Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The 18 months since the election of the Rudd government and its commitment through the apology to Aboriginal Australia could be summed up in one old adage: talk is cheap. When we gathered here last year in a show of bipartisanship for the apology, and the Prime Minister pledged to ‘close the gap’, I inwardly asked myself what the future would be like. What would this commitment mean? Well, so far, not that much.

A lot has been said about the gross inefficiency of the housing program in the Northern Territory, the $672 million program which is now expected to deliver less than 300 houses, the administrators given jobs with nothing to do, the new Hi Luxes, and the building supervisors with nothing to supervise. In short, it is a disaster—another disaster of management to go with the Building the Education Revolution, GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch, and shortly, I suspect, by the National Broadband Network about which I spoke in this place yesterday.

As the member for Grey, I represent all of South Australia’s remote Aboriginal population. In particular, though, when we talk about government commitments to housing, I represent the APY Lands. The government has made a commitment in this part of the world to $25 million worth of housing projects in Mimili and Amata. I can report to the House that, as of today, there is no more to show for these commitments than with the housing program in the Northern Territory. Despite the agreements reach with the APY Council in August last year—more than 12 months ago—not one new house has been built under the program. Housing has been erected on the lands, not in the nominated communities, but rather at Indulkana. I believe some are about to be erected in Fregon. The great irony here is that these houses are funded under the previous government’s building program.

None of the goodwill of the apology expressed by the Prime Minister at the time has yet hit the ground in these communities. Last year, preceding the minister’s announcement in August, there was much public grandstanding both by the state and federal ministers, effectively holding a gun at the head of the APY council over the granting of 50-year leases. I might add at this stage that I do support those leases. However, the council did give ground at that time and agreed to the leases. But since that time I have to report that disillusionment has been growing with the fact that there has been no action. The government has made commitments to the construction of the houses and has made commitments that this construction will provide jobs for Aboriginal people: a 20 per cent employment target. We shall see, because unless there are jobs, and unless there is opportunity for the Anangu, the Aboriginal people, to participate in the real economy, with real jobs for those who live on the lands, their lives will eventually be destroyed by the welfare cycle—much of which has been written about by Noel Pearson, Mal Brough, Warren Mundine, the good member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, and others.

The houses proposed to be built by this program will also be destroyed by the depressing circle of life which is powered by this welfare cycle: low educational outcomes, appalling health, erosion of traditional values, alcohol and drug dependence and—worst of all—the violence visited upon the most vulnerable. If the government can ever get its act together, if it can deliver the real worth and actually get the houses on the ground at value rate, it will help, but it is only part of the jigsaw. At the same time, children must attend school, and on this issue the government has failed to take responsibility for rolling one of the great success stories of the intervention, that is, income management, into South Australia.

I was in Alice Springs recently to meet with the NPY Women’s Council and was left in no doubt of their unequivocal support for income management. It is a better outcome for families, children and women. Some of these women had originally opposed income management; now they are its strongest supporters. So as we hear the stories of the government considering rolling back on the intervention, let me advise on behalf of these women: do not roll back, roll out. Take the intervention over state borders and into the rest of the communities that have the same issues as the Northern Territory. As I said, the success of any housing project and the longevity of any project will be governed by other issues in these communities. True success will be achieved by strengthening governance structures, by insisting on educational outcomes that are the norm in the rest of Australia, by having nil tolerance to violence and abuse and, very importantly, by ensuring we have trained Aboriginal tradesmen at the end of the project who are not just capable of servicing the local communities but capable of competing in the outside world. (Time expired)

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