Grievance Debate

APY LANDS INQUIRY

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:13): Today I will put some comments on the record in relation to the Mullighan inquiry. It is very important that the house and the people who read Hansard know that the opposition is very supportive of any progress that can be achieved in getting over some of the terrible conditions on the APY lands and, I should say, in the West Coast communities and other Aboriginal communities that are under a lot of stress at the moment because of the long history of dysfunctional communities, the unfortunate incidence of domestic violence and, in this particular case, the sexual abuse of children.

The Premier, in his ministerial statement, thanked the opposition for their bipartisan approach. The minister, in answer to a question, talked about the bipartisan approach that I had offered and will try to maintain. But I will say to the government that that does not mean for one minute that I will sit down and be quiet if progress is not being made.

Already I am pointing out some things that have been promised but not delivered. That is because I want these things to happen. It is not because I am being critical for the sake of it; I want these things to actually happen. It is vital that the Mullighan report be a new turning point for Aboriginal communities in South Australia. Both sides of politics are guilty, in many ways, for not having progressed the conditions of Aboriginal people in Australia generally but, particularly in our case, in South Australia.

The Premier comes in here and unfortunately rewrites history a bit. He has a long history with Aboriginal affairs. He was the minister back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and there are still some issues hanging around since then, promises that have not been fulfilled. The Premier has the money and he has the power. We just hope that he can actually progress the issues that are out there. From my 30 years of association with Aboriginal communities, those issues need to be addressed and overcome so that there is a future.

We have heard about the stolen generations; what I am looking at now is the future for many children that is being stolen, and that is something that we just cannot abide. The Premier's track record unfortunately is really not one that he can be proud of. He comes in here and says he is proud of it, but I do not think he is, because back in 1992 the then federal minister for Aboriginal affairs (Hon. Robert Tickner), when commenting on the government's response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, said in The Advertiser of 28 March 1992:

The South Australian government has claimed that $76 million spent recently on upgrading gaols and police systems was sufficient. If that's the South Australian government's response to the royal commission, it's a pretty sick joke.

That is what the then federal Labor minister said. I hope that is not going to be the case now.

We know that Aboriginal leader Lowitja O'Donoghue a few years ago was appointed as an adviser to the government on APY activities. I will not embarrass Ms O'Donoghue with some of the things she actually said at the time, because they were quite blunt, but she advised the Premier that the first commonwealth state task force that was meeting and supposedly going to produce some results was not progressing. I think what Miss O'Donoghue said at the time was very frank and was a reminder to the Rann government that things needed to happen.

Then in April 2004, Bob Collins was appointed. I will not go into what has since transpired in the life of Bob Collins, but the recommendations that Bob Collins put up then were quite worthy of consideration and should be considered still. Two that are very pertinent now concern elections on the lands. From speaking to people on the lands just in the last few weeks, there is great concern that there is a need to have elections within communities that are supervised by the State Electoral Commission not the way they are conducted currently. That is a similar recommendation to that made by Mr Collins.

In April 2004, over four years ago, Mr Collins recommended that 'additional resources for SAPOL in the Lands should be endorsed by the government and implementation of these resources commence immediately'. He noted in recommendation 8:

That the distribution of the funds provided to the APY Lands Council for health and substance abuse programs has commenced and should be expeditiously completed.

He noted in recommendation 9 that there needed to be funding for night patrols, and that is something that we need to push.

Time expired.