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

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House calls on the Prime Minister to:

support the Opposition's call for a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities;

audit spending on Indigenous programs; and

(3)   support practical policy ideas to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians to help Close the Gap.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion immediately:

That the House calls on the Prime Minister to:

(1)   support the Opposition's call for a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities;

(2)   audit spending on Indigenous programs; and

(3)   support practical policy ideas to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians to help Close the Gap.

There can be no higher priority for this government or for this nation than taking care of those who are most vulnerable in our society. As a country we've taken decisions to conduct royal commissions in relation to matters around the treatment of people within aged-care facilities and the treatment of people with disabilities. They have all been just and noble causes. They've given rise to recommendations and considerations for our society as to how we might move forward with policy changes to investments of taxpayers' money to make for better outcomes for those people.

It is absolutely unbelievable that this government would reject now, yet again—by not even taking this motion to discuss it before the parliament—the prospect of finding a pathway forward to helping young Indigenous kids in communities like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and elsewhere. These are the most vulnerable children in the country. For every person in this House, the thought of a child being sexually assaulted or exploited by any adult, by any other individual, is a complete abomination. The depth of feeling when you speak to people in Alice Springs, as I've done with Jacinta Price, is palpable. When you speak with people who are involved in community services and in policing, they are heartbroken and exhausted. The capacity of the Northern Territory government to respond is limited.

Somehow we don't see it as a priority in this parliament—or at least this Prime Minister doesn't see it as a priority for this parliament—to call for a royal commission to understand what is happening to have such a significant prevalence of child sexual abuse within Indigenous communities. It's not happening within every Indigenous community; of course not. Where it's not taking place—where the elders are stepping up, where the leadership is being provided in those communities—let's replicate that in other communities where that is not the case. The use of pornographic material, the use of devices and the power imbalance that exists in some of the communities are things that need to be delved into. A royal commission has the ability to pull people in to provide evidence, to look at the situation as it exists, particularly within those remote communities, and to provide a way forward. That's what the Australian people voted for last Saturday.

The Australian people didn't want a continuation of the window-dressing, they didn't want another committee, they didn't want another ATSIC. They want practical action. The Australian public are demanding action on Indigenous policy from their Prime Minister, but they're not getting it because this Prime Minister is weak, indecisive, and, when he does make a decision, it's the wrong decision. We've seen it time after time, and we are letting down the most vulnerable in our community because of his inability to deal with this issue. It might be against the politics of some within land councils or some within communities who have other vested interests. The task of the Prime Minister, the leader of our nation, is to push that to one side and to advance forward in the interests of those he must serve, the young Indigenous children in these communities.

We know that there are billions of dollars from Canberra and from the states and territories going into the Indigenous funding for the rollout of different community programs and the like. We do know, though, that whilst the billions of dollars come in through the funnel from Canberra, in many of these communities it is a trickle when it gets to the people who are most in need. By way of one example, there was a lady interviewed yesterday morning on ABC Breakfast. She lived about 80 kilometres from Alice Springs, and she spoke about the needs of her community. The government wants to talk about the Voice and how that layer of bureaucracy may have been the panacea, but this woman couldn't have been any clearer in her advice: they need water, they need housing and they need a road upgrade between that community and Alice Springs. The member for Lingiari is nodding in furious agreement with us.

Why isn't it happening? The money is there. The money has been given, and what's happened? It's been diverted away from the causes most in need, and yet those with vested interests—the elites here, including many within the Labor Party—don't want to shine a light on this problem. If you want to condemn us to the same failure of the past that's happened over decades, pretend that there's nothing wrong here, pretend that all the money is being spent wisely, pretend that that road is being fixed, pretend that the water is being supplied, pretend that the housing is being built—but it's not. It's not, and when the Labor Party came into government and they immediately remove the restrictions in relation to alcohol management, do you know what happens? Violence spikes, domestic violence goes through the roof, the abuse of children spikes.

Why would Labor have done that? What was the policy rationale for doing it, Minister? There was none. There was none; it was ideologically driven because it pleases, as we see in a number of these issues, the inner-city seat membership of the Labor Party. That's what the woke brigade want to hear, that everybody can do without alcohol management and everybody should be treated properly. The problem in these communities is that there's a significant problem. The government backtracked on that issue and on that restriction, which was partly reimposed. Do you know what happened? There was a reduction in the violence because the Northern Territory Chief Minister was ultimately pressured into a position where she picked up the phone and said to the Prime Minister, 'You've made a dreadful mistake, Prime Minister.' It was one of his early ones—not the last—but it was certainly a very significant one and an impactful one. There are individuals and families and women, in particular, who suffer because of those policy decisions and, in some cases, because of the indecision.

Why wouldn't we support the motion today, which calls on an audit to be conducted on spending within Indigenous programs? That's not a radical suggestion. It's not the first time it's been heard. But this Prime Minister refuses, resolutely, to even listen to it. And the treatment of Jacinta Price, when she has made the same suggestion in the Senate, I think has been quite deplorable and should be denounced by the Prime Minister. But I suspect it won't be.

