Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the last sitting day in June, as this chamber knows, the Senate passed the stronger futures legislation, a policy for which there is no substantive evidence that it will be effective, just like its predecessor, the Northern Territory intervention, had no substantive evidence of its effectiveness. At around the same time that the Senate was considering the stronger futures legislation, results of the 2011 census were released. This stronger futures legislation and the government's policy approach is supposed to be closing the gap of Aboriginal disadvantage—the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians in life expectancy and socioeconomic indicators. I would have expected to see that the gap in those socioeconomic differences was closing. In fact, the census showed us that in those key socioeconomic indicators between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia it is not closing. That gap is not vanishing. In fact, there was very little difference between the 2006 and 2011 censuses. The latest data on Closing the Gap, the figures from the end of last year, showed escalating reports of self-harm and suicide. I will come to employment in a minute.

What is particularly concerning about those reports is that the feedback I am getting from those on the ground in the Northern Territory is of shell-shocked communities, a feeling of disempowerment, continuing reports of people talking about a loss of dignity and with extreme despondency about the way that communities have been promised a lot that has not been delivered.

We have seen some changes, of course. We no longer have government business managers; we have government engagement coordinators. But, again, as with the government business managers, people do not know what they are supposed to be doing or what has changed. What has changed is that around the rest of Australia we have seen a defunding of some programs in order to fund the stronger futures legislation. One of the things the government made communities understand is that in their 10-year commitment to ongoing funding—and 10-year and long-term funding is a good idea—there was little new money being delivered. There are some programs being continued. Money has been cut from other programs, such as the Indigenous law and justice programs, where we have seen $23.9 million over four years being redirected. We have seen money being redirected from the National Native Title Tribunal. We have seen money being redirected from the intensive literacy and numeracy programs for underachieving Indigenous students. We have seen community festivals and education engagement funding being cut. We have seen cuts to funding to the youth mobility and youth leadership programs, and to programs designed to address petrol sniffing—that critical element of youth diversionary programs.

Just last week at our inquiry into the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill, commonly known as the Opal fuel bill, the department confirmed that approximately $1 million a year has been cut from those very necessary youth diversionary programs. One of those programs does some work in the Northern Territory but the others are from around the rest of Australia. So what we have seen here is a cut in funding from other programs to prop up the government's commitment in the Northern Territory—a commitment to programs that are not working. They are not closing the gap. They are not significantly changing those socioeconomic programs. They are not delivering better outcomes for employment.

Some of the latest survey work from the Bureau of Statistics—Labour force characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australiansshows that the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia in terms of the ratio of employment to population remains the same at 25 per cent. In fact, figures for the Northern Territory are worse.

In some states there has been stagnation but in the Northern Territory the figure is the lowest at 37.9. As Jon Altman points out in the article that he wrote recently about this issue, it is the lowest despite the intervention and the reputed creation of 2,000 public sector jobs in prescribed communities. The intervention—and I keep calling it 'the intervention' because, as everyone in the communities knows, 'stronger futures' is simply a rebadging of 'the intervention'—has disempowered people in communities and we all know that the first step to closing the gap is about empowering people, about making programs culturally appropriate.

Another recent report, from a team led by Professor Pat Dudgeon from the University of Western Australia, was released just the other day, Hear our voices. It also points out the extreme importance of making sure that you have strong community, that you are building a leadership capacity, that the programs are developed by the community and delivered in partnership with the community, that there is community ownership and that, importantly, we build cultural strength. One of the most overwhelming comments that people make about the intervention is the disempowerment of community, the top-down approach and the lack of consultation when the intervention was first imposed. Those are the key elements that we hear all the time from communities.

Just this week we had a delegation visiting this place from Utopia which reinforced the fact that people feel disempowered, that people were not consulted, that they feel an overwhelming sense of despondency because of strong futures and the approach the government is taking because the government, with stronger futures, has repeated the same mistakes from the intervention. There was a farce of a consultation process and I can name a number of reports and go through ad infinitum the number of complaints that my office has received and that have also been written up about the poor consultation process. I think there are enough to knock that fallacy on the head. There is also the evidence that the Senate Community Affairs Committee received when inquiring into stronger futures, which overwhelmingly criticised the consultation approach. So, again, communities were not adequately consulted about the future.

