Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I wanted to draw the Senate's attention to the Torres Strait Regional Authority Report and the corrigendum, as a way of drawing attention to the Torres Strait itself. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia that visited the Torres Strait in April. Amongst the others who were there were the chair, of course, Mr Warren Entsch, and Queensland senators Ian Macdonald and Joe Ludwig, as well as other members of the joint committee from other states.

I was very honoured during my visit there to receive a gift from the Torres Strait Regional Authority. I have tried very hard during my time as a senator to draw the Senate's attention, both as a Queensland senator and as an Australian senator, to the existence of the Torres Strait. I have been trying to make the point for many years that Australia does not stop at Cape York; although that is the end of the mainland, Australia continues for another 140 kilometres, with our most northerly island, Boigu, being only six kilometres from the Papua New Guinean coast and within easy sight and boat reach of the Papuan coast.

During our committee's inquiry the Torres Strait Regional Authority made some very strong points about the unique position that they inhabit within Australia as our most northern frontier. It is certainly a frontier that has, in certain ways, as Minister Scott Morrison in a subsequent visit pointed out, some porosity for Australia and for our border. But in the Torres Strait they face many problems, not the least of which is being our most northerly and most open border—with the issues relating to health, to biosecurity and to crime—as a way, perhaps, to enter Australia, and the Torres Strait Islanders I believe have done an extraordinarily good job of occupying that position. The other point that they make is that they occupy a part of Australia that is very expensive to live in, very expensive to visit and very expensive to get around. During evidence we heard that it can cost over $300 for a flight from one of the islands to the main island of Thursday Island, for medical treatment, for example. So it can be over $600 simply to visit the doctor—which is not something, of course, that very many of us, even in rural and remote Australia, experience. Also, the cost of fuel there is at least twice what it is in other parts of Australia.

I also want to add that this was my last visit as a senator to the Torres Strait, but will by no means be my last visit to the Torres Strait. I will continue to support the area.

In my time as a senator I have established three scholarships for Queensland women for educational purposes, and one of those is the Morey Scholarship, named after my great-grandfather who had pearling luggers in the Torres Strait before World War II. According to family history, he was quite pleased when these were commandeered during World War II because the pearling industry was in decline! But the most recent winner of the Morey Scholarship is a young woman who was born on Horn Island and is now undertaking a Batchelor of Education with JCU in Cairns. Her name is Katijah Keenan, and she is intending to return to the Torres Strait after she has finished her degree. Quite coincidentally, we have discovered, since speaking to her, that Katijah's grandfather, a Mr TJ Farquhar, was a pearler in the Torres Strait at the same time as my great-grandfather, Frederick Morey. So I hope that this will provoke both of us to put some more time into looking at our history in a very worthwhile part of Australia.

Question agreed to.