Prominister Anthony Albernizi says closing the gap was about acknowledging
Speaker 1: what's working and what isn't and has placed eight hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million dollars in new money to remote communities
Speaker 1: in the Northern Territory. But Independent Senator Lydia Thorpe believes
Speaker 1: the widening gap is by design and close the Gap
Speaker 1: targets should be scrapped altogether today, Senator Thorpe, and while
Speaker 1: she believes the closing the Gap strategy is a distraction
Speaker 1: and what real change would look like. It's Thursday, February thirteen,
Speaker 1: Senator Thoughpe.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us, my pleasure, Thanks for having me,
Speaker 2: Senator Thought, Thank you, Acting Deputy President. Today's Closing the
Speaker 2: Gap announcement tops off a year of betrayal. Once again,
Speaker 2: Labor is refusing to address the urgent issues facing first
Speaker 2: peoples and confront their own role in harming our communities.
Speaker 2: They're refusing to address the suicide epidemic, child removals and
Speaker 2: incarceration rates, particularly of children.
Speaker 1: In Parliament this week, you said the closing the gap
Speaker 1: numbers reveal a year of betrayal.
Speaker 3: What did you mean by that, Well, it's many years
Speaker 3: of betrayal.
Speaker 2: I think the fact that Howard came up with the
Speaker 2: whole idea says it in itself. The same Prime Minister
Speaker 2: who sent the army into communities based on a lie
Speaker 2: came up with distraction, another distraction for our people, another
Speaker 2: opportunity for politicians to have morning teas on a day
Speaker 2: where they say that they're doing something, where they say
Speaker 2: that they're going to do better, and nothing ever changes.
Speaker 2: It's the same old retric and it's very disappointing when
Speaker 2: we see rates of child removal still escalating. Twenty four
Speaker 2: thousand of our children have been taken away from their
Speaker 2: families and there's no end in sight because the number
Speaker 2: continues to rise. The suicidal rates are been touched personally
Speaker 2: by suicides in my own family of young men in particular,
Speaker 2: there's a sense of hopelessness amongst our people, and each
Speaker 2: year we hear that, you know, nothing's getting better and
Speaker 2: we're going to do better, and we're hearing you. However,
Speaker 2: it's just all talk and Noah.
Speaker 1: Only five of the nineteen Closing the Gap targets are
Speaker 1: on track. In your species said, targets are going backwards intentionally.
Speaker 1: What did you mean by.
Speaker 2: That, Well, there's a real assault on First peoples in
Speaker 2: this country and they're always has been, you know, for
Speaker 2: over two hundred years. There's been many strategies and policies
Speaker 2: that oppress our people, that deny our rights as First
Speaker 2: peoples in this country, and their genocidal acts. They continue
Speaker 2: to perpetrate the same state violence. They're putting money into prisons,
Speaker 2: putting money into police. We see the Closing the Gap
Speaker 2: money that goes to communities, particularly in the Northern Territory,
Speaker 2: where two.
Speaker 3: Hundred millions for the cops.
Speaker 2: You know, the minister makes these deadly announcements on supporting
Speaker 2: communities in the Northern Territory. However she didn't articulate that
Speaker 2: part of that money was two hundred million for the cops. Well,
Speaker 2: we know what money for cops means. It means more
Speaker 2: of our children locked up more of our people locked up,
Speaker 2: and that money should be going to self determined solutions
Speaker 2: within our communities.
Speaker 3: And you know they're being ignored.
Speaker 1: When it comes to things like youth justice. The federal
Speaker 1: government would say that it's responsibility for the states and territories.
Speaker 1: But what more could the federal government be doing to
Speaker 1: intervene in that area.
Speaker 3: Well, they can do lots. They can actually act.
Speaker 2: They have the power to pull the states and territories
Speaker 2: into line, like they have in say the health sector
Speaker 2: and other areas where they hold states and territories to account.
Speaker 3: They have the power to do this. They just choose
Speaker 3: not to do it.
Speaker 2: They're always handballing off to the state and territories to
Speaker 2: not own the issue themselves, which they created. Mind you,
Speaker 2: governments created this problem.
Speaker 3: It's not us. We are not the problem. As Arnie Rosalie.
