Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

Can I tell you, if we pass this legislation, he will be turning up to inquiry after inquiry as we deal with the flow-ons and the outcomes of this legislation. People in Cape York do want economic outcomes. We know this from Murrandoo Yanner, who gave evidence to the last inquiry, about the economic outcomes he has achieved: five full-time, permanent jobs that are active out there on land, managing the rivers in the gulf area. These are jobs that were not there before but are there now for the long term, jobs that people have been crying out for for a really long time and—as Senator Macdonald indicated—jobs that we will be providing through our budget, and I am very, very proud of that.

This piece of legislation will provide no jobs. It will delay the provision of jobs for a long time. It will pit Aboriginal people against Aboriginal people, instead of pulling people together in the way that you describe, Senator Scullion, where you pull people together to talk about a national park and then some economic outcome that may come out of that. This will not do that. Queensland have made the commitment to progress with more rangers and we have seen that with the rivers in the gulf.