Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes:

(1) notes that:

(a) the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples (Congress) is the national representative body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; and

(b) Congress:

  (i) was established with a view to creating a new relationship with governments to reset the relationship based on partnership and genuine engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; and

  (ii) is owned and controlled by its membership and independent of government;

(2) recognises:

(a) the important role of Congress as a leader and advocate for recognising the status and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as First Nations Peoples in Australia; and

(b) that the existence of an effective national body is essential to the Government's ability to fulfil its Closing the Gap targets;

(3) acknowledges that:

(a) Congress received Deductible Gift Recipient status in July 2013, allowing it to begin to pursue income opportunities with corporate Australia and the wider community;

(b) the previous government committed:

  (i) $29.2 million over four years to establish Congress; and

  (ii) $15 million over three years in the 2013 budget to support Congress to continue to develop income opportunities to sustain the organisation; and

(c) ongoing Commonwealth funding beyond 2013 is essential to support the continued sustainability of an independent national voice for First Nation Peoples;

(4) notes with concern that the Government plans to cut the $15 million funding and abandon the commitment to the sustainability of Congress as the national representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples; and

(5) calls on the Government to commit to the sustainability of a strong Congress by honouring the $15 million funding commitment.

The Prime Minister's budget of broken promises and betrayal gutted more than $500 million from programs that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. More than five weeks on, the government is yet to explain where most of the $500 million in cuts will fall. But the government had no trouble in deciding where to cut the first $15 million. Despite the government's rhetoric about a new engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the first cut this government made was to the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples. The then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, in a speech to the Sydney Institute, on 15 March last year, said:

I want a new engagement with Aboriginal people to be one of the hallmarks of an incoming coalition government—and this will start from day one …

Well, the Prime Minister honoured this commitment by cutting $15 million from congress, the national representative body, owned and operated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Labor are committed to genuine engagement and partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Central to Labor's efforts to strengthen relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has been our continuing support for the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples.

The congress was established to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia and to provide a national voice in policy development and evaluation, independent of government. Today, congress has a growing membership of over 7,500 individuals, as well as hundreds of organisational members.

We acknowledge the valuable role of congress as leaders and advocates for the recognition and status and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as Australia's first nation peoples. The Kimberley Language Resource Centre, which I had the honour and privilege about a year or so ago of attending, is an organisation affiliated with and is a member of congress, as is the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Legal Service North Queensland Inc, in my home state of Queensland, is also a member of the organisation.

Congress engage a youth forum, which started in 2012, a representative body, and continue to make valuable contributions to parliament and the public debate in terms of policies in relation to our Indigenous people. As a member of various committees, I have personally witnessed contributions that congress has made to inquiries into FASD, constitutional recognition, the Gonski funding model and of course into the early education of Indigenous people. They released an education policy after extensive consultation, addressing issues including early childhood education, employment transition from school, bilingual education, ATSIA content and curriculum teacher education courses.

They also partnered with the former federal Labor government and the member for Lingiari, when he was the Minister for Indigenous Health, in relation to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan. They had been holding governments of both persuasions to account in relation to closing the gap. Co-chairs Les Malezer and Kirstie Parker have said of policy in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples:

Nothing about us without us.

Closing the gap will not work as an exercise in paternalism. There is and must remain a partnership based on mutual respect, trust and acknowledgement. That is why Labor committed a further $15 million over three years in the 2013 budget; to ensure the continuation of this national voice, providing the views of Indigenous people to governments and community on issues and policy that affect them.

Of course we committed, as I said in the motion, $29.2 million over four years to establish the Indigenous congress. Kirstie Parker has been very critical of the current government in relation to the discontinuation of the $15 million. She said:

Discontinuation of $15 million set aside in the Budget Forward Estimates for Congress from 2014-17 amounted to censorship of independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices by stealth …

The tragedy in all of this is that the coalition government has adopted a paternalistic approach in relation to this issue, not consulting the peak body and not taking forward Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy in a good way. This funding should be restored.

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