Mr KURRUPUWU - 2016-02-09
Can you outline what the government hopes to achieve with its Aboriginal affairs strategy?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arafura for his question. It was great to be joined by the member for Arafura and many other members of the Country Liberals last night in the launch of the Aboriginal affairs strategy in the main hall. Thank you very much for allowing us to host it there, Madam Speaker. I also thank the members for Nelson and Nhulunbuy, who were present. It was an opportunity for us to showcase everything we have been doing in Indigenous affairs.
When we started presenting this strategy I knew many detractors would ask why we are doing this three-and-a-half years into government. The answer is simple. It is because we were running with our policies a long time ago and wanted to collate them. A few examples of how successful we have been fall through the employment phase. It also looks at some areas where we need to improve, but particularly how successful we have been.
The key areas of the strategy are focused around the areas of employment, economic development and decentralisation. I will quickly touch on decentralisation. We know when Labor was in it shut all the community councils, centralised everything through the shires and took away the people’s voices. It took housing management from communities and centralised it in Darwin.
Part of our philosophical platform is handing back control, through a careful procedure, to give governance and effective administration to communities in a range of areas. One area, for example, is 40% of health centres in communities are community controlled. We want to get that to 100%. We are in negotiations now with one or two specifically but we have a program to get that to 100%.
On the employment front, we simply want to double Indigenous employment in the public service from 8% to 16% by 2020. We are already on target. We have seen that increase to 9.5%, and congratulations.
We wanted to see more Indigenous employment outcomes through government contracting. We started two years ago with about 40 Indigenous Territorians employed through government procurement. We have now built that up to 579 in the last 12 months. Congratulations to the Department of Infrastructure and all client agencies who have worked very hard to make this change. Policy such as the provisional sum arrangement has been orchestrated and implemented by DoI and is causing a fantastic change and outcome.
There are other areas, such as our business engagement. DoB, through minister Styles, is seeing a threefold increase in business engagement, developing new Aboriginal businesses. There is a lot more to be said and done, but three minutes does not allow me to.
Again, thanks for allowing us to host the launch in the Main Hall of Parliament House. There are many people’s lives changing for the better in the Territory.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arafura for his question. It was great to be joined by the member for Arafura and many other members of the Country Liberals last night in the launch of the Aboriginal affairs strategy in the main hall. Thank you very much for allowing us to host it there, Madam Speaker. I also thank the members for Nelson and Nhulunbuy, who were present. It was an opportunity for us to showcase everything we have been doing in Indigenous affairs.
When we started presenting this strategy I knew many detractors would ask why we are doing this three-and-a-half years into government. The answer is simple. It is because we were running with our policies a long time ago and wanted to collate them. A few examples of how successful we have been fall through the employment phase. It also looks at some areas where we need to improve, but particularly how successful we have been.
The key areas of the strategy are focused around the areas of employment, economic development and decentralisation. I will quickly touch on decentralisation. We know when Labor was in it shut all the community councils, centralised everything through the shires and took away the people’s voices. It took housing management from communities and centralised it in Darwin.
Part of our philosophical platform is handing back control, through a careful procedure, to give governance and effective administration to communities in a range of areas. One area, for example, is 40% of health centres in communities are community controlled. We want to get that to 100%. We are in negotiations now with one or two specifically but we have a program to get that to 100%.
On the employment front, we simply want to double Indigenous employment in the public service from 8% to 16% by 2020. We are already on target. We have seen that increase to 9.5%, and congratulations.
We wanted to see more Indigenous employment outcomes through government contracting. We started two years ago with about 40 Indigenous Territorians employed through government procurement. We have now built that up to 579 in the last 12 months. Congratulations to the Department of Infrastructure and all client agencies who have worked very hard to make this change. Policy such as the provisional sum arrangement has been orchestrated and implemented by DoI and is causing a fantastic change and outcome.
There are other areas, such as our business engagement. DoB, through minister Styles, is seeing a threefold increase in business engagement, developing new Aboriginal businesses. There is a lot more to be said and done, but three minutes does not allow me to.
Again, thanks for allowing us to host the launch in the Main Hall of Parliament House. There are many people’s lives changing for the better in the Territory.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016