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

I rise today to speak on the SIHIP program—the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program in Indigenous communities.

I would love to be able to report on some moves forward in this area but, clearly, that has not been the case. I would also like to touch on some infrastructure issues, particularly those at a community about 280 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs: Irrultja. About 150 people live there, and many of them actually live in what we generally call humpies. The circumstances are that up to 30 people, including young children, live in three separate humpy camps.

In late 2007 a power generator was supplied, and local residents expected that the power would be connected. Instead, the power was connected to something you could find in a caravan park. Basically there was a power box, and you were expected to go and find some sort of an extension cord and plug that in. The residents have to get a power card, and the closest place is, I think, at the community store in Ampilatwatja. It is about 60 kilometres away. They can buy their power cords and their power cards there and ensure that they move these to the humpies.

We are a little incredulous when this is seen to be the only part of the SIHIP program where infrastructure remains. I know there was some dodging and weaving and that we took the infrastructure part out. I think that was to pay for the additional costs that were provided in the budget and that the infrastructure stuff would be worked out later. I do not think that the people from Irrultja would see that they have been involved substantially and in a positive way with that infrastructure.

We have a wet season coming on and you can imagine the Indigenous community. They still cook on fires. The ground will be very wet. It is very dusty, particularly in the first parts of the rain which we are expecting, although it is a little late, I have to say, in some of those areas. But we are hoping for rain shortly. There is the risk of potential injury from cables running along the ground, particularly for people who have installed these very recently. Every Australian bloke has a shed and we are all handymen, but I do not think the people in that community would have had much experience in handling power cords in wet weather or in taking normal precautions. That is very sad and I think it is a real indictment on the way we are running out the assistance in this area. We will be watching that space very carefully. I know that the minister pays very careful attention to almost everything I say, so if she is listening or has a report from her organisation it is an issue that needs to be dealt with and dealt with swiftly. I bring that to her attention.

On 9 September this year Minister Macklin made the following announcement:

Work in Groote Island and on the Tiwi Islands has also commenced. In fact, there’ve have been major refurbishments of houses already handed back on Groote Island and work has commenced on the new houses on Groote Island as well, so there’s certainly work underway.

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there has been consultation with people and that there have now been refurbishments completed on Tiwi Island and handed back to the residents.

A fortnight later we checked and went around to all of the houses on the Tiwi Islands and got a bit of an update. On 24 September, just 14 days later, in Nyuyu there were 13 houses listed for demolition; eight had been removed and levelled but no construction had been done; eight were waiting to be demolished; and eight had been fenced off in preparation for refurbishment, so there were effectively 21 houses that had previously had people living in them that were now earmarked and quarantined, quite sensibly, for construction and demolition. We are not sure where the residents of those 21 houses are living, but one would assume it would put more pressure on the joint.

Indigenous Business Australia had started building three display homes, and I have to commend them because I understand that these are well underway. The decision by IBA to build these houses happened well after the decision for the SIHIP houses to be built and yet they are going to be completed well before that. I know the locals are holding bets about how long it will take the termites to eat pine houses on the Tiwis but I am quite sure that IBA have got that right.

At Perlilimpi three houses are being refurbished, one completed and being used as temporary accommodation for those families whose houses are earmarked for refurbishment. At Milikapeti two houses have been refurbished with families scheduled to move in on 29 November. Two others are being refurbished. In an update from Nyuyu, on 19 November 18 blocks had been cleared, several of which had blocks in the ground—they are those little posts—but construction had not yet begun; 10 houses were being renovated; and four houses were almost completed under the HOIL program which is not part of SIHIP. I understand, sadly, that the contractors’ houses have not yet been constructed and we are looking down the barrel again at the beginning of the wet season.

Nowhere in the Tiwi Islands has there been a sense that houses and refurbishments are being completed or that they are all being handed over. I know 19 November was a few days ago, and I am not suggesting any mischief in the minister’s announcement, but there certainly seems to be some confusion. I am suggesting, though, that everything that is associated with the SIHIP program just seems to take forever. The Tiwi Islands were one of the first places where we resolved the issue of consultation and assured that the leasing arrangements would take place. In fact, it was so long ago that I can vaguely remember that we were in government at the time. I can remember being with Mal Brough on the Tiwi Islands whilst we made those contractual arrangements. They said, ‘Fine. These are the things we want you to do. Here’s where we want the houses to go.’ It is two years later. The anniversary is coming up very shortly, so it is probably well more than that, and still not a single new house has been constructed and we are finally nearing the end of some of the reconstructions.

