Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about a couple of very special people in the Kimberley. As those in this chamber would know, I have had a healthy respect for and interest in the Kimberley for a very long time—since 1980. I was up on the Dampier Peninsula last year and I visited a couple of traditional owners: Kevin George, in Ardyaloon, and Paul Sampi. Kevin is a senior Bardi man—a Bardi Jawi ranger—who is very highly respected in his community. He has an outstation, Gurrbalgun. Kevin approached me in One Arm Point and asked whether I would be able to go past Gurrbalgun on my way back and check out the very, very poor conditions of his toilet and shower facilities out there, and I said of course I would. What I saw was not fantastic, considering that Western Australia is such a wealthy state and Australia is a very wealthy country. I saw traditional owners living in appalling conditions. These are not traditional owners who do not care for their country or their community. You have to understand—and I know you do, Mr President, coming from Queensland—that cyclones, storms and other weather take their toll on Northern Australia.

Paul Sampi is another senior lawman for the Bardi people. Paul is a wonderful human being as well. Paul has a community at his outstation, Ngamakoon, of about three houses, and his extended family lives with him. The kids go to school every day in Ardyaloon. Paul had a similar problem—the toilet and showers there were in absolute disrepair.

They both asked me if I could help, and I said I would certainly love to see what I could do. Upon getting back to Perth, I made an appointment with the then Liberal minister for housing in Western Australia, Mr Marmion. I sat down with Mr Marmion, and we had a very congenial conversation. I said to Mr Marmion: 'Whatever we do, I don't want to politicise this. This is not silly, petty politics. I'd be very happy if we could do something for these outstations, for these senior lawmen and for the Bardi people and their families.' Minister Marmion said, 'You get up and make the announcement. I don't care as long as they get their toilets and showers fixed.'

To cut a long story short, the state government got back to me and said they were not going to do it, for whatever reason. It was not their area. So I approached Minister Macklin and, thank goodness, she was very helpful. Back in February last year she flicked me a letter saying that the funding for the works had been approved and that she would get the state housing department to do the work. We would fund federally, but they would do the work.

I revisited the area in July and there was still nothing happening. The letter did say that the works would hopefully be completed by the end of March, for the end of the wet season. It is a well-known fact that we had a shocking wet season—not as bad as in your state, Mr President, but certainly a long extended wet season—and it did not finish until May.

When I was up there again in July, there was still nothing. No-one had even visited; nothing had happened. I visited again that same month and took the courtesy of ringing the office of the new housing minister, Mr Buswell. I spoke to the same adviser whom I had met when I met Minister Marmion. I reintroduced myself, saying: 'I'm a Labor senator. I don't want to play politics, but I really have to talk to someone. We've got to get this fixed up.' I was told, 'Yes, I'll get back to you.'

By early August, still nothing had come back to me. I thought: well, two weeks is a long time for them to just come back to me to let me know where we are at, especially considering that the federal government is funding it. That led to me, in my normal fashion, having a fuse-out. I was quite happy to have my fuse-out on the ABC and to say, 'I'm completely sick and tired of the nonsense going on with the state housing department.' I was very unimpressed that for some reason the state government did not see fit to return a call to a Labor senator, and I actually accused some of the ministers in the Barnett government of being completely incompetent. I said that people in the leafy western suburbs of Perth would not be left wanting for something as basic as a flushing toilet and a hot-and-cold running shower. I think I said something along the lines that Minister Buswell can have a singing toilet in his safe seat down there in Busselton but we cannot get toilets and showers for our Aboriginal senior people up on the Kimberley.

To narrow the story down, since I do not have enough time to tell the whole thing, it has now been fixed—thank goodness—as a result of the push from myself and my office and with the support of the federal government. I am happy to say that these facilities will be built and will be completed by the end of September. I will be visiting the community in the next week to reinform them and let them know that they can thank their lucky stars that they have a friend in the federal government and that we are not going to abandon them. Those outstations and those Aboriginal people up there certainly have a friend in me.

I have the hide of a rhinoceros, which is well known in this place, and I believe that if you can dish it out you had better be prepared to take it. I have a vast history of being able to take it. But I take exceptional offence that Mr Buswell jumped up in the Western Australian parliament's question time to have a whack at me—and then go on about how the wonderful Barnett Liberal government looked after Aboriginal people. I think the insult to me is quite hilarious, actually. I would be quite happy to have the same exchange of views with Mr Buswell in the public arena; it would not worry me one little bit. He can carry on and call me whatever he likes; he is well known for some of his boofheaded antics. Let's bring it out. But then he sits there and says what the Barnett Liberal government has done for Aboriginal people and has the hide to think that, if it were not for the state government, Aboriginal people would still be living in caves—my words, not his. The disingenuousness of it! Every single issue, or every single infrastructure fund in the Kimberley, the Pilbara, the Western Desert, or wherever it may be, in terms of Aboriginal housing and infrastructure and assistance is federally funded. I can take a whack. I can take all the silly antics that the boofhead—I will retract that; sorry, Mr President; that is unparliamentary. I can take all the silly antics that Mr Buswell gained notoriety for, but simple lies and mistruths have to be brought to challenge. So I did take exception to that, but we will sort that out.

Finally, I would like to say, once again, that if it were not for Minister Macklin, and if it were not for the federal Labor government, and if it were not for my office's pushing, we would in this day and age have our senior traditional lawmen up on the Dampier Peninsula going out the back of their properties to dig a hole because they did not have a toilet. There are women in the communities, and children who jump on the school bus every day to go to school, and it is absolutely shameful, in a state like Western Australia, that boasts of being the engine room of the economy, that we have a government that just looks at Aboriginal outstations with contempt, as something they will get around to when they are ready to, knowing darn well that it is September already. What if the same weather pattern as last year is replicated this year? It was raining in October. I think there are still about 104 kilometres of dirt roads just to get up the peninsula, but it is further to get onto the outstations—not so much Ngamakoon, which is only a couple of kilometres, but Gurrbalgum is some 25 kilometres in. These poor people would have had to go through another wet season without toilets or hot-and-cold running water, while we have the Premier of Western Australia quite proudly boasting of the new tower he is building. I would not think for one minute that anyone should suggest that they should not have toilets or hot-and-cold running water

I will report back to the Senate. I will be doing my best for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, in the Pilbara, the Western Desert or wherever Western Australian Aboriginal people need assistance. It is not the view of the 21st century, when you have a Labor senator actually approach Liberal ministers and plead that we do not make this political. We have to put our hand out and say we have to fix things that are not right. We have to fix things that are wrong. I was treated with contempt because I was a Labor senator. We should pull our collective fingers out to get this work done. We should be thankful for the opportunity to keep Western Australians employed, whether they be on Aboriginal outstations or not. We should not just turn a blind eye and hope the problem will go away.