Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am going to make a few initial observations about the current context of this MPI before turning to the direct effects of the government cutting $500 million from the Indigenous affairs budget. Recently, following an inexcusably bad set of decisions, Prime Minister Tony Abbott faced extreme criticism from his backbench and a spill motion was moved in the party room. After what he called a near-death experience, the Prime Minister pressed the reset button and promised to become more consultative. He asked for clear air and a chance to begin his government again. 'Good government starts today', he hailed on 8 February this year. He was given another go by his colleagues and a chance to make amends—he said he recognised he had made mistakes. The question I now pose is: should Aboriginal Australians now attempt to appeal to this side of the Prime Minister, to his willingness to reconsider past transgressions? I feel if we cannot push the reset button; his effort to become the Prime Minister for Indigenous Australians and to achieve constitutional recognition will fail miserably. He will have failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. He will have failed all Australians.

In the Northern Territory, my back yard, the Prime Minister is referred to as 'the gammon man'. In the Territory you are gammon if you say one thing but do the exact opposite. If you say you will not cut health and education spending and then you announce that you will cut spending, you are gammon. Once again, the Abbott government deceived Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people when they said they would not cut frontline services. This is exactly what he has said, and we have heard about that here from Senator Siewert and Senator McLucas. It is right throughout the chamber. The Prime Minister is gammon and he has done this in his very first budget as Prime Minister. It is a national disgrace.

The Abbott government cut half a billion dollars from Aboriginal expenditure in the 2013-14 budget, then rushed the process under its flawed new grants system, the Indigenous Advancement Strategy, which Senator Siewert described earlier. It is not working. They have slashed funding to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations right across the country—I know, because I speak to people every single day—to such an extent that many services will be forced to close. This government talks about closing the gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage on the one hand but withdraws crucial funding to frontline services with the other. The Indigenous Advancement Strategy is neither an advancement nor strategic. That is the truth of this. It is ridiculous. It is confusing and it is mean-spirited. I will tell you what the mob across the country are calling the IAS—they are calling it the Indigenous annihilation strategy! That is the truth of the matter.

On top of all of this, the Prime Minister chooses to create more confusion and anxiety by supporting the WA government's proposal to forcibly move Aboriginal people living in the remote and regional areas in that state because he considers their living there to be a 'lifestyle choice'. There are important questions that need to be answered by Senator Scullion and the Prime Minister, who agree that Aboriginal people will be forced off their land, displaced and forced to live—where exactly? Where are these people going to be moved to? How will people be forced off their country? Will the Army be used again? What communities will be shut down? What services will you provide for these displaced human citizens of this country? What accountability have you asked for from the WA government in subsidising this latest land grab, as we call it—because it is. It is about land.

The Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Scullion, and the Prime Minister are directly responsible for the disastrous Indigenous annihilation strategy.    Under the IAS, only 964 of the 2,345 organisations that applied for funding have been successful.    The Liberals have announced just $860 million in grant funding for Indigenous programs and frontline services, having received more than $14 billion in applications. Many organisations have received just a fraction of their current budget to deliver vital frontline services in their communities. Is the minister seriously saying that Aboriginal people across the country losing jobs is going to help close the gap or help Aboriginal people to participate fully in this nation's economy? Across my electorate these disastrous cuts have caused extremely high levels of anxiety, anger and confusion—arising out of the uncertainty.

I have already mentioned the Katherine Women's Legal Service, which provides vital front-line services to victims of family violence. Fifty per cent of their funding has been cut. The YMCA in Katherine will struggle to deliver youth programs that are widely acknowledged for keeping kids off the streets at night, because their funding has been cut. The Prime Minister's foray into Indigenous affairs included the proposal that the MacDonnell Regional Council should expand its youth development services from nine to 12 remote communities, but that it should do so at a cost of only eight per cent of its current budget. If the PM wants to help Aboriginal people, why has he just cut 51 jobs in the MacDonnell shire? Senator Siewert spoke about the Barkly shire, so I will not go into that again, but 30 jobs have been cut and there are no youth programs delivered there anymore. The small town of Elliott on the Stuart Highway—halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs —will lose two part-time childcare positions. So much for supporting parents and helping them to get their kids engaged in education! Jobs will be lost from the closure of the drug and alcohol program run by Amity Community Services in Darwin. These are all front-line services. In Alice Springs, the Institute for Aboriginal Development is one of Central Australia's oldest Aboriginal community controlled organisations. It is facing closure because of cuts to its funding. The IAD runs literacy, numeracy and job-ready programs.

Let me talk now about understanding Aboriginal people living on country and their traditional homelands. The homelands movement has a history going back decades. Aboriginal people started returning to their traditional country so they could continue their cultural practices and so they could live in peace—away from the fringe camps of the regional service delivery towns where their lives were characterised by marginalisation, overcrowding, conflict, continued social and cultural breakdown, deep personal distress, and alcohol and substance abuse.

Ms Laurie Baymarrwangga, otherwise known as 'Big Boss', passed away in August 2014 at 98 years of age—an Aboriginal woman! She gave approval before her passing for her name to be used in helping to carry on all her hard work. Over her 98 years, Big Boss witnessed the arrival of the first missionaries and the World War II bombing of Milingimbi. She established an island homeland, a school, a ranger program and a turtle sanctuary—and she saved her language. She created language nests and still did not give up. In 2012, Big Boss was the Senior Australian of the Year.

The Crocodile Islands Ranger Program, formally launched in 2010, won the Minister's Award for Outstanding Team Achievement in the 2012 NT Ranger Awards. The rangers now protect more than 10,000 square kilometres of sea country, with 250 square kilometres of registered sacred sites, and have created a turtle sanctuary of 1,000 square kilometres. These programs are set to manage, conserve and enhance natural marine resources and the traditional ecological knowledge that lives in the local languages. This conservation effort has national significance. Big Boss said:

Homelands are at the heart of our country.

Knowing country depends upon understanding the complex cultural relationships linked to living on homelands. This protects a vital part of Australia's biodiversity and its cultural and environmental heritage. Homelands are where people transfer the world's oldest living traditions, deep cultural knowledge and globally rare Indigenous languages. All of these are under threat.

It is deeply concerning that the Prime Minister supports the eviction of hundreds of Aboriginal people from their traditional lands. This is a Prime Minister who clearly does not understand the value or the importance of Aboriginal peoples' connection to land—completely disregarding more than 200 years of Indigenous dispossession. We all know that the Prime Minister, as I referred to before, is commonly known in the Territory as 'the gammon man' when it comes to Indigenous Affairs. The self-appointed Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs is just trying to save his own job. He does not care about the people and his comments threaten to undo the this country's progress towards reconciliation and closing the gap in Indigenous disadvantage.

I will repeat what my uncle, senior Yawuru man Pat Dodson, said earlier this week:

Does Australia want to have a relationship with Aboriginal people, or does it not? Or does it simply want to improve the management and control systems over the lives of Aboriginal people? That is the seminal issue.

This Thursday is National Close the Gap Day. I pose this question to the minister and to the Prime Minister: which gap will you be closing?