Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to Senator Hanson's motion calling for an inquiry and report into an organisation in South Australia called Aboriginal Community Services. Senator Hanson's call to look into this organisation should be supported. She has raised serious issues around the governance within that organisation. Senator Hanson is right to call for an inquiry into this organisation. Australian taxpayers have a right to know where their money is being spent, and that goes, of course, for every other organisation that receives government funding. It is important not just to the taxpayer but, mostly, to the people that suffer when such organisations are found to be doing the wrong thing. Usually, those people are our most marginalised Indigenous Australians.

During my time representing the Northern Territory in the Senate, I've often spoken on the importance of accountability and transparency of Indigenous organisations and the governments that fund them. If we're ever going to close the gap then let me remind you where the gap exists. Many in this chamber, right across the board, when speaking on Indigenous issues like to suggest that the gap exists between Indigenous Australia and everybody else. Well, there are certainly members of this chamber who are doing pretty well for themselves, who aren't part of that group of Indigenous Australians that are marginalised. The further you move away from a capital city, the more marginalised Australians become—that's everyone. But our most marginalised are those in remote communities whose first language is not English and who still live connected to traditional culture. Everybody else, including the growing Aboriginal middle class, are doing really well. Some have very large property portfolios. Some are earning six-figure salaries. They're alright. The gap exists between them and our most marginalised. But it is our most marginalised who require us, elected parliamentarians, to hold these organisations to account. That is why we're elected to be here. It is our responsibility to do so.

Just days ago, my colleague Senator Kerrynne Liddle and I were refused a very similar request for a much broader inquiry into Aboriginal organisations. We were denied by the Labor government; by the Greens, who purport to be champions for Indigenous Australians; and by Senator Pocock, another who purports to be a champion for Indigenous Australians. Just like the referendum, this issue is in fact not an Indigenous one; it is an Australian one. It affects us all.

May I remind the chamber that Indigenous Australians are Australian citizens also. We forget that. We're treated as an 'other'. There are those that get upset in here about racism—those who like to point the finger at Senator Hanson—and yet they suggest that we should be treated as one separate group to the rest of Australia. That's a pretty bloody racist notion, if I say so myself—that we should be relegated to an entity just for us so that when it's too hardball for the government to deal with an Indigenous issue they'll say: 'Handball it to the Voice. That's too hardball. Just vote down a motion for an inquiry. We don't want to expose the truth. We don't want to hold anyone accountable. We don't want to lift the standard for Indigenous Australians.' It is a matter of equity and it's a matter of justice and responsible use of public resources.

As a nation, we throw billions of dollars every year at Indigenous issues and, of course, at the Aboriginal industry. Rather than looking at these organisations and at how they are spending taxpayer funds or trying to enforce transparency and accountability, we continually turn a blind eye, make excuses, maintain the status quo and the racism of low expectations. That's what we do. That's what happens in this chamber. When are we going to hold the ministers, departments, agencies, and organisations that receive the money to account? Why should Indigenous organisations have a different set of accountability standards? Why should standards for Indigenous Australians be lowered? There's all this talk of closing the gap, and yet we cannot lift the standards. How can organisations receive money year after year yet not supply a mandatory annual report? Could they be getting away with it? Are they getting away with it? Have they been getting away with it? We don't know the answers to these questions, because we keep having inquiries shot down.