Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It was a Greens bill, supported by the Senate before the government got the majority, that forced the Prime Minister’s hand. It made him go to the previous Chief Minister of the Northern Territory and say, ‘We want you to take children out of mandatory sentencing.’ Aboriginal kids were being locked up for stealing biscuits. The Prime Minister did not act on that until the political power of the Senate expressed itself, legislation went to the House of Representatives and there was a backbench revolt. The Senate also said that we wanted Indigenous languages available in the courts so that youngsters there understand what is going in. The Senate committee had found that they did not know and that tragically one youngster did away with himself because he did not understand that he was going to be freed three or four days later.

I am talking here tonight about the vacuum in all this legislation. There is money for this, money for something else and money for a third thing, but the government has defunded language programs in the Northern Territory. Where built into this suite of laws is not just the protection but the fostering of the rights of Indigenous people to their languages, customs and laws? What we have dealt with today are simple mechanisms for saying that the courts cannot take those into account. Where is the rest of it? I will tell you: it is not here.

When I moved also for a Senate inquiry and action in this place against petrol sniffing—that scourge of young people, 400 to 600 of whom were active petrol sniffers in Indigenous lands in the Northern Territory and adjacent states—it was this government that held that up. It did not want that rolled out in Alice Springs—you will remember that very clearly, Minister—until the force of public argument finally overcame the government resistance, and the vested interest behind that government resistance, to immediately making available non-sniffable petrol. That rollout has finally taken place, which will not only save the culture of those kids but their ability to appreciate it, take part in it and to enjoy it into the future.

The government says that it has some special moral authority to arbitrate what is going to happen through these laws, that that is best for Indigenous people and that it knows that because it did not consult them. It did not consult the Northern Territory government or the Indigenous people; it just brought the laws in, announced they were going to happen and started to enact them at the earliest moment. They are here in the parliament and will go through this week. What I am warning about is that the lack of probity, prudence and consultation here will have a very big cost, and that cost will be on the Indigenous people; they are going to bear it. The minister can make his argument in the way he has just done and cite examples, but we are talking about scores of communities here and about laws that reach into every black household in the country without consultation. I am warning about the impact that that will have on Indigenous culture into the future. There has been no assessment of it; there has been no account of it; there has been no consultation about it with Indigenous people. And there is nothing in this legislation which advocates it. That is the problem.