Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: At one point during this term of government, Indigenous affairs
Speaker 1: dominated national debate. Politicians, pundits in the public couldn't stop
Speaker 1: talking about it. But after the Voice referendum failed, it
Speaker 1: became something of a taboo. Labor is keen to move
Speaker 1: on and the Coalition is focused on scoring points, not
Speaker 1: offering a plan. Now, with the election weeks away, there
Speaker 1: are glimpses of what might come next. Labour says it's
Speaker 1: all about delivering jobs. The Coalition says it's all about
Speaker 1: cutting waste. Today contributor for the Saturday Paper, Ben Abbotangelo
Speaker 1: or what the major parties are really offering and what
Speaker 1: it all means for First Nations people around the country.
Speaker 1: It's Saturday, April nineteen been. Indigenous affairs has more or
Speaker 1: less formed by the way side since the referendum. What
Speaker 1: since do you get from both sides as to how
Speaker 1: they rate it as a priority at this election?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to answer this, I just go straight
Speaker 2: to their election platform.
Speaker 3: So if we think back to the.
Speaker 2: Prior election, you know, Labor was really forthright with their
Speaker 2: policy platform, specifically for Indigenous affairs. It started with their
Speaker 2: commitment to implement the Ullerra Statement from the Heart in full.
Speaker 4: I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners that the land
Speaker 4: on which we meet, I pay my respect to their elders, past,
Speaker 4: present and emerging, and on behalf of the Australian Labor Party,
Speaker 4: I commit to the Ularus Statement from the Heart and.
Speaker 2: Hole work towards closing the gap. Abolish the punitive community
Speaker 2: development program, improve housing, invest in First Nations management of
Speaker 2: land and waters, strengthen First Nations economic and job opportunities,
Speaker 2: and get rid of the private tires, cash list, debit
Speaker 2: cub So their platform ahead of the last election was
Speaker 2: really forthright, really transparent, and if you don't go into
Speaker 2: the detail of it, a neutral observer would look at
Speaker 2: it as pretty aspirational. Now ahead of this election, if
Speaker 2: you go to Labour's platform, Indigenous affairs, Aboriginal people, just
Speaker 2: anything to do with that portfolio is completely missing. There
Speaker 2: is nothing on the flip side of that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The coalition's approach to Indigenous affairs is much like yesteryear.
Speaker 2: It is consistent with I suppose how they approached the referendum,
Speaker 2: and that is from my vantage point or analysis, is
Speaker 2: to punish our Aboriginal people.
Speaker 5: We have serious allegations of both corrupt and criminal behavior.
Speaker 5: Yes they are denied, but we need to ensure that
Speaker 5: this is taxpayers money that is being spent appropriately.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the coalition's plan, it is
Speaker 2: you know, under taking a full audit of government programs
Speaker 2: and expenditure into indigenous affairs.
Speaker 5: And isn't it refreshing though as well to have Peter
Speaker 5: Dutton as the alternative Prime Minister of this country and
Speaker 5: Senator justinternam for jimber Price as the alternative Minister for
Speaker 5: Indigenous Australians for the first time standing up and saying
Speaker 5: if we get elected to government Andrew, we will demand accountability.
Speaker 2: It's launching a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in Indigenous communities,
Speaker 2: which is again not to actually tackle the challenges that
Speaker 2: many of our communities face, but it is to demonize them.
Speaker 1: Yes, that individualist type language that was applied to Aboriginal
Speaker 1: communities in the leader to the intervention itself, and it
Speaker 1: seems that since the referendums failure, that that rhetoric has
Speaker 1: come back for political gain. We spoke to the Minister
Speaker 1: for Indigenous Australians Melanderi McCarthy after the terrible result for
Speaker 1: the Closing the Gap report that came out earlier this year,
Speaker 1: she talked about Labour's new mantra, which is jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Speaker 1: You've been looking into what that actually means. So what
Speaker 1: did you find, Ben?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, Labour's commitment to abolishing the CDP
Speaker 2: has been years in the making. That's the Community Development Program,
Speaker 2: which was introduced by the Coalition in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 6: Donovan is one of about fifteen thousand people nationwide forced
Speaker 6: into the Community Development Program. Participants lose payments if they
Speaker 6: don't attend for twenty five hours each week.
Speaker 2: What it meant under the scheme was that remote Indigenous
Speaker 2: people were offered a really simple choice. It is find
Speaker 2: a job in places where they're often were none or
Speaker 2: in definitely do work for the doll five hours a day,
Speaker 2: five days a week, forty six weeks a year, year
Speaker 2: after year, with the majority of that income then being managed.
