Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak briefly to document No. 9, which is the report called Beyond petrol sniffing: renewing hope for Indigenous communities. This report was tabled some time ago now, and it has been spoken to by a number of people in this chamber, but it is worth taking a final opportunity to draw attention to it. It was done by the also now defunct Senate Community Affairs References Committee, ably chaired by you, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore. It is important to draw attention to it for a couple of reasons: firstly, because there has been progress in the area since the report was tabled. Given the way that at least some in the government ran down the benefit and the effectiveness of the committee process under the old system of separate references committees and suggested that they were inefficient and ineffective, I think it is worth emphasising that in this area there is no doubt that this report has contributed to helping maintain and generate momentum for further positive change.

It is also worth emphasising that it was a unanimous report from people from a range of political parties. The inquiry was actually initiated on a motion of Senator Scullion, from the Country Liberal Party, and then people who participated in the inquiry were from the Democrats, the Liberals, Labor and also the Greens, I think, from memory. So we had wide-ranging political input and a unanimous report. It is also worth noting that the report does not just focus on the need to further roll out Opal fuel, the non-sniffable petrol alternative developed by BP. It does address that issue to some extent in its findings and recommendations and it is an important part of the solution, and it is pleasing to see that there has been further movement in that area. Indeed, Minister Abbot has in recent times been public in promoting it and urging further use of it in Alice Springs, which is a welcome change from his less enthusiastic support for rolling it out some time in the past. So perhaps, indeed, Senate committee reports can even change the attitudes of health ministers, which just shows the impact that they can have.

But I did want to emphasise that it also focuses on the need for a range of other activities. I had a concern when there were some initial suggestions about having an inquiry in this area that it was really just focusing almost totally on Opal as the magic bullet, and I do not think that would have been particularly accurate or necessarily helpful. I also had a concern, I have to say, that it would just be yet another inquiry. And one thing that became clear in the course of this inquiry was that there had already been a lot of inquiries preceding it into petrol sniffing and other related issues. And many witnesses—particularly, I might say, from Indigenous communities—pointed out with a very understandable level of cynicism that there had already been a range of inquiries in this area; there had already been a range of recommendations, and whilst there had been a range of nice-sounding promises and commitments from governments there actually had not been a lot that had happened to implement those promises.

I want to take the opportunity to reinforce the importance of not just saying, ‘This is a good report with lots of good stuff in it.’ That is certainly the case, but we must do everything we can to make sure that it does not become just another report to add to the pile of reports that had lots of strong recommendations but not a lot happening as a consequence. That is why I thought it was also important to emphasis that on this occasion some things have happened as a consequence since the report was tabled. But there is a lot more that needs to happen.

I should also note that, when we are looking at committee reports, as this period on Thursday evenings always does, whilst it is very easy for government ministers to come in and slag off Senate committees when they do not like what they do and to cast all sorts of very inaccurate negative assertions about them, there is one aspect of the committee process which I very much agree does not work well, and that is the extremely poor speed with which governments respond to committee reports. It is not that the governments have to respond and agree to all of the recommendations—it is always good when they do—but the fact is that the pace of response from government to many reports is extremely slow. Not only does that show a lack of respect for the Senate and its procedures but, at a much more serious level, it shows a lack of respect for the community that takes the trouble to participate in inquiries such as this.

We had significant participation from a number of people from Indigenous communities that are seriously affected by the blight of petrol sniffing, and the government would be betraying those people if they did not respond more promptly to this report than they have to many others. It is a fair bet that it is now past the three-month threshold since this report was tabled, which is when the government is supposed to respond by, so I think it is also worth taking the opportunity to emphasise that the response is overdue. We would like to see it, because, as I said, all members of the committee across all parties, including government members, are very genuine in their concern about this issue. We are very genuine in our desire to see real action occur as a consequence of the report, and I would like to see the same level of genuine commitment indicated by the government and by the minister in responding to the recommendations within it.

The report takes into account and reflects views presented, most importantly, by people from Indigenous communities in particular. One area where we are not doing as well as we should be is in taking into account the views of Indigenous people about what will work and what will not work—whether it is petrol sniffing and substance abuse or other aspects affecting Indigenous peoples. This report takes into account to a fair degree a lot of the views that were expressed to us about what would work, what will not work, what the problems are, what has failed and what needs to be done from the point of view of Aboriginal people. That is another reason it is a report worth noting, another reason it is important that we continue to press for follow-through and real action as a consequence and another reason to encourage the minister to respond. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.

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