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

I acknowledge the contributions of the member for Brand and the member for Moore. I will talk to some of the issues around climate change little later. Sadly, I disagree with him. I guess that's to be expected!

Recently we had the release of the Closing the gap report, which provided a salutary reminder of how far we've yet to go to improve the outcomes for First Nations people across this country. I have often stood up in this place and bemoaned the way in which this government—and, for that matter, previous governments—has addressed the needs of first Nations People in this country and the lack of engagement with them around what programs might work in their communities and around programs that affect them. I'll come to that in more detail shortly. But it is clear that we need to be thinking about, and doing much better at, programs that are specific to First Nations communities across this country, reminding ourselves about the differences and diversity across First Nations populations in Australia.

Sadly, the Closing the gap report makes that very, very clear. It shows the difference in outcomes of people who live in major metropolitan centres across all domains and those who live in very remote communities, many of whom comprise a substantial proportion of the Aboriginal population who live in my electorate. What they emphasise, in my view, is that the appalling outcomes are in part a response to the failure by successive governments to engage with First Nations people, to provide the capacity for them to participate in the decision-making about programs that impact upon them and to give them the controlling decision-making over those programs. In fact, it's quite the opposite. There's been a dramatic withdrawal of those responsibilities, starting primarily with the abolition of ATSIC in the Howard government years, then the intervention in the Northern Territory which actually took away and denied any rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to have any role in decision-making about things that affected their lives, and that's largely remained the case since then.

The Productivity Commission publishes the Indigenous Expenditure Report which provides estimates of Australian state and territory government's expenditure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. When combined with other information, these estimates contribute to a better understanding of the adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency of government expenditure on services for First Australians. The most recent edition of this expenditure report was released in 2017.

What this report showed us very clearly was that large proportions of First Nations budget are not being spent in areas characterised as being specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in programs directly controlled and managed by them, but in fact a movement away from direct funding of Aboriginal community controlled organisations and engagement with Aboriginal organisations to mainstream funding. There's been quite a significant decrease, so the proportion of total funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people away from specific programs has declined from 22.5 per cent to 18 per cent. That raises some very serious questions.

If we really want to address these close the gap figures and if we take the government at its word—and we've heard the Prime Minister in this place say these things: they want to walk with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, make sure things are not being done to them but with them. All of those are fine words, but they're simply rhetoric, sadly. The evidence is very clear: there's absolutely no intention by this government to actually sit down, discuss and respond to the concerns of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the way in which government funding is affecting their lives.

Perhaps one of the best examples is the current determination by this government to impose the cashless debit card across the Aboriginal population in the Northern Territory when that population have said very clearly that they don't want that universally applied compulsorily across their communities. You can't, on the one hand, say that you are working with, understanding, listening to, talking to and allowing people to make their own decisions, and then ignore them. That's precisely what this government is doing.

This was built on the back of the appalling record of income management in the Northern Territory and the system which was applied as a result of the emergency response initiated by the Howard government with Prime Minister John Howard and then Minister Mal Brough imposing on the Northern Territory the intervention. The result was the provision of the compulsory BasicsCard. What study after study of compulsory income management has shown is that the BasicsCard and others don't work. Despite the fact that Aboriginal people say it doesn't work, despite the evidence it doesn't work, it's poorly targeted, it's not cost-effective, can result in very negative experiences—social stigmatisation, exclusion, financial hardship, increased stress, financial harassment, discrimination—and can damage financial management skills, the government's determined to now impose compulsorily, uniformly, across the Aboriginal population in the Northern Territory, 22,000 people, this new card.

