Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are 4.8 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be the subject of a substantiation report. However, the Northern Territory’s substantiation rate for Indigenous children is the third lowest in the nation despite a doubling of the rate to 15.2 substantiations per thousand children since 1999-2000. The Anderson-Wild inquiry stated that sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is common, widespread and grossly underreported. I am pleased that additional funding will be allocated to boost the number of child protection workers to increase their capacity to enforce legislation and to protect children.

Underreporting is attributable to many factors. Nonreporting of abuse is common across Australia and the factors behind it are complex. But what is critical if we are to encourage reporting is for there to be someone to whom to report the abuse. Police officers need to be visible and accessible. Child sexual abuse is a crime and perpetrators must be punished with the full force of the law. If more police officers are needed, then let us get more on the ground. Labor supports the provision of additional police officers in the Northern Territory intervention and thanks the states that have seconded officers. However, we need a long-term strategy to train more police officers and to place them in these communities permanently. That is one reason that Labor has committed to training an extra 500 AFP officers and to an Indigenous recruitment strategy.

Labor also supports the measures designed to clean up publicly funded computers, to get rid of internet pornography and to use filters to keep it out. In addition, Labor supports the new controls on supply and possession of pornographic material in prescribed areas. It also strongly supports the measures designed to stop the rivers of grog flowing into and around Aboriginal communities. The scourge of grog is well documented. The many inquiries that have been conducted into family violence and child abuse consistently identify alcohol as a major contributing factor to family violence. Alcohol can facilitate or incite violence by providing a socially acceptable excuse for negative behaviour. It can also act as a disinhibitor, allowing people to do things they would not normally do when sober. Grog cultures can and do develop a force of their own, perpetuating disastrous cycles for communities. Alcohol control is critical to achieving community stability. Many Aboriginal communities recognise this and have taken action in the past to declare their towns dry, but it is clear from experience that these are not easy solutions. The measures in this bill are another necessary addition to the task of stopping grog, especially the targeting of grog runners with higher penalties for offences that include an intent to sell.

The link between adequate housing and child safety has also been comprehensively made. Overcrowded housing is linked directly to children’s exposure to sexualised behaviour, family violence and vulnerability to abuse. The significant housing shortfall in the Northern Territory is well documented, so any additional resources that the Commonwealth provides for remote housing through its changes to the Australian Remote Indigenous Accommodation program will be welcome. However, the opposition is concerned that the bulk of the additional money does not come on stream until after next July.

The government’s intervention plan to reform housing arrangements by establishing market based rents for public housing with normalised tenancy requirements are welcome provided they are accompanied by improved housing stock. Facilitating better housing and infrastructure has been central to the government’s argument for needing five-year leases over townships in Aboriginal communities. The government has argued that taking on the responsibility as the effective town landlord is necessary to quickly improve vital infrastructure in these communities—which is necessary for better housing and improved economic development. The Anderson-Wild report noted:

Given the extent of overcrowding in houses in Aboriginal communities and the fact this has a direct impact on family and sexual violence, the Inquiry strongly endorses the government’s reform strategy of critical mass construction in targeted communities, and recommends the government take steps to expand the number of communities on the target list for both new housing and essential repairs and maintenance in light of the fact that every community needs better housing urgently.

Temporary intervention is proposed to repair and improve infrastructure for Indigenous people in these communities. This intervention is required because governments from both sides of politics have consistently failed to invest for many years. The government promises that years of underinvestment will now be replaced by a period of rapid upgrades and new construction. It needs to be.

Labor remains 100 per cent committed to land rights for Indigenous Australians. The land rights journey in Australia has been a journey that Labor has walked together with Indigenous Australians. Our party’s commitment to land rights has held strong for well over 30 years and it holds strong today. Underlying title in the land remains in Aboriginal hands and that is where it should stay. The proposed lease is limited to five years, unless terminated sooner. Rent is guaranteed by the bill and just terms compensation can be independently determined by a court. At the end of the lease, title will revert to communal title and the control of the lands trust. Importantly, any major works or commercial development that will outlive the five-year lease will have to have the consent of the relevant land council.

The Commonwealth has given a commitment to invest in housing and infrastructure, although we are still waiting to see the detail. The Commonwealth will retain an interest in the buildings beyond the five-year lease only where construction or major upgrade is undertaken with the consent of the land council. The land council may only consent where it is satisfied that the traditional owners, as a group, consent and any affected Aboriginal communities or groups have been consulted. These provisions protect ongoing consultation for land councils and traditional owners during the five-year lease period. Further, grants of other leases beyond the five years, such as under existing provisions in section 19, must allow normal consultation and consent procedures.

Labor will make sure that the rights of Aboriginal people to use the land, in accordance with ‘traditional purposes’ guaranteed by section 71 of the Aboriginal land rights act, are not affected by these five-year leases. This lease process will be new and untried and it could cause concern and confusion if not handled sensitively by the federal government. If the process works cooperatively, it could deliver significant benefit.

The bill also gives the Commonwealth minister new powers in relation to town camps. These powers place him in a position, in relation to town camp leases, as though he were the Northern Territory minister. I ask the minister to detail in the parliament the guidelines he will follow in dealing with the town camp leases. Specifically, he should act only if leases have been breached or if they have been determined after a due process in accordance with natural justice. He should also make sure that the assets are reserved for affordable homes for disadvantaged Aboriginal people. Just six weeks ago, the minister said that he wanted to reach agreement with Tangentyere council over the future of its town camps. I certainly hope that the minister will continue to work to get this agreed outcome.

Labor bring to this endeavour a determination to improve housing and infrastructure, but we also want to see improvements in economic development in these townships. That is why we will move an amendment to require a review to assess, after 12 months, progress in establishing infrastructure, housing and economic development in both the townships and the town camps. If the situation has stalled or become mired in legal process and is not delivering outcomes and we are in government, we will act to fix it.

Labor proposed a test for dealing with this legislation: it would get our support if it improved the security and safety of children in a practical way. In their current form, we do not believe that all the proposed changes to the permit system satisfy that test. Vince Kelly, President of the Northern Territory Police Association, has said:

These communities aren’t like anywhere else in Australia, otherwise the Federal Government wouldn’t be intervening in this matter.

So to simply roll up the permit system I think is going to lead to problems that have probably been identified by Indigenous people around the Northern Territory.

…            …            …

It does give both the police and the local communities the ability to exclude certain people from the community, people who are possibly offenders in relation to sexual abuse and physical abuse of Aboriginal women and children ...

But more importantly, offenders in terms of running grog and running drugs into these communities. Clearly, the permit system can be used to prevent access.

Labor will move to oppose the removal of the permit system on roads and common areas in the towns. We believe that the safety of children in these communities will be reduced if the government’s measures proceed, as they will allow for greater access by sly-grog and drug runners and by paedophiles. However, we do recognise the need to allow for greater access by certain classes of individuals. Labor will move substantive amendments to expand the categories of permit exemptions across Aboriginal land for people engaged as agents of the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments in order to enable them to access these communities. We will also advocate an exemption for journalists. We do recognise the need, especially during this intervention, for people engaged by the Commonwealth as agents, such as doctors, to be able to go easily into communities. We believe that these changes assist delivery of important services and, most importantly, the safety of Aboriginal communities, without opening them up to the risk of unfettered access by sly groggers or paedophiles.

The other significant bill included in today’s debate deals with welfare reform to enable income management of welfare payments in certain circumstances. There will be four basic triggers for income management: for parents where referred by state or territory child protection authorities because of instances of child abuse or neglect, for parents where school attendance or enrolment requirements are not met, for income support recipients living in a prescribed area of the Northern Territory, and for those potentially affected by the Cape York Institute’s proposed welfare trial.

Labor has already announced that it would apply income management for parents who are referred by state or territory child protection authorities, so it is pleasing to see that the government’s approach mirrors ours regarding income quarantining in child protection cases. In relation to Northern Territory specific measures, Labor will move to review the operation of income management at the end of the first period of 12 months. I just want to mention that I am concerned that there is no appeal mechanism for decisions that affect individuals to be included within the income management regime in the Northern Territory.

One of the critical issues in the Anderson-Wild report was the need to make sure that children go to school to guarantee both their safety and their future education. There are at least 2,000 Indigenous children in these remote parts of the Northern Territory who are not even enrolled to go to school. There are also far too many other children who do not attend school. This has to change.

Labor will provide additional funding to the Northern Territory government to contribute to the cost of the additional teachers who will be needed to make sure that these children get the education that they deserve. The Northern Territory government will also have to make sure that there are additional classrooms and that teacher housing and teacher assistance are provided so that children get the education that is needed.

Labor’s preference is for welfare reform to encourage responsibility and to reward positive behaviour. The Cape York Institute’s policy paper that was released in June outlines the sort of positive approach that Labor believe should apply to income management regimes. We want to use these tools not punitively but to encourage individual responsibility. The move from passive welfare will only be fully accomplished when individuals take responsibility for their future and for their children’s future. They must be assisted in this task by government, with support services such as alcohol treatment services and through stimulating real economic development. We have previously indicated our support for the Cape York initiatives and indicated funding for them as well.

The last and very important point that I want to address today concerns the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Racial Discrimination Act is a very important legacy of a previous Labor government and protects against racial discrimination by legislative, administrative or other means. Consistent with the international conventions on all forms of racial discrimination, the act recognises that sometimes it is necessary to make laws or to take actions that are special measures for the advancement of a particular racial group. Labor believe, as does the government—based on the briefings we have received—that these laws are such special measures. We believe that these laws are designed to protect especially vulnerable Aboriginal children, to help rid Aboriginal communities of the scourge of alcohol abuse and to provide much needed infrastructure and housing improvements to remote Aboriginal communities.

The importance of this intervention also requires that the community have confidence in parliament’s belief these are in fact special measures to benefit Aboriginal people. Therefore, we believe that it is unhelpful and unnecessary that there is a blanket exemption from part II of the Racial Discrimination Act, and Labor will move amendments to remove this exemption from three of these bills.

I return to the point where we began: will this legislation improve the safety and security of our children in a practical way? Protecting children requires all of us to take responsibility to act. Responsibility has to be taken by individuals for them to take positive action for themselves, for their communities and especially for their children. Responsibility also lies with governments to provide community safety, health services, education and, most importantly, employment and economic development. All of these things are necessary to enable Indigenous children to grow up healthy and happy. This is what we want for our children, and we want nothing less for Indigenous children. I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House notes that:

(1)

the protection of children from harm and abuse is of paramount concern to all Australians;

(2)

the documented instances of child abuse within Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory are of such gravity as to require an urgent and comprehensive response to make  children and the communities they live in, safe;

(3)

these legislative measures taken together represent a major challenge for Territorians and a change to current arrangements;

(4)

we will not succeed in our goal of protecting children without the support and leadership of Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory; the Commonwealth must gain their trust, engage them and respect them throughout this emergency and beyond;

(5)

the work of strong and effective Indigenous community members and organisations must continue to be supported during this emergency;

(6)

it is important that temporary measures are replaced in time with permanent reforms that have the confidence and support of Territorians, and short term measures aimed at ensuring the safety of children grow into long term responses that create stronger communities that are free of violence and abuse;

(7)

In the case of town camps effective partnerships with lessors and negotiated outcomes should obviate the need for compulsory acquisition;

(8)

this includes stimulating economic development and more private sector partnerships to secure greater self-reliance;

(9)

both levels of government must work in partnership; there must be political accountability at the highest level—with the Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs;

(10)

program funding must hit the ground through evidence-based delivery; there must be relentless focus on best-practice and rigorous evaluation by all parties set within specific timeframes;

(11)

practical measures must include;

(a)

police to keep every community in the Territory safe, particularly children, women and elders;

(b)

safe houses that provide a safe place for women and children escaping family violence or abuse built using the direction and leadership of local Indigenous women;

(c)

night patrols that provide important protection;

(d)

community law and justice groups that play an important role in the effective administration of justice;

(e)

appropriate background checks for all people providing services in communities who work in proximity to children;

(f)

comprehensive coverage of child and maternal health services are essential to give children the best start;

(g)

comprehensive coverage of parenting and early development services for Indigenous parents and their babies;

(h)

an effective child protection system in the Northern Territory;

(i)

all children enrolled and attending school and governments to deliver teachers, classrooms, teacher housing and support services (eg Indigenous teacher assistants);

(j)

investment in housing construction and maintenance to reduce the shortfall in Indigenous homes and infrastructure; and

(k)

reform of the Community Development and Employment Program, including transitioning participants who are employed in public sector work into proper public sector jobs and ensuring participants are not left without sufficient income or participation opportunities”.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Barry Wakelin (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and related bills is important legislation. I give my full support to the minister and the government for the very strong effort that they have put in over recent weeks to deal with the emergency in Aboriginal communities. The Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs introduced the bills—which I do not intend to revisit—into the House this morning. This is a very complex and large undertaking, and the amount of money required to deal with this emergency is approaching $600 million.

Most of us have been aware of these issues for a very long time, and so we should not be surprised that the national government felt provoked to respond to them in a broad-ranging way. However, I am sure that we all feel some frustration and some disappointment with the states and the territories, as they have really struggled to come to terms with these issues. I did some research in this place some years ago on sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities. I know this is one part of the problem, but it is a significant part of it. The research, which I brought out of my archives yesterday, is dated June 2003. When I looked through it, I saw that the public information available on this issue goes back at least a decade. Of course, when you represent an electorate like the one I do, you know of these issues of violence. They are spoken about quietly, often late in the evening at social functions held in various locations. We have all lived in hope that these problems would be resolved, but we know now that they were only getting worse.

I can only repeat—not verbatim, but fairly accurately—the sentiment I felt while driving through my electorate, which borders the southern Northern Territory through to Darwin. When I was in Darwin, an Indigenous person who I respect said: ‘We can’t quite see it all at the moment. It is such a complex and comprehensive response.’ She went on to say: ‘I know one thing. We can’t keep going the way we were going, and therefore I’m prepared to give it significant support.’ This person was not particularly political. My guess would be that she was probably not a supporter of the government. But these things are way beyond party politics.

In responding to the shadow spokesperson on three or four of the issues, as far as the lack of appeal by Indigenous people within Centrelink goes, I bring to the attention of the House that there is an authorised review, the ARO response. There is the ability to have the case tested by the authorised review officer. Certainly it does not go, as I understand it, to the SSAT, the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. I well understand why, in the initial stages, you would not have that, because you would simply block up the system. This is quite new and quite different but there is an ARO there.

I think that there is something very important to note in dealing with the Racial Discrimination Act. I am not a lawyer and I am not pretending to interpret what that was all about many years ago, but I know one thing: the Australian people want to discriminate against violence. They want to discriminate in favour of care and justice and a decent life.

I appeal to every Aboriginal leader—and there are many distinguished leaders throughout Australia. To the Aboriginal leadership I say: never before has this total Australian community needed your support like it needs it now. This is an opportunity to move forward and overcome one of the very dark parts of Australia’s social system and one of its glaring social justice challenges within the nation. Not for the first time I pay tribute to Warren Mundine. In the paper yesterday—and I am sure that many would have seen it—and in the editorial in the Australian again today he referred to the government’s plan. In yesterday’s Australian Warren Mundine, for whom I have the utmost respect, said he was:

... ‘disgusted’ that people are describing the federal Government’s intervention in the Northern Territory as an invasion and has called on the Labor Party’s left wing to get ‘real’ and accept the plan.

This is a distinguished Aboriginal leader, an immediate past president, I think, of the Australian Labor Party in that shared process that the Labor Party has, and he is saying in a very clear way: please support the plan, that some of the nonsense around the old ideological approach to this issue needs to be challenged. Thank you, Warren Mundine, and I thank every other Aboriginal leader who comes on board. It does not mean that this is not without challenge. Debate will not be suppressed in any way. There will be a full and open discussion about this, and so there should be in our system. There is no doubt in my mind that the basics of it are right and that the problem is so drastic and challenging that it had to come to this.

It is worth going to a few generalisations. The minister has referred to them quite often in the last few weeks but I will go to them anyway. The government strategy has three components: stabilisation, normalisation of services and infrastructure and, in the longer term, support. It is going to cost the taxpayer in the first 12 months, as I understand it, something approaching $600 million.

