Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

SLING () (): From the outset, I acknowledge the member for Lingiari and her leadership in the Northern Territory. Together, as the members of the House of Representatives representing Territorians, with our colleague Senator McCarthy, we are united and committed to working together on improving community safety, support services and job opportunities throughout the Northern Territory.

I welcome this report on the inquiry into those very issues—community safety, support services and job opportunities in the Northern Territory. It's incredibly important. I acknowledge the chair, Senator Pat Dodson, and the deputy chair, as the member for Lingiari did. Senator Pat Dodson, from Western Australia, with a long connection to the Northern Territory, noted that Aboriginal communities in the NT have been leaders in advocating for the rights of First Nations people for many decades. From my own electorate, the Larrakia people, of course, petitioned in the seventies, but members would be aware of the Yirrkala declarations, the Barunga statement that went to Prime Minister Bob Hawke at the time and leadership on issues that brought us to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

But even with leadership from First Nations people from the Northern Territory over the past 15 years, their right to self-determination has been deliberately denied by governments. Many Australians would be shocked to hear that, but it is the truth. In previous policy regimes governments have destabilised, disempowered and disorientated Aboriginal communities. Governments have taken away power and, instead, made them dependent on government for survival. Governments have done very little and have actually had very little accountability. These actions occurred under the guise of a failure of Aboriginal communities to run their own affairs, and throughout the inquiry, from speaking to members of it, the committee heard repeatedly about the failure of those top-down approaches and it heard the pleas for government to invest in communities and in community led solutions.

That is the alternative, to create economic opportunity by employing local Aboriginal people and by investing in genuinely Aboriginal controlled organisations. There is some investment in community led health organisations, and they show real benefits, but there are so many other ways in which community and Aboriginal controlled organisations can improve the lives of First Nations people living in the communities of the Northern Territory. But it requires listening to and acting on what communities say will work best. Incidentally, it may not have escaped the attention of honourable members listening that that is exactly what is proposed with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. That's what it's all about, listening to what will work best.

Though the committee could not get to all of the communities across the Territory, Aboriginal organisations and frontline community service providers from Darwin, Alice Springs and Maningrida spoke to this point during the inquiry.

Deputy Speaker, as you know, Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory are very resilient. For those of us not from a First Nations community, it's hard to get your head around how disconnected they can be from power and opportunity, but they are incredibly resilient to still be leading and working within their communities to solve the challenges that they face. But we've got to do our bit as government to support them in the community-led programs. I think it is true—and it's not a partisan point—that they've been let down by governments of all stripes over the years. But they continue to show up with solutions and work with governments in good faith, despite the history of their right to self-determination often being denied. In response to the resilience that these communities show, this report makes recommendations that seek to address the disempowering legacy from those top-down approaches, particularly over the last 15 years or so.

Many of these solutions are place based initiatives, and that's important. They recognise that past attempts through the Northern Territory National Emergency Response, which people would remember as being called the Intervention in the Northern Territory, and the following Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act were largely ineffective. Some good things were done, but, on the whole, they were ineffective. The acts largely did not work and have left us in the situation we are now in, where children who were born in that period from 2007 to 2008, during the height of the Intervention—and I worked in the communities in the Northern Territory at that time, so I understand the context in which this was occurring—are the children that are at risk of causing harm today. That's why the committee recommended that the NDIA and the NT government review the inadequate preparations for the sunsetting of the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act.

I was speaking with the Northern Territory government during the period of this transition, and it's why the committee recommended that the NT government needed to provide adequate support and resources to communities to assist them in the development of community alcohol plans. Again, the idea is to empower communities to lead in creating bottom-up solutions. For example, the report recommended that the NT government formalise how the community can ask the minister to exercise their temporary emergency powers in its Northern Territory Liquor Act 2019 and that the Commonwealth ensure that large businesses operating in remote regions employ local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It shouldn't need to be said, but it does, and that's why it's recommended. It also recommends that the Commonwealth implement community-led justice reinvestment initiatives, particularly in Alice Springs and Katherine, as soon as possible. But, to that, our government has added Darwin, and I'm appreciative that that has occurred. It is appropriate, and I've met with the Attorney-General to discuss this. Community-led justice reinvestment initiatives do work, as we've seen in Bourke in New South Wales, and it's also been great to speak with Tom Calma about this, with him knowing the NT and Darwin as well as he does. These are some of the very important recommendations made in this report, which was a consensus report, and I commend it to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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