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

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs, I present the committee's report entitled Interim report on better corporate engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers: an issues paper, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, can I say thank you for your wonderful service to this parliament and your outstanding valedictory speech today. We come to see people opposite us in different hues at different times over their career, and you've held true to what you believe and expressed it wonderfully today. So thank you very much.

Firstly, can I acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation and the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia, and I pay respect to ancestors and elders past, present and future, and particularly, of course, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of Canberra.

The findings of the banking royal commission in 2019 on the sale of funeral insurance products, a $50 million fine imposed on Telstra last year for unconscionable conduct in some of its stores, and Woolworths' failure to adequately consult on their proposed Dan Murphy store in Darwin are among the recent examples of extraordinarily bad behaviour by corporate entities towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. What was perhaps more disappointing to the committee during this inquiry was that these types of bad behaviours towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities continue to exist, despite such high-profile cases.

This inquiry was referred by the Minister for Indigenous Australians in October 2021, and unfortunately the limited time frame to gather evidence in this parliament, combined with the COVID related travel restrictions, prevented us from conducting a full inquiry. The committee therefore decided to present an interim report in the form of an issues paper for consideration by a new committee, rather than a final report.

The evidence gathered so far highlighted a number of core issues that warrant further detailed scrutiny, including the future evolution of the Reconciliation Action Plan Program and whether it is effective in promoting cultural awareness and appropriate behaviour among Australian corporations; the impact of ongoing poor behaviour in the telco sector and of telecommunication debts accumulated by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; the continued behaviour by banks and other financial institutions and financial service entities that take unfair advantage of the poor financial literacy of some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers; and the predatory practices of certain payday style lenders, car finance operators and funeral insurance businesses that operate outside the reach of regulators.

The committee would like to see this inquiry re-referred at the beginning of the next parliament. The newly formed committee will then have ample time to explore these issues in greater depth and make appropriate recommendations. Some of the businesses that have already made submissions from the telecommunications and financial sectors can then also be called and scrutinised, which was something we did not have time to do in this parliament. The committee therefore hopes that this issues paper will serve as a useful starting point for the new committee to seek a referral of the inquiry from the minister and continue this important work.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone who made submissions and gave evidence at the hearings. In particular, I'd like to thank the secretariat, who's provided us with such wonderful support now over a long time. I want to acknowledge the member for Berowra, who is the chair of the committee, but, luckily for him, he's on paternity leave. I want to congratulate him and his partner on the birth of their child.

I thank colleagues who attended regularly with this committee: the member for Newcastle, the member for Werriwa and the member for Herbert as well as the member for Longman. I also acknowledge the membership of the committee of the member for Curtin and the member for Leichhardt.

For me, this is coming to the end of my time in parliament. The very first committee that I was on, in 1987, was the Aboriginal affairs committee, and I've been on this committee off and on over my 32-odd years in this place. It has bookended my career, if you like. It's been a great privilege to be on this committee, to traverse this wonderful nation of ours and talk to First Nations people about issues of concern to them.

Regular reports are made to this parliament, but, sadly, too often the reports are ignored, despite the strength of the recommendations that are in them and the bipartisan nature of the commitment which is made to the development of the reports and the thinking that goes into them. This is not a slight on the current government. Successive governments, including Labor governments, have been guilty, and are guilty, of not using these reports as a guidance and a tool for making and developing government policy. I think that's a failure of this system.

Deputy Speaker Andrews, in your speech this morning you made a comment about the importance of working in this place and the bipartisan way in which we should work. These committees are the finest example of how bipartisanship can work, and the product of these committees should be seen for the value it has as a result of that bipartisan nature and the work that goes into them. I commend this particular report to the House. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.