HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-16 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

APY Lands, Governance

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): Supplementary: you referred to previous reports and you say the Forrest report is the most significant that has occurred. Could the Premier perhaps reflect on the recommendations of the O'Donoghue Costello report which talked about a completely different governance structure for the APY lands, and why the government rejected that very clear recommendation?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:24): Because we didn't agree with it and it wasn't persuasive. What I am saying to the house is that back in those days the critical issue there was grappling very first with the complete scorched-earth situation that we found ourselves in, in coming to government. When we came into government, I remind those opposite, and the leader was not in the house, his former Aboriginal affairs minister didn't even permit the Aboriginal lands standing committee to go and visit the APY lands. We had no sworn officers on the APY lands, we had no TAFE, we had no child protection workers going anywhere near the APY lands.

The communities there were not only in deep distress, they did not have any government service response, even the basic responses of law and order were not present. Now we have put in those basic building blocks. We have rebuilt communities, schools have been rebuilt, housing has been rebuilt, police stations are on the lands, sworn officers are now on the lands, but that is not enough. It is not enough to have basic services; you also need to have a persuasive vision for those young people and their future.

I am the first to admit that there have been extraordinary failures in the APY lands and that is why I am prepared to give almost anything a go, and that is why the Forrest report is something that we are trying to take a positive stance in relation to. It was discussed at COAG and there isn't an enormous appetite by the person who sought the report, the Prime Minister. We have the Prime Minister and everybody else around the nation walking away from it at a rate of knots, but we are determined to at least take the central messages of that report and try to work together with both sides of politics.

There is plenty of blame in what happens in the APY lands to share around across governments, federal and state, Liberal and Labor, about what we both have not been able to achieve for these communities, and we are trying to find a better solution and we are looking forward to working with everybody in this house to find that solution.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT