Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Hotham asks, ‘Do I think I am the only one who speaks to them?’ The member for Lingiari, your representative on this issue, has said, ‘Come and talk to me.’ The people I am talking to do not even know that this discussion is occurring today. They are the people who have said to me: ‘These are the key issues for us. These are the key issues for the people on the streets.’ These are the people who are saying: ‘You’ve got to understand that we want to be treated the same as the whitefella. We want to be treated the same way under the law.’

If you want children to attend schools, you have to have parents accepting responsibility for ensuring that they go there, and the state or territory government has to police those laws. These people want to ensure that the laws that currently apply—not new laws—apply to them equally, just as they do to the wider community. They tell me—whether it be in Wadeye, Port Keats, Galiwinku or Mornington Island: wherever it happens to be—that they do not believe that occurs today.

I know there is a great propensity on the other side to widen this debate. I have deliberately kept the issue focused on delivering the fundamental principle that underpins any civilised society. There has not been a civilised society ever that has succeeded when the basic rule of law has not existed and when the criminal justice system that applies in that society has not had the confidence of its people. That is what has occurred in these places.

Let us deal with some of the specifics. In Wadeye there has not been one riot of 150 people; there have not been two riots of 150 people. They have been going on and on. When there is a riot—let me explain what happens here—150 people trash a suburb. In fact, the men and boys go through first and behind are the women and children who actually ruin the homes, destroy the toilet bowls and break the windows. We have seen the evidence of that. There is no escaping that there is a fundamental breakdown in law and order. What I am simply saying to people, first and foremost, is that if we do not deal with that issue we can continue to build more homes, which we have done. In Wadeye there have been 28 homes destroyed over the last few months. If we want to continue to replace houses at the same rate as they are being destroyed, we will be here in another 10 years time facing the same issues.

First and foremost we have to face up to the stark reality that there are people who do not know anything other than lawlessness in these communities. It is not just Mal Brough or the Howard government saying that. It is the people who are having the crimes perpetrated upon them who say, ‘I want to stand up in a court of law and give evidence, but I’m afraid of payback.’ The member for Lingiari knows as well as anyone in this place that there is a very real notion of fear for these people, whether they be black or white. When I was in Wadeye I had both black and white Australians saying those words to me. They said: ‘I know exactly what you’re saying. What you’re saying is 100 per cent correct. Don’t expect us to stand up in court because payback will cost us too much.’ There is a fundamental breakdown in our faith in the criminal justice system and our capacity to deliver law and order that we, as Australians, accept and, in fact, demand in every suburb that we live in. Yet it does not occur here.

The member for Lingiari says that there have been reports on domestic violence. His words were, ‘They’ve all been shelved or all but ignored by the Howard government.’ I say to the member for Lingiari: who has the constitutional responsibility to deliver law and order in this country?

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