Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Northern Territory Safe Measures Bill 2023, which has been introduced into the Senate, is a bill that aims to keep all people in the Northern Territory safe in relation to the consumption of alcohol and exposure to alcohol related harm and violence. My bill was drafted in response to calls from vulnerable community members across the Northern Territory and a letter that was dated 9 June, representing nine separate Aboriginal organisations, seeking urgent support from the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians after failed attempts at communicating these concerns with the Northern Territory Fyles government. The Northern Territory government's response to community cries was followed by neglect and inaction, all justified by accusations that alcohol restrictions were nothing more than race based policies. It was only when the Prime Minister was shamed by a Sydney based radio program that he was prompted to make a fly-in fly-out visit to my home town, which has now resulted in Chief Minister Natasha Fyles having to take back her race-baiting words and backflip on her vehemently held position, forcing her to create half-baked policy on the run.

Senators, I plead with you to help me save the lives of those I love and those I'm democratically elected to represent and whose lives we are all responsible for. I seek your bipartisan support to make my hometown community and vulnerable communities throughout the Northern Territory safer. If we can save one woman from becoming the next domestic violence or homicide statistic, we are winning. If we can prevent one child from being sexually abused and left with a venereal disease or internal physical and psychological scarring for life, that is one child. But I know we can do better than this.

The last few months have been distressing and traumatising for so very many, not just within my own family but for families throughout the Northern Territory. In the lead-up to Christmas, I was grateful to have the opportunity to spend the last few days of my cousin Regina Napaljarri France's life by her side in the palliative care unit of Alice Springs. My cousin, only one year older than I am, who never bore children of her own, loved and nurtured other children in our family whose own parents could not care for them because they were either dead, incarcerated or suffering from alcohol or substance abuse. My cousin lived her entire life in a town camp, and it is my firm belief that this life lived in a hellhole contributed to her bad health. But it was in the last few months, when alcohol was reintroduced in her town camp, that her health took a steep decline ending in her early death. She was no drinker, and nor did she smoke. Before the Intervention, she witnessed the early death of my uncle, her father, when one morning he failed to wake up after a long night of drinking. My uncle was not violent but a man who loved us all very deeply. He was, however, an alcoholic. My cousin's brother was the same. He was a quietly spoken man who always carried an affectionate, warm smile, but she witnessed his life end far too early because he too was powerless to the bottle.

My cousin's mother, left with heartbreak and ill health and regularly undergoing renal dialysis, now has the responsibility of raising the adopted granddaughter left behind. My cousin's adopted daughter, also my niece, had already lost three of her mothers, including her biological mother, before losing my cousin. In our Warlpiri kinship structure, your mother's sisters are also regarded as your own mothers. Her biological mother was killed in her mid-30s when she was mown down in an alcohol fuelled domestic violence attack by her father. One of her mother's sisters died of alcohol abuse at the age of 28. She simply drank herself to death in the same town camp, before the intervention. Another of her mothers was killed, as a passenger, in an alcohol related car crash. The driver crashed the car after her drunken husband punched her in the back of her head while she was driving. My cousin was the only one to die in that crash. My husband accompanied me while I identified her body in the morgue.

Our family remember all too clearly the horrific conditions in town camps before alcohol restrictions. So I could understand when my 42-year-old cousin told me on Christmas Day that she was at peace and happy to say goodbye to the world of the living. I could not be angry at her for wanting to leave us all behind. Life in her town camp had become absolutely unbearable again with alcohol flowing back in. So, when I speak to this bill and stand here as an Indigenous voice in parliament, I am deeply offended when it is suggested by others in this chamber that my actions are nothing more than political grandstanding. My cousin is now at peace, and my family is heartbroken, but my family is not the only family that is. The uncle of Alena Kukla, whose life was taken at the hands of her violent partner, along with her baby, told me he marks the day alcohol was introduced to the very same day that she was killed. So, again, I ask your support, in a bipartisan manner, my colleagues, to protect our most vulnerable Australians.

The bill will introduce elements specific to reducing alcohol consumption and related harm, applied in the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012, which ceased in 2022. The bill will put in place alcohol restrictions that will include declaration of alcohol protected areas and the development of alcohol management plans, which will provide that supply of alcohol is regulated, mitigating illegal alcohol supply and providing a legal framework for prosecution.

When dealing with addiction, the first step to management and recovery is acknowledging there is a problem. And those that are subject to the effects of addiction in the Northern Territory—the whole community—have been crying out that we have a problem since the cessation of the measures and the lifting of alcohol restrictions in the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act.

The bill makes provision for equitable consultation to take place in relation to alcohol protection measures to ensure that men, women, consumers of alcohol, nonconsumers of alcohol, addiction experts and the Northern Territory Liquor Commission are all involved. The introduction of a requirement for an expert committee to support the development of each alcohol management plan will provide that measures designed to reduce alcohol related harm and to improve the quality of life are realised, such as monitoring school attendance and rates of alcohol related assaults.

