Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Cook proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The importance of delivering remote Indigenous housing in an efficient and affordable way.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government’s treatment of Indigenous Australians in remote areas of this country with respect to housing is the first marker of what the rest of our nation can expect from the Rudd Labor government. Our first Australians, I am sad to say, have truly become the first victims of the government’s cynical approach to government in this country—of rhetoric over reality—and their incompetent failure to deliver what they promise. The Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program is a national disgrace of which this government should be ashamed but, instead, refuses to accept responsibility.

In September 2007, the previous government signed an MOU with the Northern Territory government as part of the much acclaimed Northern Territory intervention. The delivery of housing was a central component of our promise to Indigenous Australians as part of this unprecedented and highly effective initiative. On 12 April 2008, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs affirmed this agreement and promised $647 million to build 750 houses. That included $547 million of federal taxpayers borrowed money—the government were the senior equity partner. Work was to commence by October 2008 but this date, like many, would come and go. During the period between October and December 2008, $25 million further was allocated to the program’s budget.

A new date, of February 2009, was established and that too passed—however, not without the Prime Minister coming into this place and, once again, making promises that he has clearly been unable to deliver. July came and went, and in this House just a few weeks ago I asked why, after 18 months, not one house had been built under this program. Of even greater significance was the fact that, despite not one house having been built under this program after 18 months, they had managed to achieve one thing—and that was to spend $45 million of taxpayers’ money without building a house.

This is a terribly difficult area. The government’s response has been to say, ‘At least we promised more,’ but they fail to see that promises matter little to the Australian people if they are not translated into promises delivered on the ground. In this case it is houses for Indigenous Australians in remote areas. This is a difficult area. Of all issues it is most unwise to raise expectations among Indigenous people in this country. There are many, many difficulties, of which I am sure the minister is aware; but maybe she is not. The government either were unaware of these complications when they announced this program or simply unwise in making these promises—in writing cheques that they could not cash in the form of new housing for Indigenous Australians living in remote areas.

But there were many warnings. In April, the minister’s own parliamentary secretary, Senator Ursula Stephens, issued a warning that has remained secret for a year—a secret memo. Senator Stephens warned the minister that the program had fundamental problems. Alarmingly, the memo said

No houses will be built under this program until 2011—

three years after the intended start date—

and it is unlikely to meet its 20 per cent target for Indigenous employment.

This memo was written in April 2008, not long after the program was announced. The memo also said that lawyers at the gathering suggested that tendering processes were anticompetitive and could be a breach of the Trade Practices Act. Not even the construction industry, who stood to gain from the project, thought it was a good idea. Representatives of the industry were said to be flabbergasted by the approach and likened it to a shoddy defence procurements model. Most extraordinary of all, this was a report by one of the Rudd government’s own senators.

I note that the senator who wrote the memo has been moved on to other duties. Then there was Jim Davidson, who was employed by the managers of the program, Parsons Brinckerhoff. Jim exposed the fact that 750 houses would not be built at the cost provided by the government but that only 300 houses would result. He also warned that 70 per cent of the program funds would go on indirect costs, such as travel costs, administration and consultant fees. Jim went the same way as the senator; he had his contract terminated one month ago. Then there are the consultants themselves: Kerry Gearman and Bronwen King, who were appointed by the Northern Territory government to undertake some work. In the Australian on 19 August we hear about what they got up to. The article said that, following the dumping of Mr Davidson:

… two former public officials spoke of their despair at the massive bureaucratic wastage and incompetent management of remote housing they observed during their employment with the Territory government.

Tasmanian couple Kerry Gearman and Bronwen King were employed as remote audit building managers by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, and later were seconded to work with the body in charge of public housing in the Northern Territory. The couple, who were paid a salary of $71,000 each, told The Australian they spent five months, along with five other managers, doing “absolutely nothing” during their employment with the NT government.

“They paid us wages for months to basically do nothing, because there wasn’t anything for us to do,” Mr Gearman said. “We were told to do a bit of research, go and introduce ourselves to people, but essentially we were given nothing to do.”

This couple also left the scene, but this time of their own volition. They also said, it was reported, that there were ‘many examples of bureaucratic wastage and inefficiency in the Northern Territory government’s program’. The article continued:

In one instance, seven remote audit building managers employed by the NT government were each given new Toyota Hilux utes, worth more than $50,000 each, to be used twice a year for trips to remote central Australian communities.

The couple said:

“When we left, the cars were sitting out in a carpark—

and forgive me for the following language, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am quoting the consultant here—

collecting bird shit and leaves,” Ms King said. “From the time I got the car in March until I left, the vehicle had only done about 36km.”

