Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Mayor of Alice Springs recently wrote an impassioned letter to me and others in this place asking for assistance dealing with high levels of crime and antisocial behaviour. At the same time, youth services in the region are calling for a clear plan and proper funding to address high levels of youth incarceration and crime. The two issues are clearly and directly linked.

On 1 February, a group of youth services providers wrote to the Minister for Indigenous Australians, highlighting their concerns about the lack of support and investment in remote community youth services in the southern part of the Territory. It's not the first time they've tried to get this government to listen and act. Since the introduction of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy in 2015, when Commonwealth government cost savings measures cancelled indexation of funding, the remote NT youth programs delivered by their agencies have, effectively, taken an annual cut in funding. They estimate this cut at more than $8 million. That's a huge amount of money ripped out of a remote region.

As anyone in remote communities will tell you, kids need access to reliable, safe and appropriate activities to keep them occupied and engaged. Yet facilities like recreation halls, sporting facilities and staff housing are crumbling. Many youth centres and town halls are not air-conditioned and don't have working toilets, hand washing facilities or basic food preparation facilities. Many of the mostly uncovered outdoor basketball courts have not been resurfaced in decades. We've seen interventions, royal commissions and regional deals come and go, with tens of millions of dollars spent in the name of fixing things for remote kids, yet this government continues to pass the buck. It should not be easier to jail a child than to give them a basketball court to play on.