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

I rise today to talk about a very important issue affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Unfortunately, there continues to be discrimination, ill-treatment and, in fact, often complete disregard for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this country. This cannot be ignored and must be addressed by everybody ranging from the very top of our policy decision making—from the Prime Minister—right down to emergency services on the ground in remote areas of Australia and Western Australia.

Since the Prime Minister made his remarks about remote Aboriginal communities being lifestyle choices, ministers and conservative journalists have come out to defend his poor choice of words. We have heard time and again from Mr Abbott's right-wing journalists and allies that we should not hang off his remarks and draw attention to them, because there are more important things to worry about. These people are used to mopping up after Mr Abbott's continued poorly thought through remarks across an array of issues. But it is important that we draw a line and explain why it is important that this does not continue to occur. I would like to make it clear that allowing these insensitive remarks to go through to the keeper says to the community, 'It's okay for the country's leaders to use such casual ill thought through language, and it is okay for you to do that too.' It says, 'It's okay to completely downplay the longest-standing Indigenous culture in the world and it's okay to close their communities.'

Unfortunately, it is not the first time that our Prime Minister has made these sorts of insensitive remarks. I am sure we all remember when he remarked that Sydney was 'nothing but bush' prior to the arrival of the First Fleet and when he made comments about the country being 'unsettled' before British foreign investment. He has also made comments about the sorts of jobs that would be available on Work for the Dole and said:

There may not be a great job for them but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it's picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done …

These types of insensitive remarks, although downplayed by Mr Abbott's supporters and comrades, bore straight to the community and affect the day-to-day existence of Aboriginal people across the country.

We—our leaders and everybody—need to ensure that we are careful and use carefully chosen words, because Aboriginal people are still being affected by discrimination and ill treatment. In fact, I was at a hearing of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples inquiry just on Friday last week, where a young Aboriginal man outlined to the committee the bullying that he had suffered at school because he is an Aboriginal young man. So it is still happening today, and we cannot pretend that it does not. We need to also think about the other impacts that it has on our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

I have to do a very unfortunate thing today and draw the chamber's attention to an example of just how dismissing Aboriginal people and being inappropriate and insensitive with our language sends subtle comments that have a day-to-day impact on Aboriginal people in remote communities. Overnight, the news came out that five mostly elderly Aboriginal people with medical conditions were declined access for up to seven hours to the Carnarvon cyclone shelter and hospital ahead of the impact of Severe Tropical Cyclone Olwyn. It was reported on ABC North West WA news by Ben Collins:

They were told to go to the hospital, the hospital declined. And then they were told to go to the evac (evacuation) centre where they were also declined …

They were:

… told by the volunteer there that they were under strict instruction that the evac centre was only for people from Coral Bay and that they won't be accepting … Aboriginal people from Mungullah Village …

The group included four elderly people on dialysis and a younger person with severe personal health issues. So, after being rejected from a hospital, the five Aboriginal residents sat staring at an empty evacuation centre while being told, 'There's no room, no food, not sufficient power; the air conditioning doesn't work; the bedding's not right; and you're not from Coral Bay.' The Aboriginal medical service CEO said that other people began to arrive at the Carnarvon cyclone shelter, and he was alarmed that no-one else was declined entry. This centre was empty, and the first five people there were elderly and frail. Moments later, a couple of Europeans, tall, strong backpackers, walked straight past the group and were signed in. They were apparently told to grab a seat and make themselves at home.

This is a disgrace. This is the sort of ill treatment and discrimination that Aboriginal people continue to face in this country. This is why people get so concerned and outraged when ill-thought-out comments about 'lifestyle choices' are made. It is not the first time, and it sends a message to the community. It is all well and good for Mr Abbott to stand with groups, to have photos of him alongside Aboriginal people, to visit certain areas in Australia and to have his photos taken and played out in the media repeatedly, but, when these inappropriate comments are played out across our televisions, our radios and our newspapers, the message is clear that it is okay to make these sorts of comments—when it is not. These comments and this approach undermine Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's ties to the land, and they undermine our efforts to close the gap.

The federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs recently announced the Indigenous Advancement Strategy funding that is supposed to cover a range of services, and the Assistant Minister for Health also announced funding for Aboriginal medical services. Both the Indigenous Advancement Strategy and the health funding go to fund Aboriginal medical services. But many of our Aboriginal health organisations are still unsure about the level of funding they will receive and whether it will be enough to do their job.

There is still so much confusion about the funding for programs that are part of our strategy to address closing the gap. I spoke in this place yesterday about the Central Australia youth funding, which is still unclear, and I am hearing that medical services in Western Australia may not receive adequate funding to support vital medical services. We are still trying to find out the degree to which organisations have been funded, who has got funding, who has missed being funded and what programs are going to be funded.

Regardless, this goes to show that we need to make sure that we are taking a proper, considered approach in everything we do to address closing the gap and to truly end Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. We need to ensure that we do not, whether purposely or by ill-considered words, lead to the community thinking it is okay to dismiss Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and not understanding that the message words send plays out on the ground to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

It has recently been drawn to my attention—it has just become known and is now playing out on the ground—that the group who were grandfathered to CDEP and were supposed to be grandfathered through to 2018 through CDEP are now going to be transitioned off that by the end of this financial year; in other words, June 2015. So they are going to be taken off getting wages—because that is how communities see CDEP. That is wages. They have proper jobs under CDEP. What is the new policy on jobs in remote communities? It is to transition people who are on CDEP to the new jobs approach, which means Work for the Dole. So they are going to go onto lower wages, off CDEP, onto Work for the Dole. What sort of message does this send to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities? 'You have a real job now. We promised that we'd keep it going to 2018 while we develop more job opportunities in the community so you can transition from that job to another job. Oh, no. We're going to finish that now in 2015 and make you work for the dole.' That sends another message to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. It is inappropriate, and people need to think about what they say and make sure they are not contributing to the disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.