HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-12-03 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Bills

Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (17:13): I also rise to make a contribution to this bill. I hold a very strong principle and I have great reluctance to force actions upon an elected group. For me, it comes from working in local government for 27 years and seeing committed people who provide options to the community and who make decisions, hopefully after being provided with the best information to make the often hard decisions.

I am concerned, and have a great moral worry, when legislation is put before the parliament in such a way, where such little notice is provided and little opportunity is given for an informed level of debate to occur. It concerns me when the Leader of the Opposition puts on the record that in his emergency meetings last week no reason was given to him for the legislation. That is disgraceful, I believe. A level of confidence has to exist for an explanation to be provided and there has to be the ability then for that information to be provided to others so that we can make an informed decision.

From the opposition's perspective there was a lengthy debate in the party room about this, about what to do with it. Some members held some grave concerns about the fact that we would consider it in both houses on consecutive days without the opportunity to consult widely or for the serious debate to be held or for the opportunity to ensure that what is put in place is appropriate for the community. I put those concerns on the record and I think others have done so.

I have taken the opportunity to read the Legislative Council debate on this matter, not word for word but I have looked through it. I note it was before the chamber for nearly six hours, deducting the mealtime that was taken as part of that. There were a lot of different opinions put. There were questions raised. The questioning at clause 1 was quite detailed and information was provided. Concerns were raised about financial transactions and the need for this to occur. I have also taken note of the minister's second reading contribution where he stated:

A strong administration is necessary if the APY is to operate as an institution that is effective and accountable to the communities they represent. The APY Act has served as a beacon in Australia for Aboriginal people and their hard-fought struggle to regain land rights and cultural independence.

The APY governing body, the APY Executive Board, is elected to make decisions for and on behalf of the APY. It must represent APY community interests at all times. However, the APY has been through a period of significant instability in the past few years. Since 2010, there have been seven different general managers.

As a person who has previously acted in an administrative role and understands sometimes the quite spirited debate that occurs between an elected body and those who manage it, that concerns me when there has been such a turnover:

This period has shown that difficulties can arise in APY governance that are of a more systemic nature and may not fit clearly within the limited grounds for a ministerial intervention currently provided for in the APY Act.

The Leader of the Opposition in his contribution spoke quite extensively about the fact that he has a very strong belief that within the current act there is the opportunity for action to be taken. I am disappointed in what I read in the upper house contribution that, while an action was decided last week for legislation to be introduced and debated and passed at the government's direction, it was only some short period of 10 days before that where an understanding was given that an action was not going to be taken by the minister. So something has changed, but the minister has not been in a position to provide the opposition with the details of why that occurred.

I was further disappointed to read that as part of a response given by the minister in question time yesterday when he was asked about when he has visited the lands most recently. It was 14 months ago. While he provided details on a series of meetings that had occurred since that, they were not on the lands. Minister Hunter certainly has some questions to answer about what he has been doing.

Parliament is called upon to make hard decisions and that is where the debate should occur in this place. We are here to govern on behalf of 1.6 million people and control a budget of $16 billion and there are often hard decisions that have to be made. It relies upon a level of integrity that has to be there at all times.

I deliberately came into the chamber to listen to the contribution of the member for Morphett. I trust his advice that he provides to me on Indigenous issues. I do so on the basis of the long-term commitment the member for Morphett has had and the number of people who he talks to and, on this occasion, the amount of evidence that he was able to put on the Hansard about concerns that have been raised with him. Do I support any accusation being made of misappropriation of funds? Never. Am I worried about that? Do I want to ensure that there is a process put in place that protects that from occurring? Absolutely, and that is the only reason why, without giving any level of comment about the accuracy of these accusations that have been made and the comments that have been made (if they are true or not), I believe an investigation has to occur.

The questions asked at clause 1 last night were quite detailed and the minister provided some explanations from letters and the like. There were questions raised about dollars and actions, but it just brought back to me the seriousness of this. It might be a bill short in words, but the significance of its intention is important.

I am a person who believes very strongly in a strong administration, so I immediately picked up on the fact that there have been seven general managers. There might be reasons for that, and I have not asked questions or sought a reason from those who might be informed about it, but the time available to us to do that is too tight anyway. That is why I have to trust in the words of others. However, I can give some comparisons with the Point Pearce community, which is in the Goyder electorate. It is not a comparison, or an accusation of poor financial management, but some of my experiences lead to a desire to ensure we make the right decisions.

