Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate notes the failure of the Rudd Labor Government to construct a single new house in remote Northern Territory Indigenous communities due to their mismanagement of the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

On the first full day of sitting of the parliament after the last election, we will always remember the carnival atmosphere of that very special day in Australian history when the Prime Minister of Australia delivered his apology speech to Indigenous Australians. I, along with most Australians, recognised the importance of this symbolic gesture to the stolen generations. Notably in his speech, the Prime Minister said:

I said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of Indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great and the consequences too great to allow it all to become a political football ...

He went on to say:

I therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement—to begin with—an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years.

Clearly from these statements, the Prime Minister was saying that housing was an absolute, fundamental problem and that it was the very first issue to be tackled by his government, and so a war cabinet was set up to fix the problem. The tough talk on practical issues gave hope to Indigenous Australians. The Labor government was going to continue with the work commenced under the intervention to deliver the housing that is critical to fixing so many of the other problems in Indigenous communities that are linked to health and educational outcomes.

I think we would all understand that it is pretty hard to listen in class—it certainly was for me—if you have not had any sleep because you are sharing a home with 20 people who are bumping around the place, having showers and so on. I think just that number of people would make it very difficult for anyone to get enough sleep at night and then be able to listen to their lessons. It would also be very difficult to avoid things like ear, nose and throat infections if you could not have a shower. The basic elements of hygiene are simply not there in so many of these communities, and that has an inordinate impact on the health and educational outcomes of the people who live in them.

Indigenous people welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment. They were prepared to take the Prime Minister at his word, that he was all about action and not just talk. That was the tenor of the speech. Indigenous people agreed to support the government on the basis of practical results. We knew that the practical results were coming down the line, and Indigenous people were certainly not going to rely on platitudes and symbolism alone. But Indigenous Australians, as we know now, have been let down in the most callous way. The tough talk of the Prime Minister has now been replaced with complete incompetence and neglect. The TV cameras have been packed away and copies of the apology speech have been distributed. The Prime Minister, wherever he travels, is very proud of his apology. However it seems that now the spin and the media opportunities have disappeared, the focus of this government on Indigenous housing has also disappeared. The housing task force appears to be a distant memory. Remote Indigenous Australians have been left behind and forgotten in the fiasco that is the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

A lot of money has been spent—we still do not know how much—and many people have been making a tidy income from implementing these schemes. Yet after so much time, few houses have materialised. There has been so much time, so much money, yet no houses. Even those Australians who have not been following this issue would have to think that, if there are no houses—that is, zero—out of the 750 houses, that benchmark is one that we have probably failed. But we are told time and time again by the government that things are on track and that everything is going to be okay. No minister with responsibility for delivering on Labor’s housing program should dare raise their head. This is a shameful outcome, delivered as a result of the government’s mismanagement of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program. It seriously exposes the way in which the Kevin Rudd government operates. We have heard in this place in answers to questions the words—obviously taken from one of the government’s focus groups—’swift and decisive’. That certainly has not applied to this program. I would say ‘slow, indecisive and completely hopeless’. There are no houses out of 750. It beggars belief that such an important undertaking of ‘we will fix this’—a compact with the Indigenous people of Australia—was made by the Prime Minister in his first speech in the new parliament, and here we are, many, many months down the track, and not a single house.

One of the things I have noticed that the government are quite good at is manipulating the media cycle with stunts and announcements. It seems that whenever the government have a bit of problem they simply make another announcement. They just have another media release. They have a bit of a press gathering. They might even roll out another tax. This program is a perfect example of the government’s reliance on spin over substance. There have been announcements made over the months. There have been full-colour, roadside media releases announcing bigger and better sums of money and espousing the commitment of this government to address inadequate housing. Yet not a single house has been built.

I rang the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and relayed the concerns of some community members who are very disappointed. They had exposed the fact that they had walked through raw sewage in the community of Ampilitwatja and had walked off. There would not be many Australians who would not have heard of the Kalkaringi walk-off. I spoke to the members of this community at an old soak outside of Ampilitwatja when I visited there a few days ago. The entire sad scenario was played out in the national media. These people said, ‘We are protesting. We are walking away from this community. We would rather live in the bush than live in this community.’ Astonishingly, not one person from the Northern Territory Labor government and not one person from the federal government had even bothered to go and see them. The community was waiting. I explained these circumstances directly to the minister. Given that the minister has charge of this portfolio and given that the situation had been broadcast across the airwaves, it should have been well known to her.

At that stage, I would have generally expected action. The minister’s only response to all of this was to have her spokeswoman say, ‘They’re committed to improving conditions on Territory Aboriginal communities.’ That is almost as pathetic as the answers given by the Leader of the Government, Senator Evans, in this place today in question time. It is just pathetic. The minister’s words—‘We’re committed to doing this,’ and ‘We’re committed to doing that’—are supposed to make people think that they are actually doing something. But what people want is practical outcomes, and they certainly have not had that.

I read with some interest the other day the ANAO report, where Mr McPhee, on the subject of the importance of effective implementation in achieving policy goals, says:

Amongst other things, implementation requires effective governance, risk management, procurement and contract management, the right type and quantum of resources, oversight and review.

This would be a litany of how not to do it. None of those things have been organised. We have Senator Crossin on the other side shaking her head. She is part of the government. She looks after the interests of Territorians, she purports to look after the interests of Indigenous Territorians and I have not heard a peep from her about this. I have not had media releases from her office saying that this is an outrage. I have not read any of that. Out of how many houses—750? Zero. Just give me a moment; let us weigh that up.