Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

SOCIAL SECURITY AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (WELFARE PAYMENT REFORM) BILL 2007

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 is another important step in the government’s reform of the national welfare system.

Australians are rightly proud of the strong safety net provided by our income support system.

The fact is that the vast majority of people receiving welfare use this support wisely, in the interests of themselves, their partners and, very importantly, their children.

Sadly, however, this is not true of everyone.

The government believes that the right to welfare comes with obligations.

It is only reasonable to expect those who receive this support to meet some basic obligations to society in return.

Over the last decade, the Howard government has moved to tackle the scourge of passive welfare and to reinforce responsible behaviour through the establishment of our mutual obligation framework.

We have strengthened the important principle that those on welfare who can work should seek work, and asked those receiving welfare for longer periods to re-engage through work for the dole.

This bill builds on these important directions by extending the mutual obligation framework and reinforcing an appropriate balance between entitlements and responsibilities in our society.

One of the most important obligations a person can have is responsibility for the care, education and development of children.

Welfare is not for alcohol, drugs, pornography or gambling – it is for priority expenditures such as secure housing, food, education and clothing – things that are considered a child’s basic rights.

This bill outlines five welfare reform measures to promote socially responsible behaviour aimed at protecting and nurturing the children in our society and offering them the opportunities that a supportive family, a solid education and a healthy and safe environment can provide.

In developing this approach, it has become clear we are facing two very different situations in Australia.

For most of the country, the parental behaviour the government is concerned about occurs relatively infrequently and is limited to a relatively small number of families.

The behaviour of these parents is clearly against normal community standards and is a focus of child protection and other state authorities.

To address this circumstance, the government will introduce three nation-wide measures that link the receipt of income support to school attendance and enrolment, and which assist state and territory child welfare authorities in the prevention of child neglect.

Parents who fail to provide for their children will have their payments income managed, to ensure that priority needs are met and to encourage better parenting behaviours.

These measures are a step forward in Commonwealth-state relations and offer an additional tool that will be of assistance to states and territories in meeting their responsibilities for child welfare and schooling.

The second situation involves some remote Indigenous communities where normal community standards and parenting behaviours have broken down.

In these communities, there is little economic activity and welfare is by far the most common form of income.

The combination of free money (in relatively large sums), free time and ready access to drugs and alcohol has created appalling conditions for community members, particularly children.

Our emergency response in the Northern Territory, including the welfare reform and the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) program changes included in this bill, is targeted at this second context.

The bill also provides for the implementation of our recently announced Cape York Welfare Reform trial, which is based on a comprehensive plan developed in partnership with Mr Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute.

As with the national measures, income management will be applied in both cases to ensure that priority needs are met and to encourage better social and parenting behaviours.

Income management model

While there are differences in the approaches to each of the measures outlined in this bill, there are common elements to the way we will apply income management.

The bill outlines the broad framework under which the management of a person’s welfare payments is to occur.

While the government is ensuring welfare payments are spent on the priority needs of a person and his or her family, its objective is for the person to take responsibility for their own welfare and for the welfare of their family.

This bill makes it quite clear individuals will not lose any of their entitlements.

All managed income will initially be placed into an individual’s income management account, and will be for use by the relevant person only.

To ensure this, it will be special public money under section 6 of the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997.

This arrangement ensures the money is regarded as having been paid to the person, so that there is no unintended change to taxation or child support liabilities.

People will be fully aware of what funds are available to them.

Individuals will receive statements of the credits and debits to their account and of the balance of their account.

The government wants individuals to take control over their lives.

It wants individuals to work with Centrelink to identify their expenses and manage their priority needs.

This bill establishes as priority needs things such as food, clothing, housing, health, child care and development, education and training, employment and transport.

It enables a person to receive an amount of discretionary cash and there are no restrictions placed on how that amount can be spent.

However, Centrelink must ensure the remaining managed income is used to meet the current and reasonably foreseeable priority needs of the person and their family.

If Centrelink becomes aware of unmet priority needs, it must take action to address those needs.

Once Centrelink is satisfied current and reasonably foreseeable priority needs are met, it cannot unreasonably refuse a person access to their entitlements for another purpose, provided the funds will not be used to purchase excluded items – alcohol, tobacco, gambling and pornography.

The bill provides flexibility in the methods available to meet people’s priority needs.

The mechanisms include vouchers, stored value cards, the payment of expenses, payments to various accounts (including stores, debit cards and bank accounts).

The government will be working to establish appropriate mechanisms in Northern Territory communities in the short term and then more generally throughout Australia to support the national income management measures contained in this bill.

Child abuse and neglect

The abuse and neglect of children is not new and occurs in all societies, but that does not mean as a society we have to accept it.

Every child has the right to health and wellbeing and a life free from violence.

Preventing child abuse and neglect is everyone’s responsibility.

Neglect includes failure to provide adequate food, shelter, suitable clothes, medical attention or education.

The Australian government is greatly concerned about the continuing increase in the number of children being reported as neglected or abused.

The main data available on child abuse and neglect in Australia is for children who have come to the attention of child protection authorities in each state or territory¹

These figures are likely to represent only a proportion of the true prevalence of abuse and neglect.

Over the last five years, the number of child protection notifications in Australia has almost doubled from 137,938 in 2001–02 to 266,745 in 2005-06.

Some of this increase reflects changes in child protection policies and practices in different jurisdictions.

It could also reflect a better awareness of child protection concerns in the wider community and more willingness to report problems to State and Territory child protection services.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are clearly over-represented in the child protection system, being almost five times more likely to be the subject of a substantiated case than other children.

Australia wide, 29.4 out of 1,000 Indigenous children have been the victims of substantiated abuse or neglect compared to 6.5 out of 1,000 non-Indigenous children.

The rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care is over seven times the rate of other children.

¹Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child Protection, Australia, 2005-06, cat. no. CWS26, AIHW, Canberra, 2007.

We know that young children who are exposed to violence, abuse or neglect, are among the most vulnerable of children and likely to experience problems later in life.

Their developing ability to trust and enter into mature, healthy relationships is damaged.

Stressful events during the early years, such as abuse and neglect, have also been shown to adversely influence nervous system responses to stress for the rest of a child’s life.

Abuse and neglect can leave children with lasting physical damage, health issues, and developmental and emotional delays and problems.

Responsibility for child protection services rest primarily with each state and territory government.

Notwithstanding this, there is no doubt the best outcomes for children will be achieved if the Australian government and the state and territory governments work together.

The measures being introduced in this bill will provide another tool to be used by the child protection authorities in states and territories.

State and territory governments will be given the option of notifying the Commonwealth that a person be placed on income management where a child is found to be at risk of neglect.

Under income management, up to 100 per cent of a person’s welfare support payments can be set aside and directed to appropriate expenditure.

This approach will help ensure income support is used to provide shelter, food and clothing for children at risk of neglect.

Income management will remain in place for the family until the child protection authority withdraws or revokes the notice requesting income management.

We will work with each of the states and territories to establish agreements guiding the operation of this tool, with the aim of commencement from 1 July 2008.

School attendance and enrolment

There is a clear and unequivocal link between educational outcomes and other important life outcomes such as employment, income and community participation.

Education greatly increases a child’s chances of future success and helps them develop important skills and attitudes.

Helping to ensure children reach their full potential at school will also help reduce the risk of longer-term welfare dependence.

The arguments for adopting an early intervention approach in cases where children are not enrolled at or attending school are irrefutable.

Children and young people who are chronically absent or excluded from school are severely educationally disadvantaged.

Research commissioned by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum shows a correlation between school non-attendance and under-achievement at school, criminal activity, poverty, unemployment and homelessness.

Strong literacy and numeracy skills are critical foundations for school completion and longer-term success.

The importance of literacy and numeracy achievement has been highlighted in a Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (LSAY) research report that looked at the relationships between literacy and numeracy achievement in junior secondary school and a range of education, training and Labor market outcomes at age 19.

Job seekers with weak numeracy and literacy skills are also more likely to experience long-term unemployment.

More generally, poor literacy skills impact on a person’s capacity to be a productive worker in today’s workforce.

The government will tackle the social risks of poor education via two measures, which target school enrolment and school attendance.

Income management of up to 100 per cent of payments will be used as a tool to assist state and territory governments to meet their responsibilities in relation to these two areas.

In relation to school enrolment, if a parent is receiving income support, has care of a compulsory school-aged child and the child is not enrolled at a school, then both parents could be subject to income management.

If children are not enrolled at school, Centrelink will notify parents and carers that they need to take action to enrol their children and provide proof of enrolment within a specified period with a warning of the consequences of a failure to do so.

Centrelink will consider any ‘reasonable excuse’ for a failure of a parent to provide the documentation (such as events beyond the person’s control, changes in the level of care which might relate to particular children and foster care arrangements) and, where no reasonable excuse exists, a period of income management could be immediately applied.

Both parents can also be subject to income management if their child does not attend school sufficiently and there is no reasonable excuse as to why the child is not attending school.

The government is proposing a national benchmark for attendance of not more than five unexplained absences each school term.

Before parents are subject to the income management regime due to exceeding the national benchmark, parents will be given a formal warning.

Parents and carers who do the right thing – consistent with community expectations – by enrolling their children and getting them to school will not be affected by income management.

For those who do not, this measure will serve to encourage them to take more responsibility for, and be more involved in, their children’s education.

These measures will come into affect in the following phases:

• The school enrolment and attendance measure will commence as soon as possible in the Northern Territory to support the government’s emergency response.
• From the start of the 2009 school year, the school enrolment and attendance measure will be implemented nationally for parents of primary school-aged children.
• From the start of the 2010 school year, the school enrolment and attendance measure will be implemented nationally for parents of high school-aged children.

For this to occur, the support of the States and Territories and the non-government school sector is needed, to assist in providing the necessary information, and the government will be undertaking consultations to achieve this.

These measures will provide an additional support to states and territories to help them meet their responsibilities for, and our common goal of, improving the educational outcomes of Australian children.

Northern Territory

In the Northern Territory, as the recent Little children are sacred report made clear, there is a national emergency confronting the welfare of Aboriginal children.

In these cases, the provision of welfare has not had the desired outcome; it has become a trap instead of a pathway.

Normal community standards, social norms and parenting behaviours have broken down and too many are trapped in an intergenerational cycle of dependency.

