Parliamentary Committees

Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee: APY LANDS VISIT

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (11:01): I move:

That the report of the committee, entitled 'The key issues raised during its visit to the APY lands 7 to 9 May 2019', be noted.

I rise to speak to the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee report on the recent visit we undertook to the APY lands, which is one of the broader responsibilities of this committee, which is to inquire into matters affecting the traditional owners of the lands. If you are interested, Mr Speaker, you can find that responsibility under section 6(a) of the act. I am sure you will be most interested to look into it further.

As part of this remit, the committee considers it important to travel out to the various Aboriginal-held lands and to speak with those traditional owners as well as service providers who can provide personal insight into the successes and challenges being experienced in these remote areas. Accordingly, the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee spent three days visiting various communities of the APY lands in early May.

Unfortunately, the Hon. Tammy Franks was unable to be with us, but she is a valued member of the committee. We were fortunate to have all other members of the committee in the travelling party. The Presiding Member (Hon. John Dawkins), the Hon. Kyam Maher, the members for Giles and Waite and I took great pleasure in touring around this wonderful part of our state. It was my first time visiting the APY lands, and I believe it was the member for Waite's first visit as well, and we were in for a real treat, seeing firsthand the beauty of the incredible landscape in this part of our state and experiencing the generosity of people in sharing their experiences and concerns.

We were privileged to be able to visit with quite a few communities during our three days in the lands, including Umuwa and the nearby community of Pukatja (Ernabella) on the first day, the Far West community of Pipalyatjara and the various surrounding mining sites, followed by Amata on the second day and then Mimili on the third day.

By visiting these communities, we were able to speak with people about a diverse range of issues. These issues included the recent problems with feral animals as a result of the drought conditions, mining approval processes and housing concerns, which was a big issue—potentially the biggest issue we encountered while we were out there. It is pleasing to note that the Hon. Michelle Lensink in the other place has visited the APY lands since we have been up there to address those concerns.

We also heard about health clinics, mental health services, disability services and some of the most amazing artists and art centres that Australia has to offer as well as schools and vocational education centres. I have to say that stopping at the various art centres along the way was a real treat. We got to see some really talented people at work, in the middle of their craft, and it was really pleasing. To see the opening of the art centre in Adelaide displaying some of those artworks and getting them out and available for purchase is a really wonderful thing. It helps bring new money into the APY lands and creates employment and gives people a purpose. It is wonderful to see the increased exposure those artists and their art is getting in Adelaide.

Unfortunately, the 15 minutes allotted do not enable me to go into full detail about all the concerns that were raised, but I will touch on a few that the committee heard during this trip in a bit more detail. It is impossible to unpack fully the complexity of the issues that were raised in the report; however, I would like to share some key points that provoked discussion while we were there.

Firstly, I would like to say it was an absolute pleasure to hear the traditional owners talking with pride about their communities and their culture and talking with passion about the need for more employment opportunities and more support for kids wanting to become knowledgeable Anangu elders who can represent their people on and off the lands.

Discussions with the APY Executive, traditional owners and Metals X also raised exciting future mining opportunities opening up on the lands and the resulting potential employment opportunities and infrastructure support. More work could be done in this area to make sense of what resources are available and to help smooth the approvals process. It seems that past failures have ongoing implications for the relationship of trust between those wanting to make use of the richness of resources in the area and those who fear harm to their culturally significant places.

In Pukatja, we visited a couple of houses in the process of repair by the SA Housing Authority. The SA Housing Authority has some very particular obstacles out in the lands: the distances make transporting materials expensive, the transience of community members means housing occupants are constantly shifting and mineralogy of water is destructive to the infrastructure. I was shocked to hear that an air-conditioning unit weighs four kilos upon installation and will weigh upwards of 11 kilos within a year due to becoming salt-laden from the water in the region.

Of course, overcrowding in houses remains an issue that was frequently raised by TOs and service providers. We were also able to speak with staff and Malpas, the Anangu support staff from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, staff and residents from the disability independent living facility in Amata and staff from the health clinic in Mimili. People living out in the lands have complex health needs and all these services and their staff work incredibly hard to keep up with those complex needs.

From the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service we had the profound fortune to meet with Bobbi Sawyer and Andrew Groome, who have worked on the lands for many years to understand the needs of communities and earn the respect of community members in order to support children and adolescents in some very trying and difficult circumstances. Complex trauma requires multifaceted mental health programs and safe spaces to manage the resulting problem behaviour. The problem sexual behaviour that was discussed extensively with us is so multifarious that I hesitate to oversimplify it here. More work needs to be done and more support needs to be provided to the hardworking staff of CAMHS and Anangu community members.

Another health agency showed us around their Mimili clinic and their brand-new ambulances. The recent Gayle's Law legislation has made us all aware of the difficulty these services encounter. Anangu communities have high numbers of residents with chronic diseases and limited staff to support them. The clinic is working hard to implement early intervention strategies such as vaccine programs and food and nutrition education.

They remain concerned about the safety of staff from outside the communities as well as those from within. Anangu on-call support staff are available to accompany nurses after hours, but there is currently little security for the on-call support staff when they return to their community homes. Following the implementation of Gayle's Law, staff on the ground consider this the next step in security for health workers on the lands.

It is pertinent to touch on education services. The committee had the wonderful fortune of staying in Umuwa at the Trade Training Centre where Mark Connelly runs a very tight operation and training resources are of an extremely high quality. The facility is vital to adult education for the whole of the lands and impressive to see. As the lack of employment opportunities was another issue frequently raised, the Trade Training Centre is working towards upskilling community members in order to provide more opportunity for them.

