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

I thank the senator, again, for the question. This government is focused on making a change in Indigenous affairs and achieving actual results for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Under successive governments, billions of dollars have been spent over decades with little to show in remote communities. The continuation of municipal and essential services funding, just in remote Aboriginal communities, is the kind of complicated arrangement that plagued Indigenous affairs under the former Labor government. Instead of supporting complicated bureaucratic funding arrangements, we are focussing on our three priorities in Indigenous affairs: children need to attend school on a more regular basis; adults need to be engaged in work, training for jobs and more purposeful activities; and we need to keep Indigenous communities safe. This is what Indigenous communities have been asking for and telling me, and that is why these are the government's priorities in Indigenous affairs.