Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (2) to (9) on sheet 5354:

(2)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 41 (after line 12), insert:

70AB  Designated persons

        (1)    For the purposes of sections 70B to 70F inclusive, a designated person refers to:

             (a)    a person referred to in section 70(2A);

             (b)    a journalist acting in their professional capacity; or

             (c)    a person performing functions as an agent of the Commonwealth government or of the Northern Territory government on official business;

journalist means a member of a professional organisation recognised by the regulations for the purposes of this subsection.

(3)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 41 (line 13) to page 43 (line 30), section 70B, omit “a person” (twice occurring), substitute “a designated person”.

(4)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 44 (line 3) to page 45 (line 26), section 70C, omit “a person” (three times occurring), substitute “a designated person”.

(5)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 44 (line 1) to page 45 (line 26), section 70C, omit “the person” (three times occurring), substitute “the designated person”.

(6)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 46 (line 1) to page 47 (line 23), section 70D, omit “a person” (three times occurring), substitute “a designated person”.

(7)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 46 (line 1) to page 47 (line 23), section 70D, omit “the person” (twice occurring), substitute “the designated person”.

(8)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 47 (line 24) to page 50 (line 9), section 70E, omit “a person” (twice occurring), substitute “a designated person”.

(9)    Schedule 4, item 12, page 50 (line 10) to page 53 (line 5), section 70F, omit “a person” (twice occurring), substitute “a designated person”.

It is good to get up every three or four hours and move one of these. We have had some discussion about the permit issue but the Labor Party regards this as a very important debate. This set of amendments seeks to put in an alternative regime to that proposed by the government. The government is effectively looking to remove the permit system from roads and townships and only apply it to land beyond those boundaries. Labor fundamentally thinks this is an issue of safety; this is an issue of child protection. The test we set when we agreed to support the legislation proposed by the government was that it would get our support if it improved the security and safety of children in a practical way.

There has been a lot of aspects to the government’s legislation where people have argued that the measures are not directly targeted towards the protection of children and that they are peripheral matters or matters that reflect a broader agenda that the government has been trying to get adopted. But clearly when it comes to the permit system I think the opposite is the truth: the government has not gone far enough and its measures to abolish the permit system is contributing to the thing they say this legislation is aimed at combating—that is, protection of Indigenous women and children, their ability to be safe.

We believe that the government’s proposals fail the test that we set for them. We think that the alternative regime that we propose will achieve some of the objectives the government argued for in support of their measures but will still allow those Indigenous communities to exercise the permit system in order to provide safety in their communities. It would provide them protection from the grog runners, drug runners and other undesirable characters who seek to prey on some of these communities.

We are supported in that by the views of the Northern Territory Police and the Northern Territory government. There was a submission to the Senate inquiry from the Police Federation of Australia, which I thought was quite compelling. It said:

In relation to the long-standing permit system for access to aboriginal communities, the PFA is of the view that the Australian Government has failed to make the case that there is any connection between the permit system and child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities. Therefore, changes to the permit system are unwarranted.

The submission goes on:

Operational police on the ground in the Northern Territory believe that the permit system is a useful tool in policing the communities, particularly in policing alcohol and drug-related crime. It would be most unfortunate if by opening up the permit system in the larger public townships and the connecting road corridors as the Government intends, law enforcement efforts to address the ‘rivers of grog’, the distribution of pornography, and the drug running and petrol sniffing were made more difficult.

So the police are saying that they do not support the government’s proposals. They do not think we should go as far as the government are proposing in terms of amending that permit system. So Labor are offering an alternative regime which seeks to recognise some legitimate arguments made by the government and others about access for certain classes of individuals to townships. We propose a regime which provides for designated persons who can get access to the communities. It will allow those with proper reasons for visiting the communities to go there but it will still allow the permit system to restrict those who go for purposes that might offend the inhabitants, and those who might go there for purposes of criminal or inappropriate behaviour.

Our amendments allow access to roads and town community centres only to the class of people that we define in our amendments as ‘designated persons’. These designated people are members of parliament or candidates for election, as per the existing legislation; Commonwealth or Territory government employees, or agents of the Commonwealth or Territory governments acting in an official capacity; and journalists acting in their professional capacity.

Labor believes that there is a good argument for extending access to journalists. I think we all agree that being able to report on occurrences and what is going on in communities or in our society is part of a free society. That transparency is a useful part of our democracy so we think that there is an argument to put journalists on that list of designated persons. But we still think that we need to provide the protections that the permit system has afforded Indigenous people so that they can control who is coming onto their communities. It is a measure that will assist in protecting communities from sly groggers, paedophiles or whoever else comes onto the community without due cause.

We think our alternative regime is preferable to the government’s regime. We think it ensures that access to those with business in visiting the communities is guaranteed, but that those who are not designated persons ought to go through the current practices and apply for access through permits. We think it is a better balance between providing openness and transparency about what occurs in communities and the need for those communities to have their culture and tradition protected, and the security of the people who live in those communities assured.

It is not often understood that this is a question of people entering Aboriginal property. Just as I like to control who comes onto my property, it is not unreasonable for Indigenous people to want the same. This is their property. People tend to forget, when they are discussing Indigenous rights, that people have property rights. We do a lot in this act to suspend those property rights but I think it is important that the people in those communities retain that sense of control which in no way prevents the police or proper authorities coming onto their land.

I do not accept that the current system prevents that either, but if one wanted to make that argument, this amendment provides for designated persons. It provides access for those people who need to be there to ensure law and order and to provide proper services, including health services or any of the measures that need to be supplied to communities. It allows the communities to control who else comes into their communities, and who uses the roads to those communities. The government argues that they have protected something like 99.8 per cent of the lands in the sense that people cannot go beyond the major roads and communities, but the point is that they can go where the people live. They can get access to the people who are in the communities. If we are serious about the security of children and protecting them from some of the activities that have been associated with people visiting communities, then the alternative regime we are proposing is preferable to the government’s regime. We think that the complete destruction of the permit system, which is achieved by the government’s legislation, is not supported on the evidence.

I know it has been a bugbear of the minister’s for some time; it is an agenda he has been running for some time. But this is not the opportunity for the minister to keep running his personal agendas; this is a question about whether the Parliament of Australia should pass legislation that deals with emergency concerns about child abuse and violence in the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. We have to make a judgement about whether the government’s arguments for the changes it is proposing are solid. I do not think they are. I think we ought to fall on the side of the Northern Territory Police and the wishes of those communities and limit the changes in the permit system to the ones proposed by Labor rather than accepting the approach the government is proposing.