Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Can I acknowledge the contribution from the member for Gippsland and say I concur with much of what he said. I do just want to make a couple of comments about his observations about Lingiari. They were accurate, but I want to make the point that part of the problem with the roads in the Northern Territory is the failure of successive governments to invest in those roads to sufficient levels.

One of the matters I was going to refer to later in my contribution to this debate on the appropriation bills was a question I asked the Deputy Prime Minister earlier in the week. I asked him: 'Why do the budget papers show that, of the $80 million allocated to the Northern Australia Beef Roads Program, less than half has actually been invested upgrading the roads the cattle industry rely on? How much of that money was spent in the Northern Territory, and how many kilometres of roads were addressed?' As the record shows, the Deputy Prime Minister, the minister responsible, was unable to tell us and had no idea what moneys had been allocated or spent on these important beef roads.

These roads are important for a range of reasons. They're important for getting cattle to market, obviously. But they're also major access points, particularly for people who live in remote communities and on cattle properties as they travel around. If these roads are in poor condition then, as the member for Gippsland said, they invite accidents. It is therefore very important that we ask the Deputy Prime Minister again: what the hell's going on with the road funding that was previously announced and committed by this government?

There are 9,000 kilometres of unsealed roads serving the cattle industry in remote communities in the Northern Territory. Now, if you were kind, and I'm not—in terms of the Deputy Prime Minister, that is; I'm generally a kind person, I hope. But if you were kind, in the context of the Deputy Prime Minister, you would say: 'Well, $80 million allocated to beef roads; that's terrific.' The reality is that $80 million of money allocated to the beef roads might get you an upgrade of around 160 kilometres of road. That's it. It may be slightly more. Let's be generous and say 200 kilometres. Well, 200 kilometres is a long way short of 9,000 kilometres. So there's a major issue around the failure of government to invest in these roads.

The previous member also talked about a strategic roads program. I recall, prior to the 1999 election—historical as that is—there was a strategic roads program for the Northern Territory. The member referred to one. Almost the first decision taken by the then incoming Howard government was to scrap that strategic roads program. We've been waiting for 19 months now for the Deputy Prime Minister to give us an update on what's happening with that road funding.

The other day I asked, for the benefit of Territorians who travel on those roads, a question about the government's previous commitments to upgrade the Barkly Stock Route and the Tablelands Highway and how many kilometres have been upgraded and sealed. It had no answer. Sadly, that's what we've come to expect from this government.

In that context, I also want to comment on the previous members' exhortation about driver safety and driving safely and stopping the carnage on our roads. I want to thank the current Labor government in the Northern Territory and the Chief Minister, Michael Gunner, for abandoning the stupidity of no speed limits on open roads for sections of the Northern Territory on the Stuart Highway. What an invitation to stupidity by the then Giles government.

I think—and I know that the people of the Northern Territory think—that the Turnbull government is not thinking of them when it makes decisions about funding allocations across the board, whether it's in education, housing or GST funding. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Hastie, in your case, the Western Australians seem to have pilfered a heap of money out of the pockets of the Commonwealth based on GST revenue. By the way, I should say this, the member opposite, the Attorney-General—thank you for being in the House—might want to explain how Western Australia squandered all the money they earned from the mining boom while he was in the important position, I think, of Treasurer of the Western Australian government. Explain to us why we now have to go back and remediate the stupidity of decisions that were made by him and his government.

The point is I don't want to be too critical of Western Australians—they're wonderful people—but I do want to be critical of the government because amending the GST formula in the way in which it's been proposed will come at a dramatic cost for the people of the Northern Territory. It ought to be clear that giving $3.6 billion of additional GST revenue to the Western Australian government has a direct impact on allocations to others and will cut millions out of the GST revenue into the Northern Territory, which we cannot afford. We have a small tax base and a disproportionate responsibility for closing the gap for Aboriginal people. Almost a third of the Northern Territory's population are Aboriginal people and they have greater needs than almost any other group in the population nationwide. I know that there are Aboriginal populations in Western Australia who also have needs that are similar, in many cases, to those in the Northern Territory. But the point that needs to be made here is that, if you don't understand and appreciate the importance of that principle of horizontal fiscal equalisation and the need to make sure that investments are made to raise the standards for people who live in very remote communities—their education, health and other things—then you're not taking the job seriously and I think you're doing the nation a grave disservice. We know that that's what the people of the Northern Territory currently believe, and I think they're right.