Point Pearce is a great little town, and I have been there many years. I have only lived back on Yorke Peninsula for 15 years having grown up there, but in that 15 years (or thereabouts) I am aware of the Point Pearce community going through liquidation twice. When I talk about that, it is more than dollars to me because I have seen the impact that financial management issues and financial struggles have had upon that community. There has been a reduction in available services as a result of that and the dilemma attached to try to put in place good management principles that comes with liquidation is the only reason I have decided to be supportive of this bill.

That occurred in the past, and the community has tried very hard to work through that. I do not know the background of one of those issues, but I know that once when it happened I was working in the locality, trying to be supportive, and because of the commitments I made to that community from the local government perspective, I was invited to be part of a selection panel when it came to appoint the next executive officer of the community to help assist with the management of Point Pearce. I felt privileged by doing that, but it is because of that and because of my concerns for what poor management will do that I support the fact that an investigation has to occur.

The member for Morphett will probably be criticised for some of the comments he has made today. He has done so on the basis of information provided to him from contacts he has had for many years. This is not a short-term commitment he has had to the Indigenous people of South Australia but a long-term one, and I commend him for what he has put on the record. I understand this will be a complicated issue for many people to debate and there will be a lot of criticism levelled at the minister for his performance. It is very unfortunate that we are put in the situation of having to consider legislation so quickly, but with hand on my heart, when I am told by many others who are much better informed than I that there is a need for this legislation to be supported to ensure that the right actions take place, the right decisions are made, and the right future is provided for the community, I feel we have to support it.

I recognise that there have been amendments to the original bill as a result of debate in the other house, and I hope that this bill is supported soon and that the necessary action takes place. While it is difficult in the short term, the benefit to the people of the APY lands is in the long term, and that is what we are here to support.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (17:23): I would like to take this opportunity to put on the record a few thoughts I have about this particular matter. On the face of it, this is a very small bill but it has significant ramifications, and as other members have pointed out, it has been brought before the house and before the parliament in some significant haste. That concerns me in the first instance, and I have not heard a lot of the contributions by my colleagues, but I have just been listening to the comments by the member for Goyder and he also raised this issue.

Legislation which is brought before the parliament in such haste usually indicates that some glaring fault has been ongoing for some time, and I think the timing of it—at the end of the parliamentary session—also points out that there is a glaring fault which points to a lack of proper administration by the minister. Obviously, the minister is encountering significant problems with regard to administration on the lands. I accept that, but I think the minister and the government have to accept a significant portion of the blame.

There have been many things pointed out that I am aware of. The member for Goyder just pointed out the number of executive officers that have held that position in the short space of the past four years. That should have sent alarm bells ringing a long time ago. What on earth has been going on? I suspect that the number of people who have held that office in that relatively short space of time should have indicated to everybody who had an interest in the matter that there were problems afoot.

I am aware that there is a strong necessity to make change. I am not too sure that the parliament is doing the right thing, but we have had the debate on this side of the house and have indicated that we will support this matter. I am not too sure that is what we should be doing at this stage, given the haste that it has been put to us, because I think there are other forces which maybe should be allowed to be played out.

I had the privilege of being the shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs for a relatively short period a few years ago and I gained an understanding of some of the issues in the portfolio, but one of the things that has disturbed me time and time again is that members of this government—and the Premier is probably foremost amongst these members—have come into this place and have tried to claim the high moral ground with regard to the management of Aboriginal affairs in this state.

One of the things the Premier is always very keen to talk about—and he said it again within the last month or two—is what this government and the Labor Party have done for the people on the lands. One of the things he points to is police officers residing on the lands, and he makes the claim in a way that indicates that, prior to this government being in power in South Australia, there was no police presence in that part or the state. The reality is that the only change that has been made is that the police officers are actually now resident on the lands, whereas they used to reside next door to the lands at Marla. That is the sort of political nonsense that we have grown to expect from this government.

The real issues are what is happening to the people on the lands, and more importantly, what is not happening for the people on the lands. There has been an abject failure of this government to make any real difference to the lifestyles, expectations and outcomes for the people who are living on the lands. The government has failed miserably. We have had ministers go up there and take a team of news cameras with them, get some footage of some new initiative like growing a vegetable garden, and come back. After being filmed, the minister did not have time to sit down and talk with the local people.

Ms Redmond: No, had to get back to the kids.

Mr WILLIAMS: She had to get back to her kids here in Adelaide—that was one of the previous ministers. It has been an abject failure. It has been some years since I have been on the lands, but I can tell the house that I was horrified the last time I was up there. From talking to some of my colleagues and other people who have been there more recently, I do not think things have improved very much in recent years.

