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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 796 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 14 October 2020 by Mr K.J.J. Michel

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

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.