Mr HARDGRAVE (Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) (4:37 PM) —The member for Lingiari has also caught the Leader of the Opposition's disease on detail. This year we will spend $2.9 billion on a variety of programs. In fact, that is 39 per cent more than we spent in 1996. That is 39 per cent more than when the member for Lingiari lost his seat at the 1996 federal election—and that is a lot more than zilch. We know that the Labor Party are not real good on numbers because, when they left office in 1996, they said it was a budget surplus and of course there was this massive $10.5 billion deficit, so they do not understand.

The ATSIC commissioners will have little to do. They will need to put an expenditure forecast to the minister. But, in their rush to brief the member for Lingiari, they have so far failed to do that. We will be keeping their funding to a minimum until they do what they have been asked to do. With regard to Indigenous coordination centres, a network of 22 will replace the existing ATSIC and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services' regional office to coordinate service delivery in regional and remote areas. They will generally be located where the current ATSIC regional offices are. So that is probably why there will not be one in Darwin under this proposal, if that is what the member for Lingiari is trying to say.

It is fair to say that our proposal means that there will be an Indigenous coordination centre in capital cities, with a local manager and a state manager. The member for Lingiari is again verbalising this whole point and does not want to understand it. As far as matters to do with specific funding and specific areas of assistance to the first Australians are concerned, we are pleased that the proportion of Indigenous children who stay on at school through year 12 has increased from 29.2 per cent in 1996 to 39.1 per cent in 2002-03.

What we are about is in fact liberating the individual initiative of each of these people, making certain that the first Australians are no longer left behind. The member for Lingiari wants to talk today about separate development. The member for Lingiari should look those words up in a thesaurus—he will see a word that he will not want to see. We do not stand for separate development. We want to see the first Australians given opportunities to be very much a part of things in every possible way. What we want to do is make certain of that—as we have done. Since the 1995-96 budget we have more than doubled in real terms the funding for Indigenous specific health programs. It stands at more than $280 million, which is more than double what it was in 1995-96.

But, at the end of the day, we know that these 17 research officers that the member for Lingiari is currently concerned about will provide policy and research assistance to the ATSIC commissioners until 30 June. Nine of the people filling these positions are in fact on loan. They will simply transfer to other Australian Public Service positions, so they are not being sacked—the member for Lingiari has got that wrong as well. The other eight are on temporary contracts under section 29 of the Public Service Act, which allows for termination where a position is no longer needed. The research officers were provided from around July last year to assist commissioners in providing their policy advisory role in relation to ATSIS. ATSIS will lose the vast majority of its function on 30 June next.

Only a shell will exist—as a result of Labor's delaying tactics—which is going to cost $120,000 a week to keep a bunch of people doing nothing. I do not know what the cost of building a house in the deepest darkest parts of the member for Lingiari's electorate might happen to be, but if it is $240,000, $360,000 or $480,000—whatever multiple of $120,000 he would like to come up with—he can account to the Australian people about exactly why it is he wants to spend that money to keep people doing nothing. For the member for Lingiari and, indeed, for the record, let me quote the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Werriwa, the member for Lingiari's leader. On 30 March he said:

What an understatement! Only 21 per cent of Indigenous Australians actually voted for the ATSIC board. But that sort of situation appeals to the member for Lingiari.