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

I will take the interjection. What I know about this is that I was on the ground the entire week this conversation was happening, and I can promise you the only thing that was not suggested to me was something about lifestyle choices. What the people on the ground—if you had bothered to be there—would suggest is that they were simply part of a conversation that was involving their future that did not involve them. That is what, fundamentally, they are interested in.

I try very hard in this portfolio not to politicise these matters, but there was a whole suite of processes that happened under your watch around provision of the funding for municipal services and a whole range of existing processes around Australia, which you attempted to do but failed to do. We have taken up that same opportunity, and we have been successful. I am just not interested in providing some sort of by-line commentary on what the very respected Mr Dodson says about the motivation for people living in communities.