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

I enter this debate as a Senator for Queensland, and I ask the Labor Party: what have you got against North Queensland? The three communities that are still to get one of these providers are all in North Queensland—the western Cape, central Cape and Cook communities—and would normally have the Indigenous Employment Program. I can only ask the Labor Party: why is it that you are picking on Cape York? Perhaps it is because, for the first time almost in living history, the people of Cape York and the state electorate of Cook voted to return a Liberal-National Party member to the state parliament. It is almost unheard of. It has happened only once before in the history of the Queensland parliament, and that was when Mr Eric Deeral, an Indigenous person, won the seat for the National Party back in the 1970s, but since then it has been held by Labor continuously. Why? I will quote some Indigenous leaders, who said this to me in a public meeting I attended recently: 'We blackfellas have been promised everything by the Labor Party for decades. We've always gone along with their promises but we have eventually worked out that all the Labor Party does for us is promise. They never deliver.' And here is a classic example of it.

People on Palm Island, just off the coast of Queensland at Townsville, have for years voted solidly for the Labor Party. Why? Because at every state and federal election, whatever they wanted they were promised. And they were taken for granted. The Labor Party used to get about 80 per cent of the vote on Palm Island. Would you believe, Mr Deputy President, that at the last state election the Liberal National Party got 48 per cent of the first preference vote on Palm Island? Just incredible! Look at what happened in the Northern Territory election. I only raise these things to say that eventually Indigenous people are working out that the Labor Party is all talk. And this program is typical of that.

We have 10 days to go before the program starts, and three of the providers have not yet been appointed. As Senator Payne pointed out, how can you start a program in 10 days time when not only have the providers not been appointed but there has been no infrastructure set up? I can only presume that this is payback from the Labor Party. That perhaps may be going a little too far; perhaps it is just the typical Labor Party inefficiency, incompetence and incapability of managing any government program. Good heavens, you do not need me to elaborate on that—have a look at the pink batts program; have a look at the school halls fiasco. Whatever the Labor Party touches it destroys.

Mr Deputy President, do you know what the Labor Party could do to provide real jobs for Indigenous Australians? This is what Indigenous leaders right across the north and I assume right across Australia are telling me every day: they want to be treated as normal people; they do not want welfare; they want the government to stop this paternal way of dealing with Indigenous people; and they want the government to stop succumbing to the Greens demands to stop every element of progress that could provide real jobs in these communities. Through the Greens the Labor Party is trying to lock up half of Cape York in a World Heritage listing. Do the Indigenous people and local people want that? Of course not. Have they been consulted? Of course not.

Mr Deputy President, if you want real jobs for Indigenous people, get rid of the green tape and get rid of the influence of the Greens political party. Who could tell you better than anyone in Australia? Indigenous leaders say to me all the time, 'Get rid of the Greens, because they are the ones that are stopping us from having real jobs.' Up around Weipa, Indigenous people want to do things, but they are prevented by the Labor government relying on Greens preferences to stay in power. That is why there is a real problem with Indigenous employment in Australia. I plead with those who have it in their hearts to do something positive for Indigenous people— (Time expired)