Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the representative of a community that has a strong, proud, and active Indigenous culture, and is moving to strengthen its recognition of Indigenous people and its efforts to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, I have been heartened to hear from a number of constituents who utterly reject the proposed forced closure of approximately 150 remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia through the colluding neglect of the Abbott and Barnett governments. The Abbott government has decided to shirk and shift its responsibility for supporting remote Aboriginal communities and, in so doing, has effectively invited the Barnett government to abdicate its duty of care to some of our most vulnerable citizens. That is in addition to the Western Australian government's proposed changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act, which stand to seriously reduce the rights and input of Aboriginal people and the protection of Indigenous heritage.

As others have observed, we have long followed the principle of universality of service in Australia and—though we have not always been able, or in some cases willing, to fully deliver on that principle—it has been a reasonably consistent feature of government policy and administration. It is hypocritical in the extreme for the cessation of support to Aboriginal communities to be put forward on the basis that the communities in question are small and unsustainable. As Guy Rundle has written, universality of service is a:

… necessary principle for a vast country, where the economic tides come and go … If we didn't respect that we'd wind up half of rural white Queensland, which costs us far more money than Aboriginal communities do.

In Western Australia, we have seen the Royalties for Regions program provide funding for many important and a few reasonably curious projects; we have seen the government prepared go to quite extraordinary lengths to support some questionable residential property developments in part of the north-west; and we know that the proposed closures, without proper planning let alone consultation, will in fact produce greater costs in addition to the absolutely unacceptable and unconscionable social harm involved. Noting the absence of consultation with Indigenous people, Wayne Bergmann, former head of the Kimberley Land Council, has said:

The only solution is the Government has to empower Aboriginal leadership in the local organisations and the local communities …

Former federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and this year's Senior Australian of the Year, Fred Chaney, has said that proceeding to defund and dissolve remote communities will have catastrophic impacts on the lives of Indigenous men, women and children. His open letter to the Premier and the Prime Minister states:

I see no sign that any government is prepared for the consequences. If governments simply let things rip by withdrawing services and driving people into towns without careful and comprehensive preparation, the outcomes will be shameful. That shame will reflect on you and your governments and on all of us.

Mr Chaney has said that Aboriginal people are entitled to be treated as human beings and as citizens of Australia and not just as some kind of fiscal problem. It is astounding that in 2014 this kind of eminently sensible point even needs to be made. I can only hope that the Premier of WA and the Prime Minister, who makes so much of his interest in the lives of Indigenous Australians, will come to their senses.