Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Siewert, you can interrupt all you like. You can yell all you like. I know how passionate you are about this, but you should put some of your passion aside and be a bit dispassionate about the issues that the Aboriginal communities and all communities in these areas are facing. We should look at what wraparound services need to be put in place and how we put finance into those areas that allow people to get out of the intergenerational social problems that are there.

So we take the view that the community has asked for this and we will look at it, but we will go back and talk to the communities. We will consult with the communities. We will make an assessment separate from a report as to how this is working out. We will talk to Indigenous leaders, we will talk to the Indigenous community and we will try and make the best decisions we can in relation to this. We will not have just an ideological, blanket view. We will not engage in assertions that this is wrong. We will not engage in assertions that this is not helping the community. We will have a look at it and we will analyse it, because alcohol and drugs in the community are a big problem.

I have heard it said that alcohol is part of Australian culture. Well, for many, it is a bad part of Australian culture; it is not a good part of Australian culture. I am not a wowser. I do not say people cannot drink. I just recognise that as an alcoholic I cannot drink. I have actually talked to Indigenous people who did not have the support that I had to deal with that terrible disease of alcoholism. People need help. They need support. This card is seen as one way to do that. But there are many more things we will have to do in relation to this. So I stand by Labor's position that we will have a look at the report, engage with the community, talk to Indigenous leaders and other community leaders, and make a decision about this. But we will not support—we will certainly not support—a blanket rollout of this card across the country.

I think the alcohol industry should be doing a bit more to put funding into these communities to support them. As part of any trial, I would call on the alcohol industry to look at what they can do in a positive way in these communities, instead of just taking profits out of these communities, putting more people into poverty and creating bigger problems. There is not just a need for the Greens, Labor, crossbenchers, the Liberals and the Nationals to debate these issues here; there has to be an approach, I think, where the industry that is making a profit out of people's misery actually does something constructive.

For some time we have called for an alcohol summit in this country. I believe that there should be an alcohol summit, and that could go hand-in-hand with a drug summit. We need to talk about these issues. We need to deal with them in a dispassionate manner. We need to look at the devastation that has been wrought on our communities in relation to these issues. On that basis, we say this trial has still not been finalised.

We do not support a disallowance. We will look at this in a strategic manner. We will analyse the report. We will talk to the community. My view is we should also be talking to the alcohol industry. They have a contribution that they should be making in these communities as well.