Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition is absolutely determined to do all we can to provide practical assistance to Indigenous Australians. We didn't believe that the Prime Minister was capable of convincing the Australian people that the Voice, another layer of bureaucracy here in Canberra and something potentially akin to ATSIC, was going to be the solution for Indigenous communities in their effort to try and improve services and reduce violence as we go forward. That was the conclusion, of course, drawn by the vast majority of Australians last Saturday. The Australian public couldn't have spoken with a clearer message to this Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister had refused point blank to provide the detail to the Australian public that they so craved. The Australian public at the start of the Voice debate instinctively expressed a view that they wanted to help Indigenous Australians. That was their view, and it was demonstrated through the polling. When we saw the polling initially, it was in the order of 65 per cent or 70 per cent. The numbers fell dramatically because the Prime Minister couldn't give the detail, the design or assurances around whether or not this would improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. The Prime Minister has divided our country, and the Prime Minister has wasted $450 million. He lifted up the hopes of young Indigenous people who thought that this was going to be a 1967 unifying moment for our country, and he's dashed the hopes of literally millions of Australians who have watched this government, over the course of the last 17 or 18 months, become completely and utterly consumed and obsessed by this issue to the expense of their own household budget and the cost-of-living pressures that families are facing.

That's what this Prime Minister has presided over in the first part of his term. He said this week, of course, that he's now back on to the cost of living, and he's trying to look at decisions that they can try to take and help families. Well, Prime Minister, the Australian public has been desperate for your attention and support since the day you were elected, and you have done nothing to provide support to them.

We know that under this government, interest rates have gone up. We know that under this government energy prices continue to go through the roof. We know that people are getting less for every dollar that they spend at the supermarket. Inflation is not under control, and there's every risk that the Reserve Bank could again increase interest rates at a time when families can least afford it.

What we have taken from the referendum result on the weekend is that the Australian public doesn't want the Voice, that they roundly reject it, that they roundly reject the other components that would go on, in some estimates, in terms of the treaty, for 20 to 30 years at a cost of literally billions of dollars and no practical outcome. They're not interested in that agenda. The Australian public is interested in providing tangible support to young Indigenous kids—to get them to school, to provide support for them to help them into a job, to give them a roof and a respectful life in a community no different to what we would expect in a capital city here like in Canberra or Brisbane or Sydney or Perth or wherever it might be.

The Prime Minister has now rejected on multiple occasions the offer of bipartisanship to establish a royal commission to get to the root of the problem in relation to Indigenous communities where children are being sexually abused. It reflects so poorly on this Prime Minister that Australians are shaking their heads, not recognising the bloke that they see as their Prime Minister today as the person they voted for in May of last year. There can be no higher priority for this government, for this parliament, for our nation, than protecting young, vulnerable children. Yet we know that in Indigenous communities this issue is endemic.

We know that sexually transmitted diseases amongst young children in Indigenous communities is much higher than what it is in other parts of the country. If we saw the same level of sexual abuse or domestic violence in a city like Hobart or in Melbourne, in Victoria, the front pages of the paper would be calling on the premier to resign. There would be understandable outrage from residents. If people saw these multiple instances of sexual abuse against children and a government doing nothing about it, they wouldn't stand for it. But because it's not seen on a daily basis because the TV cameras can't easily access some of these communities and because people are prohibited from going into some parts of the country—and there are reasons for that. I acknowledge the connection to country and the important elements of Indigenous culture. But the first issue that is paramount in Indigenous culture, as it is in every other culture that we respect, is to take care of those who are most vulnerable.

Because the cameras can't get in there, these images aren't on the front pages of the paper, and somehow there's a normalisation of this sexual abuse. As Minister for Home Affairs, I established the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. With some tens of millions of dollars, they've been able to save hundreds and hundreds of children from the hands of perpetrators. I'm proud of that, and our country should be proud of the fact that we have law enforcement agencies that work day and night to protect our children and to stop perpetrators here and abroad. They stop offenders here who are, in the modern age, directing sexual acts against children taking place in the Philippines or in other parts of South-East Asia. Yet somehow in our country the Prime Minister can be here today and again vote against our initiative to try and provide practical support to those communities on the highest possible priority.

I don't understand the Prime Minister's lack of interest or lack of prioritisation of this issue. We have talked about this issue for some time. We called for a royal commission to examine child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities on 27 October 2022, almost 12 months to the day. We called again on the Prime Minister during 2023 in my budget-in-reply speech where I said:

I use this opportunity tonight to again call on the Prime Minister to hold a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.

And I reaffirm our commitment to re-instating the Cashless Debit Card in communities who seek to have it, so that welfare payments can be spent on food for kids—not alcohol and drugs.

Its removal by this Government has led to increasing violence, particularly domestic violence.

If this Prime Minister has such a tin ear as to not listen to the Australian public in the message that was sent last weekend, I'll tell the chamber this fact: the Australian public will express a second view, if it's required, at the time of the next election. They will express a very clear view if the Prime Minister doesn't pick up the pretty strong hint that he got last Saturday. The hint last Saturday was to roll your sleeves up, start working together and get on with improving the lives of Indigenous people in regional and remote areas. We are committed to that task. We are absolutely committed to that task.

I have extended the hand of friendship to the Prime Minister in this most important regard on multiple occasions—he's not budging. He has not listened to anything the Australian public has had to say over the course of this year in terms of the debate on the Voice. How could he not hear the message? How could he show disregard for this, the most important national priority? We are talking about young lives being destroyed. We're talking about young children, boys and girls, who are being sexually abused at rates that have no place in any society, let alone ours. It's unimaginable that one child would lose the innocence of their childhood to some animal, some perpetrator who would seek to act in that way towards a defenceless child—let alone in the numbers we're seeing in communities now. We shouldn't tolerate it. We should do everything that we can with the power in this parliament, with the resources available to the Commonwealth, to provide support to the Northern Territory government. Instead, we hear the same political correctness from the Northern Territory Chief Minister, who has completely demonstrated that she is out of her depth and that the ability of the Northern Territory Labor Party government to deal with this issue is something that is well and truly past them.

The Prime Minister, with the resources of the Commonwealth, needs to provide support to these communities. I see the member for Lingiari, who is a fine and decent person, shaking her head in relation to these matters. The member for Lingiari needs to join with us and break away from her leader, who is not providing leadership to the people of the Northern Territory or to the people of our country. This Prime Minister is weak when he needs to be strong. He is indecisive when he needs to make decisions in our national interest. He needs to make sure that the decisions he takes will defend and protect our country and stand up for our values instead of going weak at a time when his country needs him most. He has divided the country. The time is now to heal and to come together. This is the opportunity to do it.

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