responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face. In 1999 Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation drafted by Prime Minister John Howard and Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history". Prior to the calling of a 2007 federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, revisited the idea of bringing a referendum to seek recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution (his government first sought to include recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the Preamble to the Constitution in a 1999 referendum). The Labor opposition initially supported the idea; however, Kevin Rudd withdrew this support just prior to the election. In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough launched the Northern Territory National Emergency Response. In response to the Little Children are Sacred Report into allegations of child abuse among Indigenous communities in the Territory, the government banned alcohol in prescribed communities in the Northern Territory; quarantined a percentage of welfare payments for essential goods purchasing; despatched additional police and medical personnel to the region; and suspended the permit system for access to Indigenous communities. The policy was largely maintained under the Rudd and Gillard Governments. Notable contemporary Indigenous rights campaigners have included: federal politicians Ridgeway and Wyatt, lawyer Noel Pearson; academic Marcia Langton; and Australians of the Year Lowitja O'Donoghue (1984), Mandawuy Yunupingu (1992), Cathy Freeman (1998) and Mick Dodson (2009). As of 2016, there were five Indigenous people serving in the Federal Parliament of Australia. In 2016–17, the estimated direct expenditure per person was $44,886 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, which was around twice the rate for non-Indigenous Australians ($22,356). An annual report called "Closing the Gap" is presented to the parliament by the office of Prime Minister and Cabinet and it details the gap in multiple facets of life disproportionately affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared to non-Indigenous including education, life expectancy, infant mortality, employment, housing and criminal justice. Despite a decade of action though, the life expectancy gap continues to widen with only marginal if any improvements in other sectors of Indigenous affairs and according to Oxfam "they are still denied the same access to these services that non-Indigenous people take for granted". On 30 October 2019, Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison Government, announced the commencement of a "co-design process" aimed at