The government’s emergency response aims to protect children and make communities safe in the first instance, and then to lay the basis for a sustainable future for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory.

The welfare reforms outlined in this bill will help to stem the flow of cash going toward substance abuse and gambling and ensure that funds meant to be for children’s welfare are used for that purpose.

Fifty percent of the welfare payments of all individuals in the affected communities will be income managed for an initial period of 12 months during the stabilisation phase

This broad-based approach is needed to address a break down in social norms that characterise many of our remote Northern Territory communities.

In particular, this approach is essential to minimise the practice known as ‘humbugging’ in the Northern Territory, where people are intimidated into handing over their money to others.

If certain groups, such as the young and old, are excluded from this measure, it could leave them potentially even more vulnerable.

Income management will be introduced in the Northern Territory on a progressive basis across communities as part of the Australian Government’s emergency response to the crisis confronting the welfare of Aboriginal children.

Several factors will be taken into account before commencing income management, including stability and security in the area, and opportunities for individuals to discuss the operation of income management with Centrelink, including their expenditure needs.

The availability of suitable payment mechanisms for people to buy food and groceries will also be taken into account.

With some very limited exceptions, all individual residents in a community who receive income support payments will be subject to income management at the same time.

Any individuals who move into the community will become subject to income management when they move there.

Income management will generally apply in the community for an initial period of 12 months.

The amount to be set aside for income management will be 50 per cent of income support and family tax benefit instalment payments.

Advances, lump sums and baby bonus instalments will all be subject to 100 per cent income management.

The new arrangements may follow an individual even if they move out of the prescribed community to ensure they cannot easily avoid the income management regime.

Income management will continue until the initial declaration of 12 months expires or until it is revoked.

The government’s intention is to transition communities to the national welfare reform measures over time, as communities are stabilised and normalised, so a consistent approach exists across the country.

It is important to acknowledge that this bill will not take one cent of welfare from individuals or families in these Indigenous communities, but simply limits the discretion that individuals exercise over a portion of their welfare and prevents them from using welfare in socially irresponsible ways.

It should also be noted that we have developed a comprehensive and integrated plan in the Northern Territory.

The welfare reforms just outlined are supported by the legislative reforms that will provide improvements to community stores for people living in affected communities.

This will assist in ensuring payments can be used to buy quality goods from reputable stores.

Changes to the CDEP program which will be implemented in the Northern Territory are included in this bill.

The Little Children are Sacred report found that lack of employment opportunities has had a significant negative impact on self esteem and personal relationships and created an environment of boredom and hopelessness.

While CDEP has been a major source of funding for many Northern Territory communities, it has not provided a pathway to real employment, and has become another form of welfare dependency for many people.

Instead of creating new opportunities for employment, it has become a destination in itself.

It has also in too many cases been used as a substitute for services that would otherwise be the responsibilities of governments – services that should be provided through full-paid employment.

To support the Australian government’s Northern Territory emergency response, the CDEP program in the Northern Territory will progressively be replaced with real jobs, training and mainstream employment services.

CDEP participants will be assisted to move into real jobs, to training or onto income support, through work for the dole or other appropriate benefits instead of CDEP payments.

In the coming months, the Australian government will work with CDEP providers across the Northern Territory to develop a comprehensive plan for each CDEP organisation to implement these changes.

Participants will progressively transition to the new arrangement. The transition will be completed across the Northern Territory by 30 June 2008.

These changes will support the current emergency intervention in the Northern Territory and support the improvement of services and the creation of new jobs within Northern Territory communities.

The Australian government will work with all government agencies to turn CDEP positions, which are substituting for government services, into real jobs.

In addition, an audit of job opportunities in 52 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory conducted by the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory (LGANT) identified 2,955 current real jobs, only 44 per cent of which are occupied by Aboriginal people.

Training will be provided to capture these jobs for local people.

The phasing out of CDEP participant payments will happen on a community by community basis.

To ensure that there is no financial loss for some individuals moving from CDEP to income support, existing CDEP participants in the Northern Territory may be eligible to receive a Northern Territory CDEP Transition Payment.

Centrelink will calculate the payment on an individual basis.

This payment will make up the difference between the average earnings on CDEP and the payments made under income support arrangements and will be available till 30 June 2008.

The payment will assist participants to manage any changes in income and will be capped at the maximum allowable CDEP earnings.

The payment is directed at current participants. New participants who join CDEP after 23 July 2007 will not be eligible for this transition payment.

Changes to the taxation law will allow for the Northern Territory CDEP Transition Payment to be subject to the Beneficiary Tax Rebate, as is the case with current CDEP participant payments.

Where income support payments are to be subject to income management, so will the Northern Territory CDEP Transition Payment.

Moving CDEP participants on to income support will allow a single system of income management to apply to welfare payments.

The level of funding currently provided to the Northern Territory through CDEP will not diminish under the new arrangements.

The appropriation bills also introduced in this package provide the funding required for these initiatives in 2007-08 for the stabilisation phase of the Response, and the government will be developing a longer-term approach with costs in the next budget process.

Cape York

The Australian government has committed to support and fund a proposal by the Cape York Institute to trial a new approach to welfare in four Cape York Indigenous communities: Hope Vale, Aurukun, Coen and Mossman Gorge.

This bill provides the platform for this to occur.

The government’s decision is a response to the recommendations of the report by the Institute From Hand Out to Hand Up, provided to the government on 19 June 2007.

This report contained a comprehensive plan to tackle welfare dependency in the Cape York region.

It is backed by strong on-the-ground leadership from the Cape York Institute, particularly Noel Pearson.

A major feature of the trial to be introduced in Cape York is the introduction of a set of obligations which welfare recipients would be expected to meet.

As for the other national welfare measures, these obligations include requirements that parents send their children to school and protect them from harm and neglect.

There will also be reforms to tenancy arrangements, and obligations on tenants to comply with lease conditions.

The bill provides for the recognition of a new body to be established under Queensland law.

This body will have authority in relation to the income management of welfare payments to encourage compliance with the obligations.

Subject to state legislation, the body will have the authority to obtain information from State child protection authorities, courts and schools to assist it to determine whether there has been a breach of one of the obligations.

This new body may issue a notice to Centrelink, requiring that some or all of a person’s welfare payments be subject to income management.

The body will work with families and communities to deal with issues such as drug and alcohol dependency, violence, child neglect and truancy, gambling, and poor money management.

The body will also work with the communities participating in the trial to rebuild social norms and ensure welfare money is not misused to fund alcohol, drugs or gambling.

Subject to the support of the communities and the passage of legislation by the Queensland government, it is intended that the trials will commence at the beginning of the 2008 school year and continue until the end of 2011.

The trials aim to promote engagement in the real economy, reduce passive welfare and rebuild social norms, particularly as they affect the wellbeing of children.

This initiative is an expression of the desire of people in Cape York to ensure their children grow up in a safe home, attend school and enjoy the same opportunities as any other Australian child.

The Australian government will be providing funding of $48 million for the trials.

The Australian government’s commitment includes significant funding for complementary initiatives to support the trials and assist people to meet their obligations.

In addition, the Australian government will contribute $5 million towards the cost of employing case managers who will support people referred to the Commission and provide a fund from which they will be able to purchase specialist services for families, for example, relationship or violence counselling.

The trials will provide a vehicle to assess the effectiveness of such an approach, which may offer lessons for the future and inform our approach to tackling Indigenous welfare dependency.

The Australian government will work together with the Cape York Institute and the selected communities throughout the duration of the trials.

The leaders of Cape York should be commended for their determination and commitment to improve their lives and provide a safe and prosperous future for their children.

Conclusion

These changes are designed to benefit Australia’s children.

They are practical and targeted responses to real issues within our society.

The government’s aim is to extend the principle of mutual obligation beyond participation in the workforce to a range of behaviours that address, either directly or indirectly, the welfare and development of children.

None of the measures outlined in this bill will result in a reduction in entitlements, and they will only apply to the minority of people who are behaving inappropriately.

The vast majority will remain unaffected by these changes. But a better future will be provided for those children who will now have their basic rights to things like food, shelter and an education met.

NORTHERN TERRITORY NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE BILL 2007

This bill—the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 (and the other bills introduced in the same package)—are all about the safety and wellbeing of children.

When confronted with a failed society where basic standards of law and order and behaviour have broken down and where women and children are unsafe, how should we respond? Do we respond with more of what we have done in the past? Or do we radically change direction with an intervention strategy matched to the magnitude of the problem?

Six weeks ago, the Little children are sacred report commissioned by the Northern Territory government confirmed what the Australian government had been saying. It told us in the clearest possible terms that child sexual abuse among Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory is serious, widespread and often unreported, and that there is a strong association between alcohol abuse and sexual abuse of children. 

With clear evidence that the Northern Territory government was not able to protect these children adequately, the Howard government decided that it was now time to intervene and declare an emergency situation and use the Territories Power available under the Constitution to make laws for the Northern Territory.

We are providing extra police, we will stem the flow of alcohol, drugs and pornography, assess the

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move in respect of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007, the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill and the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response and Other Measures) Bill 2007:

At the end of the motion, add

“but the Senate notes that:

(i)   police keeping every community in the Territory safe, particularly children, women and elders,

(ii)   safe houses that provide a safe place for women and children escaping family violence or abuse, built using the direction and leadership of local Indigenous women,

(iii)   night patrols that provide important protection,

(iv)   community law and justice groups that play an important role in the effective administration of justice,

(v)   appropriate background checks for all people providing services in communities who work in proximity to children,

(vi)   comprehensive coverage of child and maternal health services, essential to give children the best start,

(vii)   comprehensive coverage of parenting and early development services for Indigenous parents and their babies,

(viii)   an effective child protection system in the Northern Territory,

(ix)   all children being enrolled and attending school and governments delivering teachers, classrooms, teacher housing and support services, such as Indigenous teacher assistants,

(x)   investment in housing construction and maintenance to reduce the shortfall in Indigenous homes and infrastructure, and

(xi)   reform of the Community Development and Employment Program, including transitioning participants who are employed in public sector work into proper public sector jobs and ensuring participants are not left without sufficient income or participation opportunities”.

