Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a conference I attended recently in Geraldton, hosted by the Geraldton Regional Aboriginal Medical Services. But before I do that I want to put the conference in context—the context the Abbott government has created, particularly the Prime Minister, who said he would be the PM for Indigenous affairs, and that he would do things differently. He said:

I want a new engagement with engagement with Aboriginal people to be one of the hallmarks of an incoming Coalition government …

Well he sure has done things differently. I want to quote from an article by Larissa Behrendt and Andrew Meehan. The article said:

To an outsider, Indigenous affairs must look like a strange, logic-free zone right now. Over the past year we've seen the threat of remote community closures in Western Australia, the whole of portfolio Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) tendering process rolled out, attempts to weaken protection from racial vilification under the Racial Discrimination Act, significant federal budget cuts to Indigenous affairs, and a number of ill-considered comments from the prime minister that caused great offence to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In the last couple of weeks we have seen protestors across Australia and, indeed, across the world, protesting against the closure of 150 homeland communities in Western Australia. But why have we not listened and learnt from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? They have been telling us for generations that their wellbeing, their future and their interests are best represented when they lead, not us. Under the Abbott government, and the Western Australian Barnett government, their interests are still being determined by white fellas and, in the case of Western Australia, there is no input, consultation nor regard for the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In April, I attended a two-day conference in Geraldton hosted by GRAMS, the Geraldton Regional Aboriginal Medical Service, an Aboriginal controlled health service. Its focus was on prison health—examining ways to ensure that Aboriginal people emerging from prison got the best possible support to try and prevent future incarceration and ensure that their health stayed on track. The conference was well attended. It was well attended by Aboriginal controlled organisations offering a range of services in the region, supporting their local communities. There were two homeland communities at the conference. Both are longstanding, thriving communities not in receipt of any government funding, and steadfast in their resolve that no government was going to move them on.

We heard shocking stories and statistics at this conference—high rates of Aboriginal incarceration, increasing rates of incarceration of Aboriginal women, and the over representation of Aboriginal young people in WA's juvenile justice centres. A 2014 report by the Inspector of Custodial Services described living conditions at Roebourne Regional Prison in Western Australia as 'intolerable and inhumane'. We met and heard from the health worker who works in Roebourne prison. She said that almost 100 per cent of the prisoners in the Roebourne jail were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The report from the inspector also said that living conditions—without air-conditioning, in a region known for its consecutive days of 40-plus degrees during the summer months—were intolerable. The overcrowding of cells—six people crammed into cells built for four—was intolerable. All of these issues have been reported since 2010, but no action has been taken by well-meaning white bureaucrats and well-meaning white government officials.

The GRAMS conference was outcomes focused, and many thanked the Abbott and Barnett governments, who have united Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in a way that they had not been able to do themselves. So they thought that that was one achievement of the Abbott government!

I thank Sandy Davies, the conference organisers, the board of GRAMS and all who attended the GRAMS conference, and I wish them well in their endeavours. The conference determined to find its own solutions to its own issues, and has resolved to form a group of people from the Geraldton area to work with communities and organisations to develop Aboriginal controlled responses to prison health.