James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the additional estimates reports of 2023-24 tabled by the government whip.

In particular, I wish to take note of the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee's additional estimates report of 2023-24. It is quite disappointing that we have a government led by a Prime Minister who promised to be the most transparent ever but yet is actually the least transparent government since federation. I'll give you an example of this. There were 259 questions put on notice following the cross-portfolio on Indigenous matters in our budget estimates on 9 November 2023. This was part of the supplementary budget estimates. Only 96 of these questions had been answered by 16 January this year, despite the deadline for answers being 15 December 2023. Indeed, for the cross-portfolio Indigenous matters, the government had answered only 115 of the 259 questions that were put just one week prior to the 2023-24 additional budget estimates of the Finance and Public Administration Committee that was held on 16 February of this year.

It gets far worse. To continue to avoid scrutiny, the remaining 142 questions that were outstanding—and outstanding for some months—were answered, rather amazingly, the night before. Between 5.37 pm and 6.34 pm the night before the cross-portfolio Indigenous matters estimates hearing was due to meet, these questions were answered. I want to highlight the work of highlighting and asking the government about the expenditure of public moneys in relation to the cross-portfolio Indigenous matters that coalition senators have done—and I want to acknowledge the work of Senator Nampijinpa Price and Senator Liddle in relation to the questions they put, along with other coalition senators—and highlight the fact that the coalition senators were only informed that their outstanding questions on notice had been answered just nine minutes before the estimates hearings commenced, despite the deadline being two months previous. Indeed, the answers to the questions on notice were only published 90 minutes after the cross-portfolio Indigenous matters hearing had already begun.

This is not just disappointing; it is disrespectful of the democratic process. It is disrespectful of the role of this chamber. Indeed, it is disrespectful of those Indigenous Australians who want crossbench senators and coalition senators to put forward questions and issues in relation to the expenditure of public moneys. It is disrespectful to the concerns of Indigenous Australians. We should not forget that this is a government that wasted $450 million on a divisive voice referendum last year yet fails to be able to answer, in many cases, quite simple questions that have been put by my colleagues, Senator Liddle and Senator Nampijinpa Price. This is the disrespect that the Prime Minister of this country and the members of the executive have not just for the estimates process but for Indigenous Australians.

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

I concur with the comments made by Senator McGrath. It was an absolute insult. It is an insult to me, as an Indigenous parliamentarian and senator, and to my colleague Senator Liddle, in our attempts to get any answers during Senate additional estimates, given the fact that answers from previous estimates were provided at the eleventh hour. It's also insulting, given that this government's plan for Indigenous Australians was basically to outsource policy to the very expensive concept of a voice to parliament, even when we have very capable members of our parliament—of course, in the coalition there's Senator Liddle and me, and there's various other members of this parliament—who are Indigenous. But this government clearly doesn't trust what we have to offer this chamber or the lower house. This task basically demonstrated that this government had no plan for the voice's failure.

It's not a surprise, really, considering that they like to hide from scrutiny. We've seen that over and over again. Despite this behaviour, the Albanese government cannot hide from the growing case that we require an audit. The ANAO investigations found accounting deficiencies and irregularities with all of the land councils in the Northern Territory. Anindilyakwa Land Council is currently being investigated over the Winchelsea mine. We have just had the recent standing down of the now former CEO of the Northern Land Council Joe Martin-Jard over scandals that were uncovered during the last estimates. We have the situation where Voyages has been listed in the MYEFO as a quantifiable contingent liability. We've seen that NAAJA is failing in the Northern Territory, with only one full-time lawyer out of 17 in Alice Springs and no new clients since November. Seventy-five Indigenous Australians had to represent themselves, and 21 have been remanded. May I remind this chamber that these aren't people whose first language is English, and they have to represent themselves in the justice system.

Now there's a new housing agreement with the Territory government, despite the Territory government being $500 million behind in its existing agreement. There's $250 million that has supposedly been invested into Alice Springs to restore law and order. Well, that's a damn joke. Actually, it's not a joke. It's quite a sad and horrific situation because an 18-year-old died just the other week in a stolen vehicle that was occupied by eight youths. We've seen footage today of young girls driving a stolen vehicle in the Northern Territory and crashing it. So what's happened with that $250 million? We won't know. We don't get answers during Senate estimates, and we continue to be told by this government that, despite their lack of transparency and accountability, we don't require an audit.

Instead they like to lead with this romanticism of Aboriginal culture. We get up here and we make our acknowledgements every day like throwaway lines that don't really matter, because nothing's changing on the ground. I don't know why we bother, to be quite honest. Infantilised traditional owners—quite often they're disregarded unless they want to carry on the agenda of this government or others on the crossbench. I certainly know that traditional owners feel like they've been failed by many, particularly in calling for this audit, including by Senator David Pocock himself. Traditional owners have told me that they've attempted to approach him on many occasions, but he's just not interested. The racism of separatism and the tyranny of low expectations trap our youths and deprive them of choice and ensure that traditional owners will be land rich but dirt poor. It's the only way forward that we see this government continue to try to proffer.

