Senator KIM CARR (Victoria—Minister for Human Services) (14:07): I thank Senator Crossin for her question and for her ongoing commitment to this very, very important area of policy. A genuinely democratic society recognises the rights of all its citizens. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order! Question time will be assisted greatly without interjections. They are disorderly. Senator KIM CARR: A genuinely democratic society recognises the rights of all of its citizens to participate fully, and in 2008 the Labor government said that we could no longer tolerate the indignity, the inequity and the injustice that our Indigenous citizens suffer. Australians recognised their rights as citizens in 1967; Australia recognised their rights as traditional owners in 1992. How, then, could we fail to recognise their rights as members of our society? Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Senator Kim Carr, just resume your seat. The time for debating this issue is after question time on both sides. Senator Kim Carr is entitled to be heard in silence. Just resume your seat, Senator Kim Carr. When the chamber is ready to proceed, we will proceed. Senator KIM CARR: What we have indicated is that we would mark this journey with clear objectives. We said that we would commit to this path for more than 20 years. We said that we would, of course, make this the great work of this current generation. And so historic funding has been committed to ensure that we do close the gap in this country; historic funding has been committed to ensure that life expectancy can increase and so that we can see increased improvements in housing and in health services and in early childhood development and in jobs and in remote service delivery. Today the Prime Minister has reported to the parliament on the impact of these investments, and there has been clear evidence of success in four of our targets: we promised to deliver access to early childhood education for all four year olds in remote communities, and that has been done; we promised to halve the gap in the child mortality rates by 2010, and we are on target; we promised to halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020, and we are ahead of schedule; and we promised to halve the gap in employment, and real progress has been made. (Time expired)