Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. It gives me the opportunity to briefly outline what the benefits will be. You talk about sightseers. Generally, people who travel in this way, while they are sightseers, when they go to a place they will require fuel, they will require a sandwich or a milkshake—the normal provisions for just driving in or out. When they get there, there are a huge range of opportunities. In fact, one of the biggest employers is the provision of artworks. We have many artworks for sale in these communities. It is unfortunate that they sometimes only have a couple of outlets. Those outlets by and large are excellent outlets—like Papunya Tula. There are a whole range of cultural artefacts and artworks available.

Artists are at different stages of development. There is the quality of artwork of someone like Papunya Tula and there is the bottom end of the scale, in terms of experience and style, which would be quite attractive to tourists. But that opportunity may not necessarily be available to the community. To touch on the committee that was chaired by Liberal Senator Eggleston which reviewed Aboriginal art and was tabled in federal parliament in June, today’s Australian says:

... Eggleston’s committee wanted the permit system abolished to “outmanoeuvre the carpetbaggers”, as he puts it. “By letting tourists come in and buy from the arts centres directly,” he says, “it would undermine the carpetbaggers, who come in and set up exploitative relationships with the artists.”

I do not have sufficient knowledge of the inquiry of the committee but, like all Senate committees, they have probably done a pretty good job. This reflects that there are a range of opportunities that tourists will be able to bring to the communities.