I rise to speak on behalf of the Labor opposition on this Northern Territory national emergency response package of bills. This amendment mirrors the second reading amendment moved in the House of Representatives by the shadow spokesperson, Jenny Macklin. All children are entitled to be safe from violence and abuse in their homes and communities. All children are entitled to an innocent childhood. That is a responsibility of not only their parents but also the whole community.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs announced details six weeks ago of the federal response to child abuse in the Northern Territory. From the start, Labor offered our in-principle bipartisan support and we were genuine in doing so. The current action initiated by the government was prompted by the release of a report entitled Little children are sacred, by Pat Anderson and Rex Wild, on the protection of Northern Territory Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. The report demands action and is the basis of Labor’s in-principle support of the government initiatives.

Of course, this was not the first report to detail abuse faced by Indigenous children. It again highlights the need to ensure that Aboriginal children can be safe in their homes and communities. The fact that action should have been taken earlier in no way diminishes the need to act now. Nor is it diminished by the recognition that child abuse occurs in all communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. As a former shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, I consistently argued that governments of all political persuasions should have done much better by Indigenous Australians. We have all failed them. We must focus on practical outcomes for Indigenous people and abandon the ideologically driven policy debate that has dominated Australian politics. We cannot tolerate a situation where Aboriginal children are the subject of violence and abuse and where Aboriginal people experience levels of entrenched disadvantage almost unknown in non-Indigenous Australia. We all have to do better.

In framing this intervention, Labor was told by the government that they would put forward practical measures, both a short-term response and long-term solutions. Our in-principle support was given in good faith, despite our cynicism about the government’s previous record. The manner in which this intervention was brought forth and some elements of the response package contribute to that concern, but Labor’s response over the past six weeks has been to apply a simple test to the proposal put forward by the government: will it improve the safety and security of our children in a practical way? Labor was presented with this legislation, in excess of 500 pages, on Monday. It is not possible for us to respond to every aspect of it or to be sure of all the detail. However, Labor has applied the test that I outlined: will it improve the safety and security of children in a practical way? We have come to the conclusion that it will, and we will support it. That is not to say that we agree with every aspect of the bills. I have moved a second reading amendment which outlines the principles Labor believes should guide the intervention. I will also be moving a limited number of amendments to the legislation during the committee stage.

The process the minister has followed has, I think, treated the parliament and parliamentarians shabbily, but that is nothing compared to the disdain and disrespect that has been shown to Indigenous people. I am pleased that the government has agreed to a one-day inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. It will not provide the level of scrutiny that such measures should enjoy, but it is better than no inquiry at all and, as I said in an earlier debate, Labor has accepted the urgency that drives such a timetable.

Input from Aboriginal people, and their ownership of measures in the communities, is essential to achieving long-term change in Aboriginal Australia. That is one thing we have learned from the various policy experiments in Australia’s history in dealing with Indigenous people. Labor believes an open dialogue with Indigenous people is critical. The first recommendation of the Anderson-Wild report noted:

It is critical that both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.

Nothing is more likely to undermine the worthy intentions of these measures than a failure to gain Indigenous support and confidence in the way forward. Clearly, yesterday was an indication that we have problems in that regard. Labor believes that we have to move forward with trust in a reciprocal partnership with Indigenous Australia.

Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, in company with a number of our members, met with Indigenous leaders from Central and Northern Australia and listened to their views. However, we accept that, while consultation is vital, it must not serve as a substitute for action. We are absolutely committed to tackling, in partnership with Indigenous people, the disadvantage which faces so many of them. Indigenous children deserve the same life chances and the same opportunities for success as every other Australian child. All Australian parents must work towards providing the opportunities for Indigenous Australians that they want for their own children.

On the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, a month or so prior to this intervention, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, outlined Labor’s commitment to Indigenous children. He outlined the need for new, national, bipartisan goals which are achievable, measurable and which fulfil the spirit of the referendum. He committed Labor to eliminating the 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation, to at least halve the rate of Indigenous infant mortality among babies within a decade, to at least halve the mortality rate of Indigenous children aged five and under within a decade, and to at least halve the difference in the rate of Indigenous students at years 3, 5 and 7 who fail to meet reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks within 10 years. These are realistic, practical and achievable objectives to which we can all commit. They were underpinned by a $260 million funding commitment, and we think we can get there.

A commitment to the rights of Indigenous Australians must ensure that those rights can be enjoyed in safety and security. There is an obligation on all governments to ensure the protection of the vulnerable. It is hard to imagine a more fundamental responsibility than the protection of children from violence and abuse. The Anderson-Wild report was right to recommend that addressing child abuse in Aboriginal communities be designated an issue of urgent national significance.

Between 2001-02 and 2005-06, there was a 78 per cent increase in the number of notifications of abuse or neglect received by the Northern Territory Department of Family and Children’s Services, with an average growth in notifications of 14 per cent per year. Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are 4.8 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be the subject of a substantiation report. But the substantiation rate for Indigenous children in the Northern Territory is the third lowest for the nation, despite a doubling of the rate to 15.2 substantiations per 1,000 children since 1999-2000.

The Anderson-Wild inquiry said that ‘sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is common, widespread and grossly under-reported’. Non-reporting of abuse is common across Australia, and the factors behind this are complex. But for reporting to take place, it is absolutely critical that there is someone to report to—and that is why we need visible and accessible policing. Child sexual abuse is a crime, and perpetrators must be punished with the full force of the law.

Labor supports the provision of additional police for the Northern Territory intervention and thanks the states who have seconded officers. However, we also need a long-term strategy to ensure that there are trained police in communities on a permanent basis, and Labor has committed to training an extra 500 AFP officers as a practical measure towards achieving that goal. The approach must also include an Indigenous recruitment strategy. Labor also supports the controls on the supply and possession of pornography in prescribed areas and measures intended to clean up publicly funded computers and employ filters to help to counter the flow of pornographic material.

Labor is strongly supportive of the measures to control the flow of alcohol into and around Aboriginal communities. Numerous reports have outlined the destructive influence of alcohol and the fact that it is a major contributing factor to family violence. Many Aboriginal communities have taken action to combat the pernicious effects of alcohol and have declared themselves dry communities, but we have to recognise that they have not received enough support from authorities for their initiatives. The measures in the legislation are necessary, particularly the targeting of grog runners, with higher penalties for offences that include intent to sell.

The link between adequate housing and child safety has also been comprehensively made. Overcrowded housing is directly linked to children’s exposure to sexualised behaviour, family violence and vulnerability to abuse. Last year, in my capacity at the time as shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, I visited the community of Wadeye, following reports of the breakdown of law and order in that town. Like any visitor, I was immediately struck and appalled by the housing conditions experienced by the people of that community. But I was particularly struck by what I was told by the doctor there, who told me that recently a child had died of rheumatic fever—a disease that has been all but eliminated in the Western world. It is a disease that I suffered from myself as a child.

When I asked him what would actually help to address the serious health concerns involving Indigenous children, I was shocked by his answer. He said, ‘Improve the housing.’ Usually, people who are working in a particular field argue for support for their own efforts. He did not ask for more doctors; he did not ask for more money for the health system; he actually asked for more housing. Not only is it at the core of sexual abuse and poverty; it is also at the core of the health problems. At the core of all the problems is the fact that if you have got 18 people living in a house, the poverty and the conditions that generates is causal to a whole range of the outcomes that we are concerned about. And that, of course, is replicated in many Indigenous communities.

The housing shortfall in the Northern Territory is well documented. Any additional resources that the Commonwealth will provide for remote housing through its changes to the Australian Remote Indigenous Accommodation Program are welcome, but we are concerned that the bulk of the additional money does not come on stream until next July. I think there is concern that the package seems to be focused on funding administrative measures rather than on the priorities.

The government’s intervention plan to reform housing arrangements by establishing market based rents for public housing with normalised tenancy requirements is welcome, provided they are accompanied by improved housing stock. Improvement of housing and infrastructure has been central to the government’s argument for the necessity for five-year leases over townships in Aboriginal communities. It has argued that taking on the responsibility as the effective town landlord is necessary to quickly improve vital infrastructure in these communities and for better housing and improved economic development.

For many years, governments on both sides of politics have failed in this regard. As a result, temporary intervention is required to repair and improve infrastructure, and the temporary leases will facilitate the building and upgrading. However, Labor remains absolutely committed to land rights for Indigenous Australians. Our commitment has been rock solid for many years, and that commitment remains unchanged. We will not accept the undermining of Indigenous ownership of or title to land.

Proposed leases are limited to five years, unless terminated sooner. Rent is guaranteed by the legislation, and just terms compensation can be independently determined by a court. At the end of a lease, title will revert to communal title and to the control of the lands trust. Importantly, any major works or commercial development that will outlive the five-year lease will have to have the consent of the relevant land council. The Commonwealth has given a commitment to invest in housing and infrastructure, although we have not yet seen a lot of the detail. The Commonwealth will retain an interest in the buildings beyond the five-year lease only where the construction or major upgrade is undertaken with the consent of the land council. I am pleased to see that a lot of these measures are much more balanced than some of the original announcements.

The land council, of course, may only consent where they are satisfied that the traditional owners as a group consent and the affected Aboriginal communities or groups have been consulted. Further, grants of other leases beyond the five years, such as under existing provisions in section 19, must follow normal consultation and consent procedures. Labor will ensure that the rights of Aboriginal people to use the land in accordance with traditional purposes, as guaranteed by section 71 of the Aboriginal land rights act, are not affected by these five-year leases. This new lease process is, of course, untested. As such, it requires careful and sensitive handling by the Commonwealth, without which it could cause concern and confusion. However, we believe that a cooperative approach could deliver significant results.

Under the legislation, the federal minister will gain new powers with regard to town camps. The powers afforded to the minister place him in a position as if he were the Northern Territory minister. I reiterate the request made by the shadow minister that the minister, Mr Brough, detail to the parliament the guidelines he will follow in dealing with town camp leases. The minister should only act where leases have been determined to have been breached after due process in accordance with natural justice, and he should ensure that the assets are reserved for affordable homes for disadvantaged Aboriginal people.

A priority for Labor is to work with community members to improve community infrastructure. For that reason we are seeking an amendment to require a review after 12 months to assess progress in establishing infrastructure and housing in both towns and town camps. As I have indicated from the outset, Labor’s test for dealing with this legislation is whether it improves the security and safety of children in a practical way. In the current form, we do not believe that all of the proposed changes to the permit system satisfy that test. The President of the Northern Territory Police Association has indicated that the permit system provides police and communities with a way of excluding from communities drug and grog runners and people who may perpetrate violence and abuse.

