Mr BALCH - 2000-02-23
What is your response to claims by the NT Branch of the Australian Labor Party that the government’s mandatory sentencing laws are apartheid?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I made this comment earlier that I was surprised to read and hear yesterday, but read it again in the paper, that the Leader of the Opposition says about the Northern Territory, that ‘if you want to live in an oppressive apartheid-type regime, this is the place for you’. Now, this is in relation to mandatory sentencing and I’d like to tease out exactly what they mean by an apartheid regime in the Northern Territory. Is she suggesting that somehow we have laws in the Northern Territory, that if those laws are applied to an Aboriginal person it’s apartheid, but if they’re applied to a non-Aboriginal person it’s not apartheid? Is that what you’re saying? And therefore if that is the case, what is the solution? What is the solution? Do we have 2 laws in the Northern Territory? Do we have, as Syd Stirling suggested, a separate political Aboriginal party with their own political expression in the Northern Territory? Do we have a self-governing entity in the Northern Territory with their own laws and responsible for their own development?
Because that’s what she is suggesting by suggesting we have 2 laws in the Northern Territory, one for Aboriginal and one for non-Aboriginal, and that’s apartheid, that’s real apartheid. If you want to separate the Northern Territory between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, if you want to have separate political representation, you be honest with Territorians. If you want separate representation for Aboriginals as opposed to non-Aboriginals, if you want separate development for Aboriginals as opposed to non-Aboriginals, that’s apartheid.
When you don’t have apartheid is when you have one law for everyone, when you have one cosmopolitan society that lives in the Northern Territory and they abide by the same set of laws and the laws that we have in the Northern Territory don’t target Aboriginals, they don’t target non-Aboriginals, they don’t target Chinese, they don’t target the rich and they don’t target the poor. They target criminals. They target persistent criminals who persist in property crime, and that’s the way we do business in the Northern Territory. If the Leader of the Opposition wants an apartheid regime in the Northern Territory, follow the Stirling example and go ahead and tell Territorians what you mean by 2 laws.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I made this comment earlier that I was surprised to read and hear yesterday, but read it again in the paper, that the Leader of the Opposition says about the Northern Territory, that ‘if you want to live in an oppressive apartheid-type regime, this is the place for you’. Now, this is in relation to mandatory sentencing and I’d like to tease out exactly what they mean by an apartheid regime in the Northern Territory. Is she suggesting that somehow we have laws in the Northern Territory, that if those laws are applied to an Aboriginal person it’s apartheid, but if they’re applied to a non-Aboriginal person it’s not apartheid? Is that what you’re saying? And therefore if that is the case, what is the solution? What is the solution? Do we have 2 laws in the Northern Territory? Do we have, as Syd Stirling suggested, a separate political Aboriginal party with their own political expression in the Northern Territory? Do we have a self-governing entity in the Northern Territory with their own laws and responsible for their own development?
Because that’s what she is suggesting by suggesting we have 2 laws in the Northern Territory, one for Aboriginal and one for non-Aboriginal, and that’s apartheid, that’s real apartheid. If you want to separate the Northern Territory between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, if you want to have separate political representation, you be honest with Territorians. If you want separate representation for Aboriginals as opposed to non-Aboriginals, if you want separate development for Aboriginals as opposed to non-Aboriginals, that’s apartheid.
When you don’t have apartheid is when you have one law for everyone, when you have one cosmopolitan society that lives in the Northern Territory and they abide by the same set of laws and the laws that we have in the Northern Territory don’t target Aboriginals, they don’t target non-Aboriginals, they don’t target Chinese, they don’t target the rich and they don’t target the poor. They target criminals. They target persistent criminals who persist in property crime, and that’s the way we do business in the Northern Territory. If the Leader of the Opposition wants an apartheid regime in the Northern Territory, follow the Stirling example and go ahead and tell Territorians what you mean by 2 laws.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016