The need for the introduction of the bill has been demonstrated through the increased rates of crime, alcohol related domestic violence and alcohol related assaults. Alcohol related assaults in Alice Springs alone have risen from December 2021 to December 2022 by 54.6 per cent, and property damage has increased by 59.6 per cent.

The removal of income management measures of the cashless debit card has increased the availability of obtaining alcohol to those vulnerable to alcoholism, and there has not been sufficient analysis of the impact of the removal of this important measure, but we can see it through our own eyes.

The Australian government has a responsibility to ensure that the Northern Territory has consistency in law and order, and that punitive approaches are not taken by the Northern Territory government that do not address the broader context of addiction and alcohol related harm.

For a decade the Australian government has intensely invested in the Northern Territory to address significant levels of need, specifically to improve the quality of life for Aboriginal Territorians. The management of alcohol consumption and the reduction of alcohol related harm were not realised within this period of time. This bill will set a framework of accountability for alcohol management plans to be developed, with alcohol restrictions in place to protect our vulnerable communities.

I have developed this bill over several months in conjunction with community consultation with relevant stakeholders that include drug and alcohol services, Aboriginal health services, legal services, education institutions, businesspeople, community members both remote and in major towns, and town camp residents. Chief Minister Natasha Fyles sent me a letter just yesterday claiming that I had not consulted her. I reminded her of my letter dated from October outlining my intentions in the draft of this bill and extending an invitation to sit with me and to understand what this might entail. I've had no response to that correspondence.

My bill seeks to establish a federal and Territory government partnership to address alcohol related harm. The Territory government, which is predominantly dependent on federal funding, will have a role in overseeing the process of developing alcohol management plans, while the federal government will be responsible for approving those management plans and reviewing the measures through the Senate committee process and will have the power to revoke approvals of alcohol management plans should they demonstrate that they are not ensuring the safety of Territorians.

It is not good enough that the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory requires the Prime Minister to step in, for them to realise that they got it dreadfully wrong—at the cost of lives lost and the devastation that addiction has unleashed on our communities. We are hurting, and it is disingenuous to provide ad hoc approaches and not take full responsibility for the sake of every Territorian. Senate colleagues, I'm asking you to take full responsibility with me.

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

I thank Senator Nampijinpa Price for bringing on her private senator's bill, the Northern Territory Safe Measures Bill 2023, but also for expressing her own experiences with her family in Central Australia. I do think it's important that the Senate hear those stories. I guess, in a lot of respects, First Nations people across the country have stories of such experiences to share.

Mine began when I was in my 20s, and we wanted to put in place in Borroloola a call for an alcohol management plan. I remember trying to call a meeting of all our different language groups—the Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra and Gudanji peoples—and how the women, who were my aunties and my grandmothers, called the meeting because we wanted the alcohol to stop. We wanted the destruction and what we could see happening to our children to stop. So we had that meeting and it went well. People agreed, and we talked about it on local media to see if we could have those changes in our community. But the next night, when alcohol began to flow again, we got eaten alive. There is no doubt that the abuse that we experienced is something that I've never forgotten. The alcohol didn't stop, but the abuse continued, and certainly the retribution in terms of wanting to stand strong against it continued.

I spent the next 10 years looking after my mother after the domestic violence she experienced from her then partner, before she went on to renal failure and kidney disease. Then I took on my sister's children—her four children—because of the domestic violence and the alcohol issues she was facing. I remember receiving the phone call in Alice Springs to leave what I was then doing—working with the ABC. I went back to Darwin to take those children and to look after my sister, who needed time to recover. Those kids were aged from 18 months to 10 or 11 years of age, and I took them on. At the time I was reading in Darwin for the ABC news at 6 am in the mornings and getting up at 5 am, getting the kids up and getting someone to help me get them to school—as well as my own two children. I had to make sure that those children would know that there was a better way, that alcohol wasn't the way and that domestic violence wasn't the way.

So I'd leave my car with a neighbour so that that neighbour could then drive the six children to school when I was reading the quarter to eight news on ABC radio, and the kids would ring me from the car when I got off air. In the mornings I'd catch the bus—or a taxi because it was early, 5 am—and at about quarter past eight I'd talk to the kids on their way to school. I'd finish at around one o'clock or two o'clock, and then I'd go get the car by catching the bus to my neighbour's, and then I'd go and pick up the kids when they finished at school and take them home. I'd pick up my mother and my sister and cook dinner for everyone, and then I just fell into bed to get up again at 5 am the next day and do it all again. But that's what you do because you know that alcohol is a scourge, and you also know that domestic violence is rife. I still had a job as well to try and put food on the table to care for the kids. So we all have our stories.