As I said, Kerry and Bronwen quit. Then there was Alison Anderson, the Labor minister responsible for the program in the Northern Territory. To her great credit, she was sick and tired of warning this government and said enough was enough. She resigned in absolute disgust. She was prepared to tell the truth and refused to sign up to Labor’s efforts to spin this problem away. In the Northern Territory News on 15 August she said this:

“Labor lives on the Aboriginal vote, it talks constantly about Aboriginal people, but what it is really good at is spending Aboriginal money,” she said.

The article continued:

After being promoted to cabinet following last year’s election, Ms Anderson (pictured) said she had spent 12 months in the inner sanctum—

I do not envy her—

“watching, listening, learning”.

“There is money being spent, always money, rivers of money—but it never seems to reach the people on the ground.”

She resigned and she walked away from Labor’s machine of spin that was seeking to cover this up and say that all was well.

Early last month, in contributing to this debate, Professor Marcia Langton hit the nail on the head when she said, talking about this program, that the Northern Territory was a ‘failed state’ run by a ‘rotten government’ obsessed with looking after its political mates and doctoring its own image. If I had not known that she was talking about the Northern Territory government—had she not mentioned that—then I think it would be reasonable, for all in this place, to ask the question: which Labor government in this country was she referring to? Because they all pretty much relate to that description: they are obsessed with looking after their political mates and doctoring their own images—each a failed state run by a rotten government.

But what of the federal government’s response to this? They are the senior equity partner here. They are not some passive partner in this project; there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in this program which has been put up by the federal taxpayer and for which they are accountable. They are the custodians of $572 million of federal taxpayers’ borrowed money which is at risk in this program. The response of the Labor senator for the Northern Territory was:

“The SIHIP team are doing an incredibly good job,” …

That was the response of the government senator for the Northern Territory in relation to what I have just exposed here and spoken about in this place today. She said, ‘I think they’re doing a great job.’ They are doing a great job when they go out there and buy Hiluxes and let them go out for a little drive, when they pay people $71,000 to do nothing or have 70 per cent of fees just go in waste and mismanagement—this is apparently a ‘great job’. It is a bit like she was saying: ‘There’s nothing to see here. You don’t have to look.’ It reminded me a bit of Richo the other night talking about tape recordings in New South Wales—it was a case of: ‘There’s nothing to see here. We don’t need to look here. You can look somewhere else.’ And that is what Senator Crossin was doing in relation to her assessment of the scheme.

But what of the minister who sits opposite me here today, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs? I refer to the subsequent articles that appeared in the Australian again which reported on her response to all of this. Remember that we are now in September and this program was announced in April. Deadlines have passed on numerous occasions and still, after all of this time, not one house has been built in this program. I will again refer to what former minister Alison Anderson was reported as saying in this article. She said:

“I warned her that she had to watch her money and it’s obvious she didn’t,” …

“I think she’s been warned and she didn’t keep an eye on her money and for her to say, ‘I’ll keep a close eye on it now’ just isn’t good enough.”

The article goes on to say:

Ms Macklin yesterday warned—

here it was: a stern warning, all this time later—

the NT government that if it did not improve its performance—

well, that would not be hard given where it is now—

in the management of SIHIP Canberra would take over the project. Ms Macklin moved to embed commonwealth officials within SIHIP teams …

So they have sent the bureaucrats up there and it is all going to be well—the bureaucracy is going to cure the bureaucracy in the Northern Territory; that is the mission that they have been sent up to do. So, rather than taking responsibility for this and going and fixing this thing, she has sent an envoy from the bureaucracy to go and embed themselves in the Northern Territory bureaucracy. This is the answer.

So basically what the minister has said here is: ‘I’m going to warn you strongly. And if you do this again, you know what might happen? I could well warn you again. In fact I may even write a very stern letter to the Northern Territory government.’ So they had better watch out up there in the Northern Territory because the minister is on the charge—she is embedding officials and she could very well warn them again if they do not move forward and actually do something in sorting out this program, which has been an absolute disgrace and an absolute tragedy in terms of what is happening.

