2017-10-26
Hon Robin Chapple
Since you last heard from me, Ive been as busy as ever getting out to all corners of my electorate and keeping on top of Parliamentary work.
At the start of the month I had the pleasure of joining traditional owners and stakeholders from across the Kimberley at the annual Kimberley Land Council (KLC), Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Cultural Centre (KALACC) and Aarnja joint general meeting held this year at Lombadina, 200 km North on the Dampier Peninsula.
After a couple of days, I made the 900 km drive down to Yule River, for the annual on-country bush meeting for Traditional Owners and stakeholders across the Pilbara. For the first time in the events history we were joined by the Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt, something the former government and Minister had neglected to bother with. I am delighted every year to be able join Traditional Owners here and observe cultural consensus decision-making in action.
In other news, the Victorian parliament last week passed Dying with Dignity legislation through their lower house and look set to debate it in the upper house, hopefully passing it into law, in the coming weeks! This is a first for any state in Australia, and is hopefully pre-emptive of what might happen here in WA. Victorian Upper House Greens MP Colleen Hartland was a big driver of this legislation, first introducing a Dying with Dignity bill in 2008. Over the coming months I will be taking part in a Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices with seven other MPs and I am hopeful we will see a similarly compassionate outcome.
Finally, our campaign against single-use plastics is still going well. In the past week we have written to every single local government in the state asking if they would be willing to consider banning the mass release of helium balloons, as the Town of Cottesloe recently proposed to do. So far weve had a number of positive responses from other local governments who are looking into it.
If you have an opportunity to attend an upcoming council meeting (or are a newly elected Greens councillor – congratulations!) then please think about asking your local representatives what they are doing to combat plastic waste!!!
Header photo: Robins swag set up under his car at Lombadina Aboriginal Community last month for the Annual KLC, KALACC & Aarnja AGM. Tim Oliver