I know that there are problems, and I am not suggesting that there are easy solutions. I fully acknowledge that the solutions are incredibly difficult, but they are not made any easier by people like the Premier coming into this place and playing base politics with these issues.

For that reason alone, I have some reservations about supporting this measure because I think it plays into the hands of those base politics being played by the Premier and this government. It is not just this Premier: it is this government. The Premier was a minister for this portfolio area for a considerable length of time, and he has to accept a fair bit of the blame for the failure of what has occurred on the lands during the whole tenure of this government.

I do not think anybody from the government would be in a position to stand up and claim credit for anything because they have overseen a pretty amazing failure. Just on the bill itself, one of the concerns I have is in clause 4 of the bill, which provides:

(1) The Minister may, for any reason he or she thinks fit, by notice in the Gazette, suspend the Executive Board for a period specified in the notice or until further notice in the Gazette.

I question why we will be using the word 'suspend'. My personal feeling is that it would be a lot better if the word 'dismiss' were utilised there. If there are grounds to suspend the board, I would argue that there are grounds to dismiss the board and go back to the drawing board and start again. That is just one of what I consider to be the flaws in the bill itself, and that is why I lament the haste with which it is going through. I do not know that the parliament is going to give significant attention to the minutiae of this bill, and I would much prefer, if we are going to go down this path, that the word 'dismiss' were utilised instead of the word 'suspend'.

I fully concur with the other significant part of the bill. It is unfortunate that it has not been something that has been available to the ICAC ever since its existence. I concur with that and let the house know, in concluding, that I will be reluctantly supporting this measure.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (17:32): I rise today to make a contribution to this debate. I have been listening with great interest over the last couple of days—yesterday afternoon and evening in the Legislative Council and again here today in the House of Assembly—and they have all been extraordinary contributions, in fact, on this issue which is so important. It is so important that we get the management of these lands right so that we ensure the ongoing capacity and capability long term for these lands to survive and also offer opportunity and hope for the generations still to come.

I mentioned way back in May 2010 my interest in Aboriginal affairs in my maiden speech as the representative of the electorate of Flinders. We are home to a number of Indigenous communities which have indeed contributed to the rich history and culture of our region and right across the state, particularly those communities in traditional Aboriginal lands but also in the regional centres of Port Lincoln and Ceduna.

Aboriginal affairs policy directly affects many people in Flinders. I am actually quoting from my maiden speech here, and it still remains pertinent and of great interest to me. I said back then:

Aboriginal affairs policy directly affects many people in Flinders, so I do commend the work of the many members in this place who have had a positive impact on developing policies that improves the lives of Indigenous people [across my electorate and indeed] across the state.

Of course, in this bill we are talking about the APY lands in the far north-west of our state—not in my electorate but in the electorate of Giles. I said in 2010:

…there is still much to be done. Access to health services, education and increased life expectancy are all areas that can be improved. It is my hope that the spirit of bipartisanship on Aboriginal affairs policy will continue over the life of this government—

and for the time that I am in this place—

for the betterment of Aboriginal communities in Flinders and indeed [right] across South Australia.

Those were words I put onto Hansard back in May 2010 in my maiden speech.

Mr Williams interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: It may be repetitive, but there is a reason for that, member for MacKillop—because in fact nothing has changed. After years and years of this government's neglect, nothing has changed in the way of management in the APY lands or in fact right across many of the Aboriginal communities in South Australia.

We do rise to support this bill. We have had reservations, and you have heard many of them today from the members on this side. A big part of those reservations come from the haste with which the bill was introduced; in fact, we have had just this week to deal with it. We first saw it in our party room on Monday just gone. We had to discuss it. It was a long debate in our party room, and I do not mind putting that on the record. It was a difficult debate, but ultimately we decided to support it because the reality is that something has to change.

Something has to change in the APY lands. There have been stories for years coming out of the APY lands about the conditions and, more recently, about the administration up there. I understand that the government finally recognised that something needed to be done. I think it is probably a sledgehammer approach, but there you go. When you neglect something for long enough, you actually have to come in with a knee-jerk reaction.