The question is asked: why has the government acted now? I have established some of those reasons but perhaps I should establish a few more. The brief in front of me reminds me that the Commonwealth convened a summit last year and provided $130 million, which included support for additional policing and alcohol rehabilitation in remote communities. I can remember it in my own electorate. I can remember the issues and the discussions with the states. We tried to work with the states in the old way but it did not provide the urgent response necessary. We know why. We know the report that came out of the Northern Territory government. That was the response. It sat for six or eight weeks until the federal government felt provoked to respond. That report was known as the Little children are sacred report.

The task force is led by magistrate Dr Sue Gordon, who in her own right had her own committee in Western Australia some years ago after some horrific incidents over in urban Perth. She has been a leader in the whole business. The task force includes a very significant number of very distinguished Australians. The rollout is occurring and the ICC manager within my electorate has been seconded to the Northern Territory, and I wish him well with the work that he is involved in there now.

The police will be under the Northern Territory Police Force command and will have normal Northern Territory policing powers. Even more importantly, police and government officers are being supported by the Australian Defence Force, including NORFORCE—we have seen a few cartoons and almost cheap shots at what is an incredibly serious issue—which will provide communications, transport and other logistics. NORFORCE is well known and well respected. This will ensure that people can stay in the communities to work and to provide services for Indigenous people.

I have been going to Indigenous communities in my electorate for over 15 years, as a candidate and then as a member. I go through for a couple of days every few months. It is all right for me: I camp or I bludge a bed off somebody, but it is a challenge to live out there without proper logistical support. There is no motel just down at the corner; there is no rental accommodation just up the street. Accommodation is a very practical part of it.

I agreed with the minister when he spoke today about goodwill. I have been to Palm Island and to Oak Valley in my own electorate where the Army were involved with the previous program, ACAP. You could just see the goodwill with the way the young responded to the fellows and young women in uniform. They are out there doing an important job. It is not about the nonsense that we see in smart alec cartoons. They are out there supporting this effort. Once safety is established, arrangements will be put in place to respond to the identified needs of each community. We are still working through that.

The permit system is well defined by the minister. It is affecting 0.2 per cent of the Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. Let us be really clear about this. Land acquisition is to be done under just terms. Health checks, alcohol, welfare reform and income management are to be done under just terms. The hotline—perhaps this has not come out that much in the last few days—is set up for people who want to find out more about the Australian government’s national emergency response to the Northern Territory. People who would like information or wish to volunteer should call the national emergency response hotline on 1800333995.

We heard the minister say—it may have been during his second reading speech—that up to 400 people have registered as volunteers. Overall—and I do not think any Australian is going to disagree with this, other than those who are the perpetrators of serious crime—the safety of children is any government’s top priority. In this case it just happens to be the Australian government. We do this in the interests of the children and in the interests of the communities in which these children live. Children cannot live in isolation. These children live with adults, with parents, grandparents and brothers and sisters. We do it because it is simply the right thing to do.

We could look back over the last 20 or 30 years to see the lost opportunity but there is no point in that—it is done; it is over. We have an opportunity now to do something about this. I welcome the government’s legislation and wish it speedy passage through what will be a long-term, difficult and challenging matter. This is a very brave and committed start. I thank the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I participate in the debate on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and cognate legislation with mixed feelings. Firstly, the announcement of a national emergency was made six weeks ago. Secondly, it is clear from the contribution of the member for Grey that the pesky rights that people might have are just so pesky that we cannot allow them to have an appeal to an independent tribunal outside the social security system. We will have an internal review of any decisions but not an independent review externally. That says a lot to me about the way in which some in this place approach these measures. At a later point, I will address some elements of what the member for Grey has said and indeed what the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs said during his contribution. I do not want anyone in this place or anyone who may be listening to misunderstand the concern out in the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory about what the government is doing. They need to understand very clearly that there is great concern.

Six weeks ago, on a Thursday, there was a press conference at 1.30 pm, finishing at 1.40 pm, then there was question time, and then decisions and announcements were made. Then came a whole range of measures which were put in place to focus the national attention on this national emergency which, you will recall, included at that point compulsory medical checks for children under 16. That, thankfully, is no longer the case. Sanity has prevailed and it is clear that these medical checks are voluntary, and indeed people are thankful for them. But after six weeks there are still communities in the Northern Territory who have not had a visit from an officer of the Commonwealth to explain to them what the government’s national emergency is about.

On the Monday after the national emergency was announced I rang the minister’s office and I said to the person in the minister’s office, his principal adviser on these matters: ‘You need to understand there is legitimate concern in the community because of misinformation, misunderstanding or whatever it might be. There is genuine fear in some places that this is all about taking the kids away.’ I later heard a story from a person in a community in the Barkly region of the Northern Territory—and recall that all of the communities which are affected by this legislation are in my electorate of Lingiari; 40 per cent of my electorate is Indigenous people and all of them are affected by this legislation. That person in Barkly said she was concerned because she thought the Army was coming to take her young boys away so they would fight in Iraq. Of course, that was absurd, but such was the misinformation and lack of communication which came out of this government after this decision was made that people were left confused and dismayed—and I might say many are still confused and dismayed because they lack information.

I go to the fact that a week ago I attended a meeting of the Central Land Council at a property adjoining Hamilton Downs in the Northern Territory, the McCormack place. I listened to a presentation made by two members of the task force: the chair of the task force, Magistrate Sue Gordon; and General Chalmers. What I found illuminating from that presentation was the lack of information they were able to provide. They could not answer so many basic questions. The response from Magistrate Gordon at one stage was, ‘We’re working on the details as we go.’ Is it any wonder that people are left confused, dismayed and concerned? They do not know what is being proposed.

Yesterday 600-odd pages of legislation—if you include the appropriation legislation it is probably closer to 700 pages—and 350 or 400 pages of explanatory memoranda were given to us in the opposition and to the general public at late morning. We got them, I think, at about 11 am. We were then supposed to digest all of that information and come up with an informed position so that we could debate the legislation here this afternoon and have it out of this place later tonight. I have to say that is an abuse of due process. What that does is show the contempt that this government has for bringing people into the tent, sharing information with them and showing them exactly what it is proposing.

We made the decision at the time this was announced to give it in-principle bipartisan support, because we share the concern about kids being abused. But isn’t it strange that the people who were left to go out and canvass the case, who were talking to communities around the Northern Territory—the advance party, if you like—were not Commonwealth government officials but in fact Labor members of the Northern Territory legislative assembly? They included frontbenchers Marion Scrymgour and Elliot McAdam and backbenchers Alison Anderson, Barbara McCarthy, Karl Hampton and Matthew Bonson—all of whom are Indigenous. They went out, not particularly liking what was announced but nevertheless going out there because of their concern that their communities, the people they represented, were not being given information. I want to thank them greatly for the work they did.

I attended a few of the meetings that they attended. At one of those meetings there were 120 people and at another meeting 150. One was at Milingimbi and one was at Ramingining on the same day. I remember these meetings vividly. Here we were, announcing the government’s proposals and being asked to respond to questions about government policy and about the details of what the government was proposing. We did not have information—as it turns out, neither did the task force nor anyone else—but what we were able to say was: ‘Don’t worry. This is not going to be the end of the world, at least in terms of the arrival of the police and the Army and such like. That is not going to happen. You should relax about that.’

What was very clear in every one of the meetings—it was reported on by each of those members of parliament and by me and my colleague Senator Trish Crossin—was the absolute concern that was being expressed about the proposals to amend those parts of the legislation which address the permit system and those parts which address land issues. What these people saw was the Little children are sacred report, released a few days prior to the Howard government’s announcement, and they said, legitimately: ‘Hang on—what’s this all about? We appreciate the need to address the recommendations in this report, but we do not see the relationship between those land and permit issues and this report.’ This report does not mention those things and, subsequent to this report being released, both of its authors have condemned the government’s position on the issues of land and permits. They say it does not relate to what they were on about.

Frankly, I have a concern about this. It goes to the understanding that people may or may not have about what the relationship between Aboriginal people and country and culture means. If you take from people their ability to live on their land, if you remove them or relocate them, for whatever purpose, or if you do not give them the capacity to retain their cultural identity, you will create severe difficulties for those people and the communities in which they live—difficulties which, no doubt, will lead to family pressures, particularly on children. The psychological wellbeing of Aboriginal Territorians has not been addressed in any way, shape or form by the proposals put forward by the government.

I am conscious of the arguments put by the member for Grey in his response to the shadow minister. But let me make it very clear: no-one with any background or experience in Indigenous affairs in the Northern Territory, with any deep knowledge of these matters—the police, the churches and government workers—supports the idea of removing permits in the way in which the government proposes. Communities themselves find it abhorrent. The Central Land Council, on more than one occasion, has been forced to withdraw the permits of people. What sort of people? Let me give you one example, among many: a storekeeper living in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory trading in art. What was he doing trading in art? You might say it is not an inappropriate thing to trade in art. He was trading art for Viagra. What is the relationship between art and Viagra? I might ask the same question. You can imagine the implications for the women and children in that community of trading art for Viagra.

This government now proposes to remove the ability of the land councils to remove those permits. In this particular instance, as soon as the land council became apprised of this person’s activity, they had him out of that community within 24 hours by withdrawing the permit. These are the dodgy people, whom my colleague the shadow minister referred to, who would get great joy out of this. Only recently I was talking to a policeman in Maningrida. He said: ‘Can you imagine if this town were an open community and no permits were required to enter? You could drive along the street, take photographs of nude kids and then that afternoon post them on the internet.’ That is true. I have seen some real scumbags in Aboriginal communities—people whom I have no time for—but I have also seen some very good people. It is the scumbags we want to keep out of these communities, and that is why the permit system is so important. Never mind the tommyrot which is coming from the government—we know why the permit system is important, we know why the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory want to retain the permit system and that is why the opposition intends to move an amendment which will ensure its retention largely in the form that we have it.

I briefly want to talk about a number of other elements of the package, not necessarily about things which have been addressed in these proposals, although I do want to go to one matter. The Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, in his second reading speech on the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007, referred to the issue of town camps. The minister said that the Northern Territory government has announced that it will not resume or forfeit the town camps. He says that it has walked away from its responsibilities. Remember the portrayal he gave in the House at question time of the town camps around Alice Springs and the way in which he illuminated his presentation by commenting on people being attacked and violated. The reason why we have this legislation, to the point where the government now wants to step in the shoes of the Northern Territory government and resume the special purpose leases of the town camps around Alice Springs, is no other reason than the incapability of this minister to negotiate a deal. He set unacceptable preconditions on the negotiations of that deal.

These people in the town camps are not stupid. They, more than the minister, more than any one of us—more than any person who does not live in those town camps—want the improvements that would come from investment of $60 million in the town camps. Let it be clear: they want it. They understand what it means for them and their families, yet this minister says that, because he cannot do a deal, because he cannot negotiate a set of arrangements, because the Northern Territory government says it respects the views of those people, he will override their interests and give himself the power to resume those leases, despite their concerns. I think that says a lot about this minister. But it also portrays some of the issues which we have yet to illuminate in this discussion.

We have heard much about welfare reforms, but the lengths to which this government has gone to put more than 8,000 Aboriginal people out of work and on the dole to facilitate quarantining have not been widely publicised. That has been done by the abolition of CDEP. It has knowingly put CDEP workers—most of them engaged in positive things—out of work, work such as ranger work and community enterprises, work in shops and work in schools and health centres. The government wants to place them into the STEP program or Work for the Dole and, if we are very lucky and we support this, a transition into real jobs. We want them to have real jobs. And those people on CDEP in jobs—which ought to be paid for by the Commonwealth government, the Northern Territory government or local government—should be paid their wage entitlements by that respective level of government. But the immediate impact on communities and community programs will be dramatic. It will spell the death knell of many programs, it will see the erosion of the effectiveness of night patrol community safety efforts, it will erode the profitability of community stores and therefore jobs in the stores, it will make it difficult for homeland outstation support and enterprises generated by CDEP will have no guarantees of continued support. There is a range of impacts with this. The link between CDEP wages and child abuse and substance abuse is spurious and, indeed, insulting, and there is no solid reason for abolishing CDEP.

Most remote area communities have no immediate local economy. They do not have large mines in their vicinity. There is very little in the way of job markets to tap into—and that is one of the issues here. There is no real appreciation of these small area labour markets by anyone in the government, least of all the minister. Community management is funded at least in part by CDEP. What happens to the jobs of tradespersons and other specialists, accountants and administrators, who are currently working because of the $4,000-plus that is paid into CDEP for each participant?

This is a very important issue and it is something which we think might mean that people relocate away from outstations, for example—and this could well be a purpose behind this—to major communities, and perhaps from major communities, towns and cities. What will that do? It will create enormous pressure on those towns and cities like Alice Springs, Darwin and Katherine, where people are concerned genuinely about antisocial behaviour, where people are concerned about the conditions in which people live.

We need to understand that some of the implications of these decisions, which in this case are not part of the legislation, make it very difficult for people to comprehend the motives behind what the government is doing. We share, as I said at the outset, the intention of the government to ensure we address the issue of children who are abused. But isn’t it funny? There are people in this chamber—a person in this chamber and a person in the other chamber—who very recently travelled to the Tiwi Islands aboard a boat. The Tiwi Islands is a restricted area. You are not allowed to take alcohol onto the islands. In this particular instance, Senator Scullion; a minister in a portfolio, Minister Brough; the member for Solomon; and a Northern Territory member of parliament, a CLP member, among others, got off the boat and drank on the land. They then put an esky on a bus. The bus was driven through the community to an airstrip. Two of them, the member for Solomon and the other CLP member from the Northern Territory, were observed drinking bottled beer. They put the empty beer bottles in a bin. Not only is that illegal because it is a restricted area but they have not told us the truth.

There is a real issue here because this legislation, among other things, aims to ban alcohol completely from many communities across the Northern Territory, and here we had a circumstance where alcohol was already banned. (Time expired)

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening sees the culmination of a great deal of hard work that I have put into this place on behalf of my Indigenous constituents. This evening gives me the opportunity to speak to the legislation that has emerged because the Prime Minister and the minister responsible for Indigenous affairs, the Hon. Mal Brough, have taken a decision on behalf of all of the people of Australia to be ratified by the members of this parliament to make a difference in Indigenous communities—Indigenous communities that I have the pleasure of representing in very large numbers. From the northernmost part of the Kimberley, both east and west, down through the Pilbara, down into the goldfields, through the Murchison, through the Gascoyne, into the Esperance region and through the wheat belt, I represent Indigenous people living in mainstream towns and living in communities that are incredibly isolated. I have the whole gamut of people in my electorate, including the whole gamut of Indigenous people working in a huge range of positions across my electorate and enjoying, in many cases, all of the rewards that are offered to Australians living in this wonderful country. But, unfortunately and all too often, so many of them are living in absolute Third World conditions that provide no safety or security whatsoever, and members of these communities have no hope, no aspirations, to achieve education to go out and get employment to contribute to this society. There is absolute rampant despair. This legislation in the main is aimed at like people in like circumstances across the Northern Territory.

The member for Lingiari quite rightly speaks for the people of the Northern Territory. He has a great deal of experience; therefore, he cannot be accused of being ignorant as to the affairs that exist in the communities across the Northern Territory. Yet he takes to task the members of this government that have been responsible for the drawing up of legislation to address these issues. He says that they ignore due process. The member for Lingiari is concerned about due process. He says nothing about the fact that, whilst one pontificates, whilst one spends weeks, months and possibly years—13 in the case of the last Labor government—whilst members of this House and members of a previous government drag their feet and talk about due process, the tiny, the most vulnerable and the least able to defend themselves by definition in these communities are abused. They are abused physically, psychologically and sexually to the point where irreparable damage is done. These children so often grow up and as adults indulge in exactly the same sort of behaviour.

