Governance arrangements for the Indian Ocean territories Discussion

Senator JOYCE—I would like to acknowledge the discussions you have had so far and the statements, as all councils say they would like a greater involvement in their decision making process. There were a couple of things in your statements that disturbed me a bit. You talk about the ‘righting of the dreadful wrongs’, that there is a belief, you said, that it has in the past been almost a ‘white supremacist’ belief. It seemed to draw a picture of something that I certainly do not see walking around the island—I may be missing it. I fail to see how trying to manipulate something from history prior to 1958 is going to be a possibility in any way, shape or form. It is just an ongoing process and you really do manage that on your own behalf if you inspire a sense of community engagement and everybody gets along—only you can do that. Nobody else can do that from anywhere else but yourself.

Mr Thomson—We do that.

Senator JOYCE—I draw a couple of analogies between where I come from—being south-west Queensland; if you drive responsibly it is a six-hour drive to Brisbane—and where you are here. You have a population of approximately 1,500 people, about half the size of our shire, about the size of Dirranbandi. I am looking at the resources that you have here. We have a swimming pool at Dirranbandi too, it is called ‘a river’; and the childminding centre is ‘a tree’. What knocks me over when I am here is how much Commonwealth money has been spent here—absolute buckets full. I feel quite jealous about the resources that you have had expended in your community which are completely lacking in ours. Do you think you are not on a pretty good wicket?

Mr Thomson—We are talking about the institutional and constitutional arrangements for decision making. We have a recreation centre that you saw yesterday that came about from a political deal. Mr Snowdon spoke with Mr Ruddock and they came up with $8 million because we had been complaining that the sports hall down here was not a place to put human beings—and it was not.

So, after some years of pressure, it was agreed that the government would put up $8 million and we would have a dual purpose community facility and a place to house refugees in decent accommodation, who are arriving periodically over a period of 10 years. The government decided that an $8 million facility was not good enough—they wanted a $200 million one. They decided to build this other thing. I said, ‘You can keep the $8 million and it will not be a dual purpose facility; it will be a recreation centre for the community completely and you can have this and you can have that.’ It is by accident, Senator Joyce, that we have a beautiful and magnificent facility which is designed for a population of 70,000 people. It is not something we said we had to have but it was a commitment that the government honoured. It was just an accident. We do have a magnificent facility, that is true.

In terms of the other services and facilities we have on Christmas Island, I do not know whether they are outstanding by comparison to other communities. I am a Queenslander by birth and upbringing myself. I understand that Queensland has always been in my lifetime—I was born in 1956—a backward state when it comes to the provision of services to country areas. I come from a country area and I know what you are talking about and I may well be backward, but in the nicest possible way.

CHAIRMAN—That is not a feeling the committee shares, Mr Thomson.

Mr Thomson—Thank you very much for that, Senator Lightfoot. I know I can rely on you to be very decent in all things. In terms of other facilities, what other facilities are there?

Senator JOYCE—Your hospital, your sealed roads, your ports, the airport—I could go on. They are way in excess of the facilities that we have in our area.

Mr Thomson—My advocacy is very good obviously. It is a shame that not all communities have sealed roads and schools. Certainly the school is been air-conditioned and it has been for some time.

Senator JOYCE—It seems like if you had to fund your housing yourself on a more limited budget, if there was not such a good arrangement, you might be lacking a lot of those facilities.

Mr Thomson—Yes, indeed that is the dilemma for all small communities. I think that popular thinking or the contemporary official thinking is that a society or community is not self-sustaining until it reaches a population of about 100,000. That is the planning view as I understand it. I do not think we would ever hope to be able to sustain all of the services that we enjoy if we relied on our current economy.

Senator JOYCE—The other thing is the casino panacea; have you done any sort of study into what the downside of that might be for the district?

Mr Thomson—A study was done in the late 1990s by a social worker; some effort was put in there. In terms of the negative social impacts?

Senator JOYCE—Yes. You as one living in a western town in Queensland at some stage would understand that it is also very easy to inspire problems into your community and once they are there you will not get rid of them.

Mr Thomson—We do have gambling on the island.

Ms Robinson—It is legislated.

Mr Thomson—There are legislative arrangements for the Poon Saan Club. At this time in particular during Chinese New Year you will see some gambling that is licensed by the government. I am not one of those people who say that people should not do those sorts of things if that is what they really want to do. One thing our community did before the support for the original casino licence was given was to conduct a formal referendum. The result of that referendum was that a very high percentage of the people involved and living here were in favour of the casino licence being granted and the casino being built. I think in the order of 90 per cent of the people voted in favour of the casino. I can see the shortcomings personally—I am not a gambler myself, but it is not my role as an elected representative to say, ‘There should not be gambling because I do not like it.’ When 90 per cent of the people voted in favour of a casino before, it is not my role to tell them that is not what they want. This government should not be telling our community: ‘You are a dead duck and you will not have a sustainable community. You will never be able to afford to provide services. You will never being able to stand on your own two feet because we are going to keep you that way; we are going to keep you totally dependent on government financing,’ and then make it sweet for us by giving us good facilities. That is no answer. That casino was working. It was providing jobs and our community was humming. There were two big engines. A very successful business out there became unsuccessful because of decisions elsewhere.

Senator JOYCE—You would not end up owning the casino; it would be managed by an external party. You have a very strong belief that there would be a continued correlation between the wealth generated there recycling back through your community, as opposed to people bringing in their own workers and their own contractors to run everything for that casino, like they do with the tourist runs in Cairns?