Then there's my aunty who was smashed to smithereens by her partner because of alcohol. We stood by her bed for the next six months as she lay unconscious, being told that she was never going to come to life again. But as a family we stood around that bed, just holding her hands and massaging her legs while she lay in ICU. I firmly believed she was going to come through, no matter what the doctors said. She and I were born at the same time; she is only a few days older than me. But I was determined to stand by that bed and make sure she got through. And you know what? She did. Today she lives in Borroloola with no feet—they had to be amputated. She can't move her elbow because of the fractures that she received from the hits. Her left arm is okay—it's not that good—but it's better than her right arm. But we talk every day, and I'm incredibly grateful that she survived. We work with her children because her daughter has gone through domestic violence too. And her daughter's daughter has now been relocated with a good family living somewhere else just so that she has a chance.

My other sister, my cousin's sister, struggled with alcohol. Her six kids have been taken off her. I've taken three of the children, so we're raising an eight-year-old and nine-year-old twins just because we know they need a bed, to be fed and to be loved so that they have a good education and have access to a good school. So they live with us, and when I fly away my husband looks after them. He's a schoolteacher, and he tries his best to look after those three children. Sometimes my aunty comes up from Borroloola on the bush bus just to help him when I'm down here in Canberra.

So I know only too well, just like many First Nations people, that we look after our families and we care for them. It does not lessen, however, the importance of process and the importance of governments and the responsibility of governments and oppositions when it comes to policymaking. Whilst this private senator's bill has been brought forward by my colleague from the Northern Territory, I have to say to the Senate that the Northern Territory government is doing what we expect it to do. I say to the Senate that there has been enormous pressure applied to ensure that the Northern Territory government does what we know it is capable of doing within the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, and that is to make the amendments that are required. Did they do it too late? Have they been real slow? I think we can all answer that. But they are doing it. It's going to be there. The bans we want will be in place on Wednesday, right across every area of the Northern Territory that we're talking about.

The difference here, senators, is that we've also, as members of government, had to look at this extremely closely in light of the history of the Northern Territory intervention and the sense of disempowerment that also occurred across the Northern Territory. I do hear what my colleagues are saying about those concerns with the town camps, but there are other things, senators, you also need to know about the concerns people had regarding that intervention.

I am such a firm believer in democracy in this country. I'm such a firm believer in the empowerment of people at every level, as flawed as we may be in our ability to make and enable others to have the power to stand up for themselves, we've got to always keep trying to get it right. To step in over the Northern Territory government a second time with a major intervention? Not after what we've gone through, after 15 years.

The stronger futures legislation was sunsetting. There was not one word in April last year. I asked the coalition government—and this is not to blame; this is just to put on the record—what are you doing? You are going to remove, after 15 years, a system people have been made to live under—right or wrong, good or bad—but how are you going to prepare them for exiting? How are you going to prepare people for the fact that this legislation, once it ends, removes all of these things? What are you doing? There was no response.

Then we get into government. Did we move quick enough? Did we do the things we needed to do? Goodness me, after nearly 10 years in opposition, there was a hell of a lot to learn in a couple of months. That's not an excuse. It's an explanation of the extraordinary amount of things we had to do. One of the first things that Marion Scrymgour, Linda Burney, Pat Dodson and I did was to urge the Northern Territory government in August to please have a look at their legislation, to ensure those bans were in place again. We did that. We did that in Garma and we did that in numerous phone calls. And, or course, we had so many other things to also do in that time period. Again, that's not an excuse. It's an explanation of timing.

The Northern Territory government can speak for itself, but I want to explain to the Senate why we have worked the way we have, because there is no way—certainly for Marion Scrymgour and I—that we would ever want to be setting up an intervention like that which occurred in 2007. But we will hold people accountable, irrespective of who is in government, as to how the processes is occurring. Dorrelle Anderson, an incredibly articulate and intelligent woman with skills that go beyond all that we could imagine here in regard to those relationships with the language groups of that region, is the right person to have as the Central Australian Regional Controller. And it was her report last week that made the Northern Territory government move to where it is today and enabled us, as the federal government, to provide the $250 million that we announced for Alice Springs and Central Australia.

But we also know, senators, that it's not just about alcohol. It never really is. It's always about what are we doing to enable people in our regional and remote areas to step up and stand up. We know that we have issues with health. We know that we have massive issues with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. And we must invest in those areas, even more so, to be able to work with the Alice Springs Hospital and to continue to work with Congress, which is the Aboriginal community controlled health organisation in Alice Springs that is currently working on so many levels, including in the FASD area. It's absolutely vital that part of the $250 million goes to that, because it impacts—and this Senate did an inquiry into FASD; please, Senators, I urge you to read that inquiry that we took across the country—young people, not just in Alice Springs but across the country. We talk about the issue of alcohol and other things impacting communities in Western Australia and Queensland, so have a look at what FASD is doing in those areas. It is not isolated.