Labor will move to oppose the removal of the permit system on roads and common areas in towns. We believe this removal will reduce the safety of children in these communities by allowing greater access to potentially undesirable people. That said, we recognise the need to allow greater access to certain people, and we will be moving substantive amendments in that regard, including an exemption for journalists. However, we do want to see people who are coming on to land under these exemptions having passed a Northern Territory Working with Children check.

Another significant element of the legislation before us deals with welfare reform to enable income management of welfare payments in certain circumstances. We generally support those measures. I will not go into the detail because we will do that in the committee stage, but we had already announced that we would apply income management for parents referred by state or territory child protection services, and it is pleasing to see that the government has picked up that approach. We have some concerns about how the school attendance regime will function, and we will explore those in the committee stages.

Labor’s preference for welfare reform is to ensure that we encourage responsibility and reward positive behaviour. It is an argument which has been made by Noel Pearson, and one which I accept. The Cape York Institute’s policy paper released in June outlined the sort of positive approach that Labor believes should apply to the income management regime. These types of policy measures should serve to encourage individual responsibility. The move from passive welfare will only be accomplished when individuals take responsibility for their future and for their children’s future. I am concerned that there is not enough in this package to take us in that direction.

Finally, we believe that the Racial Discrimination Act is a very important piece of legislation which protects against racial discrimination by legislative, administrative or other means. Labor believes that these laws are special measures under the act. We believe the laws are designed to protect especially vulnerable Aboriginal children, to help rid Aboriginal communities of the scourge of alcohol abuse and to provide much needed infrastructure and housing improvements to remote Aboriginal communities. But the importance of this intervention also requires that the community has confidence in parliament’s belief that these are in fact special measures to the benefit of Aboriginal people. We therefore believe it is unhelpful and unnecessary that there is a blanket exemption from part II of the Racial Discrimination Act, and Labor will move amendments to remove this exemption from the bills.

It is also most important in this debate to recognise that most Indigenous people care for their children in a supportive and loving way. Only a small percentage of Indigenous men are child abusers, but all feel hurt and besmirched by the current furore. In taking strong and decisive action to tackle child abuse in communities, we must acknowledge that the conditions of drug and alcohol abuse and the breakdown of order are the consequences of poverty and hopelessness. They are not the consequences of Aboriginal culture. We must encourage and support Indigenous leaders who have for years been calling for support and resources to tackle these problems in their communities.

In closing, as I have indicated, the key test for Labor is: will this legislation improve the safety and security of our children in a practical way? Labor believes, on balance, that it will. We do not believe that the measures are perfect, but we do think they will make a start on tackling one of the great shames of Australian society. We believe that overriding all other considerations is the recognition that we all have a responsibility to ensure Indigenous children are protected from violence and abuse and that every Indigenous child gets a decent chance in life.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the ramming through the parliament this week of what are arguably the biggest changes to the nature of our social security system, combined with a major transformation of our relationship with our first peoples that effectively winds the clock back to the days when the mission bosses oversaw every aspect of their day and their lives as wards of the state, this chamber and our democratic traditions have, I believe, reached a new and historic low point. History will not look kindly on these events, nor will the international community. This government are yet again riding roughshod over our democratic institutions. They are shamelessly manipulating the very serious and distressing issue of child sexual abuse and using and abusing the Little children are sacred report, which is the latest in a long line of reports on this issue which have put forward numerous positive solutions—only to gather dust on the ministers’ shelves during a decade of inaction and funding cuts. They are using this report in an election year as an excuse to declare a crisis and ram through a series of sweeping and unrelated changes to land tenure, the permit system and the welfare system. They are making ideological changes that it has not been proven will have outcomes on the issue we care about, which is child abuse.

I would like to quote one of the authors of the Little children are sacred report, Pat Anderson. She said:

There’s not a single action that the Commonwealth has taken so far that … corresponds with a single recommendation. There is no relationship between these emergency powers and what’s in our report.

So please, let us not keep using the excuse of this report to justify what the government is doing.

These bills represent the most significant changes to the relationship between government and Indigenous peoples since the 1967 referendum. They are a deliberate and calculating move away from our efforts to build the capacity of Indigenous communities and return to complete central government control over every aspect of their lives. The amendments to the social security legislation taken together with the Welfare to Work legislation are reshaping the very basis of our welfare system, moving to a punitive and paternalistic system which is based much more on ideology than it is on any kind of evidence based policy of what we know helps people to turn their lives around, to get a job and an education and to lift themselves out of the poverty trap.

These three bills are clearly racist and discriminatory. The government explicitly seek to exempt these three bills from part II of the Racial Discrimination Act. The government also portray these measures as special measures under the act—but, if they are not, they have the get-out clause of: ‘If they do not happen to be seen as special measures under the act then we will exempt everything in these acts from the Racial Discrimination Act anyway.’ It is not enough to merely assert that the provisions of these bills should be regarded as special measures, which is the same mistake, I might add, that the ALP seem to be making in their amendments to the act. To be special measures it needs to be demonstrated that these measures will clearly benefit Aboriginal people by materially tackling the problem of child abuse, that their sole purpose is for the advancement of Aboriginal people and the tackling of child abuse, that these measures are absolutely necessary to ensure the advancement of Aboriginal people and to protect Aboriginal children, and that these discriminatory measures will cease once their purpose has been achieved and the inequality in health, housing, education and child protection has been dealt with.

I do not believe that the government can prove that these measures are special measures. I do not believe that the Australian community will believe it and I certainly do not believe that the international community will believe it. I do not believe that they can prove that these measures are for the advancement of Aboriginal people. I cannot see how taking away Aboriginal people’s rights and their control of land and expenditure and enforcing this punitive welfare reform system on them is advancing Aboriginal people in Australia. Really, what does it matter? The government have given themselves an out clause by exempting everything in the act from the Racial Discrimination Act.

There is no empirical link between the government’s proposed measures in overturning communal land tenure, scrapping the permit system and instituting a paternalistic and punitive welfare system and any real-life experience in reducing the levels of child abuse. There is not a single case study anywhere in the world where one of these measures has been shown to be even moderately effective in improving child protection or improving the plight of indigenous peoples who are suffering from systemic poverty. These three bills do nothing to implement practical and proven measures that are known to be effective in tackling child abuse. Indigenous communities have been neglected by governments for years, and this government is one of the worst offenders. This neglect has played its part in developing and maintaining the circumstances of poverty, overcrowding, lack of meaningful work and substance abuse, which are all contributors to an environment where children are not safe in the ways outlined in the Little children are sacred report. As a nation we must work to address the problems facing Indigenous communities, remote and urban, in the Northern Territory and around Australia. We must work to protect children from abuse and neglect but above all we must work to do this in ways that are proven to be effective.

The Australian Greens are strongly of the view that the government’s top-down approach is fundamentally flawed. We are critical of the Howard-Brough crisis plan, which comes after 11 years of inaction and numerous reports, and attempts to superficially tackle complex issues in an election environment. To succeed in the long term it is absolutely essential to have genuine community engagement and ownership of programs and initiatives addressing child abuse and the causes of child abuse. Community consultation is the first recommendation of the Little children are sacred report. One of the key criticisms of the approach taken by the federal government is that they have failed to consult and failed to learn from the past. We want to see a more considered and comprehensive response and an evidence based policy that builds on existing knowledge of successful programs to deliver long-term solutions that strengthen and empower communities. We would willingly be part of an effort to develop and implement such a considered comprehensive response, which is why we are frustrated that the government is rushing these measures through with no consultation, and which is why we have been working closely with Aboriginal organisations to support the plan by the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory to tackle issues of child protection and poverty and to build real opportunities for individual and community development.

There already exist clear guidelines as to what governments, state and federal, should be doing to address child abuse in Indigenous communities. In the past few years there have been a large number of reports from across the country in addition to the Little children are sacred report which outline practical and proven measures to tackle this issue. The federal government’s response ignores all of these recommendations.

We support the emergency response and development plan to protect Aboriginal children put forward by the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory on 10 July 2007, which outlines a comprehensive two-phase approach. The Australian Greens have been calling on the federal government to reconsider its current intervention strategy and enter into partnership and dialogue with Aboriginal communities to deliver a comprehensive and considered proposal. Strategies and programs to address this issue must ensure child protection through safer communities, through adequate and appropriate policing and through more resources to support safe housing, night patrols, Aboriginal community police and community based family violence programs.

Obviously we need to address the most startling health statistics facing Aboriginal communities. Healthy kids and healthy families through increased resources and infrastructure and providing primary health and wellbeing services is the way to go. Urgent investment to reduce the gap in life expectancy and the rates of chronic disease within a generation as part of a national Indigenous health strategy, with a commitment of $500 million per year, is needed urgently and has been called for for years. Significant investment in programs to reduce alcohol and other substance abuse, which includes education and demand reduction strategies as well as rehabilitation and counselling services, are needed as part of a national strategy. Housing and infrastructure are essential. Sufficient housing to reduce overcrowding and increase child health and safety are essential. It has been estimated that in Australia $2 billion to $3 billion is needed to address this issue. Genuine employment opportunities providing community based health, education and welfare services as well as housing and infrastructure maintenance and construction are required.

We need to address health, education and training with the delivery of quality education for all Aboriginal children with a focus on early childhood development and with school attendance strategies that encourage family engagement. It is estimated, for example, that $295 million is required for infrastructure, plus $79 million a year, for all Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory to attend school. We need a partnership and governance approach to the way these issues are tackled and a human rights approach to partnering with communities and developing policies and programs to deliver safer communities as well as all the other issues that I have been talking about. We need financial management education and services and support for voluntary community based financial management initiatives, such as Tangentyere council’s successful Centrepay scheme. The community has been asking for all these programs for years and it is a common-sense approach to tackling these issues. These are matters that the government is not addressing and which are vital to protecting children and ensuring viable, functional communities.

