When I think back on how all this began, and I was talking briefly to Andrew as I walked into Kirribilli this morning, I go back to the discussion we had several months ago, at Coolum in Queensland. He had begun talking about this, that is what do we do about employment. And the most basic form of social justice available to any person at any time and in any place: that is the right to a job.
As he spoke, what appealed to me and struck me profoundly was his passion for the enterprise. He then said as a responsible and pragmatic businessman that on when this initiative could be begun, he said in six, or at most nine months time.
My response to him was, I hear you Andrew, let's launch it tomorrow - if you are up for it. Which if you know Andrew, is the best way to get him to agree to anything, ‘if you are up for it'. And he was. And that is why we are here.
You know, we are in the midst of a whole lot of bad news at the moment. But this is a good day for Australia. This is a good day for Australia. It is a good day involving good people seeking to do good things for the long term and the very long term.
In part I suppose, the apology to Indigenous people earlier this year in February has helped. The apology to Indigenous people was to set to rights an historical wrong. But it also had a view which said, let us build a bridge to the future. And that bridge was to be one of respect.
We can't begin talking to one another as a wider Australian community, or with anybody for that matter, unless there is respect among and between us. And that in large measure was what the apology was about.
But having built a bridge of respect, you then move to what is then the next and most essential task: How do you then close the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians? And that is a very practical task. It is a very measurable task. It's a very hands on task.
Let me read to you what closing the gap actually means. To close the gap, and this is what we have committed to as a Government, to close the gap in life expectancy within a generation. And that life expectancy gap now is 17 years.
To halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade. To ensure that all indigenous four year olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education within five years.
To halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for indigenous children within a decade. To halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 attaining an equivalent attainment rate by 2020 of year 12 graduation.
And most critically, to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians within a decade.
These are known in the trade as ‘measurables'. These are known as outputs. These are known as things that you put in your annual report and you are measured against. Which is why when Andrew said to me, greeting me this morning as I arrived, ‘Prime Minister this is courageous'.
It's at that point that you have a Sir Humphrey Appleby moment because when someone says to you that you are providing courageous leadership you become instantaneously nervous. But you know something, I am really glad we have done it. I am really glad we have actually stepped across the line here.
So from Apology to closing the gap, to the future. And what are these practical steps to make that mission statement a possibility? You know something, there is something quite deep that we are celebrating here today.
I think we are celebrating also the death of ideology on this question, the absolute death of ideology. Because what we have recognised - and I say this for our political opponents as well- is this is no longer a question about can Government fix all these problems. As I say resolutely on behalf of the Government, Government cannot fix all these problems. We cannot. Let's just be honest about it, be upfront about it, tell the truth about it.
Because so many of the drivers here, so many of the core factors, lie way beyond the possibilities of Government. That is not to say that Government absolves itself of responsibility at all. Ours is to provide the framework, ours is to provide funding and resources to make other initiatives possible.
And we will do that and we will do it in spades. But you know something, it doesn't fix the problem. And the death of ideology lies in the fact that we are all here together as Australians. Indigenous, non Indigenous, all sides of politics, about one objective. That's how to fix this thing.
Whether it's through the work being done here on employment or more broadly, as I look across the community, the extraordinary work that has been done by some of our education institutions: the great boarding school revolution that is under way at the moment, as more and more of our private boarding schools are opening their doors to Indigenous kids around the country. That's great, that's fantastic. That's part of Government saying, ‘hey, you know something, this requires a much broader effort'.
When I look at outfits in Perth like the Clontarf Academy and what they're doing with sport and beyond sport in providing apprenticeship opportunities for young Indigenous people from across WA and across the Territory and now beyond. The emerging work in the Australian Rugby League and others.
This is all part of also recognising, you know, this is a bigger national effort.
And then we come to jobs. And we come to you as the leaders of Australian industry.
As Prime Minister of the country I just have one thing to say to you today, and that's thank you. Because you could have not come. It's a tough time. Everyone's got a lot of other stuff on their plate. I understand that. I understand that more than many in terms of what's going on out there.
But you know, the great thing about this country is that we don't suspend the nation when we're dealing with a current challenge or crisis. The business of the nation goes on. And part of the business of the nation is to fix and to set right this great historical wrong.
And so this Australian Employment Covenant only works when you who provide jobs and provide jobs in difficult economic circumstances are willing to become partners with us and Andrew's great initiative.
And we'll succeed or fail based on you working with us and critically us working effectively with you.
One of the great hazards of government and bureaucracy is that it can be this great provider-driven monolith which sort of is an extension of some Soviet Union instrument of central planning, and just chugs along irrespective of what's actually happening out there. There's been a lot of essays written on this.
It also applies to training. And that is you have these great chugging monolithes out there providing blocks of training for this, that and the other, often, not always, often, oblivious to what actually is being demanded by businesses in concrete circumstances. That's our part of this covenant. That's going to be tough. Because you are going to say, ‘we're prepared to take on 100, 300, 500 indigenous people in employment, but we need the following skill-sets in the following locations delivered flexibly across this time frame.
And the old machinery of government is going to go “argh, how are we going to do that?”. And that's Brendan's responsibility. That's called the public delivery of the hospital pass. No, it's our responsibility.
But, this is hard. But we are determined to do it and to make it work. Because if these two things work together, your preparedness despite the circumstances you now confront to offer a job and the guarantee of a job, and our ability to work with you flexibly, creatively, and over time, in the specific training that you need to make that person job-ready or training-ready. Then, that's our part of the deal.
You know, when Noel spoke before, and I'm glad you stopped when you did stop about our earlier experiences working together a long, long, long time ago. Neither of us have changed since then. He used a very interesting phrase. And he used it repeatedly in his remarks just before. He described this as an act of faith. He said it again, an act of faith, and as an extension of I presume early-Lutheran theology, then referred the need to take a leap of faith. He went to a Lutheran college so I assume that is the case. And you know, he's dead right. Because faith is about something that you don't have concrete evidence for right now. It's actually embarking into the unknown and the partly unseen, but with a clear mission statement about what you want to do.
And there are two ways in which you can do these sort of things. You can sort of hang back and wait till all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted and all the facts and figures are certain, and probably wait another decade and nothing will happen, because it is an uncertain business, or, alternatively, you can gather together a group of good women and good men from across the country, people in business, people in Government and people beyond, set a mission statement for us all and then embark upon the journey. And that's what we're doing.
And this is going to be tough, because when it comes to delivering the measurables, not just of this program but more broadly of what we described before as closing the gap, others will hold up a sign at some stage in saying that you've only got two thirds of the way there, you've only got one third of the way there.
Okay, I accept all those criticisms in advance, if someone could record that for the permanent political record. But you know, I'd much rather in two years time, in four years time, be 20 per cent along the way, 30 per cent along the way, or 40 per cent along the way, or better, rather than having one rolling national workshop of national integrated hand-wringing about what we should do. I think we're past that.
Rupert's right. Right now there is I think an unprecedented mood in the nation to fix this despite our difficulties. And our challenge is to seize the day. And I thank you for seizing the day with me.
To conclude then, for you who lead us in industry and in business, I thank you from the bottom of my heart because you're critical to this.
To Jenny and to Brendan, as ministers, I thank them because this has been a very substantial piece of work.
To our Aboriginal leaders, to Noel, to Warren who is here as well, and other Aboriginal leaders, thank-you because this will only work as a three way partnership. It will only work as a three way partnership.
And so with those remarks, it is in this act of faith that I officially launch at Kirribilli the Australian Employment Covenant.