You can't have it both ways. Sadly, this government fails to listen to what Aboriginal people have been saying. This is also true for another program which the government funds, and that is CDP. Aboriginal people have been telling the government that this program is a failure. All the evidence says it's a failure. Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are saying, 'Don't do this to us. We want a new program.' They've been telling me very clearly they want a program which looks something like the old CDEP—Community Development Employment Projects. Whether it's the same or similar really doesn't matter. But what we know about CDP is that it lacks community control, it penalises participants and it breaks down community wellbeing. We've seen an increase in break-and-enters to steal food, predominantly by children and young people, an increase in disengagement in all programs by young people in particular, an increase in domestic and family violence, an increase in financial coercion and family fighting, and an increase in mental health problems, feelings of shame, depression, sleep deprivation and hunger, and a decrease in the amount of money that is being spent on essential food. That's a health problem, and we've seen that writ large across the Northern Territory.

Aboriginal people have made very clear what they want. They want to be engaged with and they want to have agency over their lives. What the Productivity Commission's reports demonstrate is that they're not given that agency. Predominantly, the mainstream funding goes through mainstream agencies and doesn't engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, except perhaps in one domain: health. The health department directly funds 150-plus Aboriginal community controlled health organisations across this country. But they are Aboriginal community controlled health organisations. None of the other departments do this. In education, for example, there is no equivalent. There's no real engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community around educational outcomes anymore. There's no real engagement around housing. We've seen less money going into housing than previously was the case, and that adds to the compounding effects of poor decision-making and a lack of awareness and concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the outcomes that they should be achieving through these budget measures. There are simple solutions: just do as you say you're going to do. Give Aboriginal people control instead of the position you've adopted. Hear the voice, provide them with the capacity to run their own lives and do things differently, and we will get better outcomes.

The other matter I want to talk to briefly today is climate change. I'm embarrassed, frankly, by the very nature of the debate in this chamber around climate change. We've seen the hysteria, the hyperbole and the hypocrisy of the Morrison government, refusing to accept the legitimacy of a zero net emissions target for 2050, despite the evidence that's there for all to see. They have tried to maximise an opposition to this based on fallacies and they are ignoring the advice of people they would otherwise listen to. They are ignoring the actions of the state and territory governments, the international community, BHP, the Commonwealth Bank and other institutions, all of whom are supporting net zero emissions by 2050. Why is it so hard? The tragedy is that there are many on that side of the chamber who believe they should listen. Some would ordinarily listen to organisations such as the Rural Health Alliance.

I want to commend the Rural Health Alliance for producing a position paper on climate change and rural health. The Rural Health Alliance has acknowledged that 'climate change is having global health effects', that 'climate change is a risk multiplier in that it exacerbates pre-existing health and social issues', that 'rural, regional and remote communities are disproportionately at risk of direct climate change health effects from exposure', that 'climate change causes indirect health effects that are predominantly mediated through changes in the biosphere resulting in: an increase and change in the pattern of vector-borne, water-borne and zoonotic disease; air pollution from bushfires, dust and aeroallergens; food insecurity from changes in land use, crop yield, biodiversity loss and drought; issues of water scarcity, quality and affordability; migration and forced displacement; and social unrest and conflict'.

Well, hear, hear! The Rural Health Alliance represents the health interests of people who live outside of major metropolitan centres. These are the people in regional and remote Australia that the National Party and the Liberal Party say they represent, but they won't listen to them. What those people know is that they've got to mitigate the effects of climate change and take direct action around making sure that we effect a change in the way we do our business to avoid the monumental disaster that will happen to us with global warming. The ignorance which is being perpetrated by the government is astounding. As I said before, the hypocrisy, the hyperbole and the hysteria they're generating doesn't warrant the sort of attention they're being given. Let's have a reasonable discussion in this country about climate change and understand the priorities of the nation, not just your own political interests.

It's very clear that if we don't make the changes to our public policy on climate change that are being advocated by people such as the Rural Health Alliance and every other major interest group in this country that has an interest in the best outcomes for this country then we're going to fail Australians of this generation and subsequent generations, and that would be an enormous shame. The responsibility rests squarely—squarely—with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Nationals and the members of the coalition.

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