Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the motion put forward by the member for Grey. I support his words and also those of my colleague the member for Durack—my two closest neighbours. We share many common communities. The member for Barton mentioned that, in her previous position, she was privy to the fact that the community of Moree refused to take on a trial site. That is of great interest to me, because I want to talk today about a community in my electorate who were desperate for a trial site but did not have the opportunity because the government was negotiating with Moree at the time. I would like to open my comments by saying that, across the House, I am sure we all agree that reducing social harm, particularly in these remote communities, is bipartisan and a priority for the parliament in general.

My electorate of O'Connor is home to many remote communities that are struggling with high levels of unemployment and social dysfunction. Tragically, in late 2015, we had a spate of youth suicides in the small community of Leonora. The town was in absolute despair. Four teenagers had taken their own lives in a town of 240 people. While visiting the town in the aftermath and speaking to some locals, a very well-respected and very dear lady, Nana Gay Harris, approached me to say: 'How can we stop this? How can we do something about it?' All that I could offer that was not already in place or was not already being implemented was a cashless welfare card, which I stressed was not a compulsory thing for the community. The community would have to agree to it, embrace it and endorse it.

Within days—and I give him great credit for this—Minister Alan Tudge was on a plane and on his way to Leonora. We had a community meeting with many Indigenous leaders, local shire councillors and other people. Among some of the people who were there were Geraldine Hogarth—and I want to give Geraldine a shout-out; she was recently appointed a member of the Order of Australia; Nana Gay Harris; Bruce Smith, who is a very senior Indigenous elder in the area; as well as Patrick Hill and Peter Craig, who are two local shire presidents. The community leaders were very receptive to hosting a cashless welfare card trial. I have to say there were a couple of people who did not like the idea and felt it was an infringement of their rights. That is quite a valid point of view. They made their views clear. But certainly the majority of the people in the community, and very much the majority of Indigenous leaders in the community, welcomed the idea of a card. That meeting was followed by extensive consultation by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who went and met with individuals and family groups across Laverton and Leonora shires. I strongly believed then and still strongly believe now that we have to take this opportunity for governments and communities to work together for a better future.

Unfortunately, there were some other trial sites being considered—the aforementioned Moree—and then an election intervened. Leonora and Laverton, who were desperate to host a trial, missed out. In discussions with the minister recently, he has indicated that we are now going to wait until we see the trial outcomes. I am very encouraged by the early results, and I will come to that in a minute. I sincerely hope that the bipartisan support that we saw for the initial trial will be continued, if the government decide to extend the trials at other sites.

I will just touch on some of the results that have already been mentioned, which I think are well worth mentioning again, and that is that Ceduna's poker machine revenue was 15 per cent down between April and August as opposed to the equivalent period in 2015. The monthly apprehensions under the Public Intoxication Act were 54 per cent lower between March and June 2016. These are not verified numbers, but I am assuming that they are reasonably robust. If you take out all of the people gaming the system, a 50 per cent reduction in the number of people presenting as intoxicated is a significant figure. If we go to Kununurra, where we saw a 69 per cent reduction—these are extraordinary numbers—I think the early stages of this trail are very encouraging and give me great hope that we can make a real difference in the communities that desperately need our help and that desperately need us, as a government and as a parliament, to come up with real solutions that work.

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