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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-18 Daily Xml
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APY Lands, Consumer Rights DVD

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:15): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Business Services and Consumers a question about the APY lands consumer rights DVD.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: Protecting consumer rights is always an important issue, and I know that the Hon. Jing Lee has also shown a keen interest in the Aboriginal consumer rights campaign in the past. My question is: can the minister provide an update on this campaign?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:16): I thank the member for his most important question and also the Hon. Jing Lee for her interest in this particular area. She asked a question around this not so very long ago.

I'm very pleased to be able to report that there has been an overwhelming amount of interest in the consumer rights DVD titled Deadly Dollars—Something for Nothing. This is largely due to the approach taken by Consumer and Business Services and the production company, Ngarrama Productions, to garner support from the local community right from the very start of the project. I think a key to the success of this was the local Aboriginal communities' strong input and engagement right from the very start.

The local community leaders and members had significant input to developing the script to ensure that the DVD would be of relevance to the APY lands audience. The video was filmed in Pitjantjatjara, featuring local actors. Much of the filming took place outdoors in the Mimili community, and what you can't see on the video is the crowd of community members gathered behind the camera looking on with great interest. Of course, they were all very eager to see the finished product.

CBS is extremely grateful for the enthusiastic support from groups such as the local internet centre, the financial counselling organisation, MoneyMob, the Pitjantjatjara women's centre and the APY TAFE. With their support on the ground in the APY lands, the video has been shown to students and viewed at the internet centre, the Mimili wellbeing centre, in store at each of the community stores and, I understand, at community group meetings as well.

It is difficult to actually quantify exactly how many individuals or families this particular video message may have reached, but it is estimated that at least 50 per cent of the APY population would have at least seen the video, and I am advised that this would be a very conservative estimate. We know that the video has been viewed more than 560 times on the CBS YouTube channel and that is just in the last nine months.

Whilst there was obviously an initial spike in the number of views when the video was first launched back in August 2014, I have been advised that there have been 230 views so far in 2015, so you can see that there is still a high level of interest in this particular video past that first flush of enthusiasm.

The video resource is not just a once-off resource, but was launched and watched by many. Feedback from the local community indicates that this continues to be a valuable resource that is used by teachers, financial counsellors and also community groups. In addition to the online views, hard copies of the DVD were distributed to educational providers across the various communities, local stores and also various organisations that I mentioned earlier. With around 2,800 people living on the lands (according to the 2011 ABS census), CBS believes that well over 1,500 people would have viewed the video to date.

A survey by MoneyMob in November 2014 indicates that 51 per cent of people on the lands worry about paying money that they owe, a decrease of 63 per cent from the previous year. So, obviously, we cannot directly apply a cause and effect where there are, no doubt, many features or many things operating to influence that change in behaviour, but I think we can safely say that the video would at least be contributing to helping change behaviour in a more positive direction.

I am also advised that 44 per cent of people said that they were worried about buying expensive items and not really understanding the total price, compared with 55 per cent the previous year. As I said, we're not trying to draw a direct cause and effect correlation, but I think we can extrapolate and say that it is likely that the video is playing a positive role in helping to change people's behaviour so that they better understand their rights and responsibilities around money and to help provide them with the skills to better manage money and the family finances.

One of the strong messages of the DVD is to understand what the deal is —obviously, when there are contracts signed—and what the repayments are going to be before a person commits to actually buy that item. The DVD complements the excellent work being done by other organisations on the lands to help bring these statistics down further. So, together, I think we are definitely making a difference and we continue to look at other ways that we might be able to help individuals better manage money and for communities to grow and be more prosperous.

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