Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was interested in the comments of the previous speaker, Senator Adams. She was crying crocodile tears over the high cost of living in the Northern Territory. I think it is quite interesting that one of the features of the industrial relations system under the previous Labor government was a system of what were called ‘district allowances’ in the Northern Territory. Those district allowances enabled the people in the Northern Territory to be paid an allowance because they were living in places where there was a higher cost of living. Under the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation, in my experience, many people in the retail industry lost their district allowance. So one thing that the Northern Territory was able to do was provide a higher wage rate for people and, of course, under Work Choices, people lost that. It is quite true that it was more difficult under the Work Choices regime for people in the Northern Territory to meet the higher costs associated with getting products to the Northern Territory.

I am very pleased to speak today in favour of the government’s Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Emergency Response Consolidation) Bill 2008. This legislation has a very direct impact on the Northern Territory. I have a personal connection to the Northern Territory that goes back a very long time. My father served there at Larrakeyah during World War II. I first went to the Territory in 1976, just after Cyclone Tracy, to help rebuild Darwin. I spent six months there on that occasion and, in my previous occupation, I went back there about four or five times a year.

I think it is true to say that, although the Northern Territory does not have the highest number of Indigenous Australians in population of any state or territory, as a percentage it does have more Indigenous Australians than any other state or territory. I was very pleased that the first time I entered this chamber as a senator was the day that our Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, delivered the national apology to the stolen generation in the House of Representatives. It was a very proud moment in Australia’s history, marred only by the fact that it was so long overdue. The former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, steadfastly refused to give that apology to the stolen generation—an apology that all Australians wanted to hear. It is interesting that not everybody in the previous government adopted that sort of hostile attitude to reconciliation. I was very pleased to read in Mr Costello’s new book that he was willing to embrace the concept of reconciliation. Of course, he famously participated in the walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge some years ago.

This legislation seeks to correct imbalances that were inherent in the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007, which was rushed through the federal parliament last year—in fact, it was rushed through both houses of parliament in just one day.