APY LANDS

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (15:12): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation a question about the APY lands.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON: Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara is the body corporate (the landholding and governance body) established under the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act. Its affairs are controlled by an executive body elected by residents on the APY lands.

The APY executive does not have statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of municipal services on the lands, nor is it funded to do so. However, it is anxious, as one might expect, to ensure that those services are appropriately provided. There is another body called, misleadingly, AP Services, which is based in Alice Springs and which has been contracted to provide certain services on the lands. For example, it has been required—and it is funded through recurring grants—to provide repairs and maintenance to housing. AP Services has received significant funding, but it has failed to complete its tasks. It receives very substantial moneys from Anangu, which moneys are deducted from the CDEP payments, and it receives rent for houses which actually belong to APY.

AP Services has failed to account for these moneys and rentals to the satisfaction of the Office of Aboriginal Housing or APY. Its involvement in housing repairs and maintenance ceased on 19 March this year. Notwithstanding that, AP Services has continued to receive about $6,000 a week in CDEP deductions, and it has paid out of its funds over the past 12 months approximately $100 million to non-Anangu (that is, non-indigenous) consultants.

APY has been criticised unfairly in the metropolitan media and on the ABC for failing to provide services, notwithstanding that that is not part of its function. APY has recently called upon the Auditor-General to conduct an investigation of AP Services. An Adelaide reporter, who favours AP Services, has reported that this is merely a request made by a faction of the executive board.

My questions to the minister are as follows: will the minister ensure that the desires of the APY executive are duly acknowledged and the responsibility of it, as the elected representative statutory body, is respected; and, secondly, will the government support the request of APY for an Auditor-General's investigation into the affairs of AP Services?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (15:16): I thank the honourable member for his questions, and I will refer them to the appropriate minister in another place and bring back a response.