The bills that we are addressing and considering today are so complex that, unfortunately, I can only touch on some of the issues that come out of them. One of the cornerstones of the government’s approach is the compulsory acquisition of land through five-year leases. This is a blatant land grab with no direct relationship to protecting children. The government is legally and morally obliged to pay just compensation for acquiring Indigenous interests in land, yet the compensation provisions in the bills are confusing to say the least. I would hope the government is not attempting to pay anything less than just compensation, although it looks to me like it would rather be forcing Aboriginal people into courts to get what is rightfully theirs. The government has wanted control of Aboriginal land for a long time. Its agenda has been very clear with the changes last year to the Northern Territory land rights act. It is also, I believe, very annoyed that Tangentyere council has rejected its offer twice when it tried to bribe those communities with funding to give up their control of their land. The government does not like to be told no, and it did not like to be told no by Tangentyere. They won hard fought control over their land and they did not want to give it up. The government is being driven by an ideological agenda, not by an agenda of evidence based policy that shows that by taking control of that land it can deliver on addressing child abuse.

Similarly, the partial dismantling of the permit system contradicts the aims of this intervention. The police acknowledge that the permit system assists both them and the communities to enforce alcohol bans and regulates visitation to communities by outsiders. What is more, the permit system has a real economic benefit to communities, as was demonstrated in the Senate committee inquiry into Indigenous art. How will dismantling the permit system help to keep out the grog runners, the carpetbaggers and the porn or stop outsiders coming in to abuse children? The return to paternalism is summed up in the provisions relating to the management of communities and the government’s ownership of infrastructure. Again, the comprehensive way in which the government can take control of communities is extraordinary and the provisions allowing the minister to appoint observers to spy on communities are, I believe, obscene. We are also concerned that a law and order approach to banning alcohol in Aboriginal communities will prove ineffective and could increase the levels of violence and abuse, particularly if it is not backed up by comprehensive rehabilitation and counselling programs and is not part of a strategy that also tackles the problems in larger regional centres.

The prohibition on courts taking into consideration customary law in bail and sentencing is a denial of justice to Indigenous people and it imposes limits on relevant matters for the courts to consider. This is another example of the contempt this government shows not only to Indigenous people and their culture but also to our legal system. Along with the Welfare to Work legislation and the proposed income management regime, the Howard government years have seen a fundamental reordering of our welfare system away from a social rights and responsibilities model that aims to increase the capacity of those in receipt of welfare, to a punitive and disciplinary approach. There is compelling evidence that punitive approaches do not work.

The application of this scheme in the Northern Territory is blatantly racist. Not only is this scheme abhorrent to those of us who believe in the dignity of individuals but also we are concerned about how it will actually work and its unintended consequences. At the same time that the government is introducing these compulsory measures it has failed to support community schemes to voluntarily set aside welfare moneys, like Tangentyere council’s Centrepay scheme, which continues to cost the community hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate.

The social security changes for the broader community are also of deep concern to the Australian Greens. Apart from our opposition to the punitive welfare measures that strip dignity from vulnerable people, we are also concerned about the massive amount of resources that will be necessary to administer this scheme. When I asked how much this was going to cost, the government was not able to provide me with those answers yesterday. I am hoping during the debate that that will become clear, but I know, for example, that running Tangentyere’s program in Alice Springs is costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These resources would be more effectively used to address the systematic issues in our society that cause people to require welfare and to put in place a more effective child protection and welfare system.

Unfortunately, there are so many issues associated with these five bills, two of them appropriation bills, that in this short time we can address only some of them. There are many issues that come out of the comprehensive changes that are made by these bills. Because of the shortened time for the committee process, on Friday we will again only touch on those. I am hoping that we can address more of them when we debate the legislation in Committee of the Whole.

These interventions have been condemned by Aboriginal organisations around Australia and by social justice and community organisations from around Australia. The Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory have also condemned this intervention. These are the people who are living in the Northern Territory and on whom this punitive, racist and discriminatory legislation will be imposed. The civil society community have been meeting in Canberra over the last two days and they made this statement:

Everyone wants to see Australian children safe and protected but there is terrible potential for this legislation to further dispossess and disempower Indigenous Australians. It may well be saving children now only to condemn them to a future without their land, and without control over their own lives and the lives of their communities.

This statement by many community based organisations, including Aboriginal organisations, hits the nail on the head. The Greens will be opposing these bills. We believe that they will not achieve the intended outcome of addressing child abuse. They are thinly disguised, ideologically driven land grabs to take the control of land away from Aboriginal communities and to impose on Aboriginal communities punitive approaches to their issues. They are not backed up by evidence based policy. Numerous reports from 1996 on—if the government cared to read them—have proposed very strong alternative approaches. The government has cut funding to community care programs and to safe community programs.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What rubbish!

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Go and read the details. Go and talk to people on the ground, like I have. Go and talk to communities about the fear they are facing at the moment of the approach the government is taking. Communities are scared. Women are scared that their children will be taken away from them.

I will go back to the point. The first recommendation of the Little children are sacred report was community consultation. Throughout its 97 recommendations the report, which I have taken the trouble to read extensively, mentions ‘consultation’ and ‘working in partnership’. The report does not say, ‘Take away people’s land’; it says to work in partnership and consultation with Aboriginal communities to develop evidence based policy approaches. That is what is needed. Talk to the communities and learn what they have been doing, because they have been running very successful programs. But they have been running successful programs on short-term funding. They never know where the next dollar is coming from. The government has not been listening to the successful programs. They have been cutting funding and taking control away. (Time expired)

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

This is very important legislation which deals with a very important issue. For many years, Indigenous Australians have been calling for strong community and government support to assist them and work with them to overcome some of the difficulties they face, and the Democrats have been supporting them in their calls for many years. I remind the Senate of a motion that I moved and that was passed by this chamber on 30 March 2006, which supported a call for all politicians to develop a national strategy in partnership with key stakeholders to address the issue of sexual assault on children. Of course, the Democrats welcome efforts to make a start to address the issue of sexual assaults on children and some of the wider issues affecting Indigenous people in Australia, which, again, I have spoken about and the Democrats have spoken about for years, reflecting the concerns of Indigenous people themselves. But there are two key points that need to be made.

Firstly, these strategies have to be done in partnership with key stakeholders, as every person in the Senate supported back in March last year. Secondly, it has to be emphasised that the sexual assault of children, child abuse and child neglect are widespread problems in Australia. That has been recognised by the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and recognised by the Senate in motions passed by all parties. It is something that I have spoken about many times. Child abuse, including sexual assault, is a widespread problem nationally. It is, I believe, something that can be validly called a crisis. I believe that is a description that the minister himself has used. We should not use the fact that there is a particular emergency among some Aboriginal communities in the Territory as a reason to turn our minds away from that problem of child abuse in the wider community. It is very easy to look at another group and say: ‘Look at them. They have real problems. There is something wrong with them. We might help them as a way of ignoring problems in our own backyards and in our own homes.’ That is something we are still doing. The legislation before us deals with the Northern Territory predominantly and Aboriginal communities in particular, so I will focus on that, but let us not forget that child assault, child abuse and child neglect are very serious and widespread problems in the Australian community and that we need to recognise that and do more about it.

The vast majority of Aboriginal men are not child abusers. They, along with Indigenous women, do believe that little children are sacred. It should be noted that the title of the Little children are sacred report is a translation from an Aboriginal language in the Northern Territory. It was chosen by Pat Anderson and Rex Wild as the title because it was a message they continually got from Aboriginal people themselves. That was why they were making that call for help: because little children are sacred. It is absolutely crucial that we do everything we can to take the politics out of this debate. The continuing politicisation of this debate is very distressing and completely unacceptable. Frankly, I believe that to date the debate has been conducted in a way that is completely dishonest. I am not talking about the debate in this chamber thus far—although we have already had some contributions earlier this morning in relation to the cut-off motion that I think were very dishonest and, frankly, happy to use Aboriginal children as political footballs. But the wider public debate and the political debate have been grossly dishonest.

We have this totally false paradigm set up where supposedly you either completely support everything the government is doing—and support it now, without question and straightaway—or you support the paedophiles. There is no middle ground according to that paradigm, which many in the government and some of their supporters are trying to set up. I totally reject that paradigm. I am prepared to wear those continuing smears, and we heard them again from Senator Abetz this morning, that suggest that anybody who wants to even examine this legislation before us is preventing children from being protected. I will say it once more: if the government throughout this debate can point to a single measure in any of these pieces of legislation that is essential now to protect a child from harm tomorrow then we will support it now. Chop this debate off, bring that part on now and we will support it straightaway. The government has not done that. It has not at any stage identified any components of this legislation whose passage today would save a child from being harmed tomorrow. All of the measures that deal with immediate intervention for a child at immediate risk can happen, and are happening, regardless of this legislation. Police can still intervene, and are intervening. The child protection process in the Territory and elsewhere is still operational. It is certainly far from perfect—it is very much flawed—but the suggestion that holding up this legislation at all means that a child who would otherwise be protected will not be is simply not true. It is dishonest. It is a smear. It totally distorts what is too important a debate to resort to that sort of rubbish.

The legislation has many components to it. Whilst I have been and will remain critical, firstly, of the government’s attitude and process to date and, secondly, of some measures in the bill, it is simply ridiculous to say that the bills are 100 per cent bad and completely without merit. There are measures in here which, as far as I have been able to examine them to date, appear to me to be clearly beneficial. There are other measures which appear to me to be certainly without any linkage to child protection. There are other measures which appear to be retrograde and which potentially will make things worse. There are others, frankly, which we need more time to examine. From my point of view and the Democrats point of view, it appears that we will get a grossly inadequate, farcical one-day Senate committee process on Friday. We will still make efforts later on today to allow a proper process. We will use that grossly inadequate, farcical process to try to get more information to properly inform ourselves. We will use the committee stage of the debate next week in this chamber to get more information and to explore ways to make this work better.

We will make our assessment at the end of the debate. That is what we should do. That is our job. Frankly, it would be a dereliction of duty—which seems to be enthusiastically encouraged by the government—to abrogate our responsibilities and not examine this legislation, not listen to people and just bulldoze it all through without even taking the time to turn our minds to it. I am not going to do that. I was elected by the people of Queensland to do my job—that is, to properly examine what is put before us unless a clear-cut case can be made that there is a matter of absolute urgency that needs to be progressed straightaway. The government have not made that case. They have not even attempted to make that case. All they do is respond with generalised smears towards anybody who criticises them or even raises a question. It is a time-honoured tactic going back many decades, and probably many centuries, where people who simply raise questions or seek to apply some reason and common sense to what is going on get slagged off and attacked because they are not just giving 100 per cent acquiescence. It comes back to the old cliche that to reason is treason. That is the line applied to people who seek to question whatever the government does. That is the Senate’s role, and it is certainly the Democrats role. We do that not just because of our role here in the Senate but because that is our responsibility, I believe, with respect to Indigenous Australians. They are going to be the subject of all this.