We are also, as part of this, working with families with parental concerns, again on outstations. Dorelle Anderson is working on a number of the outstations around Alice Springs to ensure we can work with the families—specific families, because the Northern Territory police can identify which of the families actually need this support. And, for a broader, holistic approach, we know that we need to get the employment programs going in those communities surrounding Alice Springs—Yuendumu, Hermannsburg, Papunya, Santa Teresa, Mutitjulu to name just a few. We know that part of this $250 million has to be about ensuring that community development program where we're talking about jobs actually means jobs. We know now, even more so, that we need to see the runs on the board with that employment.

In conclusion, I ask you to see what the Northern Territory government is doing. This has been a traumatic time for the people of Alice Springs and the families of Alice Springs and the businesses of Alice Springs. But let me tell you that as a senator for the Northern Territory there is a better way, and we are doing the best that we can with that way. And I know you'll keep me accountable if that way does not work.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Northern Territory Safe Measures Bill 2023. I'm sure we've all seen and heard about the recent scenes in the Northern Territory, particularly in Alice Springs. I want to note that these things are happening not just in Alice Springs but in Queensland and parts of Western Australia. Senator Cash actually brought this to the chamber yesterday, about how this is it happening in my own state of Western Australia in the town of Laverton. So it's not an isolated issue. It is a concerning issue though.

There's an assumption in this place that this has risen as a direct result of the lapse of the measures of the Stronger Futures legislation. Whilst it might appear that way, it is actually a much deeper and much more complex issue, which, in fact, Senator McCarthy has already outlined. Alcohol bans will not address this. They will absolutely not address this. Too many First Nations people carry deep, unresolved and generational trauma. It's multilayered, multidimensional and complex in its manifestation, and alcohol is merely a coping mechanism for this trauma. It's about self-medicating. It's about coping. Many First Nations people have turned to alcohol because they have no other option. Some live remotely with no services or a lack of services available to them—or there are very long wait lists even if there is a service. Maybe, like many in this country, they simply do not have the money to see a professional to discuss what trauma is and the trauma that is being passed down on to us specifically through the generations since colonisation in this country. It is the truth-telling that I spoke about in this very chamber yesterday.

In fact, it's scientifically proven: it's called epigenetics. People need to be informed that this trauma spans over many generations in our communities. At its heart, that is exactly what is happening in Alice Springs and in the Northern Territory. It's the impact of colonisation that First Nations people carry with them every single day. It is the pain and it is the heartache. You see it on the faces of First Nations senators in this chamber, in fact—all of us—because, let me tell you, that weight gets enormously heavy. And, seeing the way our people are treated in this country, it gets even heavier. We carry that weight every day. We are constantly dealing with family members, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles that find themselves in vicious and oppressive cycles of incarceration as the end result of that. Let me tell you, that gets enormously heavy.

So if you want to talk about how we solve the issue in the long term—because that's what we're here for; we're here for the long game—progress with all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Build more public and affordable housing—the state of housing across this country and in remote Australia is disastrous. It's atrocious for a G20 country. Address the cost-of-living crisis. Raise the income support above the poverty line. My colleague in this chamber, Senator Rice, will tell you more and more about that. Raise the age of criminal responsibility in this country and stop incarcerating our babies. Implement the recommendations from the Bringing them home report and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. After 40 years, we are begging you to do this. Improve access to education and make it culturally appropriate. Make it bilingual, for God's sake. In some places, English is the third or fourth language. Improve mental health care and put it into Medicare. Fix the Medicare system more broadly, so that we have access to health services. Invest in justice reinvestment initiatives—and I'm talking about stopping funding for prisons; I'm not talking about shifting it for coordination. Stop funding the industry that is incarcerating people in this country. Progress the standalone First Nations plan to end violence against women and children that is designed and implemented by our women. That's not under a gender-equality framework; it's under our women and by our women. Fund First-Nations-led organisations who are on the ground in communities creating culturally safe places so our women can escape, be safe and also commence their healing journey.

Basically, this just means ensuring that people have their basic needs met and that their human rights are upheld in this country. The solutions are right here in front of you: it's changing the legislation and the regime that my people have lived in under this country. Whilst I hear members in this place talk about how bad the crisis is and I see the clickbait that's happening, we need to stop talking about the need for bans and interventions. I'm hearing crickets—crickets!—about long-term solutions to address the real cause behind this crisis. No-one is talking about that. Banning alcohol is merely a bandaid solution. It may work in the short term, but you can't have these bans in place forever. That will not actually address the underlying causes; we will continue not seeing primary prevention and it will not cease the intergenerational trauma. This look of 'intervention 2.0' will not solve these issues in the long term. So stop doing that.