But the key thing here is that we are not getting those community driven programs that are culturally based. Importantly, there are homelands, and one of the constant complaints that we have been receiving is the failure of the government to support homelands. Yes, they have continued the funding for homelands—but at a minimum amount. What I was told yesterday as to what you see at Utopia is that you get $2,000 for a home refurbishment in a non-hub town or a non-growth town and you get $70,000 in a growth town. People feel overwhelmingly disenfranchised and that the government does not value homelands and is not investing in homelands. But it is the homelands that deliver connection to country where people feel at home and where people feel their cultural strength, yet the government's policy drives people out of homelands into growth towns, where you get a lot more social dysfunction, where people feel isolated and do not have their cultural strengths. So what the government needs to be doing is rethinking its approach to policies to deliver, and also to address Aboriginal disadvantage. (Time expired)

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I made it my business to come in this afternoon and listen to all of the contributions from the Greens in their opening speeches on this section of our business today. I think that if you had listened very carefully to the last 10 minutes you would not have heard one policy idea, you would not have heard of one initiative, you would not have heard of one solution, you would not have heard of one way of moving this debate forward. I understand, Senator Siewert, that you have an interest in this area but I think that your knowledge of what is going on through the length and breadth of the Northern Territory clouds your view about what a lot of people think about this.

So let us go to stronger futures. It is not a rebadging of the intervention. It suits you and it suits your political rhetoric to try to encourage Indigenous people in the Northern Territory to believe that but though there are many aspects of the Northern Territory Emergency Response, which was introduced under the Howard government, in it they have now gone and no longer exist in this legislation because we have spent four years talking to Indigenous people about a way forward. This is unlike when the intervention was first introduced by a former minister, Mal Brough, and occurred overnight. What we did, as I said in my speech in a contribution to the stronger futures legislation debate, was get Peter Yu and his group of three to conduct consultations. We changed the legislation so it complied with the Racial Discrimination Act.

We have been out there a number of times talking to people about what they want. People focus on the 12 weeks in which the consultations on that particular piece of legislation this year were focused, but the reality is that people like Minister Warren Snowdon and his staff, me and my staff and Minister Macklin, to her credit—and Senator Scullion, I have to say—actually get out on the ground week after week and hear a much more balanced view about what is going on out there than you do.

Three weeks ago I had the privilege of going to Dhanaya, which is a homeland in north-east Arnhem Land, and I sat there with nearly 300 people for 11 hours that day. I was extremely privileged to be part of a young boy's initiation ceremony followed by, several hours later, a funeral, and in the course of that day I got to speak to many people at Dhanaya. What I know is this: people out there are very confused about the shire council reforms that have been undertaken by the Northern Territory government and they say that these have taken their voices away.

The Northern Territory government is working through that because it was an inefficient and inept system of managing local government. We and the Northern Territory government are working to ensure that those small communities have consultative groups that work within those shires. They talk about their voices being removed. Let us make sure that that is not wrapped up in the stronger futures package. Let us be really clear about this. It is about the local government reform, which is major and massive—73 communities are now down to nine super shires. Is it going to work overnight? Of course it is not, but it is going to take years to make sure that people know what has happened.

We talk about consulting with Indigenous people. I think we have done it better than many governments have done it in the past. Wherever we have built houses, we have a local housing reference group. I was at Wadeye three weeks ago where there are 75 new houses. You would seriously think that it was a suburb anywhere in this country. It is in a square grid. It has sealed roads. It has guttering. For the first time ever I have seen new houses put in Indigenous communities with guttering, lines marked on the road, power lights overhead, footpaths and fences. I was astonished when I saw it and the people there were eminently proud of this new lot of housing. It was done in consultation with Indigenous people, so 75 houses were not just built anywhere. I could say the same about Maningrida and the new houses on Groote Eylandt.

All of the growth towns have a local implementation plan—an LIP. Those communities have been asked to identify 10 priorities in their community. Those priorities change and are different. Each of those communities has a local implementation plan committee working with local government, the NT government and the Commonwealth government and the community. There are four parties that sign up to that local implementation plan.

So things are very different out there. Sure, it is a struggle. I have been in the territory for 31 years and I still grapple with why children are not going to school everyday. I still grapple with why we have the health outcomes that we have, and there are plenty more challenges. But looking back 31 years, I do see a difference. What we are determined to do is to stop this small cycle of funding where plans for community groups and organisations get put in place and then, after one or three years, they have to reapply for their funding.

I think the greatest thing that has come into place with stronger futures is a 10-year bipartisan funding commitment between the government and the coalition. So no matter what happens at next year's federal election or the federal election after that—or the federal election after that, for that matter—$3.4 billion will be there so that we can have a generation of implementation of programs.

Senator Siewert, you have not heard Aboriginal people ask you month after month to, 'Please give us a decent block of funding, give us funding that goes beyond three years so that we can actually plan.' I have constantly heard that everywhere I have gone throughout the Northern Territory in my working life there. I really do have to pay tribute to Jenny Macklin and people like Senator Wong and Wayne Swan who decided that that they would get this money together and fund these programs for 10 years.

