Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in relation to the Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities report inquiring into the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This report was handed down in June 2015. I congratulate the member for Murray, the chair of the committee, and the member for Lingiari, the deputy chair, and note that this was a bipartisan report with very strong recommendations. It is one of the best reports I have seen in my three terms in federal parliament. It contains a way forward to deal with the challenge of excessive consumption of alcohol in Indigenous communities.

We know that sly grogging, humbugging and other challenges exist in Indigenous communities, but excessive use of alcohol remains a big challenge. This is a serious report, and it contains a number of important recommendations. One relates to recommendation 7 of the report, which deals with alcohol management plans. These are community agreements to tackle harm caused by alcohol abuse. They are developed in partnership with communities, with the support of local organisations and governments. They have proved to be successful, but there has been a lack of responsiveness by the government in relation to alcohol management plans. We know, according to conclusion 3.105 of the report, that the committee heard that alcohol management plans had been sitting on the minister's desk 'for years', with the goodwill and momentum of the community slowly dissipating.

In relation to this report there has been no response from the government, but we do know that there have been answers to questions on notice. On 10 July 2015 the minister gave an answer to a question on notice that deals with these alcohol management plans—the very subject of this report. It said that the last alcohol management plan the minister actually approved was on 26 May 2014, in relation to the Titjikala community, in the Northern Territory. It said there are no alcohol management plans with the minister for consideration. Why? The report actually recommends, in recommendation 7, that the backlog of alcohol management plans be cleared by the minister by January 2016.

What have we seen in the last couple of days in relation to these alcohol management plans, the very subject of this report? The minister initiated this inquiry of the House of Representatives Indigenous Affairs Committee into dealing with the serious issues of alcohol management in the Northern Territory and alcohol abuse in Indigenous communities, yet over the weekend we heard the minister allege that in some remote communities—some of which we attended for the proposes of this report—they were using Vegemite to brew bathtubs full of moonshine, calling the popular spread a 'precursor to misery'. The minister went as far as to say that vegemite is an increasingly common factor in domestic violence cases, and that children were failing to turn up to school because they were too hung-over. Where was the evidence he gave to this inquiry, to this report? That was not given in this report. He called for the sale of Vegemite to be restricted in 'dry' remote Indigenous communities. Then, and since, he has not referred to one remote community—some of which we attended for this the purposes of this report—to identify where this was happening.

Shortly after, the Prime Minister came out to reassure Australians that there would be no 'Vegemite watch' in Australia, 'because Vegemite, quite properly, is for most people a reasonably nutritious spread on your morning toast or on your sandwiches'. So this very serious issue, the purpose of this inquiry that the minister initiated, has turned into a ridiculous sideshow that has served to peddle negative stereotypes of Aboriginal people. The Abbott government is bickering about whether to police Vegemite, rather than addressing the serious issue of alcohol abuse and responding to this report.

As this sideshow—it is a sideshow because we have a report with many recommendations here—enters its fifth day, I call on the minister to explain why, in the more than 700 days since the Abbott government came to office, he has implemented just one of the 23 community alcohol management plans, which we recommended he approve in order to get rid of the backlog by January 2016.

We know that on 10 July 2015 the answers to questions on notice came back. Why didn't the minister give this information to the inquiry? Why did the minister hold back this information? He then says he is going to refer it to the Northern Territory for some practical actions. I will tell you what the Northern Territory did for us during the course of this inquiry. There was a complete lack of cooperation from the CLP government, led by Adam Giles, in the Northern Territory. We say in the report, at paragraph 3.103:

The committee notes with concern the lack of cooperation from the Northern Territory government to this inquiry. The committee was prevented from obtaining any direct evidence from hospital staff and police in the Northern Territory on their experience of alcohol-related harm. Although the Northern Territory Government provided an aggregated submission, this did not address many of the concerns of those dealing with alcohol-related harm on a daily basis in the territory.

What the Northern Territory government did when they came to power was to get rid of the banned drinkers register, which we found, during the course of this inquiry, had been successful. The evidence in the report shows that the then Northern Territory Labor government's response to the banned drinkers register was that it was:

… working effectively to reduce the supply of alcohol to problem drinkers, and that its abolition was associated with increases in alcohol-related harm.

That is what we found. That is what the report says. Minister Scullion thinks the Northern Territory government is going to take practical actions, because he is going to get rid of the AMPs and hand the issue off to the Northern Territory so they can deal with it themselves.

But we found no cooperation from the Northern Territory government. They got rid of the banned drinkers register. We recommended in this inquiry, in recommendation 8, that the Northern Territory government reintroduce the banned drinkers register and set up a comprehensive data collection and evaluation program that monitors criminal justice, hospital and health data. The Northern Territory government has done nothing about that—no response to that recommendation in the report. Instead, the Northern Territory government criminalised public drunkenness. They brought in this alcohol mandatory treatment scheme, which effectively puts people in the criminal justice system who should not be there. Criminalising alcohol consumption, in the view of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, is a failed strategy. The evidence during the course of the inquiry revealed that it is a failed strategy.

These people in the NT government are the people Minister Scullion, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, thinks can cope with this stuff. We recommended getting rid of alcohol mandatory treatment and bringing back a voluntary scheme—and properly resourcing it. Minister Scullion needs to have a look at this, because his colleagues and comrades in the Northern Territory do not know what they are doing. Where are the alcohol management plans, Minister Scullion? He has approved just one of 23. Where are the other 22 from the community?