It is not acceptable, and for a member of the opposition to stand in this place and talk about the abuse of due process when this government is endeavouring as quickly as possible to get legislation in place that just may save one more fragile individual from abuse, is, I believe, absolute hypocrisy. What is important is that we get this legislation in place, that we get it to all corners of all the communities across the Northern Territory, and start making a difference. Mere dollars have not made a difference. We have put some $3.367 billion each year into Indigenous affairs across Australia and still the whole system is riddled with problems of all sorts of dimensions, so money is not the answer. Resources, vision and tenacity make up the combination that will make a difference in Indigenous communities.

The Prime Minister and the minister responsible for Indigenous affairs have acted in an appropriate way—much later, of course, than I would have liked, in my humble opinion. We have also had the involvement of Noel Pearson, a very courageous leader in Indigenous affairs, the participation of Dr Sue Gordon and the handing down of her report, Little children are sacred. With that report being handed down and knowing the content of it, this government was correct in taking immediate action and declaring a national emergency which had to be addressed. That was approximately six weeks ago, and in those six weeks the most complex of problems has brought together the best minds to consider the legislation necessary to address those problems, in a manner outlined in this place those six-odd weeks ago. They are complex problems and require a great deal of legislation. Unfortunately, through the media generally, I have heard much about how this strategy would be flawed, how the legislation would be inappropriate, how modifications would need to be made to the legislation and how so many aspects that would be addressed by the legislation were not being considered appropriately.

We hear so much from the member for Lingiari about the removal of the permit system across communities of the Northern Territory. I know about the permit system in the Northern Territory, I know the humbug it creates and I know the ramifications of that humbug, because some people are allowed into communities while others are not. One would like to think that those access permits were awarded on the basis of some lofty ideal and that consideration was always in the best interests of the community. They are not. The permit system is abused time and time again. You cannot have the intervention proposed by this legislation being foiled by the existence of a permit system that would prevent the people responsible for the enactment of the legislation from carrying it out. That is nonsense. You cannot be credible if you talk about having in place a system where those who are responsible for carrying out the legislation cannot gain access. We know the problems, and so many more Australians know the problems, that exist in these communities today. There are so many more than were prepared to recognise the problems some six or seven weeks ago, before this report was handed down.

In travelling from Adelaide to Perth on the Thursday evening that this legislation was proposed, I had the good fortune to spend time with Dr Sue Gordon, a woman whose credentials are immaculate in relation to her knowledge of what happens in Indigenous communities. We discussed at length her findings during the preparation of the report, her previous knowledge, her understanding and her depth of passion about the necessity for solutions to be found. I must say that she exhibited understanding and she exhibited the passion and the determination required to come up with solutions that would be part of a long-term strategy to make a difference.

All manner of strategies have been put in place in the past, with all manner of dollar resources from governments, but still the problems have persisted. One must ask oneself: why have the problems continued to be exacerbated in the lives of Indigenous people? So many people, so many good brains, have put their minds to solutions over so many decades. Why do the problems still exist? Let’s look at the mainstream style of life in Australia and see what some of the foundations of that in-the-main cohesive, motivated, socially acceptable community is like. It relies on a few cornerstones. It relies on education, it relies on the acceptance of personal responsibility, it relies on the security that comes through the knowledge that the law will be upheld by an ever-present police force and, of course, it relies on a judiciary in the situation of dispute. Many of those cornerstones of our mainstream society are non-existent in so many of the Indigenous communities across Australia.

I remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I know about those communities. I have in excess of 200 of them in my electorate and I visit them frequently. I know the problems that exist and I know the services that do not exist. One primary service that does not exist and has not existed in so many communities for so long is a reliable, consistent, permanent presence of law enforcement. If there is no law enforcement present in a community, and there is booze and drug-taking and evidence of sexual abuse of young children, and that is a generational situation, then what motivation for change is there for the community?

It is all very well for us to discuss the niceties of mainstream law and order and social norms in our community, in mainstream Australia; it is absolutely inappropriate to consider the values we hold dear while the day-to-day existence in so many Indigenous communities continues without the presence of that cornerstone of law enforcement. For decades it has been ignored by state governments. For decades they have turned their backs on the problem, saying—and I hear it so many times from those responsible for community stability, advancement, law enforcement, education, job training et cetera—’We don’t need to have our sights set high; they’re only blackfellas.’ It is sickening.

If the same attitudes existed with regard to mainstream society in Australia, the perpetrators of those comments would be exposed and thrown out and replaced with people who would take responsibility. But time and time again those that are given the responsibility of assisting Indigenous people in communities simply lower their sights when they move into the job because their expectations are so poor. They say: ‘It doesn’t matter what I do or what I don’t do; I’m going to get paid to do the job. I’ll tick the boxes to fulfil my budget expectations, I’ll see out my time and I’ll move on.’ It is a major tragedy and it has contributed to the situation today.

A good education is a cornerstone of our mainstream society and it is provided for in communities. There are of course some tiny communities that are poorly resourced as far as education is concerned, but, in the main, communities that are stable and perhaps have in excess of 60 or 70 people, with a proportionate number of children, are provided with a school and the hardware and the staffing required to provide a good level of education. But there is so much lack of faith in the education system. There is so much despair. There is so much social disorder in those communities that there is a total disrespect for education. Unless parents, children and educators alike share the passion for an education, the provision of the infrastructure necessary for an education is an absolute waste of time.

It is not fair to name communities specifically on the basis of their performance in any one particular area, but I know of a community where there are 65 students registered and funded by the federal government. I have visited it on a number of occasions and have never found more than 15 students in attendance. Why? Because of so many responsibilities for the parents of those children. They have to attend to law. I accept and respect the fact that Indigenous law is a very demanding process, but it is overdone. An unacceptable number of children are denied continuity of education simply because, with modern communications, people know about occasions that are happening 2,000 kilometres away, for example, and will take their children out of school, in the name of culture, and not bring them back for four or five months. This is unacceptable and needs to be modified.

If one destroys the future of one’s race in the name of promotion of the culture, isn’t that an enigma? Aren’t we in fact recognising what is eventually effectively genocide and condoning it by saying, ‘You pursue your culture. You might be denying an opportunity for your children, for your future generations, but you are doing so in the name of continuity of culture.’ It is a conundrum. I could not honestly look at the situation and suggest it is appropriate.

So we need to have children attending these facilities that provide an education so they can go on and get a job. With that job will come all the benefits of employment, of financial independence, of self-esteem. Many people will say, ‘We know much more about Aboriginal culture and the expectations of Indigenous people than you do, Haase.’ They will say, ‘What’s the good of an education and expectations of a job if you’re living in a community and there is no real employment in that community?’ I have not been to a community yet where there was not employment that could very easily deserve a solid wage—not a CDEP wage, not a half-wage, not a furphy wage, but a real wage. Those jobs need to be funded by the appropriate organisations. That would give self-esteem to those individuals, coupled with the responsibility of doing a job on a regular basis. But no. Too often we see—and the member for Lingiari raised the point—CDEP being abused. CDEP simply becomes a process.

I say to children in high schools: ‘What are you going to do with yourself when you leave school? You’ll have an education and you’ll be equipped to get job training; what are you going to do?’ ‘Mr Haase, I’m going to go on CDEP.’ CDEP was never intended to be a permanent job. CDEP was meant to be a process that made people job ready and allowed them to get out into the community. So many situations exist in communities that would be totally unacceptable in mainstream society today. This government has had the gumption, the vision and the determination to put solutions into place across the Northern Territory, and it is now going through the legislative process. Hopefully we will have parallel legislation enacted by the states to make sure that that effect takes place right across Australia. I commend these bills to the House.

Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Federal/State Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the amendment moved by the shadow minister and the position which she outlined in her remarks. I have some serious concerns about the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and cognate legislation, notwithstanding the proper and necessary decision that we, as an opposition, have made to support it—hopefully with some amendments. But in the realistic knowledge that the government will never accept amendments we reluctantly support the bill as it is.

Why do I have these concerns? First and foremost it is not that I am concerned that the government is endeavouring to act on the issue of child abuse but that the manner of the action means that it is likely to fail. That is my primary concern. There is a lot of detail and I will come to it. My first concern is that the flawed conception at the genesis of this legislation has created a process—let us give the government the benefit of the doubt that it is a well-intentioned process—that is doomed to fail.

My second concern—and it is closely related to that first concern—is that this is legislation which contains no long-term plan for the future. Some of the initiatives that have been taken are useful and I support them. Indigenous communities have been chronically short of good medical services and support from the police. To the extent that this initiative is generating more medical services and more police for those communities that is welcome. If, as a consequence of this legislation and the associated appropriations, we get more money for housing, health and education in these communities, that is overdue but welcome, but there is nothing in this legislation that creates the framework for a long-term solution.

My third concern is that the initiative of which this legislation is part was triggered by the Wild-Anderson report but the legislation and the program do not implement the strengths of that report; they go in quite a different direction—a direction that the Wild-Anderson report recommended we did not go in. My fourth concern is that after report after report—for 10 years—we now have this rushed, flawed job on the eve of the election.

My fifth concern is that this legislative package goes beyond child abuse related issues to implement an extreme ideological agenda, particularly as it relates to land and the permit system. My sixth concern is that this legislation undermines the integrity of the Racial Discrimination Act.

So, with all of those concerns, why am I supporting this legislation? Because our first responsibility is to assist children facing abuse, women facing violence and old people in danger—and there is no alternative package. If we are successful in amending this package it will do the job better, but more will still need to be done. Under this government we know there will be no alternative package; if we do not support this legislation there will be no legislation. If we do not support this package there will be no package. So we cannot ignore steps that will help to deal with the problem of child abuse so starkly illustrated by so many reports over the years, even if it might be uncomfortable for many of us to be supporting some aspects of this legislation.

Why is this legislation before us now? That is a very interesting question, because for the last 30 years—not just the last 10 years, to be fair to the government—there have been many reports on Indigenous communities and their health. They have made similar recommendations to the recommendations that came out of the Wild-Anderson report. For example, at COAG on 13 April this year, child abuse in Indigenous communities was on the agenda. It did not come as a shock to the Prime Minister as a result of the report that there was a problem; COAG had been talking about it in April. And COAG, in its communique, referred back to what seems to have been forgotten. It is as if people have come across this stunning revelation that there is terrible violence in Indigenous communities.

There was an intergovernmental summit on violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities on 26 June 2006, talking about the National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Task Force, joint strike teams and the accelerated rollout of Indigenous child health checks, and agreeing that the levels of violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities warranted a comprehensive national response. The summit communique said:

• everyone has a right to be safe from family violence and abuse;
• preventing family violence and child abuse in Indigenous families is best achieved by families, communities, community organisations and different levels of government working together as partners;

It emphasised the need to address underlying causes.

That analysis has been around for a long time. It is not a case against acting now but it might make one cynical about why the government has just discovered this problem and announced it with fanfare on the eve of the election, when it has had had report after report after report. I said before and I say again: as profound as this government’s shortcomings have been in this area in the last decade, not just regarding Indigenous child abuse but Indigenous affairs generally, where all the data shows that internationally we are at world’s worst practice where in other areas of policy we aspire to world’s best practice, previous governments have failed as well—governments of my political party and previous coalition governments. It is not a unique thing; none of us has done enough. That something needs to be done is clear, and this step to do something deserves our support—because Indigenous children continue to be overrepresented in substantial cases of child abuse and neglect.

But a number of people have been urging the government to do something for a long time, and the government has studiously ignored that advice until the eve of the election. Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, said in December 2006 that he had published a book entitled Ending family violence in Indigenous communities, which talked about the ‘complex policy responses necessary to address family violence and sexual abuse in communities’, and he listed 10 challenges for addressing family violence and sexual abuse in Indigenous communities. I wish the government had taken up his report or the Anderson-Wild report rather than taking the course of action that it has taken. I will refer to Tom Calma’s first two challenges, as I do not have time to go through them all. They were, firstly:

What we need is concerted, long term action—

from governments. And, secondly:

This action must be based on genuine partnership with Indigenous peoples and with our—

Tom Calma says as an Indigenous person—

full participation ...

None of that is reflected in this package. There were very good recommendations from Mr Calma and others, but they are not reflected in this legislation.

So why am I concerned that this package will fail? There is no long-term plan and it does not address fundamental causes. It is okay to react to symptoms, but the symptoms will recur unless you deal with the causes—and this package does nothing to deal with the causes. After the short-term response and the welcome addition of medical and police services into communities, what happens? There is nothing that goes to the fundamentals of the problems, and the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs outlined that before.

I will now turn my attention to the area in which I have said the bill goes too far and implements an ideological agenda that is not related to the issue of child abuse. I want to particularly focus on the permit system. It was extraordinary to hear the member for Kalgoorlie saying that somehow or other the continuation of the permit system, particularly in the manner that we wish to amend it, would prevent the people whose job it is to implement this program from going into communities. He either knows that is not true and said it or should know it is not true and should not have said it. It is clearly and demonstrably untrue. The current permit system specifically allows almost all the categories of people who might be called on to implement the program to go into the communities—probably all, but let us for the moment say ‘almost all’. The system reflected in the amendments proposed by the opposition would allow everybody who is in the business of implementing this program and other people as well, including the media, to go into these communities and implement this program. What the member for Kalgoorlie said is demonstrably untrue.

I am not unhappy about a review of the permit system and some changes to it, and I welcome the changes reflected in the amendments that the shadow minister has given notice of, but I do not think we should abolish the permit system. We run the serious risk of making child sexual abuse worse. There are some other potential problems too, but I will talk about that risk first, because this is supposed to be a package of measures to deal with the issue of child abuse. Let me talk about the Amoonguna community in the Northern Territory, which recently won a local government award for good governance. The health centre manager there, David Evans, said recently that the community had taken a strong stand on sexual abuse and had recently banned a convicted paedophile from entering. How were they able to do that? They were able to do that because of the permit system. What are they going to do now? They will lose the capacity to protect themselves in that way—and that is a serious mistake. That is reflected in the views of the Northern Territory Police Association, who said that the permits help them in the bush with their efforts to keep alcohol and drugs out of communities that are supposed to be dry. Vince Kelly, President of the Northern Territory Police Association, said:

The Federal Government, in my view, has not yet made it clear what the connection is between the Aboriginal land permit system and the sexual abuse of women and children in these communities.

Mr Kelly went on to say:

The police officer at Maningrida expressed a view that they’re battling a drug problem out there ... and clearly they have some control at the moment—

because of the permit system. I am slightly paraphrasing for the sake of time. Anyone who wants to can read the transcript on the ABC website. He went on to say:

... to simply remove the permit system would mean that people … there’d be no requirement for anyone, any monitoring of what goes on, so it’d be open slather, so to speak.

So the police are concerned. The evidence is clearly there. The Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, the member for Nhulunbuy, Syd Stirling, talked about the possibility that the better Indigenous communities could be swept up and treated like child abusers as well as the worst communities. Where is the incentive for better performance? He was talking at the Yilpara community. He also said:

I know that there are dysfunctional communities, but Yilpara is not one of them. The kids here are looked after by their families and taken to school every day. It is safe for children and all of us to develop as a community.

It is important that we do not threaten that.

I have just received a copy of a media release made today by NAVA, the National Association for the Visual Arts. It expresses their concern that Aboriginal art may be further under threat as a result of the proposal in the legislation that is currently going through federal parliament to remove the permit system. The executive director of NAVA, Tamara Winikoff, said: ‘We are very worried that the removal of the permit system will increase the ability of unscrupulous art dealers or art purchasers to gain access to Indigenous communities and their artists for the purpose of exploitative practices.’ That is a very real and serious concern and it is right for NAVA to raise it. It would be tragic if the government were to ignore it. If they had not been in such a rush and had developed this properly and with a bit of consultation, organisations like NAVA could have come forward and put their propositions to the government. Some modification of the permit system could have been developed that kept its strengths and dealt with its weaknesses. But that is not what has happened.

These proposals are not implementing the Wild-Anderson report and this is one of the things that leads to my concern that the program may fail. I will now deal with the recommendations of that report. The report says:

In the first recommendation, we have specifically referred to the critical importance of governments committing to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities, whether these be in remote, regional or urban settings.

The report then quotes the following statement by Fred Chaney:

... one of the things I think we should have learned by now is that you can’t solve these things by centralised bureaucratic direction.

