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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-06-18 Daily Xml
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Holding on to Our Future Report

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (14:54): I seek leave to give a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs regarding the Holding on to Our Future report.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: In the recent report Holding on to Our Future by the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People, it was found that there is insufficient funding to meet the demand identified for culturally appropriate early intervention services for vulnerable Aboriginal children and their families. Under the former government, in the 2021-22 budget there was an Indigenous Expenditure Report. That was the last time such a report was provided.

The report fulfilled the South Australian government's commitment under clause 113 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap 'to review and identify current spending on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs and services to identify reprioritisation opportunities to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, particularly to community-controlled organisations'.

My question to the minister is: what is the government doing to further the work of the previous government to understand, review and identify current spending and identify prioritisation opportunities to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, particularly to community-controlled organisations, to ensure funding reaches those who need it most?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:55): I thank the honourable member for her question. I might clarify some of the basis of the question the honourable member asked. In relation to the requirement under the Closing the Gap regime, the former Liberal government certainly did not meet that. They may have put out a statement about what they were intending to spend in a particular year, but upon coming to government there was a massive amount of work that needed to be done to do that expenditure report, which we almost needed to start from scratch as a new government because of the former government's failure.

We have done that. I want to particularly pay tribute to the Treasury department in South Australia, which spent many, many hours identifying and looking at identifying spending for Aboriginal people and spending for mainstream programs for Aboriginal people. We have released a report that we did while we have been in government that the Liberals did not do.

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