This is a humanitarian crisis that began over 200 years ago. This is a crisis that stems from our denial of basic human rights in this country—housing, employment, education, health care, land and country. It's our self-determination, our connection to that country, our culture, our lore and our kinship, and being able to practice all of those. This bill's top-down approach fundamentally ignores the generational trauma—it's all absent from that. Dispossession, trauma and the oppression that are at the heart of this crisis continue to be the ongoing oppression that First Nations people face each and every day in this country.

We need this government to help us commit to long-term solutions that are self-determined, that are holistic and that are created by community, for community and with community, and with governments walking beside them. And this place needs to support those solutions. The government needs to invest in growing First Nations health and wellbeing—in our workforce, in particular—and capacity-building within communities for those prevention and health promotion programs, our mental health services, and, most importantly, our healing spaces. Communities are more than capable of taking the lead, but we have to let them. They know what's needed in their communities and we must stop doing the top-down approach: we have to start supporting and empowering them.

Our communities need access to culturally appropriate child care, education and employment, and chances to connect with their mob—to learn about and practice their culture, and to get back on country. They could learn about their role in the oldest continuing culture in the world. Let's just let that sink in for a minute, because I don't think that when everybody in this chamber stands every morning they actually realise that's what they're acknowledging: the oldest continuing living culture in the world—the power, strength and resilience that's in our blood. We have survived what has happened in this country. But we also need to heal, and it's not going to happen overnight.

I support all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart: treaty, truth-telling and Voice. They will progress the healing process in this nation. We need to understand that those long-term solutions have been talked about for generations. There was the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody—and we have our own commissioner sitting here in the chamber, Senator Dodson. There was the Bringing them home report, that sat on the shelves of governments from both sides of this chamber for decades, collecting dust. First Nations people in this country—if you haven't looked it up—are hurting. There is the pain that you see on their faces and also the strength—because we are strong. We can't continue to hurt people through developing legislation in this place; this bill does nothing except provide a bandaid solution that won't address 200-plus years of trauma, which in fact have led us to the place where we are right now.

I want to finish with a final message. There's a wonderful lady from a remote community called Warakurna. Her name is Aunty Daisy Ward. Aunty Daisy came to see me in my electorate office in Perth, and she told me what's happening in her community of Warakurna and in surrounding communities—Blackstone, Jameson and others. Aunty Daisy's message to me was that she wanted me to come and sit in her country, on the women's law grounds of her country, not just to speak but to listen—and, importantly, for them to be heard. She wanted me to listen to the stories of what women and children are enduring there and also to the solutions that she has, which are long term. She reached across the table, grabbed my hand and said: 'I want you to walk with me on this journey. I don't want you to go back to parliament and make the legislation or laws in this country that override my law, where you can't sit on my country, you can't listen to my story, you can't come and hear the pain in my heart and you can't help me to heal—because that's what I need you to do. And I need you to take this message back to the parliament, that we want ministers, we want parliamentarians, not coming in and telling us what to do but coming and sitting and listening to our culture, listening to our law, listening to our strength and to our solutions for us.'

I take that message from Aunty Daisy very seriously because she is a law woman in her country. She is a survivor of violence. She is a survivor of the stolen generation. But she doesn't see herself as just a survivor. She sees herself as a change maker. She has the ability to come and sit with me and talk to me about what's important. But she also wants to elevate the voices of women in her community. So she wants to take me by the hand and take me back into that community to learn that each community is different, that each person is different and that we cannot, in this place, continue to have a top-down approach which oppresses people in this country. And that's what this bill will do.

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

I am very honoured to be able to stand in this place and follow the three preceding senators, who have spoken very passionately and with great empathy. They understand the issues and have been deeply committed to improving the lives of Aboriginal people, particularly in their own committees, for a very, very long time. I have known them all for a very, very long time.

I first engaged with Senator Cox, my fellow Western Australian senator, probably 10 or 12 years ago, I think, when Senator Cox was working in the health department. She was someone who was really dedicated to working around the health area and dedicated to improving the lives of people who were obviously suffering significant health issues and needing support. I've known Senator Nampijinpa Price for a long time as well. We worked together before I was here in this place to see policies such as the cashless debit card and other initiatives, such as key employment initiatives that would drive employment outcomes for Aboriginal people across the country. I have followed Senator McCarthy and her work over a long period of time and now here in this place. I genuinely mean it. It is a good debate we're having here. I think it is a genuine debate, and contributions so far have brought forward some very, very important issues.

