Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about remote communities in my home state of Western Australia. When Mr Barnett, the Premier of Western Australia, talked about the proposed closures of 150 remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia earlier this year, the country—not just the state—reacted with outrage. The announcement collected a momentum when the Prime Minister referred to those living on their homelands in Western Australia as a 'lifestyle choice'. Rallies have repeatedly drawn huge crowds across the country—even shutting down traffic in central Melbourne. Thousands have signed on to petitions protesting the action, and the Senate itself added its own condemnation at its last sitting.

I recently spent some time in the Kimberley in Western Australia, visiting and talking with people that have felt completely in the dark about the possible closure of their remote Aboriginal communities and the funding chaos under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy, commonly known as the IAS. Different conversations in places such as Halls Creek, Kununurra, Broome, Fitzroy Crossing and in communities such as the Wangkatjungka community had the same theme. People who have deep spiritual connections with the land were unsure whether they would be allowed to remain on their homelands and in their communities, where their ancestors and elders are buried.

News hitting the region was often stressful and fuelled uncertainty. People talked about living in fear of what will happen. They did not know whether it would be their community that would be closed or whether it would be nearby communities, and they were not sure whether essential services would be cut or phased out, or what lay ahead.

I spoke with an elder in the Wangkatjungka community who told me that the news that the government was intending to close some communities was ripping their spirit and their community apart. Members of the Kurungal council were clearly distressed with uncertainty about what the Prime Minister calls a 'lifestyle choice'. These communities were outraged by the description. Their connection to the land runs so deep, and far deeper than the way in which it was trivialised by the Prime Minister as a 'lifestyle choice'.

Elders from the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, known as KALACC, are operating on a shoestring budget but do incredible work in their lands. Many of the elders who run the centre were displaced as young adults. They talked to me of the fear of history repeating itself. It is a scary prospect for these men. They talked about how their ancestors were displaced from the land when Europeans took over the land. They talked about going back onto the pastoral country to help run pastoral stations. These are the men I spoke to. It was their living experience that they were put on trucks and trucked to Fitzroy Crossing and dumped on the bank of the Fitzroy River when the wage case was held and pastoralists would not pay their wages. So in other words they were dispossessed again. Then they talked about the experience of being able to establish homelands and communities. They are saying that now the government is talking about moving them off again, history is repeating itself. It is a very live and real fear.

I also spoke to elders who were doing an excellent job running organisations such as Marra Worra Worra, in the Kimberley, and Gooniyandi Aboriginal Corporation, which just very recently got their native title back. They shared the same sentiment. Shutting down communities on their homelands and shunting people into larger hubs would devastate communities. It would stunt positive outcomes and stymy Aboriginal culture.

KALACC and the Gooniyandi community gave me messages and asked me to table them in the Senate. I seek leave to table these tonight.