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

I have a couple of questions to ask the minister but before doing so can I indicate to Senator Bartlett that I might have phrased my contribution badly. I do not for a moment question his support for housing and investment in Indigenous communities, nor his interest in the area, but I suspect sometimes the Democrats are not looking at things in the context of the child abuse intervention. Some of these issues on their own perhaps do not stand up to individual assessment, but you have to put them in that context. I guess that is where we have a disagreement.

First of all, I want to ask the minister about the Aboriginals benefit account. What intentions do the government have in relation to any spending out of the Aboriginals benefit account in regard to the emergency intervention and do they intend—as the minister has in the past—to use money out of the Aboriginals benefit account for government initiatives or for events in the minister’s electorate? I would like to have a clear understanding of the relationship between the intervention and the Aboriginals benefit account and to know whether the government has any intention, as part of the intervention, to access the moneys held in trust in those accounts for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.