Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

No, I am sorry; I am not making this up, Senator Crossin. Then they said, and you are aware of this because you were there, that I was somehow going to take away their sacred sites. There was somebody who suggested we were going to bulldoze them, but there was a general belief that there was going to be an impact on their sacred sites and, with their great connection to the land, we were going to take their land from them. I understand completely why a community that thought that a government was going to impose those sorts of impositions on people would absolutely reject you in an election. Of course they would. If I believed that, I certainly would. But make no bones about the conditions and circumstances in those communities. I am not aware of who misled them with such poisonous disinformation, but it is a great sadness when that happens to that sort of people, and it was a great sadness to me on that day. With no amount of rhetoric will you ever convince most Australians, and I think most people, certainly in the Northern Territory, that hanging on to this antiquated permit system either is going to continue to protect people or provide a further level of protection to people in the communities or is somehow going to protect their culture.

What the intervention has done is fundamentally protect their culture because it stopped the rivers of grog; it stopped so many of the things; it stopped the violence. Anybody who goes there, as you do, Senator Crossin, would recognise that that is the case. I do not intend to get into a diatribe with you over this matter, but I thought, since you provided your commentary, there were some aspects that needed some clarification.