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

I indicate on behalf of the Labor opposition that we will be supporting the Democrat amendment. It goes further than ours, and I perhaps would have dealt with it in a slightly different way, but the essence of the amendment is to require the government to account for progress and success or failure in the emergency intervention. It seems to me that that is not unreasonable. Quite frankly, the only reason the government are not agreeing to it is that they have the numbers. They say it is basically a reasonable proposition but they are not going to put it in the bill. They say, ‘Trust us.’ The point is that people do not necessarily trust the government. They look at the history of government intervention in Indigenous affairs and see it is not a very good track record. So is it unreasonable to insist that the government remain accountable?

One of the reasons given for this intervention is the failure of the Northern Territory government, in the view of the federal government. They say that the Northern Territory government has failed to deliver for Indigenous people, that it has failed to act. Well let’s have the federal government assessed under the same criteria they apply to the Northern Territory. Let’s have you measured on your performance. Let’s see if you meet your performance indicators in terms of this intervention. What are you afraid of? This is important stuff. You urge us to deal with this as a matter of urgency, and we agree. You ask for support; we give it. We ask that you accept a reasonable amendment that requires accountability. But, no, you say you are consulting; you say you are listening, but no-one’s view is ever taken into account. You are always right; you are always so clear. You pay lip-service to the committee’s report but you will not give any substance to it. You will not take the step that gives effect to the message that your own senators gave you. You say, ‘Trust us; we’ll do something about it.’

Quite frankly, that is not good enough. There are extraordinary powers in this legislation. We saw the Scrutiny of Bills Committee’s Alert Digest yesterday and the report which expressed serious concerns about how much power is passed from the parliament to the minister. A whole range of concerns have been raised by others about the extent of those powers. We on the Labor side accept that there is a need to give the minister certain powers to enable him to achieve the objectives of this urgent intervention, but they are not to be unfettered and the minister has to be accountable. This amendment is a mechanism for making the minister accountable.

I have to say that, on either side, the track record of government intervention in Indigenous affairs is not great. My experience of the COAG trials, your last go, the quiet revolution which you were all telling me two years ago was the answer and which has now proven to be an abject failure, is very fresh in my mind, as are a range of failures before that by this government and failures by governments before this one, including Labor governments. So I think it is perfectly reasonable for the parliament to say: ‘Hang on. If we’re going have such extraordinary powers, if we’re going to make such a major intervention into people’s lives we ought to have a very rigorous system for checking accountability and performance measurement.’ For the government to reject this amendment is outrageous because it asks only that there be a proper assessment of the measures.

As I say, I think the proposed amendment is an important measure that ought to be supported. It does not in any way undermine the government’s capacities; it just seeks to hold it to account. And I think it is a positive amendment both to the bill and to the general approach.

If the coalition are going down a big government response path, a very interventionist response path, then I think they who have always spoken about the limitations of big government intervention and the need for government to get out of the lives of people, who are taking a measure that is so at odds with their normal approach, for good reasons in terms of the serious reports of sexual abuse of Indigenous children and the amount of domestic and other violence in the communities, should themselves be anxious for reassurance that there will be proper accountability and assessment of the success or otherwise of the measures. I think this is a very reasonable amendment. I would urge the government to reconsider. They say they will have a review, so why not give application to that? Why not allow the legislation to make that clear?