CO HOST: Australia's close the gap agreement is doomed to fail. In a scathing report, it's accused the federal government of failing to fulfill its promises to indigenous communities. The prime Minister has acknowledged Labor needs to do more. Joining us now from Canberra is Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy. Senator, this report was scathing of the government. Did you put all your eggs in the voice basket and neglect the other things that perhaps needed to be done?
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Well, we are doing those things. The issue is that the way we could do it a lot sooner would have been by enabling First Nations people at the table through those policies. And we didn't succeed in that through the referendum last year. What we now have to do is look at our ministries. I certainly have responsibility for indigenous health. And so, we're rolling out renal dialysis chairs across Australia, 30 of those to try and deal with the chronic disease. We're looking at rheumatic heart disease. We need clean water. So, we're rolling out funding for clean water. Who would think that in our country today? So, we have to keep going. The urgency was there before the referendum. It still is there. But clearly the structural and systemic change, we couldn't achieve.
CO HOST: Well, the report seems to be suggesting you haven't achieved that. One of the findings that was really interesting was its description of federal and state governments engagement with indigenous communities as tokenistic. Would you concede that's true? And does that mean that you're focused on the wrong issues?
MCCARTHY: Well, we always have to keep working on it. I mean, if I take, for example, just even here in the Parliament alone, as a First Nations person coming into a political party, we needed to establish a First Nations caucus so we could look at the legislation. What this report focuses on is how government departments are unable to do the same thing. And we've got to, as ministers or assistant ministers in my case, is to keep working with the departments to ensure that they are reaching out. And we certainly have to do that when we look at this report in more detail.
CO HOST: Senator, what is the plan now that the voice is dead?
MCCARTHY: Well, we continue in terms of health, education, the policies with infrastructure, the policies with jobs. We know that we need to improve the lives of First Nations people in all of those areas and continue to work with state and territory governments. We said throughout the referendum that if we didn't succeed, then the status quo would remain. But what we need to do now with the status quo is make sure we improve it.
CO HOST: Could you perhaps be more concrete or specific on that, Senator? I mean, I know the Uluru statement spoke of a, you know, a truth telling and the treaty process. Is that what you have in mind, or do you have other specific things in mind? Because with respect, the way you answered that was really general. You know, we have to work harder at this. We have to do a bit of that. But I think what this report is saying is that sort of statement, it's not closing the gap. There needs to be something really concrete.
MCCARTHY: Well, what I'm saying is that we took the big shot of the referendum to the people, and people said that 'what if the referendum doesn't succeed?' We put everything into that because we knew the status quo had to change. And that was the systemic change, the structural change in departments being able to work with First Nations people, this report only confirms why it was that we should have gone to the referendum. But it also says that now, what do we do in terms of moving forward? And these are the discussions we'll no doubt have, as we go forward.