I have not had the opportunity to visit the APY lands, and I am disappointed to have to say that, but I do look forward to having the opportunity to visit sometime in the near future, hopefully still as an MP. It is one part of the state I have not been able to visit. I have friends and colleagues who have had the opportunity to visit, and in fact some of them have mentioned those visits today. I have friends in the workforce who have done some contract work in the APY lands, and I have to say that for the most part it has been a pretty good opportunity for them as contractors to take work in the APY lands. It is always well rewarded, and it tends to be a continuous work environment for them, but some of the stories they come back with about the conditions and also the administration of the place are quite extraordinary. These are the reasons this bill is before us.

I think accountability is a big issue, particularly when government money is involved. The member for Morphett can correct me on this, but I think he mentioned before that up to $200 million of government funding goes into the APY lands each and every year. It is an extraordinary amount of money—$200 million for some 3,000 people. They are probably the most well-supported (financially at least) people in the state—maybe the nation, I do not know. But, of course, where you have government funding you need accountability, transparency, and checks and balances in place. Taxpayers expect that and the parliament expects that.

I spoke earlier about the rushed nature of this bill. It is so rushed, in fact, that the legislation does not appear even today on the government's own legislative website. The consideration of this has been rather hasty, and often when legislation has to be considered quickly there are unintended and unforeseen consequences resulting from legislation that has not been thought through or properly debated. I know there was a long debate in the Legislative Council last night, and an amendment was put introducing a sunset clause. We would be supportive of that, as it is a fair and reasonable amendment to the bill.

I would like to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on his contribution today. He has been passionate about these issues for a long time—and he indicated that he has been involved with Reconciliation SA for some years now—as is the member for Morphett, who was our lead speaker on the bill. They are both passionate about these issues and really want to see the best outcome for the people in the APY lands and right across the state.

I acknowledge the contributions of all involved in this bill. Obviously, we are going to have to complete it either today or tomorrow and pass it so that we can move on from this. I think the real opportunity now is to make the APY lands a better place. That should be the primary goal. It has to be a better place than it is. It has to give opportunities for future generations and it has to give the opportunity for people to have a worthwhile lifestyle. We have to give people the opportunity to contribute to their own communities, and I do not know that we have always seen that in Aboriginal communities. There tends to be a certain amount of dysfunction.

Just in the past few weeks, and months even, the government has been active in the Far West Coast of South Australia, and that has been looking to address the delivery of government services. I acknowledge the effort that the government is making there. I mentioned earlier that this needs to always be a bipartisan effort. I think it is the only way to achieve results. For a long time right across Australia many governments have thrown much money at the Aboriginal communities, often with very little to show for it, very little change. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet for some of these social issues. If there was, we would have found it already. We have not been able to do that, but try we must. As I said, we need to turn what is quite an extraordinary situation, quite an extraordinary place, into a functioning community with opportunity and promise for those who live there.

Ms REDMOND (Heysen) (17:41): I am in some ways pleased to be rising to speak on this bill today. The house would be aware that I have had a long-standing interest in Aboriginal affairs, as has the leader. Indeed, the member for Morphett even went to university to learn Pitjantjatjara language. We have a number of people on this side of the house who have a profound interest in these matters.

I visited the electorate of Stuart with the member for Stuart, and I know that when he goes about his electorate he always makes a point of going to Aboriginal communities so that he can engage with them as their representative, just as much as he engages with the rest. That is not to say that I think there is any less genuine interest on the other side of the house. I believe that you yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, have had a longstanding interest, as have the member for Ashford and a number of other members. Indeed, I think generally both sides of this house and the other place, and indeed most of the parliaments throughout Australia, are genuinely intended, as is the general community, to closing the gap, to fixing a lot of the problems that we have seen over many years. What is bewildering is that, try as we might, things have simply not got any better over a long period of time.

I do not know how many members of this house have actually been to the APY lands. I have not been up for a couple of years. Members would be aware—well, some of the newer members might not be aware, but some of the more longer serving members would be—that before I came into this place I actually acted for an Aboriginal tribe, the Mirning people, and they were out on the Far West Coast. So, I have travelled up into areas to the north of the dog fence and gone into the APY lands sort of via the back door, as well as up in through the front door. Indeed, there have been many occasions where I have been camped out on various parts of the Far West Coast as the only white person with my Aboriginal tribe. I have certainly had some adventures and a lot of fun with them, but I have also become very aware through that of the level of deprivation in their lives when it comes to so many things that we take for granted.

As I said, I think the general public actually want to see an improvement. They want to see things better. Most of them have not, of course, been to the APY lands, and I think it is quite shocking to go there. When people go there and see the utter squalor in which people are living, it is bewildering to the point of just being unable to comprehend that this is Australia, and South Australia, in the 21st century. To see people living like that is just incomprehensible, and more so when you know that millions and millions of dollars are spent in those lands year upon year by various levels of government, yet there is no noticeable improvement.

