Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

hour after hour, people lining up, hundreds at a time. When handed CLP ‘how to vote’ cards, what did they do? They threw them on the ground. Why did they support us? They supported us because we said we would change the intervention. There were aspects of the intervention we took to the election. We said that we would retain CDEP—and we have done that. We said we would look at the permit system—and we are doing that, although I read today that you cannot cop that. You are going to block that legislation, despite that fact that Indigenous people in the Territory voted to change the permit system back to the way it was. We put a set of policies to Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, and they were endorsed.

What did I say yesterday? You are so poor at doing your research for question time that you just cannot deliver the blow, can you? My comments yesterday were quoted from the estimates transcript—from Lesley Podesta, who is the head of OATSI. Senator Adams asked Ms Podesta how many people had had the health checks. Nearly 6,000. How many of those had been referred to Family and Community Services? The answer was 50. Why have they been referred to Northern Territory FACS? In the Northern Territory, there is a range of issues. We do not break it down. Is it child sexual abuse? Maybe. But generally, Ms Podesta said, it was to find alternative care or because there were problems within the family unit.

Therefore, you have to say to yourself, the Howard government intervened in the lives of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory in such an abrasive and drastic manner on the basis of the Little children are sacred report. Research shows you and evidence shows you that, to date, that may not have been, and probably is not, the case. It was never the case. The intervention was there for political reasons, but we supported it because people in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory do need the support; they do need this commitment; they do need assistance to have more houses, to have more children checked; to have in those communities the massive injections of funds that you so sadly neglected in your 11 long years in government.