Thanks, Deputy Speaker.
And I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people, and the Larrakia, the traditional owners of my electorate.
I spoke with a Larrakia Elder this morning, actually, who is in Parliament House, talking to people about the reality of the Voice and what it will do.
The powerful practical advantage in having a formalized Voice.
And for anyone, for any member of the Parliament that wants to speak with her, to learn from her wisdom and perspective, I’m certainly happy to organise that.
It was also good to catch up with my mate Kevin Rudd while he was here in the building for the over the last couple of days.
And I certainly remember well the 13th of February 2008 when he made a formal apology on behalf of the nation to Australia's Indigenous peoples.
The apology was particularly given to the Stolen Generations and their families and communities, for laws and policies which had inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss.
It was incredibly moving to join members of the Stolen Generation on Monday morning at the 15th anniversary of the apology to the Stolen Generation.
Last week, our Government and the Northern Territory Government announced a landmark package for Central Australia to improve community safety, to tackle alcohol-related harm and provide more opportunities, particularly for young people in our red centre.
Aimed at addressing the past decade’s decline in investment and services, we will invest in a plan for improved community safety and cohesion, job creation, investing in families, improving school attendance and school completion through caring for culture and country, and preventing and addressing the issues caused by foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, or FASD.
As hopefully more honourable members are starting to learn about how damaging that particular disorder is.
In addition, the Closing the Gap implementation plan is our Government's plan to work with First Nations organisations, communities and all levels of government to make serious progress on closing the gap in life outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Sadly, the latest annual report on Closing the Gap shows that the gap in many measures is not closing, or at least not fast enough.
And on some measures it is regrettably going backwards.
We see encouraging progress like babies born with a healthy birth weight, children, more kids, more children enrolled in preschool and higher numbers of high school graduations.
But we also see a disappointing lack of progress in a number of other areas, including the amount of children in out-of-home care.
So not with their parents or their kin, but in out-of-home care.
And of course, the adult and child imprisonment rates, which are frankly a blight on our nation.
Our 2023 implementation plan invest almost half a billion dollars towards closing the gap and includes but is not limited to $150 million over four years to target First Nations water infrastructure through the National Water Grid Fund to provide safe and reliable water for remote and regional Indigenous communities.
And I can tell you in the Northern Territory there are some communities that do not have safe and reliable drinking water.
There is $111 million to a one-year partnership with the Northern Territory Government to accelerate the building of new housing in remote areas so that we can address the problem of overcrowding in remote communities.
That leads to really bad health outcomes and social outcomes.
We’ll spend almost $12 million over two years for the National Strategy for Food Security in First Nations communities so that we can make essential foods more affordable and more accessible, particularly in that remote community context.
And yes, in the Northern Territory there are communities that do not have a good standard of accessible and affordable daily needs as far as food security goes.
We continued funding for the $68.6 million over two years for Family Violence and Prevention legal service providers that deliver that vital legal and non-legal support to women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence.
Almost $22 million over five years to support families through seven place-based trauma-aware and culturally responsive healing programs for those impacted by family violence or at risk of engagement with child protection services and being taking taken into out-of-home care.
We want to keep families together.
If they can't be with their parents, we want to keep them with kin.
We know that that's when they will be healthiest, happiest, safest.
There's also $38.4 million over four years to boost on country education for First Nation First Nations students, and this includes junior ranges and greater access to culturally appropriate learning.
Again, we know that kids will develop educationally and spiritually in a healthier way if they are connected to their culture.
And we’re also committing $21.6 million to support quality boarding schools, boarding accommodation for rural and remote students for an additional year.
Closing the gap is a top priority of the Albanese Labor Federal Government.
We will only build a better future for all Australians if we take serious action to address the inequalities that we see in our land.
Our measures will be designed and delivered in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, because the best solutions – and this is the foundation of the Voice and why it's so important – the best solutions come from the people on the ground who know what's needed, that feed that advice through their representatives to inform our work in this place.
As we reflect on reconciliation, it's important that we recall that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is now six years old.
It’s a culmination of years of discussion, consultation, and hard work by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Now, establishing a Voice is essential to helping us to close the gap and further enhance the strength of First Nations voices in the development of laws and policies that will affect them.
Recognition is the what, the Voice is the how.
That recognition will see practical changes.
It’s not a funding body, it’s not a third chamber of Parliament.
It won't run programs. It won't have a veto.
It's about recognition of our continent, our ancient continent, and its First Nations people, and for that to be recognised in the birth certificate of our nation.
Deputy Speaker, reconciliation is a national journey that we must all embark on together.
But it's also one of individual learning and growth.
So in the time remaining, I'll just reflect a little bit on my journey of reconciliation, my personal story, and what I've learned along the way.
My father, John, worked with blind people in a leprosarium in Derby, Western Australia, and that's how we as a family and as kids growing up first got to understand the magic nature of this longest surviving culture on earth.
Little bit after that, I went and stayed with some friends of ours on a mission a little bit inland from Geraldton, in a place that was called the Tardton Kids Home.
And I had an experience there on the ground with kids my own age, and I saw the anger in them about the way that they and their families have been taken off their land.
And it was a real eye opener.
And I felt at the time as a young fella that I was seen as being responsible somehow as a non-Indigenous kid for what happened to them.
And it just made me step back for a while.
And it wasn't until I became a Territorian living in the Territory and seeing people like the legendary Northern Territory football player Michael Long, who got up one day and started walking to Canberra to force Prime Minister John Howard to start caring about Indigenous people and the shocking states that they were living in around our nation.
Michael Long just wanted some justice. He wanted the suicides to stop. And he walked from Melbourne to Canberra.
I joined him on the road and learned from elders, particularly from the Gundjitmara and getting an understanding of history and the 15-year war that they fought for on their own lands.
It's a humbling thing to learn from.
And the least we can do as a nation is to learn the lessons from the past, to involve First Nations people in the decision making processes that affect their lives.
It’s an essential step down the road of reconciliation, and we must all take that step together.