Everywhere I go Indigenous people say two things to me: they want to stop the alcohol abuse; and they want to stop people ruining their lives by getting easy access to alcohol and to have an alternative. Stronger futures tackles that challenge. They want assistance to get their kids to school and stronger futures tackles that challenge as well, working in partnership with Indigenous people. Women want to continue with the BasicsCard because they feel some security about that and they want us to continue to improve the safety in their community. Stronger futures does that.

We have worked very hard with the homelands policy. Even the coalition said to the Northern Territory government, 'We will find homelands for a certain number of years but after that you have to find the money yourselves.' Well, it was not going to be possible and it is not possible in the economic base of the Northern Territory. Under the stronger futures package we have given $200 million over 10 years to support municipal and essential services in the homelands. The coalition have partnered with us as part of the 10-year funding commitment. I hope that $200 million is now safe and secure. During this election campaign Paul Henderson, under his dynamic leadership and extensive consultation with people in the Northern Territory, travelled out to Gan Gan, a homeland in north-east Arnhem Land, two weeks ago and announced that they would match our $200 million with $300 million. So under the Labor Party, both federally and in the Northern Territory, you have a $500 million commitment for homelands for the next 10 years because we acknowledge the profound connection between Indigenous people and their homelands. We acknowledge their culture, we acknowledge that they want and deserve a right to live on their homelands. Through stronger futures and our homelands policy we support that right. (Time expired)

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to again place on the record the coalition's views on stronger futures. I also look to take to task Senator Siewert's remarks with regard to some of those matters. Senator Siewert says that the intervention completely failed and she brings forward what I would say is at best anecdotal evidence.

I am quite often lectured by Senator Siewert and others in the Greens about evidence based policy, and I would ask them to listen to their own admonishments and start to provide that themselves. Certainly we see evidence in some of those areas of the provision of police as well as the complete collapse of defence injuries, as provided in the statistics by the medical centres. There is also all the support evidence by independent surveys conducted in these communities. I know that you would love to have everybody say that we were just into rebadging the intervention with Stronger Futures. Stronger Futures only deals with, as you would be well aware, Senator Siewert, provisions around community stores; the rescheduling of the alcohol provisions where the community asked for that prior to Strong Stronger; and the announcement that the leasing arrangements will now be voluntary. I have to say that the circumstances and the funds behind the intervention cannot be compared with a rebadging under the Strong Futures legislation.

Senator Crossin touched on the consultation involved in the Stronger Futures. One of the things which I will support the Greens on is that anybody who has had anything to do with the Stronger Futures would know that if we needed a lesson on how not to consult—and I acknowledge that it is a difficult challenge—it would be that. As a committee, we arrived at a community to find that they had already had the government's department in there for 10 days. They really did not know what we were doing there. They had never heard of it at all. It means that quite clearly we do need to go back to the drawing board in that regard. As Senator Crossin indicates, the shire council reforms were not only confusing but very destructive in terms of how people felt about their communities and their capacity to be able to say, 'These are the priorities that our community needs in the shire context.' The Country Liberal coalition in the Northern Territory has a policy to return the full say that existed prior to those reforms to those individual shires.

Again, Senator Crossin, you talked very fondly about the consultation on SIHIP and how you had your house built. I agree; I think a lot of people were quite happy with that. There were two problems with it, though. The first is that it cost $53 million before a single brick was laid. The second is that the feedback the Aboriginal people gave the government about what sorts of houses were to be built was completely ignored. So I am not really sure that that would be something I would be boasting about.

Before I briefly go to the homelands, I have just heard, sadly, that Olympic Dam mark II will not be going ahead. I had heard from a lot of people, from a lot of different organisations and from government that an awful lot of Indigenous employment was to be levered against it. I have to say that it not going ahead certainly does not come into my context of a stronger future. I think we would all be extremely disappointed about that.

The homelands movement is one with a great deal of history. Senator Crossin reminded us that late in March the federal government announced $221 million to provide some basic amenities. This is a bit confusing. The $221 million is there simply because we have decided to multiply our normal budgetary remarks by 10—it looks bigger. Wouldn't we all love to just multiply everything by 10? So I think we should contextualise that. This is $22 million a year, as it always has been. It is the $22 million a year that was originally provided in 2007 by the coalition. As Senator Crossin said, the clear agreement was that the Commonwealth government would provide this money to the Northern Territory government, because at that stage they really needed some infrastructure improvement, and the Northern Territory government would take responsibility for it in four years. It is a bit rich to come in here and say, 'We were never going to do it,' because that is, as I understand it, not the agreement at the time. In any event, that $22 million is now going to be continued by this government, and the coalition would, of course, support that.

