Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and his obvious clear understanding of the issues, dating back a long time. I wonder who the minister was at the time, back in the 1980s, in Queensland. The issues that the honourable member raises are serious. They go to the heart of the frustration of Indigenous Australians when they cannot own their own homes or businesses. They see very little future for themselves under the DOGIT system that operates in Queensland and under the current native title laws that operate in the Northern Territory.

I am very aware of the situation on Mornington Island. I went there recently and was saddened to learn from the mayor of the situation the council is in. It comes down to the fact there has been inadequate bureaucracy supporting those councils. The Auditor-General has found that they have in fact been dealing outside their financial capabilities. In fact, the Queensland government is looking at what it will do with the council. The reality is that no council is going to succeed if it does not have adequate bureaucracy supporting it. This government now has legislation before the House which provides that CEOs of organisations will be held responsible and will no longer be able to move from one council or one Aboriginal corporation to another and get away with maladministration.

The situation on Mornington Island is deplorable. We have already moved with the state government, and I applaud the Queensland Minister for Energy and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, John Mickel, for his interest in trying to rectify the situation. But the fact is that children on Mornington Island do not go to school and the parents have said to me—as I am sure they have said to the honourable member for Kennedy—that they want the law to apply equally to them as it would to white children anywhere else. That is, if their children do not go to school, the state government should act to ensure that they get them to school so they have an education and a real future. There is an intervention program in place, but we have to ensure that Indigenous people have the right to run their own property, that businesses can operate openly in the market economy, that children are forced to go to school, that they get an education and that the deplorable level of violence and gambling to great excess, which is putting children at risk, is dealt with. That is a commitment that we have in working with the state governments. The summit that we have notified everyone of will be carried out shortly, and it will go a long way to addressing many of the concerns that the honourable member for Kennedy has raised today.

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