We, the coalition, note our concerns about the 259 questions that were put on notice to the cross-portfolio on Indigenous matters prior to 9 November as part of the 2023-24 supplementary budget estimates. Only 96 were answered by January even though the deadline for answering was December. Indeed, the cross-portfolio on Indigenous matters only answered 115 of the 259 questions. Is it really a priority of this government to support our most marginalised Indigenous Australians when they don't want to take any advice from their Indigenous parliamentarians, who are close to the action? It's an absolute disgrace. They'd rather avoid scrutiny through the estimates process—through every process.

As I keep saying, it is an absolute insult to be provided those 142 remaining answers to questions on notice the night before or, for those of us who were about to go into estimates, nine minutes before we entered. Then, of course, we have to ask questions relating to matters that are provided in those answers, which we cannot be across because it's provided to us nine minutes before we go in. This behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, particularly when our most marginalised Australians—who, let me remind this chamber, are Australian citizens—are treated in this way through the structures that are supposed to be there to improve their lives.

For some of you, they might just be another group of Australian citizens. For some of us, they are our family members who are dying—literally dying. They are children whose lives are lost, gone, children who are either fast tracked to incarceration, who've experienced the highest rates of sexual abuse in this country. Yet, again, it's another reminder of how this government continues to fail Indigenous children is that they don't want a royal commission into the sexual abuse of Indigenous children in remote communities. It's okay for institutional sexual abuse victims, but not if you're Indigenous in this country and it's occurring within your community. 'You're not as important,' is what this government tells those victims. Those victims, who come to me on a regular basis, crying out for support from those who have been elected to provide that support.

The absurdity continues through the processes that are supposed to provide support and help. But you know what it's doing? We see those organisations get out there with their buses shipping Aboriginal people from town camps to voting booths during elections—election in, election out—with their 'how to vote for Labor cards'. We all know it, don't we Senator Liddle? We've seen it. Those organisations are well funded. There's no transparency, no scrutiny and no accountability. This government doesn't want an audit because we'd uncover who's actually ensuring the gap continues to exist, who are the most powerful in this country and yet those who want to maintain the status quo for the benefit of ensuring a Labor government is returned to power either federally or in the Territory.

That's what's going on and that's what this government doesn't want the Australian people to understand or to be uncovered through a process. We just want to see our most marginalised, those that we love, we want to stop burying them, we want to see their lives being improved. It's our job to do that. Every single one of us in this chamber has that responsibility through the processes that we have and the power that the Australian people have invested in us.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course I agree with Senator McGrath and Senator Nampijinpa Price, and the reason is—well, it's easy—the lack of accountability and transparency in following the money trail of Commonwealth taxpayer money which is being handed out in the billions. Yet all the while the Albanese government and its agencies continue to provide exorbitant cover. You could really argue they are rewarding a failure to provide good governance.

Nine minutes before Senate estimates. It's outrageous. When you don't want to ask questions about organisations that receive taxpayer money and when you don't want to provide the answers, you are supporting double standards, different standards. It's not good enough and, in fact, it's discriminatory. You could certainly argue that without good governance you can't deliver to maximum effect.

Let's look at what I'm talking about. The Registrar of Aboriginal Torres and Strait Islander Corporations oversees the CATSI Act. It's their job to make sure that these organisations meet all their legislative obligations. Under this government, they're quite happy to hand out money to organisations that don't meet even the basic obligations of good governance. If you get taxpayer money, you'd hope that there's some confidence that it's being spent to maximum effect, because it's there to help the most vulnerable people. Yet in March last year the registrar announced that 324 corporations had been deregistered. There have been a handful deregistered since. Today my office called ORIC to check on some of this terrible, terrible progress. The phone call began with a recording: 'Corporation reports are now overdue.' They are due each December.

I checked on Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation in Alice Springs, an organisation that's a huge beneficiary of a lot of the money that went in after the removal of those alcohol restrictions without a proper transition plan, and now this government talks about making progress on fixing a position—a terrible position—that sent that Central Australian community into absolute turmoil. The numbers aren't better than they were before those alcohol restrictions were lifted. Tangentyere delivers programs and services to people in town camps. These are historical Aboriginal suburbs. Here's some truth-telling: not everyone lives in a town camp; a few thousand people do. It's ridiculous to put all the money into a few key organisations—and, worse, to put it into organisations that don't even comply with basic reporting requirements. Tangentyere received additional funding announced by Minister Burney in the past 12 months of $2.5 million for access to education and $3 million for core funding. We spent some time trying to discover if they had met their governance responsibilities, as I mentioned earlier. The best we could find was a financial report from 2021. So much for transparency! So much for accountability!