…            …            …

... you can have programs that run out into communities that aren’t owned by those communities, that aren’t locally controlled and managed, and I think surely that is a thing we should know doesn’t work.

In a subsequent recommendation on page 26, the report recommends:

That the Northern Territory Government work with the Australian Government in consultation with Aboriginal communities to:

(a)

develop a comprehensive long-term strategy to build a strong and equitable core service platform in Aboriginal communities, to address the underlying risk factors for child sexual abuse and to develop functional communities in which children are safe.

In an open letter to Mal Brough signed by my friend Mick Dodson and a lot of other distinguished Australians, including former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and leaders of the Indigenous community, the letter’s authors support a commitment to tackle violence and abuse and they support the fact that urgent action is required. But they said that it needs to be a longer term plan and that in their present form these proposals miss the mark and are unlikely to be effective. These are not people who are criticising the government for taking action. They are saying, ‘What you are doing will not work.’ That is exactly one of my serious concerns about this package.

There is goodwill for a national response and it is appropriate to give priority to assisting victims of abuse. The great pity with this package of legislation is the way in which the government has chosen to act. It has been unnecessarily divisive and it has been disappointingly short term. It has set up a process with much too high a risk of failure. For now it is all there is and, given the government’s majority in both houses, this legislation will pass. It will pass when the government wishes and it will pass in the form the government wishes. Therefore, the best we can do is seek to amend it and to improve it and to point out to the government the risk of failure and the risk of counterproductive consequences. People like Jackie Huggins, Mick Dodson, Patricia Anderson, Rex Wild and Syd Stirling and organisations like NAVA, the Northern Territory Police Association and the community from Amoonguna have been saying that there is a risk of counterproductive consequences from this initiative, which we will give the benefit of the doubt to as being well intentioned.

All that we as an opposition can do is say that if there is no alternative way of getting assistance to the victims of abuse we will support this package. We will try to outline an alternative long-term view, and the shadow minister has done that. We will try to amend the legislation to make it better. That will come forward in the committee stage. But we know that this government does not listen to anybody. All we can say is: let us hope that this package and these initiatives do some good for some of the people in need, and we hope that we can do better in future.

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will speak very briefly on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007. I have been asked to keep my remarks short as the speaker’s list is quite long. I do not have a large Indigenous population in my electorate on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland but I do have quite a long history of association with the Northern Territory. That goes back to 1975-76 when I was chief of staff for the then Minister for Northern Territory, the late Hon. Evan Adermann, who was charged with the carriage of the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978. I was widely involved in writing that act and in its passage and implementation, which brought the Northern Territory to self-government. As well as that I was also involved with the Northern Territory land rights act, which had been introduced by the previous government under Prime Minister Whitlam. It was carried on by the Fraser government, by the Hon. Ian Viner, who was the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

I feel very passionate about this. I can remember my first visit to the Northern Territory with the minister. We went by RAAF plane to a number of communities, including Snake Bay on Melville Island, where these problems existed 31 years ago. The member for Fraser talked about this problem not being new. I will not say that it has been swept under the carpet by any government, but it has never been addressed. When is it the right time to do what we have to do here now? It seems to never be the right time, but the right time is now. We visited these communities. A good community at that time was Port Keats. That was a Catholic mission community which is now known as Wadeye. We have heard the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs speak about the problems at Wadeye. So over 31 years things have not been improved. Health in Aboriginal communities is still a disgrace in Australia.

Why is the government doing this in the Northern Territory? I remind the House that in 1998 when I was minister for territories in the first Howard government we had a referendum in the Northern Territory on statehood. Those opposite opposed that. That referendum was unsuccessful and statehood did not happen for the Northern Territory. It remained a territory, and the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act still applies. The Commonwealth has under that act certain powers to override territory legislation. If it had become a state back in 1998 I do not think that we would be standing here now.

I am pleased to participate in this debate because I believe that history will show this to be the most important legislation ever introduced by the Howard government. The package of bills being debated tonight will provide the framework to ensure that there is a future for Aboriginal children of the Northern Territory. These children are living with the consequences of the breakdown of communities from the abuse of alcohol and the commonality of the abuse of pornography. This government did not stand by while the Territory thought about committees and reports and more reports and more inquiries. There comes a time when government has to act. Now is that time. The safety of children is at stake.

This legislation will ensure that everyday items that we should take for granted, such as food and basic consumables, are available to families and children in these remote communities. Children in Australia in the 21st century should not be going without these basic needs. The very first recommendation of the Little children are sacred report into the protection of Aboriginal children from child abuse in the Northern Territory recommended:

That Aboriginal child sexual abuse in the Northern territory be designated as an issue of urgent national significance by both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments ...

This government acted on this recommendation to ensure the protection of Aboriginal children from harm. No Australian could possibly stand by and continue to do nothing, and this government moved urgently and decisively. The legislation shows how serious the government is about tackling this problem and tackling it now. This legislative package in the House tonight includes two appropriation bills that provide in excess of $500 million in 2007-08.

I said that I would keep my remarks short. I will not go into the details of the bills, because the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and other speakers have, but I want to put on record my total support for these bills. After 31 years, it gives me great personal gratification to see that this problem is being finally addressed and that the people of Australia are facing up to the problem. I commend the bills to the House.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are currently debating five bills. They come to 537 pages in total. There are also 196 pages of explanatory memoranda. With regard to the opposition’s ability to scrutinise these bills, the public should appreciate that the shadow spokesperson was only given copies midmorning yesterday and they filtered through all the way into the evening. The ultraspeedy passage of these bills is clearly designed to avoid public scrutiny, not least from Aboriginal communities but also from other community bodies with legitimate concerns about the government’s proposals.

But the Government still appears to see any critic as an enemy that needs to be demonised and Parliament as a rubber stamp. The arrogance of the Government is palpable.

Those are not my words. They are the words of the Law Council President, Tim Bugg, who criticised Minister Brough’s proposal to rush the legislation through the House of Representatives today and the minister’s expressed intention to conclude Senate debates by week’s end. That press release was issued by him today.

It is important to go to when this saga began. Shortly before question time on 21 June 2007, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs held a press conference. The Prime Minister opened by saying:

Well ladies and gentlemen, Mr Brough and I have called this news conference to announce a number of major measures to deal with what we can only describe as a national emergency in relation to the abuse of children in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

He went on to say that he was unhappy with the response of the Northern Territory government to the report by Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson. The interesting thing is that their report contained 97 recommendations, and I am advised that while this government has relied on their report for this intervention it has only partially picked up five out of their 97 recommendations.

I am a bit suspicious. I think it is a ruse, when one looks at the permits that are being dealt with in this legislation and the compulsory acquisition of land. I do not think those provisions have anything to do with the abuse of children, because historically the minister has put on the record that he wants to do away with the permit system. But he has been rebuffed by the communities and the Northern Territory government. Indeed, he has been rebuffed in relation to a number of communities and his 99-year leases. They have been picked up in this legislation. The abuse of children is a cover to do a number of things that do not need to be done.

In a national emergency one would think that the Prime Minister, if he were acting in a proper fashion, would involve the opposition. In my view that would make him look prime ministerial; it would elevate him. One would think that he would advise the Northern Territory government, in particular the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. None of that was done. The Prime Minister in his press conference did say that he tried to contact Clare Martin, but we know from the press that Mr Brough managed to contact Noel Pearson and tell him what was happening 15 minutes before a press conference. If this issue is to be above politics then it should not be politicised by the government trying to sideline the opposition. I would have thought that involving the opposition, but in particular involving the communities, would mean that you would have a better chance of success.

We are told now that this measure will cost $580-odd million, more than $200 million of which, I am advised, will go into administration. That is just for 12 months. That is not what the Prime Minister said when asked by a journalist at the press conference on 21 June: ‘Are there estimates of the total cost?’ He said:

No, no, no, I mean it will be some tens of millions of dollars. It’s not huge but there could be some costs in relation to the extra police.

The timetable is important for the Prime Minister because he has a pending election. This is about trying to get him kudos in the lead-up to the election. It is the Kath and Kim approach to politics—’Look at me, look at me.’ There is a bit of shock and awe in the intervention in the Northern Territory. It has not been properly thought out. That is why it has taken them to this point in time to also produce the legislation, when we were promised a special sitting of parliament. I have to say that I am a bit cynical when it comes to this Prime Minister’s motives, particularly in relation to Aboriginal people, because he has form.

The other thing that I find quite bizarre is that, when he was asked by a journalist: ‘But is this a problem in Aboriginal communities elsewhere?’ he said, ‘Yes, it is, but we have the power to do something in the Northern Territory.’ And further down he says: ‘We don’t have the power to do these things in other parts of Australia.’ That is just not true. I know he is a suburban solicitor from Wollstonecraft, but he has been involved with the Racial Discrimination Act since he came into this parliament—indeed, as a junior backbencher he led the charge in the debate in the House of Representatives in 1975, particularly in relation to the removal of the racial hatred provisions that were then in the Racial Discrimination Bill.

A special measure in relation to Indigenous communities can be spread across boundaries. The surveyors lines do not stop a special measure, if it is truly a special measure, applying to Indigenous people in Western Australia, Queensland or New South Wales, where there have been a number of reports on this. So this disingenuous approach by the Prime Minister in saying, ‘We’ve only got the power in relation to the Northern Territory,’ is wrong—and I challenge him to come into this parliament and provide the legal advice that says I am wrong, because he cannot. If it were a special law then the other power that he could rely on in relation to other communities is in effect the referendum power, the race power, section 51(xxvi). That could apply to Indigenous people in the states. But the Northern Territory has been picked for a particular reason: to quarantine your fight, to bash up the Northern Territory Labor government, to try and save the skin of the member for Solomon and to in effect try to undermine the member for Lingiari. That is all that one can conclude from the way the government have conducted themselves—the ambush, the secrecy in relation to the legislation.

There is one point I now want to concentrate on: the way the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act interacts with three of these bills. Today on AM Melinda James said:

Among the visitors to Garma this year was the nation’s longest-serving Federal Court judge, now retired, Murray Wilcox QC.

The retired judge assessed the Federal Government’s emergency response legislation yesterday afternoon on a laptop in a stringybark forest on the edge of Arnhem Land, and he’s not impressed.

Murray Wilcox says:

Well, I think it’s constitutionally valid, but it’s extremely discriminatory legislation, that is actually acknowledged by the legislation because it specifically excludes the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act and the Anti Discrimination Act legislation of the Northern Territory. In other words, the Government is saying this is racially discriminatory legislation but nonetheless it is to be regarded as valid.

We were promised it would be a special measure. And in each of the three bills the government asserts in the relevant clauses that it is a special measure. But it does not have the courage of its convictions, because clauses 4(2) and 4(3) of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 state:

(2)

To the extent that this subsection applies, the provisions referred to in paragraph (1)(a), and any acts referred to in paragraph (1)(b), are, for the purposes of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, special measures.

(3)

To the extent that this subsection applies, the provisions referred to in paragraph (1)(a), and any acts referred to in paragraph (1)(b), are excluded from the operation of Part II of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

It then goes on to purport to say what some special measures are for the purposes of the Racial Discrimination Act.

In the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 it is clause 132 which says:

(1)

The provisions of this Act, and any acts done under or for the purposes of those provisions, are, for the purposes of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, special measures.

However, it then goes on:

(2)

The provisions of this Act, and any acts done under or for the purposes of those provisions, are excluded from the operation of Part II of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Then, in the third act, it is clause 4 of the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response and Other Measures) Bill 2007 that goes on to do the same thing. It attempts to assert in 4.1 that the provisions are for the purposes of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 special measures and then goes on in subsection 2 to exclude the operation of part II of the Racial Discrimination Act.

In my view it is unacceptable to racially discriminate against any Australian citizen in this age. The Racial Discrimination Act was enacted in 1975 and was consistent with the racial discrimination convention. It is the basis upon which Aboriginal people have won historic victories in Mabo and Wik and it has been the basis of other High Court challenges. For example, Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen was upheld four to three, I think, when Bjelke-Petersen basically acquired Mr Koowarta’s land.

The reason it is being excluded in this case is that the government knows that some of its actions are very dodgy. Under a special measure, providing the balance of what you do is beneficial and a temporary measure and is about advancement, you can have positive and negative measures in your package and it can still constitute a special measure and not be deemed to be racial discrimination.

Why do I know a bit about this, Madam Deputy Speaker? The previous Labor government had this debate as well when it had to enact the Native Title Act in response to the High Court’s decision in Mabo and people were running around thinking that their backyards were not safe. The legal advice to the then Labor government was that the only way through the impasse was to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act and to act in a racially discriminatory way to assure people that their backyards were safe.

The Labor government refused to do that and there was some internal discussion, and to his eternal credit the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating, embraced the Racial Discrimination Act in the solution that his government brought down. It had in it positive measures in relation to Indigenous people with the promise of a land fund and a social justice package, but there were negative provisions in relation to Aboriginal people in terms of validation of titles. The preamble—and I read these out so that you can compare and contrast, because they are chalk and cheese—of the Native Title Act said:

The law, together with initiatives announced at the time of its introduction and others agreed on by the Parliament from time to time, is intended, for the purposes of paragraph 4 of Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, to be a special measure for the advancement and protection of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders, and is intended to further advance the process of reconciliation among all Australians.

In terms of the provision in the Act clause 7(1) said:

(1)

This Act is intended to be read and construed subject to the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

(2)

Subsection (1) means only that:

(a)

the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 apply to the performance of functions and the exercise of powers conferred by or authorised by this Act; and

(b)

to construe this Act, and thereby to determine its operation, ambiguous terms should be construed consistently with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 if that construction would remove the ambiguity.

We acted in a non-discriminatory way, whereas this government in a deliberate fashion—I have not seen such blatant clauses as the ones I have read out in the 17½ years I have been in this parliament—has basically overridden the Racial Discrimination Act. Not only has it overridden the Racial Discrimination Act, because a later federal act can override an earlier federal act—and this government has got form on that in relation to the Native Title Amendment Act and also the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act—but for the first time the government has been specific. It knows its actions are targeted at Indigenous people in a racially discriminatory way.

This is a lazy government. This is an arrogant government. This is a Prime Minister with one thing on his mind: saving his own skin. He understands that out there in the community most people will not be across this legal argument. I say that a decent government, a good government, could legislate to protect Aboriginal people from the calumnies that have been exposed without doing it in a way that could be seen to be racially discriminatory. If this legislation is truly a special measure, if it is truly beneficial for Indigenous people, then as an overall package it could stand up. In any event it could still be—and would be in my view and I am sure in Murray Wilcox’s view—very unlikely to be overturned by the High Court because of the referendum power, the races power, the special laws that parliament has the power to make. That is my concern in relation to this. I am not going to be lectured by the Prime Minister or by this Aboriginal affairs minister or any other member of the government as if they have the high moral ground on this. You do not, and the way you have dealt with the Racial Discrimination Act shows it.

I do not sheet that home to all members of the government because the truth is that these responses are determined by the leadership invariably on both sides of the House. I do not say that there are not concerns on this side of the House, but there are a number of amendments that the Labor Party will be moving in the committee stage of this debate which deserve support, particularly one relating to the Racial Discrimination Act.

I am disturbed because it means something to me. I do not accept the argument that to save children we have to act in a racial discriminatory way. Your legislation should involve the Racial Discrimination Act. It should embrace it like the original Native Title Act of the Keating government did and, through doing that, our international reputation is protected; it is not trashed for the sake of base politics with an election pending and a Prime Minister and government in trouble. That is what you are remembered by. As I said, I do not have a lot of confidence in this Prime Minister when it comes to Aboriginal people. His first act in his budget of 1996 was to rip $470 million out of ATSIC, which turned over a lot of remote communities and the support structures they had. I would like to spend the $580 million within existing structures in a partnership way, not wasting a lot of that money on administration but having it benefit Indigenous people.

Those are my concerns about this bill. I would like the Prime Minister or the minister to come in and tell me I am wrong about the Racial Discrimination Act and put up the legal advice. I know I am right. (Time expired)

Dave Tollner (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I strongly support the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 that is before us today. This is not a grab for power by the federal government or a blow to Territory self-government. All the action at the national level is designed to ensure the protection of Aboriginal children from harm and to prevent further abuse.

