Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

But, I would have thought, potentially, a fairly representative voice. One of the difficulties that we have in this debate is that a lot of the Indigenous community leadership has in fact been presiding over communities in the full knowledge of what is going on, and therefore there are certain elements who will undoubtedly find the exposures that are now occurring very uncomfortable. Having said that, can I acknowledge Senator Evans’s comment that this is a crisis and it does need to be dealt with expeditiously.

I turn to the Australian Democrats contribution. Yes, it is a cheap point to say that we have been in government for 11 years and why act now. I think we all know why we are acting now. It is because of the ineptness of the Northern Territory government, who had, until this legislation, the constitutional and legal responsibility to deal with these issues and, for whatever reason, did not. All that I would invite people to do is have a look at the Lateline performances by Chief Minister Clare Martin with Tony Jones. It is not often that I would praise the ABC, but these showed absolutely everything that was wrong with the Northern Territory government’s approach and its complete incapacity to deal with this urgent issue—even when confronted by the report co-authored by Rex Wild QC. She was then interviewed about that and what her response to it would be. It was one of those very few interviews of a Labor person where I was cringing in embarrassment for her. It was an embarrassing, inept interview indicating that really she was not willing to deal with the issues.

Why are we dealing with it now? Because of the report that highlighted all of these issues that came down only recently, and the Northern Territory government’s complete inability—I will be kind and say ‘inability’; I will not say that they did not want to—to deal with the issues, we believed that we should involve ourselves and that is what we have done. Of course, if we are to be condemned—and this is a point that was also made by the Greens in the debate—for having waited 11 years, does it not follow logically that we should be condemned even further if we delay by 11 years and one month or 11 years and two months? If that is the case, if we are to be condemned for having waited for so long, surely our condemnation ought to be all the greater? But, no, these people do want us to delay and delay and delay. Quite frankly, I find it bizarre that they would want to delay this package of measures.