Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How is the Albanese Labor government working with First Nations communities to improve climate change and energy outcomes? How will recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a Voice strengthen this work?

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

BOWEN (—) (): I appreciate the member for Solomon's question. The member for Solomon and the member for Lingiari both know very well that Indigenous people in remote Australia suffer levels of energy insecurity that we would, quite frankly, expect to see in the developing world, not a developed country, in 2023.

More than 90 per cent of Indigenous Australians who live in remote Australia suffer energy disconnections at some point in the year. Well over two-thirds suffer those disconnections more than 10 times a year. We are not talking about disconnections of a couple of hours; in many instances we are talking about disconnections of days at a time.

Indigenous Australians in remote Australia are amongst the very few groups of Australians who are required to pay for their electricity before they use it, not afterwards. Now, let's think about this for a moment. In some of the hottest places on the planet, Australians who are First Nations people are being disconnected from their electricity on many, many occasions.

Let's think about the impact of this on disadvantage. Not only are we talking about some of the hottest places on the planet but we are talking in many instances about Australians who are suffering from multiple health conditions. They are suffering from comorbidities, which, in many instances, require medicines which should be refrigerated, and they are being disconnected—91 per cent of them—from their electricity at least once a year. These are incidents of great irony, like in the community at Tangentyere, which I visited, where they told me they'd love to have solar energy. It makes sense in some of the sunniest places on the planet, but it's very hard to make this work with the energy system that they are operating on.

We have plans and policies to try and improve this situation. We have a First Nations clean energy strategy. We have a First Nations emissions reduction committee. But we have to also be very honest and say, with the very best of intentions, that all governments have had good intentions, but so often they have fallen short because we have too often done things to Indigenous communities and not with Indigenous communities.

More than six years ago, Australia's First Nations communities sent a message to Australians from the heart asking to be consulted on matters that affect them. We know that outcomes improve when we talk to people and hear from people about matters that affect them. We have a chance on 14 October to respond to that request with a resounding yes, not by sending messages of fear and doubt but by having messages of fact and hope. That is what we can do as Australia on 14 October—to say yes to the chance to bring people in the centre of Australia into the centre of this building's conversations more than they ever have been. That is what Indigenous people asked us to do. That is what we can say yes to on 14 October.