Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I want to first of all acknowledge the work of my colleagues in this place on this debate and you, Senator Crossin, in particular, given that this legislation is all about your constituents. We value your opinion and know that you know your communities like perhaps nobody else sitting around here. My colleague Senator Andrew Bartlett has in a very short time been able to express our concerns in an articulate way in this chamber.

However, my deep regret is that the government has not listened to any of the wise words that have been said in this place or in submissions, and so these bills will go through unamended. I think that is an indictment of this government’s arrogance and refusal to listen to what seemed to me to be very sensible proposals and amendments in the very short time available to those who care deeply about this issue and are deeply worried about the implications. We have all heard about how complex and contentious this legislation is. The recommendations of the inquiry on which it was based have been ignored. This has been a process of ignoring other people, and I think that is what worries us most, along with its short-term nature.

We all welcome the intervention. Nobody wants to see Aboriginal children abused in any way at all. We want to see healthy communities and good economies that suit Indigenous communities, and for that reason we applaud the fact that there has been action. But the government has not listened to the complaints about that action and the fact that it may do more harm than good. It is the long term that we are interested in. What will happen when the police, the short-term medical checks, the health workers and so on depart these communities? Will we leave them in a worse situation than they were in before?

One thing that worries me about this—and I have not heard it much in this debate; I hope because it is an aberration and not really what the government has in mind—is a reported comment made by the minister who said that the time had come for some honesty in some of the smaller communities, that they may not be viable, and that perhaps government services and support should be withdrawn from those communities, forcing people to find other places in which to live. We know that a lot of people have moved from bigger centres to the more remote outstations, as they are often called, because of the abuse. They are escaping from alcohol abuse and very difficult, violent environments. The last thing we want to see is this being used as a big stick to force people out of those communities when they may well not be ready and may not want to—we know how important the land is to Indigenous Australians.

I thought, because we are still dealing with the appropriations bill, that it would be useful to pick up on a comment I made last night which generated an email that arrived in my in box at 12.36 am from a teacher who says:

I have been listening on and off all day to the Senate debate and discussion today. This is not my normal habit but I have a vested interest today. I am a school teacher. For the past 8 years I have lived and worked in Central Australia, four and a half of those on a remote Aboriginal Community North East of Alice Springs. It’s probably not one you’ve heard of because life there is pretty peaceful. The leadership is strong, kids go to school everyday and if they’re not at school I’m always told why. Parents look after their children and the kids I know are full of joy. They literally run to school when they see my car arrive each morning.

People at this community spend their baby bonus on cars because they want to have a reliable vehicle if the baby gets sick—that seems to me to be responsible parenting.

People at this community are welfare dependent because, apart from the school and the health clinic, there are no other jobs for them to do. Their only other source of income is through painting and even then they are at the mercy of unregulated art dealers.

Up until 3 years ago the 40-50 students who attended school were all crammed into a small two room classroom. We now have a bigger space but even still we are at capacity, and we still don’t have air conditioners that work properly or water that runs everyday.

I have a class full of ‘Seniors’, a dozen students, all Secondary age who go to school everyday because they love learning and it breaks my heart because I have a sense of what they could achieve if an appropriate form of Secondary school was offered—one where leaving home wasn’t mandatory.

At the moment I am on Study leave, doing research into various aspects of Indigenous Education in the hope that when I return I will have some good ideas about how to work with the Community to continue to improve educational outcomes for their children.

But after listening today I know that next year at least my time will be spent accounting for absences and ringing Centrelink on behalf of adults confused about the letter they cannot read and not understanding why half their money has been cut off or angry that the car they wanted to buy when their baby was born is not an option for them any more.

There is no Centrelink fieldworker in our area, despite my repeated requests for one.

So I will go back next year and I will do all of this because after 4 and a half years I care about those people. They are family to me.

…            …            …

Long after the Parliament has moved on to some other issue, this legislation will continue to affect that the lives of everyday Aboriginal people and it will in directly affect people like me and will prevent me from doing the kind of work that might have actually made a difference out there.

Mostly I feel very sad and angry at what has happened in Canberra this week ...

That is both a sad and a positive note for me to end  my small contribution to this debate. As one who has travelled with committees to a number of communities—nowhere as many as other people in this chamber—we have seen some fantastic Indigenous communities which work well. So it can be done. The big question is whether this intervention is the right way to achieve that for all communities. We will be watching what happens, to the extent that we can some in these remote communities. I know that there is not going to be much of a media presence in each of them. There are big questions about whether or not we will know what is going on, but we will certainly be keeping it up to the government.

Another area which has been missing from the government response is questions around rehabilitation and detoxification. It struck me that, when we talk about drinking and, indeed, pornography, no-one is talking about addiction. We do not expect people to just stop drinking in our society because we think it is good for them to do so. People need to have a will to kick an addiction. It takes much more than closing down grog supplies to communities and expecting that that will do the trick. We need to treat Indigenous people as we would treat ourselves in this respect and I do not see that happening.

I am sorry; I should have introduced that earlier. I wanted to end on a positive note because it is our hope that this works and the children will be protected. We will be doing whatever we can to keep the government to its word; that is what this is about.