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

The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 and four associated bills underpin the Australian government’s program of further reform of the Australian welfare system, as well as the national emergency response aimed at improving the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. The income support system in Australia provides the community with a strong and much valued safety net. Whilst the majority of welfare recipients spend their payments responsibly to support themselves and their families, some people have a pattern of inappropriate expenditure, such as substance abuse and gambling. It is particularly alarming that this behaviour, which is unacceptable to the community at large, ends up depriving children of the care, education and development which they are entitled to.

The welfare payment reform measures in one of the bills in this package are designed to reinforce responsible behaviour with regard to spending welfare payments. The measures are a further development of the mutual obligation and re-engagement framework already in place through programs such as Work for the Dole for longer term welfare recipients. Most notably, these welfare payment reform measures introduce new arrangements, which will apply nationwide, to link the receipt of income support to the prevention of child abuse, neglect and the encouragement of proper attendance at school. State and territory child welfare authorities will be able to tap into the new arrangements to help identify, report and tackle problem cases.

The measures essentially establish an income management framework for families not currently doing the right thing in spending their welfare payments on appropriate things or those not ensuring that their children get proper schooling. This means that certain portions of the income support and related payments to those families will be directed towards priority needs, such as food, clothing, housing, health, child care and development, education and training, and employment and transport. The Australian government is committed to meeting the expectations of the broader community that taxpayer funded welfare payments be spent on things they are intended for. The welfare payment reform measures in this package are in line with that commitment.

The new principal legislation is given particular application in relation to new income management mechanisms established for some remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. This element is part of the government’s emergency response to be dealt with: the crisis confronting the safety and wellbeing of children in those communities. The emergency response in the Northern Territory includes changes, as announced, to the Community Development Employment Projects—that is, the CDEP program—as part of trying to put the troubled communities back together. Through this package, the Cape York welfare reform trial, announced recently, will be able to proceed in line with the comprehensive plan, as developed in partnership with Mr Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute.

Two other substantive bills in the package provide new principal legislation and amending legislation to secure the government’s national emergency response in the Northern Territory. The Little children are sacred report, commissioned by the Northern Territory government, was a sobering and abundantly clear statement of the serious, widespread and often unreported incidence of sexual abuse amongst Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory and, notably, the fact that the undisputed association between alcohol abuse and sexual abuse of children has to be tackled.

The new legislative measures in the emergency response will help us to achieve comprehensive and meaningful change in this area of national concern. Under this legislation package, the flow of alcohol will be stemmed, as will the prevalence of damaging pornography, including pornography currently accessed through publicly funded computers. The extra police presence that will help stabilise the affected communities and restore law and order will be supported by appropriate amendments to the relevant law enforcement legislation.

There will be provision for the immediate and later acquisition of five-year leases over certain Aboriginal townships in the Northern Territory for the purposes of the emergency response. These leases will enable the Australian government to make the changes urgently needed to improve the living conditions in the communities. The leases will give the government unconditional access to the land so that the buildings and infrastructure can be constructed and repaired as efficiently as possible. Many of the communities are in a poor state. Intervention by government is essential to bring them up to a basic, acceptable standard. There is no land grab. The leases are strictly time limited and cover a tiny proportion of the Aboriginal land estate in the Northern Territory, and control of the land will be returned to the traditional owners at the end of the lease.

Under further measures in the package, powers will be established to assist government to allocate resources flexibly, including government funds and the assets used to provide services, and to deal with bodies required to deliver those services. Customary law or cultural practice will no longer be permitted to lessen or to aggravate the seriousness of criminal behaviour of offenders and alleged offenders. There will be a new licensing regime applied to people who operate community stores in Indigenous communities. Provision will be made for governments to retain an interest in buildings and infrastructure constructed or upgraded on Aboriginal land in the future where they fund the construction or the major upgrade.

There will be changes to the provisions governing access to Aboriginal land to increase interaction with the wider community and to promote economic activity. The current access provisions have not prevented child abuse, violence and alcohol running. They have created closed communities which hide problems from public scrutiny. We do not want women and children to be scared to report violence and abuse. More open communities and a proper police presence will give people the confidence to report inappropriate behaviour. We also want to open up these communities to normal interaction with other Australians. This will promote tourism and economic growth and give people confidence to deal with the outside world. There has been a review of the permit system, and the government has listened to the views expressed. The permit system opens up townships but will continue to apply to the vast bulk of Aboriginal land.

The package also includes two supplementary estimates bills which ensure that the Commonwealth agencies can support the government’s national emergency response to protect Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. The measures in the emergency response aim to protect and stabilise communities in the crisis areas and are the first stage in a longer term approach to improve the welfare of Aboriginal children and their families in the Northern Territory prescribed communities. The appropriation bills are required to ensure timely implementation of the emergency response initiatives in 2007-08. The total appropriation being sought through the appropriation bills is around $587 million, with around $501.99 million being sought in bill No. 1 and $85.3 million in bill No. 2. Funding is being provided to a number of agencies, including the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Defence, the Department of Education, Science and Training, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission and Indigenous Business Australia.

Key initiatives covered by the appropriation bills include: providing additional police to provide safer communities for Indigenous children and their families; health checks for all Aboriginal children and the establishment of teams of drug and alcohol workers to provide outreach support to families and communities affected by the withdrawal of alcohol; expediting the removal of all remote area exemptions across the Northern Territory by 31 December 2007, providing unemployed people in the Northern Territory with greater capacity to participate in the workforce; progressively replacing the CDEP program with jobs, training and mainstream employment services across the Northern Territory; welfare payments reform to ensure income is spent on key family needs, and an expanded network of outback stores as well as support for existing community stores in conjunction with welfare payments reform; additional services for families and children, including additional child protection workers and funding for safe places for families escaping violence; land surveying and upgrades to essential utilities services; the provision of legal services and night patrols; and a breakfast and lunch program for school-age children. I commend the legislation to the Senate.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Chris Evans’s) be agreed to.