Equally impressive was the Mimili Anangu School. The staff and school leadership were very generous with their time in sharing their knowledge and experiences. We had the great privilege of sitting in on some of the classes and seeing the teachers in action. It offered a great insight into the complexity of multilingual teaching spaces. It really was a difficult thing for teachers to master, I felt, in my short time sitting in there, with so many kids at different stages of learning, just due to the sheer lack of critical mass to split classes up into more defined age groups. The teachers were dealing with a number of different kids at a number of different stages in their learning process and trying to juggle all those things and a number of distractions.

One of the wonderful initiatives we had the pleasure of witnessing was the Anangu support staff, who were in the classroom helping the teacher run the class and maintain order and offering support to kids who could not get ready access to the teacher if they were tied up elsewhere or running an errand for something else. It was really impressive to see those people. We had the great opportunity to chat to a few of them about the challenges they face in avoiding truancy and making sure people were engaged while they were at school and learning everything they should.

To me, the exposure we had to the Anangu support staff in the school and the insights they could give us into the running of each classroom was one of the stand-outs of the trip. I have to say that the teacher who accepted me into his classroom did a great job. It was quite a young class and he managed to keep them all on task. Visiting the classroom and seeing the different challenges they have going on was really a stand-out for me.

I have a friend we managed to run into while we were up there. He has been a teacher at Amata for a couple of years; he teaches sport. We ran into him while he was conducting a baseball clinic or game after school hours. Kids had just started rolling in when I showed up, so it was wonderful to see them there. He goes out of his way to provide things for kids to do after school so that they are engaged and active and have something to do.

He is also—and I want to make special mention of this—a member of the Amata Swans, who recently won into the grand final. He plays out there on some of the most beautiful ovals in the state, I would say. We had the great pleasure of visiting the Amata oval, with the wonderful backdrop of the MacDonnell Ranges. Every now and then he puts photos up on Instagram of his games and it is really a treat, with the dirt ovals and the MacDonnell Ranges in the background.

I commend him for taking an active role in playing on that team and wish him all the best in the grand final, which I believe is either upcoming or has just been. He is playing. The Premier was up there to see them win into the grand final. They won on the last kick of the day, I think. Congratulations and best of luck to the Amata Swans.

Retention of staff remains a key issue for schools up there, and we need to ensure that we continue to provide schools with the resources to attract staff and retain them going forward. The quality of teacher up there was really impressive, and it was wonderful to see them in action while we were in the classroom.

I mentioned earlier that it was my first trip up onto the lands, so I want to take an opportunity, at the very real risk of repeating myself, to explain a bit further about some of the places we visited. As I said, we visited Umuwa, the service centre, which is a relatively new town, formed in 1991, and which is where the APY Executive is based. It was formed in 1991 in order to bring governance of the lands from Alice Springs—housing, the administration and services infrastructure—there.

As I said, it is the base for the Umuwa executive. Its administration is based there, as well as a number of non-government agencies. We stayed in the trade centre, and we owe a great deal of thanks to Mark Connelly for his hospitality. He fed us and made sure we were well watered in the wonderfully comfortable accommodation; we never went hungry. He did a great job and we got to see the trade centre in action on the second or third day, as well as some kids making use of the wonderful facilities they had there.

We also had the great opportunity while in Umuwa to have a barbie dinner with the executive and some of the staff of the APY council. That was a wonderful dinner. It was very difficult to cook the steaks due to a lack of light. It got dark quickly, but we made the best of it. Some people had leather and others had ones that were still mooing, but it was good. Everyone enjoyed the dinner and it was wonderful to enjoy their company.

We then ducked out to Ernabella and visited the art centre, which I believe is under renovation at the moment. We saw some of the wonderful and talented people there. Ernabella is a place of great cultural significance to the local community and the lands surrounding it. There are about 600 or 700 people living in that community.

On the second day, we flew out to the western part of the state to Pipalyatjara, which was a wonderful experience. We did some off-road driving around the prospective mine sites to see what was on offer. It is really impressive country. It is eye-opening to get up there and see the vastness of it. You can see as far as your eyes let you, and it is a really impressive part of the state. It was an eye-opener for me, having never been up there.

We then popped into Amata, where I caught up with my mate. We saw the oval and visited the art centre and a couple of other things. We then went on to Mimili, where we saw the school in action, which was a wonderful stand-out experience. It was wonderful to see the different towns to compare and contrast, and the general stores and art centres. It was really good exposure for me.

One other issue that was brought to our attention while we were up there was the drought conditions and how they are impacting the communities. It was brought to our attention that the intrusion of camels into the community is having a significant impact. They are seeking out water, breaking things, exposing taps and that sort of stuff.

It was interesting to hear how camels are affecting the communities and the difficulties they have in herding them and selling them commercially. Camels earn them about $200 a head but, as they are large animals, you can only fit 20 or so in a truck, so the cost of transport makes it very difficult to make a commercial operation out of camel harvesting, but they are working on that. There are discussions about building an abattoir on the lands and business plans have been submitted. There are also a few other ideas, such as installing water points up north to discourage their intrusion into the communities, and a few different things like that.

Finally, as my time runs out, I would like to make special note of housing, which was the main issue raised with us while we were out there. It was pleasing to see the Hon. Michelle Lensink visit recently to hear the concerns herself.