We need to recognise in this debate that there is not a single Indigenous voice in this chamber. There is not a single Indigenous voice in the House of Representatives. We are here talking about what we are going to do to them, and they are not even going to have a chance to tell us what they think. That is a disgrace. Let me also make it clear that that is just one small example of a long legacy of the same thing happening. It is one part, of many, of why situations of disadvantage continue in such an entrenched way. You do not deal with the consequences of disempowerment, which is what this legislation and the wider intervention is about, by further disempowering people. There is no greater, more clear-cut way of disempowering people than just saying: ‘Shut up. Out of the way. We know what we’re doing. We’re going to do this to you. It’s for your own good.’ That is the overall take-home message of this. I heard the Prime Minister on television last night saying: ‘Look, everybody knows what’s happening because we’ve been talking about it for five weeks and this is just legislation to implement it.’ That is simply not true.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is five years that we’ve been talking about it.

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

If you have been talking about it for five years then you have not done very much, and now you want to stop us taking even two weeks to look at it properly. It is the typical, bizarre reverse logic that the government apply to everything. It is five weeks since the government announced their intervention—probably closer to six now. I was in the Territory just last week talking to as many people as I could over the course of that week. The vast majority of them do not know what is happening. There have been lots of statements made, lots of media releases, lots of comments to camera and lots of impassioned statements. That is good; it is an issue that deserves passion. But it also deserves reason and it also requires listening; and we have not had that. As the National Director of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, Gary Highland, said in a release yesterday—and nobody doubts the minister’s sincerity; the minister’s problem is not that he does not care—his problem is that he does not listen. I think that could be applied even more so to some others in the government.

This is not about the government, it is not about the opposition and it is not about the minor parties. How about we all just accept that we have all failed? We heard in Minister Abetz’s contribution earlier on today that somehow or other everything is always everybody else’s fault. The government has been in power for 11 years, but is it still everybody else’s fault—it is the Territory’s fault, the states’ fault, ATSIC’s fault, Indigenous people’s fault, the Democrats’ fault, the Greens’ fault, Labor’s fault. We should all share some responsibility for this and that is what we should be doing in working together on this in partnership. Instead, all we get is the same old cheap shots. And now we have Senator Ian Macdonald on the government benches playing that role. Forget it. I am not interested. I am interested in trying to get the best outcome for Indigenous people.

Let me quote from Noel Pearson, who wrote in the Australian on 23 June:

Howard and Brough will make a historic mistake if they are contemptuous of the role that a proper and modern articulation of Aboriginal law must play in the social reconstruction of indigenous societies.

He also stated:

Aboriginal law, properly understood, is not the problem, it is the solution.

I see part of my role and the Democrats’ role here is to do what we can to make sure that Mr Howard, Mr Brough and the government, and we here collectively in the parliament, do not make a historic mistake. We have already made plenty of them, frankly, as a nation and as a parliament. People who refuse to even endeavour to examine what we are doing here to make sure we do not make that mistake, are culpable in its perpetration.

There are a range of measures in this legislation and, as I said before, they vary in the merit that is applied. It has to be emphasised that there are measures here that are essential and important, and need to be implemented properly. But it is a package and the package should be examined properly and fully. The Democrats have extreme problems with the abolition of the permit system. We have this bizarre logic from the minister that, because the permit system is in place and child abuse exists, therefore the permit system has not stopped child abuse. It is ludicrous, bizarre—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not what he said.

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

It is totally what he said.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not what he said.

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

It is absolutely what he said. I listened to him. I have read him. I open my ears; I do not just spout rhetorical drivel like you do. He has said it repeatedly and continually. We have this bizarre linkage. Where is the linkage? Show me a single piece of evidence that says that the permit system has actually contributed to the perpetration of child abuse or that it has contributed to preventing economic development. That is all we are asking. Forget all of your politics, your ideological obsessions and your symbolism. We need to talk about practical outcomes here. We need practical outcomes, not ideological obsessions, symbolism and politics, which is what too much of this debate has been about. There has been too much of it from all sides, I might say, but particularly from the government side. They have no interest in the practical outcomes; it is all about the symbolism, the grand statements and the ideology.

Let us see some evidence. Where is the evidence that demonstrates that the permit system in any way contributes to child abuse? There are many communities in the Northern Territory, let alone communities in Western Australia and Queensland, that do not have a permit system. I have seen not a single statement that says that child abuse is worse in communities that have a permit system than those that do not. Nor is there any evidence that says that economic development in many of those communities in the Territory that do not have a permit system is somehow better than it is in those that do. Show us the evidence. Why is that so hard? I can tell you that we have some evidence to the contrary. And it is not from your bleeding hearts, the Democrats, the Greens or people whom the government like to smear so much. It is from the Northern Territory Police—people on the ground who are actually at the coalface who say the permit system assists them. Let us see some evidence to counter that.

Instead, the government are insisting that this is going to be bulldozed through and they are not going to let anybody have a say to tell us what the facts are. ‘We do not want to hear.’ That is the government’s attitude. That is just simply not good enough on an issue that everybody keeps saying is so important and so urgent. Why is it so important that you cannot even take the time to listen, look at the facts and examine what the practical consequences and the reality will be? Why do we get all the froth, bubble and smoke that floats around Parliament House continuously?

The issue of the government taking over Aboriginal land with five-year leases is something, again, about which the Democrats want to see some evidence that it will actually contribute to addressing the situation. The previous speakers have already spoken about the problem with excluding the legislation from the Racial Discrimination Act.

I also have to emphasise an even more recent and sudden decision from the government to abolish Community Development Employment Projects in the Northern Territory—and without warning. That is one of those measures where, again, we have to say, ‘It really depends on what you replace it with.’ Many people have pointed out problems with CDEP, Democrats included, but you do not solve a problem by completely abolishing something and not replacing it with something better. We need concrete details, concrete resourcing and concrete commitment. Hopefully, through the process of this debate, we will actually get a more clear-cut commitment from the government and the opposition that indicates their genuine bona fides to see this through in the long term rather than just the short-term politics that too many of them seem to be playing.

But there are other measures that, to me, seem to be beneficial. That does not mean that they cannot be improved, were the government to actually provide the Senate with the opportunity to examine them, which they seem absolutely determined to prevent us from doing. The measures to do with alcohol restrictions are important. Of course, we should not pretend that there have not already been significant alcohol restrictions in place in the Territory, but enabling those to work more effectively is important. I would nonetheless emphasise, once again, the words of Noel Pearson:

… plan to tackle grog and to provide policing is correct. However, the plan needs to be amended so that there is a concerted strategy to build indigenous social and cultural ownership …

Why won’t the government even listen to people like Noel Pearson? They are happy to listen to the parts he says that support their argument, but they do not listen to the parts he says that suggest improvements or amendments.

Another measure is the welfare component. Let me emphasise that there are significant parts of the welfare bill here that do not just deal with the Northern Territory; they deal with the entire Australian community. That is something I think most people are not aware of yet. The Democrats support the need to look at using welfare measures to assist. I have spoken a number of times in support of the intent of what is being proposed in Cape York, but what is being proposed here is not what is being proposed in Cape York. Again, to quote Noel Pearson:

… the … plan needs to be amended so responsible behaviour is encouraged. Responsible people shouldn’t just be lumped in with irresponsible people.

Yet that is what the government is doing. Every single Aboriginal person, regardless of their behaviour, in every designated Aboriginal community in the Territory will have their welfare payments quarantined. That needs to be amended—so say the Democrats, so says Noel Pearson—but the government does not want any amendment and will smear anybody who even suggests that there should be one by saying we are supporting the paedophiles. That is how pathetic the debate has been to date from the government. Let us hope it can improve its standards, because this issue is too important to get down in the gutter about. The Democrats will rise above that; we urge the government to do the same. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bundle of legislation constitutes perhaps the most important legislation that any of us in this chamber have ever been called upon to address. About six weeks ago a report entitled Little children are sacred, commissioned by the Northern Territory government, was released. It confirmed what the Australian government and, indeed, many of us have been saying for years and years and years. It told us in the clearest possible terms that child sexual abuse amongst Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory is serious, widespread and often unreported and that there is a strong association between alcohol abuse and sexual abuse of children.

We in this chamber have thought about it. I regret to say one of our former colleagues in this chamber is up on child assault charges. I am not for a moment suggesting that he is guilty—that is a matter that still has to be determined by the court—but certainly the allegation has brought that matter very clearly home to most of us in this Senate. There is clear evidence that the Northern Territory government was not able to protect Aboriginal children adequately, and it was for that reason that the Howard government decided that now is the time to stop talking and to intervene and declare an emergency situation and use the territories powers available under the Constitution to make laws for the Northern Territory.

As a result, we are providing extra police, which will stem the flood of alcohol, drugs and pornography. We will be assessing the health situation of children, engaging local people in improving living conditions and offering more employment opportunities and activities for young people. We aim to limit the amount of cash available for alcohol, drugs and gambling during the emergency period and to make a strong link between welfare payments and school attendance. We have been able to do some things immediately without legislation. The Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce has been established, led by magistrate Dr Sue Gordon, and a group of very distinguished and dedicated Australians are involved in that task force. We have begun to provide extra Federal Police and to make communities safe. The states have committed to provide police and the Australian government has agreed to cover costs.

We have started to take action, which has been lamentably absent over the past 10 to 20 years. I get angry, very angry, when I hear the likes of the previous two speakers berating the government for moving now on this issue. We are being told by the previous two speakers that we should sit down and have some more consultation, we should have a lot more talks, we should form committees, we should keep thinking about it. What we have been doing for the last 20 years is talking about it, talking about it, talking about it. At last we have a government that is going to take some action, not just keep talking about it, which is what the two previous speakers seem to be suggesting we should do.

My parents used to tell me that back in the old days—this was even before my time—Aboriginal stockmen in the Northern Territory and Northern Queensland were reputed to be amongst the best stockmen in the world. They were highly regarded, they were happily employed—not at full rates, I have to say—they were not involved in grog and pornography and gambling and they did their work and did it well. Some of the money that they were paid was taken from them by their employers, who are now berated as ‘horrible’—and every term that can be thought of by the bleeding hearts. But they used to take out some of their pay before it went to the stockmen, and that was used to feed and clothe the women and the children who lived at the stations in safety. It used to help educate the children in a very basic way.

