Mr ELFERINK - 1999-10-13
The Labor Party sent the member for Nhulunbuy all the way to New Zealand in September to learn about youth diversionary conferencing. He now talks about trying to have it made an alternative sentence for a juvenile on the first or second property offence. Either through incompetence or deliberate intent, the member for Nhulunbuy has misled Territorians into thinking we do not have youth diversionary conferencing. Can the Chief Minister tell Territorians what the real situation is?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I’m looking forward to the debate on this issue. It was an interesting little tour that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition made. I said yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition was absent during all of the discussion with regard to the Planning Act. One has to wonder immediately …
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! This rubbish that ‘she was absent during all the business on the Planning Bill’ is untrue.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. If you believe that you have been misrepresented in some way and you wish to make a comment on that, you can come and work it out with me.
Mr PALMER: A point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask that the Leader of the Opposition withdraw the implication that the Chief Minister comes in here and tells lies.
Mr SPEAKER: You must not imply, of course, that the Chief Minister has told a lie unless you wish to do it by substantive motion.
Ms MARTIN: I withdraw.
Mr BURKE: Mr Speaker, yesterday we had a matter of public importance raised in this parliament by the Leader of the Opposition with regard to planning issues, and I made the observation that through the whole of the period for discussion of the draft Planning Bill, not one letter, not one submission, was received from any member of the opposition. The Leader of the Opposition is the shadow minister for Lands, Planning and Environment. If she wishes to have any input in the process, and especially if she wants then to raise in this House a matter of public importance, she has to do more than knock out a couple of press releases. In that regard, she has been absent during the whole of the debate.
This one is interesting too because the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has just been on a fact-finding tour to Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand, and he has seen the light on this fact-finding tour. The interstate visits coincided with the rugby league final in Sydney and the Aussie Rules final in Melbourne. That aside, he eventually got to New Zealand on his fact-finding tour and, he says, was incredibly impressed by the focus ...
Mr Stirling: I was following the path of one Paul Manuell.
Mr BURKE: I gather from that remark that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was at the football. Whether or not a member of my staff was there as well, I don’t know. Maybe he paid his own way.
While he was in New Zealand, the member found that they have a program that diverts youths from the justice system, as opposed to slotting them in prison, at the first or second offence. They have, he said, crime prevention units. He was so impressed by crime prevention units that he was going to come home and, to quote on 8DDD on 4 October:
Well, I was carrying around about 5 kg or 6 kg of papers from New Zealand. By the time I pulled through Sydney Airport it was getting pretty heavy, so I posted it back and it hasn’t got here yet. But, and that’s got the level of detail that I need in order to - despite that, you know, get out a reasonable discussion paper. So I’m just waiting for my papers to get back for me.
The inference I gather from that is that he would put out a discussion paper so that the rest of us knew what he was talking about with regard to crime prevention units. But no, that’s too hard. You don’t do any of that sort of stuff. All you do is raise a motion in this House and we’ll respond to that motion, because today is General Business Day. That is one of the only 3 issues that the opposition wants to debate on the whole day of parliament that is set aside for them. One is the issue of whether or not this parliament should tell Territorians they should become republicans or not. The second is the issue of the establishment of crime prevention units. This side of the House has received no discussion paper, no information, but we will respond as best we can. And the third issue is domestic violence legislation. I have answered that with regard to commissioning a consultant to look at the domestic violence strategy in place at the moment.
But the interesting thing here is to ask the simple question, where was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition during all of the debate - and it was an extensive debate by the previous shadow attorney-general - on the amendments to the Juvenile Justice Bill? Where were you? Some pretty critical amendments went into that bill, not the least being the establishment of the diversionary programs so that youths on their second conviction in court could avoid 28 days’ imprisonment. I would almost go so far as to say it was the fundamental change in that piece of legislation with regard to youth. Yet the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has suddenly discovered diversionary programs while he was in New Zealand.