It is also my honour to stand in support of this private senators' bill, the Northern Territory Safe Measures Bill 2023, brought forward quite sincerely by Senator Nampijinpa Price. The way that she has approached this issue that she is addressing through this bill is something to be commended. It's not just a bolt out of the blue. It's not just a reaction to the front-and-centre issue that we have right now that has been brought about because of the increased media attention that is now on Alice Springs, in particular, and the town camps that surround it. This is an issue that has been a long time in the making, and Senator Nampijinpa Price first raised it in her first speech and indicated very early on in her term, in July, that she would be bringing on this bill. She worked on it. She consulted and engaged with the community across the Territory to bring it forward because it was filling a gap. This bill seeks to address that gap. It is obvious that it needs to be filled. It has been, as I said, a long time in the making.

The Territory government have ultimately had 10 years of successive governments to be aware and be ready for the sunsetting of the legislation that was enabling the restriction of alcohol and other things to be in place. Their failure to address that, their failure to show any real action on that, is what has required this bill to be brought here today and is why we are debating it.

My first engagement with the issue of alcohol restrictions is also not just some recent bolt out of the blue. In fact, in 2008, I was involved in supporting the towns of Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek in seeing alcohol restrictions brought into those communities. The coroner of Western Australia at the time, Alastair Hope, had delivered a report that looked at the spate of suicides that were occurring across, in particular, the western parts of the Kimberley. There were 22 suicides, many young people, in particular, and many women—people who are very vulnerable. He delivered this over-200-page report that was damning of all levels of government and successive governments of many brands, if you like, and a response was needed.

There were some really powerful people—mainly women, I've got to say, and grandmothers in particular—across these communities who were standing up and saying, 'Enough is enough. We've got to do something about this.' I think of people like June Oscar, Emily Carter and Maureen Carter, who were supported by Harry Yungabun, Patrick Davies and many others across the community who were desperate to see some controls on alcohol in the town of Fitzroy Crossing. They successfully lobbied the liquor commissioner, the racing and gaming commissioner, in Western Australia to impose restrictions on alcohol sales in Fitzroy Crossing. I remember seeing that through the news. I wasn't involved directly at that time, but I remember seeing it.

I went to a conference in Kalgoorlie, and Emily Carter got up and spoke about the success of their campaign. She wore a scarf around her head. Not knowing her very well, I assumed that maybe she had gone through chemotherapy or something, because she'd lost a lot of her hair. I thought maybe she was in remission from cancer or was having some sort of treatment, and I didn't ask any questions. I later learnt that she'd lost her hair because of the stress of the fight in that community to see those restrictions brought in—just the sheer stress, the pressure that she was under from people in her community and the threats she'd had. I learnt that she'd had her own life threatened because of her advocacy for her community, to see these restrictions brought in. The tremendous pressure that was on her had obviously had a material impact upon her life.

As a result of those alcohol restrictions, things started to turn around in that community. School attendance went up. There was safety in the community. It was by no means a panacea for the issues and the problems that were occurring, but it was delivering tangible results. This is when I started to get involved, because the people in Halls Creek didn't have that same coordinated leadership across the community. So I got on board and worked to help them get the same level of restrictions that they had in Fitzroy Crossing. In Fitzroy Crossing it was limited; you could only buy takeaway alcohol which was capped at, I think, about two per cent alcohol, so anything above that was not permitted to be sold within the town. That of course significantly limited the ability of the harm to continue. Halls Creek were experiencing much the same issues as Fitzroy Crossing, and they were desperate to see those changes.

I remember we'd arranged for the Premier of Western Australia at the time to come up and witness for himself what was going on in the town. They planned to be there on a Thursday, which was quite opportune because that's the day after the welfare payments hit, and Thursday was always known as the big day—the big party day—when the town would really turn on its head. The police commissioner of Western Australia at the time called Halls Creek 'a war zone', and he was much criticised for saying that, but it was the truth. When the welfare payments hit and the grog was flowing, that's when there would be the calamity and the turmoil in that community.

Unfortunately, the Premier's schedule was changed. We were disappointed because he wouldn't actually be there to witness firsthand what it's like on a Thursday and a Friday, just days after the payments had hit. He was coming instead on the Sunday. It is typical that by Sunday things have already started to quieten down. So I arranged for a camera and a small film crew to go there and actually film it on a Thursday.

I used to be a youth worker for a long time and I used to be involved in things like schoolies. I worked at schoolies on the Gold Coast. It's a time of revelry and partying. Obviously we've seen over the years some images that have come out of those events. They can be quite frightening to see. So I got up there and arranged with the police to be able to travel with them on an ordinary Wednesday or Thursday night in this community. I wanted to film it so that we could show the Premier exactly what it was like and so that he wouldn't see the sanitised version of a Sunday or a Monday.

I saw on that night—an ordinary Wednesday or Thursday night in Halls Creek—the devastating impact that alcohol was having. We saw kids roaming the streets at one o'clock in the morning. They were safer out on the streets than they were back in their homes.