This is pretty much the performance across the board. It is completely substandard and our first Australians deserve a great deal more. One of the great performances of the SIHIP program has been the government’s capacity to roll out announcements. Announcements are fantastic and these guys are absolutely terrific at it. They make announcements about amounts of money that are absolutely mind boggling: $673 million will be spent on the SIHIP program on Indigenous housing. That is terrific. But the great tragedy is that you cannot shelter from the rain under a promise or an announcement, because as of today there is still not a single new house that has been built under the SIHIP program—not one single house. I think that it is a great shame. Those in government need to be commended, particularly for their signage. Let me tell you, if you are in the business of producing plaques as part of the Julia Gillard memorial hall process then you are in a good business. SIHIP is very good about plaques and signs, too. In fact I was in Tennant Creek just the other day and I was very excited as I drove in. You cannot get into Tennant Creek without being accosted by a great big sign that says ‘SIHIP renovations; Construction underway.’

I went around Tennant Creek. It was a little difficult but I did see there were a couple of construction sites but the notion that any of the new houses were being built was a false one. Some of the houses were being repainted and renovated. I do not want to diminish the importance of renovations in houses, but the signs are vertical and it is very difficult to get the rain off your head. There are a lot of the SIHIP signs around the Northern Territory and perhaps if we had put them the other way they would provide a lot more shelter than their policy has delivered thus far.

Very sadly—and I have shared some of this experience with the chamber in the past—I was in Ampilatwatja some time ago, and the circumstances there were just unbelievable, with raw sewage running through the houses. The community felt so bad about this that they decided to protest. They had spoken to the government business manager—that is, the minister’s direct representative in the community—but they told me nothing had happened. The place they told me about this was on a hill not far away from Ampilatwatja. It is called the Old Soak, which was the first place they were gathered together and convinced to live in the community. I said, ‘What are you all doing here?’ They said: ‘We’re waiting for someone to come. Didn’t you hear it in the media?’ I said: ‘Yeah, I did. I heard you say in the media that there was raw sewage, and I have had a look at it. I would have thought by now it’d be fixed. It’s nearly three weeks later.’ They said: ‘No. We’re glad you’ve come to talk to us.’ I said, ‘I’m from the opposition, but sit down and we’ll have a chat,’ and I basically undertook to ensure that the minister understood.

Next morning I rang the minister, and she took my call. I said: ‘These are just unbelievable circumstances. Can we ensure that we actually get something done and that someone can come and see these people?’ Whilst I do not want to comment on the minister’s response, it is useful that she took my call and I am sure that she was very diligent in ensuring something was done. But the feedback from the community remains the same. It is no-one’s fault that septic systems overflow, but if you design a house with four bedrooms for four, five or eight people, you cannot stick 22 bums on the same toilet and expect the septic to survive. The way they survive now is that they basically drive a septic pump. It overflows all the time because it is simply not big enough, and so the story goes on.

The fundamentals of dealing with the issues that face our First Australians, whether in education or health, all come down to one of the basic principles of life: shelter. It is very hard to go to school and listen if you have chronic ear, nose and throat infections, which is something that characterises young Indigenous Territorians. They have those infections because the shower invariably does not work. People say, ‘Clean your ears, young fella, and make sure you do this,’ but that is very difficult to do in those circumstances. If you have 22 people living in a house who are up at different times and in different cycles of life, it is pretty hard to get a good night’s sleep so you are attentive at school the next day. If you have not got shelter your life expectancy is at risk even if you have things to eat, as anybody in the bush will tell you. It is no different in the context of many of these Indigenous communities.

Again I come back to the absolute fundamental of the announcement. It was a great announcement, and I think it was a good announcement principally because it was part of the intervention announcement that I made standing on the other side of the chamber whilst we were in government. The intervention is a process I supported and it is very sad that the tougher lines of the intervention have fallen away. There were carrot and stick measures, and we put a lot of draconian rules on Indigenous communities which quite rightly they resisted—I would have. But they were supposed to be there in the context of something else arriving at the same time: no more grog in communities and tougher rules about people trafficking substances of abuse into the communities and about disruption in the communities. We said: ‘We’ll take away your capacity to buy groceries in the way you want to. Your welfare isn’t disposable income. You can’t buy pornography, cigarettes or alcohol.’

Things were restricted, and you cannot argue with the fact that the intervention was an impost on people’s lives. But there was a balance, in that we would also provide masses of housing, infrastructure and health care that would offset that pain. They were things that needed to be done, so of course they are annoyed when I go into communities. They look at me like I am some sort of pariah because I was part of that nasty intervention. Since the government have been in power they have only delivered the easy things, the punitive things. The difficult thing to deliver was the housing. That was difficult but it was very important. There is $673 million and not a single house has been built. This is not rocket science. It needs a slightly lower or different set of vocational skills—it is just building a house.

I can assure anyone who is listening that plenty of houses have been built in the Territory in that time. All sorts of different houses have been built, many of them independently in Indigenous communities. My message to the government is this: if you have embraced the notion of the intervention, particularly those areas of infrastructure that are so vitally important to the health and future of Indigenous Territorians and to closing the gap, what you have to do is act. It is very easy to go and make statements, put signs up, put media releases out and make promises. But the fundamental message that I am getting from Indigenous communities not only across the Northern Territory but also as I travel around Australia as the Chair of the Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities is simple. You cannot shelter under a promise. You cannot have a shower under a media release. What we need is action rather than words.