One of the points I would make on this is that what the government is trying to do here is what it has instructed its backbenchers to do in relation to programs when things go wrong. When things go wrong, whether it is the ‘Julia Gillard school halls program’ or whether it is this program, whose fault is it? Is it the fault of those who sit on these benches here in front of us? Is it their fault? Is it about their accountability and is it their responsibility? No, we are going to blame the states and we are going to blame the territories—that is their job. But I thought we were going to end the blame game after the last election. Apparently we were going to end the blame game. But, no, the instruction, the message they have sent their cyborgs to run out to the doorstop interviews with every morning—they go out there and repeat the lines—is: ‘No, don’t look at us. We just spend the money. We just borrow the money, spend the money and hand the money over. We are actually accountable for the money, but don’t look at us when all of this goes wrong.’

Perhaps the government is going to accuse us of nitpicking—maybe we are nitpicking with a $570 million program. When it comes to this program and all the other programs we have pursued in this place, where we have highlighted example after example after example of waste, mismanagement and reckless spending which is going to drive up interest rates, there are plenty of nits to pick with this government. They are over every single program they have got their hands on—because their spending is completely and utterly out of control. I would say about this program: the intention of getting Indigenous Australians into quality housing is an admirable one—so admirable that we supported this funding. That is why we are so annoyed about the failure to deliver. We want to see these homes built and we want to see the conditions of Indigenous Australians improved in this country. We are more than sorry that this has happened because we want to see these things actually translated to action on the ground.

One of the most upsetting things I have seen with this program is that it has meant Indigenous Australians losing faith in the Northern Territory intervention. This was a promise that sat at the heart of this intervention that enabled us to move forward and make sure the children were getting fed, getting looked after and getting health checks. The faith of Indigenous Australians in this program has now been shattered by the absolute incompetence of this government to follow through on its core promise. For that, probably more than anything else, the government should hang their heads in shame. They have absolutely trashed the intervention through their incompetence and failure to deliver this program. (Time expired)

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

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue in the House because if there is one thing I do agree with the member for Cook about it is that this whole issue of getting housing right is absolutely critical to closing the gap. That is why we are determined to make sure that we not only build more houses, rebuild houses and upgrade houses but also implement a major program of reform.

As I have made very clear in this House over the last few weeks, as part of this program, which is called SIHIP in the Northern Territory, and as part of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing, we are, with the Northern Territory government, determined to deliver on the commitments that we have made. We will see 750 new homes built, we will see 230 rebuilds of homes and, just as importantly, we will see 2,500 refurbishments of houses in remote parts of the Northern Territory. All of this is scheduled to be done by the end of 2013, which was the date for the original program.

As we roll out what is an unprecedented level of activity in the Northern Territory, I want to make it clear, as I have previously made clear in this House, that new houses have continued to be built: 102 houses have been constructed in the Northern Territory since December 2007 while we have been getting the new SIHIP underway. So 102 houses have been built over the period since the last election in remote parts of the Northern Territory. This compares to 94 houses built in remote parts of the Northern Territory in 2004-05, 51 houses in 2005-06 and 64 houses in 2006-07. They are the facts. We have been building, as these figures demonstrate, more than the previous government did in its last three years while simultaneously setting up a major new program which will double pre-existing construction outcomes in this area.

We do intend to deliver this with major reforms and it is true that it can be very tough going to deliver these major program reforms. Nevertheless, I am determined to make sure that we address the bottlenecks and to make sure that we get the program meeting its targets. That is why I sent a senior official from my department to work with her Northern Territory counterpart to forensically examine the program and report to me on the changes that needed to be made. She and her counterpart in the Northern Territory did an excellent piece of work for both governments and the review found that the SIHIP design is in fact sound. It also found that the program targets that have been set of 750 new homes, 230 rebuilds and 2,500 refurbishments can and will be met.

Like everyone concerned in this area, I have been wanting to make sure that we make better progress and the findings that this program has been delayed for around three months have been of particular concern to me. But the review that was done by senior officials of the SIHIP highlights that the previous Australian government housing program, called the National Aboriginal Health Strategy, actually took an average of 19 months from the initial visit to the community to the start of construction. I think this demonstrates that getting these very large programs underway does unfortunately take a considerable period of time.

The other area that I was particularly concerned about was the findings of the review that the governance of SIHIP was overly bureaucratic. I have already taken urgent action to address these concerns and to get the program back on track. We have already taken action to reduce the administrative costs of the program from 11.4 per cent to eight per cent. I have taken what is the very unusual step of insisting on a stronger and more hands-on role for the Australian government in the delivery of the program. This, too, was recommended by the review. We have put a very senior Commonwealth officer into the Northern Territory, and a senior officer will remain in the management team to make sure that the targets that we have set are delivered and that the housing program does what it is supposed to do. We are also going to take another unusual step and put Commonwealth officers into the three alliance teams.

