Hearing Health

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:18): My question is to the Premier in his role as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. What role does poor hearing, particularly through lack of attention to conditions such as otitis media, play in leading to a life of crime, particularly among Indigenous people?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:19): I thank the member for her question. She is quite right. She, like myself and members of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee, have visited the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands and various other Aboriginal lands across South Australia and seen very graphic evidence of hearing loss amongst young people. There is no doubt that this would affect their ability to learn and, of course, their ability to get employment post their schooling. So I am quite sure that there is a causal relationship between those two things.

Of course, we are doing everything we can at the moment to reduce recidivism within our prison system and to recognise where there are opportunities for taking people who maybe didn't have a full education while they were at school and trying to improve outcomes for them. This is something we take very seriously. As the member would be more than aware, we have also set up a task force within government to look at ways that we can reduce Indigenous incarceration in South Australia.

This is something which has been identified in the Closing the Gap Refresh, which we are a signatory to, but more than being just a signatory we have put practical steps in place already to look at this issue. The way we have structured this is to have co-chairs—one Indigenous, one non-Indigenous—one who was a chief executive of a state government department and one a public sector employee.

It's still early days. As the member would know, the Closing the Gap Refresh was only signed last year but it is something which we are taking very seriously. I hope to bring back some further information to the house once we get some solid recommendations on how we can further address this issue that the member raises.