I have heard figures of everything from $20 million to $200 million a year that is put in from various levels of government. We have some 3,000 to 3,500 thousand people up there. They should be living in McMansions and having a better lifestyle than anyone else in the state, given that amount of money; and therein, I think, lies the very heart of the question that is before us with this bill.

The bill seeks to do a couple of things, and I will deal with the easiest one first, and that is the right of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption and his officers, his investigators and so on, to go into the lands without having to get a permit. It seems to me that that is essential. At the heart of the reasoning behind this bill is potentially an issue of vast corruption. Where are all those millions of dollars going year upon year if they are not being siphoned off in some way? Clearly, the entitlements of the people on the lands are just not being met, yet all that money is going in. It is going somewhere, it is going into someone's pocket, so I think there is a real question of corruption.

If we kept in place the requirement for the commissioner against corruption to have to get a permit to go on and signal the intention to arrive, that then destroys the ability of that commissioner to actually get at the heart of the matter. As I said, I have been up there, although I have not been up there for a couple of years, and must go up again, and I have spoken to people there from all walks of life; I have spoken to teachers. Indeed, on the last trip there the member for Morphett was with me and we stayed at the Mimili schoolteacher's house on the first night. The next morning we went out on the trek to collect the children from the homelands to bring them into school. So, we all piled onto the bus and we went for a 1½ hour journey up through the various homelands to collect the children, and we got back to school with not one child on board that bus, not one kid at school coming in from the homelands.

I also spoke to a wonderful young man who was doing year 12 at another one of the schools (I think Umuwa), and he was a lovely young guy. He had been at a private school down here on the scholarship provided by the school (I think it might have been Rostrevor, but I cannot be absolutely sure), and he had gone home to do year 12. He was very grateful for the scholarship, and that was a great thing. The problem was, like any child, he missed home, he missed his family, so he went home to do year 12.

The principal of the school told me that she was giving this young lad $50 out of her own pocket every week, and the $50 was to provide him with $5 a day to feed himself during the day and $25 to get him over the weekend. She had been to his home, and inside the fridge at home there was nothing—a lump of camel meat was it, nothing else. You cannot blame him or his family for his situation, but how does anyone get through year 12 when that is your circumstance? But he missed home and he wanted to be at home.

There are huge difficulties up there. I spoke to people in the art communities and, again, there are some fabulous things happening, but the communities themselves are struggling. A couple of years ago a friend of mine called Peter Sutton came into the parliament one evening to talk to any members of parliament who were interested. He has written a book called the Politics of Suffering, and the essential thesis of his book is that, in fact, albeit a more paternalistic way of managing things, our Indigenous communities were physically better off under the old system with more maternal and paternal management of their affairs than they have been under their self-management, which I think has gone so bitterly wrong.

As I was saying, the first part of this bill (it is not worded as the first part, but the first part I will deal with) is the fact that the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption and his investigators and people working on his behalf need to be able to go into those lands and they need to be authorised to get there without having to go through a process that would alert those who may have something to hide, and that is entirely proper and as it should be.

The more problematic part of the bill, the key part of the bill, seeks to give the minister an unfettered discretion to simply dismiss the board. It says:

The Minister may, for any reason he or she thinks fit—

I point out that it should simply be 'he' because, in grammar, the male form embraces the female form, but never mind:

The Minister may, for any reason he or she thinks fit, by notice in the Gazette, suspend the Executive Board for a period specified in the notice or until further notice…

That is what I would have to say is an unfettered discretion. It does not even say that it has to be reasonably based. There is no test to be applied. It is a completely unfettered discretion by the minister.

This is being presented to us—and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, pointed out to me as I went scrounging for a copy of the bill—on the second-last day of the sitting of this parliament, which is about to be prorogued, and we are told that we need to put this through before parliament finishes. I think if we looked at the act in detail as it exists, that is, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act 1981, there are various provisions in that act which the minister could have used over a period of time to take action if he felt things were not being managed in an appropriate way. Instead of that, the minister has consistently failed to do so and the consequence is that here, at the eleventh hour, we are being presented with a bill which has had scant time for consideration and we are being told it must be passed before the end of this sitting.

