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

There is no transparency and so the behaviour continues. It makes no sense to me, and I defy anyone in this place to explain it. The truth is it smacks of paternalism. It says, 'We'll just turn a blind eye to these problems because we're afraid to look bad.' There is an absolute bigotry of low expectations, but there is also a tyranny in low expectations. We cannot claim to want to help marginalised Indigenous communities if we will not hold to account the people and organisations engaged to carry out the work. We will not improve the situation if in our response we refuse to acknowledge the problems that exist. We will not help anyone if we do not demand transparency and, of course, accountability.

The excuse that I often hear is that we can't frame Indigenous Australians in this way. I'm talking about organisations. I know that Senator Hanson is speaking about organisations. I know that Aboriginal people come to Senator Hanson. The same people come to me also. They don't have trust in the government or the Greens to listen to them when they are telling us that they are not being heard by the powerful and they are not being heard by those who trample on them and take the resources away from them that they need to improve their lives. That's why they come to Senator Hanson. That's why they come to me. We are their representatives in this parliament. They are evidently ignored repeatedly by this government, by the Greens, by Senator David Pocock, who's only interested in representing the traditional owners of the Australian Capital Territory. No other traditional owners of the country are of any concern to him as a federal representative. But this is the transparency we need for these organisations to do their job better. What is wrong with holding such organisations to account to ensure that they are serving the most marginalised people in this country better? To lift the standards to improve their lives—what is so wrong with asking for this?

We know that there are opportunists that come along in these organisations, we know—

Please, let's not play stupid and act like it's just white people who come into these organisations and do this. We know that people of many backgrounds do this, regardless. If you're admitting that white ones come into these organisations well, we should be holding these organisations to account then, if you're actually admitting.