Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will use a lower tenor. I did singing once and was a base tenor. I am not certain whether that is the cadence with which you wanted me to address the meeting this afternoon. Let me just say to the member for Lowe that whilst a lot of what he said was interesting, a lot of it was also bunkum. He knows next to nothing about the Northern Territory or the processes, and he has learnt very little out of this report.

I was in the Northern Territory in 1998 and was part of the process. That referendum failed because of the stupidity of the CLP administration in the Northern Territory. That was the reason. Whilst I accept that you can have all sorts of views about whether or not the Commonwealth should have the right to intervene in the Northern Territory, it should not. You would not tolerate the intervention in New South Wales that has been tolerated in the Northern Territory. It is inappropriate for you to stand up in this chamber and say to me that, as a representative of the Northern Territory community, I should accept the proposition that the Commonwealth, using its powers under section 122 of the Constitution, should have the right to intervene in the way you say they have. Not only do I think it is unreasonable; I think it is unfair. You ought to apologise to the people of the Northern Territory. I invite you to come to the Northern Territory and we will have this debate up there, because it is totally unfair and totally unreasonable. Nevertheless, I—

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