Bring back the banned drinkers register in the Northern Territory. Get rid of the alcohol mandatory treatment programs, with punitive measures that punish and criminalise people when this should be thought of as a health issue. The Abbott government should stop shirking its responsibility in this area. That is what this report says. It is a disgrace. The minister has a vegemite watch on this thing; he is pursuing 'vegemite gate'. He should not be doing this whatsoever. There is no transparency, no accountability and no preventive community-driven measures about this issue in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory government did not cooperate one little bit with the inquiry.

The CLP government has failed monumentally in the Northern Territory, because we know excessive alcohol consumption results in abuse, neglect and family violence for women and children. This same CLP government, in league with this minister in the Abbott government, is failing the people in the Northern Territory and failing the people of Australia. I urge the government—I implore the government, I exhort the government—to look at the recommendations in this bipartisan report, led by the member for Murray and the member for Lingiari, and follow the recommendations. They provide a pathway forward. Stop shirking your responsibility and do your job, Minister Scullion. (Time expired)

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

The member for Blair should have completed his talk after the first 10 seconds, when he said that this is a good bipartisan report. In my eight years in this place, that was the most political, shrill and shallow speech I have ever heard—a disgusting effort. I actually had trouble containing my anger while listening to the member for Blair.

We have a great tradition in this place of putting together reports that are bipartisan, that take a great deal of the effort and the resources of the House—of the members of all parties involved in putting this report together. And this is a good report. The member for Blair acknowledged that in the first 10 seconds of his speech and then went on some shallow rant of a political nature. I ask you: do you think the communities in Cape York and northern Australia and in the western part of my electorate who are battling with the effects of alcohol in their communities would be impressed by a political speech like the one we just heard?

In an attempt to bring a bit of bipartisanship and sense to this, I will continue on to the report. Minister Scullion, I have to say, is a great friend of the Aboriginal people of Australia. He has great affinity and he lives his life through the way he speaks. The member for Blair may have peaked in his political climb to the top if that is all he can come up with.

Alcohol and drugs are a scourge in Aboriginal Australia, remote Australia and more urban areas such as the area I represent. This is not something that has just become apparent in the last couple of years or the last decade. This is an issue that has been a scourge for our First Australians for a long time. This report highlights and reinforces a lot of issues that we are aware of, but this report has formally put them together in order. I believe this report can be a road map towards addressing many of these problems. I am a relative newcomer to this committee. I replaced the member for Capricornia late last year. I was not present for many of the hearings and evidence, but I was present at three or four of those hearings. In South Australia, we went to Coober Pedy, Ceduna and Adelaide. I was very impressed with the will of the communities in those towns, particularly in Ceduna where we met with Mayor Allan Suter from the District Council of Ceduna, Mrs Miller from the Ceduna Koonibba Aboriginal Health Service and other members of the Miller family, who are very strong community leaders in the town of Ceduna. They have some real issues with being accessible to some of the remote communities in South Australia where there are alcohol bans. People come to Ceduna basically to drink. Those people live rough. We saw them sleeping in the grass. In Australia in 2015, it is indeed a great blight on our society. In Ceduna they have a room for sobering up and it is filled to capacity nearly every night. The community of Ceduna have made a decision. They agreed last week that they will be part of a trial—one of two or three communities around Australia—to try the welfare card. I really wish them well.

I thought that the town of Moree in my electorate would be an ideal location to trial the welfare card. The population of Aboriginal people in Moree stands at about 22 per cent and the welfare recipients are about 50-50, Indigenous to non-Indigenous. We had some very positive discussions with community leaders, but unfortunately the community leadership did not, in the end, embrace the concept. Sadly, some of the influences that were placed on that came from the hoteliers, where their cash flow is reliant on people on welfare, with takeaway sales and poker machines. It is basically my home town and I am terribly saddened that it is not going ahead. I said to the people of Moree that this was not going to be imposed; I thought it would be an opportunity to try to address some of the issues that are no worse in Moree than anywhere else. I thought they might be prepared to have a go.

Many of the things that we heard during our hearings just show that this is a very complex issue, and that is why the member for Blair's contribution was so irritating. We heard from health workers working in the communities of Cape York, where alcohol bans have been in place. An illicit bottle of Scotch is $200 or $300 in some of those communities. A hit of ice is $15. This is not just a matter of banning grog or having registers with drinkers on it; it is probably a combination of all these things.

I believe this report is a good one. A lot of soul-searching and a lot of thought went into this report and I certainly hope that it will be used as it was intended: as a tool whereby we can continue to address the blight of alcohol and the long-term effects of foetal alcohol syndrome—it not only has short-term effects; it is intergenerational. Quite frankly, after hearing some of the evidence on this, I would say to all mothers and fathers who are intending to conceive and have children: for God's sake, do not drink. This is not an issue just for remote Aboriginal communities; this is a blight on the entire Australian community. The alcohol culture that we have in this country is not only affecting the health of Australians now; it is actually impacting on the potential of our offspring.

There are some very sobering recommendations in this report. I commend the report to the House. I remind House that this report was put together in the spirit of bipartisanship—the one element that I am so proud that we have in this House. I tell my constituents that this place, basically, is a place of cooperation, where people of goodwill do their best for the people of Australia. Let us not see another episode like we have just seen from the member for Blair, which put a blight on the system that we have.

Debate adjourned.