Small survey teams made up of government departmental representatives and, in some cases, police have commenced community engagement and area surveys in a number of communities to assess the resources they need. A task force made up of child protection experts is already in place. The emergency measures to protect children already announced are the first step towards providing a stabilising influence in communities.

These initiatives only came about because of the inability of the Martin Labor government to deal with the problem and act accordingly. However, the Northern Territory is not alone. Labor state governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia have adopted a similar tardy approach to dealing with abuse problems in their communities. The time for sitting on reports is now long over. Tough measures are needed, but the federal government is not imposing draconian measures or throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Nor will we victimise Aboriginal communities as it is only a minority of people who have transgressed the law.

Welfare reforms will stem the flow of cash going toward substance abuse and ensure funds meant for children’s welfare are used for that purpose. It is vital that school attendance is also enforced. As part of the immediate emergency response, most state police forces agreed to send officers to the Territory along with the AFP. Volunteers from all walks of life are also coming to these Indigenous communities requiring assistance. This will make communities safer.

By the inaction of state and territory governments, the Howard government was forced to act immediately to protect Aboriginal children and tackle these problems. It is clear that, after the historic announcement, the policy has the widespread support of the Australian community. The Little children are sacred report detailed the shocking extent of child abuse and family violence in Indigenous communities in the Territory. The magnitude of the problem has been known for some time and, while there have been some attempts to address it, this has been clearly insufficient.

The Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce recognises the urgent need for immediate intervention to prevent child abuse in communities. I am heartened by the speed with which the task force settled its terms of reference and moved to establish its operational priorities. Ensuring communities are safe and government services are up to scratch is the first step. Commander of the task force’s operational group, Major General Dave Chalmers, and his team are currently assessing infrastructure, housing, health services, income support and policing arrangements while working closely with communities and carrying out surveys with experienced survey teams. Government business managers will operate in prescribed townships after the surveys are completed, and they will ensure that services in the community are coordinated and assets are being properly managed. State governments have pledged policing support and other assistance to the Northern Territory Police and, as I said, police are already on the ground.

The federal government is now implementing a number of complementary parts of the emergency relief effort, including measures to support school attendance and welfare reform and measures designed to provide for the healthy wellbeing of children backed up by medical checks. Health teams include not only medical practitioners but also child protection officers and interpreters. As part of the federal intervention process, the government will be changing the law to remove the requirement for people to get a permit to enter Aboriginal townships. Permits will be scrapped in relation to the common areas of townships, as well as roads into these townships, and airstrips. Common areas are those parts of a township that are normally accessible to everyone, such as public buildings and facilities, shops, art centres and the like.

I personally do not think this measure goes far enough, but it is a good first step. I personally think that the whole permit system should be done away with and normal laws of trespass should apply. Why should people need a permit or, in other words, a visa, to visit Aboriginal land? Aboriginal people may look different and many may speak a different language, but they are Australian and the land which they occupy is part of Australia. However, contrary to my view, the permit system will continue to apply to the vast majority of Aboriginal land in the Territory, including homelands. Improving access to townships will promote economic activity and help link communities to the wider world. Removal of the permit system will also enable normal scrutiny of activities in Aboriginal townships and access for all people, including police, media, doctors and other essential service providers. It will also lead to improved housing, help get kids to school and enable people working to improve their own circumstances.

In May this year the federal government introduced the first 99-year lease over a township on Aboriginal land. This historic agreement with local people for the lease of the town of Nguiu on the Tiwi Islands will enable them to have real property rights—to buy a home, to own a piece of land, to start businesses and to have the same opportunities as other Australians. It is impossible to find an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory that has a market garden, a greengrocer, a hairdresser, a restaurant, a clothing shop, a shoe shop, a bakery or a butcher shop. Who out there honestly believes that Aboriginal people should not have access to these services in their townships that other Australians enjoy? After 30 years, the permit system has not stopped the carpetbaggers, the drug pushers, the grog runners, the abusers and the corrupt. We can no longer allow the situation where children are being abused and where crimes are being perpetrated on people who have little or no protection. We should not segregate one part of Australia from another just because of a person’s skin colour.

As I mentioned, Nguiu on the Tiwi Islands is the first community to take advantage of 99-year leasing, which offers the chance of private home ownership and business enterprise development on Aboriginal land. This is what the federal intervention in Indigenous communities is all about. The Howard government wants to break that cycle of despair. It wants to encourage land councils to work proactively towards engaging Aboriginal people with private enterprise and economic development. A good example is the federal government’s offer earlier this year of $60 million to Tangentyere Council, in Alice Springs, to upgrade town camps in Alice Springs. Tangentyere should have accepted the offer. There is an urgent need to improve conditions in the town camps in Alice Springs and to impose the rule of law on areas one of my parliamentary colleagues described as ‘ghettos of despair’. Town camps have become associated with Third World living conditions: poor hygiene, extreme violence, alcohol abuse and child sexual abuse.

The Territory government has done too little since 2001 to remedy this situation or to improve the lot of Aboriginal town camp dwellers. Its response was the Alice Springs Town Camps Review Task Force report, which was published in 2006. It reviewed infrastructure, services and living conditions in town camps. The report highlighted the urgent need to bring power, water, sewerage, roads, rubbish and rates into line with standard arrangements for other parts of the town. This would build a healthier and safer community for residents of the town camps, as will the proposed alcohol courts. All town camps have historically experienced poor infrastructure and service provision. These federal government initiatives offer a normalisation solution for town camps and communities as well as providing private homeownership opportunities, in contrast to the neglect shown by the Northern Territory Martin Labor government.

The Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs highlighted in question time today the latest comments from Clare Martin about the Northern Territory national emergency response. He also explained the need for federal government intervention. For Ms Martin to say that compulsorily acquiring town camps has nothing to do with protecting children shows just how out of touch with reality the Northern Territory government has become. In 2006 Ms Martin—and her Alice Springs Town Camps Review Task Force report—said that housing was of critical importance because of overcrowding and that its resultant stress and poverty were key factors in child abuse. In their first meeting, the federal Indigenous affairs minister heard from Clare Martin that the Alice Springs town camps were her highest priority because of alcohol and drug fuelled violence, abuse and overcrowding. How can she now turn around and say that the government’s measures have nothing to do with protecting children? This hypocrisy is astounding and underlines more than anything the appropriateness of the Howard government’s intervention in the Northern Territory.

The release of the third Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report earlier this year also reinforced the need for a new approach to tackling Aboriginal issues in the Territory. Just about every indicator shows that Aboriginal Territorians are well below the national average and are disadvantaged. While some progress has been made in achieving falling rates of infant mortality and in increasing educational opportunities, a lot more needs to be done. Indigenous housing is one area which needs improvement. There needs to be more choice and opportunity for Aboriginal people in the Territory that allows them to realise the economic potential of their land. There needs to be changes to the land tenure in Aboriginal townships, streamlined processes for land development and improvement in the accountability of land councils and royalty bodies. Federal intervention now holds out that hope.

Central to the current intervention debate is the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, which was passed by both houses of the Commonwealth parliament and imposed exclusively upon the Northern Territory in 1976. At the time, pressure was building for land rights, and the political climate was ripe for change. At the time, the Aboriginal affairs minister, Ian Viner, picked up on a central theme while introducing the legislation. He waxed lyrical about Aboriginal spiritual connection with the land and the Dreamtime. He said that ancestors left in each country certain vital powers that made that country fruitful and ensured a good life for people forever. He said, ‘An Aboriginal’s country, no matter how stricken a wilderness it may seem to others, is, to him, a Canaan.’ He stated his belief that there had been a fundamental change in social thinking in Australia, recognising that within our community there are some people, the Aborigines, who live by a unique and distinct system of customary law. Therefore we can see the intent of the land rights act—to establish rights, to protect the country and its inhabitants from intruders, to create inalienable title in perpetuity for a people who lived differently and thereby to ensure a good life for people forever.

The purpose of the land rights act was to establish a sanctuary, a preserve of living prehistory within modern Australia. Spurring on this mood were the Commonwealth’s deep suspicions about the intentions of the embryonic Territory government: the legislative council. To defend Aboriginal Territorians from their future government, the act stipulated that the Territory parliament could not acquire Aboriginal land for public purposes. At the time, Canberra genuinely believed that, given half a chance, the Territory council would repossess Aboriginal land en masse and Ian Viner felt compelled to tell the Commonwealth parliament that he had had assurances that the Territory legislative assembly was prepared to cooperate. In fact, there was uncertainty, resentment and a lot of division in the Territory, not so much about Aboriginal land ownership but more to do with the way the land rights act was imposed exclusively upon the Territory from above. It seemed hypocritical—and it was—to impose upon a Territory a land regime that was applauded by the same people who would not have a bar of it in their home states.

Some years ago I argued, in a paper to the Bennelong Society Conference, that the Aboriginal land rights legislation was, in a sense, a rights act, not a land management act. It was about putting things right, about appeasing the national conscience and international opinion in the only place that the Commonwealth could, in the Northern Territory. I argued that it was not about good land management, land administration or planning for the future exploitation and productivity of the land; it was about the protection of land as a right, the preservation of culture, defending Aboriginal people and their land from the intrusion of outsiders, be it pastoralists, miners, tourists or anyone without a permit—even their own future Territory government.

The land rights legislation has left the Territory a legacy that has soured relations between the Northern Territory government and the land councils ever since. To defend the rights of Aboriginal Territorians, the act stipulated that the Territory parliament could not acquire Aboriginal land for public purposes for fear that a Territory government would repossess Aboriginal land en masse. So the legislation was, as I said, imposed exclusively from above.

Today, almost half of the Northern Territory is under Aboriginal title. The Commonwealth act prohibits any compulsory acquisition of land under the act by the Territory government. The power of the land councils has grown in equal measure. Land council administration costs have eaten up mining royalty moneys, and whatever little is left has gone to benefit some Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. But, despite this protection, many Territory Aborigines today are land rich and dirt poor, trapped in a welfare dependency status. The reality is that it is difficult to find a functional Aboriginal community anywhere. The federal Indigenous affairs minister has highlighted this problem in the past year or so. Sexual assault, domestic violence and other violence, antisocial behaviour and drunkenness are all too common today in many communities.

Some years back, the then minister for Indigenous affairs, Philip Ruddock, produced an options paper for the future of the land rights act. One option was repatriation of the act to the Northern Territory government. That would have meant at least some control by the Territory government of over 50 per cent of the lands in the Northern Territory. As history shows, the offer was ignored by the Northern Territory government, by Chief Minister Clare Martin and by the land councils. It was a missed opportunity.

The land rights act has failed because, while it has created Aboriginal owned land, it has also reduced Territory Aboriginals to a welfare dependency status. The royalty flow from mines located on Aboriginal land has been used by land councils to fund the administration costs of a powerful bureaucracy, and an elite Aboriginal leadership has emerged. Moneys have been distributed to select groups and individuals on a grace-and-favour basis, with little flowing down to those at the bottom. Decision makers in the royalties distribution business have in many cases been beneficiaries themselves in the process. Many of these people are the very same people who are now screaming the loudest about the introduction of these reforms.

My view is that the leasing provisions in this legislation will right some of these wrongs, but the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act should be repatriated to the Northern Territory as soon as possible, with its new provisions being discussed today but also with the Commonwealth installing some safety clauses to guarantee some of its provisions, as it sees fit. It is central to the current debate on the federal intervention in the Northern Territory. The government are not forcing this act on the Northern Territory government; we are not forcing the Territory government to manage this act. They do not want it. They have said that in the past. They are not prepared to govern for all Territorians and that is why the federal government are intervening now and that is why I support the legislation before the House today.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and associated legislation before the House. I acknowledge the remarks of the member for Solomon, in particular his assertion—which, to me, was perhaps ironically put—that in some way the provision of land rights for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has been a major contributor to the social and physical difficulties that they have faced in communities. I simply say to the member, as he departs the chamber—and he may not be in the chamber for a great deal longer, in any event—that the contribution by his own party and the Labor Party, in advancing the prospects for Indigenous communities which are seeking to reassert and regain access to land which was theirs, which they owned and occupied for millennia, should still be seen as one of the significant accomplishments of this parliament, notwithstanding the many grave issues and difficulties that Indigenous communities, particularly in the Top End, face.

It makes a travesty of recollecting history to take the bits that suit as opposed to the bits that do not, in trying to maintain an argument that in some way those who sought to see the introduction of land rights—the legislation that came through this parliament and the associated court cases, which I will refer to later—contributed to the kinds of issues that are addressed in the legislation before us. In relation to the determination or otherwise of where funds go, including royalty funds and funds in the Aboriginals Benefit Account, I hardly think that this member nor, indeed, the minister who brought this legislation into the House have much to tell us.

On 27 May 40 years ago, Australians at a referendum empowered the Commonwealth to make laws for Indigenous Australians. The majority of Australians supported that referendum overwhelmingly. Today we debate legislation introduced into the parliament that, in part, aims to directly address ongoing and indisputably harrowing incidents of abuse of Aboriginal children in communities not only through the Top End but also in Queensland. That abuse is sometimes occasioned by high levels of overcrowding, the lack of provision of suitable and adequate housing. Oftentimes it is as a consequence of alcohol abuse, the conspicuous gap in educational attainment and, additionally, the incidence of ill health common amongst some Aboriginal people in the Top End of Australia. However, I would assert very strongly, it is not occasioned by the fact that Indigenous people have been able to ultimately assert and gain some access to and control over land that was previously theirs.

Labor supports this legislation—with amendments that have been introduced by the member for Jagajaga in a second reading amendment, which I support strongly—because any measures that protect Indigenous children in the Top End deserve to be supported. There is primacy with the rights of children that they be able to begin their journey through life without threat of abuse, without harrowing experiences of violence or sexual abuse—because, after all, it is those early experiences that so determine the progress and the journey that people have in later life.

However, in between the referendum of 1967 and the introduction of this intervention legislation today, there has been an extensive history. It is a history of political and social struggle. It has been played out against the backdrop of governments of both political persuasions, at both the state and the federal level, endeavouring to address some of the consistent and ongoing issues of disadvantage that Aboriginal communities face. To that extent, it is the rights and interests of Indigenous people that have formed a common thread when we consider, first, the legislation that proposed the referendum and, second, subsequent legislation that has come into this House, including that occasioned by the Keating government and subsequently amended by the Howard government, of which we ought to be aware and should be noting as we debate this legislation. We also ought to note that the early campaigns for land rights were blocked by those opposite; that the court cases occasioned by that blockage, which saw the highest court in the land recognise the rights that Aboriginal people had to their land, were blocked and opposed by those sitting opposite; and that it was recourse to the highest courts of the land, particularly with the Wik and Mabo decisions that resulted from that action, that saw the beginning, only in the nineties, in Australian history of what was then an appropriate recognition and an appropriate provision of an entitlement to land that Aboriginal people had so long yearned for.

It is the case that the Howard government, from the beginning of its term, has taken a strongly ideological position on the question of Aboriginal people’s rights and entitlements. It is also the case that the 10-point plan saw an attempt, which was partially successful, by this government to diminish the rights originally established and identified by the court. It is the case that the Prime Minister’s refusal to say sorry has hamstrung the reconciliation endeavour. It is the case that the isolation of Indigenous leaders who do not accept the current assimilationist ideology of the government has been common. It is the case that there has been an underlying decrying of claims of attachment to land and the importance of culture and an assertion that these things are of no consequence as long as we have social disadvantage and, in particular, issues relating to sexual abuse, particularly of minors and of the young, which everybody in this House and those listening to this debate know to be a matter of the gravest consequence for us all. Yet at the same time the government has had no shortage of reports—no shortage of people from communities telling them of the level of concern about abuse and no shortage of recommendations and direct approaches, both to the Prime Minister and to senior ministers in the Howard government, pleading for the opportunity to be heard and for the opportunity for the government to act. The government has acted—but, in acting, it has chosen not to consult widely with the Aboriginal community. I think, more than anything else, that is an issue that Aboriginal people now feel great hurt about.

