David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, first of all, want to commend the contribution from Senator Dorinda Cox, and I could begin and end this speech by saying what Senator Cox said in her clear statement of the need for First Nations peoples to be making decisions about their kids and about their communities, as the recipients of the resources of federal and state governments that are designed to be uplifting First Nations communities. That's what is absolutely needed in this space.

As this motion makes clear, justice reinvestment is not happening in this country. Justice reinvestment is meant to be taking money from prisons and police and putting it into the communities instead. No state government has, no territory government has, and never has the federal government taken money from the police and the prisons and actually put it into uplifting First Nations communities and put it where it's most needed: in those community-run organisations that know best how to look after their kids and their grandkids. We hear talk of justice reinvestment, but it's never about taking money away from the prisons and the police; it's always about giving more money for prisons and more money for police.

Just look at Queensland, at the growth in the number of First Nations kids in watch houses. Just look at the Northern Territory, where we'd find, if we checked, that pretty much every kid in jail there tonight would be a First Nations kid. And the numbers are shameful across the country.

So let's not spend more money on the prisons and the police and on putting more kids in jail. Let's spend money on Nelly's Healing Centre, in my home state of New South Wales. It's run by an incredible Gamilaraay and Birrbay woman, Helen Eason. I have seen the work she does—the families she saves; the kids she has kept with their families. Let's look at Grandmothers against Removals and the incredible work that those women are doing—First Nations women from my state and from across the country. And let's look at Abcare, on Gumbaynggirr land, which is keeping kids with families. Spend the money there, not on more cops and more prisons.