Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I also congratulate you on your elevation. Now we have found the truth. Senator Birmingham has belled the cat: they would like to do something and they wring their hands about it but, ultimately, they are going to sit on their hands and do nothing. This is a $500 million cut to Indigenous affairs, and the impact of these cuts on front-line services is now clear for all to see. The defence, sterling as it was from Senator Birmingham, showed that the truth is that they do not want to do anything. They will ply it with platitudes but ultimately they do not want to address it. This requires a commitment of funding, not just platitudes.

Of course, Senator Brandis's answer was, 'There is a budget emergency.' Yes, there was mocking laughter in this chamber—because there is not a budget emergency. In Senate estimates we asked Senator Brandis to reiterate his promise made in the Sydney Morning Herald that his cuts would not impact Indigenous legal aid. His department responded: 'This is a matter to be considered within the budget context.' It seems that promises must be considered in a budget context as well. The first victim of the phoney budget emergency is the promise Senator Brandis made before the election. The Abbott government's budget of broken promises ripped more than $500 million from Indigenous programs but said, critically, that these cuts would not affect services on the ground. Quite frankly, that was a cruel joke.

This stands in stark contrast to Labor's approach. In Labor's 2013-14 budget we put in an additional $118.2 million to improve access to justice for Australians. This included additional funding of $12 million for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services and $10 million for community legal centres. We recognised that this is an issue that you have to address. You do not close the gap overnight but you do have to start on the road to closing the gap. Cutting front-line services is not the first step in the right direction.

In contrast, let us look at the coalition's budget. It says that they have already cut $41 million from Indigenous projects since they have come to office. That is, by my reckoning, about $133,000 a day less that they are spending each and every day on Indigenous legal services. But it gets worse. The budget says there will be a cut of $163 million this financial year. That is almost half a million dollars a day that is not going to be contributed to assisting Indigenous legal aid. Yet the cuts are not over—a further $331 million will be taken out until 2018. So that is $500 million dollars taken out of Indigenous programs.

And what do those opposite say about these cuts? Senator Scullion—in his not so sterling defence—on Sky, when asked about whether there would any impact on front-line services from the $500 million in cuts, said: 'Absolutely not. I mean, you won't see an impact on the ground.' They are taking $440,000 a day and they are still pretending that this will not be a front-line services cut.

Well, the jig is up. The cuts are having an effect on the front line. The first front-line cut I will raise is the cut described in the question to today. The $1 million cut to the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has resulted in a big cut to front-line services. They are closing their East Arnhem office in January. No clearer could the impact be on front-line services for Indigenous people in East Arnhem. For more than 20 years the East Arnhem Land office has provided front-line high-quality services to Indigenous people dealing with legal advocacy, and now, after 20 years, Aboriginal people in the region are faced with the closure of this service.

The response by this government continues to be this tired refrain of 'there is a budget emergency,' but when they need to find money they find it and spent it. I suspect the truth is that they do not want to spend it in this area. They would rather spend it by giving it to the Reserve Bank— (Time expired)