Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I seek an explanation from the Minister representing the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Gallagher, as to why the answer to question on notice No. 156 has not been provided.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand Senator Nampijinpa Price's office alerted my office at 1.55 today. As I have been in here since pretty much that time, I haven't been able to get a response for the senator as to when that question will be answered. But I have asked for it so that I will be able to provide an explanation. I'm not in a position to do that right now, just from the point of view that I've been in here for the last hour and I've only just been made aware that your office contacted mine. I would say, in a general sense, parliamentary questions on notice have increased from an average of less than 1,000 per year to 2,200 in the first year of the Albanese government. We have answered all questions from the October 2022 estimates and all but two questions from the February 2023 estimates, which we'll continue to work through. I would say that, when the Morrison government left office, there were nearly 1,000 unanswered QONs, some dating back to October 2019. We are doing the best we can. I think the numbers of questions on notice and how they are being asked across multiple agencies is probably a tactic from the opposition. But we are genuinely trying to answer them in the time allowed. I will come back on that question specifically, Senator Nampijinpa Price, but I've been in here literally the whole time since your office alerted mine to this matter.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

When he was the Leader of the Opposition, Prime Minister Albanese told us that Australians deserve a Prime Minister who 'shows up, takes responsibility and works with people'. Well, it's now been more than 10 weeks since our last round of Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee budget estimates addressing cross-portfolio Indigenous matters. On that day, and in the weeks that followed, I raised a number of questions of government departments and other bodies who receive government funding or have been established by the government, many of which were taken on notice. Today, 43 of those questions remain unanswered. That's 43 questions with answers this government won't reveal. That's 43 questions with answers being hidden from public scrutiny. That's 43 questions with answers the Australian people deserve to know.

This Prime Minister and his government have not shown up. They are avoiding responsibility and they are keeping the truth hidden from the people they claim to want to work with. The Albanese government has had ample time to answer these questions. They have chosen not to. They have chosen to keep the truth from the Australian people, who deserve transparency and trust—transparency and trust that this Albanese Labor government refuses to give them.

Why is the Albanese government so reluctant to answer these fairly simple questions? What are they afraid of? What don't they want us to know? Let's look at some of the questions. I asked the Central Land Council:

If someone is found to have a criminal record, would they still be considered to be appointed, or would that then make their appointment invalid?

I was told I'd be given the disqualification conditions on notice, but 10 weeks later there's been no sign of them. I would have thought that something as simple as disqualification conditions could have been produced fairly quickly. When I asked the Central Land Council how much they were spending on campaigning for the Voice referendum, I was told that the money was from their self-generated income and from a philanthropic group. When I asked who the philanthropic group was, that question was taken on notice. Ten weeks later we still don't know who is funding them. What do they have to hide? The Central Land Council has also failed to provide me with a copy of their flyers providing information on the Voice referendum—another request I would have thought was pretty easy.

The Northern Land Council didn't do much better either. They also couldn't provide their information leaflets and fact sheets for the Voice referendum—information sheets that they had already been distributing. It's 10 weeks later, and they're unable to produce a copy of it for any kind of scrutiny. When the Northern Land Council were asked if there were more than 800 applications for land use agreements still outstanding, they were and apparently still are unable to provide me with an answer.

What do these organisations have to hide? Since before my entry into the Senate, I've been calling for action to assess the effectiveness, efficiency and credibility of land councils, and this question is another reason why we need a forensic inquiry into these organisations to hold them accountable. There are numerous cases of Aboriginal Australians whom the land councils are failing. Traditional owners across the Northern Territory, like the Millwarparra of Ngukurr, are having access to their own land resources withheld from them. This is unacceptable. These organisations need to be held accountable, but they and the government that funds them refused to answer our questions.

It's not just land councils who refuse to answer our questions. The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, ORIC, has also been unable or unwilling to answer basic questions. When asked, 'Can ORIC please confirm how many corporations are currently compliant with its reporting requirements, how many are not and how many fines have been issued for those not meeting the requirements?' these questions were unanswered. When asked, 'Have any directors from deregistered corporations sought re-registration with a different company? If so, how many?' these questions were unanswered. When asked, 'How many directors are now meeting the director ID requirements? How many people does ORIC anticipate will complete the requirement by the deadline? Is ORIC considering changing the deadline for compliance?' these questions were unanswered.

There is absolutely no shortage of goodwill in this country. There is no shortage of Australians who want to see the best outcomes for their fellow Australians of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. But there is a shortage of accountability on the part of those who claim to be doing the work. This country has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on Indigenous affairs over the decades to try to help our most marginalised, but without accountability, without transparency and without understanding how it is being spent and the effectiveness of these organisations we will not be able to improve the lives of the most marginalised.

