Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst this is a cognate debate, I want to talk in particular about the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Bill 2005. The honourable member for Hughes—and I do welcome her contribution—spoke about Maningrida and Maningrida art. Earlier this year, when we were looking at the problems that were being created by 13,000 illegal Indonesian fishing boats entering our territorial waters, I visited that community, and I can affirm the excellence of the art that is produced at Maningrida. I certainly thank the community for the warm hospitality that was shown to me and my colleagues, including the Labor senator for the Northern Territory and the honourable member for Lingiari, who was a key person in arranging the details of the visit.

I was very interested also that the member for Hughes mentioned the sea ranger program. I have had extensive questions about that program put on the Notice Paper, because there is a significant difference between the way Customs treats sea rangers and the way the Defence Force utilises our Indigenous community as part of the ADF. I know your great interest in defence, Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, and you would be pleased to know—I am sure you already know—that the Indigenous community in the north make an invaluable contribution to our defence forces through the reconnaissance units that they largely man. But Defence treats them completely differently in the north of Australia. They are actually members of the Defence Reserves and they are remunerated like any other reservists. I think that that is proper. The job that they do is valued. We could not do it without them and their remuneration is, I think, significant and recognises the value of their contribution.

The sea ranger project, as the honourable member for Hughes points out—and I agree with her—is doing a very worthwhile thing in the north of Australia and particularly in the Northern Territory, with its extensive coastline. I will not say that the people participating in the project receive nothing from Customs; I have had it recorded in an answer to a question that they do receive Customs mugs and key rings as a way of thanking them for their valuable work. If you talk to sea rangers, you find they actually want to contribute more. They would welcome proper training by Customs. They are more than happy not only to detect but to interdict these 13,000 illegal boats that invade our sea space and our coastline every year. When I was at Maningrida, they not only had a very fast boat that they used and would like to use more; they also had an aeroplane. But they are not authorised to use that plane. If they were allowed to use it, they would not look for great recompense—that is, being able to depreciate the aeroplane et cetera—but actually being able to have the fuel supplied would be worthwhile.

I admire—as the Department of Defence and the ADF do—the Indigenous component of our reserve force in our north. The work they do is highly esteemed and valued and they are appropriately and not differentially treated within the reserves. We could not do without them. Like the honourable member for Hughes, I recognise the valuable work that the sea rangers are currently doing. I say to Customs: take a fresh look at it. I apologise to the member for Hughes and to the House, but I actually put a question on the Notice Paper about whether or not Customs gives or proposes to give those sea rangers cigarettes, tea, flour and sugar. I got the response, of course, that they do not, but no-one in the department, much less the minister, understood the irony in the question.

Maningrida is a great place and the sea rangers are great people, and I felt very privileged to be there. But why am I interested in the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Bill 2005? The bill makes quite a number of changes. It is intended to introduce modern governance standards while maintaining a special statute of incorporation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Consequential, Transitional and Other Measures Bill 2006 facilitates the transition from the old to the new regime and the Corporations Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations) Bill 2006 addresses cross-jurisdictional issues. The legislation implements a key recommendation by retaining a special incorporation statute to meet the needs of Indigenous people. It introduces a legislative framework that maximises alignment with the Corporations Act where practical but provides the flexibility to incorporate specific cultural practices to reflect the needs of individual groups. As most of the corporations—but not all, I might say—are located in rural areas, the registrar provides safeguards via unique regulatory powers.

There was, in my view, an inconsistency in the current arrangements in the ability to prosecute the general managers and chief executive officers of Aboriginal organisations. There was a bit of a void. There was an attempt to fix it by way of regulation, but clearly the changes in this legislation make it abundantly clear that a general manager or chief executive cannot hide behind the fiduciary responsibilities that board members of these associations have.

This is particularly painful for me because I have already previously raised the issue in the context of an Aboriginal childcare centre. It is not the only federally funded organisation that has gone belly up. In fact, I was very pleased to see a ‘white run’, if you like, organisation that was defrauding the Commonwealth closed down very sharply and swiftly when I raised the matter in this House. Murawina has a special place in my heart. It was originally founded in Janet Street. That was the street that I moved to in Mount Druitt when I was 17. As the local federal member, in the mid-eighties I was successful in having the childcare centre transferred to Tooloon Street, a bit further but not much more than a block away from the CBD of Mount Druitt.

The facilities for Aboriginal kids attending that childcare centre were really great. A friend of mine, an elder now, Danny Eastwood, a renowned Aboriginal artist from my community, was instrumental in the establishment and good functioning and governance of that childcare centre. For many years, it was a very successful organisation. It was something that I was very proud of. In fact, I recall that some of the neighbours of the childcare centre, before it was operational, came to see me and complained bitterly about the loss of value of their homes and the wild orgies and corroborees that might be held et cetera. Well, none of their fears transpired. The organisation for many years went from strength to strength, as it should have. It was a well-run childcare centre meeting the special needs of our Indigenous kids.

In recent times, that has not been the case. We have not only had a board of management that has run this childcare centre into the ground but we have also had a chief executive officer who, under the previous regime, may have felt that she was immune from any charges and that it would be only the board members that would be charged. Some $900,000 has gone missing. It is in default by $900,000—that really takes some special effort. At Christmas time last year—and I thank the government for it—the government provided an extra payment whilst the centre was still operating to meet the salaries or wages of the staff working at the centre. The government could have made out very strong arguments about why they should not have done it, but they did, and I am grateful. I would like to report to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, that all that money went to those that it was intended to go to. That extra payment, which was effectively an ex gratia payment to the centre, did not go to the people who were working in that centre. The centre has now closed.

I have had meetings with the Indigenous community. I am pleased to say that the federal Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs representatives were the only representatives who were prepared to come to that meeting. I commend them for it. The state Department of Community Services and the state Department of Fair Trading did not, but the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs did. The one thing those parents of Aboriginal children who used to go to Murawina want—as indeed do some of the workers that turned up to these public meetings—is for the guilty parties to be prosecuted.

We are currently at a bit of an impasse. I am disappointed that I do not have the same level of interaction with the federal department that I enjoyed when Kay Patterson was the minister. I regret that. There has been an audit completed of the childcare centre. And there is an attempt, because the land was originally owned by ASIC, that the covenant on the land in the name of the Commonwealth should be removed and the auditor allowed to sell the childcare centre and land. I strongly support the Commonwealth and the minister in ensuring that that does not happen—the covenant should stay in place. I regret to say that it is a matter for the state Department of Fair Trading as to whether or not the auditor can complete a forensic audit. We need a forensic audit so that the auditor can then present to state or federal police the details of how one childcare centre can go into deficit to the tune of $900,000. At this stage, I am unable to say to the House whether or not such an audit will be undertaken, and I think that that is wrong.

This legislation is really fixing up the fact that, if a forensic audit is done and it is found that the board and the chief executive officer—or general manager, or whatever the title is—has done the wrong thing, then we can bring them to justice, which is what my Indigenous community wants. Without that forensic audit, it will be problematic. I take the view that these things need to be aired publicly. I do not think we should try to sweep them under the carpet. In fact, again, this is what the community wants. They are so savage about and so critical of how this organisation has been deliberately run down.

For too long, the community in my electorate has been without any dedicated Aboriginal childcare. I repeat that, Mr Deputy Speaker: outside of the Northern Territory, I have the largest urban Aboriginal community in Australia, and we are currently without childcare.

I want to make a couple of pleas. I say to the minister, Mal Brough: my intention has always been—and I think I have proved my credentials on this—that we should work together. We need to work together and we need to work together with the states as well—and local government, for that matter—and get this fixed up as quickly as possible and get an Aboriginal childcare centre operating as quickly as possible out of the Murawina premises. It would initially, hopefully, be auspiced by the local council but in the future turned over to the community, but with the community being backed up by proper governance or instruction on proper governance by any board that is established. It would also involve fully informing the parents of those children what their rights are.

I have to say that, in this sorry saga, at one time dodgy bills were sent out to every parent who had sent a child to Murawina children’s centre. It was a way of trying to demonstrate in the Supreme Court of New South Wales that the centre had access to money and should therefore be allowed to continue operating. I am pleased to say that, with the assistance of advice from legal aid, we were able to counter that. For everyone who approached us with a dodgy bill, we were able to counter it, and finally we had them withdrawn.

I do, as quickly as possible, want to brag about a new Murawina centre that is providing services for the Aboriginal kids in my electorate, doing a fantastic job and getting them well on their way on the path of learning. I certainly support this bill. I certainly support the fact that there is no immunity now for any general manager or chief executive of an Aboriginal body or corporation that does the wrong thing under the law. They should understand that, like any other citizen in this country, they will be subject to the law and proper and due process.

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