Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

We have more interjections from Senator Crossin. She says—and I quote again:

And I think that the resounding results at the polling booths in the Northern Territory show that. Aboriginal people clearly rejected the methods of the intervention.

I can assure you that not all of Labor believes that they have a bipartisan approach to the intervention. I can tell you that. We have a very serious sceptic in Senator Crossin. I have to say that it seems that, wherever I went in the Northern Territory, she was quite right. There were people saying, ‘Down with Broughie; out with Howard; I’m not going to vote for them,’ because they had been told that a vote for Labor meant a vote against the intervention, make no bones about it. It happened everywhere I went. We make no bones about it; there was not a great deal of support for the intervention in those communities. Labor promised that they would unwind the intervention if they supported Labor. So we have very much a watching brief. We will watch this phase to see whether the rhetoric actually follows the actions.

Of course, in the speech yesterday there was continual gloating about the election win and about the fact that Labor won the vote because they did not support the intervention. That is not a bipartisan approach. In this place Labor has said, ‘We have an absolute bipartisan approach.’ But I can tell you that, out there on the ground, there was nothing like a bipartisan approach. Individuals came to me and said, ‘Well, I’m not voting for you, Nigel, because there is too much change at once,’ and that may have been the case. Individuals were very confused; it was very difficult. They were saying, ‘Labor has said they’re not going to support the intervention so we’re supporting them.’ They are the facts of the matter as I saw it.

In terms of the previous government’s actions, we were never about winning votes in Indigenous communities. It was an act of leadership, a pact of leadership. It was a pact that came from this place because we had bipartisan support. Now, those individuals in the previous government—and I was one of them—were quite proud of the movement of the intervention, because I think it will make a great deal of difference. Senator Crossin bagged the Little children are sacred report. I certainly do not think that she has any support for the outcomes of that. That report was commissioned by the Northern Territory government, and the report was the basis of evidence taken by individual people in communities.