CANBERRA - 25 October 2021
Deputy Speaker, you can't get much more offensive than the member for Bowman, but his behavior is really something else, and he keeps outdoing himself.
I'd like to thank the Shadow Minister, the Member for Barton, for her contribution and for setting out in an excellent way our concerns with the CDP, and the Member for Bowman and the Government can be assured on taking federal government, we will put in place a program that is much more effective than what is currently being done and is even being proposed.
But I just need to probably just say one other thing, which is that the Member for Bowman asked the question about where are the jobs on community.
He said, “where are the jobs on community in those remote communities?”
Someone might remind him that he's part of the Government and they have been governing Australia and responsible for Indigenous affairs and the issues pertaining to this bill for eight years.
So maybe he should ask his own colleagues where they are, and be a bit more constructive if he does think he has any good ideas.
Many people have been to remote Indigenous communities. Some are constructive, some grandstand, I would expect more of a member of Parliament. That's obvious.
Now, the seriously flawed CDP scheme has had a massively negative effect on remote Aboriginal communities and particularly here in the Northern Territory.
It has increased poverty, it has increased social harm, when it's purported that it's designed to do the opposite: to alleviate poverty.
CDP has stunted remote job creation because essentially it created a pool of thousands of people that had to work simply to get Centrelink unemployment benefits, rather than focus on building local communities and local economies.
So much of the work that they did was similar to that already been done by local governments or NGOs.
In many cases it wasn't useful work. It was just box-ticking, just killing time.
What it really was doing was killing the time of First Nations Australians.
It didn't enrich the communities, it wasn't sustainable. And unlike the CDEP program it replaced, it didn't do those things. But I’ll get to the CDEP in a little while.
We know that over the last decade, the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in remote Australia has grown, and the CDP has helped it to grow.
The Coalition Government has known for a long time about CDP’s major failures. After all, it's been five years since the Senate inquiry into the effectiveness and appropriateness of the CDP.
Again, you have to ask those opposite speaking on this bill, what have they been saying for the last four years when we knew how ineffective and inappropriate this program was?
Those opposite, members of the Government, only ended the program this year.
Now to the new Regional Engagement Program, REP; I honestly don't think it's going to do much to improve things.
So the question is, why does the Coalition not care about creating real jobs in remote First Nations communities?
The Regional Engagement Program is just another disappointing work-for-the-dole scheme, which just repeats one of the major problems of CDP, which is requiring people to work without proper pay and workplace protections.
Those opposite just refuse to admit that we already know: that so many people in the current CDP are already trained and would work in real jobs if they were available.
They’re wasting their exceptional skills and talents to produce local economic development, again, something the Coalition says they're experts in, developing economies.
After eight years, there’s nothing much to be seen, the Member for Bowman even confirmed that in his contribution earlier.
Deputy Speaker, the REP has a supplementary payment, which will benefit a small number of remote Indigenous jobseekers, only about 200 people.
However, about 40,000 of the remaining participants in remote communities will continue to struggle in poverty with no real change until at least 2024, which is three years from now.
So this failure of a Government, after not creating local economies in remote Australia, not caring to do that for eight years, having known how inappropriate their program is for five years, has put in place this legislation, which will be another three years of failure if there's not a change of government at the next federal election.
There'll be more hand-wringing, if that was the case about Closing The Gap targets being missed.
So we really need that change of federal government at this upcoming election.
A Federal Labor Government that understands these issues intimately, that cares for these communities, that will work with Aboriginal people on their communities to develop their communities, to help the local economies so the First Nations people living and working there are able to move out of poverty with that support, working in conjunction with all levels of government, and the non-government sector.
You must remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we’re talking about Federal Government Coalition that doesn't support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
They say they're listening. They say Aboriginal people should be listened to and have things done with them, not to them.
Deputy speaker, the reality is very different.
The NT Children's Commissioner Sally Sievers, and the Director of Save the Children NT/WA, Noelene Swanson, recently said that every third child in the NT is living in poverty.
So that’s on the current Federal Government's watch: eight years of neglect, five years knowing that CDP wasn't effective or appropriate, and now putting into place a name change which will essentially lead to three more years of failure if they are not replaced.
What we want, what Federal Labor wants and will deliver in government, is a program that supports First Nations people in ongoing sustainable work, which will cut dependency on welfare and strengthen First Nations communities and businesses.
And as the Shadow Minister the member for Barton said, it’s got to have Aboriginal community-controlled service providers in remote regions make it really to make it happen.
We’ve known for decades that this is the best way to achieve long-lasting success in this area: the need to include Indigenous employers who hire people on a large scale throught remote Australia.
We need to use their experience and their expertise and hard work, what they've done, what they've developed, their experience in this space.
Now, recently, the NT Government launched its new 10-year education engagement strategy.
We know too many children aren’t engaged at school with their education for lots of complex reasons.
The NT Government recognises a holistic approach supporting kids in remote communities is needed, which includes investing in better housing and health care and in early education.
It also recognizes that young First Nations people need to be taught within the framework of their own culture, in their own language.
The good way to do this, and where the new REP could do something useful, is to tap into the skills of remote communities and families, families as teachers for our remote kids.
We can also do more in the ranger programs.
Last week, I met with the Larrakia Rangers in my electorate of Solomon in Darwin, and I will in a bipartisan way commend the Government for the funding recently given to the Larrakia Rangers and the Northern Land Council through the Ranger Capability Grants Program.
We need to see a lot more Indigenous business development; we’ve got to see genuine commitment to self-determination and community-based governance and support, which will see economic growth in remote communities.
I want to acknowledge a couple of Indigenous businesses that are doing exceptional things in my electorate.
House of Darwin run by Shaun Edwards is a social enterprise, a for-profit clothing company, who design iconic shirts, hats and swimwear, and they reinvest those profits in social programs in remote NT communities.
And it's great, great work.
Another example that has come up to us from down south is the future I think of social enterprises and First Nations people working with each other with the support of Government, and they could do so much more.
Ngarrimili, an Aboriginal-led non-profit, providing support and entrepreneurial opportunities to First Nations businesses and creatives around Australia.
They want to create an enduring and sustainable economic development.
I've met with them and I'm going to assist them to connect with people locally that they can help.
There is a movement here because First Nations people are seeing that after eight long years, they can't wait for the Government to make things happen themselves.
Now, there's been a lot of broken promises from the Government, and obviously there is a lot of mistrust.
Mistrust of the Federal Government is undermining confidence in government to help these issues.
And it might suit the current Federal Government, but a Federal Labor Government will be active, will consult as we have been for so many years, because First Nations people, businesses, organizations know what's needed to get the job done.
You've got to rebuild that trust, and we will.
I want to see the Government show how it intends to work to meet Closing The Gap employment targets without a real genuine job creation program.
That’s the challenge to the speakers coming up on the Government side on this bill.
You've changed the name of the CDP, something that you've known for at least five years wasn’t fit for purpose, and wasn’t achieving the outcomes.
How will the name change really create those economies in local communities?
We know what we're going to do in government and in the Northern Territory, it's really needed.
In a place, as I said, where one in three children are living in poverty, after eight years of doing very little or not doing things with First Nations people and communities, not listening to their Statement From The Heart, it is well past time Federal Labor's plan for remote jobs is allowed to happen, and I hope it does.
Thanks, Deputy Speaker.
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