Unlike what was said in the contribution earlier, work has in fact started, and did start in May, in Groote Eylandt, in Nguiu in the Tiwi Islands, and in Tennant Creek. In fact, on the Tiwi Islands some refurbishments have now been completed and work is continuing on the next lot of houses. On Groote Eylandt the first refurbishments have also been handed back, and work on the next 75 refurbishments, across Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island, is currently underway.

I have had a chance to see the work underway in Tennant Creek myself. I think there are eight currently occupied houses that are in the process of being rebuilt, and 78 homes will be substantially rebuilt over the next 18 months. Those will include houses that were previously uninhabitable. Just imagine what that actually means for the people concerned, in real, live activity in these houses: it means that we are going to have new kitchens in these houses so that families can cook healthy meals for their children, and new bathrooms, where their children can be bathed. These may not be things that are highlighted by the opposition, unfortunately, but they are very important to the health and wellbeing of the families concerned.

There will be 230 rebuilds and, together with the construction of 750 new homes in remote parts of the Northern Territory, that will add very significantly to the housing stock and make a significant impact on the terrible overcrowding that we found ourselves confronting when we came to government. Unfortunately, we have not heard any responsibility taken by those opposite for this terrible level of overcrowding. The program will also capitalise on the significant opportunities to completely rebuild and make functional houses that we have to acknowledge are currently unfit for occupation. These rebuilds—and I think this is an important thing for us all to focus on—will be able to be done at around half the cost of constructing a new home.

So we are delivering now. I acknowledge there has been a delay—a delay that has been very frustrating for everybody concerned—but I am pleased to say that work is now underway and we intend to increase the pace at which this work happens. Of course, to overcome many, many years of neglect—a very long period of neglect—we have had to not only make the commitment that we have made in the Northern Territory but increase the commitment to remote Indigenous housing right across the remote parts of Australia. The government has allocated $5.5 billion over the next 10 years.

This is an unprecedented level of investment, and one of the major reforms that we are insisting on is security of tenure, to protect the assets that this level of investment will produce and, just as importantly, to make sure that, over time, the ongoing repairs and maintenance are done. Secure tenure is central to our Indigenous housing policy. This should not be surprising. It underpins public and private housing markets right across the country. Just going into a community, building a house and then leaving the rest to fate has not worked and will not work.

In the past we have seen an absence of secure tenure, and we have seen millions of dollars poured into Indigenous housing, with abysmal results, because of a lack of responsibility for future repairs and maintenance, let alone a responsibility for collecting the rent. The facts are that in many cases these houses are now unlivable. Asset life spans were cut short and tenants were the losers. This is really why I am insisting on secure tenure, just as we do in the cities and towns. In those cities and towns, of course, mostly we require freehold. In these remote Indigenous communities, we are insisting on a lease agreement so it is very clear that governments have the legal right to go into a property to carry out repairs and maintenance, and also to make sure that the tenants have rights but also responsibilities.

Now in the Northern Territory we have long-term leases signed in the Tiwi Islands, Groote Eylandt, Tennant Creek in the town camps, Wadeye, Gunbalanya and Maningrida. The long-term lease in Galiwinku will be finalised very shortly, and I have just recently been advised that the traditional owners at Ngukurr have indicated their interest in signing a long-term lease. So we do now have many Aboriginal communities demonstrating their willingness to grant leases so we can not only build houses but make sure there is a long-term responsibility by governments to maintain those houses. In the Alice Springs town camps I am seeking to finalise 40-year leases. It is the case, I am sorry to say, that the previous government walked away from these town camps, claiming that a solution was important but too difficult. I am pleased to say that in the APY lands in South Australia we have signed 50-year leases and funds have now been allocated to make sure that housing can be built. We have got each of the other relevant state governments signing up to the necessity of secure tenure, to guarantee that that responsibility will be there for many years to come.