It should not be too much to ask for an answer on how many corporations are currently compliant with their reporting requirements. It shouldn't be too much, because the answer should be 'all of them'. And if one has slipped up, then ORIC should be handling it openly. It should not be too much to ask for an answer on how many directors are now meeting the director ID requirements, because, again, it should be all of them. And then there is the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the NIAA, whose goal is to 'ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard'. Sounds a bit like a Voice to me. Their job is supporting the Minister for Indigenous Australians, but they seem to be the least willing to answer any questions.

Of the 43 questions unanswered after all this time, how many do you think are outstanding from the NIAA? Twenty-eight questions; 28 questions out of 43. I asked the NIAA: 'Why did the government make two separate announcements on 24 January and then 6 February? Did the government feel its initial announcement of $48 million was inadequate?' But no answer. 'Can the NIAA please explain how the $7 million for strong governance will be spent?' No answer. 'Is the $20 million local and regional voices extension announced on 6 May 2023 actually a reduction in funding given the coalition had committed $31.8 million in the March 2022 budget for this measure?' A reasonable question, but no answer. 'What is the time frame for establishing the local and regional Voice, and how does that align with the time frame for establishing a national Voice?' No answer to that one either. 'Will the department report on outcomes of ABA grants from now on, or is that now firmly the responsibility of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation?' 'What mechanisms are in place to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the funding allocated in the budget for Indigenous language preservation, and how are the outcomes measured?'

This government is asking us to trust them with another body exclusively for Indigenous people. They can't give us any detail. They can't tell us how it would work, who would sit on it and how it would function practically. Despite a lot of their very false claims, they can't promise us anything about it. They cannot guarantee a single thing. They're asking us to just trust them. How can they reasonably ask the Australian people to trust them with a whole new body when we can't even get the answers to very basic questions from the bodies that already exist?

All of these bodies that I asked questions of—the land councils, the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, Indigenous Business Australia, the Office of Township Leasing and the NIAA—are just a tiny percentage of the multitude of organisations that Australian governments have brought into existence or provide funding to that claim to work on behalf of Indigenous Australians to address the problems that exist. The only idea this government has is to fund a whole new body with no detail, no information, no plan but to put it in the Constitution.

The Prime Minister says a vote against it is a vote for more of the same. Well, that's simply wrong. There is much we can do to help our most marginalised, and it actually starts by looking at what we're doing now in-depth, stripping away what doesn't work, keeping what does and listening to the people on the ground in these marginalised communities, not to the activist class in the cities. There is much we can do, but this Prime Minister refuses to even contemplate any idea that isn't his own, that doesn't come from his own voice. He refuses to talk to people. He refuses to hear people's voices if he doesn't already know they agree with him.

This comes down to trust. We can't trust this Prime Minister. We can't trust this government. They have broken our trust time and again, and now they're expecting us to trust them with the Voice. They want us to trust them with a treaty. And they want us to trust them with truth-telling. Well, isn't answering questions in Senate estimates truth-telling? We can't even get those answers. We can't trust them to be open. We can't trust them to be accountable. We can't trust them to be responsible, something the Prime Minister himself told us Australians deserve. We can't trust them to answer our questions and to be open with the people of this country, especially those who are our most marginalised, those in communities like Alice Springs.

The Prime Minister chooses to go to a festival, which, by the way, isn't a gathering of the most Indigenous Australians around the country; it is for the Gumatj. And good on the Gumatj! They're a primary example of success, of entrepreneurship. They can charge everyday Australians almost $3,000 to attend a festival for four days, and that doesn't even include flights. They can charge schoolchildren about $1,500 a head for four days to go to this wonderful festival. That's not including flights. And that's where the Prime Minister feels most comfortable. That's his safe space.

But he hasn't yet gone back to Alice Springs and sat down with the elders. He refuses to acknowledge their proposal. What about their proposal? What about staff accommodation and student accommodation for those young kids, the most marginalised kids in the community, who face the prospect of going home at night and possibly being abused or sexually abused. No. He gives a splash of cash up north to Garma where they're doing alright. For tertiary education—what about the suffering children at Alice Springs who are continuing to suffer? They're the voices that aren't being listened to. We're told by the Prime Minister he only sees voices as legitimate when they're those that will be constitutionally enshrined through the Voice. But other voices screaming out to him are sidelined and ignored, those who asked me to ask questions in Senate estimates, the traditional owners that are being ignored and sidelined. It's no wonder these land council support this government. Not even the government is pushing them on these questions. Of course they don't have to answer these questions as long as this government is in place. There are too many unanswered questions and too little accountability. We can't trust this Prime Minister and we can't trust this government.

Question agreed to.