Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am repeating what is the case in 2010. In April 2008, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, increased the commitment of funding to $547 million over four years with an additional $100 million to be provided to the Northern Territory government, given their massive failures. This $647 million was later increased to $672 million to provide 750 new houses—230 new houses that would replace houses that were earmarked for demolition because they were in such bad repair—and over 2,500 housing upgrades for essential infrastructure to support these new homes and improvements to living conditions in the town camps. Work was due to begin in October 2008 and was to be completed by 2012. Unfortunately, the Labor government has failed at every turn to deliver on these commitments and promises. This is a monumental tragedy with real human outcomes. We are seeing intergenerational poverty, shorter life spans and lost life opportunities because families cannot even have decent shelter. It is an insult to people who have to live in Third World conditions. Sadly, the dollars have been committed in the budget but have not been efficiently delivered via the states or territories, or in partnerships with them, so that our Indigenous Australians can at least be better served, have some privacy, look after their children better, have a toilet that works and have water infrastructure that functions.

The community of Maningrida, for example, was to be consulted closely on what sort of housing was to be built, and we have to say that sometimes it is this very consultation that takes up a lot of dollars and does not lead to an outcome. At Maningrida, Senator Scullion has said:

… more than $45 million was spent on consultations, administration and other bureaucratic expenses before a single house slab was poured, a single nail driven or a single brick laid.

That is, $45 million was spent on consultation and not one single step taken towards better housing for anyone in that community, and that is despite money having been available since 2007 to do that better house construction work.

This bill may not deliver what this Labor government hopes it will in the form of even better strategies to have housing constructed. I say it may not because this government sadly has a history of maladministration and poor project management. Unfortunately, with Indigenous housing, whether it is building or renovation, we cannot afford to have mismanagement continue. We saw mismanagement, as I said, with the pink batts, with the Building the Education Revolution program, with the Green Loans program and with child care. But in this instance we have to hope that this government finally gets it right. We understand they wish to make a difference; now they have got to put some skills and proper management processes in place. They have to hold states and territories accountable, and if this bill helps at all then of course the coalition will not oppose it. But we do say that time is passing. The dollars have been on the table for more than three years now. The people in those remote communities in Australia continue to live and die in conditions that we would be ashamed of if they were anywhere near suburban backyards or if our own relations were experiencing those conditions. We need to be ashamed of those conditions, because our First Australians are living like that.

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