Page 3599 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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peninsula—the two biggest NAIDOC events in Canberra this year. To add further insult, we have Ms Bresnan sanctimoniously saying in the Assembly last week:
In terms of making comments about whether or not they are an Aboriginal organisation, they are recognised by everyone in the community as such.
Ms Bresnan clearly believes that it is the non-Indigenous community who should make decisions for Aboriginal people.
Mr Smyth’s malicious diatribe last week also references his lack of understanding of the importance of self-determination and his disregard for Canberra’s Indigenous community. Perhaps if he had attended Ken Wyatt’s Blackfriars lecture on Indigenous leadership at the ACU on Monday last week he may have noted the importance of listening to the Aboriginal community and noting the verbal and non-verbal information provided. It is important to listen. It would have been an opportunity to learn. Instead his mishmash misinterpretation of the evidence is another Smythic failure.
I now highlight some of the programs and policies trialled or delivered over the last 12 months in my portfolio.
MR SPEAKER: Dr Bourke, much as you would like to do so, I am afraid the time allocated for this debate has expired. I am sorry to have to interrupt you.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.15—Housing ACT—$42,295,000 (net cost of outputs) and $17,876,000 (capital injection), totalling $60,171,000.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (2.25): It is quite convenient that Housing should come up immediately after Community Services and immediately after Dr Bourke’s little rant, because a commonality between the two areas of government is of course the Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation, which used to be the organisation which for many years provided housing for Indigenous people in Canberra, particularly in west Belconnen.
It is quite offensive that Dr Bourke, after offending the Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation so much that they felt they had to write a letter to the committee to set the record straight—we then had to recall Dr Bourke to the estimates committee to give him an opportunity to set the record straight, to show some dignity, to show some integrity and to show some respect for the Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation, which he did not do at the time. Then, after a month or so to reflect on this sorry saga, he comes into the chamber today and evokes that very issue in the most partisan of ways against the Liberals and Greens. I think it was absolutely appalling. It was an attempt at one-upmanship, it was an attempt at gamesmanship. It simply confirms what I said on Wednesday, that this is a minister not in performance but only by salary.
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