Then we had Mr Whitlam and that Labor government that we would like to forget come in and say: ‘It is contrary to human rights that this should happen. These people can’t be paid a lesser wage’—and I understand it was not much less—‘so they will get paid the full wage.’ As a result, employment of Aboriginal stockmen over a period of time disappeared and a lot of the problems that we now see in Indigenous communities started at that time.

I am delighted to see that the Labor Party is on board on this, because I remember a few years ago the Queensland government of the time—I think then advised by a Mr Kevin Rudd—refused an application by a Cape York Aboriginal community to get state government backing for their decision to ban alcohol in their community. I will not be definitive about the name; I think it was Aurukun, but if it was not Aurukun, it was one of those up on the western side of Cape York.

The women of the community got together and decided they should ban alcohol in that community. The Queensland government of the day—which, as I said, was, I think, advised by Kevin Rudd—refused to back the local community, saying it was the right of everyone in Queensland to drink as much grog as they wanted and the Queensland government was not going to be part of a measure that might withdraw someone’s human rights. It did not matter that the kids were being belted; it did not matter that the kids were being sexually abused; it did not matter that the women were being assaulted every payday night. The Queensland government was more interested in the latte chattering classes idea that it was better to give them their human rights to have free access to alcohol than to worry about the welfare of the children.

Fortunately, the Howard government and Mal Brough have now had the intestinal fortitude to act. They are copping abuse from the likes of the previous two speakers, who have imputed to them all the improper motives, but they have had the courage and fortitude to go ahead with it. Already, 500 health checks have been conducted on Aboriginal children under 16. Not surprisingly, some cases have been referred to child protection authorities and the results of some initial tests have been referred for further testing for sexually transmitted diseases. This is an encouraging start, but Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory will never be safe and healthy without fundamental changes to the things that make communities dangerous and unhealthy places.

With no work in these communities, there is no hope of getting a job. Many Aboriginal people in these communities rely on passive welfare. Currently, there are too few jobs in the communities. Land tenure arrangements work against developing a real economy. Senator Bartlett talks about pinching their land, but that is simply a deliberate untruth.

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: I know the ex-minister is incapable of listening to other speakers, but he should not totally misrepresent me and mislead the Senate by falsely attributing to me a statement I did not make.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ian Macdonald, I understand that you said Senator Bartlett had described something as a deliberate untruth. That is unparliamentary and I would ask you to withdraw it.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have already lost two minutes of my time, so I will withdraw it so that we will not have an argument about that particular ruling. I withdraw it unreservedly—if that is what I said. I am not quite sure—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I heard you say it.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, did you? Okay. But the allegations that we were taking—

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

Senator Bartlett interjecting—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Didn’t you say it was a land grab?

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

No, it wasn’t me.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, it was not you? I apologise. I could have sworn that you said those words or words along those lines. Many people have accused the minister of involving himself in a land grab, but that is simply not the truth. Yet the likes of those who have spoken before me continue to promote that type of misconception. Obviously, access to Indigenous lands has been an issue—and Senator Bartlett, in his speech, would have you think that the system has been completely abolished. You might like to know, Senator Bartlett, that 99.8 per cent of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory will have the permit system left in place. Can I repeat that for you: 99.8 per cent of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory will have the permit system in place. But in the larger public towns and the road corridors that connect them, permits will no longer be required. Why? Because closed towns mean less public scrutiny, so the situation has been allowed to get worse and worse. Normally, where situations come to light that are terrible—things like the child abuse that is occurring in the Northern Territory—solutions are pursued relentlessly by the media. But closed towns have made it easier for abuse and dysfunction to stay hidden. Closed towns also prevent the free flow of visitors and tourists that can help to stimulate economic opportunities and job creation. We do not hear from the Democrats or the Greens any solutions on how to create jobs and economic opportunities in these communities.

The living conditions in some of these communities are just appalling. Senator Bartlett says he has been to the Northern Territory—as if that is something unusual and great that needs to be talked about. Most of us on this side of the chamber have been going to Aboriginal communities for a great number of years and we have seen some of the poor conditions. Mind you, we have seen some communities that are very well managed, but the living conditions in many of them are just appalling. We cannot allow the improvements that have to occur to the physical state of these places to be delayed by more red tape, more discussions, more committees, more meetings and people with vested interests who want to keep things as they are. This is an emergency, and I am delighted that the government has taken action.

While we are talking about visiting Indigenous communities, I heard the Leader of the Opposition in this place berating Senator Heffernan earlier. Senator Heffernan does not need me to defend him, but he is one of the senators in this place who has a deep, serious and ongoing concern for the welfare of children generally and Indigenous children in particular. I have the privilege of being on the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce, which is chaired very well by Senator Heffernan. In just the last couple of weeks we have visited Indigenous communities to see what we might be able to do in the long term—looking out 40 or 50 years—to improve opportunities in Northern Australia generally. We recognise that most of the land in Northern Australia is owned by Indigenous people and, quite clearly, Indigenous people have to be part of the solutions that we have there. On this task force there are three Indigenous leaders, all of whom are doing a fabulous job on the task force and in their communities as well.

Senator Heffernan has a deep, abiding and sometimes overwhelming interest in the welfare of young people and particularly of Indigenous young people. We have been to Mataranka and Elsie Station, where we have seen an Indigenous group considering how to create those opportunities and how to make their land available not just to Indigenous people but to non-Indigenous Australians who might need finance to have a mortgage. This Indigenous community is doing that—still held up a bit by Northern Territory laws—but we want to see ways in which we can assist them. I want to reject out of hand the diatribe from Senator Evans on Senator Heffernan’s determination to see a solution to this and many other problems that confront young people. The problems are well known to us; we have to do something about them.

When it comes to a choice between a person’s right to drink and a child’s right to be safe there should be no question about which path we take, and the government has no uncertainty as to what is right. We must dry up the lethal rivers of grog, and this series of bills will enable the government to introduce a general ban on people having, selling, transporting and drinking alcohol in prescribed areas. At the same time our measures will apply tougher penalties to people who are benefiting from supplying and selling alcohol to these communities. This bill will require people across the Northern Territory to show photographic identification, have their addresses recorded and be required to declare where the alcohol is going to be consumed if they want to buy a substantial amount of takeaway alcohol. This requirement is an impost but it is a small impost on Territorians during the emergency period and it will be their contribution to solving this long-running problem.

In addition, these bills allow for a requirement to undertake regular audits of publicly funded computers and to provide the results of those audits to the Australian Crime Commission. Failure to undertake the audits will be an offence, and the Australian Crime Commission will be able to use the results of an audit or may pass them on to a relevant law enforcement agency where investigations show a possible criminal offence of pornography or distribution of pornography exists.

These bills also provide for the Australian government to acquire five-year leases over townships on land rights act land—they are five-year leases, for Senator Bartlett’s information—and also over community living areas and certain other areas. These leases will give the government the unconditional access to land and assets required to facilitate the early repair of buildings and infrastructure. The area of land for the five-year leases is minuscule compared with the amount of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. It is less than 0.1 per cent—I will repeat that for Senator Bartlett: less than 0.1 per cent—and there are no prospects for mining in any of the locations where leases are taken. This is not a ‘land grab’ as some have tried to portray it. It is only a temporary lease, and just compensation will be paid for the period. We are not after a commercial windfall because there is none to be had. It must be stressed as well that any native title in respect of the leased land is suspended but is not extinguished, and that is very important.

The Australian government will be able to exercise the powers of the Northern Territory government to forfeit or resume certain leases known as town camps during the five-year period. The poor living conditions in these camps have made many of them places of despair and tragedy, and Alice Springs has been described as the ‘murder capital of Australia’. It is the Australian government’s policy that these camps should be treated as normal suburbs: they should have the same level of infrastructure and level of service that all other Australians expect. Second best is no longer good enough, and, with respect to the Northern Territory government, these camps have been treated as second best for a long time. The Northern Territory government have said that they are not going to resume or forfeit the town camp leases; they have again walked away from their responsibilities for Indigenous citizens of the Territory. That is why these bills provide the Australian government with the ability to do what the Northern Territory government have quite shamefully refused to do.

The bills provide for government business managers, provide new rules for bail and sentencing and provide a rather innovative approach to community stores so that providing poor quality food, which is a major contributor to poor health in Indigenous communities, can no longer occur—there are quite serious provisions about that.

In the income management welfare reform the Australian government is going to change the way welfare payments are made to people living in prescribed communities in the Northern Territory. Under the changes 50 per cent of income support payments and family assistance payments will be quarantined to ensure priority needs such as food and housing are met. The reforms will help stem the flow of cash going towards substance abuse and gambling and ensure that moneys meant for the children’s welfare are actually used for that purpose—and who could complain about that?

After 30 years of inactivity we as Australians are at last doing something concrete and positive to address a problem we have all known about but we have never had the fortitude to deal with because we have always been accused of bullyboy stuff and of land grabs. We have been accused of not consulting enough. Heavens, we have been consulting for the last 10 years and nothing has happened, and yet the Democrats and the Greens would want us to consult for another 10 years. It is time for action, and I am delighted to say these bills do that. The bills will be scrutinised by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and this chamber, and I certainly endorse them and urge their adoption.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened with great interest to Senator Ian Macdonald’s contribution to the debate and appreciate that he summarised many of the important measures that are in this suite of legislation. We all know why we are here. This is a very significant package of legislation that, for us, is a response to a decision to confront a situation that has been going on in the country for a long time. From many of the previous speakers we have heard about the litany of reports that preceded the Little children are sacred report. I do not know how many people in this chamber have read that report, but it would reduce you to tears to read it. The issue we have to confront is that we can talk about the fact that action has not been taken sooner, but that does not lessen the imperative to act now, and nor is the fact that child abuse occurs in all communities a reason for us to sit on our hands in the face of this report and the many other reports that have been presented to the parliament over the years.

