Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give a real-life example of escalating Indigenous disadvantage in my electorate under this Labor government. In a three-week period earlier this year, there were four alcohol related deaths in the northern Goldfields towns of Laverton and Leonora, ranging from misadventure to murder. This was largely as a result of the government's removal of the cashless debit card without any consultation with the 3,500 participants or their communities. The Labor government did not listen to the voices of Indigenous elders like Janice Scott, who predicted this would reverse the improvements being seen in child welfare and domestic violence incidents. The PM did not listen when the community leaders of Laverton and Leonora begged him to visit and witness firsthand the escalation in social harm since the removal of the card. That is why close to 80 per cent of the residents of remote communities like Laverton and Leonora voted no to the Voice and why 77 per cent of the voters across O'Connor agreed the Voice was not the best way to address Indigenous disadvantage in their regional communities.

So I join the opposition leader, Peter Dutton; Indigenous senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price; and Senator Kerrynne Liddle in calling for a royal commission into Indigenous child sexual abuse, an audit of the millions of government dollars being poured into Indigenous programs and a policy focused on improving the lives of our most disadvantaged Indigenous Australians.