APY Lands, Municipal and Essential Services Funding

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs a question about funding essential services in Aboriginal communities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: I did not even need leave. Minister, will you inform the chamber about the importance of the Municipal and Essential Services funding in Aboriginal communities and homelands?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. The commonwealth's Municipal and Essential Services program contributed about $9.6 million in funding to South Australian communities in 2013-14—programs designed to deliver a range of essential and municipal services to all of South Australia's Aboriginal communities and homelands, and their organisations and service providers.

These include basic services that we would all expect, including roads and rubbish collection, dust management, and dog management. The funding also provides for the running, maintenance and replacement of minor infrastructure. It contributes to community governance in many communities and is a generator of much needed local employment opportunities. The MES program also funds services that are vitally important to ensuring the survival of our remote communities, such as maintaining airstrips on the APY lands and ensuring water and power supplies to Aboriginal homelands. All these services are now under threat from the Abbott Liberal government.

The commonwealth government has advised the South Australian government of their intention to cease this funding program and transition their responsibility to the state from June 2015. Where will these cuts end? The withdrawal of the MES funding will have far-reaching and dire consequences for Aboriginal communities across our state. It is estimated that this decision will impact on more than 4,000 Aboriginal residents in around 60 locations, from the Coorong to places west of Ceduna, from Oodnadatta to the Flinders Ranges, and small homelands on the APY lands.

It puts at risk the infrastructure, as well as the delivery of services such as power, water and rubbish collection, roads and a whole range of other municipal services. Not only that, these cuts could impact infrastructure that will potentially create health and safety risks for communities. For example, if landing strips are not maintained, the Royal Flying Doctor Service will have serious problems landing their planes for emergencies. Let me illustrate what these cuts could mean to some local communities. Koonibba is a community on the Far West Coast—

An honourable member: Koonibba.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well you say Koonibba and the locals say Koon-i-bba, I am told. It is a community on the Far West Coast around 40 kilometres from Ceduna. It has a population of over 100 people. Koonibba relies on $238,000 in funding to pay staff—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Could honourable members allow the minister to answer the question in silence?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —who deal with administrative, financial and operational matters. A cut to this funding will have serious implications for local jobs. The community in Koonibba also uses the funding to pay for services such as rubbish collection, roads, dust and dog control, as I mentioned. Not only are these basic services that we would all expect in our normal council services, but removing access to them would create a health and safety risk. For many of these communities, MES is their only source of funding for such services. Many Aboriginal organisations will be severely impacted by these cuts.

The Regional Anangu Services Aboriginal Corporation (RASAC) is an Aboriginal organisation that delivers a range of vital services across the APY lands and to more than 2,000 people across to the bigger communities and the homelands. RASAC employs local Aboriginal people on the lands to respond to unique problems on-site. They assist traditional owners to visit or live on their traditional lands, providing electricity and water to groups with children and elderly people. RASAC will be at risk of closure should this funding stream cease.

Essential infrastructure such as bores and generators across the state will also be put in jeopardy. We must not forget that the commonwealth has been funding this infrastructure and other services in Aboriginal communities on the homelands and in remote areas for over 50 years. The decision to cut funding for essential services has the potential to set Aboriginal communities back decades and may spell the closure of some Aboriginal homelands.

In recent times, this place has seen rare but important multipartisan support for initiatives aimed to support Aboriginal prosperity. So I invite all members of the chamber, of all persuasions, to stand up for South Australia's Aboriginal communities against a federal government determined to slash and cut their future; to stand up to a government that has already cut funding to the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, axed the position of coordinator general for remote Indigenous services and slashed Aboriginal Legal Aid budgets; to stand up to a government that has made cuts that were not even foreshadowed by the Commission of Audit, including more than half a billion dollars over five years from Indigenous programs across the country and the $7 GP co-payment policy, which will absolutely widen the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health, no matter which way you look at it, and raising the pension age to 70 by 2053 when we know that Indigenous people have an average life expectancy of at least 10 years less than other Australians.

The proposed cuts to the MES funding will not only jeopardise essential services in Aboriginal communities but will put people's health and livelihoods at stake. They also have the capacity to set us back decades in the advancements we have made in closing the gap and empowering Aboriginal people seeking self-determination. I urge members in this place to stand up for the future of Aboriginal peoples in South Australia and help us by making sure that the commonwealth maintains its longstanding responsibility to remote Aboriginal communities.