Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020. This degrading, colonial type bill will introduce the CDC as a permanent program, not a trial, to replace the current BasicsCard for about 25,000 people in the Northern Territory and Cape York regions. There won't be any cap on how many people will have their income support managed by the government, allegedly for their own good. I'm not surprised that the government is trying to rush this through this place, because about 82 per cent of people who will be put back on rations through the CDC are First Nations people, particularly those who are living on country in remote areas.

The sovereign First People of this country are going to be put back on rations in the Northern Territory and Cape York. It's shame. It's 2021 rations. That's what this is. Let's tell the truth: it's putting black people back on rations. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the government of this country introduced legislation to regulate the lives of our people. These laws were commonly referred to as 'protection acts', because we were told that they were to protect our people. These acts existed and were used until the eighties as a means to forcefully separate our families, create division, disempower our people, try to destroy our cultures and assimilate the oldest culture in the world into settler colonial societies. We were doing just fine before those ships sailed into Eora country to plant their flags on our soil and use our people's country as a prison without consent. We weren't the ones needing assimilation. We were fine, yet these so-called protection acts were used as a way to control the lives of our people. Now, it's back to the future with this bill before us today.

In the second reading speech for this bill the minister said that this new rations program is 'helping welfare recipients with their budgeting strategies and reducing the likelihood that they will remain on welfare and out of the workforce for extended periods'. What a joke! If the minister cared for our people, the government would be bending over backwards to fully fund and resource our Aboriginal community controlled organisations to provide services to our people, because our people know what we need. This government is just blocking our path and our right to self-determination. Self-determination must drive how this government engages with any issue that affects us.

Our people need strong, culturally safe and self-determined supports and services. Services like Aboriginal-controlled financial management, social support, education, child care and legal assistance services. But since our people are not property developers or miners, then this government gives us nothing. Well, that's not true. We get the 21st century equivalent of rations and this new protection act. Our people have not forgotten the protection regime that they were forced into, especially the Northern Territory Aboriginal people. By 1911, 10 years after this country was federated, every state and territory except Lutruwita—Tasmania—had a so-called protection act giving the chief protector of Aborigines extensive power to control our lives. In the Northern Territory in particular, the chief protector of Aborigines was made the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children, displacing the rights of their own parents. Our people have been caring for our young ones and our babies for millennia and, now, the chief protector controlled our children and our babies because he said so. These protection acts included powers to direct our people off their lands to live on reserves and missions.

Our people were enslaved, something that the Prime Minister himself conveniently forgot. He must not have seen the pictures of our senior law men and women in chains and shackles. I'll be happy to provide them to him so he can understand history properly. Our women were abused, assaulted and raped. The police services of this country stole our children from their families and put them to work. The government then turned around to tell us that we were the bad parents. They did all this in the name of protection. What we needed protection from was colonisation. Our people were subject to near total control of movement, of who they could marry and when, and of the jobs that they could do. Our wages were stolen, our savings were taken and our property was seized. Then they put us on rations. They paid us for our labour with clothes and with flour, tea and sugar—foods that we did not have in our diets and that our bodies were not used to, foods that are still killing our people earlier than they should be dying.

People wonder why we are angry. You are lucky that all we want is a fair go. All we want is everything that was denied to our ancestors. How mad they get when we tell the truth, because there is nothing so fragile as white supremacy. I can see people in this chamber bristling at me for even raising white supremacy in this place. Don't forget that one of the first laws this very parliament passed was the Immigration Restriction Act, also known as the beginning of the White Australia policy. Here I stand in this place, along with Senator McCarthy and Senator Dodson, as a proud black person standing up for our people and our rights. We're dismantling the supremacy this country was built on, because we have seen this type of protectionist, colonial interference in our lives before.

This is not the first time that the government has wanted to control the income of our people by regulating access to and payment of social security. Our people were mostly denied any income support, such as child endowment payments, maternity allowance and old age pensions when they were introduced. This parliament even made amendments to legislation that meant that, although our people may have been entitled to income support, this could be paid indirectly to a third party like a mission or a government agency. The Child Endowment Act 1941 provided that the child endowment payment would not be made to Aboriginal natives of Australia who were nomadic or where the child was wholly or mainly dependent on the Commonwealth or a state for support. From 1912, a maternity allowance of five pounds was paid to mothers on the birth of a child. Section 6 of the Maternity Allowance Act 1912 specifically excluded the payment of the maternity allowance to 'women who are Asiatics, or are aboriginal natives of Australia, Papua, or the islands of the Pacific'. The Invalid and Old-age Pensions Act 1908 specifically excluded 'Aboriginal natives of Australia' from receiving the old age or invalid pensions. The Commonwealth scheme for unemployment and sickness benefits came into operation in July 1945. Under that law, 'an Aboriginal native of Australia' was disqualified. Now, here we are, with the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 and the new protection acts being introduced into this place by the chief protector of Aborigines. Don't be fooled when they tell you that this is for our benefit. It's not. Management of income is racist and colonial nonsense all over again. And it's demeaning to us, a proud people.

So many people have shared their stories with me, like Annette Stokes, who was awarded the Order of Australia for her dedicated work for mobs in western Goldfields regarding genetics. Once her contract had finished, she had the right to apply for income support while looking for work and then was placed on a management card. She does not drink or take drugs and is practising culture. A Christian woman who attends church alongside her brother, Pastor Geoffrey Stokes, Annette sings beautiful songs in church, lives an honest life and is a wonderful mother and friend to many but is being placed on a 21st century ration. There is also Grant Gannet, a proud Aboriginal man, who was in tears about how cruel this card is to his people. I also want to speak to the story of a sister, Jmara King, who was on the card in Queensland and tells me that it took this government two months to send it to her. By that time she was so far back in her rent that court proceedings to evict her from her home had already started, so she had to move in with her parents in a crowded home.

This is shameful. We are condemning proud black people to rations and income management and 21st century protection acts. And we are proud; we have been proud for over 80,000 years. I love being black. Our people love being black. We are deadly! That's why they try to control us—control what we buy, when we buy it and where we buy it from. We are the oldest living culture in the world. Maybe that's the reason they are always trying to control us. The government is always big on how staunch we are, how proud we are, and that we are still here. The strength of our matriarchs still runs through this soil. The resilience of our people is stronger than anything you have ever witnessed. This is why we will not be voting for this protectionist bill. We are still here. You didn't wipe us out, even though that was the agenda. And we will continue to resist.

If this government is serious about helping our people, then resource us to work towards treaties. Fund our community controlled organisations. Fund culturally appropriate homes for our people. Stop deciding what type of home we have to live in. Resource our legal services. Give us our land back. Restore the dignity of our law men and women and our cultures. This card does not do that. Our people have not forgotten being forced into missions, having our wages stolen, having our backs broken and our families separated— (Time expired)