Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Parkes for those questions. I have been out to his electorate a couple of times and I certainly appreciate his absolute passion in this space—his passion for his constituents and for the advancement of Aboriginal people more broadly. He is a person who is very, very genuine about his commitment in this space, as are many people in this chamber.

The member for Parkes has asked me several questions. Perhaps I could take some of those in turn. Firstly, working backwards, in terms of how much money we are putting into Indigenous-specific programs, I can confirm to the member for Parkes that we are putting about $4.9 billion over four years into Indigenous-specific programs. They, of course, sit above and beyond any other mainstream programs that Aboriginal people access as well.

I will perhaps make comment in relation to the Clontarf program. There are some very successful Clontarf programs in the member for Parkes' electorate, which I have been out and visited with him, and where I had a throw of the footy with some of the boys in the morning—unfortunately it was not a kick of the footy, AFL style! But it is a terrific program, and this government backs the Clontarf program very strongly. In last year's budget, as you would probably be aware, we significantly boosted the funding for the Clontarf academies so that those academies can continue to be rolled out across the nation. Not only do they boost school attendance, but in many cases they provide the mentoring, the support, the advice and the counsel that these young Indigenous boys and men need, as well as providing opportunities for employment subsequently. So we are very big supporters of the Clontarf Academy, and I commend Gerard Neesham and his team for the work that they do across Australia now. I know that the members of the opposition also strongly support the Clontarf Academy.

I was also asked about the Healthy Welfare Card. This proposal, as you would be aware, came out of the recommendation of Andrew Forrest. We are not adopting his recommendation for it in its entirety, although we are taking that recommendation seriously. In essence there are three differences in what we are proposing to do from what Andrew Forrest recommended. Firstly, we are not proposing that a Healthy Welfare Card as outlined in his report be applied across Australia but, rather, that it would only ever be intended to be applied in discrete locations where there is higher welfare passivity and also high welfare-fuelled alcohol and drug abuse. Secondly, the proposal is to trial this card in two or three locations only to assess its feasibility, to work out what impact it will have and then to make decisions subsequent to that trial. In the most recent budget, funds were set aside to enable that trial to continue. The third difference from the Andrew Forrest recommendation is that, whereas he recommended that no cash be available and that all welfare dollars be placed onto a healthy welfare debit card, we are suggesting that at least some cash does need to be available because we are not in a cashless economy just yet. So we are working with community leaders in various locations to determine what amount of cash is a reasonable amount that you do need versus what you can reasonably put on an ordinary Visa debit card, which is what we are proposing to do.

The member for Parkes asked where this is at. We have been having constructive consultations across many communities around Australia. It is no secret that one of the communities we have been engaged with is the community of Moree, in the member for Parkes' electorate. Those conversations and those consultations, though, are ongoing.

We are also having consultations with many other places. At some stage there will be a decision made as to where we will trial the card, with the core, single objective of trying to address some of the welfare fuelled alcohol and drug abuse, which in some places is very significant and does lead to very significant rates of violence and assaults, particularly against women, and child neglect.

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