There is one real challenge with some of this money that I can recall from earlier this year. In fact, it was probably on the first day that you can cross the Mann River, whenever that was, and we still had water in the windows; so it was pretty early in the year. I visited 21 homelands that were the responsibility of one of the homeland resource centres. I spoke to the people in all of those communities. I said, 'What've you had done in the last few years that you can remember where somebody came here and did anything with the power, the water, the septic system or anything else?' There was in fact only one thing, which was at Marwin. They very proudly walked me up to a very large, $3,006, I think, poly water tank. They were very proud of the tank. But the fact is that it had sat on its side, 20 metres from the stand, unplumbed, for 18 months. They were proud of it, and I was obviously proud with them. But it was a pretty poor indictment that over that much time the reality on the ground is that the money is going somewhere but it is not going there.

I think all future governments—I am trying to take the politics out of this—should remember that, instead of giving money to organisations so that we can stand in this place and say to the people of Australia, 'We gave this much money; we gave $22 million to the Northern Territory,' and then walk away—because how is money supposed to put water in a tank?—we need to, with the leverage of the Commonwealth, change the way we do business. What we need to do as a Commonwealth, with the great leverage that we have, is start buying outcomes. It does not matter if it is the Territory government or the Western Australian government or the Country Liberals or Labor, we simply need to guarantee to ourselves that we are buying an outcome rather than pushing up a government. But that is not happening at the moment, and it is something that I believe just simply cannot continue.

There is also a very small matter of the administration of these fees. We expect $10 to buy $10, but it does not. It invariably buys $9 or $8. When you start getting out in the bush a bit, it sometimes creeps up. We need to ensure that, when the Commonwealth is using its massive leverage, we take that into consideration and actually provide outcomes. One of the things in relation to the homelands more generally is the provision of $619 million for an additional 60 police officers. They are not actually additional. They are the same police officers that were provided by the coalition on the basis that the Northern Territory government provided the number of police officers they were supposed to. Of course they have not done that.

I think all these arrangements need to be treated with the respect they deserve, whether they have arisen through COAG or through an independent agreement between the Northern Territory government and the Commonwealth. Stronger Futures is a piece of legislation which tidies up and continues some of those elements of the intervention, some of which have, very sadly, been allowed to drift aimlessly.

We have heard from Trish Crossin. I think she spoke quite passionately about the fact that the government are not actually pursuing most of those things that that nasty bloke John Howard—without verballing you, Trish—had instigated. She said they had got rid of those things. I think it is that sort of attitude which has allowed some of these very good programs to drift aimlessly. Sadly, the truth is that today we should have been in the position of being able to look back on good work having been done and, as a result of that work, being able to exit those communities.

I am loath to criticise and belt those on any side of politics, because this is a very difficult task. But we must learn from our mistakes—mistakes all of us have made. It is starkly clear that there are plenty of things which have been done wrongly and we cannot continue to repeat those wrongs of the past. But, after five years of this sort of federal investment, it is quite clear that we should by now have been in a position to be able to get out of these Aboriginal communities. We should by now have been able to see them having and achieving the same aspirations that other Australians have—a roof over their heads, the potential to own that roof, kids going to school and a job. Sadly, that is still not the case.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suspect that if Senator Siewert had had a few more minutes to speak on this matter of public importance on the Stronger Futures legislation, she would probably have directly addressed some of the matters raised by Senator Crossin. I found some of the accusations that came flying back across the chamber quite bizarre—because a fair bit of the enormous amount of work that Senator Siewert has done on behalf of disadvantaged Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people across the spectrum has been done in conjunction with Senator Crossin. When our interests align and when the government does good things, we will of course support them.

Senator Crossin asked, rhetorically I suppose, what positive initiatives we had supported. She said that she had not heard any. I find it perplexing that we would need to underline them—but I will. On hearing, and oral health in particular, Senator Siewert has been directly involved in a comprehensive plan for otitis media—and Senator Crossin knows this. We were able to bring about comprehensive funding for a suicide prevention package. Again, this is cross-party work which everyone supports. We were able to bring about soundfields in classrooms. We have detailed proposals for community controlled education in Aboriginal communities. We have been a big part of the debate on a floor or minimum price for alcohol, as we have been on takeaway-free days in areas where the communities are calling for them.

On criminal justice, we have played a major part in popularising justice reinvestment. This is something both of us—and now Senator Wright as well—have had a lot to do with, inspired largely by the work of former Human Rights Commissioner Tom Calma. He brought the concept to Australia after he had seen how well it was working in the United States. Senator Siewert has a native title amendment on the books, which Senator Crossin is absolutely welcome to support. It actually gives people the right of veto—the absence of which has been a tragic flaw in the native title legislation right from the beginning. We were a big part of mandating Opal fuel—and of course there is Senator Siewert's proposal for unsniffable Opal petrol to be mandated across the region. These are not trivial matters. These are things with which we have been directly involved in support of the aspirations of our Aboriginal communities—not just in the Territory but across the country.

