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

Parliamentary Secretary I would like to ask you a series of questions in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. I will give one example in relation to it. The Indigenous Advancement Strategy was hailed by the Abbott government as a centrepiece of its Indigenous policy. Indeed the parliamentary secretary has just mentioned $4.9 billion over four years. But for hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations across the country it has been a living nightmare, and they are still living with it. One year on many of them do not know where the axe will fall. This budget entrenches more than half a billion dollars in cuts from Indigenous programs and from Indigenous frontline services, which started in last year's budget. It confirms more than $145 million will be cut from Indigenous programs and services in this financial year, including $46 million for Indigenous health. The budget provides no relief from last year's budget cuts.

What has the Indigenous Advancement Strategy actually done? Last year the government forced all Indigenous organisations to compete in an open competitive tender process. More than $14 billion of applications were received with just $2.3 billion being available under the strategy. Alarmingly, about 75 frontline Indigenous services, including women's shelters, did not apply for that funding because they could not deal with the guidelines. Struggling with this massive oversubscription, the government rolled out $300 million just to keep organisations going for another six months, and this meant $2 billion was available. In March this year the government announced $860 million in funding for Indigenous programs and services. Many of the services were offered just a fraction of their previous funding to deliver the same services and many missed out altogether.

The Indigenous Advancement Strategy left many gaps in vital frontline services so your government, Parliamentary Secretary, was forced to release another $140 million in funding to fix those gaps. Now we learn that the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Nigel Scullion, is gap-filling even further with ad hoc funding offers, with demand driven and direct source funding. Parliamentary Secretary, by what process is the minister actually dealing with demand driven and direct source funding? How does he meet with them, when does he meet with them, how do they get access to him? On what basis or criteria does he make those decisions.

Two weeks out from the new financial year contracts have not been finalised for those organisations who have been notified that they are getting funding. The process is so bad that the submissions given to the Senate inquiry are damning. One of those organisations I would like to draw to your attention is the Bloodwood Tree Association, which operates the Bunara Maya hostel in Port Hedland. Initially they were forced through this process, and they got some interim funding to continue until 30 June 2015. They were told under the IAS they would get no money for the hostel they ran. Five Aboriginal staff members would lose their jobs. The gap-filling process offered an opportunity for the government to address the gap created by the forced disclosure. This is in Port Hedland, Parliamentary Secretary. About a year after the process began, the Bloodwood Tree Association was offered funding for another six months after a quick meeting with the minister. Again we are referring to the process by which those applications were made. Almost unbelievably the Minister for Indigenous Affairs has said that the half a billion dollars in cuts delivered through the IAS was simply an efficiency dividend. The minister guaranteed more than once that no frontline services would be cut. I ask you, Parliamentary Secretary, to explain what a frontline service actually is, according to your government. Does the Parliamentary Secretary stand by the minister's iron-clad guarantee that no frontline services have been cut? Can the Parliamentary Secretary confirm the cuts to be applied in this financial year? This budget did offer some additional investment in Indigenous Advancement Strategy, with $4.8 million allocated for further funding indexation in 2018-19. This is of little comfort, Parliamentary Secretary, to the many organisations which have not got funding beyond this financial year. I ask the parliamentary secretary: how many organisations have actually been contracted until 2018-19? Is this new money? What modelling has been done to arrive at this $4.8 million—at this indexation figure, as the budget shows? Will the parliamentary secretary disclose the modelling? If so, when?

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