Speaker 2: Kernel Monks bless Her always said, we are not the problem.
Speaker 2: It's these governments that are creating the gap and not
Speaker 2: listening to our old people. So the federal government can
Speaker 2: take stronger action. They have the constitutional power to set
Speaker 2: standards on the states and territories, as I said, like
Speaker 2: the health area and the disability area, and the education sector,
Speaker 2: and we also need a human rights Act.
Speaker 3: We don't even have a human rights act in this country.
Speaker 2: I mean even you know, King Colonizer's country has a
Speaker 2: human Rights Act. We don't have one here. I also
Speaker 2: have a private senator's bill, and that is on including
Speaker 2: the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Speaker 2: into the Human Rights Committee as an instrument that look
Speaker 2: at all the legislation coming through and look for any
Speaker 2: human rights abuses.
Speaker 1: You said that you're putting a bill to the Senate.
Speaker 1: What would you like to see written in legislation and
Speaker 1: parliament right now? Tell us about your bill.
Speaker 2: Well, this bill is to ensure that the United Nations
Speaker 2: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, something that this
Speaker 2: country is signed up to but ignores. It is an
Speaker 2: instrument that the Human Rights Committee, who looks at most
Speaker 2: legislation in this place, is taken into account when it
Speaker 2: comes to.
Speaker 3: Passing legislation.
Speaker 2: So we want our rights enshrined in to the Human
Speaker 2: Rights Committee to scrutinize the legislation and not have our.
Speaker 3: Rights impeded upon. Now.
Speaker 2: I tried, through another private Senator's bill last year to
Speaker 2: have the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous
Speaker 2: peoples enshrined in the law of this country. However, Dodson
Speaker 2: and McCarthy and Janas Stewart of the Labor Party and
Speaker 2: their colleagues voted it down.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, Why the senator thinks we
Speaker 1: should scrap closing the gap all together?
Speaker 4: There is no ethos more fundamentally Australian than the fair goat,
Speaker 4: and closing the gap is the fairest of all. We
Speaker 4: want First Nations people to have ownership of their futures
Speaker 4: and a stake in the economy. There is the foundation
Speaker 4: on which everything else can be built Lidia.
Speaker 1: This week, the government announced eight hundred and forty million
Speaker 1: dollars to reach close the gap target to the nt
Speaker 1: Prome Minister Anthony Albertezi, Citi's government would invest in a
Speaker 1: range of new measures to help close the gap in
Speaker 1: remote communities. It's including delivering cheaper groceries, upskilling of local
Speaker 1: staff in remote areas, scholarships were indigenous psychologist students. What
Speaker 1: do you make of those particular measures?
Speaker 3: Well, they should be happening anyway.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, it's taken you are closing the gap
Speaker 2: speech to get a few crumbs on the table for
Speaker 2: our people.
Speaker 3: Yes they're nice to.
Speaker 2: Have, but they are crumbs on the table when it
Speaker 2: comes to people's lives. Children are being abused in these
Speaker 2: places of detention. They are being locked up at the
Speaker 2: rate of of how many kids can we lock up
Speaker 2: as quickly as we possibly can. So we need real action.
Speaker 2: We need to stop the incarceration. We need to stop
Speaker 2: the removals of our children. We need to end this
Speaker 2: war against our people and stop putting crumbs on the table.
Speaker 3: We want real action.
Speaker 1: In the Productivity Commission's assessment of Closing the Gap, it
Speaker 1: found the government has a persistent government knows best way
Speaker 1: of thinking, recommending more control to local community organizations and
Speaker 1: power sharing and the Minister for Indigenous Australian's Mellandari McCarthy
Speaker 1: is talking about working in partnership with communities and community
Speaker 1: controlled organizations. From your perspective, does that show the government
Speaker 1: grasp the approach you believe that we need.
Speaker 2: No talking to peak bodies is one thing, but rolling
Speaker 2: this leaves up and getting down to every community.
Speaker 3: Every community's needs.
Speaker 2: Are different and it's about ensuring that those communities are
Speaker 2: listened to. And I have concerns about peak bodies. Peak
Speaker 2: bodies don't represent me. Peak bodies are bound by government
Speaker 2: because they won't even challenge the government on incarceration, on
Speaker 2: child removal, on this ongoing genocide. So you know, we
Speaker 2: need to go beyond the peak bodies, which is easy
Speaker 2: for government to just go to one.