Worse, he has said he would provide a discussion paper to caucus. It would want to have been a pretty fast discussion paper, because we can only assume it’s already been through caucus. You’ve considered your discussion paper. You have all now discovered diversionary programming, which has been in this legislation for some months and was debated extensively in this House by a previous member on your side. But you’ve forgotten all that and you’re trying to trot out to the community that somehow diversionary programs are new thing and we should introduce them in the Northern Territory.
It’s plain misrepresentation, peddling this to Territorians. I can tell you that we do have extensive diversionary programs in place. There are 9 of them approved and gazetted at present by the minister. I will go through them: the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in Australia, Darwin; the Somerville dysfunctional family therapy intervention program in Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine; the Holyoake adolescent program in Alice Springs; the Jawoyn training and employment program in Katherine; Project Thief foundational employment access training in Darwin; Project STAR in Darwin; the Redirecting Adolescent Potential (RAP) project mark II in Darwin; the Tangentyere Council Program; and the indigenous 5-a-side soccer program in Alice Springs.
Two more are yet to be approved and not yet gazetted: a youth worker shadow program in Alice Springs and a job placement employment and training program in Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine. There is also, members opposite would be interested to know, a victim/offenders conference program - one of the first programs we put in place with those juvenile justice amendments.
It must have been a very interesting trip, going all the way to New Zealand via Sydney and Melbourne to discover programs that have been gazetted and in place in the Northern Territory for many, many months. What do the Leader of the Opposition and her deputy really do on that side of the House, beside putting out press releases and trying to suggest to Territorians that they have policies and programs that they believe Territorians can embrace, in terms perhaps of voting them into government? I pulled this statement off the Internet:
Territory Labor policies
Starting closer to the next Territory election, due in November 2001, Territory Labor will begin releasing vast policy documents. Once released they’ll be available to read and download from here.
What that means is: ‘Don’t hang around on this website because you’re not going to get much for a long time’. That’s fair enough. But don’t go out there and say by press release every second day that you have policies, because you have none. And when you want to talk about what this government has in place when it comes to diversionary programs or victim/offender conferencing, read the legislation. Talk to the public servants and others who are involved. You’ll find that the programs are numerous and effective in the Northern Territory.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I’m looking forward to the debate on this issue. It was an interesting little tour that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition made. I said yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition was absent during all of the discussion with regard to the Planning Act. One has to wonder immediately …
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Mr Speaker! This rubbish that ‘she was absent during all the business on the Planning Bill’ is untrue.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. If you believe that you have been misrepresented in some way and you wish to make a comment on that, you can come and work it out with me.
Mr PALMER: A point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask that the Leader of the Opposition withdraw the implication that the Chief Minister comes in here and tells lies.
Mr SPEAKER: You must not imply, of course, that the Chief Minister has told a lie unless you wish to do it by substantive motion.
Ms MARTIN: I withdraw.
Mr BURKE: Mr Speaker, yesterday we had a matter of public importance raised in this parliament by the Leader of the Opposition with regard to planning issues, and I made the observation that through the whole of the period for discussion of the draft Planning Bill, not one letter, not one submission, was received from any member of the opposition. The Leader of the Opposition is the shadow minister for Lands, Planning and Environment. If she wishes to have any input in the process, and especially if she wants then to raise in this House a matter of public importance, she has to do more than knock out a couple of press releases. In that regard, she has been absent during the whole of the debate.
This one is interesting too because the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has just been on a fact-finding tour to Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand, and he has seen the light on this fact-finding tour. The interstate visits coincided with the rugby league final in Sydney and the Aussie Rules final in Melbourne. That aside, he eventually got to New Zealand on his fact-finding tour and, he says, was incredibly impressed by the focus ...
Mr Stirling: I was following the path of one Paul Manuell.
Mr BURKE: I gather from that remark that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was at the football. Whether or not a member of my staff was there as well, I don’t know. Maybe he paid his own way.
