Transcript of Proceedings
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__________________________________________________________ PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION INQUIRY INTO HORIZONTAL FISCAL EQUALISATION MR J COPPEL, Commissioner MS K CHESTER, Commissioner TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS AT BROLGA ROOM, NOVOTEL CBD, 100 THE ESPLANADE, DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY ON TUESDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2017 AT 12.28 PM Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation 28/11/17 © C'wlth of Australia INDEX Page YOTHU YINDI FOUNDATION MS YANANYMUL MUNUNGGURR 271-288 MS DENISE BOWDEN MR BARRY HANSEN MR BOB BEADMAN AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION UNION MR JARVIS RYAN 288-299 MINERALS COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA MR JOHN BARBER 300-312 MR DREW WAGNER BESPOKE TERRITORY MR PAUL HENDERSON 312-325 COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC SECTOR UNION MS KAY DENSLEY 326-335 ELECTRICAL TRADES UNION MR DAVID HAYES AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, NT DR ROBERT PARKER 336-341 NORTHERN LAND COUNCIL DR JOE VALENTI 342-348 ABORIGINAL MEDICAL SERVICES ALLIANCE, NT MR JOHN PATTERSON 349-360 DR DAVID COOPER MR GERRY WOOD 361-369 Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation 28/11/17 © C'wlth of Australia RESUMED [12.28 pm] MS CHESTER: Okay, folks. We might get underway. Good afternoon, all and welcome to the public hearings for the Productivity Commission 5 Inquiry into Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation, or better known as how we divide up the GST bucket across the states and territories. My name’s Karen Chester. I’m the deputy chair of the Productivity Commission and a Commissioner on this inquiry and I’m joined by my 10 fellow colleague and Commissioner, Jonathan Coppel. I’d like to begin in opening these hearings by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today the Larrakia people, and I would also like to pay my respects to elders past and present. 15 Now this is the fifth day of public hearings for this inquiry. We’ve held hearings in Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide, and we’re here today and tomorrow in Darwin and then we’ll be heading to Hobart at the end of the week. We’ll then be working towards completing a final report for government which will be submitted to the Australian Government next 20 year. Participants and those who’ve registered their interest in this inquiry will be advised when the final report is released by the government. Now before I sort of run through why we hold public hearings and how we go about doing them, I am required by a piece of legislation to say, if 25 some alarms go off let’s all follow common sense and head out the door. Fire wardens will tell us how to get out, and don’t use any lifts. I think that covers that off. Now in terms of why we hold public hearings, for the Commission, 30 public hearings are a really important part of our consultation process. It allows there to be public scrutiny of our work, our draft report, and to get feedback on that draft report. But importantly, it also allows public scrutiny and feedback on the submissions and the inputs that are made by others to our inquiry. 35 Now we like to conduct all hearings in a reasonably informal manner, but I do remind participants that a full transcript is being taken. For this reason we can’t take any comments from the floor. But at the end of today’s proceedings, if there is anybody who’s not a registered participant who 40 would like to be heard, then we will be able to make them do that. Now participants are invited to make some short opening remarks, and we’ll just ask if you can leave that up to five minutes, just so it allows more time for us to have a bit of a conversation, to make sure that we better 45 understand your views and thoughts on this inquiry. Now participants are Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation 28/11/17 271 © C'wlth of Australia not required to take any oath. We just ask you to be truthful. You are also very welcome to comment on the submissions or views of others that have been made to this inquiry. 5 Now the transcript that’s being taken by Peter today on our behalf will be available from the Commission’s website following the hearings, as are participant’s submissions and our draft report. For any media representatives that are here today, and I think we have a few in the back row, and I think they know the rules of the game. 10 So I’d like to welcome our first participants for the public hearings here in Darwin, the Yothu Yindi Foundation. Thank you very much for the submission that you were able to give to us, so we get a better understanding of what some of the views and issues are you’d like to discuss with us today. 15 But just for the purposes of the transcript, if you could each just state your name and organisation, just for recording purposes, and then if you’d like to make some brief opening remarks. Thank you. MS MUNUNGGURR: Hi. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is 20 Yananymul Mununggurr. I’m a director for the Yothu Yindi Foundation. I’d like to make a bit of a statement. I was flown out here yesterday from Yirrkala, a place called Yirrkala, north east Arnhem Island, to provide this presentation on behalf of the Yothu Yindi Foundation. I live at Yirrkala, but I’ve also got a homeland which is Garrthalala the homeland, and it’s a 25 remote outstation, south of Yirrkala and the Gulf Peninsula. And today is the first time that I’ve been to such an inquiry like this. I’ve come here to try and give you a better understanding of life that I live in. The Yolngu people within our region are borne into two moieties, 30 Dhuwa and Yirritja moieties. I come from a clan group of Djapu clan nation and my mother’s clan nation group is Gumatj, (indistinct) Gumatj. I speak Gumatj, but traditionally I speak my father’s language which is the Djapu. That’s my first language. 35 There’s more than 15,000 Yolngu people living in the East Arnhem region and more than 2000 that lives on homelands. Eight out of ten Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory lives in rural or remote like we do. So we are a long way from places like Darwin, Katherine, Alice Springs where the power lies within Australia. And the Yolngu seem to be 40 the last to have our voices heard when it comes to expenditure of government money. Over the last few decades, we have found that we miss out just about everywhere. We know that we have been neglected and this effect - we 45 know that the system is against all Aboriginal people across the Territory Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation 28/11/17 272 © C'wlth of Australia and across the nation. Our communities have never been probably funded when leading – when funding itself never seems to reach the people that it is meant for. And honestly, we blame both governments of the Territory and the Federal Government and politicians from both sides has let us 5 down, let all the Aboriginal people down when it comes to funding for our communities. And the submission, the Yothu Yindi submission is all about that. Health issues, education issues, children’s issues, family issues, all 10 suffer because of all the failures, of all these failures. Our towns and living areas look nothing like Darwin or Alice Springs or Sydney, wherever. And we never get the support we need to develop our land and our waters. At the end of the day, this neglect causes human suffering and real people, like my people, get hurt. And we see it every day. It’s happening right before 15 our eyes. These are the issues that the government, the Commonwealth Grants Commission needs to hear, because we need these funds to hit the ground. We need the funds to get into our communities. We need it to be rolled out 20 to our organisations, so we can look after our own issues on the ground. How can the Commission guarantee to us that we will get our fair share? Your recommendations need to address these issues. We look to you to reform this system so that it works for our people. People like myself 25 and many others are tired. We are very tired of being given the crumbs of the table. There’s not a fair share that’s being given to our people when it comes to funding from both governments. And we’d like to see positive reforms happen in the future – in the near future that will deliver real benefits to our communities and to our people. Thank you, Commissioners. 30 MS CHESTER: Thank you very much for those opening remarks, and also thank you very much for making the journey to come and be here today at our hearings. I might just invite your colleagues to each just say their name and organisation for the transcript recordings and then we might – 35 and did you have any other remarks that you wanted – just introduce each other first. MS BOWDEN: Denise Bowden, Yothu Yindi Foundation. 40 MR HANSEN: Barry Hansen, Yothu Yindi Foundation. MR BEADMAN: Bob Beadman, the same. MS CHESTER: Thank you. Denise, did you or any other colleagues have 45 anything else you wanted to say before we get into some questions. Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation 28/11/17 273 © C'wlth of Australia MS BOWDEN: We do. MS CHESTER: Thank you.