Page 1275 - Week 05 - Thursday, 4 June 2020
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This brings me to the long and frustrating saga of the Ngunnawal Bush Healing Farm. This facility is a wasted opportunity—a missed chance to really invest in a culturally appropriate place for Indigenous people, a place to heal, recover, connect and get their lives back on track. After more than a decade of false starts and broken promises, the facility was fast-tracked; $12 million was spent on building it and $2 million a year on running it. And what does it deliver? Very narrow programs not linked to other service providers or to the justice system. There is no case management support or encouraging people into healthy pathways and lives. Instead, it is run by ACT Health on their terms, not by Indigenous people for their community. It is run on an ad hoc basis and not in a holistic way. The land and farm are not adequately managed. Again, it is not living up to the potential to connect people to country.
I am frustrated at this government and at the various ministers involved over the years. If you think I am frustrated, you should talk to the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community about how they feel. After almost 20 years of this government, how can things be so bad here in the ACT? This long-serving government cannot break out of the same tired, old thinking. As a result, Canberrans have been left with some of the worst performing health services in the nation. Even before the coronavirus, taxes were at record highs, services were at record lows and there was $4 billion in debt. Canberra deserves better, and for Indigenous Canberrans the stakes are even higher.
I am pleased to support this motion from my colleague, and I thank her for continuing to raise the health and wellbeing of our community in this place. I hope that this review will provide some practical insights into how to address what I admit is a complex situation, providing it gets up in this chamber today.
To be honest, I believe that the first and most important step to address this issue for our Indigenous community and Canberra as a whole is to vote out this tired and out-of-touch government. Come October, I know we are ready to tackle the problems facing Canberrans with fresh eyes and a new vision.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families and Minister for Health) (4.38): I rise very briefly to support Minister Rattenbury’s amendment to Mrs Dunne’s motion. The amendment lays out very clearly the investments that have been made by the government, particularly since 2016, and the work that is underway in this space, as well as the many reviews and inquiries that have been completed and that are currently underway in this space.
Unfortunately, I missed hearing most of Minister Rattenbury’s contribution to the debate, but I am sure he also spoke about the very important role that the Human Rights Commission already plays as an oversight body in this space, and particularly the important role of the health services commissioner, who plays a critical oversight role not only in mental health but in health more broadly. It is one that we certainly welcome and embrace, as the party who introduced the Human Rights Act and have a very clear commitment to human rights.
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