ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES —
GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT
796. Mr
K.J.J. MICHEL to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs:
I would like to welcome my wife and
friends Sheila and David to the Parliament today. I refer to the work of the
McGowan Labor government in keeping Western Australia safe and strong through
its record investment in supporting
Aboriginal communities across the state. Can the minister outline to the house
how this record investment will help
improve the health and wellbeing of our First Nation people, and can the
minister advise the house how this investment will help empower
Aboriginal people and support their communities to become stronger and more
resilient?
Mr B.S.
WYATT replied:
I thank the member for Pilbara very
much for his question and I also welcome his wife and friends to the chamber.
He is a very strong advocate for the Aboriginal constituents of his electorate.
Over the years, it has always been difficult
to get a proper understanding in the budget of where Aboriginal development,
economic activity and social support is funded. We were keen to make that
clearer, which we have done in this budget. About $750 million has been
committed to what is broadly called ''Aboriginal wellbeing'',
focused around three major areas: building strong communities, improving
health and wellbeing, and delivering social and economic opportunities.
There has been a large effort in
this budget to not just backfill areas from which the commonwealth has walked
away, but also ensure that there is increased investment for Aboriginal
communities, particularly those in remote parts of Western Australia. The
member for Pilbara is no doubt aware that some $326 million is in the budget to
build or improve infrastructure for Aboriginal communities; some $51 million to
improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people; and more than $387 million
to be spent on generating economic activity for Aboriginal communities. I want
to focus on a few things in particular. The member for Pilbara may recall the
debate after the commonwealth walked away from its decades-long responsibility
for the provision of essential services in remote communities. It had a long
history of responsibility for doing that. At the time, I think the then Prime
Minister critiqued the fact that Aboriginal
people lived in remote communities, from memory calling it a lifestyle choice
that he was not willing to fund any
more.
As a government, we were not
willing to simply leave those communities, which are often on Aboriginal Lands
Trust-tenured land. Between 10 000 and
12 000 Aboriginal people live in those locations. Of course, we were not going
to abandon them, so nearly $200 million was provided to deliver those services
after the commonwealth walked away. A large amount of $25 million was spent on
social housing in Aboriginal communities and another $80 million was spent on
refurbishment of social housing. An area that the member for Kimberley and the
member for Geraldton will no doubt be happy about is our short-stay
accommodation facilities. They are incredibly important to provide
opportunities for Aboriginal people with somewhere to stay in a secure and safe
environment when they come in from communities to larger centres. From energy
infrastructure to water upgrades, the budget provides a vast range of
investment in Aboriginal communities. We see this not as an optional extra but
as a key part of the budget, which is why it is embedded across the forward
estimates. We will never do what the former government did and simply walk away
from these essential services.