There is a victim when these services aren't delivered to the highest possible delivery, and they are the most vulnerable. They are the people that don't complain. I've been watching for years. I don't live in inner-city Sydney. I was born and raised in Alice Springs. I've spent time out bush, not just flying in and flying out, driving in and driving out. I can tell you that, with this money that you're giving to the land councils, they are creating a drive-in drive-out industry of their own. The money that you're pouring in in a big headline that is going to the land councils is going to programs where they deliver services into communities, and that's where the investment should be. You can't be leaders in a remote community when the very tools that allow you to have the artefacts for showing that leadership and for supporting the leadership in those communities exist in Alice Springs, exist in Darwin and exist a long way from where you actually live and from where the actual leadership should be.

When I looked for those financial year reports from Tangentyere, I couldn't find them. Tangentyere's own website only shows its latest annual report as being 2017-18. How is that possible? And how is it possible you continue to pour money in? This is one organisation. There are many good Aboriginal organisations delivering services. There are also many organisations who are not Aboriginal organisations delivering good services. I know you would have us believe that Aboriginal community controlled organisations are the only way to deliver to Aboriginal people, but that is not the case. They deserve the best service delivery. Those organisations doing the right thing, those organisations delivering to the people, those organisations that don't invest in the assets such as big Toyotas, big hotels and big conference stays—they're the ones who have nothing to fear, and they exist. An audit would identify those ones that need to do things differently. You don't need any more proof than the Closing the Gap results.

So here we are, asking for an audit into those organisations that receive funding to support the most vulnerable. As I said, those organisations that do the right thing have absolutely nothing to fear. Come forward! Tell us about the great work you're doing but also tell us about and expose those ones that aren't doing great work.

NAAJA was mentioned by my fellow senator before. Can you imagine being an Aboriginal person in the Northern Territory—where English might be your third language, where you haven't had a great education and where you are vulnerable because of poverty and because of access—going into the legal system and trying to represent yourself? How long would it take you to work out that that was a human rights abuse? You knew really early on. Your minister had to have known because it was all over the newspapers that there were problems at that organisation.

Since I came into this place nearly two years ago, I've seen report after report into organisations that deliver to the most vulnerable: in South Australia, Aboriginal people in aged care; in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people who receive legal services. Then I watched in horror a couple of weeks ago when, through Empowered Communities, all of this money went into Ceduna and the surrounding area, post removal of the cashless debit card. Yet, with all the public servants flying in and with all of those program providers in that little town, nobody thought to respond appropriately to a heap of videos circulating of girls bashing the hell out of each other in very public areas.

You know what your solution is? The Albanese government's solution is: 'Let's just put more money in. Let's not put accountability on those organisations to do their jobs, to prevent the need for more money to go into those communities.' You can talk about that same model in Western Australia. You can talk about that same model in Queensland, in the Northern Territory and in South Australia. You have to get more accountability to stop the money flowing in that delivers almost nothing. People depend on that. Children depend on it. Old people depend on it.

It's discriminatory to treat people differently based on their race. It's not okay to think it's okay for millions of taxpayer dollars to go into these organisations and for there not to be any accountability. It's on public show. There are no annual reports. You can't put in your glossy photos that say, 'Hey, look; we're all here and we're all doing the right thing', when you don't provide the basic information that proves that you are.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to respond to the comments that have been made today. I totally agree with the comments made by Senator Liddle and Senator Nampijinpa Price. I first spoke about this 28 years ago, as a candidate and then as a member of parliament. I have been calling out the corruption, the lies, the inequality in the system and the treatment of one race of Australians against another race of Australians. It's racism. That's exactly what it is. There are inequalities in our system.

Why have we allowed it to go on? When I was in parliament in 1996, it was brought to my attention that the plan was to create a nation within the nation, based on what happened in Canada with Nunavut and the Inuit people. That was the plan for Australia. Successive governments haven't addressed this and have left the Aboriginal people in poverty stricken areas with low life expectancy. Their conditions are horrendous. The children are abused. The sexual abuse is disgusting. There are the education levels, the incarceration and the health systems, yet the leaders of this nation, even Anthony Albanese, cry out in this chamber time and time again saying that they want to help them but they're really not—not at all. You're allowing it to go on.

What Senator Nampijinpa Price said about the vote and the Labor Party—you are; you have done it for years. You've actually paid for the Aboriginal vote through the handouts that you've given them over the however many years now that it has been going on. You round them up, you take them to the polling booth, you actually tick off the names, you go into the nursing homes, and they have no idea what they're doing. You're allowing this to go on. It is absolutely disgusting what you've allowed to happen.

