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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-17 Daily Xml
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APY Lands, Watarru Community

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:30): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation questions about the Watarru community on the APY lands.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: I refer the minister to the question I asked on 22 May. The minister gave me a completely irrelevant answer, preferring to criticise the commonwealth government rather than answer the question. Problems at Watarru, I believe, still remain. Therefore, my questions to the minister are:

1. What is the monthly cost to the government of maintaining services in Watarru?

2. Is the government maintaining infrastructure with taxpayers' dollars for a non-existent community?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:30): Again we see the opposition coming into this place and asking a question, leading with their chin, because it was only a few minutes ago that I was out on the front steps of Parliament House talking about what the federal government is doing to homelands in remote areas across Australia. Not only are they ripping half a billion dollars out of Aboriginal programs across the nation, they are also cutting their contribution to municipal services, which go to homelands and other small communities, by $10 million.

They have been funding these programs for 50 years in South Australia. They have now told us unilaterally that they will be stopping that funding after the coming 12 months, and they will not be adhering to their responsibilities, to which federal governments have adhered for the last 50 years. They will essentially be turning out the lights on remote communities in South Australia, and they have no plan—no plan whatsoever—to provide these essential services to communities that have depended on them for 50 years. The opposition has a great hide coming in here asking about these programs when it is their federal colleagues who are cutting off funding to them.

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