LAURA JAYES, HOST: The Closing the Gap statement is set to be delivered to Parliament later today. Previous reports are anything to go by. The gap between indigenous and non-Indigenous life outcomes is still far from closing. Indigenous youth, employment and education targets are the focus, and today the federal government will announce officially it is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to create 3000 jobs in remote Australia. Joining me live is Assistant minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy. Malarndirri, thanks so much for your time. Great to see you. First of all, this is the first Closing the Gap report since the failed voice referendum. I think during the referendum campaign, perhaps one of the only good things to come out of it is that the plight of indigenous people and the problems were well articulated, and no one in Australia can say that they didn't know, but nothing seems to have happened in the meantime.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Yeah. Thank you, Laura. And you are absolutely correct. The referendum campaign did shine a very large light on the concerns that we had around closing the gap, and the reasons why we believe that a voice to Parliament would go a long way to assisting in trying to reduce that. And that was a decision not agreed to by the Australian people. And we respect that. So, what we have to do now is look at the other areas, like our ministerial portfolios and responsibilities. I have the area of indigenous health in terms of assisting in that and working on those areas. And I'm happy to talk a bit more about that later with you, Laura.
JAYES: Yeah, let's do that. When it comes to indigenous health and outcomes that are critically required, what is the solution there? That's a big question. But I feel like, you know, we only see the tip of the iceberg of some of the challenges in some of these remote indigenous communities, in particular.
MCCARTHY: One of the good things with regards to the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector, Laura, is that it does lead the way in the kind of leadership that it has, which is what we did try to emulate, obviously with the voice. But what we can do now is, given that that was not successful, we're looking at the Aboriginal community health sector. They do very well across Australia with over 140 Aboriginal community health centres working with First Nations people. We focus specifically on chronic renal disease, kidney disease. So, in terms of rolling out, renal dialysis machines, rheumatic heart disease, we acknowledge that, you know, in terms of vision and trachoma, that we still as a country, even though we're first world, we seem to still be unable to get on top of that. So, these are things that I am carrying through now with the national Aboriginal community-controlled health sector.
JAYES: One of the announcements today from the Prime minister, and the Minister is that there's going to be a focus on employment. And as I understand it, this money essentially goes into communities. And then there is a collective, they decide. So, there's this, you know, control over their own lives. They decide where these jobs are going to be created. Is this something that works. Is this something you have experience with?
MCCARTHY: Look, I'm really quite excited about this announcement, Laura, and I'll explain why. The community development program has around 40,000 people on it. We came to government saying that that program was not working. It wasn't efficient. It needed to actually create dignity in the workforce. People were painting rocks, you know, just mowing lawns. We needed to be able to do, more things to get training and employment. This CDP program previously was known as the CDEP Program, which is the community development employment program. In fact, I was a participant on it back in my youth when I set up a community radio station in my home community. So, it did work because what it did was it empowered organizations to employ locally and give employment to people who had particular skills of what was needed in that community. So, we see these 3000 jobs going into the future as being incredibly significant. The announcement that the Prime Minister is going to make today to work with organizations, but also local government. Local government plays a really strong role in this. Laura, when I was a local government minister in the Northern Territory, I'd worked very closely with the sector because their employment area was just as critical in our regional and remote areas, and this will be important to them as well.
JAYES: Again, months on from the voice referendum defeat, these problems still persists when it comes to youth crime in particular. Thinking of Alice Springs here, the only person that seems to have been back to Alice Springs is our reporter, Matt Cunningham. And essentially things are getting worse. Is this still the focus?
MCCARTHY: The focus is certainly on our youth and certainly on jobs. Clearly the work that's being done in Central Australia is with the Aboriginal leadership group there that has been set up. We know that they started off well, and I'll be following up on that, after estimates this week to see where they're at. But we're also concerned about what we've seen across the country, obviously in places like far north Queensland, in the Kimberley. So, we have other programs like the Justice Reinvestment Program that is there to assist. And so, these programs are there now, and they should be rolled out.
JAYES: I'm just worried in an election year in the Northern Territory that things seem to really grind to a halt. And, you know, local politicians focus on their own seats and getting themselves re-elected rather than on the issues. I also note today that Chansey Paech, he has had shares in an alcohol company that also has responsibility for distributing alcohol in places like the Territory and Alice Springs. But he also argued for those alcohol bans to be lifted in the cabinet table and didn't declare that he had a conflict of interest there. Do you think that's a problem?
MCCARTHY: Well, I've just read the article myself, Laura. So clearly it is something that is breaking news. I will say that no doubt the Northern Territory Attorney-General will make an explanation. There are certainly many questions that need to be answered. And given that Parliament in the Northern Territory is opening today I expect that will occur and I know that everyone will be looking towards that.