Speaker 3: Through the cash List debit card.
Speaker 2: And they were to work for an hourly rate of
Speaker 2: eleven dollars twenty which was well below that minimum wage
Speaker 2: of eighteen dollars twenty nine, so it is punitive. It
Speaker 2: is racist, it is akin to modern slavery, and it
Speaker 2: has been the subject of multiple class actions and every
Speaker 2: report that has been commissioned has indicated that it has
Speaker 2: just created misery within the communities that it is purportedly
Speaker 2: designed to lift up. So I suppose to round this
Speaker 2: little piece out. Daniel on the history of the scheme
Speaker 2: is that when participants withdrew their labor, their income support
Speaker 2: was withdrawn under the mantra of the time of no work,
Speaker 2: no pay. So if people in the desert had to
Speaker 2: drive four hundred kilometers to the nearest major city or
Speaker 2: center for a hospital appointment, for a doctor's appointment, for
Speaker 2: sorry business, and they didn't attend the standing around that
Speaker 2: was forced upon them because there was nothing really to
Speaker 2: do in these regions, their welfare would be docked and
Speaker 2: the cascading effects on the families magnified.
Speaker 6: At least three hundred thousand penalties have been imposed in
Speaker 6: two years, including for people away at medical appointments or funeral.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, Labor First committed to abolish the CDP.
Speaker 3: When they're in opposition.
Speaker 7: The Community Development program put in place by the current
Speaker 7: government in remote communities is discriminatory punitive and ineffectual and
Speaker 7: a shortened Labor government will abolish the current CDP and
Speaker 7: replace it with a new program.
Speaker 2: That commitment firmed head of the last election campaign, and
Speaker 2: in the wake of the defeated referendum, it was the
Speaker 2: first major policy announcement that they introduced.
Speaker 8: As well as more remote housing, we're creating the new
Speaker 8: Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program with three thousand new
Speaker 8: jobs in remote Australia to build new skills and new
Speaker 8: confidence within communities.
Speaker 2: But what this Australian National Audit Office report has found
Speaker 2: is that Labour's seven hundred and seven million dollar new
Speaker 2: program Remote Jobs and Economic Development is basically comprising of
Speaker 2: many of the same failures of yesteryear's. It is very
Speaker 2: much aligned, at least from my perspective, Daniel, with a
Speaker 2: lot of the neoliberal policy making that has dominated indigenous
Speaker 2: affairs in yesteryear.
Speaker 1: So tell me about that ben Labor replaced the CDP
Speaker 1: with their own jobs program and now this audit report
Speaker 1: has come out which assesses how effective their scheme is.
Speaker 1: What did it say.
Speaker 2: It spoke about the fact that when the program was
Speaker 2: announced by Anthony Albanesi in February twenty twenty four that
Speaker 2: the advice to the government to support that announcement was
Speaker 2: just not clearly informed by evidence. Labour had promised to
Speaker 2: develop a new program in partnership with First Nations people,
Speaker 2: and on top of that, had spent the first two
Speaker 2: years its term talking about the need to listen to
Speaker 2: Aboriginal people in order to get better outcomes. But the
Speaker 2: a ANDAO report found that the National Indigenous Australians Agency
Speaker 2: hadn't actually established a governance structure to ensure that Indigenous
Speaker 2: people were included in decision making until a month before
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister announced the new program. So it's a
Speaker 2: pretty scathing assessment. And if we were to think about
Speaker 2: I suppose the expenditure items within the Indigenous Affairs portfolio,
Speaker 2: this would have to be up there on the podium
Speaker 2: as one of the most significant investments.
Speaker 3: The a and AO report, when you take it in full, speaks.
Speaker 2: To how this is another program that has largely been
Speaker 2: conceived by bureaucrats top down and then hastily rushed together
Speaker 2: and once again superimposed on these communities that I suppose
Speaker 2: it really looking to bounce back from a couple of
Speaker 2: decades of policies that have dispossessed, displaced and dehumanized.
Speaker 3: These communities.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break the Coalition's plans in Indigenous.
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Speaker 1: Been The Coalition chalked up at Big Win with the
Speaker 1: failure of the voice referredom. So what have we seen
Speaker 1: since then? In terms of their vision for improving lives
Speaker 1: of Aboriginal people.
Speaker 2: The headline from the Coalition is practical solutions. You know,
Speaker 2: we want to ensure that we are pursuing practical solutions
Speaker 2: to improve the lives of Indigenous people.
