Some Thoughts on Tony Abbott's 'Closing the Gap' Address

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The Australian prime minister delivered his annual Closing the Gap speech in parliament this morning, noting that while we've made progress in some areas, we have a long way to go in others.

More startling than the figures that he presented was his firm belief that "we are a great country—I firmly believe, the best on Earth. There is no country on Earth where people are made more welcome.”

Indeed!

We make you feel welcome by giving you a free ride in a nice new orange lifeboat all the way to Indonesia, which is also a very good country (though not the best, by Tony’s reckoning), or a complimentary plane ticket to Manus Island, with its welcoming facilities that almost meet required standards under international law.

The speech highlighted some of the issues that the country needs to address to, well, close the gap.

There have been improvements in child mortality and pre-school enrollment, but the prime minister pointed out that it's not just about enrolling—it's about attending.

We've made very little progress in life expectancy, which is about ten years less for indigenous people.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, responded with a comprehensive plan for constitutional reform that would prohibit discrimination and recognise indigenous languages as the first Australian languages.

Neither speech looked at the reasons for some of these problems.

Wilcannia, in New South Wales, has one of the lowest rates of school attendance in the country and the highest proportion of indigenous people. Wilcannia Central School has some of the best facilities in the state—interactive online whiteboards, high-speed internet connection, and computers for all the kids. Caterers (flown in) cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the kids and anyone else who wants it. But once the kids reach high school, they stop going.

Why don't they want to study and then go to university and get a good job so they can be financially secure?

On a trip there I asked a few people what sorts of jobs were available in the town, since most people appeared to be occupying themselves by driving up and down the main street or hanging out on lounges in their front yards. The only person willing to discuss such a boring topic was the guy who worked in the bar.

“Yeah, there's jobs here. You can work in the servo. Or you can work in the pub. But I guess I'm already doing that, so, yeah, there's just the servo.”

On the face of it, life is pretty sweet in Wilcannia. Most people have big TVs, Xboxes, and high-speed broadband. There is a huge number of hotted-up Commodores. Rent is subsidised and low. When you already get the things you want in your hometown, why would you move to the city to work in an office? And besides, who knows what sort of discrimination they'll face if they go for a job?

From time to time the state or federal government will pay for a huge project, like public housing for everyone. It creates hundreds of jobs for builders and contractors, all of whom come from the major towns. The indigenous population can just sit back and watch their new, if cheap and nasty, houses being built for them. The guy at the pub said it's very rare for any locals to get jobs on these projects. So most of the money invested by the government ends up leaving the town.

In another remote town, Yuendumu, in Central Australia, three hours from Alice Springs, the only jobs available are with non-government organisations whose purpose is to make things better for local people.

There's something weird about creating jobs out of indigenous disadvantage. It's not a cause for huge optimism when the only chance you have of earning a living outside of collecting welfare is to be a youth worker who trains indigenous people for jobs as youth workers. It's essential to the remote indigenous industries that problems remain—their livelihoods depend on it—but it seems somehow counterintuitive.

Then again, the indigenous disadvantage industry is also important for white people. Teachers, social workers, and tradies make a fortune out of indigenous communities, often doubling the salaries they'd earn in the city. Usually, their housing and regular flights home are provided, too. Indigenous people don't get that. In the only pub close to Yuendumu, which is a dry community, there are even rules that exclude most indigenous people from entering. They have to drive all the way to Alice to pick up booze.

“It has become a personal mission to help my fellow Australians to open their hearts, as much as to change their minds, on Aboriginal policy,” Tony Abbott said. It doesn't take an open heart to convince kids that school is more important than video games. It takes a lot of hard work to make it so that it is more worthwhile for kids to go to school than play video games. Because, at the moment, even Tony with his open heart and personal mission would probably end up getting a case of beer and some hot chips from the servo and settling in for some Grand Theft Auto V.

Follow Carly on Twitter: @carlylearson