The issue I want to address directly is the idea that the best way to support economic development and Aboriginal advancement in the Northern Territory—and there seems to be a bizarre and nasty cross-party consensus about this between Labor and the CLP—is to dump radioactive waste on them. Senators will be well aware that this is a campaign I have had quite a long involvement with. I became involved in 2005, when I had the good fortune to be on Senator Rachel Siewert's staff and sat in the public gallery during the fateful week when the coalition, which had the numbers in the chamber at the time—they were fresh from bashing through the Work Choices legislation which would eventually bring the government down and they subsequently rammed through the welfare-to-work and terror laws and abolished student unions—decided, for a wrap-up, to have a go at radioactive waste and passed this shameful legislation through. During that debate—and I remember this vividly—ALP senators spoke out strongly. They were great. They were actually inspiring. They were not as inspiring as Senator Siewert but they were clearly on board.

Since then, what has happened? Directly after the 2007 election, responsibility passed to Martin Ferguson and the Howard agenda continued. It was shameful. The Howard government radioactive waste legislation was described by ALP MPs, in the run-up to the 2007 election, as 'sordid'—and sordid it is. The idea that the best way to promote economic advancement in the Northern Territory is to post six of the loneliest security guards in the country to guard against people tampering with radioactive waste for the next three centuries absolutely beggars belief. They waved around a $12 million cheque in the community, north of Tennant Creek, which wanted a decent road and some community education support for their kids. That $12 million cheque was dangled in their faces in exchange for hosting what they thought was going to be a rubbish dump. Those were the words that were used—'rubbish dump'.

As I said, I have been involved with this campaign for quite some time. We have seen some very strong support from right across the board. I would like to acknowledge NT Chief Minister Henderson, who has defied his federal colleagues over this issue—and of course the NT Greens have been steadfast in the Barkly region, in Alice, in Darwin and right across the Northern Territory. But the Chief Minister is fighting an uphill battle, because he is fighting his own federal colleagues. This is a Labor Party radioactive waste dump, but it follows exactly the same template as the one which was announced by the coalition in 2005.

It was extraordinary, when listening in to the House debates and when the debate on the Radioactive Waste Management Act came through the Senate, to hear one coalition speaker after another taking credit for the idea and bagging the government for simply cutting and pasting. On that I agree with them. I agree with my colleague Senator Scullion, who claims some credit for the Mukaty waste dump, when he says that the ALP had just copied the coalition's policy—because they did. The only people who have been standing up and supporting the community on this one from day one have been the Australian Greens.

It is made all the more disappointing by the actions of the ALP when they were in opposition.

This is obviously a campaign that has a long way to run. Matters do not get to the Federal Court on a whim. While Minister Ferguson at the behest of the Northern Land Council continues to insist that one person effectively is able to speak for that country, we are in regular contact with a large number of traditional owners from the complex and quite tightknit family networks up there saying that of course traditional responsibility and custodianship over the area is shared and it is not a simple matter to simply draw a rectangle out of the area that five family groups signed on to as the Muckaty Land Trust and say it is just one person.

So the federal government is in enormous trouble and I suspect what is in the offing is probably a humiliating backdown. No matter what the outcome of the Federal Court, this is no way to treat the people of the Northern Territory. I am surprised at how quiet the NT CLP have been over this extraordinary attack on Territorians' rights. One thing I will note which has been a positive consequence, not just of the way the intervention was handled but also of the way this waste dump proposal has been handled, is that it has re-sparked the debate over statehood for the Northern Territory. The debate is probably in better shape than it was when it was last had in the Northern Territory. I support the discussion being had so that this kind of exploitation—which is what it is; it is base exploitation of the constitutional weakness of the Northern Territory—can be taken advantage of by both major parties voting together as they did when that Muckaty waste legislation was finally put to the vote during the last session.

What is happening in the Federal Court is that the traditional owners are wishing to explain that the Muckaty Land Trust was granted to five groups in common due to interconnected responsibilities and songlines. The government of course has isolated a small number of people and declared them the exclusive owners of the designated land. We fought the bill for two years and it did pass this March, but we were pleased to be able to secure an amendment after negotiations with the government, which was also supported by the coalition, to ensure that no international waste is stored in Australia. But the impact on the traditional owners of Muckaty continues, as it has now for seven years since John Howard's law was first passed—exploiting that same constitutional weakness that Territorians are now more than sick of hearing about—to dump radioactive waste on their land. The impact on them has been stress—they do not need this; they have enough on their hands without having to fight an industrial hazardous waste facility on their country as well. The issues that Senator Scullion listed, the issues that Senator Crossin listed and the issues that Senator Siewert relayed are all real issues that will only be solved if in a cross-party way we listen to the aspirations of the people who are directly affected in the Northern Territory.