When introducing the legislation, the minister said that the Little children are sacred report confirmed what the government had been saying for some time. In fact, it did no such thing. The ‘Sacred Children’ report confirmed what child abuse experts, health professionals, women in Aboriginal communities and a series of reports by those who had looked at this issue had been saying for some time, which this government had taken no action on. Not only that, but the ‘Sacred Children’ report made a series of recommendations that the government has chosen not to accept. The government may be surprised that Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal leaders are somewhat concerned about this legislation coming into the House, but why wouldn’t they be? Six weeks ago, we had a press release. Then we had comment by the Prime Minister that parliament may have to resume in the winter break in order to make some determinations about legislation that was to be brought forward—

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a stunt.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lowe makes the point that that was a stunt. I think he is absolutely right: it was a stunt. But it was a stunt at the expense of the psychological wellbeing of people in Northern Australia. Today we find ourselves with the situation where, without any opportunity whatsoever for any member on this side of the House to adequately or thoroughly consider some 500 or more pages of legislation and associated explanatory memoranda, we are debating this legislation as it is rammed through the House. People all around Australia—Aboriginal leaders and people involved in Aboriginal organisations, health organisations and community organisations as well as those many Australians who care greatly about the prospects for Aboriginal communities to be self-sufficient and healthy and about the fact that there is abuse in these communities—are not part of this discussion at all. It is a total betrayal of the democratic process by this government. It is a total betrayal by the minister, who has travelled to these areas and who knows full well that it is all about consultation.

I will quickly read an extract of a resolution that has come from the health forum at the Garma Festival 2007. Aboriginal community leaders, health professionals and other concerned Australian community leaders who met at the Garma Festival health forum at Gulkula, Arnhem Land, call on the Australian government to abandon this legislation. They point out that there has been ‘no negotiation, courtesy or respect shown to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members and health professionals’. They are ‘particularly concerned that there are no evidence based reasons given for the changes to the land permit system and the Northern Territory Aboriginal land rights act’. They specifically say that the government does not have to destabilise communal rights to land to effectively address sexual abuse, social dysfunction or poverty. These Aboriginal leaders point out that the proposed measures bear no resemblance to the ‘Sacred Children’ report that the minister has referred to and that, as such, they have no confidence in their effectiveness. Finally, I note the authors of the Little children are sacred report itself said, ‘The thrust of our recommendations is for there to be consultation and ownership of the community.’ These views then are entirely understandable, given the way that this legislation has come into the House and the reaction from Aboriginal communities to such a heavy-handed process.

Notwithstanding that, I want to make some comments about the legislation itself, particularly in relation to welfare reform and the Cape York trials, which have been championed and supported by the government, Noel Pearson and the Cape York Institute. Like a number of people in this House, I have had the opportunity to visit Cape York. I know Noel Pearson’s and the institute’s work well. I think it is absolutely appropriate for both sides of the House to acknowledge the contribution that Mr Pearson has made. It may be the case that some members and some Aboriginal leaders take exception to some of the views that he has put. That is to be expected when someone is putting views in a debate of this kind. But I think it needs to be put on the record—and I am more than willing to do this myself—that he has shown significant courage and honesty within his own community to stand up and confront the issue of alcohol that bedevils Aboriginal communities. Those of us who have travelled to and spent time in those communities recognise that alcohol is an intractable problem that significantly lessens people’s opportunities to reach their potential and that it contributes to some of the terrible child abuse that we have witnessed.

To that extent, the measures that are identified in this legislation are supported by Labor. Certainly, we recognise that alcohol control is critical but, at the same time, we say very clearly that, ultimately, what is needed is a long-term strategy. That long-term strategy devolves to a number of other areas—and there has been particular neglect of them by both the Northern Territory government and the federal government—that relate to the adequate provision of housing, health facilities and education. All the evidence from other countries where Indigenous communities have struggled with a history of dispossession and have aimed to get themselves back on their feet and build right-livelihood for themselves shows that, unless you provide substantial and additional resourcing that is targeted at education, including affirmative action policies—which has been the case in some parts of the United States and Canada—and unless you provide substantial and additional investment, particularly in housing and health, the likelihood is that the social disadvantage that we have seen visited on young Indigenous people in particular, particularly where there is overcrowding, will continue. That is the bottom line here. Let us be under no misapprehension at all: that is the bottom line.

Labor support the measures contained in this intervention legislation. We hope they will help arrest the terribly high levels of abuse of young children. But those measures in and of themselves will not and cannot deal with the ultimate question of responsibility, which has to be enacted by the community that has the power, the capital and the capacity to exercise the distribution from the federal budget and those communities who in some parts of Australia still live with shocking life expectancy and health statistics and very poor educational prospects. Years and years of underinvestment in Aboriginal communities must be reversed, and it must be done by this parliament.

The test of this legislation is whether it improves the safety of children. The member for Jagajaga made that clear in her remarks. That is something which Labor both accepts and understands as being absolutely critical. There is an additional test for this legislation, and that is to recognise those parts of it which do not go to the question of securing better protection for young Indigenous Australians as they grow up. Those matters that have been identified in the second reading amendment, including seeking exemption from the application of the Racial Discrimination Act, the removal of the permit system and so on, are exceptions. It seems that they have been included not fully recognising the consequences. The implications of the removal of the permit system are very clear. The police have said and anyone who has travelled in these regions knows that the likely exposure to risk, including from white and black abusers and perhaps paedophiles, is greater if we remove the permit system than if we do not. 

In addition, the compulsory land acquisition identified in this legislation goes to the heart of the contempt with which the government on occasions approaches these issues and deals with Aboriginal communities. Why have the negotiations between the town camps and the minister broken down? Correspondence has been sent and models have been suggested to the Prime Minister about community owned land, but there has been no response whatsoever. The government’s ideological cast does not allow it to enter into negotiations of that kind, particularly in a time of crisis. It much prefers to introduce legislation—which we have not had the opportunity to properly or thoroughly consider—and only recognise without any reservation the need to address questions of abuse and associated issues.

The Labor Party supports the legislation with the amendment it has moved. Labor is committed to land rights for Indigenous people and the Racial Discrimination Act—it is an important piece of legislation. We are also committed to consultation and specifically to closing—indeed, to eliminating—the life expectancy gap that many Indigenous people suffer. We are particularly committed to tackling the rate of Indigenous infant mortality and diseases such as rheumatic heart fever and others. We are committed, I hope more than anything else, to examining the measures that we should consider in this parliament, both in opposition and in government, to deal not only in the short term with the social abuse issues affecting young kids but overall with the prospects for our Indigenous people to have good livelihoods and the benefits of economic and cultural sustainability into the future. That means listening to and working with Indigenous people and providing the sorely needed long-term commitment genuinely espoused through this House. (Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my 23 years in politics I think this is the most serious debate I have participated in, and I have participated in hundreds of debates over the years. The member for Gwydir, the Hon. John Anderson, wished to speak tonight, but he has deferred to me. He represents a large portion of western New South Wales and has been deeply involved in a work program at Bourke that has shown significant results for Aboriginal people. I put that on the record and the fact that I understand and accept that he has allowed me to speak in this debate.

I should provide some background to my contribution to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and cognate bills. My family first went to the Clarence River in about the 1860s. My great-grandmother was one of the first white children born on the Clarence River. She lived her adult life on the Esk River across from a group of Bundjalong people who lived in their native state. I still know the people of that tribe five generations down the track. I know how their customs were enforced, and they were different from what we are talking about tonight. Some of the laws were very strict and even brutal, but there was none of the sexual abuse or assaults that we hear about today. In fact, the tribe that my great-grandmother knew segregated the males and females at puberty, they never married within their tribe and they were protected by the tribe. That is quite different from what we are talking about today.

I have heard members of the Labor Party say that they support this legislation, but I have been straining to hear their support. Most of their contributions have been an attack on the government. This is a very serious problem and it does not exist only in the Northern Territory; it exists across Australia. I heard the member for Lowe interjecting. The same thing occurs under his nose in Redfern, and I know that he would not approve of that.

Why do I say this? Some nine years ago, Aboriginal women with whom I went to school, played sport and worked and whom I have employed—I know the wonderful Aboriginal people of the Lower Clarence very well—came to see me secretly to tell me what was going on in their communities. The group represented a cross-section of the community. The elderly women I know are grandmothers and elders of the tribe. One woman I know very well and whom I respect enormously said: ‘Ian, we have come to you because we know you and trust you. We are frightened to come publicly, but we want to tell you what is going on in our community.’ This woman said to me, ‘Ian, no female of any age is safe in our community.’ That is a very, very strong statement about something I abhor. I said to the lady: ‘Look, you don’t have to put up with that. The law doesn’t allow that.’ And she asked: ‘What do we do? If we report these things it goes to court, the judges give a tap on the wrist or three months in jail and the perpetrators come back and bash the hell out of us.’ The women were scared. They do not report these things because that is what is going on.

I reported this to Senator Herron—and obviously this was the start of the changes that are taking place at the present time—but the federal government has no jurisdiction over states; only in the territories can the federal government have some say in what is going on in these communities. Absolutely no-one would approve of what was said to me—and I do not think they should. I could give you more, and more terrible, stories of what is going on. People, and sometimes they are the leaders of the community, are perpetrating crimes but nothing is being done.

One of the problems is that the deaths in custody inquiry has stifled our courts. We have laws that can stop this but the courts are reluctant to put people—Aboriginal people in particular—in jail because the deaths in custody inquiry showed that Aboriginal people have a propensity to hang themselves in jail. This is causing problems within the community. We are not getting results. The women in the communities say to me, ‘The law does not protect us.’

I listened to the member for Lingiari and I never heard once in his speech any recognition of the problem. I am not saying that the problem exists entirely in the Aboriginal community—it does not—but the problem occurs more in the Aboriginal community than in the wider community. The New South Wales government have had reports including Breaking the silence: creating the future. The New South Wales government have the same reports that I am referring to and the same reports that the member for Gwydir would have referred to, about Toomelah and other areas. The reports have done very little. The report to the parliament was that the New South Wales government were going to deal with it through their traditional agencies, but I know, through my discussions with the Aboriginal people in New South Wales, that they do not see any results coming from the traditional agencies. They do not see results for the problems that are occurring in these communities. I do not think that the white society would approve of what is going on; I am sure we would not. I am sure that if the people out there, including the church groups who are proclaiming that this is an injustice, knew exactly what was going on in the communities they would not approve of it either. I am absolutely certain they would not approve of it but they do not realise what is going on.

One of the people I know in my community is probably a leader in the Aboriginal community. He actually married a Caucasian girl, and they are quite happy, but certain groups within that community waited until he was away and raped her. I put to you: are we in this parliament prepared to accept that? I am sure it is not acceptable. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to sit here, as we have done for decades, and do nothing or are we going to try to do something about this?

I am not pretending that this is easy; it is not. I am not pretending that Aboriginal people have not been dispossessed; they have been. I am not pretending that Europeans have not interfered in their culture; they have. But we are in Australia today and there is no going back to the nomadic life that the Aboriginals led in the past. These are Australians who have the same rights as every other Australian, and they should be protected like every other Australian. This parliament has a responsibility—as other parliaments have a responsibility—to protect these people. I think we have let these Aboriginal communities down in a very big way.

As I said, there is not a simple answer. I believe the great disadvantage in the Aboriginal community starts with education. I know that successive governments have tried very hard to get Aboriginal children an education. It is difficult because they have a different culture. I think we have to work even harder with the parents to try to instil in them the need for an education. We all know that it does not matter where you come from in this society in Australia—it does not matter whether you are Caucasian, Aboriginal or from another nationality—an education is the very basis of life. If you get an education and you can get employment then you can overcome some of the problems that we see in these communities.

Where do the problems come from? The problems come from the fact that these people are not employed. They are not employed because they do not have the education or the skills to get employment. Some do, but a vast majority of them do not. I do not care whether you are black, white, Chinese, Vietnamese or whatever, if you have plenty of time on your hands and you are not working then you will get yourself into trouble. That is where the alcohol abuse comes in. Once alcohol comes into it, then there is assault and rape. That is the real problem in these areas, so we have to start at the base and ask: how are we going to overcome these problems? I see the member for Kennedy is in the chamber. He was a minister for northern development and Aboriginal affairs in the Queensland government, and I would be interested to hear what he has to say.

But the fact is that you have to start right there: with education. We heard the member for Kingsford Smith mouthing words about disadvantage and health et cetera. Well, it is the same thing. These people do not have the education; they are not getting good food. So the health problems start there—because they are not getting decent food. And from there on—again, it does not matter whether you are in the Caucasian society or the Aboriginal society—the same things will happen.

There is a lady in my electorate who is very well educated in this area. Dr Judy Atkinson is an Aboriginal woman, and I take my hat off to her. She said to me: ‘I woke up one morning under a tree in the Kimberley, after being bashed by my husband, and said: “Life’s got to be better than this. I am going to get an education.”‘ So she went and got an education and she is now a professor at Southern Cross University in Lismore, northern New South Wales. She is doing something that I believe can help in this regard, because we can have the federal government intervention, we can have the money—we can have all these things—but the core of it is that you have to get some results at the end of the day. Professor Judy Atkinson goes into communities and gets the confidence of the community. She picks out people she believes to be leaders in the community and works with those leaders in the community to change the results. She tries to get through to them that things have to change within the community—that they cannot have these assaults and rapes and that there must be an education. She works with the people in the community to get that result, and she has runs on the board as far as those results are concerned. At present she runs a course at the university and is getting graduates from the university. Those graduates will go out and work in the community. It is a process that has to be helped, because obviously there are not enough graduates at present.

At the core of this is the fact that you must start there: in the communities, at the grassroots. You cannot impose these things on the community; you have to get them to understand the right thing to do within the community and get the community to accept that. That is the long-term goal. It is a hard one to win; it is not going to be easy. But you cannot sit back and accept that this can continue. I think that most Australians cannot accept this. Most Australians believe that Aboriginals in this country have the same rights as other Australians. They are Australians like everyone else and they have the same rights. I believe that over the years governments of both persuasions have tried very hard to give them opportunities but, to this stage, we have failed. I am not going to sit back and accept that women in Aboriginal communities can accept this abuse. As I think the Prime Minister said when the minister first saw this, if this were happening in Canberra there would be a hue and cry that you would never be able to put out. That is true. But do not kid yourself that this is happening just in the Northern Territory. This is right across Australia, and state governments are failing in their responsibility to deal with it. It is not easy, I know, but they are failing to deal with it and we must take responsibility. We have to take responsibility for the good of the children and the women, because they are the people who are being abysmally abused.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look through the eyes of an Aboriginal child of the Northern Territory and, for many, all you will see is violence, lawlessness, poverty and despair, because looking through the eyes of an Aboriginal child frames a bleak and depressing picture in many circumstances. Most recently, this picture was animated by the Little children are sacred report. This report follows more than a dozen or so reports over the last 30 years which have illuminated the often appalling conditions in which the First Australians live, and the toll that that takes on their health, their wellbeing and, often, their ability to survive. The bulk of these reports have been delivered over the last decade or so. Not much has been done on the basis of these reports. In turn, a number of these reports have dealt explicitly with the abuse of children. Not much has been done about them either. It is worth recalling the remarks of our former parliamentary colleague Fred Chaney, who wrote tellingly last year:

Governments will come and go, shocked ministers will come and go. What needs to change is how Australia moves beyond serial crisis intervention to take the systemic, long-term action consistently called for by fellow Australians living the horror. Consistent application by all parties, including governments, is the test of their sincerity.

That was Fred Chaney, a former Liberal minister. This report, Little children are sacred, demands a response. It demands a systemic response and a continuing response, not an episodic response. The measures we are discussing today will not be universally welcomed; nor are they seen as remedies for every problem encountered by Aboriginal communities across Australia; nor are they seen as a panacea for the state of misery which often prevails in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. But I believe the report that I referred to before presents us all with a duty and a responsibility to act, and to do so without delay.

