Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

This is not a petty issue, but your government’s performance has been petty—with everything being the state government’s fault and everybody else’s fault, and you taking no responsibility.

What I want to do is concentrate on the aspects of the motion that I think ought to be given support—for example, the long-term focus on plans that are not just driven by the latest media frenzy but fundamentally attack the causes of the disadvantages—and call for a bit of a bipartisan approach, to take some of this petty politics that we have just seen out of the debate, and to a focus on the disadvantage.

Minister Brough has very much focused on the symptoms. This motion seeks to focus on the causes. I suggest, Senator Bartlett, that your motion should have done both—because both need to be tackled. Mr Brough is right in saying that we have to tackle the symptoms by providing extra policing and measures that help prevent the violence and child abuse occurring in the first place. But we also have to recognise—as I think Minister Brough is coming around to recognise—that we have to focus on the housing needs, the employment needs, the education needs and the economic development needs. A lot of what occurs in terms of Indigenous disadvantage in this country is effectively caused by their poverty. These are fundamental issues of poverty, and the economic disadvantage is a root cause of a whole range of these other symptoms. So we have to address both the symptoms and the causes.

I think the issues about Indigenous disadvantage are well known. The bottom line is that there is nearly a 20-year gap in life expectancy between European Australians and Aboriginal Australians. That has not shifted for years. We have made no progress. If we look at all the indicators about progress—health statistics, employment statistics et cetera—we see that very little or no progress has been made over successive governments. I remind members of the government that they have been in power for 10 or 11 years. They have some responsibility for where we are at now. And changing the policy name from ‘practical reconciliation’ to ‘the quiet revolution’ does not address the fact that they have done nothing to significantly alter the life expectancy and conditions of Indigenous people. And I concede that the previous Labor government also made very little headway on that. So we have a joint responsibility.

In the House of Representatives today, Minister Brough was looking for the cheap political attack, looking for the cheap point scoring, looking to blame the state governments and looking to try to position Labor as being anti home ownership. We have been in favour of home ownership for 100 years. We were actually in favour of it for poor working European Australian citizens. We have always been in favour of it for all, including for Indigenous Australians. But that is not what this is about; it is about responding to the serious concerns of Indigenous violence and child abuse—which have been put on the agenda again recently.

I remind the government that the Prime Minister had a national summit in 2003. What happened? Nothing. Virtually nothing has occurred in the interim. There was also a national outcry in 1999. Both occurred while this government have been in power. But now the government come in and say, ‘Get on board; we’ve got the magic solution.’ Senator Scullion knows that there are no magic solutions or quick fixes. We need a national commitment from all sides of politics, from business, from the community and from Indigenous people. Unless we get that, we will just have another point-scoring debate, which will leave Aboriginal people worse off. I encourage the government to actually think about it.

Minister Brough was in the House of Representatives today talking about ‘communist enclaves’. He described Indigenous people’s communities as ‘communist enclaves’. Have you ever heard anything more politically charged and more designed to denigrate those people who live there and to provide a divisive debate? It is again all about the wedge and about the denigration of Indigenous people, and it is not about improving the way forward. When I offer bipartisanship to him and when I genuinely try to get some cooperation, I get back name-calling. I get ‘You’re wishy, washy’ or ‘You’ve got your head in the sand’—all that sort of stuff. That is the sort of statesmanlike leadership we are getting at the moment!

I believe Mr Brough was genuinely surprised—I do not know where he has been all his life—when he ran into the entrenched poverty, disadvantage and violence that exist in Indigenous communities. I give him that. But to think that he can rampage around the community, blaming people and thinking that somehow he is going to fix it all by pulling publicity stunts is just wrong. We know it is wrong. We know it has not worked before. We have had Labor ministers, Liberal ministers and Prime Ministers go out and do their publicity stunt in a remote community and come back to Canberra and say that it was a life-changing experience—and what changes? Nothing. Their life might have changed, but nothing changes for the Indigenous people living in those communities. I do not want to see that happen again.

I think if the government could pull back and think about it, they would realise that they need us. They need the state governments, they need federal Labor and they need people like the head of News Ltd—who made a very good contribution the other day. To overcome Indigenous disadvantage, we need everyone. If Mr Brough things that he can do it on his own, I have news for him: he will be another failed minister for Aboriginal affairs. There is a long list of them—mainly good people. Some of them are still working in the area. I met with Fred Chaney the other day. Twenty years on and he is still fighting to improve Indigenous people’s life experiences. There are good people who are committed to the cause who have not had a substantial impact because of the entrenched problems. There is no quick fix, and people ought to recognise it.

I do not want to see what is happening at the moment. Minister Brough is doing damage as he goes around the communities, because he is bringing disrespect on a lot of the Indigenous people. They have been calling for assistance to combat violence and abuse for years and years. A delegation of Aboriginal women from Queensland tried to spark the Prime Minister’s interest in 1999. They said, ‘We need action now.’ They were desperate. We are seven years on. In 2003, after the last outrage at the publicity concerning violence, the Prime Minister said that we would have a national framework to tackle it. Clearly, that has not worked. Clearly, the commitment somehow faded. Clearly, the resolve was not maintained.

I can blame the federal government for that, but where does that get us? Nowhere. It does not get us anywhere. If Minister Brough wants to debate what the states have not done, I will take him through what he has not done in Wadeye: the housing never turned up; the expenditure on housing has not occurred. I know it is always somebody else’s fault. What happened to the money that was supposed to be provided for the community patrol in the town? It never happened. It is three years on and it has still not happened. They promised a community patrol; they promised the money. It has not happened. They wanted a crime prevention grant in October to prevent the violence that occurred the other month—the violence that so shocked the minister. What happened? No funding. So do not come in here and say that it is all someone else’s fault. It is the fault of all of us. Until we all take responsibility, until we stop this stupid name-calling and blame, we are not going to make any progress. We all have to actually accept responsibility.

A point I want to make is that a senior Aboriginal man told me the other day that Mr Brough is like a willy-willy: he comes out of nowhere and he leaves a trail of destruction, but it is all just wind. Aboriginal people feel that the categorising of Indigenous people as child molesters and perpetrators of violence has disparaged them all. They feel that all their efforts to tackle those problems have been laid to waste; that the efforts that have been made by thousands of Indigenous people throughout the community are being discounted. Those are the sorts of issues that the minister has to address. He has to come to terms with those things.

At the very important summit that ANTaR ran this morning to discuss some of those issues, someone made the point that the government has to do things with Aboriginal people, not do things to them. There is a clear difference. Minister Brough’s approach is about doing things to them: telling them what they have done wrong and that he can fix it all. We all know that the solution is to do things with Indigenous people. All the international experience tells us that and all the experience in Australia tells us that. Minister Brough going around and telling them what they have to do, what they have done wrong and how he will fix it will not provide the solution. We all know that and I am sure that Senator Scullion knows that. Home ownership is part of the answer but it is not the whole answer. We have to actually build support for positive change to address these issues in a long-term way. (Time expired)