The very last thing that people need is to hear about the nation's most toxic radioactive waste not being safe enough to be parked where it is at the moment, under the active care and maintenance of the staff at the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney, but somehow magically being transformed into something completely safe if it is trucked 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek and dumped in a shed surrounded by barbed wire. The people of the NT do not buy it. They have supporters all around the country, and I know this full well, who do not buy it either. The government has come down completely the wrong track, backed by the opposition, and the Greens will continue, if we have to, to be the only voices standing up in opposition to this flawed and completely misconceived facility.

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

It is always good to listen to the contributions of other senators. Half the time I do not think we pay enough attention to each other—we are too busy running political arguments—but I have listened very carefully to the contributions by previous speakers. I acknowledge the fine contributions from Senator Crossin and Senator Scullion, from both sides of the political fence. I could not argue with anything they said, and it was comforting to hear truths come out. I spend an inordinate amount of time in Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley—no-one would spend as much time in Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley as me. I have seen the despair and the disadvantage firsthand, and it sickens me. But I do take heart when I hear Senator Scullion say that we need to take the politics out of it.

I do not think any senator since 1901—111 years—could put their hand on their heart and say that we have had a fantastic record, that we have done a fantastic job, in eliminating Aboriginal disadvantage. I will acknowledge that each term of government brings new challenges and I acknowledge the fine work that is being been done by the Gillard Labor government. I know, because I drive Minister Macklin mad, every time I come back from the Kimberley, with more and more problems, more and more requests, because I go out there and I consult. More importantly, I do not tell my blackfella mates what I think is good for them—I want them to tell me what they want me to hear and what they want me to bring back to Canberra.

Senator Siewert's matter of public importance refers to the inadequacy of government policies such as Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory and support for homelands. I am very familiar with the homelands. I think I have visited at least 40 of them; there are probably about 60. I do not doubt Senator Siewert's commitment to Aboriginal Australia; I do not doubt for one minute that she has a good heart when it comes to trying to deliver the best outcomes for Aboriginal people most times. But it is very important to get some facts out on the table. I find it very disingenuous when senators say one thing in their home state and then say another thing when they are here in Canberra. That goes for the mob in the other house, too.

I want to talk about Aboriginal disadvantage particularly in the Kimberley, and I want to talk about a couple of recent visits to the Kimberley not only by myself but also by Senator Siewert and Senator Milne—and the bastion of the green movement, Dr Brown, on the Sea Shepherd. There has been a very topical gas project proposed for the Kimberley region north of Broome.

I, for one, do not care if there is a gas hub there or not. If there is going to be a gas hub, as long as all environmental approvals are ticked, as long as Aboriginal people are employed and as long as the traditional owners gain benefits, I am very happy. That is not inconsistent with what I have always said, whether it be on the public record or spoken to oil and gas companies or to my blackfella mates up in the peninsula and around Broome and the wider Kimberley.

But I get a little bit annoyed when Colin Barnett, the Premier of Western Australia, decided he was going to compulsorily acquire the land of the traditional owners, the Jabirr Jabirr and the Goolarabooloo—which I do not agree with. When they initiated the native title talks through the KLC—at the time, Mr Wayne Bergmann was the chair of the KLC—

Senator Siewert interjecting—

I hear Senator Siewert is going to chuck some barbs, and I do hope I hear them. But I get really annoyed when the Greens, including Senator Siewert and Senator Milne—if I am wrong, they will have the opportunity to correct me—go visit Broome, go up and meet with Waardi and then sit there with one of the most senior TOs, Rita Augustine, to tell her, in her words to me, that they were there to save the blackfellas from the mistake they may have made because it is wrong having a gas plant. That really annoys me. You see, as part of the negotiations with the Kimberley Land Council and the traditional owners—the Jabirr Jabirr and Goolarabooloo—the Goolarabooloo do not agree but the Jabirr Jabirr do, whether we like it or not. The problem with democracy is that it is great if you can control it; as we know, that does not always happen. The vote has been taken, and they have decided that they were happy to go along with the agreement to have an Indigenous land use agreement.

Senator Siewert interjecting—

Senator Siewert, for your information, you should spend more time talking to the traditional owners. They decided that over the life of the gas plant—some 30 years—there would be a return in benefits of some $1½ billion to the Aboriginal traditional owners across the Kimberley, not just on the peninsula. That will deliver benefits in housing, in education and training, in roads, in all sorts of stuff. Under Wayne Bergmann's great leadership he has also started up KRED—Kimberley Regional Economic Development—where all Aboriginals will gain.

