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

I thank Senator McCarthy for the question. Absolutely, we stand by that statement. That statement actually has the support of many Indigenous groups who now understand that having a target affects nothing, because we have none of the levers. Having a Bex and a good lie down might be politically correct. It might be the easy thing to do, but it is not the right thing to do. The Commonwealth are determined to do the right thing: through COAG, have an agreement across the states and territories. They have the levers. They own the criminal justice system, they own the court system and they own the correctional system, so they can do things and they can have targets to set those matters to rest.

What we have done is say, 'We can do some other things, though. Yes, that's a matter for the states and they can set their targets.' So we looked carefully at the data and we realised that 82 per cent of Aboriginals who are currently incarcerated have, in fact, been there before. They are recidivist offenders. We have looked very carefully at that demographic. The first day that you are incarcerated, all our energy is on ensuring that everything that happens to you during that incarceration period ensures that you do not come back again. This is a strategy that is a thoughtful strategy. It has the support of very many justice groups around Australia, which I speak to very frequently. The advice on that area has certainly been provided to me by many Indigenous organisations. It is a more sophisticated approach than in the past. The state and territory jurisdictions are the ones who control the levers, so they should have the targets with respect to those levers. It is my responsibility as well to ensure that we hold them to account for those targets, so in a separate area the Commonwealth is dealing with the states to ensure that the 82 per cent recidivism is reduced. That is the particular area that we are working on.