Neither side of politics has a track record worth trumpeting when it comes to Indigenous Australia. Could the Northern Territory government have done more to protect Indigenous children? Almost certainly, as Pat Anderson’s and Rex Wild’s report shows. The same could be said of most state and territory governments—be they Labor or Liberal—over recent times. Moreover, both sides of this House are not absolved of past failures. But today is not the day for blame and shame—it is a time for action. That is why, in a spirit of bipartisanship in tackling child abuse and giving these kids a chance, we will support the passage of this legislation. We hope it will assist in reducing the incidence of child abuse in these communities.

From the outset I offered to work with the government to construct a bipartisan way forward, and I reaffirm that commitment today. Our concern from the outset has been the protection of Indigenous children. In the five years to 2006 notifications of abuse and neglect of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory grew at more than three times the rate of that for non-Indigenous children. Between 2005 and 2006 Indigenous children in the Northern Territory were five times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be the victims of child abuse on the basis of substantiated reports of that abuse. Furthermore, of all sexually transmitted infections diagnosed in Aboriginal people in the Territory, eight per cent occurred in children under the age of 16. That is nearly three times the infection rate for non-Aboriginal children. These statistics, grim as they are, require us all to act and to act in a new way. Accordingly, our overriding concern with these bills is that any action arising from them must establish a clear nexus between the proposed course of action on the one hand and the protection of Aboriginal children on the other.

We also recognise that these bills can be improved. In a continuing spirit of bipartisanship, Labor has proposed three areas for the government to consider: (1) the proposed operation of the permit system, (2) the application of special measures under the Racial Discrimination Act and (3) the need for a review of the effectiveness of the housing and welfare provisions of the legislation after a 12-month period of their implementation.

To our enduring shame and disappointment as a nation too many children in Australia today are subjected to abuse or neglect. How we care for our children is one of the tests of our society. Our failure to provide safety, security and dignity for all of our children diminishes our claim to be a civilised, humane and prosperous nation. The reality is that today the scourge of child abuse, including that in Indigenous communities, represents a great hole in the heart of our nation. As I said, these are failures that belong not to one political party or to one individual or to one generation. But from these failures we have all come to this place now to act. Between 1999-2000 and 2004-05 the number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect nationally almost doubled from 24,732 to 46,154. These are terrible figures that require action for the nation. In most states the rates of Indigenous children who are the subject of child protection substantiation are above 20 per thousand, whereas for non-Indigenous children the rates are below 10 per thousand. Again, this requires action.

It is for these reasons that we have announced that we will work with the states and the territories to develop a national child protection framework. It is also why we continue to offer our bipartisan support for this legislation. The bills before us today represent a difficult challenge for many Indigenous Territorians. All Australians, and particularly Indigenous Australians, have a deep emotional attachment to their land. If we can work together in a cooperative, consultative and respectful manner, I believe that we can achieve real improvements in housing and other infrastructure in towns and in town camp land. We have argued that the proposals contained in the legislation must make plain the link between their elements and the protection of children.

If you study the Little children are sacred report, it is clear that housing and infrastructure have a direct bearing on the safety of children. In some communities overcrowded housing puts children in close proximity to alcohol, violence and pornography. The report by Rex Wild and Pat Anderson recognises the risk this places on children. It notes children’s exposure to pornographic material—in particular videos and DVDs—and argues that this occurs as a result of poor supervision, overcrowding in houses and acceptance of normalisation of this type of material. If temporary leases are backed by a commitment from the government to housing and infrastructure improvements that provide some measure of security for children, they are worth supporting. On the subject of permits, it is vital that those who are playing a part in the emergency intervention, as it affects children, are not impeded from gaining access to communities. We also must be careful about those who are coming and going.

Vince Kelly from the Northern Territory Police Association argues that the government has failed to make a case about the connection between sexual assault in Indigenous communities and the permit system. On ABC radio last month, Mr Kelly said the following about the permit system:

It does give both the police and local communities the ability to exclude certain people from the community, people who are possibly offenders in relation to sexual abuse, and physical abuse of Aboriginal women and children, but more importantly offenders in terms of running grog and running drugs into these communities.

I believe we should extend the class of people who can access communities under the existing permit system by all means, but we should retain those elements that prevent those who are a potential threat to children.

I will also suggest another protection—that is, to require people coming into communities to have a Working with Children check. I understand that the Territory government is about to implement a strengthened regime. I believe it should be used as an added means of protecting Indigenous children from abuse. I urge the government to think about this approach in improving the overall protection regime for children.

We will also support the government’s proposals in relation to the quarantining of welfare payments. We recently committed to work with the states and territories to develop a national child protection framework underpinned by an ability to quarantine payments for the benefit of a child in cases where child protection experts have confirmed that there is need to direct money so that it reaches the child. This is particularly a concern when it comes to parents who are abusing drugs. Money can be channelled away from necessary household resources and into sustaining parents’ drug use. As a result, a child’s material needs for food, shelter, clothing, hygiene and medical care may well be neglected. The Victorian Department of Human Services reported that in 2000-01 about a third of parents of children and young people entering foster care reported having problems with alcohol abuse and a third had other substance abuse problems. It was also suggested that increasing levels of substance abuse was one of the main reasons for the increasing numbers of children entering the child protection system.

Labor’s child protection framework will be designed to promote positive parenting and the best interests of children. Under this national framework, child protection authorities will be given the power to require parents who neglect their children to spend part of their family and welfare payments on essentials, such as food, rent, electricity and gas for the home, and school uniforms and books. I do not believe that it is substantially different from the government’s proposals.

Federal Labor has also endorsed the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership’s welfare reform plan for the Cape York communities. We have agreed to fund and implement a range of initiatives to make family and welfare payments and housing conditional on school attendance and the proper care of children. Another key recommendation is to establish the first four family responsibilities commissions—local statutory bodies which will ensure that welfare payments go towards the benefit of children. We support this model of reform for the Cape communities. We are pleased to see it given voice in the legislation before us today.

We would also like to say that we give support to the government’s proposal to quarantine a portion of income support payments in designated areas in the Northern Territory, subject to proper review after the first 12 months. There are two core reasons for supporting an initial quarantining of all income support payments in the Territory. First, the authors of the Little children are sacred report point out that the Northern Territory child protection system, which might be expected to recommend which parent should be eligible for quarantining, is hampered in its ability to respond effectively to child sexual abuse and other child maltreatment. This is because small, geographically isolated communities—affecting up to 50 per cent of the Territory’s population—generally have limited access to health, welfare, education and other support services. In addition, while most other state and territory jurisdictions can call upon a substantial network of NGOs to provide child and family support, there is a general lack of child and family support infrastructure across the Territory which is particularly evident in the most remote Aboriginal communities. It is our view that at present a targeted quarantining regime therefore may not be effective in the Territory for this initial period. We need to consider a more targeted quarantining regime similar to that proposed for other areas in the longer term, subject to the outcome of the 12-month review which we have foreshadowed.

The second reason for our acceptance of the Northern Territory welfare payment quarantining provisions is a concern that the behaviour of adult members of often overcrowded houses has a direct impact on children’s safety and wellbeing. We need parents to be responsible at a whole-of-community level, but that is not all we need. In the short term, it does no good to have two members of a household avoiding expenditure on alcohol, for instance, when other adults can continue to bring it in. For the sake of the children, I believe that this short-term measure is justified. But we should be careful to review its success or otherwise in dealing with the core issue of child safety. We must be hard-headed about these reforms, and that means measuring their effectiveness within a reasonable period of time. That is why a Labor government would review their application after 12 months of operation.

The government have indicated in briefings to the opposition that they are confident that their legislation does not offend the Racial Discrimination Act. Nevertheless, we have sought advice in the limited time available, and on the basis of that advice we share the government’s confidence. We also think that it is important to ensure that the Indigenous people of the Northern Territory are in no doubt that these measures are for their benefit. As legislators, we should be sending a clear message that we have confidence in this plan, we have confidence that it will be of benefit to the people of the Northern Territory and we have confidence that it will achieve results against the aim that has been set for it, which is the protection of our children. In doing so, we must observe the integrity of the Racial Discrimination Act. This is a basic principle for this House, a basic principle for this country and a basic principle for the Indigenous community of this country.

The current emergency plan does not provide detail on the longer term strategies required to lift Indigenous communities out of their current situation. In fact, the Little children are sacred report contained 97 recommendations in all, and they bear further examination by both levels of government. Pat Anderson and Rex Wild have produced a comprehensive report which places the protection of children at the centre of government responsibilities. As a result, they propose reforms that touch on almost every aspect of community life and that have implications for every area of government: housing, child protection, education and infrastructure. These 97 recommendations should be the subject of intensive examination by government in terms of providing a long-term systemic response to the totality of the problem faced in the Northern Territory.

Governments require a long-term vision for the protection of children and a plan which therefore has some basis of long-term success. Therefore, once we have dealt with the immediate task of protecting children we must turn our minds to the reforms and investments required to provide long-term hope for these children and the wider Indigenous community. The measure of our success in Indigenous policy is the health, wellbeing and economic participation of Indigenous peoples. We know today that, on almost any measure you choose, we are failing. There must be concerted action for the future. Indigenous children’s literacy and numeracy skills are substantial worse than those of other Australian children. According to the 2005 National report on schooling in Australia, the number of Indigenous children who meet the reading benchmarks falls from 78 per cent in year 3 to 63 per cent in year 7. The number of Indigenous children who meet the numeracy benchmarks falls from 80 per cent in year 3 to 48 per cent in year 7. Indigenous school retention rates for year 10 through year 12 were 45 per cent in 2005, compared with 76 per cent for non-Indigenous students—and these figures exclude the 10 to 20 per cent of Indigenous students who did not complete year 10.

Life expectancy at birth for Indigenous men is 60 years compared with 77 years for all Australian males. For Indigenous women life expectancy at birth is 65 years, whereas for all Australian females it is 82 years. Infant mortality rates for Indigenous children are unacceptably high. Indigenous babies are 3.5 times more likely to die in their first year than non-Indigenous babies. In 2007 that is a disgrace. During 2004-05 Indigenous people were more than four times as likely to be in hospital for alcohol related mental and behavioural disorders than other people. The national imprisonment rate for 100,000 Indigenous adults in 2005-06 was 2,030 compared with a rate of 118 for non-Indigenous adults. In May this year, at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, I said that these figures represented a blight on the nation’s soul. We must simply do better, and on this side of the House we are committed so to doing.

On the day the Prime Minister announced his intention to intervene to protect the children in the Northern Territory I said that we would offer our in-principle bipartisan support. Let us be blunt: this emergency plan is far from perfect. We are, however, prepared on this side of the House to give it a go and we commend the proposals we have put to the government by way of amendment for their serious consideration. The attitude we bring to bear to this problem in the Northern Territory is one of wanting to fix the problem and to identify solutions that work, rather than engaging in the perpetual blame game between the Commonwealth, the states and the territories on the one hand and between our two sides of politics on the other. It is time for action on behalf of all Aboriginal people, in particular Aboriginal children subject to abuse. (Time expired)

David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and related bills. I welcome the Leader of the Opposition’s comments that leadership is required and I welcome the leadership that has been shown by the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in this area—the strong leadership he has shown to make progress where many governments of all persuasions previously have not managed to do so.

I do not plan to speak at great length about the Northern Territory and the events there, because that has been well canvassed by many members in this place who have talked about the great need for change, the great need to protect children in that environment. What I wish to focus on specifically tonight is the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007, particularly schedule 1, which deals with the income management regime. The reason I would like to focus on that is that it has a broader application than just the Northern Territory. It affects people all around Australia who fall into a category of requiring assistance.

To illustrate that I bring to the House a couple of examples of families I know in the seat of Wakefield, lest we kid ourselves and believe that these problems are confined to Indigenous communities. There are problems that go to the care for children in all of our communities. There is a family that I am aware of comprising a single mum raising a young boy, with a partner in the home. Due to a number of issues surrounding substance abuse, particularly crystal meth and alcohol, and gambling addictions, essentially pretty much all of the welfare payment this mother receives goes through the poker machines in one day. The conditions in the home have deteriorated to the point where the majority of their furniture and other assets have been hocked off. This has affected the young boy in terms of his whole outlook on life and what is normal. When he goes out with extended family members they report being horrified by his attitude in shops as to whether something should just be nicked to make up for what is not at home. It also has an impact on his schooling, on the willingness of the parent to take the child to school on a regular basis, which has a flow-on effect to this child and his view on the world, his capacity to engage in the world. The really disturbing part is that the mother in this case is in complete denial that there is an issue. There is complete denial about the fact that she has some responsibility or that she in fact has the capacity to make choices that could improve the situation for her and her child. So whilst the abuse is not necessarily of a physical kind, this child is being placed in an extremely precarious position because of the poor choices of the mother.

So where does that lead to down the track? I come to another case, of a man whom I spoke to just last weekend who described to me how, as a young boy and through to a teenager, he was repeatedly physically, psychologically and sexually abused by his father to the point where he ran away from home. Again, many of the issues were the same in terms of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pornography et cetera.

These issues are not constrained to the Indigenous communities, so I welcome this income management regime, which is not intended to create a nanny state in Australia, a state that seeks to micromanage the Australian community, but which recognises that there is a small subset within our community who, for whatever reasons, have not developed the life skills, the motivation or the ability to manage their own circumstances and the circumstances of those whom they have responsibility for. These measures recognise that there is not only an obligation on behalf of the government to support these people in terms of providing them with the means to live but also an obligation to the broader society to make sure that this money is spent for the purpose for which it is intended.

To go to some of the detail of the income management regime, division 1, ‘Simplified outline’, highlights that an income management regime is being set up for recipients of certain welfare payments. A person may be subject to the income management regime because a child protection officer of the state or territory requires the person to be subject to that regime, the person or the person’s partner has a child who does not meet school enrolment requirements, or the person or person’s partner has a child who has unsatisfactory school attendance. Those are not exhaustive measures of the wellbeing of a child, but they are powerful indicators as to whether a parent is taking their responsibility seriously. It is a little bit like removing the permit system in the Northern Territory, in that, by exposing the child to an environment where there is a broader public review on a day-to-day basis of the behaviour, the attitude and the wellbeing of that child, there is a level of accountability that is inherent. By sending the child to school, there is an independent check and balance that provides the opportunity to review the wellbeing of the child and to provide that duty of care and reporting. So, whilst it is not a perfect measure, school attendance is certainly a powerful measure in assessing whether a child has needs and whether the parent needs some support or management to help get to the point where that child is given the start in life, the life skills and the very substance of the things that they need to grow and flourish in life.

The person who ends up becoming subject to the income management regime will have an income management account. Essentially, amounts will be deducted from the person’s welfare payments and credited to that income management account. The reason for that is obviously to allow for the management. Centrelink is not going to do this immediately there is an issue. There will be periods in which people can verify enrolment or attendance or challenge issues around their suitability as parents. Even if they are found to have, for example, not had the child attending school for whatever the benchmark is—for example, five days in a term—there is an opportunity for them to make good that standard. But, should it be found that that is not the case, they will have up to 100 per cent of their welfare payments put into an income management account.

The other option is if a written notice has been received from the state child protection authority requesting that a person be placed in income management following a child having been found at risk of neglect. This is an area where I would encourage the state governments to work with us to make sure that their state departments who look after child welfare issues are adequately resourced. In the example I described before, the extended family have for some time seen the train smash coming. They have spoken with the school, they have spoken with Centrelink and they have spoken with the state welfare authorities. But nobody at this stage has been able to take action because none of the thresholds have actually been crossed. So I welcome the wording that talks about a child having been found at risk of neglect. So, rather than waiting until the damage is well and truly done, we can start to work with people when those warning signs are very clearly there and those people have been engaged in a meaningful and constructive way with both state and federal authorities. We will be able to hold them to account and give them the opportunity to explain the situation, to develop or change their ways or, if need be, to come under this management regime so that the children are given the chance of a change in their circumstances rather than waiting until the damage is done and is identifiable before any of these measures can be taken.