But I think it is really disingenuous when you go there, Senator Siewert, and lecture our traditional owners on how wrong they are and distance yourself from the environmental movements. They asked you to come out and visit the area or come out and talk to the Jabirr Jabirr, and you did not want to do it. The Leader of the Greens, Senator Milne, did not want to do it. You wanted to have a lovely photo taken of a flag welcoming the Sea Shepherd to Broome to make sure that whales were not being harpooned by gas plants—

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. He is making comments about things he knows nothing about. He is, in fact, misleading the Senate.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not a point of order. Resume your seat.

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

I am echoing the words of the senior traditional owners that I met with. If that is not the case, you will have the opportunity to defend that, but that is clearly what they told me. You cannot come in here and bag the government. You say one thing in Canberra when it suits you. Why don't you stick up for the blackfellas in Western Australia? Why don't you stick up for the people I talk to? Why don't you go up there and do something different that may hurt the Greens? Why don't you do what I do: why don't you sit with them and ask what they may want, not what you think is best for them?

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How do you know I haven't?

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

Then that is what you do as the Greens.

But I will share some other words. I will quote from a speech by Mr Bergmann to the National Press Club on 27 June 2012. I know I do not have much time, but I need to get these words out. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Wayne's speech. He talked about having a gas hub in the Kimberley and the tough times that the traditional owners went through. He also said:

These were some of the darkest and toughest days, trying to place traditional owners in the strongest position.

At the time I was proud to have stood with the environmental alliance.

The Kimberley Land Council and TOs negotiated an Act of Parliament to stop any further LNG development on the Kimberley Coast and to limit industrial activity associated with gas processing.

He then went on to say:

We—

the traditional owners and the Kimberley Land Council as well—

negotiated a regional benefits package for the benefit of all Kimberley Aboriginal people, and compensation for traditional owners.

We supported National Heritage Listing over a large part of the Kimberley.

Yet most of the environmental groups turned against us.

These groups could have assisted us in enforcing the highest environmental standards in order to minimize the impact of the development.

But they turned their backs on us.

They have deliberately ignored the way in which Kimberley Traditional owners have worked to protect the Kimberley Coast.

He also said:

We have stood side-by-side with environmental groups to minimize the impact of gas development in the Kimberley. But what have they delivered in return? Nothing.

They have no interest in the need of Kimberley Aboriginal people to build a strong culture and a strong economic future.

In fact in some cases they have involved themselves in the politics between indigenous groups and families, and encouraged and promoted division, disempowering traditional owners.

I would love to read more of Mr Bergmann's speech.

I hear from Senator Siewert words about empowering people. I agree wholeheartedly. I also heard Senator Siewert use terms such as 'strong community'—agree. 'Leadership'—absolutely side-by-side with you on that one. 'Cultural strength'—who am I to argue? And guess what else I heard. 'Consultation'. So I say on that: unfortunately, the politics come into play here. But I would strongly suggest that, when we get lectured to by the Greens about the benefits of Closing the Gap, we could do a lot more but we do not need to be misled. We do not need this misinformation. This is politics in its purest form. Talking about purity: the Greens' purity sometimes just leaves me absolutely gobsmacked. (Time expired)

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for COAG) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In participating in this debate on the matter of public importance moved by Senator Siewert this afternoon, I want to acknowledge, as Senator Scullion did, what the government has done thus far in this process in bringing forward the legislation that was recently debated in this chamber. I also want, as I did on that occasion, to continue to raise concerns—to use Senator Scullion's words again—in part about the government's drifting approach in this area of circumstances in the Northern Territory under stronger futures for Indigenous Australians, despite the passage of the legislation. I listened carefully, as Senator Sterle did, to all of those who have contributed to the debate this afternoon. I heard Senator Crossin speak on aspects of the SIHIP housing construction program, and I also noted Senator Scullion's response to that. But I see again in today's Australian another series of concerns being raised in relation to the state of some of that housing, and individuals who are not actually living in public housing having rent deducted from their welfare income, which would not seem to me to indicate the strongest possible approach to dealing with that at the moment. I also note the call of the Northern Territory Ombudsman for a review of every single rent collected by Centrelink since the start of the intervention in 2007 in that regard.

The coalition has indicated, both during a previous debate on the legislation and again today, that while this legislation is a step in the right direction we do not believe it solves the broader problem of what is a less than fully adequate approach to Indigenous affairs from this government. There was much that could have been taken from the work of the intervention—which was introduced under the previous coalition government—but has not been taken and consolidated by this government, and that remains of concern to us. For example, in terms of that drift—I think Senator Scullion used a very effective word in that regard—why would it take four years to realise that those emergency response measures, which were designed to basically enforce the rule of law, if you like, to get children to school and to create economies in remote communities, were indeed urgent and worthwhile measures? There is no excuse for any drifting on those sorts of things as far as we are concerned, and it has the effect of hampering the progress of those individuals that it was meant to support.

