Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know that this is a very, very divisive topic out there, but I just have to touch on a few accusations from Senator Hanson. I'm not going to have a crack at her because she's got a different view, but she's so ill-informed. Anyone sitting listening would think that Labor wanted to do everything we could to stop the trials. We fully support the trials, Senator Hanson. We supported them when they came out in April 2016, and we still support the trials. So I apologise to all my blackfella mates in the Kimberley—and I'll be with you next week. This is not a fight about blackfellas versus whites, although Senator Hanson has the unique talent of turning everything into a racist blue. My goodness me: that's 10 minutes of my life I'm not going to get back, listening to that diatribe.

To get back to it, I want to bring a bit of a different angle to this, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher. I respect all the years you spent in Darwin—you grew up in Darwin, lived in Darwin and brought up your family in Darwin—and I know you have a lot of contact with the Aboriginal people up there, a lot more than do most politicians in this building. I am an ex-truck-driver who ran trucks through the Kimberley for 12 years and built my house and my little business—my wife and I—through supplying a lot of the Aboriginal communities. I was a furniture removalist, and we moved a lot of gear in and out for teachers, police and social workers—all sorts of people. So I have a bit of an affiliation to the Kimberley in particular, but also to the Pilbara. I also, in my Senate life, spend a bit of time up there—though I don't spend enough time there; I'd like to spend half the year up there working—and when I come away from the Kimberley, after meeting with Aboriginal leaders, my first comment every Friday, as I sit at the airport in Broome or Kununurra, is, 'My head hurts.' It really hurts when I travel around with my Aboriginal mates and see all the issues that they have—every issue. Yet continually, day in, day out, they don't take a backward step. Leaders in the Aboriginal communities should be on pedestals. I said to one of my really good mates, Marty Sibosado from Broome, 'Marty, you've been doing this for years, mate.' Marty's university educated. He's a proud Aboriginal man, a Bardi man, in Broome. He headed up Nirrumbuk. He's an ex-ATSIC commissioner. He was also a councillor in Broome. He's helped start up Aboriginal businesses in construction, electrics, plumbing and the like. I said to him, 'Marty, how do you keep doing this?' Marty's my age and, like I said, is a very proud Bardi man. Marty said, 'If we don't, who else is going to do it?' So it really annoys me when I hear Senator Hanson try to make this about black versus white. Blackfellas know the dramas; they know the issues that they've got.

But I'm not going to talk about Senator Hanson anymore. Let's get onto the positive stuff. We've heard contributions from both sides of the chamber. I want to talk about Aboriginal people, because that's a passion that I have, and particularly as things aren't getting any better. But we're not going to lay the blame at the feet of one person. We haven't gotten it right in 200 years, so to lay the blame at the feet of one person is a bit unfair. There are a lot that have the responsibility here. I work very closely on the belief that if I want to find people who'll support the card I can walk into any town in the Kimberley and find Aboriginal people who support the card. Then I can go the other way; I can walk into any town in the Kimberley—let's talk about Wyndham and Kununurra, because that's where it is—and find people who hate the card. There are no ifs or buts about that. It's a bit like the climate change argument we were having 10 years ago, when we had eminent scientists saying, 'Crikey, the ice caps are melting and we're all going to drown in 30 or 40 years,' and then we had other eminent scientists who said: 'Nothing to see here; move along. It happens every couple of hundred years.'

But please let me explain something to the Senate and to those who have a passing interest in this. One of the greatest Aboriginal leaders in the Kimberley is Mr Ian Trust. I've mentioned Ian, who is a proud Gija man, on a number of occasions in this chamber and said what a really fantastic bloke Ian is. He won the award for Indigenous business leader of the year one year. He was Indigenous Business Australia's deputy chair. He was the Indigenous Land Corporation's deputy chair. He's currently the chairman of Wunan foundation. Wunan do a lot of good stuff in housing and the like. Ian can't say this in this building, so I want to use this time to give the Senate the opportunity to hear it. Ian's dream and vision, his absolute passion, is to try to improve the lot of his mob and others, and Ian makes very, very clear the challenges faced by Aboriginal people, from their point of view. Mr Acting Deputy President, I must say that I'm not talking on behalf of anyone else. I'm not talking about Ceduna. I have no idea how it's been going in Ceduna. I'm talking about Kununurra and Wyndham.

