Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, I am quoting the Indigenous elders. As always, you in the Greens would know better than the Indigenous elders. With respect, I say to you that this is what is so wrong with Indigenous policy in Australia. People like the Greens and people like the Labor Party know more about what Indigenous people want. This lot of Indigenous people built this magnificent school and they were, by implication, criticised by a senator not from the coalition parties for building it in a certain place. They were actually questioned on why they were building it there. What the committee were told by the elders was that they wanted to get it away from the influence of drugs, alcohol and welfare dependency that the government policy had done. I could go on for hours with this but I know my colleagues want to speak. Suffice it to say that the coalition will be supporting the appropriation bills.