While he was in New Zealand, the member found that they have a program that diverts youths from the justice system, as opposed to slotting them in prison, at the first or second offence. They have, he said, crime prevention units. He was so impressed by crime prevention units that he was going to come home and, to quote on 8DDD on 4 October:
Well, I was carrying around about 5 kg or 6 kg of papers from New Zealand. By the time I pulled through Sydney Airport it was getting pretty heavy, so I posted it back and it hasn’t got here yet. But, and that’s got the level of detail that I need in order to - despite that, you know, get out a reasonable discussion paper. So I’m just waiting for my papers to get back for me.
The inference I gather from that is that he would put out a discussion paper so that the rest of us knew what he was talking about with regard to crime prevention units. But no, that’s too hard. You don’t do any of that sort of stuff. All you do is raise a motion in this House and we’ll respond to that motion, because today is General Business Day. That is one of the only 3 issues that the opposition wants to debate on the whole day of parliament that is set aside for them. One is the issue of whether or not this parliament should tell Territorians they should become republicans or not. The second is the issue of the establishment of crime prevention units. This side of the House has received no discussion paper, no information, but we will respond as best we can. And the third issue is domestic violence legislation. I have answered that with regard to commissioning a consultant to look at the domestic violence strategy in place at the moment.
But the interesting thing here is to ask the simple question, where was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition during all of the debate - and it was an extensive debate by the previous shadow attorney-general - on the amendments to the Juvenile Justice Bill? Where were you? Some pretty critical amendments went into that bill, not the least being the establishment of the diversionary programs so that youths on their second conviction in court could avoid 28 days’ imprisonment. I would almost go so far as to say it was the fundamental change in that piece of legislation with regard to youth. Yet the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has suddenly discovered diversionary programs while he was in New Zealand.
Worse, he has said he would provide a discussion paper to caucus. It would want to have been a pretty fast discussion paper, because we can only assume it’s already been through caucus. You’ve considered your discussion paper. You have all now discovered diversionary programming, which has been in this legislation for some months and was debated extensively in this House by a previous member on your side. But you’ve forgotten all that and you’re trying to trot out to the community that somehow diversionary programs are new thing and we should introduce them in the Northern Territory.
It’s plain misrepresentation, peddling this to Territorians. I can tell you that we do have extensive diversionary programs in place. There are 9 of them approved and gazetted at present by the minister. I will go through them: the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in Australia, Darwin; the Somerville dysfunctional family therapy intervention program in Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine; the Holyoake adolescent program in Alice Springs; the Jawoyn training and employment program in Katherine; Project Thief foundational employment access training in Darwin; Project STAR in Darwin; the Redirecting Adolescent Potential (RAP) project mark II in Darwin; the Tangentyere Council Program; and the indigenous 5-a-side soccer program in Alice Springs.
Two more are yet to be approved and not yet gazetted: a youth worker shadow program in Alice Springs and a job placement employment and training program in Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine. There is also, members opposite would be interested to know, a victim/offenders conference program - one of the first programs we put in place with those juvenile justice amendments.
It must have been a very interesting trip, going all the way to New Zealand via Sydney and Melbourne to discover programs that have been gazetted and in place in the Northern Territory for many, many months. What do the Leader of the Opposition and her deputy really do on that side of the House, beside putting out press releases and trying to suggest to Territorians that they have policies and programs that they believe Territorians can embrace, in terms perhaps of voting them into government? I pulled this statement off the Internet:
Territory Labor policies
Starting closer to the next Territory election, due in November 2001, Territory Labor will begin releasing vast policy documents. Once released they’ll be available to read and download from here.
What that means is: ‘Don’t hang around on this website because you’re not going to get much for a long time’. That’s fair enough. But don’t go out there and say by press release every second day that you have policies, because you have none. And when you want to talk about what this government has in place when it comes to diversionary programs or victim/offender conferencing, read the legislation. Talk to the public servants and others who are involved. You’ll find that the programs are numerous and effective in the Northern Territory.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016