Threats to close Remote Aboriginal Communities

Greens MLC Robin Chapple and Senator Rachel Siewert have condemned emerging news that five mostly elderly Aboriginal people with medical conditions were declined access for up to seven hours from the Carnarvon cyclone shelter and hospital, ahead of the impact of Severe Tropical Cyclone Olwyn.

The group included four elderly people on dialysis, and one younger person suffering severe personal health issues.

“I’m very distressed to hear that Aboriginal people were denied access to the hospital and the shelter, these two essential services should not be denied to anyone," Mr Chapple said.

“We must ask how could this happen? There continues to be ill treatment and discrimination of Aboriginal people in this country.

“The approach of both the State and Federal Governments are not helping to stymy instances like this. 

“Inappropriate remarks by the Prime Minister, proposals to close remote communities, and special measures that discriminate against Aboriginal people such as income management all worsen Aboriginal standard of living.

Mr Chapple has called on the Federal Government to act on a motion supported in the Senate yesterday that calls on Federal Funding to be reinstated for communities. 

“During a moment of crisis this group struggled to access essential services much more than they should have," he said.

“It is alarming that no one else appears to have been declined entry to these services.

“There is anecdotal evidence that European backpackers were allowed to stroll in and seek help, this signals systemic issues in rural and remote Western Australia that must be addressed immediately."

For comment please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255.

Media liaison: Tim Oliver           

Mobile: 0431 9696 25

Tuesday, 25 November

Greens Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region Robin Chapple MLC has backed claims by WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin that a halt in funding to the state’s only Aboriginal interpreting service could undermine the fairness of the state’s justice system.

Mr Chapple said this decision showed a complete lack of recognition for the needs of indigenous people in Western Australia.

“This government appears hell-bent on increasing inequality in this state,” he said.

“The right to an independent, trained interpreter is a basic legal right.

“The decision to end funding to the KIS, an essential service for many of the state’s indigenous people who do not speak English as a first language, will directly impact on the fairness of our justice system.”

Mr Chapple said this decision by the state government not to continue funding was one of a number of decisions made recently that directly, and negatively, affected indigenous people.

“Both our state, and federal, governments are further from closing the gap then they ever have been,” he said.

“Just last week the Barnett government announced the closure of more than half of this state’s remote communities, what is essentially a forced eviction of people from not only their homes, but their country and connection with culture.

“Proposed changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act, likely to be debated in parliament early next year, could have even more devastating impacts on the right of Indigenous people in Western Australia to have a say on matters relating to heritage.

“When you throw in more than $500 million worth of funding cuts from our ‘Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs’, including Aboriginal Legal Services, it’s almost impossible to understand how either government plans to overcome indigenous disadvantage.”

For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255.

Tuesday, 11 November

WA Greens Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region Robin Chapple MLC has expressed outrage at Premier Colin Barnett’s statement that remote indigenous communities would be closed due to difficulties in providing essential services.

Mr Barnett also linked high indigenous suicide rates with remote access problems and claimed his government was actively working to try and reduce these statistics.

Mr Chapple said the Premier could not be more out of touch with the needs of remote indigenous communities.

“This is short-sighted economic bean-counting at its absolute worst,” he said.

“By forcing indigenous people out of their communities and into towns and cities you are essentially taking away nearly everything they hold dear.

“I am not talking about material possessions, but their connection with the land, their culture and their ancestors that is so important.

Mr Chapple said it was the height of insensitivity for the Premier to bring in the issue of indigenous suicides whilst simultaneously admitting that the forced closure of remote communities ‘would be traumatic’.

“Who wouldn’t be traumatised if the government walked onto your land and physically removed you against your will?” he said.

“I agree with the Premier that something needs to be done about the provision of services to remote indigenous communities, so why doesn’t he just get on and do it!.

“Moving people from their homes into much larger and unfamiliar settlements and suggesting this may actually reduce the suicide rate amongst indigenous people in Western Australia is absolutely farcical and may very well have the opposite effect.”

