Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Nampijinpa Price for bringing this important urgency motion before the Senate today. For those following along at home, I think it is important to read it so people understand what it is we're actually debating here and so we're central to the core of the issue of what we're actually discussing here. The motion Senator Nampijinpa Price brought here reads:

The Albanese Government's failure to address Central Australia's crime and community safety crisis, and their failure to partner with the Northern Territory Government to deliver practical solutions.

It's writ large that this is patently true, that this is not happening under the Albanese government. There is not the cooperation with the Territory government to get the results on the ground that are absolutely necessary.

In Senator Nampijinpa Price's contribution she remarked on the fact that the data around youth offending is getting worse. It's getting worse. It's not getting better. The number of young people in detention on an average night nationally is 2.7 in 10,000, but in the NT that number is 22.2 in 10,000. Family and domestic violence continues to rise, with increases of more than 20 per cent across the Territory and more than 150 per cent across some regions in the Territory. One in five children in the NT have a child protection notification compared to one in 20 nationally. If that figure doesn't frighten the living daylights out of you and spur you on to greater action, I don't know what will. Our children are our most vulnerable citizens. This is occurring right here in our country. This is a truly terrible situation that is happening right now.

We've seen decisions by this government that more often than not are simply driven by an ideological obsession and we've seen their unwillingness to provide the practical solutions that we know work in these communities. They need to listen to people on the ground, rather than someone in an ivory tower coming from some academic position and often in different communities and, indeed, different states and different parts of the country, such as the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere. These academics, who think they know best, want to keep these communities in this utopian little view that they have and aren't prepared to listen to the people on the ground that actually know the solutions that they want. Why won't they go there? Why doesn't the government go and listen to communities on the ground?

One of the things that was working quite well, although no panacea, was the cashless debit card. When we were in government, we were in the stages of replacing the BasicsCard that was brought in by the Labor government. It was a very clunky and old technology that was quite restrictive and limited the ability for people to have more autonomy over their lives. We were replacing it with the cashless debit card, a much more advanced technology. There were improvements that were being implemented. But in one of the very first pieces of legislation that this government brought in, without listening to anyone on the ground and without consulting anyone in the communities—we saw through the inquiry process and through estimates that there was no consultation—they ripped away the cashless debit card from the Northern Territory and from the four trial sites where it was occurring.

My point is they're not prepared to bring in practical solutions. Instead, they're only listening to those who have got an ideological obsession, who are detached from the reality of what's actually occurring on the ground and who are imposing their ideological obsessions on these communities. This is why we're seeing these sorts of results. We need practical solutions that come from the insights of people on the ground, who know what they want. This government needs to listen. They're proving that they're not able to, so put us in charge, because we'll make it happen.