Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I'm so very pleased that you are in the chair for my contribution, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, member for Lingiari, because I have so much respect for you and for the positions that you take not just on matters pertaining to Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples but, indeed, all Australians. I know the importance of having Lingiari as its own electorate, because there was a time in the last term when the Australian Electoral Commission wanted to make the Northern Territory one seat. Indeed, even the AEC map and website included the seats of Solomon and Lingiari as one seat—the Northern Territory seat—going forward. This is something that I spoke up passionately about. I wrote an op-ed in the NTNews about it, and they ended up running it on the front page as well as inside that day's edition. It is just not right for people, particularly Aboriginal people, in such a sprawling electorate as Lingiari—one of the largest in Australia and, indeed, one of the largest political divisions in the world—to be combined with a capital city electorate and for us to expect people to get representation. You are nodding, Deputy Speaker, and I know you are a good member. I know that this is important for the Northern Territory. I'm glad that we have enshrined in legislation the fact that the Northern Territory has to have two electorates, because it's too big not to.

I am all for 'one vote, one value', but even in the AEC's latest New South Wales redistribution, the electorate of Parkes—and the member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, has represented that electorate for 17 or so years since 2007—is such a massive land mass. Just from the Riverina electorate, the new Parkes boundaries will take in Bland—centred on West Wyalong—Forbes and Parkes local government areas. It makes it so difficult for someone to represent interests, when you consider that in some of these city electorates you could put your handkerchief over them, whereas members for Parkes and Lingiari and, dare I say, Riverina—and my good friend the member for Flynn—spend much of our time behind the wheel of a car or in the passenger seat doing the work that we need to do to get around our vast electorates, which are equal if not larger in size than many European countries. It's not right. It's not right for the constituents, particularly in this case, as we talk about the important issue of closing the gap. It's not fair on those Indigenous Australians who need to see their local member of parliament as much as anyone. It's not fair on the member trying to get around those huge landmasses and give the representation required.

We are on Ngunnawal and Ngambri territory at the moment, and I respect that. My Riverina electorate boundaries, as they currently stand, are entirely encompassed by Wiradjuri people. Wiradjuri is one of the largest nations in Australia, and they are a proud people—a good people. The new electorate will have Ngarigo peoples in Tumut-Tumbarumba and Ngunnawal country in Yass and Murrumbateman. I respect the fact that the boundaries are changing.

The name of the City of Wagga Wagga was derived from the language of the Wiradjuri people. It's the largest Aboriginal nation in New South Wales. The word 'wagga wagga' for many years was considered to mean 'place of many crows'. The repetition of a word expresses plural or emphasis. In more recent times, they've adopted the word 'waga', which means a place to dance and celebrate and to come together and have those large celebrations.

I must say that one of the most impressive local events that I ever went to, organised by Joe Williams, Geoff Simpson and a few others, was a corroboree down at the Murrumbidgee River. 'Murrumbidgee' is an Aboriginal word meaning 'deep water' or 'big river'. What the Wagga Wagga City Council has done—in conjunction, I must proudly say, with federal funding—is develop the riverside precinct down to the Wiradjuri reserve to tell the story. They've got a yarning circle. They've got places there where they've got interpretive signage, where our Aboriginal history is laid out, and that is good. That is commendable because our younger generations need to know that this is so.

In the Wollundry Lagoon precinct in 2018 there was a Sorry Day rock unveiled, and that commemorates the children sent to the Cootamundra girls home and the Kinchela boys home, where they were taught farm labour and domestic work. Of course, 16 years ago, the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, issued the famous apology. It was sadly necessary.

We need to ensure that this parliament does everything it can to address the Closing the Gap issues. They are particularly heightened in regional areas, and none more so than in remote areas as far as dental health and mental health are concerned. It is not right that the health services of Indigenous Australians are lesser than those in metropolitan areas. If ever we needed to close the gap, it is in those areas—maternal health and all of those areas of health. I know I don't need to tell you this, and I'm certainly not trying to, but those people in Tennant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs do it tough. I've visited those areas many times. It was quite an eye-opener for my wife, Catherine, when we visited Tennant Creek to listen to local people. But we need to do more to address these issues.

As long as I've got breath in me and as long as I'm in this place, I will fight hard for an aquatics centre for Mornington Island. It's in the electorate of Kennedy. It's certainly a long way from the Riverina. I appreciate that they say all politics is local. But I visited there. It was one of the last things I did as Acting Prime Minister in the golden age of Australian democracy, as I often tongue-in-cheek refer to it as. I met people like Kyle Yanner, the mayor of Mornington shire, taking in Mornington Island. That population of 1,200 or so does not have a swimming pool and does not have an aquatics centre.

Their island is surrounded by the Torres Strait. It's in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their island is surrounded by crocodile infested waters. They are beautiful people. They are a wonderful community. They're doing what they can. They're also a very young community, and yet they don't have a swimming pool. I think it's incumbent upon this place. I have urged the infrastructure minister, the member for Ballarat, to do what she can. Of course, she needs an application for one of those regional grant programs to build that particular facility, but I will continue to advocate it because I promised the mayor that that is what I would do. I want to see it delivered.

We talk about closing the gap. It's all well and good for us all to get up here and talk about all those noble gestures and to do the welcomes to country and all that, but it's also more importantly about providing real and genuine and tangible help to Indigenous people where they need it most. That is in the sorts of health services that they need—in Forbes, in Cowra and in other places where there is a high proportion of Aboriginal people. It's in those remote communities in far western New South Wales; remote South Australia; your part of the world, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour; Western Australia; and Queensland, in the outer regions. And it's about providing the necessary infrastructure in places such as Mornington Island, because it is needed and it is now expected, because I gave them the word I would do it. It's also just deserved. Why shouldn't they have an aquatic centre? It just makes no sense that they don't.

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