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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-30 Daily Xml
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ABORIGINAL CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITION

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:21): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker; never were truer words said. I want to first acknowledge the member for Florey, who is a hardworking member in this place and certainly one of the very strong supporters of Aboriginal affairs and reconciliation in this place. I had the pleasure of accompanying the member for Florey and other members to the APY lands last week, but I will talk about that in a few moments.

What I do want to recognise is the fact that this week is Reconciliation Week. On Monday, we heard the announcement by the Premier of proposed changes to the constitution to recognise Aboriginal people. It is good to see that people such as Shirley Peisley, the Hon. John von Doussa, Professor Peter Buckskin, Robyn Layton QC and Ms Khatija Thomas have been appointed to the advisory panel to look at implementing constitutional changes. They will be recommended to this place in a few months' time, I understand.

Reconciliation Week started for me on Monday morning. I was out of the state until Sunday afternoon. It started with a breakfast, where the Premier made his announcement, and there were a lot people supporting reconciliation there. On Friday, the member for Kavel and I will be going to the Aboriginal veterans memorial service at the North Terrace War Memorial, and we will be remembering Aboriginal veterans who I do not think in the past have been given the due they well and truly deserve.

Aboriginal affairs in this state has received a lot of notice in the last few days particularly, with issues of abuse on the APY lands, with the comments of Mr Gleeson, the Coordinator General, in The Advertiser about sexual abuse in the APY lands. The former minister for Aboriginal affairs (the current Minister for Child Protection) got up in this place and said in this parliament yesterday, when referring to the Mullighan inquiry, that the inquiry uncovered evidence of abuse on the lands and made 46 recommendations and that 'we have accepted 45 out of the 46 of the recommendations' and that they have implemented 26 out of 45.

I want to know which recommendations the government has not accepted and whether they have fully implemented those 26 out of the 45 and what is happening to the other 19: have they been discarded, are they going to be acted on, and are they going to fully implement them? We need to know more than the fact that significant progress is being made, because it is now years since the inquiry was first initiated. It has been going on far too long. As members in this place who are members of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee saw first-hand last week, the needs of the people on the APY lands need to be addressed and need to be addressed now. They cannot continue to wait.

Last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the members of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee went to Watarru, Pipalyatjara and Amata. We overnighted at Uluru, which is commonly known as Ayers Rock Resort, and I will mention in a few moments why we did that because there was a real purpose to that. It was not just a fly-in fly-out off the lands.

Watarru has been a community in crisis, and it is a community that is now making some significant progress. The store is closed, the transaction centre is still closed, but the school is working well, though. There were, I think, 25 kids at the school the day we went there. The problems have been in the past, where Aboriginal families do move around the communities. They go across to Western Australia for significant ceremonies, sorry business and other business. So, it has been a problem of one day you might have five people in the community, another day 35 and, if there is a funeral, we might have 1,500, as happened in Fregon, with Mr Peter's funeral not long ago. But Watarru is making progress. I was very disappointed to see the lack of progress with the market garden. The enthusiasm and the drive is palpable over there amongst the kids, the teachers and members of the community but, unfortunately, it is not working out as well as we would all hope.

At Pipalyatjara we visited a number of areas in the community there. We spoke to the community council and we saw some of the great things that are happening. Pipalyatjara for those who do not know is right in the far north-west corner of South Australia. To drive from Adelaide to Pipalyatjara is further than driving from Adelaide to Sydney. It is very remote. Flying in and flying out and spending more time in the communities is how we do it.

At the Ayers Rock Resort, Uluru, we had briefings from Mr Manfred Pieper, the current manager. It is owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation, which is employing Anangu, Aboriginal people, off the APY lands. Total employment in the resort is about 700. Within a few years they hope to have at least half those employees coming off the APY lands. It is a real opportunity for the people on the APY lands, and we look forward to seeing what progress is being made there.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): The mouth from the south, the member for Mawson.

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