Page 3597 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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only occur if we have quality leadership from within government and a community sector that is resourced and supported to provide the best possible services.
On the day after the budget was announced, I remember being at the Business Council budget breakfast and expressing my disappointment and outrage to have discovered that the community sector was going to be slugged with a tax to cut red tape while—guess what—the tax for business was going to be funded. I still feel this is a most unfair situation. This is not about the particular reforms that have been chosen, the pieces of work; I am sure they are very sound, worth while and worthy pieces of work. That is not what this is about. It is about the fact that we are getting those organisations to forgo funds so a significant amount of money will not be out there delivering services because it will be withheld to make the changes that will hopefully flow through and make some savings. The point is, however, that it should not have been a tax on the community sector. That is very clear. Regardless of some people coming out and saying that they think it is okay and we will just have to grin and bear and get on with it, it is fundamentally unfair.
I have heard that some of the work that has been done to cut some of that red tape in the business sector will have positive impacts and will have some benefit for the community sector. That is fantastic; that is great; I welcome it. But it is still not the point. This is about a principle; it is about a principle of fairness, and that principle is not being upheld in this case. We should not have ever thought it was a good idea to withhold community sector funding that would have gone out to make a real difference to individuals and to communities for this process. It particularly stands in stark contrast when, at the same time, the business sector is having its process funded.
I will continue to take this stand; I continue to see it as unfair. I urge the government to reconsider what has happened here. Great, have a process and have a look at how you might be able to bring in some efficiencies. That is very welcome, but I urge you to reconsider your decision to tax or withhold money that I am sure would have gone a long, long way out there for individuals and for communities that are vulnerable and that we should be doing all we can to support.
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (2.20): I rise to speak on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander portfolio, which is within this directorate.
Mr Speaker, what is an Aboriginal organisation? This is an important question for Aborigines. Most non-Indigenous Australians are perplexed or unconcerned. As a minister and as an Aboriginal man myself, I have used three separate means to define an Aboriginal organisation.
Firstly, there is registration with the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006.
Secondly, the organisation can be a member of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, which requires that in an Aboriginal organisation at least 51 per cent of members are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders; at least 51 per cent of the
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