ABORIGINAL LANDS PARLIAMENTARY STANDING COMMITTEE (PRESIDING MEMBER) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:32): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee Act 2003 and to make related amendments to the Parliamentary Remuneration Act 1990. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee Act 2003 was given royal assent on 24 July 2003. The intentions of the formation of this committee and the passing of the act have been absolutely first-class and always without question by anybody in this place. It is a committee of the upper house and has membership from the upper house and lower house (Legislative Council and House of Assembly). The peculiarity of this committee, however, is that the presiding member is the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and herein lies a very serious problem with this committee.

The committee currently consists of seven members. One must be the minister, who is a member of the committee ex officio. Three must be members appointed by the House of Assembly, of whom two must be members nominated by the minister, one must be a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Assembly and three must be members appointed by the Legislative Council, of whom one must be appointed by the minister, one must be a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition and one must be a member who is neither a member of the government nor opposition or, if no such member exists, a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council.

We have had a number of members over many years from the Greens, the Democrats, the Independents in this place and, obviously, Liberal and Labor; and, can I say, without exception, it has been a multipartisan committee that has tried its very best to advance Aboriginal affairs in South Australia. We have questioned people within the Aboriginal stakeholders groups and certainly we have sought information and had witnesses from a range of areas, from federal governments, state governments and local government, and various individuals, both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal witnesses.

A lot of information has been gleaned and a lot of travel has been undertaken. This committee has quite a large budget for travel, and when you consider that the Aboriginal lands across South Australia, from Mount Gambier to Yalata, over to the West Coast, right up to Pipalyatjara and Kalka in the far north-west and across to the Riverland to the Gerard community and Point Pearce—there are so many to mention that I will not go through all of them now—but this committee has visited every community a number of times over a number of years. In most cases it has been fly in and fly out of the different remote communities, because that is the best way to ensure you have maximum time in the communities.

When you consider that the APY lands are 103,000 square kilometres, and driving from Adelaide to Pipalyatjara is further than driving from Adelaide to Sydney, you realise how far away these communities are. Flying around the place is criticised by some people—fly in, fly out: you don't see them for long—but it is impossible, unless you are able to corral members of this committee, which is very difficult when you have members from both houses and from different parties, to get them together to travel vast distances by vehicle and to spend quality time in communities is very difficult.

This committee has been a hard-working committee, a committee that has produced reports with valuable information, and we have examined a number of acts and other pieces of legislation and regulation associated with Aboriginal people in South Australia to make sure that we are advancing their welfare and enabling them to achieve their goals and ambitions.

There are about 30,000 people of Aboriginal descent in South Australia. There is a large number of people who are of Aboriginal descent. The focus in many cases is on the 2,500 people in the APY lands, but this committee has focused on Aboriginal people all over South Australia, both in the Adelaide metropolitan area and in the regions. The money that is spent on Aboriginal affairs in South Australia and on Aboriginal people through the various portfolios is quite staggering—$1.3 billion a year.

It is very disappointing for me, having been first involved with Aboriginal families in Port Augusta in the early 1970s, to go and see now in some communities that some of the conditions I saw back then have not improved significantly. We have seen some improvements. My first trip to the APY lands was with the then member for Stuart, the Hon. Graham Gunn, the member for MacKillop and the member for Schubert, and to say that I was gobsmacked when we drove through those communities is an understatement. To see citizens of South Australia living in what could only be described as fourth world conditions was absolutely atrocious. The opportunities were there to make massive changes over many years, but for some reason those opportunities have never come to fruition.

This is why the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee is such an important committee. The make-up of the committee has been hamstrung by the fact that the minister is the presiding member. You would think that having the minister as the presiding member would give it a bit of extra power, but when you find that the committee is asking the presiding member to write to the minister, in other words the minister is writing to themselves and then they write back to themselves—the time involved and the problematic arrangements in place because of this structure have not benefited the committee in any way, shape or form.

I am not in any way casting aspersions on any of the ministers who have been presiding members of this committee, but the late Terry Roberts was an outstanding presiding member: he came on every trip that I can remember in those early days, every trip. As presiding member we have had the late Terry Roberts, the current Premier, Jay Weatherill, minister Portolesi, minister Caica and the current presiding member, minister Hunter.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member will refrain from using members' surnames and Christian names.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Their ministries have changed such that they may not be recognised—

The SPEAKER: It is the convention of the house that we prevent quarrels by referring to people's ministerial title, or former ministerial title, or their electorate.

Dr McFETRIDGE: I won't do it again Mr Speaker, not in this speech anyway. The current minister and I were working on the polling booths at Glenelg Primary School on Saturday afternoon and I had a discussion with him about this amendment that I am moving here. He wholeheartedly agrees with the changes that I am putting and I understand the government has agreed to my bill.

The bill is going to slightly change the structure of the committee. I suppose the biggest change though is removing the minister as the presiding member and the presiding member will become a member from the upper house. The reason for that, as I said, is that it was a ridiculous situation where the minister was writing to himself to seek information and then writing back and it just did not work. Getting the minister to come on trips—because ministers are so very busy—has been a real issue.

The number of members on the committee will not change overall. However, the change to having a presiding member who is not the minister will mean that the presiding member will receive a 14 per cent increase on their base parliamentary salary for being a presiding member as, I understand, is the same with all other committees. As it is, all members of committees receive an extra 10 per cent (I think it is) of their base salary for being on committees, but the presiding member receives 14 per cent as it will be under my proposed legislation.

The quorum at the moment of the seven members is six. For annual reports and for other reports we do, this has been a problem because members of parliament are very busy people and it is not always possible to get six out of seven turn up. So I am reducing that to a quorum of five, particularly for the approval of the annual report, which, in many cases, has been delayed because we were unable to get a quorum to approve the annual report.

The bill itself is pretty straightforward. If there are any issues with it, I would be more than happy to discuss them with members. I understand it is being supported by the government—the government does not have any problems with it. It will not come into force until the next parliament so it will not change the arrangements now.

I look forward to any contributions from other members who have been on this committee as to what they think about the way the committee has worked and whether these changes will improve the committee as I hope they will because it is so important that this—

The Hon. L.R. Breuer: Will it still be an upper house committee?

Dr McFETRIDGE: As the member for Giles quite rightly points out, it will still be an upper house committee. They seem to have a bit more money than we do in the lower house for these committees and it is vital that the budget for this committee is being maintained.

With that, I look forward to the support of the government and my colleagues with these changes so that we can do what we all want to do, and that is advance the welfare and opportunities for our South Australian citizens of Aboriginal descent.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Sibbons.