Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Contrary to the negative bleatings that we have just been listening to, I would like to speak about something positive that is happening in my electorate. On Friday night, I attended the Moree Reconciliation Awards night. This is about a community that is dealing with issues that clearly affect the most disadvantaged people in their community—indeed, some of the most disadvantaged people in Australia—and actually doing something about it themselves. There were 250 or 300 people at the reconciliation awards night. People in that community who have been actively involved in reconciliation—not only throughout the last year but, most of them, for a lifetime—were recognised, both members of the Aboriginal community and of the non-Aboriginal community, both elders and younger people. One of the highlights of the night was some of the testimonials by members of the community. The ones that stood out particularly were from some of the younger members—some of the teenagers who spoke about their desire for reconciliation and their positive outlook as to how that might happen.

During that night, the Moree council unveiled their Reconciliation Action Plan, which is a three-year plan. It is attached to this lovely booklet I am holding. It clearly outlines steps that will be taken and recognised and ticked off over the next three years to help that community work towards being a clearly reconciled community.

Moree has 22 or 23 per cent Aboriginal people in the population, and the Moree Plains Shire Council has already gone a long way; it is not just speaking words. We quite often hear in this place of people's desire to help the Aboriginal communities, and a lot of it is spoken without firsthand knowledge. What Moree council has done is to take action instead of just speaking words. At the moment, the council's employment ratio replicates the ratio of the town. So they have about 22 per cent of their workforce who are Aboriginal, including the first Aboriginal director of a department, Mitchell Johnson. He, along with his wife, Kylie, who also works for the council, have gone a long way in driving this employment program. I would hazard a guess to say that probably nowhere else in Australia would you find the local council replicating the breakdown of the community in their workforce.

So Moree has come a long way. As you might remember, Moree was one of the flashpoints in the sixties with the freedom rides, at the Moree baths. Indeed, I was speaking to a well-known Aboriginal elder, Lyle Munro Senior, on Friday night, and he said that it was one of the best nights he had ever had in Moree. Lyle has been very active in agitating for a better deal for Aboriginal people for a long, long time. It is good to see that this community is putting what has been at times a very tense past behind them and moving on.

On the night, the waiters and waitresses were young Aboriginal people from the local school. The boys were members of the Clontarf Foundation, and I have spoken quite a bit about the Clontarf Foundation in this place. These boys and girls were magnificent in the way that they carried out their duties on the night.

We quite often look to government, federal and state, as being the answer to all of our problems, but it is great to see a community that is taking such an emotional issue as reconciliation, and taking control of it themselves, being led by the people of the community, both young and old, and coming together to drive towards a community that recognises its past but is looking for a future that is much better than what we have had.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 9.30, the debate is interrupted.

House adjourned at 21:30