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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-06 Daily Xml
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Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:59): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in relation to Aboriginal affairs.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: During estimates the minister advised that, if the appointment of the Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement, Dr Roger Thomas, was not continued, we would be losing two years of good work and progress. My questions to the minister are:

1. Can the minister explain why Dr Thomas has only been appointed for a six-month position?

2. Does the minister plan to continue funding this role beyond the six-month position?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Attorney-General, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:59): I thank the honourable member for his question. I am grateful that, after discussions with Dr Roger Thomas, Dr Roger Thomas has agreed to stay on for another six months to help the new government in a number of the commitments that we are doing. Particularly something that Dr Roger Thomas is very interested in is the monuments policy of the new government. That is a fund that we have established, that was budgeted for in the last budget, to create statues of Aboriginal people in South Australia.

As we look around this state and the monuments that pay tribute to the people of this state, we see that many early explorers and many non-Aboriginal people are immortalised in statues, and we see very, very few Aboriginal people. There is the site of old Colebrook Home at Blackwood, a representative statue of a mother of the stolen generations. On the Torrens Parade Ground there is a representative statue of a soldier and a nurse. But in terms of individual Aboriginal people, we don't see those statues very much at all around South Australia. That is something we think needs to be rectified.

If you are a young Aboriginal person looking around at those who this society has previously considered important, it doesn't reflect who they are, and that is something we want to start changing. That is why we have a million-dollar commitment and are looking to partner with councils and philanthropic organisations to start to have those monuments that reflect not just the 60,000 years of history of Aboriginal people but the very significant achievements of Aboriginal people since the time of colonisation. This is something that Dr Thomas and I have spoken about a number of times, and I am very excited at his level of enthusiasm in that area but in others to continue that work.

On the work that I think the member alluded to in terms of a representation for Aboriginal people in a Voice to Parliament, that is work that we have started working on already, comparing other jurisdictions around the world. That is work, which I think I said in estimates and I have certainly said elsewhere, that we are hoping to make significant movements on over the next 12 months. I don't think that any work that has been done before is wasted. It will certainly inform what we do, but it certainly won't be in the form that the previous government put forward.

I would like to pay tribute and thank Dr Thomas for his many years of hard work. He was, under the previous Labor government, the Treaty Commissioner and under the now former Marshall government the Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement. I think in total it is some five or six years, certainly the longest serving commissioner for this type of work this state has had.

As I say, I thank Dr Thomas for agreeing to stay on for a further amount of time to help the new government get started on some of its priorities. Certainly, we will be looking at what models are put forward in terms of Aboriginal representation and engagement we have going into the future. We have our own ambitions as part of our commitment to implement the statement from Uluru, to a Voice to government and parliament in South Australia, and certainly roles of a commissioner or commissioners will be considered as part of that work.

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