Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the emergency motion moved by Senator Nampijinpa Price. I speak on this from the following informed context: I was born and raised in Alice Springs, and many immediate family members still live in and around the township. Both my parents are traditional owners of Central Australia. As a South Australian senator for Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people who live remotely on the APY lands—which are in South Australia—I can say that Alice Springs is the closest major regional town. Visiting Alice Springs affects them.

As a member of the Joint Standing Committee late last year I heard the harrowing evidence given in Darwin and Alice Springs. I have been directly responsible for successfully transitioning more than 1,000 Indigenous people into the private sector for work—many directly from welfare. You can't get a job, run a business or function with any confidence amongst that chaos, and the chaos has been piled on in the last seven months. It's from that perspective that I highlight the failure of the Prime Minister to address the serious alcohol-related crime across the Northern Territory, and that I outline the real, devastating and lifechanging impact of allowing the Stronger Futures legislation to lapse and failing to act earlier when the disaster unfolding became even clearer.

When the sad images, the evidence and the voices became impossible to ignore because the national media turned its attention to Alice Springs, the Prime Minister had already wasted seven months blaming and waiting for others to act when he could have acted. The mistake of ending stronger futures did this. He could have used his powers under the Constitution, and we know it's not shy about fast tracking legislation when it wants to. The Northern Territory government refused to act, and this government didn't want to until the tide of evidence and public opinion were against them.

There was a 54 per cent jump in alcohol related assaults in the past year in Alice Springs and a 34 per cent rise in the same period in Katherine. In Alice Springs, house break-ins rose 22.56 per cent, commercial break-ins were up 55 per cent, motor vehicle theft was up 31 per cent and property damage jumped by 59 per cent. There was a road toll spike of 50 per cent, in the year, across the Northern Territory.

At a time when this Labor government tells us the cost of living is the most important issue for Australians, they continually fail to act as Central Australians repair broken windows and smashed property over and over and over again. Let's talk about the smashed lives. As this escalated, insurance premiums skyrocketed. They rose 50 per cent over that same time. Businesses closed, long-term locals left, tourists stopped coming and businesses closed their doors—all this, while grappling with the cost of living.

Although the Prime Minister took his own plane for that four-hour trip, commercial flights to the nation's centre had many, many cheap and empty seats. Go and have a look. There's a massive economic toll as a consequence of inaction. There are people affected because they have alcohol addiction and binge issues. There are those whose lives are tragically shattered and disrupted by antisocial and unlawful actions, and there are those who are impacted by alcohol. They are not all Aboriginal people. But those who drink to excess commonly have blood-alcohol levels of 0.4.

In fact, the doctor at the local hospital told us that in his entire life he has never seen a hospital where the police drop off more people than the ambulance does. Innocent people—women, children and the elderly, who bear the brunt of antisocial behaviour, violence and intimidation—are affected the most. And you had plenty of warning. The immediate and cumulative individual, family and community impact is devastating.

This week we hear there's a reset so that a proper transition plan can be put in place to allow communities, and an orderly decision-making process, to determine if they remain dry communities or not. You were told that. There's $250 million allocated now for programs. But—as I said in my first speech in this chamber, in July this year—money is not the only answer. The pretenders, controllers and rescuers need to be nowhere near this new money, and the public servants need to be more accountable for the programs they deliver, and politicians—all of us—need to be more accountable for the money that's spent. This is not about voice; this is about listening to those voices that told you this was going to happen.