Poor progress on providing essential services to remote Aborg communities denied

15/10/98

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Dr Kim Hames said today it was nonsense for the Opposition to claim the Government had no timeframe to provide remote Aboriginal communities with essential services such as power and water.

"All these communities already have access to power, water and sewerage," Dr Hames said.

"This Government is steadily working towards a program to lift the actual level of services to remote communities to the same standard as that enjoyed by other Western Australians.

"Understandably this is a long process which will not be completed overnight given the number of communities involved across the State."

Dr Hames said that as the Hames Report foreshadowed, there was now a 10-year plan in place to upgrade the standard of the existing list of 48 communities.

However, the Government was currently considering a proposal to significantly increase the number of communities targeted by this plan.

Any uncertainty over timelines was not the result of doubt over the 48 communities, but the expansion of the program to increase the number of communities being serviced.

It was this expansion beyond the current 48 where there was no final timeframe as yet.

"This is because the Government is in the process of determining the next groups of communities to be added to the list," Dr Hames said.

"In addition, work on the two demonstration projects at Oombulgurri and Jigalong is now well advanced and we have recently added communities on the Dampier Peninsular, Burringurrah and Nambi Road to this program.

"At the same time, many other remote Aboriginal communities are receiving funding for improving services provided by a range of Government departments.

"This is being co-ordinated to combine with significant funding through ATSIC."

Media contact: Caroline Lacy 9424 7450