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Close gap between rhetoric and action: coalition
Monday, 6 July 2009
8:41:35 AM
By Julian Drape
NATIONAL, July 6, 2009: The federal coalition has criticised the Rudd government's response to a damning report showing the gap between black and white Australia is widening in some areas.
Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's promise to take "decisive" action rings hollow.
"Well that's what he said before the last election and it seems that nothing has been achieved," Ms Bishop said.
The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report, released on Thursday, shows when it comes to child abuse and imprisonment rates the situation is getting worse rather than better for Aboriginal Australians.
The Nationals' leader in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, says Mr Rudd needs to walk the walk rather than simply talk the talk.
"If he's truly decisive that means we'll be doing something immediately," he said.
"Otherwise this just becomes another foil to say 'decisive' but really mean 'procrastination'."
Senator Joyce said Labor couldn't simply throw money at Indigenous affairs and hope for the best.
Rather it needed clear policy statements "that start today".
He backed opposition Indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott's call for a crackdown on truancy and called for parents' welfare payments to be docked if their kids didn't attend school.
But on Friday Mr Rudd wasn't letting up on the rhetoric, telling reporters the time was over for partisan politics on Indigenous policy.
"It is time that we put the rancour of the past behind us," he said.
"It is time that we recognise the things that have not worked in the past, and it's time we actually marched together towards the future on those things that do work."
His deputy, Julia Gillard, insists Labor always knew it would take time to close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage, which is why it set targets for 2020.
"We did that deliberately knowing that this was going to be a long-term journey," Ms Gillard said.
"You don't turn around decades of difference in life expectancy, education and employment outcomes overnight. That's not possible."
In February last year, Mr Rudd promised to halve education and infant mortality gaps within a decade and close the 17-year life expectancy gap within a generation.
In his apology to the Stolen Generations he also vowed to ensure all four-year-olds in remote communities had access to early childhood education within five years. - AAP
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