I was with the police. We went to a place called Dinner Camp, which is not far from the pub. It's where a lot of the itinerants stay when they come from out of town and are in the pubs at night. One gentleman was run over. This was an ordinary Thursday night. His leg was shaped like a Z. His femur had broken and he was taken to hospital. This was all filmed. I was able to show the Premier when he eventually got up there what an ordinary night looks like. As a result of that they put in restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Halls Creek. Again, it transformed that community.

Over time it has been demonstrated that alcohol restrictions alone are not the answer, because there are other ways that people can access alcohol. Trade, like sly grogging, takes place, so other things are needed. I agree with the presentations by my colleagues who say that these measures alone are not satisfactory and are not the answer to or the panacea for the issues. By bringing forward this bill Senator Nampijinpa Price is introducing effective measures that go beyond just the obvious thing to do, which would be to bring in restrictions on alcohol. The bill provides governance and some more rigour over the delivery of programs and services in these communities, particularly obviously in the Northern Territory, that are necessary to be able to bring about the change that is necessary.

As I've said, this is a result of 10 years of failure of the Northern Territory governments. They have failed to prepare, plan and put in place the necessary programs and measures that would provide a future, particularly for the young people, across these communities. Unfortunately, all we've seen so far from the federal government though is just a bolt-out-of-the-blue response. As soon as it gets in the media and gets a bit of profile Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, is there. He flew to Alice Springs and made a response. This has been an issue that Senator Nampijinpa Price has been calling for change on and trying to address not just since she has been elected to here. I know that she has been an advocate for change in this area for a very long time.

It just seems that this government is focused on doing the things that may be popular or driven by those in the inner city, elites or academic concepts, rather than actually listening to the people on the ground. A good example of that is the abolition of the cashless debit card. Just because some in the inner cities believe it is a punitive process or is ineffective the government did not listen to the voices of those in the community. Now, since the abolition of the cashless debit card, we've seen towns across Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland where things have gone backward. We saw yesterday on the front page of the Kalgoorlie Miner the President of the Shire of Laverton speak out, saying how things have gone backward in their community and how the liquor store there had had to impose restrictions and close its doors because of the increased availability of cash driving the consumption of alcohol.

I've spoken to people in the east Kimberley and Kununurra. I've heard that it's going backwards there as well. The early stories that are coming out are that there is an increased number of youth that are roaming the streets because of the fact that their parents have got extra access to alcohol. Their homes are not safe, so they're safer on the streets. Kids, of course, left to their own devices in that regard, without supervision, are causing trouble in these communities.

I thank very much Senator Nampijinpa Price for bringing on this bill and I encourage the Senate to support it, because enough is enough. We've got to have real action to tackle some of these issues.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd first like to express my sympathy and my respect to Senator Price, to Senator McCarthy and to others in this chamber who have had horrendous experiences, and I would like to pay my respects and sympathy to you and your families and to all the people across this country who have experienced these hideous losses as a result of issues of alcohol abuse, family and domestic violence, and broader community violence.

There are lived experiences across this chamber akin to Senator Price, Senator McCarthy and Senator Cox, and we all believe that these situations must end. I don't think there's much dissent here from the idea that we need to stop the situation. We need to find the solutions. The difference is how we look at the solution. What we believe the solution to be is the fundamental difference that I'm hearing this chamber. As Senator McCarthy has laid out quite clearly and concisely this morning, the planning for the sunset date of the previous Stronger Futures legislation was not undertaken. That is not to apportion blame, but it does shine a light on some of the issues that I have seen firsthand having worked in the NT for 10 years, including two years in Alice Springs. The structures we have in place are insufficient to address the deep community challenges and the deep community loss and pain.

But where do we go from here? We can stand and yell at each other across the chamber. We can pick up our own individual interest areas, be that age of criminal responsibility, prisons or whatever else, and they all have value. But they are all symptoms. They are not the root cause, and that's where we need to go. That's what we need to deal with in this situation.

We need to heed the stories and the experiences that we have heard across this chamber and the stories and the experiences that we have heard over the last number of weeks, number of years and, I would say, number of decades. This crisis is right now, but it is a crisis that keeps rearing its head year after year, decade after decade. We need better solutions because the First Nations people of Alice Springs and across the whole of this country deserve so much more. They deserve greater respect. They deserve better solutions. They deserve a greater say in how issues are dealt with and how solutions are found. We must do better.

I stand here as a non-Indigenous person, as a person who heeds the call of the Uluru Statement from the Heart to walk alongside. That is what I seeks to do: to walk alongside. I'm an ally, I'm a supporter and I have some awareness. I spent a long time living and working in the Northern Territory, including a couple of years in Alice Springs working at the Central Land Council. I also worked for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Service, and I was the last-standing operations manager of CDEP before the federal government got rid of it.. For all the reasons that were given, and we hear them time and time again, I can assure you that when the program ended, yes, there were some rorts and there were some challenges, but the vast majority of that program was doing some fantastic things in community, with community, for community.