I kept calling out—actually, it was last year when this was brought to my attention; an investigation by the Department of Social Services into the aged-care sector, especially in South Australia, of people who were, again, found to be corrupt and are still employed in the aged-care sector—that I wanted to table documents in this parliament. But you would not allow it. You don't answer questions. I've written to the Prime Minister. I've written to Minister Burney. I get no response whatsoever. You're not forthcoming to the questions that are asked. Either that's incompetence or you've got something to hide. But you certainly don't care. You don't care what is going on in this country.

I'd like to really know how many of you, members in this parliament, mainly the Labor Party and the Greens and David Pocock, have actually, physically, visited these Aboriginal communities, been in their towns, gone to their schools, gone to their homes, spoken to them? Do you really know what's happening to these people? You've handed over power to a few in this nation, a few that have benefited from it, benefited to the extent of ownership of houses, cars and assets, which a lot of other people would never dream of having. You've allowed that to happen without any investigation. How did they get their wealth? How did they become so powerful? Why is it that people in these communities—one Aboriginal community leader said to me, 'Pauline, we can't even go on the native title land without the permission of Murrandoo Yanner. We can't even go there, on our own land. We're denied the rights.' There's another thing that I was told: he was given $1 million to set up a tour, to buy a boat on the river, which was never taken out. Where's the investigation into that? There are many, many cases that have been put out there. No-one cares.

Are you aware of the children in the streets? I'm talking about kids of about four or five years of age in the streets at night. Do you know where they go? They sit outside the school. That's in Doomadgee. You probably don't know where that is, but, anyway, it's in Far North Queensland—an Aboriginal community. They actually are sitting out there in the streets. I said, 'Why are they there?' They said, 'Because of the dysfunctional homes. Because they're in fear, they'd rather be on the streets at night than in their dysfunctional homes.' That is with either their family members, neighbours or whatever, with the sexual abuse, the alcohol abuse—that goes on. Then you have the children brought into this world because of the drugs and their drug dependency. Even with babies that are born, there is drug dependency. The sexual abuse, even on babies—and you won't even have a royal commission into it? It's an absolute disgrace.

What do I have to say—you talk about how you want to hear from the Aboriginal people. You want a voice to parliament. You actually have Aboriginal senators in this place that are screaming out for this, and you want a voice to parliament? You have your voice to parliament here, but you're completely ignoring it. You're completely ignoring these Aboriginal women that are calling out to represent their people—this is happening to them. You just turn a deaf ear to it. You disgust me. You absolutely disgust me. The majority of Australians, regardless of their racial background, are also crying out for the Aboriginal kids that are mistreated. They want to see a difference. They want accountability for their taxpayer dollars.

It's estimated that over a trillion dollars has been poured into this industry over the last 30 or 40 years. You set up the organisation ATSIC. It was only after it was complained about as a corrupt organisation that finally you got rid of it. That's what it was, and you wanted to set up another corrupt organisation with a voice to parliament which would do absolutely nothing. Now your Labor parties around the country are setting up your bodies for treaties in each state. What's that going to do? Absolutely nothing. More taxpayer funds will go into them, and they will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the lives of these people.

We need to treat everyone in this country on an equal basis—based on needs, not race. We are all Australians together. That's the only way that you'll start to close the gaps. That's when the real benefits will be seen. Don't treat people differently because of their race; look at their needs. These very wealthy people can go and claim benefits. They don't need it, because they're millionaires, but that means absolutely nothing to you. Look at the ones that are living in shambles. Look at the poor kids in these communities who don't get a decent feed and don't get looked after. Look at the abuse that happens to them and at their health conditions.

I tell you what. If you'd like to go to some of these communities in Queensland, please come knocking on my door. I'd be glad to take you. I'm sure that Senator Price and Senator Liddle would also dearly love to take you out to Alice Springs. Maybe it will open up your eyes a bit and you'll see what is really happening out there. The Prime Minister couldn't even be bothered going out there for more than a few hours. He was more interested in going to see the tennis regardless of the crime that is happening on the streets. People are leaving Alice Springs. They don't want to live there anymore. Because of the escalating crime, they're in fear of walking down the streets. It's not a place where they want to live anymore. Did you know that Alice Springs is the capital of the world for stabbings? Disgusting, isn't it?

You really don't get it. You don't understand what the hell is happening in our country. Until you treat people equally, get accountability and cut the head off the snake using its venom to get whatever it can out of the people for its own benefit, nothing will change in this nation. Be the representatives for this nation that you were elected to be. Do it without fear or favour. I'd like to see some backbone in this place for a change instead of people always hiding behind the party. For Christ's sake, stand up and show some backbone, will you?

Question agreed to.