We have committed to these major reforms because we know just how important housing is if we are to close the gap. We want to not only build houses, rebuild houses and upgrade existing houses; we intend to deliver it with these major reforms, with the delivery of secure tenure and also with proper tenancy management to extend the life span of houses and to make sure that Indigenous tenants are guaranteed access to repairs and maintenance. We also intend to deliver opportunities for Indigenous people to get decent levels of employment. We have demonstrated our commitment to step in at an early stage to make sure that we get programs administered by the states and territories back on track. We are committed to meeting our targets, both in SIHIP and the national partnership on remote Indigenous housing. We are committed to making sure that the living standards of Indigenous people across Australia, especially in remote Australia, are progressively improved. We intend to do this, working with Indigenous people, because we are committed to closing the gap.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In last year’s historic apology to the Indigenous people of this country, the key commitment for the future was the establishment of nothing less than a war cabinet to address the problem of housing. It was not business as usual. It was not just another government program. It was something as dramatic as a war cabinet to address this crisis. At the time of the intervention, we were told by the NT government that there were no fewer than 4,000 houses missing in the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory. So, having promised on this great day in the life of our country, this historic day for all of us, a war cabinet to address, amongst other things, the 4,000 missing houses in the Northern Territory, what did we get? We got the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program to give, it was said, 750 new houses, 230 rebuilt houses and 2,500 renovated houses for the cost of $670 million.

So we had the apology in February and we had the strategic housing program announced in, I think, September last year. One year later, what do we have? Not a single new house has been built. According to a private briefing by a senior officer of the Northern Territory housing department, about a half a dozen slabs at most have been laid. Already, $45 million has been spent, and nothing of substance has been done. I will tell you what has happened, though: a very fine Aboriginal person, a great servant of her people and her country, Alison Anderson, has resigned from the Northern Territory government. This is what she said:

Late last year I began to receive briefings about the program. I knew things were going wrong. I raised my concerns with my colleagues. I struggled to get action. I appealed to them. I could see the disaster in the making. I could see the money being swallowed up: on consultation, on training costs, on administration. At meeting after meeting … I did everything I could to resolve this matter inside the party.

I was unsuccessful. There was no urgency. They didn’t care. I came to understand then that they were quite content to just continue administering Aboriginal communities, taking the money from Canberra. It was just business as usual for them.

She went on to say:

I want to tell you what is wrong at the heart of the Labor government. It is not so much the weak ministers, the constant fighting or the worry about the interests of the party and its friends. It is Labor’s problem with truth.

The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, who just spoke, is a person of goodwill. She is a person of decency and goodwill. But she knew that there were problems, because she was warned by none other than her own parliamentary secretary, Senator Ursula Stephens. Senator Stephens warned:

… that the construction sector had likened the scheme to a “shoddy defence procurement model”, which was likely to lead to the “insidious” alliances between contractors that sparked a royal commission in NSW over high-level corruption in public tenders.

Senator Stephens also predicted:

… it would inflate the cost of housing in remote communities and was unlikely to deliver a single house before 2011, or to meet its target of 20 per cent of indigenous jobs in construction.

Senator Stephens said many months later that her ‘concerns had been addressed’ and she ‘had not had any cause to raise further issues with Ms Macklin’. Senator Stephens, to her credit, raised the problem; Minister Macklin, to her discredit, dismissed the problem—and Senator Stephens, to her discredit, has accepted that falsehood from her senior colleague.

What disappointed me so much about the speech that we just heard from the minister was this: confronted with a social disaster of horrific magnitude and confronted with these kinds of concerns from her own colleagues, did we hear any urgency in her speech? Was there any note of real anxiety in her speech? Did she tell us about all of the things that she was personally doing to make things different? No. There was the complacent assumption that sending a bureaucrat to the Territory was going to make it all come right. This was the speech of a public servant—not of a real public servant but of a bureaucrat. It was not the speech of a leader. I will bet that those words that were read out to this parliament in such a desultory fashion had been drafted for her by the bureaucrats who have led her to the predicament which she is now in and which is leaving the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory in such a sad situation.

Again, I am not questioning the minister’s goodwill; I am questioning the competence with which this program is being administered. I am not trying to make a partisan political point here. I accept that all of us have failed over the years in this area. But there was a promise, concurrent with the apology, that things would be different. It is just that today, and since, there has been no evidence of anything other than business as usual on the ground. I am raising these matters not because I want to make a fine moral fellow of myself but because I want to mitigate the unfolding disaster and I want us all to learn from the mistakes of the past and the present.

The fundamental problem is that this government has gone into this program with a whole bunch of conflicting objectives. The short-term objective of getting houses built has been radically undermined by the long-term objectives of consulting with local people and getting the title right. We have to get the title right but, by going about it the way she has, the minister has guaranteed that, in the process, we do not get the housing right. We have unhoused people because this minister is worrying about too many objectives at once. Get them housed and then worry about the title. That would be the best way to proceed.

Then we saw a program that was structurally unsound—six layers of management and the private sector engaged without a specific job to do. Is it any wonder that the private sector are now padding out the payments for their work with, according to the same senior official of the Northern Territory housing department, a 20 per cent mark-up for profit and 20 per cent mark-up for ‘corporate overheads’—whatever that is. So at least 40 per cent of this money, even on the briefing of the Northern Territory housing department, is not going to deliver houses on the ground.

