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

I move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 5352:

• (1)             Page 9 (after line 14), after clause 5, insert:

5A  Review of operation etc. of Part 4

                 The Minister must cause to be conducted, as soon as practicable after the first anniversary of the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent, a review of the operation and effectiveness of Part 4 (Acquisition of rights, titles and interests in land).

This amendment seeks to provide a review of the operation of part 4. This amendment requires that:

The Minister must cause to be conducted, as soon as practicable after the first anniversary of the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent, a review of the operation and effectiveness of Part 4 (Acquisition of rights, titles and interests in land).

The bill has some provisions for sunset clauses et cetera but no formal provision for a review of the impact of the legislation. I notice that the Democrats have a similar amendment, more broadly expressed, which I think comes up as the next amendment. But the intent of our amendments is really the same, and that is to ensure that a formal review of the act takes place one year after the commencement of the act. Our amendment only seeks to review part 4—the sections dealing with the acquisition of rights, titles and interests in land. This is principally the section that gives the new five-year leases over township areas but also includes the town camps. The government’s argument for these provisions is that they need these leases to provide better housing and infrastructure. They are effectively taking on the responsibilities of the town landlord in an endeavour to quickly improve the vital infrastructure in these communities necessary for better housing and improved economic development. Labor supports the attempt to deal with what are effectively the underlying causes of poverty in these communities. It has been our view for a long time that housing is at the core of Indigenous disadvantage. It has impacts on health, on violence, on all aspects of life. If you are living in housing with 18 or 20 other people then that is fundamental to all the other aspects of your life, including health and educational disadvantage, and leaves people more prone to the issues of domestic violence and child abuse. I have always accepted that housing is central to resolving the terrible issues of poverty that affect many of these communities.

There is a great deal of distrust about these measures in many Indigenous communities and particularly among the Indigenous leadership. They are concerned about why these leases are necessary. Their argument has been that the government can provide housing and infrastructure without needing to take control of the leases and they argue that there are other provisions that could allow this to occur. We heard the minister talking before about the need to act more quickly, that he has been frustrated by consultation and that the government believes that the lease arrangements are necessary to be able to drive the investment in infrastructure. I am a bit concerned that the funding for housing does not seem to be specified, and that is something we will come to later. We support the need to make serious investments in infrastructure and housing and the need to take action to resolve those things and to provide better opportunities. You cannot provide security for children if they are living in houses where there are 18 or 20 people to a two- or three-bedroom house. The whole nature of that living arrangement puts those children at risk. There are questions not only of violence and sexual abuse but also of health.

I mentioned in my speech in the second reading debate the issue of disease brought about by those cramped living conditions and often failing sanitary provision. Just imagine 20 people using the same toilet. Domestic bathrooms are not designed to deal with that number of people. All of those things are central to people’s lives, and housing is at the core of many of the issues we are seeking to address.

There is concern about whether these measures will be effective in addressing the issues of child abuse and that is the basis for the package. People say, ‘Well, if you are interested in child abuse what has acquiring land got to do with that?’ The connection is not nearly as obvious as police, pornography and measures to tackle those things. It is not unreasonable for people to say, ‘Explain to me what the link is and explain to me why this has to occur.’ People want some reassurance on those matters. One of the things that is most important is that action on Indigenous affairs is based on evidence and not on ideology. While the government and others often accuse Labor of being driven by ideological obsessions, there is some suggestion that perhaps a sort of anti-self-determination flavour to government action has been driving a lot of the approach of government. I listened to some of the second reading debate speeches and there seemed to be a bit of an ideological tinge to some of the addresses by government members, which concerns me.

But basically Labor support an evidence based approach. We are going to take very serious measures here. Let us quickly assess the evidence on whether it is working or not. What we learned from the COAG trials was that there was not enough focus on the evidence, there was not enough accountability, the program rolled on without people looking at whether it was meeting the objectives and action was not taken to ensure those objectives were being met, so we did not get results. We think that by moving for a review after a year we can look at what is occurring, whether the objectives of the intervention are being met and, if not, what steps have to be taken to correct those. It holds us accountable. We are taking measures to intervene. We ought to be held accountable for whether those measures are working and whether or not they are delivering what we say they are going to deliver. Labor takes that very seriously. We are taking a very big step. We are making a huge intervention in people’s lives and communities. We think it is for good reason, but we have to test whether or not that intervention has worked, whether or not we can do things better or differently and we have to assess whether there are unintended consequences. This stuff has been done in a rush. The legislation is going through in a rush. I would like to think we will get it perfect but we will not. We know we will not get it perfect. I hope the minister does not think we will get it perfect. That is not a reason to necessarily delay; urgent responses are needed. But it is a reason for caution. It is a reason for assessing whether or not we are meeting our objectives. The best way to do that is to have a proper review of whether these measures are meeting the objectives we have set for them.

I have concerns that the objectives, the KPIs if you like, are not spelt out. We are going to charge in and do a whole range of things but what are we going to measure those against? The 12-month review at least provides an opportunity for the intervention to be formally assessed, for a report to be made public and for that assessment to hold the minister, the government and this parliament accountable for the measures that we take. It is important that we give people reassurance that we are going to assess whether we are meeting our objectives. It will help to allay concern about the intervention and we will get much better public policy. I know the minister indicated that the government was sympathetic to some sort of two-year review but he is not prepared to put it into the legislation.

Progress reported.