Indigenous voice to boost Closing the Gap

A constitutionally enshrined ­Indigenous voice will not excuse governments around Australia from continuing the work they are required to do under the rewritten Closing the Gap initiative.

Pat Turner proposed and oversaw the second incarnation of Closing the Gap after the failure of the first agreement struck in 2008. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

A constitutionally enshrined ­Indigenous voice will not excuse governments around Australia from continuing the work they are required to do under the rewritten Closing the Gap initiative, says co-author of the new national agreement Pat Turner.

Ms Turner, who proposed and oversaw the second incarnation of Closing the Gap after the failure of the first agreement struck in 2008, supports an Indigenous voice to parliament and government. However on Monday she stressed the voice would boost rather than usurp the work being done to reduce disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians under the decade-long Closing the Gap agreement signed in 2020 by all governments and an alliance of more than 50 Indigenous organisations known as the Coalition of Peaks.

“The work to implement the National Agreement on Closing the Gap will be strengthened by a more reconciled nation. As we embark on a historic referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution we are seeking to address a historical wrong against our people,” Ms Turner wrote in the Closing the Gap implementation plan published on Monday.

“The Voice is also about guaranteeing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a say in matters that impact on us, something that is at the heart of the National Agreement and the work of the Coalition of Peaks.

“A Constitutionally enshrined Voice won’t negate the work governments are required to do under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

“Neither will the Voice change the necessary role of community-controlled peak bodies and organisations to deliver services and supports for our people, and to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the areas we have expertise.

“Alongside the National Agreement (on Closing the Gap) and the partnership between governments and the Coalition of Peaks, the Voice will provide our nation with the complete roadmap to improve the life outcomes of our people.”

The reinvented Closing the Gap agreement has 17 targets and will lean heavily on Aboriginal organisations run by elected boards to do work that bureaucracies once did in Aboriginal communities.

For example, Aboriginal Medical Services will do more and child protection departments will use Aboriginal organisations more often to do sensitive work.

In Western Australia, the McGowan government’s decision to employ an Aboriginal organ­isation for early interventions with troubled families coincided with the first reduction in Indigenous child removals since 1996.

In more than nine out of 10 cases, families who worked with the Aboriginal organisation were able to make necessary lifestyle and other changes to make their households safer and keep their children at home.

The Closing the Gap plan was unveiled on Monday, the 15th anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s historic apology to the Stolen Generations. In parliament, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spoke directly to Indigenous Australians watching from the public gallery when he said sorry for boycotting the 2008 apology.