For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255.

Thursday September 25

The Australian Greens have expressed serious concerns that services for Aboriginal communities will be compromised by a deal which will see the Federal Government move responsibility for their municipal and essential services to the states.

"The Federal Government has made a point of emphasising its successful ‘historic agreement' to hand responsibility for municipal and essential services in remote Aboriginal communities to the states, but it is clear that this deal is far from perfect," Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues said today.

"The handover of responsibility of these services has been on the Commonwealth's agenda for a long time and communities have had serious concerns about this handover and what it means for their communities. While the Minister seems to think he has achieved a long term solution I don't think that is likely."

"Comments published today indicated that the WA Government is a long way from being in step with the Federal Government, with concerns over a shortfall in funding and the impacts on residents of those communities. The WA Government is suggesting that around 180 remote Aboriginal communities will be affected, and that the money offered by the Federal Government will cover only two years of services.

"I am concerned that while governments bicker between themselves, communities who are crying out for better investments in critical services will be forgotten. The financial pressure of this transition could lead to the States making cuts to services or looking to close remote communities.

"The Federal Government cannot jepoardise the delivery of essential services to remote community by hurriedly handing this responsibility off to the states. Doing so has the potential to serious undermine efforts to close the gap and can lead to a range of health and community concerns.

"I am calling on the Federal Government to ensure that any move to transition the provision of these services to the states guarantees adequate funding into the long term and robust, transparent monitoring processes to ensure communities do not lose out," Senator Siewert concluded.

Greens Robin Chapple WA State Parliament spokesperson for Aboriginal affairs was also highly critical of the move.

"WA is already failing to service remote Aboriginal communities and has already closed some and as Minister Marmion has pointed out this may mean more closures into the future," Mr Chapple said today.

"There seems to be a predilection with governments at both the federal and state level to dump on those who can least afford it.

"There are massive social and economic costs in closing communities as have been experienced by the closure of Oombulgurri and its pending demolition, heavily criticised by Amnesty International Australia.

"We don't go around closing small rural towns half the size of many of these communities, so why shouldn't Aboriginal communities by nurtured on their lands and in their towns places they have lived for thousands of years.

"This is just another short term bean counting exercise that will undo the good work of the last 40 years and provide a cost explosion in relocation and social breakdown into the future," Mr Chapple concluded.

Originally posted here by the office of Senator Rachel Siewert.

Monday 22^nd September 2014

The State Government’s decision to commence demolition of buildings previously occupied by the Oombulgurri Aboriginal community is a slap in the face of a people who have already suffered so much.

Greens member for Mining and Pastoral region Robin Chapple MLC said he was deeply disturbed by the callous treatment of people who have already endured so much at the hands of successive governments.

“Starting with the brutal Forrest River mission massacre in 1926, through the evacuation to Wyndham fringe camps in the 1960s, the 1970s social experimentation of the Chicago-based Ecumenical Institute, to the present day, this community has endured wave after wave of maladministration and inept attempts at ‘dealing’ with them.

“Of course there have been triumphs too, but in this hard place they are over-shadowed by the so-called ‘epidemic of dysfunction’.

“An observant and caring Government would have seen this coming decades ago but, instead of being offered a helping hand, the survivors have been given their marching orders.

“To bulldoze a whole community and deny them access to their traditional and familial homelands in order to punish a few offenders makes no sense. The majority have done no wrong and are having to suffer all over again at the hands of government oppression.

“If someone commits an offence in any township or suburb in Western Australia, you don’t raze the entire settlement!” Mr Chapple said.

“I am shocked and saddened that the State Government would abandon the people of Oombulgurri for the sake of what looks like expedience, because they can’t think what else to do..

“Where’s the justice in forcing people out of their houses and away from their homeland?

“It is the role of Government to care for its citizens, to encourage them, to help them create a future of their own design, not one determined by an assimilationist government.”