Parliamentary question without notice|Indigenous Jobs and Training Review
15/10/2014
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation regarding Andrew Forrest’s Indigenous employment and training review.
Leave granted.
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: In July this year, mining magnate Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest handed down his Indigenous employment and training review, which looks at Australia’s welfare system. In this report there are 27 recommendations for welfare reform, including a call for up to 100 per cent management of some welfare payments through a so-called healthy welfare card. This management of welfare income was recommended in Forrest’s blueprint for Indigenous people, carers and people with disabilities.
In August 2015, Sarah Martin revealed in The Australian that the Premier and his cabinet offered ‘the broadest possible support’ to Mr Forrest’s recommendations and that this was at odds with the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his federal colleagues, who described Andrew Forrest’s blueprint as a ‘testing for public opinion’ and ‘a bridge too far’ that denies individual dignity. My questions to the minister are:
1.Was the minister present at the cabinet meeting where the Forrest welfare review was discussed and did he express his personal support, as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, for the Forrest recommendations?
2.If he did not express support, did he articulate concerns about the punitive and ineffective nature of income management for Indigenous Australians?
3.What does the minister think of the SA Unions’ resolution condemning the Premier’s hasty decision to support the recommendations of the Forrest review?
4.Does the minister, through the Premier, agree with his support of the Forrest recommendations or agree that he is denying Aboriginal South Australians, South Australians with disabilities and other South Australians on welfare payments basic dignity and dignity of risk by not allowing them the right to choose where and what they spend their income on?
5.Does the minister agree that sequestering all of a person’s welfare payment onto a card, with no access to cash, is a punitive measure that allows no opportunity for a person to choose where they will spend their income, nor the opportunity to develop financial management skills?
6.Would the minister agree to his taxpayer-funded salary being moved onto a healthy welfare card where he could only spend it on certain items and in particular stores?
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. Before I answer, I have to say: how incredible is my leader in this chamber? She gets an unexpected question from left field, she dredges back her memory, recalls an event that she was at and gives an incredibly comprehensive answer to this chamber. I am astounded and I take my hat off to her. She is an absolute inspiration.
Members interjecting:
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Mr President, I think you have to acknowledge talent when you see it.
The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: We would if there was any there!
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Some of us can’t recognise talent even in a well-lit room, but that’s not our fault. I have to say to the Hon. Kelly Vincent, in relation to her six questions, on the first two, good try. She has been here long enough. She knows that ministers do not comment on discussions in cabinet and I will not be breaking that precedent any time soon, certainly not in this chamber and certainly not in response to those questions.
On the remaining questions, I also have to say that the premise that she started with in terms of her explanation was completely wrong. She is reporting on an article that she read in the paper without actually doing any investigative work herself about the background to it, and in her questions she impugns the reputation of the Premier and, by extension, myself. All I can say—
The Hon. T.A. Franks: Your inspirational colleague actually confirmed that the Premier said these things in a previous answer to this council.
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Now we have the Hon. Tammy Franks jumping in without getting to her feet, interjecting and out of order, Mr President, I would assume, but perhaps we can ignore her, sir.
The PRESIDENT: There is a member on their feet. Point of order, the Hon. Ms Franks.
The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: My point of order is that the minister is accusing the Hon. Kelly Vincent of not having her facts correct. My point of order is that minister Gago, the so-called inspirational minister, had, in fact, confirmed the Premier’s words in an answer to a previous question on this very topic in this very council.
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Sir, of course, the interjection and the point of order are totally, totally wrong. If either of the members would like to actually go and educate themselves on the topic, what they would find the Premier has said is that we support the thrust of the Forrest reports and the desire for us as a state to work with other states and the commonwealth to improve the lot of Aboriginal people, particularly in remote areas. But the commonwealth government must not shirk its responsibilities at the same time. Here we have the commonwealth government, through minister Scullion, telling the states, ‘We are going to remove your municipal services fund. No conversation will be entered into. We will give you an extra 12 months of funding,’ they say—
Members interjecting:
The PRESIDENT: Order!
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —’but we won’t take into account the cost of running these services. Despite the fact we have been paying for them for 50 years as a commonwealth government, we will unilaterally walk away from the remote Aboriginal communities to spend funding. States, you are on your own. And, by the way, we will close down these communities and turn the lights off.’ That is where the Hon. Ms Vincent and the Hon. Ms Tammy Franks should be directing their vitriol—at the federal government, which has no concern for Aboriginal communities and which takes away funding without consulting states and dribbles a little $10 million (12 months’ extra funding) so that states can pick it up in perpetuity. We won’t be doing that.
