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

You can speak; you can shout; you can say what you like. The reality is you are condemned by your actions. If we turn to Alice Springs, where we have the special purpose leases, you have been the member for Lingiari for the best part of the last 20 years, including 13 years in government. You have been the president of the Labor Party in the Northern Territory, and you have done nothing. You have seen children abused and you have seen murders occur. As late as only a couple of weeks ago, a 23-year-old woman was murdered.

The people that are given the money to run those camps in the suburbs have failed miserably. The Commonwealth government is trying to give children the opportunity to go to school and not to live in fear at night. I received a letter from Lavinia, who said, ‘In the town camps every night I cried myself to sleep with the threat that I would be stabbed at night.’ She used the terms, ‘I escaped from Central Australia.’ This is Central Australia we are talking about, where the member for Lingiari, who has been the federal member for years, stands condemned for his inaction. I wonder what his motivations have been over those years when something positive could have come for these people. Now there is an opportunity with this bill and you are condemned—

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