Labor’s in-principle support was given six weeks ago and, as we heard then and we continue to say, it was given in good faith. We were told by the government that it would bring forward practical measures—both a short-term response and long-term solutions—that would address the cycle of abuse going on in these communities. Given the government’s track record, there were some concerns, but we gave the government the benefit of the doubt and waited to see what form these measures would take. In our response to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 and related legislation we need to remember that there has been a failure both of responsibility and of trust in relation to Indigenous communities in Australia. We also need to remember that children cannot and certainly should not be considered separately from their families and the broader communities in which they live, so long-term workable solutions for these children must involve measures to address the underlying issues affecting the situations that they are living with. Addiction, substance abuse, employment, health and housing all have to be part of the longer term solution. Without addressing these issues, any measures that we are talking about that are about keeping children safe will be piecemeal and, frankly, destined to fail. Professor Fiona Stanley said only last week:

... you can’t protect the children without supporting and involving their community.

That is the real issue that has been articulated in many of the contributions to the debate so far. This is not an issue about gabfests and long-term consultation processes. There is a lack of respect in the way in which this legislation has been brought forward; it is a disrespect of Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal families, who should be involved in the solutions that are being developed to address the issues that were raised in the Little children are sacred report.

Labor is very clear that any measures that we take now to rebuild the capacity of these communities will help them to be sustainable in the future and will provide some opportunities in the long term for these children to actively participate in Australian society. We want to make sure that these and any measures taken to protect vulnerable children are effective, and I am very concerned that the way in which this legislation has been introduced might actually prevent the measures from working as well as they could.

I have absolutely no doubt that Minister Brough’s heart is in the right place with these measures and that we share the aim of protecting these children and giving them a better future, but I am very concerned about the way that he and the Howard government have gone about addressing these issues. Minister Brough, as you know, has been an Army man. When he announced his intervention strategy on the day before we rose in June, ‘stabilise’, ‘normalise’ and ‘exit’ were his words—classic tactics that he has applied to this task. Those tactics might be appropriate on the battlefield, but this is not a battlefield; this is a protracted and complex problem that requires a comprehensive response. We are dealing with people whose emotional and cultural wellbeing is just as important as their physical wellbeing, and these are children and communities that have been let down systematically by the Australian government and by Australian society over a long period of time. These children belong to communities which, in some cases, have been profoundly broken.

Mr Brough said in his second reading speech that the aim of this legislation is ‘to build sustainable, healthy approaches in the long term’. To do this requires us to focus on building the capacity of these communities to manage their own affairs and to contribute to Australian society. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, has said that we do not just need to stop the violence from occurring; we need to ‘prevent it from re-occurring’. There needs to be greater emphasis on preventative measures. He said:

The real obstacles to ending violence are insufficient professional and support staff, resources and basic infrastructure ...

Tackling alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, drug abuse and violence against children and women in these communities requires access to services that currently are just not there. This package of legislation has to address this fundamental issue. We need to consult with those affected by these changes. We need to listen to what Indigenous people have to say and provide them with the opportunities to be involved in the decision-making processes around setting up services that are going to address the issues. We need to demonstrate greater respect for the people that this package concerns. We also need to respect the genuine concern of all Australians to see that the abuses are stopped, that education is enhanced and that our Aboriginal children are given the same opportunities as others for a rewarding and fulfilling life and a capacity to make a broader contribution to society.

The lack of detail on the government’s measures provided until the very last minute has caused genuine fear and concern in Indigenous communities, many of which understandably fail to see the connection between child sexual abuse and, for example, the removal of the permit systems. The consultation that is required involves paying attention to the research and the recommendations already available from Indigenous people.

This intervention is a missed opportunity to implement the recommendations of the Little children are sacred report. Senator Siewert was very passionate in her concern about that. The report emphasised:

It is critical that both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.

When I say this, I am really echoing what Mick Dodson and Tom Calma have said. You cannot have sustainable solutions without involving the communities. When consultation takes place, you end up with measures that work on the ground. You end up with provisions that seem to be missing from this intervention, such as language and cultural training for police officers and soldiers or consultation that enables us to take into consideration relationships between kin and country for Indigenous people—an understanding which seems to be manifestly lacking in the language of this government.

The government does not have a good record of consulting or engaging with Indigenous communities. We heard all about that in the report evaluating the COAG trials and the shared responsibility agreements that have never worked. Labor is committed to prioritising questions of Indigenous wellbeing in a much more consultative way—moving forward, as Jenny Macklin said yesterday, with trust and a reciprocal partnership with Indigenous Australians.

In relation to the social security amendments and quarantining of welfare payments that are part of this package, this legislation establishes a national income management regime applying to people on welfare payments and those whose children are deemed to be at risk of abuse or who are not enrolled in or are not attending school. It applies to all people on welfare payments in designated areas of the Northern Territory, but there is a broader application to parents on welfare across Australia. Under this income management regime, people falling within these categories are going to have part or all of their payments held in an income management account, the purpose of which will be to pay for basic needs. We understand that this is a way of making sure that welfare payments go towards those they are intended to help, towards feeding children and making sure that they are clothed and cared for so that they can get to school and be engaged and develop the skills they need. But reciprocal obligations are important and there are longstanding and deep-seated problems in the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Australia. These have to do with the long history of dispossession suffered by Indigenous Australians and what we have to acknowledge have been some haphazard and often damaging attempts by Australian governments to involve, assimilate or coerce Indigenous peoples into Australian society. One of the real issues that the Aboriginal people who came here yesterday wanted to make sure was put on the record was that this should not be about making people lose their Aboriginality and live as white people.

Whole communities are not punished in our society for what only some people have done, and yet that is really what it seems will happen under this legislation. The jury is still out as to whether this kind of welfare quarantining is effective in reducing disadvantage. That is why it is important to have a statutory review of the provisions, and we certainly need to think about the implications of this legislation for the wider Australian community.

Mutual responsibility will only work as a policy if it is actually that—mutual. Both sides need to take responsibility, and that includes government. It is incumbent upon the government to consult, to listen, to earn the trust of Indigenous communities and to make good on the promises to provide employment and economic development as well as health services, education and community safety initiatives that it has committed to in this package but which have to be delivered sustainably over the long term.

More broadly, there are significant concerns about the working of this legislation. For example, the National Welfare Rights Network has expressed its concern that Aboriginal parents in the Northern Territory will lose their right to appeal against a Centrelink decision to take over the management of their welfare payment. Their argument is that the right to appeal has always been a fundamental protection for social security recipients against what they might refer to as bureaucratic neglect and error. They are concerned that this sets a very dangerous precedent for us all and strips away protection for an entire group of Australians, based solely on where they live.

On the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, Kevin Rudd spoke about Labor’s commitment to Indigenous children. I know that several other people have referred to his speech and how significant his commitment is. He spoke about the importance of having achievable, measurable goals to address Indigenous advantage. He gave Labor’s support to the Cape York Institute model because it is inclusive, it has been thought through and it is consultative. We support the model because it shows that tough policy decisions and consultations do not have to be mutually exclusive. As a result of that 1967 referendum, we are all Australian citizens. With that comes a responsibility to be involved in the community, to vote, to work, to abide by the law and to bring up our children so that they can participate too. A measure to encourage such participation is needed, but it needs to be aimed to involve and not to punish, to include and not to ostracise. The aim of this policy should be social inclusion and helping people to participate in the community. To do that, we need to boost support services as much as we need to quarantine welfare payments. We need more early intervention programs to deal with alcohol abuse, drugs, gambling and violence. We need to be careful that this legislation is not unnecessarily punitive.

We certainly need to ensure that there are rights of appeal and rights of review. There needs to be a statutory review of both the township leases and the welfare quarantining, especially in the Northern Territory. It is our responsibility not just to make the grand gesture, the ones that make those in power look tough; we need to be there for the long term and make sure that the measures we put in place work. It is in that spirit of taking responsibility for ensuring the long-term safety of these children, and the long-term sustainability of their communities, that we ask the government to support Labor’s amendments during the committee stage.

I want to touch on the issue of the transitional payments to make up the difference between CDEP earnings and income support payments, and the phasing-out of the Community Development Employment Projects. This is useful but it is not enough. Many people have expressed serious concerns about the impact on communities that the transition from CDEP to Newstart will have within nine months, by 1 July 2008, and how quickly that process, which was to be a managed process, has now really gone out of the window.

I will give an example of how this intervention is being carried out. Organisations running CDEPs in the Northern Territory have received letters from Indigenous coordination centres amending the conditions of their funding to include a condition that they must comply and cooperate with all directions given by the government’s to-be-appointed administrator, and they have been given 20 days to sign their contract or lose their funding. These are not measures that will empower communities. They usurp, rather than strengthen, Indigenous governance structures.

Community organisations currently working under CDEP will now have to engage in a competitive tendering process for Work for the Dole programs or will have to engage in STEP. Of course, they may not be successful in winning those tenders. Another provider, perhaps one from interstate, may be successful. I refer, for example, to Mission Australia and WorkVentures, who are doing fantastic work around Australia. But if an interstate provider wins those tenders it will lead to the disempowerment of local communities to engage in developing solutions. Fundamentally, it draws moneys that would otherwise be invested in the community to support local community activities out to these organisations that do not belong in the communities.

The 2006 changes to CDEP provided incentives to move people from the program into enterprises. Firstly, we have no idea how many enterprises were successfully established and, secondly, we have no idea how many of those enterprises have actually been sustainable, even over 12 months. There is no information about how effective this measure, or any other transition to employment measure, has been. This is critical to the ongoing sustainability of these communities.

A Cape York Institute report highlighted the importance of creating an economic base for Indigenous communities, but there is little evidence in the legislation that that has been thought through very well at all. So there is little confidence that this emergency response will address the fundamental issue of economic independence. The legislation aims primarily to protect Indigenous children from abuse and neglect. We are all in agreement that the protection of children is a fundamental obligation of government, especially as we have seen in the report, and, as Jenny Macklin said yesterday, when their vulnerability has been so laid bare.

For this reason, Labor are providing our in-principle support for these measures, and we continue to support them, but we do have reservations. We need to focus not on punishing these communities but on building their capacity to take responsibility, on empowering them and not disempowering them. We welcome action on this most important question, but we want to be able to act in partnership with Indigenous people, in consultation with them. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. This time, we need to listen very carefully.

With respect to Senator Bartlett’s contribution this morning, I note that he is a passionate supporter of Indigenous communities and of addressing the disadvantage of those communities. We are all in this boat together, and we all have a responsibility to address this issue now.

Debate interrupted.