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senate vote 2025-02-05#12
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2025-02-06 16:53:03
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Title
Matters of Urgency — Central Australia: Crime and Community Safety- Matters of Urgency - Central Australia: Crime and Community Safety - Criticism of Government
Description
<p class="speaker">Jess Walsh</p><p>I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 5 February 2024, from Senator Nampijinpa Price:</p><p class="italic">Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:</p><p class="italic">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."</p><p>Is the proposal supported?</p><p class="italic"> <i>More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—</i></p><p>With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Nampijinpa Price</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:</p><p class="italic">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."</p><p>Today I speak about this very urgent matter. It is a matter that is very close to my heart and has been ignored by the Albanese government for too long. The reality is that my home town of Alice Springs and the region of Central Australia more broadly has changed so much since I grew up there. It is a spiralling and has been spiralling for some time.</p><p>The Albanese government thought letting alcohol restrictions lapse would be helpful. They thought throwing $350 million at us would fix it. The previous Northern Territory Labor government thought they could fix it. But neither of them did. In fact, from my experience, what those Labor governments did, or perhaps more accurately didn't do, has made life much worse. We continue to live with the effects of their irresponsible decision-making, and that is why this matter requires urgent attention.</p><p>It's no secret to anyone that the current situation in Central Australia is dire. The NT has been in the national headlines disproportionately, due to a breakdown in law and order and, more specifically, the disorder in Alice Springs, which culminated in two separate curfews.</p><p>The narrative in the media is borne out in the data. When we look at youth offending, 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. Rates of family and domestic violence continue to rise, with increases of more than 20 per cent across the Territory and more than 150 per cent in some regional areas. Frontline services cannot meet demand. One in five children in the NT have a child protection notification, compared to one in 20 nationally.</p><p>Given all of this, it was a relief when the CLP enjoyed a landslide victory and formed a majority government in the Northern Territory in August last year. The new CLP government have made swift legislative changes like strengthening bail laws. They also strengthened law enforcement on the ground through action such as establishing the Fugitive Task Force in Alice Springs, which saw at least 50 high-risk repeat offenders get taken off the streets, away from where they could cause further harm.</p><p>The Northern Territory government is doing everything it can, but there are additional measures for which they need the cooperation of the Commonwealth government to get done—things like making sure welfare payments are made on days when takeaway alcohol isn't available and making sure there are mutual obligations for those in receipt of welfare. They want to see an audit of federally funded programs—sounds familiar—and reform of royalty distribution. These are things I have advocated in favour of for so long. Finally, they want to broaden the pathways to income management for people like parents who don't send their kids to school and want to increase the managed amount for parents of youth offenders.</p><p>These are practical measures and they must urgently be adopted by the Albanese government. We know they will have an impact on the community. We know they will encourage the responsible use of money—spending it on things like food instead of alcohol. They will encourage people to find meaningful training or employment. They will have a positive impact on crime and violence in the region. That is why the coalition has been clear about their in-principle support for these measures. Unlike the leader of the Labor government, the leader of the coalition, Peter Dutton, cares about the people of Alice Springs and the wider Northern Territory. He cared enough to come and stay in Alice Springs and to talk to people on the ground and understand the reality of the situation residents are facing.</p><p>Now is not the time for Anthony Albanese to back away from the important issues. He cannot back away and pretend that these places or issues do not exist just because they are complex or uncomfortable to face. That is why I'm calling on the Prime Minister to stop ignoring the crisis that has gone on for far too long in Central Australia and calling on him to do more than just throw money at us and hope we go away. I'm calling on the Prime Minister to stand up and show some leadership and support to the Northern Territory. I'm calling on the Prime Minister to urgently agree to the implementation of all seven measures proposed by the NT government.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Sheldon</p><p>I've got to say from the outset that this is an incredibly cynical approach to what is an incredibly important issue. There is no real plan that has been exercised here. A plan involves a whole series of moving parts happening at once. What we've seen in the plan from the opposition is no plan.</p><p>Particularly in the case of the Northern Territory, they can start taking a leaf out of some exceptionally good examples that have occurred elsewhere. I'll go to some of examples of opportunities they had to support in the Senate, particularly in light of some of the debate that we had earlier today.