When you look at the response of the Labor Party in the Senate, you get a bit of a sense of the ideological approach within the Labor Party when you listen to the words of Senator Tim Ayres, where he said in relation to Senator Jacinta Price's same motion being moved in the Senate:

Like many of the interventions by those opposite, this is all about the politics and not about the solution. It's always about the politics, never about the solution. … What is the content of this motion and the letter really about?

Here's what he said:

It's really about an angry pursuit of the people who those opposite don't like and who didn't agree with them in the recent referendum.

I mean, could you be any less sensitive than that? I see Labor members over there nodding their heads in agreement with Senator Ayres. His comments should be condemned. They should be condemned.

This motion is about protecting children. It's about protecting vulnerable children in our country who are being sexual abused, and those children, those girls in particular, are the ones who will suffer for a lifetime. The Labor Party want to show that they've got great big hearts and that they're so much more compassionate than us, but that they wouldn't support this shows what hypocrites they are. It shows what hypocrites they are.

These children will suffer a lifetime of mental scarring because of this physical abuse, and the police need to act on it. The agencies in the Northern Territory need to act, but the fact is that they are being hamstrung by the authorities in the Northern Territory, to the shame of the chief minister. That this Prime Minister would be complicit in that ignorance and in the inability to act to save those young children is a damning indictment on this Prime Minister and on this hopeless government.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion. The Australian people gave us a clear message on Saturday. They didn't want division. They didn't want a Voice. They want practical action and they want this parliament—those that have been given the privilege and the honour to be elected to come here and make real change—to make real change and to listen to the courage and convictions of those that are our most vulnerable. We proudly have elected 11 Indigenous Australians to both this place and the Senate, and they are strong voices for those Indigenous Australians, particularly in rural and remote Australia. But when you have young children, with the courage of their conviction, coming forward with their experiences of the abhorrent acts that have taken place, then it's beholden on us to act. It's beholden on every one of us to come together, to put away our political persuasions and to work together, to understand there is a greater good here. When you have the courage and conviction of Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who is prepared to come and give voice to that wrong, who comes with the lived experience of living in those communities and hearing those voices, then we here today have to move forward as a nation, and as political leaders in this country, and support Senator Price—and Senator Liddle—in their conviction and their courage for the people they represent and what they see and how they can fix it.

This is a practical measure. This is a strong message. We are saying to the Australian people: a line has been drawn in the sand after Saturday. This nation that was divided can now come together, can now walk together to make sure that, where there is disadvantage, we draw on the practical, lived experience that we have and that we actually deliver. Why are we afraid? Why are we afraid to open it up and really understand the absolutely abhorrent acts that those most vulnerable, in our most isolated communities, are facing, away from many of the places where all of us live. These people have this lived experience, and they want to be heard. What have we got to fear? It's the right thing to do.

I was elected to represent the people of Australia to do the right thing. I don't think there's a member here that, in all honesty, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, would say that this is not the right thing to do. We've got to do something different, and this will lay the foundation stones to be able to achieve that. As difficult as it may be, as difficult as it may be to hear, Australia needs to hear this, and we need to fix it with the lived experience. But it's also about making sure that that lived experience goes beyond just the abhorrent acts that young children are facing in rural and remote communities and that it goes to the practical lived experience of how we close the gap in those communities. It's not about repeating the mistakes of the past, which what the Prime Minister put to the Australian people with a representative body would be.

ATSIC didn't work. It did some good. There isn't disadvantage right across this nation, but where it is most prevalent is in rural and remote communities. And who's best at fixing that? It's their elders. It's not about repeating the mistake of sending someone who represents hundreds of thousands of square kilometres and hundreds of different, diverse communities to Canberra, where their feedback and their lived experience is generalised and then nationalised into a program. You need bespoke solutions that empower local elders. That's where you close the gap where we haven't.

Those are the practical solutions about which the Australian people said to us, this parliament—no matter which side you sit on—in an emphatic way: the proposition that was put to the Australian people is not the one that we want to move forward on. They expect us to be able to use the instrument of this building to be able to change the lives of those that are disadvantaged for the better. That is the opportunity that lies before each and every one of us right here, right now. That's the most important thing.

When Senator Price and Senator Liddle, who bring that lived experience and were elected to this place only in the last 18 months, have the courage of their convictions and then are treated in the way they have been, that is a reflection on our parliament. It's important that the lived experience that they have is acted upon. That is what a parliament should do. That is something that, with the privilege and honour that we've been given, we should never turn our backs on, particularly when it's for something as important as this: those who are most vulnerable and the way forward for this great nation.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting this motion.

Honourable members: Shame!

Let me say a few points about why that is. I'm going to go short, as I've said to the leader, because I know the member for Kennedy, who feels passionately about these issues, wants to contribute to this debate as well. First of all, let me say that it should be recognised that every single person across this parliament is committed to fighting abuse of children—every single person across this parliament.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Why not support the royal commission then?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We heard you in silence about an important issue. This is an important issue, and coming in without any notice and seeking a political stunt with a suspension motion about something that is as important and as sensitive as this sends a pretty clear signal about what this is about. This is about trying to create a political point against the government.