After almost five years and a massive investment of funds, we should be at a point, as Senator Scullion said, where the community leaders are now those who are leading reforms and where passive welfare—for want of another turn of phrase—is not seen as life as it happens, as is still too often the case in remote communities. But, unfortunately, we still have school attendance rates which are far too low. We still have alcohol related crime and assaults which are far too high, and Senator Crossin also referred to those. We have persistent preventable health problems and a lack of economic opportunity which only ends up continuing to lead to frustration and despair in the communities.

I recall that on the evening of the passage of the legislation Senator Boswell came into the chamber and made a contribution in this debate as well. I am paraphrasing, not reading from the Hansard, but he said that after seeing report after report—and he is an individual of long standing in this chamber, so he would have seen many—showing that there has been limited and insufficient improvement in the welfare and care of children in remote communities, this remains, notwithstanding the legislation we dealt with then and the work that has been done previously, one of the most extraordinary challenges that we face as a nation. We have the challenge of dealing with languages—the challenge of many Indigenous children still speaking a language understood by a few in their own community—and the balance of engaging them in English instruction as well. So it is obvious that, notwithstanding that investment, we have seen insufficient improvement. This is only an early step, it would seem, in the progress to combating disadvantage. We supported the stronger futures legislation on that occasion because real reforms are and will continue to be needed, but we will continue also to vigorously and energetically hold this government to account if they do not provide the leadership, backed up by real commitment, to end this disadvantage and disconnection.

In speaking about some of those issues, we come again to the issue of alcohol abuse and its devastating impact on both families and local communities. We do not see the government outlining any real vision to work cooperatively with the Northern Territory government to tackle that alcohol abuse. In fact, over the period that preceded the introduction of this legislation, much of the heavy lifting in that area has been left to the Northern Territory government. So, if you are looking for fresh ideas on how that problem can be solved, one imagines that we might be better advised to watch the progress of the Northern Territory election campaign that is currently underway rather than looking to the government for inspiration.

The problem with the measures that were contained in the stronger futures package is that they were essentially only duplicating existing measures so that this government appeared to be taking stronger action against alcohol abuse rather than new and innovative approaches. As I mentioned in this chamber during that debate, the government at the time agreed to an opposition amendment which clarified the power of the federal minister in relation to those specific measures. It made it clear that, prior to modifying, suspending or cancelling a liquor licence or permit, the federal minister must first write to the Northern Territory government requesting that the Northern Territory liquor commission take action. If, after those steps are taken, the Northern Territory authorities will not act then that Northern Territory minister must provide a written response detailing why they will not take the requested action. After the consideration of that response, the federal minister can then exercise the powers provided in that legislation to suspend or cancel liquor licences. We have over time also supported township and community living leasing arrangements in the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act, but again the fact that those measures were only being implemented at the time of that legislation is another example of the slow pace of these reforms in this area.

The Northern Territory emergency response monitoring report from October 2011 indicated the following:

Following feedback from the land councils on these proposals, township leasing is now being pursued as a longer term priority, unless traditional owners initiate discussions.

I really do not believe that the government has shown the urgency that this issue demands. If those actions in relation to land and leasing are delayed, that delays the aspirations of prospective Indigenous homeowners and business operators, because without township leases you cannot achieve the level of private homeownership or commercial development that has been identified as necessary.

We have also spoken previously on the food security measures contained in the package, which continued aspects of the coalition government's previous program. The 10-year timetable for improvement that has been set down, though, is something which we identified on that occasion as very frustrating. It needed shorter interim targets, and can only slow down the reform process yet again. How can you know if they are actually working in any substantive way if you have to wait that long for results?

So we are concerned about interim targets on a number of those levels, not just in relation to the food issues but also programs in relation to school attendance and enrolment data—so, the SEAM measure in particular. I think that having those reviewed earlier is a particularly important aspect which was raised in the previous debate.

In conclusion, I refer briefly to the homelands issue. I stand to be corrected, but I understood Senator Crossin to say in her remarks that the Northern Territory government had contributed $300 million, bringing the total contribution for the homelands to $500 million. But my understanding from Chief Minister Paul Henderson's statement of last week is that the new homelands policy of the government and this government includes a commitment of $200 million from the Australian government and $100 million from the Territory government over the next 10 years, which in fact will total not $500 million but $300 million. Again, we are concerned—as I said at the beginning of my remarks—about the aspects of drift in the government's policy. We would like to see a stronger approach.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for discussion has expired. We now move to tabling and consideration of committee reports.