Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak to the Social Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2011. The first item I would like to address is the statement from my colleague the member for Aston. I agree with 99.9 per cent of everything he said, apart from the oft repeated phrase that no-one in any culture makes a future out of welfare. I can assure him that in the seat of Durack there are many environments where individuals make a great deal of money out of welfare. They are all responsible for taking money out of Indigenous pockets and putting it into white pockets. They rub their hands together with glee every time there is another welfare policy devised by federal government. We have ample evidence to suggest that only a minimal number of projects—out of the many which have been amply funded by the federal taxpayer—have made a substantial difference to the ongoing welfare and future direction of Indigenous people across Australia. That is the issue we need to address in our debate in this place.

Listeners and viewers would be well aware that in opposition we have very little control over the policies proposed by the government. This proposition alone simply gives further carriage and guarantee to propositions put together by the Howard government. Had many of those propositions not been watered down so severely in the early days, I suggest we may have been a little further down the road of progress, a little further down the road of giving back self-esteem to Indigenous people in engaging with Western society and moving forward removed from the necessity of the welfare paddock.

Jackie Dann from the West Kimberley in a paper years ago said, 'Release us from the welfare paddock. You are destroying our culture, you are destroying us as individuals.' So true were his statements, but so little has changed if we speak of the period since the late 60s. Yes, we have addressed infant mortality in a very powerful way. Yes, we have addressed life expectancy in a substantial way. But if you go to the readily found examples you will find no great improvement in housing, no great improvement in school accommodation, no great improvement on education attained when concluding formal education and no reduction in incarceration. We have too much knowledge of the failure of individual Indigenous people and their collective communities and to date we have too little evidence of high achievement, except in some outstanding cases for individuals. It is that collective that we in this place are responsible for assisting and directing.

Much has been said recently about closing the gap, but is there among departmental personnel who reside in Canberra a great wealth of knowledge about and commitment to that very decision to close the gap? I ask a very rational question: what motivation is there for a department exclusively responsible for the wellbeing of Indigenous people to solve all the problems associated with the welfare of Indigenous people? I believe that people with foresight, vision and a sound mind might look to a future where government departments all over this nation specifically responsible for Indigenous affairs and their advancement install a sunset clause on the very existence of their agencies with a guarantee that those employees would move to other departments, without being disadvantaged, at a particular point in time—a particularly point in time not measured by achievement but by a fixed date in the future. Everyone would be pressured to work to a conclusion that was satisfactory because they would know that the task was to be finished.

It is a rather severe point that I make but, until such time as there is a major shake-up of existing Indigenous policy in the areas of housing, welfare, education, health et cetera, what are we going to find that will act as a catalyst for change? Many interested in the subject will know the intervention across Northern Australia was such a catalyst. It was a very necessary change that was brought about by a shocking report that revealed abuse of the youngest and most vulnerable in Indigenous communities. That was in part a catalyst, but it is quite obviously not enough because not enough change has taken place. Is it the fault of those employees of departments who are responsible for making contact and are very concerned that they need to cement those relationships face to face with a friendly embrace? Is it the fault of the individuals at a higher level for delegating the employees to particular tasks? Is it the responsibility of yet higher authorities for developing these one-size-fits-all solutions? I suggest it is a combination of many of those aspects, but basically we have a condition that I call box ticking. Many people that are removed from the day-to-day shock and horror of Indigenous communities find it very easy to scurry into these communities, consult briefly, tick some boxes and go back to comfortable suburbia. It does Indigenous people no good. It does our reputation as legislators no good. It does nothing to improve the status and reputation of so many government agencies.

In my electorate of Durack, where approximately 14 per cent of the population are Indigenous, I see replication of agency visits on a day-to-day basis. A stream of white Falcons or Holdens make a beeline to communities. They all consult; they all tick the box; and they all leave again.

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