Opposition members interjecting—

That's the opposition's right—that is how this building works—but let's not be too holier-than-thou about this if you want a genuine debate about child sex abuse. There is no person in this parliament who is not committed to fighting this.

The Leader of the Nationals, to his credit, talked about the importance of practical action. I'm not quite sure how you square that with yet another inquiry. I'll tell you a bit about practical action. In the May budget the Minister for Social Services committed more than $500 million to practical action to fight the abuse of women and children, including more than $250 million particularly directed at the abuse of women and children in First Nations communities. That is practical action.

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my right and members on my left, there's far too much noise in this debate. Members are interjecting who are not in their seats, which is highly disorderly. I will ask the Deputy Leader of the House to continue.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We recognise that the temperature after the weekend is high. The Leader of the Nationals spent quite a bit of time talking to this. A lot of people were hurt through this campaign. As the minister for health, I can tell you that, as we monitor the rate of calls to hotlines used by First Nations communities, across the debate this has been a cause of very high levels of distress. From people who led the debate to people at a grassroots—

Opposition members interjecting—

I'm not quite sure why people are interjecting about this. There's a serious point that I'm trying to make. It is that people across the political spectrum were hurt and had distress caused to them through this. I don't think it's of any use after a period of such high temperature and such significant distress, particularly across the First Nations community across Australia, to start trying to rank the levels of distress.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No more delays! Get on with it then!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is extraordinary, really quite extraordinary. We're trying to have a debate that takes the temperature out of the result on Saturday, that gives time for the dust to settle, that listens to Indigenous communities about the way forward in reconciliation and Closing the Gap. We've made very clear, as have almost all Indigenous leaders, that the vote on Saturday night—as I think we all accept across this parliament—was not a vote against closing the gap in any of the key indicators, whether they are health or housing or the abuse of women and children. Frankly, I think we are all, across the parliament and across the Australian community, much better educated about the detail of that gap after the debate over the last few months and reaffirmed—

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

You have divided the country!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've got angry interjections. I can tell you in health—and, as a former health minister, he should know—that the level of detailed understand in metropolitan communities about, for example, rheumatic heart disease, which was largely eradicated in city communities in the sixties and seventies, has increased dramatically over the last few months. Regardless of what you think about the result on Saturday night, that is a good thing. We are all committed to finding a new way forward to deal with those challenges that I think are much better understood after the campaign that we had.

I'll go to the question of the audit that is also contained in the motion. The audit office—

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't worry about the kids!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Forrest!

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Some of the interjections that we don't worry about the kids—seriously! I don't know who said that. You can have a different approach on motions like this without accusations thrown across the parliament that we don't care about kids. The Leader of the Nationals talked about practical action. We're taking practical action. We're taking practical action in Central Australia through the Central Australia plan. We're taking action across Australia through a much larger commitment to preventing violence against women and children delivered by this minister in the 2023-24 budget. I'm happy to have a debate about the pros and cons of this motion, but what I'm not willing to do is take cheap shots about this chamber, about who does and does not care about child abuse!

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There will be silence in the chamber.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no point having a voice because you won't listen to it. If you go to a community area and ask them what they want—and I took a television crew in there and, of course, they went sideways on the Voice—every single mayor will answer that by saying: 'The Voice is good, but we can't afford to buy food here. Affordability is terrible for us.' They'll say, 'We've got 12 or 15 people to a house.'

You guys are in power. I'm sorry to tell you, but for most of the last 30 years you didn't go out there and listen to them. You didn't do anything. You blokes in power for the rest of the time, you didn't listen to them. You didn't do anything. You didn't listen to them and ask them what they want. You didn't go out there and shut your month and listen to what they want—affordability and housing.

I had ownership of 3½ million or five million acres in Queensland which were the missions. The much maligned Christian missionaries pulled these people in and protected them, and there were terrible things happening. My family went to Cloncurry when the Kalkadoon Wars were still on. My partner in mining and I camped out bush for weeks together with swags. His mother was one of the few piccaninny survivors of the Battle Range. So I've got a memory that stretches back right to when it all happened.

Let me quote Rose Collis in fairness to what the opposition was doing here. Rose was a great leader, with Mickey Miller as well, in Cairns when it was very brave to be a leader. It's very fashionable now, but it was very brave. Mickey Miller's best mate at boarding school didn't speak to him for 30 years; it was a black power thing. Rose called me into a meeting, and I'm not going to name the community, obviously, but 25 per cent of the kids under 12 had sexually transmitted diseases. They were being molested. There was the death—I'd better not mention his name—of the mayor, and from the Anglican bishop I have never seen a more outraged speech in my life. 'Everyone knows the evil that is here. If there's any good to come out of the death of this great man—and we know why he drank himself to death: because he just couldn't get anything to happen. If anything good should come out of this, it is that we get rid of this filthy sin that prevails here in this place.' Well, it's still there because no-one has really attacked the real causes.

You go in there and you suppress the symptoms. What successive Queensland governments did was ban grog, but that's suppressing the symptoms. Did you ask yourself why they are drinking? You don't have to be Albert Einstein here. Go down to the demonstration when the people of Yarrabah were locked up. (Time expired)

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to.