Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The plight of Aboriginal children is well documented. We know that from so many people. Senator Pauline Hanson has been raising this issue for around 30 years. Senator Nampijinpa Price has done an exceptional job as well, and Senator Kerrynne Liddle and indeed the minister there. The plight of Aboriginal children is an indictment on parts of our society and especially on the government. I'm not just talking about the Labor government; I'm talking about previous uniparty governments and the Liberal-National coalition.

I was visiting Badu Island a few years ago in the Torres Strait. A wonderful young councillor stood up and said, 'While there is a Closing the Gap initiative, the gap will widen, because so many people are feeding off the Closing the Gap campaign that they have become dependent on it.' I'm talking about the parasites who are pushing some of the Aboriginal industry. They're white as well as black. The bureaucracy is massive and self-perpetuating. So many of the campaigns are to keep bureaucrats in a job. The bureaucracy is massive, and that means no accountability, and there is the heart of the problem. We now have an Aboriginal industry.

Basic management shows that this commission will have negative effect. It won't help. It will hamper and hurt. The aim is to look good, not do good. There are so many things we see every year in the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister—it doesn't matter who it is, whether Liberal or Labor—and the opposition leader stand up and tell us things about how Closing the Gap is going backwards, and we've still got work to do, but it's all rosy. It's the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull.

Minister, surely basic management shows that a system that is clogged like the Aboriginal industry is, with so many people feeding off it—consultants, activists, politicians, lawyers, academics—will be only clogged up further. What are your intentions for managing this properly so that it doesn't clog up the system?