Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Nampijinpa Price for bringing on the matter of urgency in regard to Alice Spring and Central Australia. This is certainly an issue that does hit at the heart very personally, and I do understand, deeply, the concerns of the senators opposite. But I'm also concerned about the families in Central Australia and the businesses in Alice Springs. There is no doubt that there has been, and continues to be, deep trauma in terms of what people see as their future and the kind of future they can have in Alice Springs and in Central Australia.

There is no doubt that there is a lot of anger and a lot of hurt. But we have moved to ensure that there is a circuit breaker and that there is change. And this is really critical. It's critical because people cannot take it, if we do not do more. That is why we're working with congress, with Tangentyere, with SNAICC, with the hospitals, with the police, with the family and children's services and with the Northern Territory government. Yes, there is no doubt that there are decisions that the Northern Territory government need to rethink and redo, but we are enormously pleased that those bans in the communities across the Northern Territory and in Alice Springs itself will be back in force as of Wednesday next week, once the Northern Territory assembly does sit and pass the amendments that are required under the Northern Territory legislation.

People like Marion Scrymgour, the member for Lingiari, and, of course, Senator Nampijinpa Price, raised it in their opening speeches here. We know in the Northern Territory, from the intervention in 2007, that there is also a concern within Aboriginal communities right across the Territory, not just in Central Australia. This has been something that I've also struggled deeply with and continue to do so. But we'll no doubt ensure the $250 million that we've said must go into the areas that hit at the deep cause of the problem, not just alcohol—to the health system, looking at foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the hospital system that requires assistance to protect our women and children. And we know that, for the youth, the programs that we put together through the funding have to work. For those businesses in Alice Springs, there is no doubt that the pain you have suffered and continue to, in terms of your own economic future, has resonated greatly not just here across the parliament but across the country.

But this is the turning point, and I say this to the residents and families of Alice Springs and Central Australia: this is the turning point of this parliament. No more do we want to see the pain and suffering that we have witnessed at extreme levels in the past month and, even more personally, amongst those families in the town camps around Alice Springs. No more. Enough.

We do accept that we have the responsibility here to make things better, and we take that responsibility on board very seriously. I'm enormously grateful to be able to stand beside Marion Scrymgour, Linda Burney and Patrick Dodson and know that we are doing everything we possibly can, in terms of the federal jurisdiction, not to intervene as they did in 2007 but to ensure the accountability and governance that should occur by a Territory parliament to do what it needs to do. I look forward to the Northern Territory parliament doing that next week, but, in the meantime, we are going to ensure that those families on the ground do feel safe, do feel that we care, do feel that things will turn around for the better and that, instead of despair and trauma, they have hope for the future.