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

Once again, this is an urgent matter because these issues lead to violence in remote Indigenous communities, which this chamber should be absolutely concerned with and which the Minister for Indigenous Australians should absolutely be concerned with. Individuals being treated the way that the chair was treated this chamber should be absolutely concerned with. That is why we need to be suspending these motions. That is why we need to be ensuring that this motion is passed in this Senate. With all the talk about care for Indigenous Australians from this chamber—from the government across here—they're doing everything they can to shut this voice down, and certainly the voice of the now former chair of the Central Land Council. The minister should have well known what had occurred last night at their meeting or after their meeting either last night, like I was informed, or this morning. If not, then that's a dereliction of duty, as far as I'm concerned, on behalf of the Central Land Council to ensure that the minister is fully informed of what occurred.

I believe the treatment of the chairman of the Central Land Council—having been terminated effective immediately and taken outside and had his car emptied in front of other delegates—to be a matter that is urgent to this chamber. This chamber needs to take this matter very seriously, as we have called over and again for inquiries into land councils, which the Greens and this government continue to deny for people who are the most marginalised people in this country. I'm sorry, but building homes for these people is not good enough. Getting to the bottom of why there is corruption is what we need to do, which is our responsibility—the government's responsibility—and this responsibility is not being taken up. So this is why I believe this motion needs to be passed and why I believe an investigation needs to be conducted into the Central Land Council and other land councils.