Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

How are you, Deputy Speaker Irons? I hope you did not take too much notice of that rubbish you heard just a moment ago, with great respect to my colleague the member for Wright. I will come back to him shortly.

I will use the first part of this speech on the appropriation bills to talk about a very sad event. Last Friday I attended a funeral at Mutitjulu, the township alongside Uluru. That funeral was for Kunmanara Randall, a man who was born on 10 September 1934 at Angus Downs station, not far from Uluru, in Central Australia. He died on 12 May this year. In 1970 he wrote what became, really, an anthem for the stolen generation: Brown Skin Baby (They Take Him Away). He was later part of several documentaries highlighting the issue of the stolen generation, the forced removal of Aboriginal kids.

Kunmanara Randall himself, at the age of seven, was taken away from his mother and family under the then policy of forced removals, so he was himself a member of the stolen generation. He was initially taken to The Bungalow in Alice Springs, the old telegraph station used as an orphanage for Aboriginal kids, and later was sent to Croker Island off the coast of Arnhem Land. Mr Randall was kept in government institutions until he was 20, when, with his new wife and baby, he was banished for questioning the authorities, for raising issues around the welfare of those members of the stolen generation who were in the custody, effectively, of the state but in the care of the church on Croker Island. He subsequently moved to Darwin and later to Adelaide—working, studying and looking for his family and his country of belonging.

After many years of seeking but not finding, he did finally accomplish his task. He found his roots and returned to his mother country at Mutitjulu, where he then lived. Mr Randall worked as an educator and leader in equal rights, land rights, environmental responsibility, Indigenous cultural awareness and preservation, and community development. During the period he lived in Darwin, he established several organisations, including a pony club, a boxing club and a folk club. He worked as a counsellor through the Methodist Uniting Church and led a country music band that worked in regional Aboriginal communities. Mr Randall helped establish Adelaide's Aboriginal Community College, served as a director of the Northern Territory Legal Aid Service and worked to establish Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander centres at the Australian National University, the University of Canberra and the University of Wollongong.

In the late 1970s, Mr Randall earned widespread recognition for his anthem, his song—and I hope you have heard it, Mr Deputy Speaker; if not, I commend it to you—My Brown Skin Baby (They TakeHim Away). It is a marvellous, very emotive piece of music. It is a dreadful story but well told in this beautiful song. It focused national and international attention on the issue of the stolen generation. The song exposed the government's policy of stealing Aboriginal kids and opened the door for Indigenous storytellers and songwriters across the country. It led to the filming of a documentary by the same name which won the Bronze Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Subsequently the Australian government stopped taking children away from their families.

His lifelong efforts to retain Aboriginal culture and restore equal rights for all were recognised in 1999 when he was named NAIDOC's Person of the Year. In 2004, he was inducted into the Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame, recognising the historical significance of that classic song—and another: Red Sun, Black Moon. Mr Randall authored four books, including his autobiography, Songman, and three books for children: Tracker Tjuginji, Stories From Country and Nyuntu Ninti. He contributed his personal story of being stolen to the anthology Stories of Belonging: Finding Where Your True Self Lives, edited by Kelly Wendorf and published in 2009.

In 2006, Mr Randall co-produced and narrated the award-winning documentary Kanyini. Kanyini was voted Best Documentary at the London Australian Film Festival 2007, winner of the Inside Film Independent Spirit Award and winner of the Discovery Channel Best Documentary Award in 2006. Mr Randall continued to write and teach throughout the world, presenting teachings based on the Anangu 'Kanyini' principles of caring for the environment and each other with unconditional love and responsibility. His tireless dedication called Indigenous people to reclaim their Aboriginal identities and regain lives of purpose so that the relevance of ancient wisdom to modern living is properly understood. Kunmanara Randall died earlier this month and, as I say, was buried last week at a very moving ceremony at Mutitjulu. My condolences go to his family.

Sadly, though, it was during this last week that we learnt that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has terminated the contract for the delivery of link-up services by the Central Australian Stolen Generations and Families Aboriginal Corporation. Link-up services are funded by the federal government to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people separated from their families under past laws, practices and policies of successive governments to undertake tracing of and reunion with families. It is extremely disappointing that here, on National Sorry Day, and subsequent to the funeral of this wonderful man, there is still no indication of whether this money is going to be made available or to whom it is going to be given to provide these very, very important services.

That brings me to the budget, which is clearly grossly unfair. We only have to look at the NATSEM modelling to demonstrates its unfairness. Nine out of 10 of the lowest income families lose under the Abbott government's second budget, while nine out of 10 of the wealthiest families benefit. I quote here from an article in The Australian from earlier this week:

The NATSEM modelling showed the disposable income of couples with children, with household incomes of around $50,000 (those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution) would see a 7.1 per cent reduction in their annual disposable income by 2018.

Those in the top fifth, with incomes of more than $120,000 a year, would see a 0.2 per cent increase.