Ian was one of the first to say, 'We need to do something,' because he recognised the breakdown in culture and the continual severe social problems that are faced by his mob and others. He also recognised—Ian is hot to trot on this thing, which does not rate many mentions down here, and it should—the high rate of suicides within Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley, even among kids as young as 11. This is not normal behaviour. He talks about chronic alcohol issues and chronic drug abuse. Sad as it is, there's not a drug you can't get in the Kimberley; it's there. It's not just in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and the big cities. As Mr Trust says very clearly, it concerns him and his mob up there. In the East Kimberley, from Halls Creek all the way through to Wyndham, Kununurra and Warmun, 100 per cent of the kids in care are Aboriginal. Ian's dream is to create a future with hope. It is not only Ian; there are so many fantastic Aboriginal leaders, and they all want that. They want to break the cycle of poverty—it's not an unfair request—and they want an empowered, independent future.

It becomes a little bit disconcerting when I hear from white faces in this place from both sides, and everyone is an expert all of a sudden. Everyone is an expert. I hear some of the contributions from Senator Siewert and I think: 'Crikey, talk about far out! Way out there.' Everyone is entitled to their position, but we've got no right to talk about what's good for our Aboriginal mates. What we should do, I strongly believe, is provide them with every tool that they need and get the hell out of the way. That's what we should do. As I said earlier, we haven't gotten it right in 200 years, and not for lack of trying. I don't mean that to be rude or disrespectful. There are a lot of good people in the Kimberley, black and white, who are doing a lot of great stuff, yet we forget their voices. We don't roll them out here. We don't move the whole parliament to Kimberley and Kununurra and say, 'How's it going out there?' Mind you, there are a lot of people who do make an effort and make the phone calls and get out there.

I need to put some things on the record, and it is only fair to put a balanced argument, because the balanced argument unfortunately doesn't get put too often when people are passionate one way or the other. We know that the welfare card was first introduced into Kununurra to encompass Wyndham, which is 100 kilometres to the north-west of Kununurra, and down to Warmun, which is 100 kilometres south. It was done in April 2016. There were four Aboriginal leaders in the Kimberley who were rock solid and who wanted to make it happen. One was Mr Ian Trust. Another one was Mr Des Hill. Des's official title, I think—he will forgive me if I get it wrong; Des has got a number of titles—was chairman of the Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation at the time, and he is also currently chairman of Waringarri Aboriginal Corporation. I will correct the record if I'm wrong. There was also Mr Lawford Benning, a very highly regarded Indigenous leader in Kununurra. At the time, he was the Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation chairman. They were pushing: 'All right, let's get this done. Let's see if we can achieve these goals.'

Since then, Mr Benning, it's well known, has pulled out of supporting the trial. Mr Benning makes it very clear that he is bitterly disappointed. I want to use a couple of quotes of Mr Benning's so I do get this right. This is from a news article from 24 August 2017:

But 18 months on—

after it had started in April 2016—

he said he had "crossed the floor"—

that's a term that we have a different meaning for here, but it's the same at the end of the day—

disappointed at the lack of change the scheme had generated as well as what he said was the Government's failure to deliver on promises it made at the outset.

"It didn't do what I thought it was going to do and I don't believe it has had the effect that I thought it would," he said.

That's Mr Benning's view, and no-one could ever argue against his credibility in the community up there.

To go back to the other side of the argument, I want to quote this so people hear Mr Trust's own words. Ian said:

"We've got to start somewhere in terms of rebuilding our community, and it means doing something about welfare, alcohol and drugs—and things like the cashless debit card are the tools to try to help achieve that."

Mr Trust also says:

“Things had got too bad to just tinker around the edges; you only have to look at the suicides, the number of children born with foetal-alcohol disease, the rates of domestic violence, alcoholism and child neglect to see that life is not normal here”

That is from an Aboriginal leader. Mr Trust goes on to say:

“Some of the results are hard to quantify, but there is certainly more vegetables, fruit and food being sold in Coles, more Aboriginal people going to the hardware shop and buying pot plants and furniture for their houses than ever did before, and less alcohol in the streets and parks, and less violence”

That's Mr Ian Trust—of the Wunan Foundation, a proud Gija man from Kununurra—not me. He goes on to say:

“It’s not just about grog or crime either; the card is also about breaking the inter-generational dependence on welfare that we have here and showing that rather than blowing all your welfare cash every week, you can budget and save and give your kids a better life.”

This article continues:

Wyndham Aboriginal leader Jean O’Reeri, the director of the local Ngnowar Aerwah Aboriginal Corporation, believes that in smaller Wyndham, the impact has been more marked.

Ms O'Reeri goes on to say:

“No one’s fighting, no one’s drunk; the town is quieter and cleaner, there’s more kids going to school and supermarket spending is up.”