It's not only in the field of GST administration that there is a problem; it's also in education. In 2018, when the school year began, approximately 45,000 Northern Territory students returned to schools across the territory. Despite its protestations, the Turnbull government is cutting $17 billion from Australian schools over the next 10 years. In the Northern Territory, we will lose $71 million of federal government funding over the next two years. In Lingiari, my electorate, which of course covers most of the Northern Territory—I'm not sure what the percentage is, but my electorate is 1.34 million square kilometres and the electorate of Solomon is less than 300 square miles, so work it out—the bottom line is that the cost to Lingiari schools is $37.3 million. That's just not fair. That means cutting teachers from every school, and the most disadvantaged schools in Australia are in these remote parts of the Territory which are part of my electorate. In any allocation on needs based funding you would say the neediest schools in Australia, not just in the Northern Territory, are these remote community schools. So it is really sad that this government hasn't taken this job seriously.

Of course, in higher education we get the same story. The Turnbull government proposal to cap the amount it will contribute to universities for students' enrolments at 2017 levels for the next two years means an effective cut from the Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory of $5.5 million. This is a small regional university, important in providing opportunities, important in educating the next group of leaders to our country and important in educating those people who will be manipulating the levers of the economy. We know that this will have a grave impact upon our community, yet for some reason, the Prime Minister and the government haven't twigged to the impact of these proposed cuts on regional Australia and, in my case in particular, the Northern Territory.

Then, of course, there's housing. This week, we saw the sorry tale of the federal government saying to the Northern Territory government that despite an agreement by the minister responsible for Indigenous affairs in this country, Senator Scullion, of accepting a proposition that they would co-fund housing in the Northern Territory of $1.1 billion over the next decade—because that's what the Northern Territory government would contribute, so it would be an equivalent contribution from the Commonwealth—we now learn that despite that agreement by the senator, he's been overturned because of a cabinet decision, apparently, which has decided the Commonwealth will actually move out of funding these remote area housing schemes, and that in the transition process they've offered the Northern Territory government two years' funding, a proportion of the $1.1 billion. That will have a dramatically negative impact upon the community I live in and upon the most needy of Australians.

We talk in this place about the importance of health care, and we've had glorious speeches given this week about closing the gap. If you want to close the gap in this country, and you understand the needs of remote Australia, as I do—but apparently the Prime Minister and his cabinet don't—then the first thing you would understand is the need to invest in housing. Overcrowded and poor housing means we're going to get a continuation of the chronic diseases which impact on these communities and shorten the lives of Aboriginal people. We have the highest incidence of rheumatic heart disease in the world in my communities, and the highest incidence of diabetes and renal failure, which are mostly preventable diseases and largely attributable to lifestyle. Some are directly attributable to the conditions in which people live, and housing is crucial as a prevention strategy in making sure those diseases are removed.

You cannot accept the proposition that somehow or other the decisions now taken by this government are for the good of the nation, let alone for the good of the Northern Territory or the people who live in it. This is having and will have a dramatic impact, and I say to the Commonwealth government that they ought to be actually thinking, themselves, about what's in the long-term best interests of the nation and understand where the priorities for expenditure should be. I know my good friend sitting on my left understands these priorities because we talk about it all the time. It is important that we do the right thing, and the Commonwealth needs to live up to the expectations that are now upon it as a result of the verbal agreement reached between Minister Scullion and the Northern Territory government—but apparently not. Apparently now, we have the Prime Minister walking away from that agreement just as he walked away from the breakfast the other morning here. His intemperate behaviour this week is mind-boggling. To stand in this chamber, as he has done twice now this week, and try and suggest that a proposal emanating out of the Uluru Statement of the Heartaround the question of a voicemeans there would be a third chamber of the parliament is asinine, ridiculous and deliberately misleading. He is clearly trying to suggest that somehow or other Aboriginal people are wanting to do something which they do not want to do. They have made it very clear that they are after an advisory body. We have plenty of examples, by the way—and the Prime Minister might want to be alive to this—of organisations in this country, Commonwealth institutions, that only have Aboriginal people voting in them. Just look at the statutory land councils in the Northern Territory; they are bound to have elections, and the only people who can vote in those elections are Aboriginal people within the areas in which they live, as traditional owners.

So let's not have this garbage coming from the government that somehow or other it's perverse or stupid to have an Aboriginal-only elected body. We've had one previously which worked quite well, and that was ATSIC. There were difficulties in the end. It never should have been scrapped. But there we had an example of a Commonwealth constructed body that only Aboriginal people could vote for and participate in. Let's not have any more of this damned nonsense coming from the government, particularly this Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues, about what the intention has been around a voice and a statement from the heart. This country deserves better than we're currently getting from this Prime Minister, and the Northern Territory most particularly does. (Time expired)

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