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

I understand that we have the capacity to roll out the lifting of the permit systems at some time. As I have been saying, the first thing is that a whole range of assessments are happening, but we will ensure that people have the capacity, as soon as possible, to manage the interaction between people and sacred sites. We have done it in other places and we need to ensure that that is on the ground. All I can say is that, like a lot of other things, generally speaking—I do not want to over generalise—the sacred sites that occur within these areas already enjoy that. Because of the nature of the communities, there are not many sacred sites but there certainly are some. That is a general statement. Those sites enjoy a management plan for the visitors that currently go to the communities under the permit system to ensure that they are aware of the penalties. So this is not something that we are starting from scratch. We will improve on a level of amenity that has to deal with an increased amount of visitors. I respect that, but we are not starting from a greenfields site in this regard.