The minister can then dismiss the board. Anyone who reads The Australian, or keeps up with these things at all, would be aware that there have been significant issues—and I will not detail them—raised about the way in which the APY act has been managed and where the money has gone, and so on, and there have been advances given. Mr Bernard Singer, of course, has been named in a number of issues and members of his family have been getting advances on money and money has been applied to things that it is not necessarily meant for. Indeed, I think there have been something like seven managers of the APY lands over the last few years in circumstances where I am sure each and every one of them came in fully intending and expecting to be able to bring some common sense and appropriate management to this issue.

Instead of that, they have found that there is increasing pressure and, I suspect, a lack of backbone on the part of the minister to back in a manager and allow proper processes to take place rather than being usurped by the private interests of those who have benefited from the mismanagement that has occurred. We are now being asked to give the minister this unfettered discretion to go in and say, 'Right, the board is suspended.' The member for MacKillop mentioned that he thinks it should be referred to as being dismissed. The board should be suspended for either a period set out in the notice or indefinitely until a new notice is published saying the suspension is now finished.

I am inclined to agree with the member for MacKillop that dismissal might be a better option, but the question for me is: should any minister at any time be given that level of unfettered discretion? Can there be any level of judicial review? I suspect not. I suspect that there is no administrative tribunal and no judicial review available where the wording is so broad as to give a minister the power to dismiss for any reason he or she thinks fit, simply by publishing a notice in the Gazette, and with no reference to this parliament.

I believe that the appropriate thing happened last night. There was a long debate in the chamber upstairs last night over this matter. Ultimately, I think it was the Hon. Tammy Franks who moved that there be a sunset clause. It is entirely appropriate, in my view, that there be such a clause inserted into this bill because, in its absence, this unfettered power of the minister remains in place forever—until such time, at least, as we bring in another act to this parliament. I actually think that it is really a bridge too far for this parliament to be asked to give an unfettered discretion like this on the second last day, late in the day of the second last day, of the final sitting of the parliament. It is a nonsense, but that is what we have been presented with by this minister and so to my mind we need to then say, 'Okay, let's bring this back.'

I think the ultimate decision was that it be three years, if you will just bear with me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am pretty sure it came back to three years. Indeed, it was the Hon. I.K. Hunter who thanked the honourable member—Tammy Franks, that is—for her indication of her amendment and moving it. He had an amendment to her amendment and he moved 'Delete 12 months and substitute three years.'

I think there may even have been discussion about whether what they should do in the first instance was put some sort of limit on the appointment that is made, but that does not make sense. If you put a limit on the appointment of the person who is going to be the administrator, then there is a difficulty, because what person in their right mind, if they are competent and in a well-paid job at the moment, is going to down tools on that to apply for a job as administrator of the lands if they do not have some security of tenure? I think that making it that it is not that which is subject to a sunset clause, but rather the capacity of the minister to keep this unfettered discretion which is to be reviewed by the parliament, is probably the best way to go.

Personally, I think three years is probably too long. I think we could have agreed that the original Franks amendment of one year would have been sufficient, that the minister gets the right under this bill to move the current administration out of the way and will be thereafter able to appoint someone to be the administrator. That appointment can be for a number of years, and that is not being fettered by any proposal, as I understand what happened in the upper house last night. Once that occurs, why does the minister then need any further power to remove the board? The board has basically been removed immediately upon the minister acting, and there should not be any reason for the board to be put back in place while the administrator's contract is afoot.

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: She has another minute.

Ms REDMOND: I will finish before time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I was not putting you under pressure, member for Heysen.

Ms REDMOND: No, I could see people wandering around thinking about whether I was going to run out of time again, anticipating that as this morning I might run out of time, but trust me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do have my eye on the clock this time. Indeed, I will conclude my remarks. The point that I wanted to make is that it is unacceptable in the extreme that the minister has failed to act under the existing legislation, to the point where things have now reached a crisis point and it has to be resolved in this way with a bill which reaches us this afternoon, has to be debated this afternoon and tomorrow and finalised tomorrow, before this session of this parliament finishes.

That is all down to the minister's inaction over a long period of time. He has been the minister for some considerable time now. The fact is that reluctantly, therefore, I say that I am happy to support this, but it is a bridge too far in giving an unfettered discretion, and to give an unfettered discretion even for the period of three years I think is too long. It is better than not coming back at all, so as long as there is a sunset clause in the bill, then I am prepared to accept that the minister will take the appropriate action and we will see some improvement. As I began my remarks, I am convinced that not only everyone in this parliament but the broader community at large does want to see Aboriginal conditions improved in this state.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gardner.


At 18:00 the house adjourned until Thursday 4 December 2014 at 10:30.


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