Page 592 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 May 1992
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But, if it is inherent in this notion that the Chief Minister referred to that there should be, in effect, different laws or different legal standards applying to Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in this community, then the Liberal Party and the Government would part company quite dramatically. We would certainly not accept that certain classes of individuals in the community are not subject to the same laws as other classes of individuals. That is repugnant to the concept of the rule of law and it denies the entitlement to protection that the whole community is entitled to believe it has. There is no room, in our view, for double standards, and we will certainly scrutinise any legislation which comes forward to ensure that it does not infringe on that principle.
Madam Speaker, in concluding, let me say that, although these provisions are, as I indicated before, welcomed on a bipartisan basis, we believe that seeing these through to the end is important in improving the general condition of Aboriginal people who find themselves in custody; but still we have an essential underlying problem which, in a very real sense, these provisions only scrape the surface of. Our general record on Aboriginal treatment in this country is not good and we need to improve that basic question of their treatment before we can say that we have dealt with the fundamental root cause of the problem.
There are 10 OECD countries in the world which have significant indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, in terms of our treatment of our indigenous people, Australia ranks tenth on that list. In other words, we perform worst of all the OECD countries. That is a matter of some concern. Whether it is a fair criticism or not I will not say. All I am saying is that that is the perception. That is the general consensus, and it is a matter of some concern and perhaps shame to us. Let us commit ourselves to doing something about the underlying causes of that problem. Let us commit ourselves to finding some way of involving Aboriginal people in a sense of partnership with the white community. I believe that these measures are a good way of starting down that path.
MR MOORE (9.46): In dealing with Aboriginal deaths in custody and the royal commission's findings, I think it is appropriate for us, first of all, to establish the basic premise in making policy for Aboriginal people of Australia. I think there must be a great deal of care to ensure that those people are in a position to decide for themselves what their needs are for both the short and the long term. We run the risk of perpetuating the existing patronising and chauvinistic attitudes of the past unless we provide the possibility of more active participation in policy making and implementation so that they have a real say in the direction of their own lives.
In dealing with this issue, Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by referring to data collection. Serious deficiencies in existing statistical information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people abound. In response to the Federal Government's decision to allocate $4.4m to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is recommendation 49 of the royal commission report, the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Research Policy and the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia identified major problems with existing statistical information and raised serious doubts about whether a one-off survey would fully rectify this situation.
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