All of the advances, lump sums, baby bonuses et cetera are going to be managed. I believe that is a welcome development. The welfare payments will be placed in a person’s income management account. This account will essentially be public moneys, but not for the use of the government. It will not alter the tax liabilities or the child support liabilities et cetera of people. Individuals will not lose any of their entitlements. They will get regular statements of credits and debits and balances. They will also need to meet with Centrelink to discuss their needs and their patterns of expenditure. This requirement for consultation recognises that, whilst everybody has core needs, there are differing circumstances that must be met. These funds will be applied to the known priority needs of each person, their partner, their children and other dependants. The priority needs will include things like food and clothing, housing, health, child care and development, education and training, employment and transport and even things like funerals. Centrelink will not be able to unreasonably refuse access to funds for other purposes if all of these other priority needs have been met. But there will be certain excluded goods, such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling and pornography.

On that point, whilst I welcome the measures in the Northern Territory to ban X-rated, 18-plus pornography going into those communities, I think it is interesting to note that, since the 1980s, that material has been banned around Australia in other states. If we believe that damage is being done in the Northern Territory through this material—and given the weight of evidence around the world about the impact of pornography on people, both adults and children—I think it would be appropriate to look at completely banning that material in Australia. I would welcome further moves from the government to have a common alignment across all the states and territories in terms of that material.

Turning to the management of the actual finances, the bill will provide flexibility and methods to meet people’s priority needs, whether this is through things like vouchers or stored-value cards, expense payments or payments to various account types—for example, stores, debit cards or bank accounts. It also provides some option for discretional cash, subject to the involvement of the people managing the account and a legislative instrument. Individuals will have standard appeal rights in relation to their income. Importantly, also, the bill recognises that there are a number of different circumstances, and it makes exceptions, for example, for people who have no requirement under the state law for their children to be at school. For example, somebody who chooses to home school their child and has that approved by the relevant state authority will obviously be exempted from these requirements.

These things are not happening in isolation. I welcome in particular, both nationally and in Wakefield, the input of groups such as the family relationship centres, which are seeking to be not only a gateway into the family law system where families are not coping or have decided to separate but also, importantly, a gateway to a broad network of resources to help young couples, young parents and couples who have been married for some time to gain support to make good relationships even stronger and better. I encourage people who are service providers in the family relationship centre network to look at how they could also offer services to help people who find themselves in a situation requiring this kind of intervention on behalf of the government.

We also need the cooperation of the states. I am aware that there is already some concern from education departments and some schools about the provision of attendance and enrolment data. I believe it is important, if we are to truly protect these children from the sorts of consequences we have talked about, that we see cooperation. There has been a lot of talk recently about the fact that the Australian government needs to be cooperating with the states. On just about every measure that you care to name, whether it is roads, water or disability—issues such as these interventions; there has been a whole range of areas—the Commonwealth has invited interaction with the states so that we can work with them. Interventions generally only come when we get to the point where the need is so pressing and the cooperation has not been forthcoming. But here is an opportunity for us to work together in the best interests of children. So I would welcome measures by the state governments to make sure that we can get those enrolment and attendance figures from the schools and that adequate resourcing is placed into their departments looking after families and children so that, where extended families, schools or other concerned appropriate people make reports about the welfare of the child and the children who are identified as being at risk of neglect, early intervention can occur, as opposed to waiting until it is far too late in the child’s life experience.

I support this bill, which is one of a number of bills in this measure, which not only addresses the issues in the Northern Territory with our Indigenous communities but also specifically seeks to address similar problems that affect many of our communities across Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There have been a number of speakers who have been honest enough to get up and say that we, as a nation, do not have a very happy record in dealing with the First Australians. When I was minister I psyched myself into concentrating on the positive. We say that we have not been able to get it right. I will read out a document presented to the House when I was minister on the economic achievements of Queensland Aboriginal and Islander communities from 1984 to 1989. In 1984 community stores went from a $200,000 loss to a $900,000 a year profit. Cattle turnover rose from 965 to 5,800. The increase in crayfish turnover was from 0.3 million to around seven million. The turnover at the Massey freezer for the fishing industry rose from 14,000 to 291,000. The number of businesses went from three to 52. Twenty per cent of public servants were replaced by community workers—for that, read people of European descent as opposed to people of Aboriginal descent. And the building program went from 40 people of Aboriginal descent employed to 288 people.

We did not, regrettably, keep figures on trauma rates in the Aboriginal communities in Queensland, but I remember Matron Gray, who is now a lecturer at the university in Townsville. She is the wife of the very famous Roy Gray, who was a big contributor and architect of this success story. She said that the trauma rates at Yarrabah had simply ceased to exist. Where they had handled 50 to 100 trauma cases—that is people who had been bashed up basically as a result of alcoholism—the vast bulk of those figures had gone to virtually nothing. I remember the figures on Palm Island. The crime rate there dropped clean in half. The honourable member for Page said the crime rate is due to boredom and that they have nothing to do there. They are incredibly boring places. The rifles and guns have been taken away so you cannot go shooting. Most of the rivers in Queensland in these areas have been closed off to fishing because the rivers have been declared ‘wild rivers’. There is no career path. Virtually all of the council clerk positions have been taken by whitefellas and not given to blackfellas. There is no business opportunity because you cannot own land.

If you impose those conditions upon the people of Canberra or Brisbane, I dare say that your social statistics that were so capably espoused by the Leader of the Opposition—and I pay him tribute—would be the same for these areas as well. Add to that what may be one of the better addresses I have ever heard in my life by Noel Pearson to the Canberra press club, where not a single member of parliament bothered to turn up. He talked about an inherited capability. He said that people in this room have inherited capabilities. My family knew how to run businesses. You were teethed on running businesses. Other people knew how to be tradesmen. Other people knew how to get jobs on the railway. These people had none of those inherited or given-to-them capabilities. They have nothing to do; no career opportunities and no businesses opportunities.

I pay the minister a tribute because he is determined to do something. That is more than I can say for any other federal minister I can remember. A lot talked, waffled and wandered all over the place, but this minister has a steely determination to deliver something. For that, we pay him tribute.

Having said that, I simply cannot see how you can force parents to send their children to school. Our options have been taken away from us. We cannot force children now; it is not longer an option available to us. You cannot belt your child. If you do, someone will come along and take the child from you. You cannot threaten to take away their food or to lock them up in their rooms. They were punishments that many of us suffered in our youth, and quite deservedly, but parents cannot do that now. There is no capacity to discipline people. There is no use flogging the parents because they simply cannot force their children to go to school.

I will provide a perspective on that. In Camooweal there are two wonderful schoolteachers. One would go in the front of the houses and the other would go around the back. As the kids would run away, at nine o’clock in the morning, the bloke at the back would grab them all and put them on a bus. They were literally kidnapped and taken to school, but those kids got an education. However, we passed laws to prevent that, and now many kids do not get an education at Camooweal.

With all due respect, no society on earth has succeeded in banning alcohol. I said, when it was done in Queensland, that people would die as a result of that decision—and people did. A person was killed on Palm Island. I felt terribly sorry for the person that died, but I also felt terribly sorry for the policeman. Clearly, if you try to take grog away from people who are drinking they will get very mad indeed. There will be a fight and someone will get hurt. I ask the government to name a single society on earth that has succeeded in prohibition. The Americans tried it, and it was a pretty sorry old experiment.

In respect of welfare payments, the government is saying they should not be able to just get the money and not work. I do not know how this mechanism will deliver that. We cannot hold a gun at their heads, and we cannot flog them with whips. If in a mustering camp you decided not to get on the horse, someone would go over and give you a knuckle sandwich and you would get on the horse, I can assure you. And that is the way things were done up until very recently.

Let me just say what needs to be done. The minister has moved in this direction, although not as far as the government should have moved—he should have given them a simple piece of paper, the same as anyone else in Australia holds. It is called a freehold title. Do not talk about tribes and tribal relationships with the land. Heavens! Dozens of people I know really well have shot themselves rather than be run off their farms by the banks. It happens every six weeks in the sugar industry and every four days in the dairy industry. This is not a characteristic of people of Aboriginal descent. Give them title to the land. This is the ridiculous nature of the Aboriginal question: if you look at a map of Australia and you will see that some 40 per cent of the surface area is owned by people of Aboriginal descent because they are of Aboriginal descent, yet if you go to Yarrabah the chairman of the council will bang the table and say that the only place on earth where you cannot own your own home is at Yarrabah—or at any other Aboriginal community in Queensland. That is sadly and regrettably true.

Think about it. If you want to open a service station or to start up a cattle run or a fishing operation you have to get money from somewhere to do it. How do you get the money? I do not know anyone who started up in business by saving his pennies and putting his saved pennies into the operation. You have to get it by borrowing money from a bank, and a bank will not lend you money unless you have ‘mortgageability’. That is where we have failed dismally; we have not provided the ‘mortgageability’. There was the tremendous success story that I read out here. Two text books have been written on what we did in respect of Aboriginal affairs in Queensland which are set in university courses throughout Australia, and the television show 60 Minutes ran two stories on what we were doing in Aboriginal affairs in that period of time. However you looked at it, it was an amazing success story. But the first thing we did was to provide freehold title to the land. Regrettably, very little of it got out in that period, but it was enough to set up nearly 100 businesses, most of which are still running today.

To overcome the boredom that the honourable member for Page referred to, we started a rugby league competition. We started rodeo training. We started country music festivals. This is the culture of black Australia, the First Australians, and it is most certainly the culture of rural country Australia. These people are no different from anyone else. Very few of the people in most of our country towns are not purely white—including me, I might add—and very few of them are perfectly black.

The social welfare is to be replaced by a voucher system, and I think that is a very good move. You just cannot give people taxpayers’ money and allow them to spend it on grog and let their kids go hungry.

My first impression of what it meant to be a Christian was at a meeting with the local Catholic priest about YCW. He said, ‘You have to go now because I’ve got to feed all these little kids.’ He had to feed 15 kids, and the stairs leading up to his house were very dangerous. He was a very poor man, but he fed these 15 kids because they were not being fed during the day. Their idea of being ‘fed’ was their parents giving them money to buy coca-cola and chips, usually, when they started crying late in the day.

On the subject of housing—the honourable Leader of the Opposition and other speakers mentioned this, and it is very relevant—if you pack 12 or 15 people into a house, someone is going to get killed. People living that close together, grating upon each other, is just not going to work. When I was minister, the average house occupancy was 11½ people. The average occupancy for the other welfare housing in Queensland was below two people. So we used it, unashamedly, as a social tool. All contractors of European descent were removed; all building of houses in Queensland—and I had about $40 million or $50 million to spend per year—was to be done exclusively by First Australian labour. It took us a long time to get agreement on that but we did. Then the brother of the famous Noel Pearson came up with the idea that we use CDEP money so that we could get through these 11 houses a year in Doomadgee. They now build two houses every three years with the same amount of money at Doomadgee.

We put a block-making machine there, so the blocks were made locally. The houses were erected with CDEP labour and, amazingly, people started looking after their houses, even in the worst communities. Some of the things that the minister has done are very good. But, Minister, you cannot force people to do some things. Force will not work. It is clear that you are seriously trying. That is what characterises and separates you from all of your predecessors, in my parliamentary lifetime, anyway.

The time allocated to me has been curtailed, which I have agreed to. If you have any doubts about these people’s ability, with respect to getting 6,000 head of cattle behind wire, where there are no fences at all, then just look at Jackson Shortjoe, and particularly Eddie Holroyd, as they did at Pormpuraaw. Watch Travis Fraser at Doomadgee, where they have won three premierships in a row, where they have to travel 2,000 kilometres to get a game—that is, if we can hold the other teams upright in the competition. Look at Colin Saltmere. He took many people—some of them very drunken people—and got them to build a magnificent bridge at Camooweal. Speak to Leon Yeatman at Yarrabah—I think the minister has gone there—and you will see they are a great community, a beautiful community, clean and well presented. Speak to Joseph Elu at Seisia—one of the greatest commercial success stories in the country—who has now had his right to self-management taken away by the Beattie government, or to Eric Law and Lester Rosendale. They, to a large degree, are the architects of what we did in Queensland. Any of those people will tell you where to go and, please, have a look at a successful model: Queensland in the 1980s.

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all honourable members from both sides who have participated in today’s debate, a historic debate in the parliament in this time in our nation’s history. It is a time when, hopefully, we can, once and for all, make a real improvement in the lives of the First Australians and, in particular, the children. That is what these bills are about. That is the expression that we hope to achieve. They are the practical outcomes and the objectives that we strive for.

Before closing the debate, I briefly make a few comments to clarify a couple of points. The first one is about the timing of this bill. The opposition, in fact, used a political opportunity to say that the government are arrogant by not providing the bills in time. I can assure the member for Jagajaga that the commentary and the thoughts of the task force in Alice Springs were asked for on Thursday night last week. There were still amendments up to one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. We simply did not have a bill to give you any sooner, so I find it disappointing that you would make that comment. We have tried our hardest to give it to you, as and when we could. You in fact received these bills before my party room did, before the government’s party room did and before our backbench committee did. It was to help you, the opposition, deal with your own party room. We were misled by your staff, who said there was a meeting of your caucus last night. In fact, that meeting was today. Be that as it may—

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We had a meeting last night and today.

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can inform the honourable member we were actually told that the caucus meeting in relation to this was yesterday.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Emerson interjecting

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is fair enough. Whilst trying to get bipartisan support, there has been that political overtone that the government somehow was trying to give you detail late or not give it to you. I can assure you that we have given it to you at the earliest opportunity that it was available all the way through, including the explanatory memorandum, the appropriation bills. The amendments, which I have been asked by the opposition to consider seriously tonight, I received 15 minutes before coming into the chamber. I have taken advice and will discuss those, once you have had something to say about them.

Some issues were raised by the opposition about communications, and the best communications on issues like this are face to face. We have now visited all 73 communities and explained to them what the intervention is about and, as I said earlier on today, more than half of those communities have now had the assessment done, with more detailed information. We all know—and I know the member for Jagajaga travelled to Hermannsberg and knows only too well—that some people deliberately misinformed for their own purposes. I am not suggesting you; I am not suggesting that at all if you think that was the inference. But there were people there, we have that information, we know what they did and we know why. Some of those people are actually paid, employed, to work in and assist these communities. You ask yourself: what could their motivation be to spread rumours to people that their children were going to be taken away by the military or their dogs were going to be shot when they knew that was without basis?

With respect to the other issue of communications and working closely together, this will be the first time that many of these communities have actually had a federal government officer on the ground that they can interact with one on one—who does not fly in and out or drop in for the day but is living there. That one-on-one location will make an enormous difference to people. It will also ensure that the money is properly spent. It will ensure that gatekeepers who, unfortunately, in too many communities do not get that opportunity, do so.

The accusation that this is top down and not based on consultation could not be further from the truth. The genesis of this legislation has come from comment and consultation, if you want to call it that. However, it has been about me talking to people one on one. It was from community consultation in Kalumburu, Western Australia—well before this latest break-out of charges, where 15 of the population of 90 males in that community were charged for child sex offences and similar activities—that I was told that virtually nobody in the community could work in a voluntary capacity in the school because they could not get the appropriate passes and, in addition, that the community had a huge problem with cash: ‘What can you do to reduce the amount of cash in the community?’ I linked the two. In the same way, people in Wadeye told me that they had problems with people using the cash for drugs and grog and also told me: ‘Treat us like whitefellas and not like separate citizens. If our kids don’t go to school, let there be a cause and effect. Let’s have police here so that, when crimes are committed, things are dealt with.’ All of these things came from those community consultations that I have had over 18 months; that is where these things got their expression. So the accusation that we have not consulted could not be further from the truth. We have consulted over and over again. To do more would be to delay and, in doing so, more children would be hurt. That is just a statement of unfortunate fact.

These are momentous bills. They now need not just the commitment but also the will of many workers on the ground, whose efforts we must applaud. Many of them are away from their families—the police, the managers in these communities, other departmental officials, volunteers—but they want to see a better future. We should not forget them in this exercise of trying to protect the children of the First Australians. That has to be first and foremost in our minds at all times. I thank all members for their contributions to the debate. I question the commitment some of those indicated to these particular measures. I do not dispute their motivation of wanting to prevent child abuse in any way, shape or form, but I certainly did not detect the genuine support that would be necessary for these measures to be ongoing should there be a change of government. I commend the bill to the House.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Ms Macklin’s amendment) stand part of the question.