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

Towards the end of July, I was invited up to the Warburton community in Western Australia. For those that don't know, it's near the Western Desert, in the tri-state area near the border with South Australia and the Northern Territory. I was asked to go up there for a number of reasons. One was to look at the impact of the CDP, which we were talking about in this chamber earlier today. The severe consequences of the government's CDP and the impacts it is having in Warburton were explained to me. The people there told me about the number of people that had been breached, which means that they weren't getting income support. They talked about the impact that was having on their community, about the lack of food people who had been breached could put on the table and about the pressure it put on other members of the community. In fact, one gentleman who was working told me he was spending his whole pay packet feeding community members, because there is an expectation in their community that you look after each other. So when somebody's breached or somebody's without resources and can't put food on the table, families support those members of the community.

When I visited the store, which is owned and run by the Ngaanyatjarra Council, they told me revenue had dropped by 50 per cent. That's very significant. If revenue has dropped by 50 per cent, it means that's a lot of food that's not being bought and put on people's tables. They told me the CDP pays no respect to their cultural obligations. For example, when somebody passes away and there's sorry business, it's a cultural requirement that people attend the funerals. Centrelink says, 'Oh. Well, tell us when you're getting back. What date are you getting back?' These cultural requirements don't happen by the day; they happen by whatever particular cultural practice at that time dictates.

The people of Warburton also said that what they very strongly want is a proper Centrelink office or agency there. I saw piles of letters that had come in. As we described in this chamber earlier, people in Warburton don't have postal addresses. Centrelink makes phone calls from Queensland, not even from Western Australia. So Centrelink calls to Warburton are made from the call centre in Queensland, where apparently the staff don't know what time it is in Western Australia. When I was there, there were at least two appointments that were 'missed' because, although the person was at the right place at the right time to be phoned, the phone call never arrived. It would be interesting to see how that's noted down, whether that's a 'missed' phone call. Centrelink presumably rang at a different time by two hours or, in fact, 1½ hours, because sometimes they call on Australian Central Standard Time rather than on Western Standard Time. The bottom line is that people are being breached. I know the minister was in here saying that they are being waived, but people are being dropped off income support for eight weeks up there. They're also getting a hell of a lot of no-show, no-pay.

The people in Warburton very desperately want CDEP. They want community controls. They want the CDEP, which they said used to work very well, where there were community wages. People felt they were working. They were working in real jobs and were not on income support. There was a very strong message from the community that they want CDEP. In fact, they consider the CDP discriminatory, and I agree with them. It is. It is a program that is specially designed and gives different conditions to Aboriginal communities. It requires work for the dole where that doesn't occur in other communities.

The other matters that were raised with me by the Ngaanyatjarra Council were the impact of changes—and this is largely a Western Australian issue, but it just shows the craziness of the way things work. They used to have a really good system where the Ngaanyatjarra Council, who have a number of businesses employing local Aboriginal people, by and large, did maintenance on houses. Then the Western Australian government came up with the idea that there may be a conflict of interest if the Ngaanyatjarra Council are contracting out to fix these houses. So now they send people up on about an eight- or nine-hour drive from Kalgoorlie to do an assessment of what needs to be done on a house, and then they drive back again. It is totally ludicrous.

They had a situation where a woman had been waiting months and months and months to get her air-conditioning fixed. I'm sure that probably most people listening in the chamber at the moment have been in the desert at some time. You can imagine what it's like in the desert without an air conditioner. Other people had been waiting for sewerage—sewage was literally free-flowing near their front door—to get fixed. For another person, the power had been off for a very long time, and they were waiting for that to get fixed, all the time knowing very well that there were actually contractors and people with the skills in the community to fix it, but they couldn't tender to do it—a ridiculous situation.

Of particular concern was that Warburton has optic fibre in town. They have optic fibre. I saw it with my very own eyes. In fact, I've got two photos in my iPhone. They took the cover off the hole, showed me where it said 'optic fibre', showed me the blue cable and took me just around the corner, where the health clinic was. Literally less than 20 metres away, there's another box with optic fibre in it, but there's no NBN. There's no access to that optic fibre. That optic fibre is not providing high-speed internet, so the clinic can't do telehealth, because at the moment the cable is curled around in the box. The school can't get access to high-speed internet. They can't access some of those programs that would be fantastic if they could get high-speed internet.

Do you know that the Ngaanyatjarra Council tipped in a million dollars of their own money to contribute to some money that Telstra put in and that NBN supposedly put in? They've got the cable there, but they can't get access to it, because it's far too expensive. They want to charge an absolute fortune for the school, for the health clinic and for residents to get access to it, when the Ngaanyatjarra Council have put in a million dollars of their own money.

Ngaanyatjarra Council have also invested in the early-learning centre there, which works predominantly with Aboriginal children, who get access to programs—and they are excellent programs—that are preparing them for school. One of the areas that they're very keen to pursue is an Aboriginal early-years workforce, and they're very strongly pursuing that issue.

They also have an excellent youth centre, the Wilurarra Creative centre, which we also visited, and we saw the absolutely excellent work that the young people in Warburton have been doing. But there are too many forms. They can't actually be part of the CDP because there are far too many forms and requirements through the CDP for them to be able to participate in that program. They also have a brilliant Aboriginal arts centre, which is truly fantastic.

They've also successfully lobbied to get the work camp back up and running. They lobbied for a work camp for some men coming out of the prison system to come into the community, to finish their rehabilitation and to work around the community. The previous government had closed that down, so the community lobbied the new government to get it open again, and they are very pleased that it is now open again.

Warburton has been trying to look after its own future—to take a self-determination approach to its future. The Ngaanyatjarra Council looks after its community, in terms of trying to provide jobs and build jobs. It also has been trying to make CDP work. But it's not. This program is having a hugely detrimental impact— (Time expired)