</p><p>One of the things that's particularly important when we are talking about the critical issues of crime and family and domestic violence and the challenges in any part of the country—but specifically, in this proposition, in Central Australia—is talking about how we actually gain proper jobs and good opportunity, how we deal with the questions and challenges of crime and how all those matters are intermingled with the social compact in the approach that you take. Part of creating a healthy community is making sure there's more schooling and there's funding for it, because, as we know, substantial funding and meeting the Gonski requirements for funding—that's been put in place in the Northern Territory—is part of the mosaic and the puzzle. But we also need to make sure that we have economic success and jobs, and later I'll jump to an example in Fitzroy Crossing.</p><p>Today, we proposed the Future Made in Australia. One of the tenets, which every speaker on the opposite side spoke against, is about community involvement and a community compact when there are arrangements and funding put into business and community to get outcomes. Part of that community compact is to make sure that First Nations communities also have the opportunity to be trained and get jobs. When you start talking about training and getting jobs, the opposition opposed fee-free TAFE. When you want to build a community, you have to build it by giving training, skilling and jobs. That's part of the mosaic. It is not only the funding that has been put in place—which has been applauded by the Northern Territory government—but also the policies that make a difference. Those people opposite me right now oppose the fundamentals of making sure that we get the right social context and the right social opportunity to make sure that Central Australia moves forward.</p><p>I'll give the example of Fitzroy Crossing—such a beautiful example of the success of a community. In the case of Fitzroy Crossing, when that bridge was knocked down only a couple of years ago in those horrific floods, we saw the economic disconnection—and the community disconnection, most critically. When that bridge was rebuilt, it was rebuilt with local labour, with local training. It was rebuilt by 220 people from the local community being trained, and they received good, paying jobs. They were paid for real jobs. They were given jobs that actually gave them opportunity, and, when that Fitzroy Crossing bridge was built, not only was that bridge built back more successfully, and six months before it was due to be completed, but also the crime rates in that community decreased by 43 per cent, the number of kids going to school substantially increased and domestic violence decreased.</p><p>When those opposite talk about the issues they think are important, they don't talk about the real issues that actually glue communities together. When we start talking about making sure that we have the economic answers and approach, as part of the mosaic of getting it right, we start talking about Future Made in Australia; we talk about fee-free TAFE, which, only last week in Adelaide, the opposition was still speaking against. We have those opposite without a package of ideas or a plan that's successful. They really don't like the idea of it being successful because it requires community involvement, it requires government involvement and it requires business involvement. Whenever they see that tripartite approach—community, in the Future Made in Australia; business, in the Future Made in Australia; and government, in the Future Made in Australia—they immediately just turn off. They switch off. Well, go to Fitzroy Crossing and see how it works, because it does work. A social contract and social infrastructure can be built. Have the guts to support it and be fair dinkum.</p> <p class="speaker">Dorinda Cox</p><p>The Greens won't be supporting this motion about practical solutions today. In fact, it reads exactly like the coalition's election platform. There are three points that I want to make with the limited time that I have here today. One of those is very, very clear: you can't police your way out of the situation that's happening in Central Australia. This is hundreds of years of trauma based on colonisation, displacement, the eradication of culture and the segregation of people. It's also known as the White Australia policy, and God forbid that we are going back to that time. Some people in this country actually believe that this happened a really, really long time ago. When I speak to people that's what they say. But next week is actually the anniversary of the national apology to stolen generations people. Every year there is a breakfast here in this place. It is no surprise to hear, because I've spoken about it many times in this chamber, that I am from the following generation of children. My mother was in a mission, taken from her family. This happened to many mobs across our country. This is the cycle of dysfunction that was created for us.</p><p>The second is that the rates of family and domestic violence throughout the Northern Territory are unacceptable. They are absolutely unacceptable. That's what Senator Shoebridge and I heard when we were on the missing and murdered First Nations women and children inquiry. There needs to be significant investment but in crime prevention and early intervention, not punitive approaches that criminalise people and continue to paint black people in this country as people who are simply absolutely inadequate or cannot do for themselves. There is a mountain of evidence about the systems failure, that we do not provide the basic human needs—food, water, shelter and safety—in our communities. These need to be approached by every level of government to make sure that we are actually coming together and finding common ground to fix that instead of these inflammatory comments about what's happening in our community. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2025-02-05.177.2):
- > *Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:*
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- > *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."*
- This motion was introduced by Northern Territory Senator [Jacinta Nampijinpa Price](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/nt/jacinta_nampijinpa_price) (Country Liberal Party).
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