Parliamentary Committees

Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee: APY Lands Visit

Debate resumed.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (11:46): I would like to conclude this debate by offering a few thankyous on behalf of the committee. I am sure the committee will not mind me speaking on their behalf. I would like to start by thanking Shona Reid, the previous executive officer of the committee. She did a fantastic job while she was there. Unfortunately, she has moved on to greener pastures and taken up a role with Reconciliation SA, but she did a lot of the preliminary work in organising this trip to the APY lands. On behalf of the committee I thank her for her work in organising that.

Her replacement, Dr Ashley Greenwood, has picked up where Shona left off and has done an outstanding job since arriving. I would like to also offer the committee's thanks to her for the wonderful work she did in organising and chaperoning us up on the APY lands. Dr Greenwood has an amazing pedigree as a researcher. She has been able to offer some wonderful insights into Indigenous relations and things of that nature, so she has been a wonderful asset to the committee.

I would also like to offer my thanks to the member for Giles for his contribution, for hosting us in his electorate on the APY lands and for his work on the committee. Likewise, I thank the member for Waite, the Minister for Energy and Mining and the Attorney-General for their contributions. It was wonderful to hear from the Attorney about the impact of Indigenous art and pleasing to know that the art we witnessed being created while we were up went to such good use in Christchurch after the massacre.

The Minister for Energy and Mining spoke about the limitations for travel. I had an interesting chat to the fellow who worked for Housing SA while we were up there. He lives in Port Pirie and drives to work on the APY lands. He informed us about the ridiculous number of kilometres that he had racked up. He had been up there for a number of years and fulfilled his job well. He showed us around the housing problems they have, and it was wonderful to hear from him. Thank you to those members who have made a contribution.

I would like to also just quickly thank Richard King and the APY Executive for having us while we were there. They were wonderfully hospitable. As I said, we had dinner with them and heard from them directly. It was pleasing to be allowed to attend up there. We thank them for their generosity in hosting us. I would like to thank the rest of the committee as well. It is a wonderful committee, as the member for Waite said. It is a bipartisan committee, and it really has been pleasing for me to be on it. I am really enjoying the learning curve that comes with it.

It is a valuable committee for me to be on, as the Point Pearce community in my own electorate is tied quite strongly to this committee. The learning I am doing has been wonderfully beneficial both from a statewide perspective and for me representing the local constituency of Narungga, the wonderfully named Narungga constituency. Thank you to the rest of the committee. I have named them already and I will do so one more time: the members for Giles and Waite as well as the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Hon. Kyam Maher and the Presiding Member, the Hon. John Dawkins. Thank you very much.

I want to take one more opportunity to stress the point that has been made by each member who spoke. The artwork up there that we had the great privilege of visiting was truly world class. It was wonderful to see the increased exposure it is getting. Bringing new money onto the lands is a great benefit to the people there, creating opportunities and some growth. It is wonderful to see. It was pleasing to drop in to a number of different art centres and see the artwork being created and the wonderful work that is underway there.

I will take one more opportunity as well to promote the grand final coming up in the football league up there. As I said, I will be supporting the Amata Swans and my mate Mitch Vanson, who will hopefully get a few kicks while he is up there. It was really an eye-opener to see the wonderful red dirt ovals and how different they are from the ovals we play on back in the Narungga electorate, but there was one watered oval that we flew over.

The member for Giles might remember what community that was in, because I cannot, but it was fascinating to see it from the air, and the difference that green oval made to the rest of the landscape was really stark. It was good to see it from the plane. There was the one watered oval and then the famous photo of the oval under the shadow of Uluru.

As I have said, the school, and the retention of teachers, was perhaps the stand-out experience for me. The schooling was wonderful, and we have in the gallery today some wonderful teachers from the schools in Narungga accompanied by their prefects. It is pleasing to welcome school leaders from Narungga into the gallery today to witness parliament and I look forward to taking them on a tour at the conclusion of this speech.

As I have said, getting up to the APY lands was a great experience for me, and I hope to do it again. It is pleasing to see that the Minister for Human Services, the Hon. Michelle Lensink, has been up there to hear firsthand about perhaps the biggest issue, being housing, and that the Premier was also there recently to watch the footy, amongst other things, I am sure. With that, I commend the report to the house.

Motion carried.