Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition  in the Senate accuses us of perhaps not listening, even if we have consulted, and reflects upon me not lecturing people, particularly about the circumstances of Wadeye. Senator Evans, it is tremendous to see that someone like you has gone out on the ground and has met people. I acknowledge the work that you have done in that area and I think it is important, but I cannot let some of those comments pass when you talk about FaCSIA going into these communities. I know that the minister has been in Wadeye five or six times, and I have been with him on a number of occasions and I was there on the first occasion that you reflect on.

The minister visited Wadeye in very troubled times—I think that has been well enough reported—but on a number of other occasions I know that he has gone out of his way to sit down for long periods of time, not in the council surroundings but under a tree with the women and the children. When you go to Wadeye now with Minister Brough, he is nothing less than loved because of the effort that he has put into sitting down and listening to the people on the ground—not necessarily the leaders, but at every level including the women and the children. He has spent a great deal of time there.

I am not being glib, Senator Evans, when I say that the minister has consulted and he has listened, and I think he has a very clear idea of the needs of the communities. That is why it is not an unsophisticated intervention that just deals with issue of child abuse. Those opposite, including Senator Crossin, remind us often that you cannot just deal with one part of this. This is a suite of challenges: infrastructure, education, having enough food on the plate and having a community store where you can buy food are all fundamental elements of this. That is why the intervention has dealt with this solution over such complex areas with a sophisticated and complex response.

I acknowledge the comment about the COAG trials: they were not the most successful. One of the elements of the COAG trials was the partnership approach, which ensured that the Commonwealth worked with the Northern Territory Labor government and the local councils. It was the intention on all sides not to duplicate. Perhaps we had the critical mass. I agree: the trials can reasonably be described as a monumental failure—and I was on that program. So we cannot keep doing the same sort of stuff. The circumstances in Wadeye often reflect those in many of the other areas around the Northern Territory. We have been listening not only to the senators opposite but to the many commentators in the media and, for a very long time, to the people on the ground. Senator, we have been listening. That is why, when we acted, we did things that we thought would make a great deal of difference on the ground.

You have made some remarks about the dismissal of the report. I certainly was not dismissive of the report. It was a fantastic report. I dismissed out of hand the recommendations of the report, and I stand by that. The report was not a report on us. The report, which was a series of recommendations, was given to the Northern Territory government. As I said, I am delighted to see that the Northern Territory government will be responding to those recommendations in a few days. What we have done is respond to the fundamental elements of the report. We knew that we needed to again provide the rule of law. We knew that we had to stop the amount of alcohol going into the communities and the degree to which that alcohol was impacting on the interaction within families. We also needed to deal with the issue of infrastructure, as well as the long-term issue of education: ‘You cannot have a passport to the front gate unless you have an education.’ There are a whole suite of issues that we have dealt with comprehensively.

I can understand your perspective on this. You would not have the intimate knowledge that I have of the minister’s capacity to listen and to interact with the community. He did that so many times, not just in one community but right across the Northern Territory. He has taken a personal role in this, as you acknowledge, which is rare. It has been a real privilege to be with him. He is very much a listener. Much of the response is a result of what he heard. It is an emergency response. The fundamentals for changing the nature of those communities are contained within that response. I acknowledge the fact that, principally, Labor are not debating those issues and that you support us on those fundamentals. I particularly acknowledge that you recognise this as a matter of urgency and that we have to get in there and move things. All I can recommended, shadow minister, is that you speak again with those communities. I am sure you will, because you have contacts in the Indigenous community. Certainly Senator Crossin has contacts in those communities.

All the feedback from the communities—which is unfiltered feedback—is that the intervention has been delightfully received. It was reported in the newspaper that a 10-year-old in Maningrida had been raped. This occurred some two weeks into the so-called ‘break’, but maybe it was about 10 days after the announcement. The article in the paper reported that the entire community surrounded the house where the incident occurred and had to be dissuaded from taking things into their own hands. I am not sure whether that would have happened before the intervention. I feel a sense that these communities are becoming empowered, particularly the women. This will ensure that the circumstances that we read about in the report will be a thing of the past. Senator, while I accept that those on the other side are allowed some cynicism and some leeway, I would assure you that the intervention is in the best interests of our most vulnerable First Australians.