Speaker 10: My goal is the halt the pointless virtue signaling and
Speaker 10: focus on the solutions that bring real change that changes
Speaker 10: the lives of Australia's most vulnerable citizens, Solutions that give
Speaker 10: them real lives.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: I tried to probe Senator price On, I suppose you
Speaker 2: know the coalitions what they mean when they talk about
Speaker 2: practical solutions when it comes to Indigenous affairs, but she
Speaker 2: never responded to those questions. She was clear that in
Speaker 2: the sense that she believes, you know, Labour's new remote
Speaker 2: jobs and Economic Development program is akin to a broken
Speaker 2: election promise and that it's been hastily put together and
Speaker 2: that there's still many missing pieces. She also said that
Speaker 2: they're committed to encouraging economic independence for Indigenous Australians through
Speaker 2: the private sector and ensuring that a mutual obligations program
Speaker 2: does exist.
Speaker 1: So these are basically announcements. Have they actually put any
Speaker 1: policies out to back up some of these announcements to
Speaker 1: create jobs for First Nations people to private sector, private enterprise,
Speaker 1: What does that actually mean in a policy sense? Do
Speaker 1: we have any idea what the meat is on the
Speaker 1: bone here?
Speaker 2: There's no meat on the bone as far as I
Speaker 2: can say, And this is what I've tried to probe.
Speaker 2: All of the researchers found that mutual obligations and the
Speaker 2: scheme that it sounds like the Coalition wants to revert
Speaker 2: back to US costs five times as much per participant
Speaker 2: as the mainstream Job Active program and twice as much
Speaker 2: as the scheme it replaced, and as importantly that those
Speaker 2: under mutual obligations also take longer to find work. So
Speaker 2: it very much contradicts the narrative of efficiency that the
Speaker 2: Coalition is running with and importantly also undermines their purported
Speaker 2: commitment to practical solutions in alivation indigenous peoples, particularly in
Speaker 2: remote and rural areas.
Speaker 3: And I'll be.
Speaker 2: Interested to get your perspective on this as well, Daniel,
Speaker 2: but I think one key point is worth noting is
Speaker 2: that there's a strategy behind I suppose putting Senator nappinginpro
Speaker 2: Price as the de facto head of the government's magaspin
Speaker 2: off of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and that
Speaker 2: is to just position Indigenous affairs as a proxy, as
Speaker 2: a battleground that they can wedge labor to. And the
Speaker 2: expectation is that Senator Price will hold up Indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: as a punching bag, and the Coalition party and it's
Speaker 2: people who are out on the front line selling their message,
Speaker 2: are able to just lay some cheap shots when it's
Speaker 2: politically expedient and when they think, you know, it can
Speaker 2: rally the base and be a motivated for their cause.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of my lens on it, But I
Speaker 2: know that you cover this heaps as well, Daniel. What's
Speaker 2: your kind of take on the coalition stance for Indigenous affairs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the strategy just down line proved to be very
Speaker 1: effective for them, and it was the strategy they used
Speaker 1: using Aboriginal people basically as a punching bag pointing to
Speaker 1: waste in programs and in remote communities. When you look
Speaker 1: across the entirety of government and society, the waste that
Speaker 1: happens in Aboriginal communities is minuscule as a comparison. But
Speaker 1: I think you're right the Coalition opposition is trying to
Speaker 1: wedge labor out because of their success during the referendum,
Speaker 1: But so far, my reading opposite, they haven't really been
Speaker 1: able to lay any punches yet. Given the multitude of
Speaker 1: issues facing Indigenous Australia, things like incarceration rates, life expectancies,
Speaker 1: suicide rates, ostensibly the failure of the closure and the
Speaker 1: gape of gender, what sense do you have of whether
Speaker 1: either side really has a plan to address this devastating reality.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there is, if there's ever been
Speaker 3: a plan.
Speaker 2: I feel as though that when you interrogate the detail
Speaker 2: of what has been proposed, you know, throughout the last
Speaker 2: couple of decades, nothing that I've seen that has been
Speaker 2: put forward I can see being significant in the schemes
Speaker 2: of closing the gap or you know, emancipating Indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: from you know, the chronic illness and disease, the hopelessness
Speaker 2: that you know exists.
Speaker 3: In many of our communities.
Speaker 2: It just feels like a kumbaya when the statistics continue
Speaker 2: to show that mainstream communities continue to break away from
Speaker 2: ours that you know, are very much stuck in the
Speaker 2: recesses of a really violent past.
Speaker 1: Ben, It's always very nourishing to talk with you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on seven Am again.
Speaker 3: Thanks Daniel, always a pleasure.
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