So the current situation is that we have a Commonwealth officer embedded but no idea of what difference these Commonwealth officers are making or what their precise role is. We have the promise from the minister that administrative costs will be reduced from 11 per cent to eight per cent but no statement as to what they were, no statement as to why they were so high when this thing was put into place and no explanation as to how we can have more bureaucrats put into the system and the program and at the same time cut the administrative costs. We have had housing costs go up from $350,000 per new house to $450,000 per new house. To cover these new houses at their higher costs, we have had the infrastructure component ripped out of the program, so there will be no adequate sewerage, roads or water for these new houses. I still think that, on the most optimistic possible assumptions, they are $50 million short, at least.

I will tell you what will not happen: we will not get the promised houses, we will not get them built any time soon and we certainly will not get them built for the $670 million. The opposition is going to return to this. This is too important to be just business as usual in this parliament. We will keep the closest possible eye on this program. Someone deserves to be held to account for these failures. It is not all the minister’s fault, but she is the person with the political carriage of this program and she must make it right.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was enthralled by the shadow minister’s contribution, for a number of reasons, one of which is the patronising way he speaks about the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I think this is a very disingenuous approach to the issues. There is also a failure to admit or accept any responsibility for the failures of the Howard government over 11 years to do anything about this social disaster of horrific magnitude, as he described it.

Let us be very clear about it. In 1996, John Howard became Prime Minister. In 2007, what did we have? Did we have a dedicated housing program which would address the issues which are now the subject of this discussion? No, we had a periodic arrangement where annually the Commonwealth government would provide moneys to the Northern Territory government for housing. On their best year—their very best year, 2004-05—they delivered 94 houses and in 2006 as few as 51 houses. So what the hell were they doing over that 11-year period? If it is such a big problem, why wasn’t it a problem then? The reason why we have the problem now is the failure of previous governments, particularly over the period of the Howard government, to do anything substantial about Indigenous health, Indigenous housing or Indigenous education. And that is a matter of public record. There can be no doubt about it. I have been in this parliament off and on for 22 years—20 years in this place—and I have forever been talking about the issue of housing and the need to address issues of abject poverty in Aboriginal communities, to address the issues of the social determinants of health: employment, education and housing.

During the Howard years it was no different. What did we get? We got Mal Brough marching into the Northern Territory like some jackboot colonel, making pronouncements about what we should be doing about housing in the Northern Territory and then, interestingly, picking on Wadeye and saying, ‘This is a disaster.’ And to that extent he was correct. It was a social disaster. It remains a social disaster in the context of housing. There are 20 or 30 people to a house. So what did he say? He said, ‘Well, I’m going to build some houses in Wadeye.’ So he spent $21 million in two communities near Wadeye—Wudapuli and Nama—for the purpose of housing. He built 24 houses. That is an average cost of $875,000. What did he say when he commenced this process? How much was it going to cost to build these houses? It was supposed to cost $300,000. So the cost blew out from $300,000 to an average cost per house of $875,000. Who, I wonder, accepted responsibility for that? Did we hear in the halls of the then government arguments for the minister to be held responsible for that cost? We heard no such thing. In fact, he stood in this place defending his position day in and day out. And that is the problem. It is very easy to cast the stones and very easy not to accept any responsibility. And that is the problem: a failure by respective governments to accept real responsibility for addressing the needs of Indigenous housing.

Significantly, in September 2007 the then Minister Brough signed an MOU on Indigenous housing with the Northern Territory government. As part of that MOU there was this:

The Australian Government will have no further responsibility for the delivery of Indigenous housing in the municipal essential infrastructure services in the Northern Territory from 1 July 2008.

So whilst making a heap of money available in 2007, henceforth after 1 July 2008 the Commonwealth was to accept no responsibility for Indigenous housing in municipal essential infrastructure services in the Northern Territory. Now does that sound like a plan? Or does that sound like a great abrogation of responsibility? It was an abrogation of responsibility. The previous government was prepared to walk away from its responsibilities to maintain and improve housing, with no performance indicators and no accountability checks.

In stark contrast, this government, as the minister has said, has taken the matter extremely seriously. It secured a major remote Indigenous housing agreement with the states and the Northern Territory, which—rightly so—is groundbreaking in both its quantum and its underlying reform framework, with $5.5 billion over 10 years. There is no doubt that, if you look at the program which is proposed and is being put in place in the Northern Territory, there have been issues. Unlike the opposition, the minister has confronted those issues, as she should. She has had a review of the housing program in place in the Northern Territory, as she properly should. She has not tried to shift responsibility. She has accepted her responsibility as minister by making sure that changes have to be made. And these changes will be made.

