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

I do not want to delay the committee in terms of this debate but I do want to make a couple of observations. The key point that Senator Bartlett is making is not whether you have consulted but whether you actually listen to anybody or whether you press on in this determination that you know best and that no-one else’s opinion is of any value. Your having just trashed the Little children are sacred report again raises the question of whether you listen to anybody.

There has been a lot of concern in the community about failure to listen to Indigenous voices. It seems you have now dismissed the Little children are sacred report, and I know from the treatment of parliamentarians in the opposition what has happened. The opposition offered bipartisan support for the emergency response yet they saw the bills when the parliament resumed. Who did you talk to in between times? Who was consulted as you drafted the legislation? As I understand, it was all driven inside FaCSIA. The question is not whether you have consulted or have been engaged, but what happens next.

I think the minister has engaged with Indigenous issues in a way previous ministers have not, and I give him credit for that. He has actually taken a keen interest, while I think that some of the others prior to him did not do that. So I am the first to give him credit for that. But what worries me is his absolute conviction that, having come to Indigenous affairs in the last 18 months with no knowledge or interest before that, somehow he has got a magic solution to every problem and he knows best. I find that frightening. The one thing that I understand about Indigenous affairs is that the solutions are complex, difficult and hard to achieve. If there were a simple solution to all the issues in Indigenous affairs, someone would have come across it before Minister Brough. Certainly when I was shadow spokesman it struck me how enormous the task was and how complex the challenges were. I reject and cannot accept that somehow there is some simplistic solution, particularly when it means the minister taking over complete control.

I think that what Senator Bartlett is focusing on is that we have just had the Little children are sacred report trashed. We have had no response to the serious concerns raised in the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest, which expresses and raises serious concerns about the transfer of power from the parliament to the minister. It gives the minister some of the widest powers in any legislation to override the act, to take powers unto himself that have traditionally not been powers that this parliament has granted. So it is a very serious question, but we get no answer. We do not get a sense that anyone is listening.

The government have said that they will pass the bill and look at that later. But people say: ‘Are you listening? Do you understand and are you responding? Or are you so convinced that you know everything that no-one else has anything to contribute to the debate?’ I would like the minister to indicate, for instance, whether the government are going to accept or support any of the amendments moved. I notice that for the first time in living memory, I think, on a large set of bills there are no government amendments. I cannot recall the last time on a set of large bills drawn up so quickly that we did not have any government amendments. Usually the government—even this government, unrestricted in the Senate, having the numbers to do what they want—move large numbers of amendments as they realise the faults in the legislation, as they listen to responses and as they listen to what people say to them. Therefore I would like to ask the question: will the government support any amendment moved by the opposition, the Democrats or the Greens and will the government respond in any way in terms of the legislation to the legal and constitutional committee report? They say they accept many of its recommendations, but there are no government amendments reflecting that—nothing reflects that report.

I do not want to know whether you are consulting, Minister. I want to know whether you are listening, whether you think anybody else has a view of any value in this debate, whether or not the Senate is going to play any useful role today or whether, as seems apparent, no amendments will be entertained. I know the minister was forced into having the Senate inquiry by other ministers concerned about another example of the government’s abuse of Senate power, so we had the farce of a one-day committee. It has been the minister’s practice in bringing legislation before this place that everything has to be passed within a week. Labor accepts this as urgent. We have given you the cut-off; we have brought it on and we have indicated that we are going to deal with this urgently. I think there is not enough focus from some of my colleagues in the Senate on the enormity of the threat to children and the need for an urgent response. Labor absolutely accepts that.

I am not going to bore people by going through all the reports similar to this that there has been no urgent response to. I am not going to score cheap political points about all the times the government has not responded in any way, let alone urgently or adequately, but I think it is important that we understand whether or not the government is at all interested in listening to anyone—be they senators, be they Indigenous people or be they anyone who has taken an interest in the matter.

I could not help myself, Mr Temporary Chairman: the references to consulting at Wadeye et cetera got my goat up because I understand the minister went out there and lectured people. I met with the local people not long after his first visit, and they were certainly very offended by the manner in which he treated them—I think he got some national TV coverage. I remind the minister that the last revolution in Indigenous affairs that this government championed was the quiet revolution. This was the last one before this one, not the one before that or the one before that in the 11 years of the Howard government, which has found the solution to Indigenous affairs. The last one before this one was what was termed the ‘quiet revolution’. Dr Shergold indicated it was a bold experiment in implementing a whole-of-government approach to policy development and delivery.

FaCSIA, which is driving these changes, was charged with the responsibility of transforming Wadeye and for providing answers to their housing, employment, youth, violence and other issues, and on the report that the department and the minister commissioned FaCSIA absolutely failed to meet its obligations to those people. The trial was a complete failure, as were the other seven, and the bureaucracy and government failed to deliver on its promises to those people. If you are going to talk to me about Wadeye, Minister, talk to the chamber: let us have the whole story. Let us have the story about this government’s failures in Wadeye as well and about its failures to deliver on the promises made by previous ministers and by the government.

I do not take any pleasure in this because I am the first to admit that previous Labor governments have failed in their experiments as well. I did not make myself too popular with a few of my colleagues by saying so a while back, but you have got to admit the reality. I do not want to be lectured about FaCSIA’s engagement with Wadeye, given their failure and the government’s failures there. We have got to admit that government has been part of the problem and has failed these people in the past. Having got that off my chest, the key question—