How could anyone not see this as being grossly unfair? The range of losses for single parents is similar. According to the article:

The losses of income in the analysis overwhelmingly reflect policy decisions taken in last year's budget that are still budgeted to happen (even if they haven't been legislated yet).

No-one, not even those with the rosiest glasses on the government benches, can see this as anything but an unfair budget.

I noted the contribution of the member for Wright and his arduous defence—or ardent defence; it was arduous to listen to—of the government's budget. I am not sure what sorts of books people on the government benches read, but it appears that they do not read books about reality or the reality of the years that Labor was in government, the issues to do with the global financial crisis, the way it was dealt with and how those measures held Australia at a position so that we have such a strong economy. While there are cheap points often being scored by the government side about debt and deficit, this government has increased the debt, doubled the deficit and increased unemployment. That is the benefit of the Abbott government's first budget, which was a horror budget—and you know it was a horror budget, Mr Deputy Speaker Irons; not that I would say you were responsible for it. Let me say that it is very clear that all government members know what a horror budget it was, and they are now trying to say to the world that, somehow or another, this latest budget is something different. Well, it ain't because it still contains all of those measures from last year which are going to hurt Australian families. Just while I am on it, the member for Wright made much of the instant asset write-off. He knows, I know, you know – everyone in this parliament knows – that it was introduced by the Labor government and knocked off by the Abbott government. We have had a conversion in the road to Damascus, as it were, and a commitment to small business which sees the government reintroduce something that was introduced by Labor.

Let me go quickly to the issue health, and Aboriginal health in particular. I notice that there are no dollars committed in this budget for the implementation of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan, which the government says it is committed to. There is no money made available to it, so I am not sure how that commitment could be evidenced in the way in which this budget has been framed.

We know that somehow or another, magically, dropping off this year's budget was a figure of $4.5 million—I think it was $4.5 million—in last year's budget for the out years 2017-18 for the continuation of the trachoma eradication campaign. It does not appear in this year's budget. It is not in the forward estimates anymore. It has mysteriously dropped off. What does that say about this government's commitment to the elimination of trachoma  – Australia, the only First World country with trachoma? We are committed to getting rid of it by 2020 and this government says to us now that it is going to cease funding in 2016-17 and has taken away the commitment that was in the previous budget for 2017-18. Last year, of course – and I have spoken about last year's budget and its impact – we saw them rip out half a billion dollars from Aboriginal and Torres Islander funding and $160 million of that from Aboriginal health. That money has not been replaced. You have to ask yourself the question: what the hell is going on?

We have seen the government talk bountifully about a $5 billion infrastructure loan facility in Northern Australia. No-one has explained to us how this will actually work, what the relationship is between this loan and the unreleased white paper on developing Northern Australia, the Abbott government's Northern Australia Strategic Partnership—which includes the Prime Minister, the premiers of Queensland and Western Australia and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory—or the Prime Minister's Northern Australia Alliance comprising Advance Cairns, Broome Future and the Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce. There are no details at all about how this $5 billion loan facility will operate. Infrastructure Australia released an audit of Northern Australia infrastructure just prior to the budget. Its key message is that what is required in Northern Australia is a priority to maximise the efficiency of existing infrastructure, including maintenance backlogs.

I am going to be running out of time shortly, but I want to talk about regional Australia in terms of funding. We heard today in question time that about 51 projects received, under the Commonwealth National Stronger Regions Fund, total funding applications worth $212 million. Only one from the Northern Territory was funded. Oddly, it was $4.8 million for a swimming pool in Parap, a wealthy middle-class suburb of Darwin.

Regions have the potential to be the economic powerhouse for the Northern Territory with their cattle, mining and tourism assets, but they cannot do it without significant Commonwealth support. Of eight territory projects applied for under this funding proposal, one of them was the unsuccessful Roper Gulf Regional Council, which had already received a commitment of $1 million from the Northern Territory government for an innovative regional transport hub proposal for Ngukurr, Numbulwar and Borroloola. They have not been funded, but a swimming pool in Parap has been funded. But, of course, the criteria for regional development funding, including the policy intent, is that 'all projects must deliver an economic benefit to disadvantaged regions'.

I just ask you to think about this: relative advantage-disadvantage – Parap, a middle-class suburb of Darwin, with already an existing swimming pool and swimming infrastructure, or remote communities in the north end of the Barkly and the southern part of Arnhem Land and the Borroloola region who are extremely disadvantaged. You do not have to be Einstein to work out what is going on here—a political fix done, despite the protestations of the government and its commitment to saying that it was going to be doing the right thing by the regions.

I also wanted to talk about the petrol tax. Of course, we know—you know and I know—that the people most disadvantaged by the increase in fuel excise will be people who live in my electorate of Lingiari. They will be doubly taxed, not only as a result of the fuel excise but as a result of the GST that goes on the final price of fuel. This is an absolute misery of a budget for people who live in the bush. You know it, I know it and everyone on the government benches know it. (Time expired)

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