Events and News

27 November 2006

SNAICC Lobby Trip to Canberra 2006

Whilst the next federal election may seem quite some time away (due in late 2007), SNAICC recently developed its pre-election briefing paper to inform the policy work of all the major political parties. In early October, SNAICC held a series of meetings with Federal parliamentarians and advisers to discuss the briefing.

SNAICC was represented by our Chairperson, Muriel Bamblett, and Ray Burrows, the Queensland Early Childhood represenative on SNAICC’s National Executive. Julie Higgins, SNAICC Policy Manager, and Julian Pocock, SNAICC Executive Officer, accompanied them.

In Canberra, SNAICC met with following:

advisers to the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Mal Brough;
staff from the office of the Hon. Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition;
Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens Spokesperson on Indigenous Affairs and Family Affairs;
Senator Andrew Bartlett, Australian Democrats Spokesperson on Indigenous Affairs;
Tanya Plibersek, ALP Shadow Minister for Child Care and Youth;
Senator Chris Evans, ALP Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services and
Julia Gillard, ALP Shadow Minister for Health.

The briefing paper, a summary of which can be found on our website here, sought some in-principle commitment from the parties to focus specifically on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in their policies and to work with and consult SNAICC as they draft their election platforms. It also outlined some very specific commitments SNAICC wants the parties to include in their election policies.

SNAICC also foreshadowed that we would like to be consulted about any policy proposals from the political parties to create a new elected national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander council to provide overall policy advice to governments. SNAICC supports the creation of a new elected national body to replace the ATSIC model with policy development and advocacy as its central role.

The key commitment SNAICC is seeking in the lead up to the next federal election is to develop a nationally planned response to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s welfare and development.

SNAICC suggests that the best mechanism to organise, monitor and resource this national response is:

to develop a National Action Plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Welfare and Development
to establish a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Welfare and Development Taskforce under the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to develop, monitor and report against the Action Plan.

Planning for the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families is currently inadequately thought-through, ad hoc and uncoordinated. Unless a better-planned response to the urgent problems confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families is developed, no real progress in this area will be made and research and investigative journalism will continue to reveal Australian children whose circumstances and life chances shame us all.

The Taskforce must be led and resourced by the federal government, involve state and territory governments and include SNAICC and other non-government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations in its membership.

Outcomes from the lobby trip

All the various party representatives and advisers that SNAICC met with indicated a willingness to continue discussions with SNAICC as they develop their detailed election policies.

It was clear that there is a degree of bi-partisanship in this area with all the parties clearly indicating more focus and priority should be given to children across a number of portfolios. All seemed to agree that we need a stronger and better resourced national focus on early childhood/childcare, child welfare and protection and children’s health. There was less common ground on the ways to achieve good outcomes for children.

SNAICC will continue to work with all parties with the aim of informing their policy development and will provide updates through the SNAICC newsletter.

by Julian Pocock, SNAICC Executive Officer

Originally published in November 2006 edition of SNAICC News.

See the Summary Briefing Paper prepared for SNAICC's lobby trip on the Briefing Papers page.

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Published 27 November 2006.

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