Speaker 3: Body that says that they are representative.
Speaker 2: But I can tell you now out there amongst our people,
Speaker 2: they are not happy with peak bodies speaking for us
Speaker 2: because it's not working and it's not delivering in places
Speaker 2: where we absolutely need it.
Speaker 1: So if the government doesn't deal with peak bodies, then
Speaker 1: he does the government deal with and listen to.
Speaker 2: So the way I grew up back in the seventies
Speaker 2: and eighties, we didn't have peak bodies. I mean we
Speaker 2: had the National averagell and Ireland, a health organization which
Speaker 2: seated NATCHO, but that had a different philosophy and more
Speaker 2: self determining philosophy. In fact, that's where pay the Rent
Speaker 2: came from, and it was about being independent from governments.
Speaker 2: It was about building the capacity of Aboriginal health services
Speaker 2: on the ground in communities and not having peak bodies
Speaker 2: deciding for those local communities. Peak bodies competing for funds
Speaker 2: against those smaller communities that are poor. So we need
Speaker 2: to break down the hierarchy. It's not how we operate
Speaker 2: as communities. We need to go out to Lake Tires,
Speaker 2: we need to go to Framlingham, We need to go
Speaker 2: to these communities that are really struggling and don't get a.
Speaker 3: Real say at that peak body level.
Speaker 2: The peak body level is becoming the you know, the
Speaker 2: difference between the haves and have not. If you're not
Speaker 2: in the room, so to speak, or at the table,
Speaker 2: then you don't get to say. And we need to
Speaker 2: decolonize rather than go into this corporatized model which is
Speaker 2: part of an assimilation model.
Speaker 1: The closing the Gap framework has been in place since
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, which is a long time, and
Speaker 1: we're not on track. Do you see a future where
Speaker 1: we're able to get to a place where our life
Speaker 1: outcomes are equal to the rest of the country.
Speaker 2: I think that we need to get rid of the
Speaker 2: closing the gap targets.
Speaker 3: I think they're just a distraction.
Speaker 2: And as I said, you know, they're an opportunity for
Speaker 2: politicians to have a morning tea. They mean nothing to
Speaker 2: the people on the ground suffering from inhumane conditions in
Speaker 2: this country. We need to scrap closing the gap. We
Speaker 2: need to scrap native title. Native title is another distraction.
Speaker 2: It's another division that goes on amongst our people. And
Speaker 2: it's who puts these things in place. It's old white
Speaker 2: prime ministers men who says this is what's best for you.
Speaker 2: We're going to how it says, let's come up with
Speaker 2: this closing the gap thing so that we can pretend
Speaker 2: that we're doing something. So we need to get rid
Speaker 2: of those racist regimes that continue to oppress us. And
Speaker 2: we need to build the capacity of our own people
Speaker 2: on our own land to self determine their own destiny.
Speaker 2: We need a human rights bill, and we need the
Speaker 2: United Nations Declaration and the rights of Indigenous peoples actioned
Speaker 2: in this country.
Speaker 1: Never a dull moment with you, Senator, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time.
Speaker 3: My pleasure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Football Australia says they will
Speaker 1: continue to provide support for Sam Kerr moving forward after
Speaker 1: the footballer was found not guilty of racially aggravated assault
Speaker 1: in the UK. However, the body stops short of restoring
Speaker 1: Kerr's position as Matilda's captain. Meanwhile, Kerr's former teammate and
Speaker 1: co captain Kate Gill has spoken out against the trial,
Speaker 1: calling it quote a waste of police and public resources,
Speaker 1: and Clive Palmers United Australia Party will not be on
Speaker 1: any ballots in the upcoming election. The mining magnate has
Speaker 1: lost his high court bid to reregister his party in
Speaker 1: time for the vote. Senator Ralph Babbittt, the only UAP
Speaker 1: candidate to win at the last election, is still midway
Speaker 1: through his six year term and not standing for re election,
Speaker 1: but any new UAP candidates will not be identified with
Speaker 1: the party on ballots come election day. That's all for now.
Speaker 1: Seven a m. Will be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening.