Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

I extend my congratulations to the member for Mallee. His is a contribution with which I associate myself fully and I commend his words. In rising to speak on the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Emergency Response Consolidation) Bill 2008, I wish to start with some of my own experiences in the Northern Territory and in Indigenous communities around Australia. These are communities for which the old Dickensian line ‘these are the best of times and these are the worst of times’ is the prime model.

In my former role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, I was fortunate to have had responsibility for Indigenous protected areas. As I visited these Indigenous protected areas, as well as the community surrounding Uluru, which is the Mutitjulu community, I saw Indigenous communities which were successful—albeit imperfect but which were models for community development, models for the way in which we would hope an Indigenous society could progress—and I also saw examples of societies which represented many of the great disappointments which people on both sides of this chamber share in relation to Indigenous communities.

Let me start on the positive side. In Arnhem Land, in particular the Gove or Nhulunbuy area, I visited Yirrkala and, near to Yirrkala, the Indigenous protected areas of Dhimurru and Laynhapuy. What I saw in those communities was a model of self-help. In these communities there was a level of discipline and purpose which was in part derived from the Indigenous rangers programs that accompanied Indigenous protected areas. These programs represent the best of what we seek to achieve in working with Indigenous communities in Australia.

At the time I wrote pieces for the Australian and other forums where I set out the notion that the Indigenous protected areas model—in particular, the Indigenous ranger model—is a way forward for giving Indigenous communities a sense of purpose, meaningful work through connection with the land, training which is relevant to young children in those communities from an early age and a way forward right from the outset. I think that is a model that must be long term and that accompanies all of the elements which we sought to implement through the intervention in the Northern Territory.

On the other hand, at Mutitjulu, for example—and I say this with a heavy heart, not with any condemnation—on the edge of Uluru, the community there has suffered. I say this because the women of that community asked me to speak up at the time and asked me to speak up on subsequent occasions. They said to me that, yes, there were positive examples but, more importantly, there was a systemic flaw in that community. That was the systemic flaw which, in many cases, saw alcohol abuse, petrol sniffing, ganja and other forms of illicit drugs as the staples of day-to-day existence for young people and, in large part, for the adult male community. There were many, many dysfunctional males and the impact on that community and on each of those individual lives was tragic.

They talked to me about the problems of not only drugs but also pornography and, most importantly, the sexual abuse of young children, of minors and even of young women of age. This was said with a great and heavy heart. Of course, through the parks authority at the time, all steps were taken for immediate action, but it was an example of the very reason behind the intervention in the Northern Territory. It is why I supported the intervention wholeheartedly and with every fibre of my being.

The intervention was not about some sort of heavy-handed colonialism, as some would present it, but about the chance for these communities to break out of a stunningly vicious cycle. It was about the chance for many of these Indigenous communities to move away from a failed and, in my view, catastrophic system. Perhaps most importantly, it was about giving a chance to younger people who, as reported in the Little children are sacred report, had been made vulnerable to the most horrific of circumstances. That situation, of course, has the universal condemnation of everybody within this House and all right-minded and right-thinking people within Australia. There is no question or debate about that. Some will question the approach—and that is their right, their duty and their responsibility—but it is an approach which, having met with the women of Mutitjulu and having met with those in other communities which were more successful, I believe was the right approach.

I believe that, to the extent that this bill waters down many of those elements, it is making a mistake. I am not some great moralist in relation to many of these issues. I try to recognise that there are different views within our society and people have a right to take different approaches, even on things with which I personally disagree. But in relation, firstly, to the question of pornographic materials, I think that this bill sadly and misguidedly waters down the protections which were put in place in the initial intervention. That was a careful approach. It was a considered approach. I believe that this bill puts in the hands of those who are most likely to perpetuate the abuse the ability to ride roughshod over a community and to reinforce that abuse.

That, I believe, is a fundamental flaw. It is a reason why we must have serious reservations, because it empowers the very people, in my view, who have previously misused that power. It perpetuates a structure within a community which of itself is dangerous and damaging, given the nature and vulnerability of the community, and it perpetuates a power imbalance and reinforces that imbalance within that community. So I respectfully take issue and disagree with some of the changes made there. In my view, they are inappropriate.

There are many other elements, but I wanted to speak firstly about the broad concept of the intervention and secondly about a way forward. For me the positive way forward is about the expansion and development of Indigenous protected areas—or, as some have called them, Indigenous national parks—and in addition to that the allied principle of Indigenous ranger programs. I mentioned those at the outset, but for me these programs are a fundamentally important part of the next five, 10, 20 and 30 years within the Indigenous landscape. My view is that the Indigenous ranger program teaches respect for the land and respect for the culture and gives people hard-work skills.

Let me give an example. In Dhimurru and Laynhapuy in the Nhulunbuy area, south-west of Yirrkala in the Blue Mud Bay area, there are turtle recovery programs, dugong recovery programs, feral animal eradication programs and landscape protection programs. This is real and meaningful work which begins with junior rangers, moves through those programs, gives people training and certification and ultimately, I believe, gives people the full status and the opportunity to have a lifelong career as practical land managers—as fully equipped, coached, trained and prepared park rangers—but over their own land. That long-term approach is not the answer in and of itself. It is no substitute for law or for health, but it provides a fundamental sense of community development.

One of the other areas of discussion and concern is urban communities. Let me deal for a little while, because I have been looking for the opportunity to speak on this, with urban Indigenous communities in Australia. Having spent some time in my own area of Flinders with the Bunurong people, and in particular those folks who have lived on the Mornington Peninsula and in towns such as Hastings and Rosebud, there is a sense that Indigenous identity is lost in these urban communities. Of course, there is an age-old debate with regard to assimilation versus identity. I am one who strongly believes that, where Indigenous people are either forced or caused to lose their identity, there is a great sense of resentment. So we need to twin mainstream education in the urban environment with a sense of pride in Indigenous origin and heritage.

On that front, I want to commend two programs to this House. The first is in relation to the developments which are ongoing at Point Nepean on the Mornington Peninsula. I put this in the context of protecting families through the objectives, goals and aspirations within this bill. At Point Nepean on the Mornington Peninsula, we have set up on what was formerly Defence and quarantine land a long-term program to work firstly on marine education but secondly on Indigenous education. The former government funded students, in particular primary and secondary students, to do heritage training on land which it is believed has some of the most significant artefacts in all of Victoria. This land has become an iconic site. It is a unique opportunity to twin the needs of Indigenous communities with those of the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria and Australia more generally. I say that because what we have here is a parallel program in which there is an interchange. On the one hand you have the National Centre for Coasts and Climate, which is to be run by the University of Melbourne to engage in the study of the land and the coast. On the other hand you have a long-term objective of an Indigenous studies centre, alongside and in collaboration and cooperation.

What does that mean in practice? It means that young people who are from the Indigenous community will come from the Mornington Peninsula to do training and study in Indigenous heritage on their own lands, in their own area, with pride in what they are doing. This bill is primarily about the Indigenous communities of remote and rural Australia, but it is only part of the story. The second part, of course, is the urban communities. The first of the ideas around the urban communities is, as I say, this notion of parallel study and development that we have seen at Point Nepean.

Carolyn Briggs of the Bunurong has been an extremely important person in driving forward this project. Why has she been important? She was one of the first to identify the absolutely critical historical artefacts and the relevance of Point Nepean to the Indigenous people not just of the Mornington Peninsula but of Victoria and Australia more generally. I commend her work. She drove the establishment of an Indigenous studies centre as part of the work at Point Nepean. I say to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Glyn Davis: if you take the work that Melbourne university is doing and provide specific places for Indigenous primary and secondary students, in conjunction with the tertiary students, so as to help train and teach and use the honour that has been given to the university, if you give that same opportunity to the primary and secondary Indigenous students of the Mornington Peninsula, that will be a great service in terms of training and also in building identity and pride.

I also mentioned that there is a second urban element in my own area on the Mornington Peninsula that is providing a way forward by giving Indigenous students a sense of pride in their culture through what they do with their communities. We have to move away from the situation that I have seen in Hastings, Rosebud and Tootgarook, where, in some circumstances, there is a downwards spiral of alienation and disenfranchisement which comes about from a lack of work. This lack of work for the parents has been perpetuated through the generations. We need to focus very closely on the idea of targeted work and education programs over two generations simultaneously. For the parents, we have to focus on the work now in the Indigenous urban environment, and we have to give the children a sense of culture. I want to give an example that I have seen of the training of young kids on the New South Wales coast. They are going through an urban junior rangers program, giving them Indigenous education coupled with a sense of pride and a sense that they could have lifelong work.

I thank the House for this opportunity to talk about what I have been working on for a reasonable period now—the urban work, which is the corollary to the rural work. I commend the communities of the Bunurong people on the Mornington Peninsula. I recognise the challenge. They have made great strides, and I am delighted that they will be able to participate in the Point Nepean program. But I do know that we need to help with work opportunities and with the sense, for young people still at primary and secondary school, that they cannot be caught in a cycle of lifelong unemployment.

See this speech in context