Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been much said in recent weeks about the dysfunction of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in the far north of my electorate, brought to a head by the decision of Red Cross to provide food parcels to the Fregon community. Fregon is not substantially different to the rest of the communities across the APY Lands and I concur with those who have said the cause of children going hungry is more about income management than the lack of food in shops or insufficient funds to feed families, even though I would be the first to admit that goods are expensive, and good management of any welfare budget is required by parents. With that in mind, I believe the current calls for implementation of income management to address children going hungry should be supported, but the actions only address the worst symptoms of community failure and not the causes.

The recent federal government report telling us that the $3½ billion spent annually by successive governments on Indigenous Australia has been largely wasted will come as no surprise to those of us who see its results on a regular basis. Despite generous spending and thousands of people galvanised with good intent, the situation for remote Indigenous Australians continues to deteriorate. Drug and alcohol dependency, petrol sniffing, violence, sexual abuse, appalling health and educational outcomes and high suicide rates are coupled with, and caused and enhanced by, absolute welfare dependency that is destroying Aboriginal communities as surely as genocide. As an example, a drive through the APY Lands will reveal solar power stations that do not work, an electricity network in many cases leading almost nowhere, a scarcely used aged-care facility and a never-used drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, along with broken down and vandalised equipment, often not very old. There are a host of other failed ventures from gardens to training centres and a string of abandoned and trashed relics of forgotten projects and dreams.

In recent years there has been another flush of money coming through the system as both the Howard and Rudd/Gillard governments have sought once again to bring living, educational and health standards for these remote populations up to at least the minimum enjoyed by the general population.

Noel Pearson has become a leading light in Australia exposing and explaining how welfare has become 'poison flour' for his people. Despite our best efforts, the wreckage and failure of the last 40 years has shown that the harder we have tried to make life more liveable in these remote communities the more firmly we have condemned future generations to hopelessness, simply because there is no genuine economic base for these communities.

The APY Lands once supported a handful of cattle properties capable of employing perhaps 150 people. They are now virtually non-operational. However, if they were well-managed, modern properties running at maximum output they could now be operated by about 15 workers. Such is the fate of modern agriculture. Motorbikes, radio operated watering systems, solar pumps, planes and helicopters have reduced the need for labour. For properties to be sustainable they simply must adopt best practice.

There are currently about 2,500 people living on the APY Lands and I expect that following the census this figure will be upgraded. Never before has this land supported a population anything like that, and unless a mining company discovers a major resource it is unlikely to ever do so again, unless alternatives can be found. The possibilities make a very slim portfolio. Almost exclusively, the small localised working population on the lands is employed directly by government in providing services to communities which have no revenue base and consequentially are unable to help themselves. There can never be a rating base for communities while individuals can never own their own property.

Simply, there is no good reason for these communities to be where they are other than it is home. Even though it must be said that in Aboriginal culture the value of home should not be underestimated, it should also be noted that a significant number of people living in these remote communities have come from far away. They have not originated in these communities but have been attracted by the living conditions. The fact remains that while the APY Lands may be home the area is incapable of supporting such a large population. So unless we are prepared to condemn future generations to the moral poverty of lives built on the basis of permanent welfare, our focus should be on equipping new generations to succeed in the 'mainstream' world.

Aboriginal culture will be far better serviced by having functional working families, no matter where they live, who are able to visit their ancestral roots and participate in cultural practices rather than become the victims of passive welfare assistance provided in situ, which the last 40 years have shown is a recipe for cultural oblivion.

I have much more I would like to say on this subject but my time is running out, so I will have to conclude this at a later period. (Time expired)