Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd just like to make some very brief remarks. It hadn't been my intention to speak on this, but, having listened to the very careful and considered contributions of senators, I thought I would make my own.

I'd like to point to why I think there's opportunity for hope and why a recent event should be seen through the lens of greater Australian consciousness around Indigenous matters. I point to the outrage in regard to the destruction of the Juukan Gorge—an outrageous event. But as I have reflected, I think it was the outrage of non-Indigenous Australians that really catapulted that gross event into the public consciousness. The outrage that many, many Australians felt—not just Indigenous Australians—about that particular event for me demonstrates actually that things are changing and things are moving in a more positive direction.

When I travel around Western Australia, much of my activity is focused on supporting what I call new Australians and supporting and travelling around rural and regional communities. What strikes me about new Australians or multicultural communities when they go about celebrating their heritage in our country is the fact that they always begin their events with an acknowledgement of country. When I think about what the future of our country looks like, when new Australians or those that have come from multicultural communities of longer standing are incorporating into their own events and their own appreciation of their heritage an appreciation of Indigenous heritage, I think that can only bode well for the future. I would add this: when I travel around to some of the communities that Senator Pratt mentioned—Balgo, for example, or Noonkanbah or Roebourne, where I was this week—while there is disappointment and there is concern, I actually see and I continue to see an energy and a passion for local communities finding local solutions that work for them.

One in particular that struck me is a night patrol in Halls Creek. It's a very, very successful night patrol, which looks after and cares for young children who might be out on the streets late at night. What strikes me about that, on the positive side of the ledger, is the fact that it's a local solution driven by local people. What does frustrate me is how difficult it is to find even a modest amount of public money to support a local initiative like that. I think this is where the frustration and the concern come from for many Australians: why is it that sometimes the simplest things, which local people have identified as fixing their local issues, are the things that are the hardest to get attention to and the hardest to get some public funding for?

I think that in the Australian community there's a great sense of disappointment that we have not progressed further towards improving Indigenous disadvantage, but I'm someone who believes that if there's more granularity empowering local communities to take responsibility for finding local solutions and that if we put more responsibility on local and state governments, we'll get better local outcomes. I'm someone who believes that rather than restricting ideas to just two or three we should actually be more accustomed, better comfortable, with the idea of identifying a broader suite of things that together can work to correct and to reverse some of the outrageous disadvantage that we see in our country.

I'm someone that sees clearly the disadvantaged and I'm someone who wants to see more and better action and outcomes. But I'm also someone who encourages others to just look around; I think they will find positive signs of an improving consciousness in Australians and particularly non-Indigenous Australians of their desire and their concern to want to see better outcomes. I thought I'd just make those observations.