Extract from Hansard [ASSEMBLY - Tuesday, 16 May 2006] P2689c-2690A Mr Tom Stephens; Mr Alan Carpenter

Extract from Hansard [ASSEMBLY - Tuesday, 16 May 2006] p2689c-2690a Mr Tom Stephens; Mr Alan Carpenter INDIGENOUS STUDENTS - EDUCATION AND TRAINING INITIATIVES 261. Mr T.G. STEPHENS to the Premier: Will the Premier advise the house of the state government’s latest education and training initiatives for indigenous students? Mr A.J. CARPENTER replied: I thank the member for this question and for his interest in this particular element of government policy. As I advised the Parliament last Thursday in your absence, Mr Speaker, I attended on the previous Friday the Rob Riley memorial service, which marked 10 years since the tragic death of Rob Riley on 1 May 1996. It was a very moving ceremony at Government House. We saw the launching of a biography of Rob Riley by Quentin Beresford of Edith Cowan University. At the ceremony, I had the privilege of announcing the Rob Riley memorial scholarships. Each year, $5 000 will be awarded to Western Australia’s leading Aboriginal TEE student and leading year 12 vocational education and training student. The money will go towards education and training expenses. I thank Mr Speaker for his engagement and involvement in that initiative. I also thank the members for Kimberley and Victoria Park for the roles they have played in this. Rob Riley was a person who remains unparalleled in the recent history of the Nyoongah community in Western Australia. His death left a hole in the community that has never been filled. He was a very great leader. His decline into depression and his subsequent suicide was a massive tragedy. It was a great loss for everybody in this state. It was very interesting to sit at the front of the ceremony with people like Pat Dodson, Peter Yu and members of Rob’s family, including his daughter Megan, as well as a range of other Aboriginal leaders. I listened to each of them speak briefly about their reflections on his life and the struggles he had in his life to rectify social injustice and intolerance and prejudice towards Aboriginal people. Sitting there as the Premier of Western Australia, I obviously had a different perception from somebody in a different role. I took on board the commentary about how far we have come in the struggle that Rob Riley pursued and how far we have got to go. I spoke to Dennis Eggington about a matter. I was appalled - I will not dwell on this but I feel that I need to say something as the Premier of the State - to read in Thursday’s The West Australian a comment by Paul Murray. He used the term “nigger in the woodpile”. It was not directed towards an Aboriginal person but the term is offensive. Aboriginal people find the term offensive. There is no place for it; there was no need to use the term. At the ceremony I listened to what people had to say about the ingrained, systematic and systemic prejudice that Aboriginals face on a daily basis. To see something like that written without question in the daily newspaper of this state in 2006 is very, very sobering. It takes us back and makes us understand just how deeply ingrained are the attitudes that Aboriginal people have to face every day. It is appalling. Dennis Eggington has issued a statement on behalf of the Aboriginal Legal Service to say that he is outraged to discover that the battles that had previously been won are now required to be refought following the use by The West Australian of the “n” word by a journalist who should know better. He calls for a retraction from the journalist concerned, who should know better, as well as an apology from the newspaper. Mr Eggington believes that such a gesture would at least demonstrate a semblance of cultural respect as Reconciliation Week approaches. For those who listened to his address, Pat Dodson’s speech was very powerful. He left the audience with one rhetorical question: when will this stop? It is time for this sort of stuff to stop. It is overdue that this sort of stuff stops. [1] .

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