Despite the protestations of the shadow minister I am absolutely confident that we will see the 750 new houses, 230 rebuilt houses, and 2,500 refurbishments. They are sadly needed. I would hope that we could see the need—just once—for a bipartisan approach to developing strategic options for the future. Instead of trying to throw stones across the corridors here about the performance of the government and the terms of the housing program, reflect a little on your own performance. Come to an understanding that you were abysmal failures and then ask: ‘How can we move ahead together? How can we work with you to make sure we all get the outcomes that this nation needs for its Indigenous communities? How can we work with you to make sure that we can properly close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians?’

Let me remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker—lovely bloke that you are!—that in fact that gap is around 11 years for men. Think about it, and the chronic overcrowding that exists in many communities. Just put yourself in the place of a parent when there are 20 or 25 filled in a home and you are expected to provide good nutrition, good home care, to set a good example and to provide a capacity to do school work. How can it be? So we cannot just look at housing on its own. We have to understand its really dramatic importance if we are properly to address the issues to do with poverty, including the prospects of people to get a decent education and the possibilities of kids getting healthy, because they have a direct impact. If we cannot address those issues then we are going to continue to put bandaids over sores which should be prevented in the first instance by doing our jobs collectively in this parliament. We can do it, if we are prepared to work together.

I do not think that blaming one another is very smart. We know that the Commonwealth is working cooperatively with each state and territory government to try to make a material difference to closing the gap. I would hope—just hope—that the opposition will see its way clear to say: ‘This is a damn good thing. At last we have got a government that is prepared to make agreements with state and territory governments on how to improve the outcomes for Indigenous Australians.’ (Time expired)

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 18 months since the election of the Rudd government and its commitment through the apology to Aboriginal Australia could be summed up in one old adage: talk is cheap. When we gathered here last year in a show of bipartisanship for the apology, and the Prime Minister pledged to ‘close the gap’, I inwardly asked myself what the future would be like. What would this commitment mean? Well, so far, not that much.

A lot has been said about the gross inefficiency of the housing program in the Northern Territory, the $672 million program which is now expected to deliver less than 300 houses, the administrators given jobs with nothing to do, the new Hi Luxes, and the building supervisors with nothing to supervise. In short, it is a disaster—another disaster of management to go with the Building the Education Revolution, GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch, and shortly, I suspect, by the National Broadband Network about which I spoke in this place yesterday.

As the member for Grey, I represent all of South Australia’s remote Aboriginal population. In particular, though, when we talk about government commitments to housing, I represent the APY Lands. The government has made a commitment in this part of the world to $25 million worth of housing projects in Mimili and Amata. I can report to the House that, as of today, there is no more to show for these commitments than with the housing program in the Northern Territory. Despite the agreements reach with the APY Council in August last year—more than 12 months ago—not one new house has been built under the program. Housing has been erected on the lands, not in the nominated communities, but rather at Indulkana. I believe some are about to be erected in Fregon. The great irony here is that these houses are funded under the previous government’s building program.

None of the goodwill of the apology expressed by the Prime Minister at the time has yet hit the ground in these communities. Last year, preceding the minister’s announcement in August, there was much public grandstanding both by the state and federal ministers, effectively holding a gun at the head of the APY council over the granting of 50-year leases. I might add at this stage that I do support those leases. However, the council did give ground at that time and agreed to the leases. But since that time I have to report that disillusionment has been growing with the fact that there has been no action. The government has made commitments to the construction of the houses and has made commitments that this construction will provide jobs for Aboriginal people: a 20 per cent employment target. We shall see, because unless there are jobs, and unless there is opportunity for the Anangu, the Aboriginal people, to participate in the real economy, with real jobs for those who live on the lands, their lives will eventually be destroyed by the welfare cycle—much of which has been written about by Noel Pearson, Mal Brough, Warren Mundine, the good member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, and others.

The houses proposed to be built by this program will also be destroyed by the depressing circle of life which is powered by this welfare cycle: low educational outcomes, appalling health, erosion of traditional values, alcohol and drug dependence and—worst of all—the violence visited upon the most vulnerable. If the government can ever get its act together, if it can deliver the real worth and actually get the houses on the ground at value rate, it will help, but it is only part of the jigsaw. At the same time, children must attend school, and on this issue the government has failed to take responsibility for rolling one of the great success stories of the intervention, that is, income management, into South Australia.

