Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This report by the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts is entitled Conserving Australia: Australia’s national parks, conservation reserves and marine protected areas. The inquiry was initiated while I was still chair of the committee, when it was the references committee. It was chaired by Senator Eggleston for the latter part of the inquiry. Again, I would commend the report as a good example of Senate committees working together constructively across party lines and producing a report which, apart from one recommendation, was unanimous for Labor, Liberal, Democrat and Green senators. It is a good template for significant advances in how to better protect our national parks and expand our National Reserve System, including in marine protected areas.

It should be said that the recommendations and the report, in part, acknowledged some of the successes of the federal government’s approach, particularly with regard to the National Reserve System. The recommendations were based on building on those successes. That included recognising the successful Indigenous Protected Areas program and calling for more support and funding for that. I am pleased to see that, since the report was tabled, more resources have been provided for Indigenous protected areas. That is important for the core purpose of better protecting our National Reserve System and biodiversity and, indeed, the cultural biodiversity that is intertwined with biodiversity in many remote areas where traditional Indigenous knowledge is still prevalent.

The report also recognised the great conservation and environmental benefits as well as the social, economic and cultural benefits of better recognition of the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples in land management and, indeed, in sea management. Whilst I commend the government for expanding support for Indigenous protected areas and for the Working on Country program that was contained in the federal budget this year, I do have to say that the action that was subsequently taken, in July this year, of scrapping the CDEP program for Aboriginal workers in the Northern Territory runs quite a serious risk of undermining the effectiveness of some of the measures that are identified as positive actions by this government that are detailed in this report.

The abolition of CDEP in the Northern Territory—without notice by the federal government; it was not something that had been flagged before, contrary to statements by some in the government—is causing significant concern because it is a policy that will lead to shifting people from work onto welfare. There are about 8,000 CDEP places in the Northern Territory, and the government has given a vague promise that around 2,000 of those will be transferred into some type of properly funded jobs. The rest are likely to shift onto Work for the Dole or training programs which are lower than CDEP. CDEP was not perfect in every area, but when it worked effectively, as it did in many communities in the Northern Territory, it provided significant, genuine employment opportunities. It was not sit-down money when it was applied and operated properly. It was no-work no-pay money: if you do not work, you do not get your pay—like everywhere else.

It also provided significantly to the local economy, including in a number of art establishments. They provide one area of economic opportunity for many Indigenous communities, and that is an issue that is the subject of a separate report by the same committee, the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I will not speak to that report, beyond noting that both the report into national parks and protected areas and the report into Indigenous art acknowledged some of the positive things that were happening as a result of government funding. Both areas now run the risk of being harmed because of the federal government’s decision to scrap CDEP in the Northern Territory—only, it seems, so that the income of those people can then be quarantined and managed by the government in the same way as the money of people on welfare payments is quarantined and managed.

This is causing an enormous amount of unease in many parts of the Northern Territory because, while the general promise has been made that 2,000 so-called real jobs will be properly funded and provided, it has not actually been identified which jobs they will be. People in many communities in the Territory are currently doing jobs which may be providing a valuable service to those communities, including in the area of managing natural resources. Indigenous protected areas programs have included a lot of CDEP places, and so have art establishments. A lot of the CDEP places are related to community services and support. People in many cases do not know yet whether their jobs are the ones that will continue to be funded on a proper ongoing basis, whether their jobs are going to disappear and turn into much lower level and inadequate Work for the Dole type arrangements or whether they will have contractors coming in from outside to provide the same work that Aboriginal people were doing under the CDEP situation. It is a mess, frankly.

This had nothing to do with the safety of children, nothing to do with the Little children are sacred report and nothing at all to do with improving protection for Aboriginal children. These are people in CDEP jobs. They are counted in the employment statistics as being employed. They will now shift to being unemployed. I do not care about the statistics. I care about the consequences for people on the ground and—which is relevant to this report—the consequences for land management, natural reserve management, the maintenance of traditional land management knowledge and practices, and the continuing development of a very important part of Aboriginal culture. All of that is put at risk purely so the federal government can take control over the income payments of a greater number of Aboriginal people in the Territory. There has been no thought put into the wider flow-on consequences.

It is not too late, I might say. I urge the federal government to reconsider this issue. They can make a judgement as to whether they want to restore CDEP or whether they want to take another pathway forward that ensures that these presumably unintended consequences do not occur. The simple fact is that one of those pathways has to be pursued and there has to be a shift from the current approach, which is simply going to lead to greater hardship in many Indigenous communities and a loss of those services. Labour is being provided in natural resource management, art establishments and other social services in those communities. This needs to be acted on. The government cannot just keep blustering in response to every concern that is raised. But that is all we have had to date: bluster. The bluster cannot keep going; it cannot last forever. We have to look at the facts and at the reality on the ground. That is what matters, not the political point scoring. It is the people at community level who will have to bear and live with the consequences.

Question agreed to.