This is the situation that I have experienced. I come from a research and policy background. I see it, and have been seeing it for decades: the solutions are designed in Canberra or in some glass house somewhere, and guess what? They don't work on the ground because they are not designed in a manner that is going to work on the ground—unless you have the input of the people whom the situation affects directly. From my experience in research, in policy and in social services programs, I've seen stuff that works and I've seen stuff which doesn't. The fundamental piece, in my opinion and in the opinion of many other social science, research and policy people, is working with community to start where the problem starts, to start with the issues start and not to look at the symptoms. And that's what we're looking at here: alcohol is a symptom; abuse is a symptom. These things are terrible, terrible symptoms, but that's what they are. We need to be mindful that in addressing any issue we understand what the root cause of it is. Only then can we chart a pathway to the answer.

In my opinion, the federal government legislating alcohol bans is not the way. We have seen an intervention in the Northern Territory previously, and I know the pain and the suffering that went on as part of that intervention. Interfering in people's lives, leaping in from a great height to tell people how to live their lives—it's not the answer. It might help you with some symptoms along the way for a short time, but it's not the answer. The answer is to understand the problem and to talk with the local community. That is what we need to do. As Senator McCarthy spoke so deeply about this morning, it requires a long-term approach with community. In my experience with short-term commitments, a couple of years here or there—what we need is generational change of policy and generational change of intervention of a different kind that works with community.

I do appreciate the Senator's deep experience and concern for the Northern Territory, and Alice Springs in particular. I really do. In everything, we need to focus on how those families are coping. We need to stem the violence. We need to stop all the horrendous situations that we're hearing about. There needs to be a two-pronged approach—there needs to be the here and now, of course, but there needs to be a long-term solution. I agree that we have to keep putting women and children first—we need to put their safety first and the family's safety first. I don't disagree with the problems we're facing, and we must fix them, but this bill and federal legislation are not necessary. The Northern Territory is already bringing forward legislation in their parliament so that the town councils and their communities revert to dry zones. The Northern Territory recently made several announcements regarding alcohol restrictions. They've demonstrated that they are taking responsibility, and they have the power to act because they are the responsible layer of government for this particular intervention of alcohol bans.

With some of those bans, it's going back to pretty much how it was before. Even Senator Price told the ABC on Monday that this bill was pretty much a carbon copy of what the Northern Territory is proposing. So it does beg the question: why are we doing it if they're already doing it? If it's a carbon copy then it's probably not needed. If they are the responsible layer of government then it is for them to do it. The role of the Commonwealth on this particular issue is surely only when that fails, and that's not the case. The federal parliament overriding the Territory's ability to legislate for itself is not the cooperative environment that we want in this country. It is not how we wish to legislate—over the top of those bodies that are actually responsible for various issues. I see the departmental officials shaking their heads, which might be a little inappropriate in this chamber. I believe that federal legislation will only disempower local people. They need to have their voices heard and they need to be negotiated with and engaged with in a deep, meaningful and understanding way.

This bill from Senator Price is largely the same as the stronger futures legislation. Apart from modern drafting changes, there are two differences, from what we can see: the delegation of power from the minister to an agency secretary or member of the senior executive, and the inclusion of a review by a Senate committee at 12 months and then every three years after that. But alcohol is only part of the solution. The Northern Territory and Australian governments are both working on the underlying causes of this community unrest, which, as I say, we need to get past. Obviously, we need to deal with the consequences—we need to deal with the issues that are bubbling up—but we also need to dig down to the root causes so that we can have a genuine and meaningful response that will not just continue intervention and bans but actually start to build a stronger community and get a better answer.

Senator Price's bill refers to an NT licensing commission, which is a body that doesn't exist. That may well be just an error in drafting. It makes the minister responsible for approving alcohol management plans that the communities develop. This approach would ultimately mean that the decisions on alcohol management plans are made in Canberra and not in the communities of the Northern Territory. This is in contrast to the approach announced by the Northern Territory. They are proposing that community alcohol plans be approved by the independent NT Director of Liquor Licensing. They would then be voted on by the communities themselves. Surely having the communities involved is what is critical? To further disempower these communities only leaves us at risk of further disempowerment. We need community solutions. We need the right people in the right place to find the right answers. I believe the Voice to Parliament will put us on a pathway to those better solutions—to a place where we can look to making amends for the hundreds of years of oppression, to freeing up the system to enable the voice of First Nations people to be truly heard. 'Intervention', 'overseeing', 'oversight'—all of these words bounce around. Fundamentally, the conversation needs to be had with the community. The conversation needs to be deeper than just what happened yesterday or the day before or what has happened in the last 12 months. The conversation needs to go deeper. We need to ask the questions; we need to find the answers. We need to empower the community and we need to walk alongside that community to find the solutions.

Debate interrupted.