This is our voice: tackle grog and violence

Remote Australia’s Aboriginal female MPs unite to demand the nation tackle domestic violence and alcoholism ravaging Indigenous communities.

Coalition senator Jacinta Price with her great-aunt Tess Napaljarri Ross at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Remote Australia’s Aboriginal ­female MPs have united to ­demand the nation tackle domestic violence and alcoholism ravaging Indigenous communities, with Labor’s Marion Scrymgour ­likening the removal of grog bans to “pulling forces out of Afghanistan”.

Ms Scrymgour, Coalition senator Jacinta Price and ALP Victorian senator Jana Stewart all spoke for the first time on a parliamentary day dominated by the ­Albanese government’s push to abolish the cashless debit card and a furore over the Aboriginal flag.

The three Indigenous women diverged on Anthony Albanese’s push for a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, with the Labor MPs backing it and Senator Price calling it a “handout”.

But Senator Price and Ms Scrymgour – who are both based in Alice Springs – were united on a tough approach to alcohol-fuelled violence affecting Indigenous women in the red centre.

Ms Scrymgour, who was elected to the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari in May, said grog ban measures in place for 14 years since John Howard’s Intervention could not suddenly be revoked with no plan on how to manage the fallout.

“When a government puts a protective regime of that kind in place, and leaves it in place for that long, you can’t just suddenly pull the pin on it without any protection, sanctuary or plan for the vulnerable women and children whom the original measure was supposed to protect,” she said in her maiden speech to the lower house.

Labor MP Marion Scrymgour makes her maiden speech in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

“To do that is more than negligent – at the level of impact on ­actual lives it is tantamount to causing injury by omission. It’s like pulling your forces out of Afghanistan but leaving your local workers and their dependants in harm’s way on the ground without an ­escape plan.”

The speech came as the Territory government decided not to extend alcohol bans covering about 400 Aboriginal outstations and communities, prompting concern over a “massive” increase in rates of violence and abuse fuelled by the abuse of alcohol.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney is urgently seeking a meeting with Chief Minister Natasha Fyles amid concern over the lifting of the grog bans.

Senator Price began her day with her grandfather’s sister, Tess Napaljarri Ross, who has spent all week with her at parliament, with the pair participating in a traditional ceremony in the grounds of Parliament House before the maiden speech.

As she spoke emotionally of the recent murder-suicide of a young woman and her baby at the hands of the woman’s male partner in Alice Springs last week, Senator Price slammed the end of alcohol bans and said it was one of the most “appalling examples of legislation”. She also criticised the federal government’s moves to abolish the cashless debit card.

“We see two clear examples this week over failure to listen. The news grog bans will be lifted on dry communities, allowing the scourge of alcoholism and the violence that accompanies it free reign,” she said.

“Couple this with the removal of the cashless debit card that ­allowed countless families on welfare to feed their children rather than seeing their money claimed by kinship demands from alcoholics, substance abusers and gamblers in their own family group.”

Jana Stewart, the youngest Indigenous woman to serve in parliament, says ‘I and other parents of colour have to teach children the alphabet at the same time as how to deal with ­racism’. Picture: AAP

The Territory’s Indigenous MPs’ focus on violence in their communities on Wednesday contrasted with the dominance of ­arguments over symbolism in parliament this week. As the Prime Minister again made the voice ­referendum central to his government’s mission over the next three years, a motion to put up the Aboriginal flag in the Senate and a welcome to country prompted a walkout from One Nation’s Pauline Hanson.

Unlike Ms Scrymgour and Senator Stewart, Senator Price is strongly opposed to a voice to parliament and attacked welcome to country as a “staid ritual practice”.

“We hear the platitudes of motherhood statements from our now Prime Minister who suggests without any evidence whatsoever that a voice to parliament bestowed upon us through the virtuous act of symbolic gesture by this government is what is going to ­empower us,” she said. “His government has yet to demonstrate how this proposed voice will deliver practical outcomes and unite rather than drive a wedge further between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. No Prime Minister we don’t need another handout … and no we Indigenous Australians have not come to agreement on this statement.”

The cashless welfare card – which Aboriginal leaders such as Noel Pearson have supported in the past as a way of tackling ­alcoholism and violence – will be the Albanese government’s first major step towards tearing down the previous Coalition government’s policies on Aboriginal disadvantage.

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth on Wednesday ­defended the decision to axe the card, with the backing of Indigenous Labor frontbenchers, and said the policy was an “ideological ­obsession” of the right.

“Labor wants welfare and social security to be a strong safety net that supports vulnerable Australians when they need it,” she said in parliament .

“That is why Labor has decisively acted to deliver on its election commitment to abolish the cashless debit card …. no-one in this country will have to worry about it because we are getting rid of it and we are ending the experiment of privatised welfare.”

Senator Stewart, the youngest Indigenous woman to serve in parliament, said she was committed to making changes on issues that ­affected First Nations people even if it made others “uncomfortable”. “I don’t care about your discomfort,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable to read child death reports … One woman dies every nine days in this country, that’s uncomfortable. I and other parents of colour have to teach children the alphabet at the same time as how to deal with ­racism.”

The Victorian senator, whose predecessor was the late Kimberley Kitching, said she used words like “genocide” in her speech when referring to the Stolen Generations not to “inflict feelings of guilt” but rather to tell the “hard truth about the history of this country”.