Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The worst form of praise is self-praise, but I am going to indulge in a bit of that. We have to look at success stories. The library tells me I was the longest serving Aboriginal affairs minister in Australian history—and I was only in the job for about seven years. I found an article that states:

Mr Pearson—

Noel Pearson—

during his speech, also praised the work of controversial Queensland MP, Bob Katter.

Mr Pearson said:

Through the course of a deranged ministry—

he was referring to the situation before I came in—

Katter dragged Indigenous affairs in Queensland into the 20th century. You would have to have lived and grown up on a Queensland reserve as I did to appreciate the huge changes he effected to rigid systems of state control over Aboriginal affairs that had hardly changed since the turn of the century.

He went on to say that I was one of the best Aboriginal affairs ministers. Father Frank Brennan—definitely no great flatterer of mine—said to the Courier Mail that ‘Bob Katter Jr, the new federal member for Kennedy, was the best government person he had ever dealt with in Aboriginal affairs when he was minister for Aboriginal affairs in the Queensland government’. I think that four Sixty Minutes stories were done on me and what we were doing in the department at that time—and they were all highly praiseworthy.

This was an extraordinarily successful model. What was the magic formula we used? I have listened to previous speakers, and some of them are very good people. The member for Gwydir said we have to act to give these people a fair go. The essence of what he was saying seemed to be that policing was the area we had to look at. I do not mean to denigrate any of these people. Mr Fitzgerald, the person who destroyed the Queensland government, was paid a lot of money to disclose that the problem was alcohol. What his report essentially said was that, if alcohol were banned, the problems would be solved. It was a very deep and far-reaching intellectual achievement to tell them that alcohol was the problem!

The member for Fremantle said we should listen to the people who work with them and know their problems. Quite frankly, from my experience, they are the last people I would listen to. The member for Grey said we should give them education. I do not really know why—and I am at a loss as to how you would give it to them. You cannot force children to go to school. Parents cannot force their children to do anything these days. If a kid does not want to go to school, I am at a loss as too how you can give them education.

At Camooweal in my day we had two wonderful teachers. One of them would go to the front of the Aboriginal community and the other would go to the back. When the kids flew out the back, he would grab them, throw them in the back of the kombi van and take them to school. That is how they got them to school. So, Member for Grey, how would you go about getting them to school? Are we going to belt them? We would then have them taken from us.

I will continue on about how marvellous I am. George Mai was a legendary leader, and a great friend and mentor of Father Passi. In fact, Eddie Mabo was kicked out on the second day of the Mabo case and Father Passi, a man of towering integrity and presence, took his place. George Mai, a legendary leader for some 20 or 30 years in the Torres Strait, was kind enough to say I was the best minister he had ever worked with. What was the magic formula? I suppose I had the advantage of playing in football teams. If you look at my wall, you will see all the football teams there. I was brought up and mixed with Aboriginal children. Some of my best friends are Aboriginal. Last time I watched a state of origin match, in Mount Isa, one of my good mates of Aboriginal descent was there. They taught me to ride a horse. They taught me a lot of what I knew about playing rugby league football. They taught me about mining as well.

So I had an advantage, but that was not the reason. The reason was that the one thing nobody said was, ‘Please, for Heaven’s sake, go out and listen to them.’ This is nothing very complicated. When we went out there, I vividly remember a picture on my wall of Jackson Choicha and Eddie Holroyd at what is now Poomperau. I said, ‘Just tell us what you want.’ They said, ‘We want self-management.’ I said, ‘Righto, you’ve got that; it’s on its way. What else do you want?’ They said, ‘We want to have a go at the cleanskins.’ I said, ‘You’re going to have to build yards. You can’t do that on government land.’ The government was not going to put out money to build yards on government land, so I told them they might need to take up some land. They said, ‘We can’t do that.’ So I said, ‘I’m the minister. If you want to take up land, take it up.’ I did not know whether I could deliver, but I said that I could. One of the 60 Minutes segments was done on Jackson Choicha and Eddie Holroyd.

We said, ‘From now on, you build your own homes totally.’ In Queensland we got agreement that all houses would be built by Aboriginals and some 700 jobs were created out of nothing. Until then white contractors were building all of the houses in Queensland or we were buying existing houses. From now on every house would be built by exclusively black labour. This was not easy. I think there were at least a dozen sackings in my department. I went out and inspected site after site myself to enforce the decision that had been taken by the Aboriginal coordinating council in Queensland. Gerhard Pearson, Noel’s brother, said, ‘Why can’t we use the CDEP money?’ That was started off by another Hopevale resident. Two 60 Minutes segments were done on the CDEP Work for the Dole program, which was commenced by a person of Aboriginal descent from Hopevale, home of Matty Bowen, the famous rugby league player. It was commenced by Greg and then Gerhard said, ‘Why can’t we start using CDEP people to build the homes?’

So we went from building three homes a year, and then Donnie Fraser at Doomadgee, another person of Aboriginal descent—these are people doing it themselves—said, ‘Can we get block-making machines?’ So we bought seven or eight, and they did not cost a lot, only about $70,000 apiece. So they were building almost everything they needed. Apart from the fittings and the roofs, everything was being built at the Doomadgee and Hopevale sites. The entire cost of the houses—that $60 million or $70 million that we were spending each year in Queensland—suddenly was providing jobs for all of these people.

With the cattle incentive, in the Aboriginal areas of Queensland we had mustered 1,874 head of cattle before these programs started. By 1985 we were mustering 4,285 head of cattle a year. In the Torres Strait, where the industry was fishing, they went from around $200,000 to $3 million a year—most of that was concentrated on Badu Island.

There was an absolutely remarkable success story with cattle, and the reason was that the government was running the whole fishery up there and the people of Torres Strait Islander descent could not run or own anything themselves. We came along and said, ‘What about the land?’ They were given a choice about whether they wanted tribal ownership, land council ownership, local government ownership—because we were setting up local government—private ownership or a continuation of state government ownership. Surprise, surprise. They all said they wanted to own their own homes and farms themselves.

I do not know of a single government in Australia that has delivered to the black people the simple right to own their own homes. Nobody has been up there to ask them, because the last time I visited Yarrabah the chairman was banging his fist on the table and saying, ‘The only place in the world you can’t own your own home is at Yarrabah.’ They looked at me and I said, ‘Doomadgee, Palm Island—you name the place; you’re not allowed to own your own home.’ And this is in that 40 per cent of Australia that is owned by people of Aboriginal descent.

The money that is handed out by the state and federal governments to these people because they are of Aboriginal descent works out to about $80,000 a family. I have to honestly say I do not see any of my blackfella mates driving around in Volvo motorcars. So where is the $80,000 going? It sure is not going into black pockets. Forty per cent of the surface area of Australia is owned by people of Aboriginal descent, but they cannot access it. They do not really own anything; it is tribal ownership.

The initiative for them to build their own homes was abandoned; they are all back being built by contractors in Queensland and 700 jobs have gone up in smoke. Everything humanly possible has been done to smash private ownership in the reserve areas of Queensland, including by the incoming ALP government, which took the right to private ownership—(Time expired)

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