Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Go and read the details. Go and talk to people on the ground, like I have. Go and talk to communities about the fear they are facing at the moment of the approach the government is taking. Communities are scared. Women are scared that their children will be taken away from them.

I will go back to the point. The first recommendation of the Little children are sacred report was community consultation. Throughout its 97 recommendations the report, which I have taken the trouble to read extensively, mentions ‘consultation’ and ‘working in partnership’. The report does not say, ‘Take away people’s land’; it says to work in partnership and consultation with Aboriginal communities to develop evidence based policy approaches. That is what is needed. Talk to the communities and learn what they have been doing, because they have been running very successful programs. But they have been running successful programs on short-term funding. They never know where the next dollar is coming from. The government has not been listening to the successful programs. They have been cutting funding and taking control away. (Time expired)