Ms O’Reeri also works as an aide at the local primary school.

To put some balance into where I'm trying to take this argument—with all the help and thanks of all the experts down here in the cities—Mr Trust also incorporates the idea that this is a pathway to empowerment. And there is a design, with a well-known diagram—I am not using a prop, Mr Acting Deputy President, but I am quoting from it—where Mr Trust and Wunan have really worked on the four areas. One is called 'crisis', where they want to stop; that's been said. Mr Trust and his supporters also want to stabilise the situation so kids can get to school, the parent or parents can get a job, and they can get access to housing. That's the dream, we get all that. And then they want to get them ready for change, so change can take place.

I wanted to say something about the way the government is trying to ram this upon the rest of the nation—that's what Labor doesn't support. For everyone listening out there—and we've heard some of the diatribe from the other side, just then, from the Queensland senator—we're not opposed. I work in the Kimberley, and it hurts me; it hurts my heart when I see the disadvantage. So to cop that crap from her—I'm probably not even allowed to say that. I will retract that. There you go, I've gone and done it: I've talked about her and I've put myself off again.

Let's get back to the positive stuff. I want to see change. Our Aboriginal leaders want to see change, for crying out loud. So why don't we listen to their voices? That's all we're saying: give them the opportunity. Everyone's got a great idea, down here in Canberra, when I'm sitting in a coffee shop! To come back to it, Labor does not oppose the card. But what we are hot to trot on is consultation. I know the Greens are going to have grief with this but, you know, our Aboriginal leaders are speaking.

We've said very, very clearly that we can't support this bill as it stands, but there are commonsense amendments on the table. A couple of the Independents probably don't want to think about that or talk about that, but I ask Australia: what is wrong if we say that we'll support the bill if a number of amendments are agreed to? For example, we can just create a new trial end date, to the end of June 2019. I don't see what the pain is there. If you're going to try and achieve the best for regional and rural Australians and the challenges that they have, what's wrong with trialling it out for three years? This is not a tiny little thing. This is not something as simple as changing the colour of your thongs. This is big stuff. So take it out another 14 or 15 months. That's what our Aboriginal leaders want to do in the Kimberley What's wrong with limiting the trials to the areas that we have—that is, Kununurra-Wyndham/Wunan and Ceduna—and see how they go? Why go in there and tip it all upside down while we still don't have the wraparound services right? I don't think if it's unfair at all if we oppose the removal of the limit to 10,000 participants—nothing difficult yet.

Another amendment that Labor wants to put in is very important. They're all important, but this is a no-brainer: specify how people in trial areas who are on the cashless debit card can have the proportion of their income support payments on the card reduced or exit the trial. Mr Acting Deputy President Ketter, I don't expect you to answer from the chair, because you can't. I see no difficulty in this amendment. It's not going to cost the nation anything; in fact, it's a reward. If people have met the level, the kids are at school and they have their spending under control and it has been a great help, what is wrong with that? I know the Greens can't answer this. They will just rabbit on and carry on like there's no tomorrow. They're all good at making suggestions, but there's never an end with the Greens. The final amendment is to guarantee funding for wraparound servicing trial sites formally in the legislation. That's not a big ask. That's what the government started off with. That was part of their sales pitch: all the wraparound services would be provided. We've heard from Mr Lawford Benning that it hasn't been provided.

In saying this, I hope I was able to put a balanced view to correct some of the nonsense that has been said in here. When all is said and done, for want of a better phrase, if our Aboriginal leaders want to try anything that they think will progress their peoples, give hope to their children and grandchildren, and move towards not closing the gap but eliminating the damn gap, who are we whitefellas to say, 'You've got it wrong'? I've turned it into a black-and-white conversation because the senator before me turned it into a nasty black-and-white conversation. This is where a lot of the commentary comes from. I can't stand here and talk for Aboriginal people. My good mate Senator Dodson can. Senator McCarthy can. I can't, but I can bring the messages from Aboriginal leaders from the Kimberley to this Senate, and hope that they sink in for some people here.

I have to say this: we're not all damn experts, even though most of us think we are when we've been to one inquiry or read one piece of legislation. Get off your backside and head into the regions. Never judge a—I might get in trouble for saying 'man'—man or woman until you've walked a mile in their moccasins. Get out and do the hard yards. I challenge any of them to come into this chamber, carve me up, and tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about. Labor will not support the legislation as it stands. I urge the government and the crossbenchers to support Labor's amendments. If you are fair dinkum about improving the lot for our mob out there, what the heck is dangerous or hurtful about our amendments?