Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In the three communities that I went to, I spoke informally to police officers, to government officials and particularly to members of those communities, including people with a leadership role. It seems to me that the key issue is that there needs to be an adequate police presence: Indigenous police, liaison officers or police assistants and police aides. That link between the police and the Indigenous communities is very important. That is the key issue. As I understand it from my formal discussions with a number of police officers, they already have pretty broad powers to deal with the issue of pulling people over. To me, it is a key issue of policing. That, to me, is fundamental. If the argument about the permit system is that it is keeping undesirable people off communities, then I do not believe that that is the strongest argument. I think it is clear from a number of reports that, in terms of grog running and drug running, the perpetrators have been people who have not needed permits.

One issue that does trouble me is that the permit system can be open to abuse. There was a report in the Australian earlier this year relating to the APY lands. I know this does not relate to South Australia, but the principles are still the same or very similar, and I should disclose that, as a member of the South Australian parliament, I attempted a couple of times, unsuccessfully, to change the APY lands act to allow journalists to go onto those lands. Senator Siewert is right that, in the context of what has occurred, these issues—of abuse, of child abuse and of the terrible living conditions in some of these communities—have been around for many years and yet no action has been taken. But there is merit in the argument that, if you have actual scrutiny of these communities, if they are opened up and, at the very least, journalists have access, then you do get some action.

I remember several years ago there were front-page stories in the Adelaide Advertiser by Miles Kemp, a senior journalist, who did get permission to visit the lands, and he reported quite graphically on petrol sniffing. As a result of those reports, the state government were prompted into action. I am sure the government were acting in some way with respect to that, but it spurred them on to spend more money to take further steps in relation to petrol sniffing. And I note, from a coronial inquest that Coroner Johns in South Australia is undertaking into the death of a person in relation to petrol sniffing, that there has been a significant improvement in the APY lands as a result of some very sensible measures that have worked in discouraging kids from being petrol sniffers or taking up petrol sniffing. But that was a clear case where media focus, shining a light on this problem, made a big difference. I have spoken to journalists who had trouble in getting permits. To put it colloquially, they were mucked around, stuffed around, over a number of days on the APY lands, and they put to me that by the time it was—