Page 4089 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2019
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carefully considered over the course of the last 10 budgets. What a difference that could have made!
For the benefit of those opposite, I note that Indigenous Canberrans are looking for more than just words this time. As many of them have expressed to the Canberra Liberals, they have grown deeply weary of this government’s endless words without actions. Julie Tongs, the CEO of Winnunga, has recently expressed her alarm at the possible cuts to frontline services foreshadowed in this year’s budget papers. Minister Berry has had numerous opportunities to provide an assurance that her decision to pull safer families levy funding from frontline services will not let vulnerable victims fall through the cracks but she has repeatedly avoided overtly making those assurances.
This fact may help to explain why the minister’s statement today will inevitably be received with suspicion by the territory’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. They will be watching to see what this government actually does during the remaining 12 months of this Assembly, and so will the Canberra Liberals. The minister’s apology today, if it is to mean anything, must be accompanied by real progress. Nothing less will do.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.33): I thank the Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence and her colleague the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs for providing this long-awaited response to the We don’t shoot our wounded report. I think that we can all agree here that taking 10 years to respond is very far from an ideal situation and is, in fact, in some ways insulting to the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. It is indicative of how we, in power, have not treated the community with the respect it deserves.
I acknowledge all the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in the chamber today and pay my respects to you and your elders, past, present and emerging. I also acknowledge the contributions of local Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders to this important report and to the other government consultation and co-design processes that have taken place over the last decade. I can assure you that the Greens will help you to hold the government to account in progressing the agreed recommendations in this report and other significant reports.
This report was produced in good faith by the Victims of Crime Coordinator in 2009 and then by the Victims of Crime Commissioner in 2011. More importantly, it was produced in good faith, in collaboration with a group of very dedicated and knowledgeable members of our local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, with the hope that things would change. They have been very patient waiting for a response, but at last here it is. Thank you.
The main thing now, of course, is that government acts upon the recommendations that it has agreed to. Perhaps somewhat ironically, the second recommendation is to ensure that the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims of violence continue to be heard. At least now, with this government response, we can hope that this will be the case.
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