I was in Alice Springs recently to meet with the NPY Women’s Council and was left in no doubt of their unequivocal support for income management. It is a better outcome for families, children and women. Some of these women had originally opposed income management; now they are its strongest supporters. So as we hear the stories of the government considering rolling back on the intervention, let me advise on behalf of these women: do not roll back, roll out. Take the intervention over state borders and into the rest of the communities that have the same issues as the Northern Territory. As I said, the success of any housing project and the longevity of any project will be governed by other issues in these communities. True success will be achieved by strengthening governance structures, by insisting on educational outcomes that are the norm in the rest of Australia, by having nil tolerance to violence and abuse and, very importantly, by ensuring we have trained Aboriginal tradesmen at the end of the project who are not just capable of servicing the local communities but capable of competing in the outside world. (Time expired)

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the member for putting this forward because this is a very serious matter of public importance—the building of the houses in Aboriginal communities. I have lived in the Northern Territory for 35 years and I have lived in the Aboriginal communities at Maningrida and Katherine, and they are dear to my heart.

The minister came in here today and acknowledged that there have been problems. The member for Warringah also acknowledged that both sides of politics have had time to get these things right and that we have failed Indigenous people in this country. I do not like the premise of bringing back the apology as a way of having a go at the government over housing, because the apology reset the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. Sure, it is about bridging the gap—on that day we did not close the gap, but we have got programs in place. We did not build a house, but we have got programs in place for that. The former Prime Minister refused to apologise to the Stolen Generations and to Indigenous Australia; our Prime Minister did.

That was the starting point; that was the point where we reset the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. Now it is about delivering and, as the minister said, there have been problems with this program. Is it good enough that there has been wastage in the administration? Of course it is not; nobody comes into this place and says that we should be spending more on the administration of the program. It is about getting houses on the ground. The minister touched on the secure tenure—that is very important. An unprecedented amount of taxpayers’ money is going into Indigenous communities: $720 million. If we are spending that money, we need to be accountable to the Australian people; we need to make sure that those land leases are sorted out so that there is accountability within the communities when it comes to looking after the houses and maintaining them.

I did not hear one single thing from the opposition with regard to how they would do something better in this program. We heard from the shadow minister that money had been taken out of Indigenous communities over the years of the Howard government—not put in; it had been taken out. When the need was at its greatest, instead of putting money in, they were taking money out of Indigenous communities. We heard that on 1 July 2008 that was the end of it; there was not going to be any more.

Their record does not look any better than the record of the government at the current time, but they are in denial. It was one of those things that they were going to do in their 13th year, like climate change. They were going to address climate change in their 13th year; they were going to address a lot of things in their 13th year, but they did not get the opportunity to address them. I am very happy that this has been put forward, because I can say on the public record that it comes down to one word, and that is ‘accountability’—and not only from the federal government. We have put the money up and it is up to the Northern Territory government to make sure that they deliver this program into the Aboriginal communities.

There is also a responsibility here for the people who are building in these communities to put an honest step of goodwill forward in training Indigenous people to get the benefits out of their training and the building of these houses. It comes down to that bit of goodwill across party lines at federal, state and territory levels, as well as from the builders. It then comes back onto the people within the communities themselves. They have got to have the pride in their community, which I know they do have. I have been to a lot of Aboriginal communities and I have had a lot to do with Indigenous people, and there is a lot of pride in their communities. They have had enough of listening to federal and state governments argue and bicker over Aboriginal issues for the last 100-odd years. It is time that we actually delivered on these programs.

As the minister said, the review has been done. There is strong evidence that it can work. The commissioner is working with the three alliances. That is very important. Things are starting to roll forward. The secure tenders have been at the forefront of this. I have spoken to the minister about the communities in my electorate. I have five. I look forward to continuing to engage with her as to when I can get houses built in my electorate as well. But we are not going to achieve anything if we continually blame across the chamber. There needs to be a bipartisan approach to making sure that this is delivered, and it has to be accountable across both the federal and the Territory government as well as the communities and the builders who are building the houses.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his contribution.

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

In rising to speak on this matter of public importance, I speak as a person who built close to 2,000 Aboriginal houses. It has pained me greatly in this place—after 15 years—that a person of Aboriginal descent on Aboriginal land in Australia still cannot own their own home. The previous speaker spoke about pride. There is no pride there if you cannot own your own home.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for this discussion has expired. Thank you.