Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that both Commonwealth and state governments have historically shared responsibility for the delivery of services to remote Indigenous communities;

(2) condemns the government for cutting $500 million from Indigenous programs in the 2014-15 budget;

(3) notes that contrary to previous assurances by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, there has been an impact on frontline services;

(4) acknowledges the disastrous effect these cuts will have on people living in remote Indigenous communities; and

(5) calls on the government to restore the funding, and prevent the loss of frontline services.

Last year, we saw in the Abbott government's first budget, 2014-15, cuts of some $549 million to Aboriginal funding for programs around the country. They were, in my view, consistent with other cuts we saw in that budget whereby the Abbott government targeted some of Australia's most disadvantaged people and low-income families when it came to trying to balance its budget. It was, indeed, referred to as a very unfair and unjust budget. And rightly so; we saw a backlash against it right across the country.

What was particularly concerning was that some of those cuts did indeed disadvantage further some of the people in this country who are already at a terrible disadvantage. We saw from the debate then and the report of the committee that is steering closing the gap policies around the country that we are still far short of closing the gaps on a number of targets that we have set ourselves, whether it is to do with life span, education outcomes for early childhood and later on, work and employment opportunities for Indigenous people and housing and other measures that we quite often use. To then have $549 million cut from a program where we are already not meeting the targets that we set ourselves is in my view one of the most heartless cuts I have ever seen by a government in the time that I have followed politics.

It was particularly heartless because amongst the cuts will be cuts to front-line services such as power and water to remote Indigenous communities. I know that is going to affect communities in my home state of South Australia, but I also understand it will affect even more the communities in Western Australia, where some 270-odd Indigenous communities will be directly affected and where at one stage the Premier of Western Australia had indicated that some 150 of those communities may well close down.

It is all right for the Prime Minister to say that he understands the plight of Indigenous people in this country because he spends a week in a remote community or to say that the government cannot continue to fund lifestyle choices of Australian people, but the reality is—and it appears from these cuts—that what the government is really saying is that it does not care or simply does not understand the impact that these cuts will have.

So concerned were the Indigenous people about the cuts to remote communities that they indeed took the matter to the United Nations, and only last month it was debated there. My understanding is that the Australian government was, embarrassingly, condemned by an international body for its treatment of Indigenous people here in Australia.

I understand that in my home state there has been a temporary arrangement and some funding has been provided, but the truth of the matter is that even that only came to being because the Indigenous elders met a couple of months ago in desperation and forced the government to come to the party and do the right thing. It is no good for the government to simply say that these are state or territory matters and that it can offload its responsibility onto the states and territories.

My concern is this: for those remote people, in many cases that is the place they were born. It is the place they understand, and their connection with their land is paramount in their lives. Just as importantly, when they are pushed off their land, where do they go? To the fringes and outskirts of larger communities where sometimes they are unwelcome. Even if they are welcome, the truth is they find it hard to integrate and settle down. It is much more difficult to provide them the services when they are in camps on the outskirts of the communities than if they had remained in their own communities. Inevitably, it leads to other kinds of social problems, including at times petty crime and the like, which in turn means we clog up our court systems, our jails and our police operations.

This is short-sightedness on the part of the Abbott government that in the end will cost more money than what it saves and badly affects Indigenous people across this country.

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