Mr GUNNER - 2012-10-24
When I speak to small business owners like Tim Copping from Captains Seafood they ask why anybody would scrap the Banned Drinker Register before bringing in their own plans. Your Attorney-General has admitted that the Katherine rehab facility is at least 12 months away. Other than the old boys club and failed CLP candidates, why are 2500 problem drunks the only people you have rewarded since the election?
ANSWER
Thank you Madam Speaker. I believe you have had the answer you do not seek. I acknowledge your question and, with courtesy, I thank you for it. It is based on the notion that your scheme was working. It was not working ...
Mr Henderson: It was so. Speak to Tim Copping; he said it was.
Mr MILLS: The numbers speak for themselves. Your eyes have now magically opened and, all of a sudden, you are seeing people who are causing a problem on the streets. Everyone is noticing it now but, prior to this, they were not there because this scheme was magically working. However, you could not measure whether it was working or not because the crime statistics were concealed from view so we just had to take your word for it.
Now, you have a period of change, and that change is important and necessary because we have to change the direction of this whole policy implementation to effect proper change.
You see, the idea and the false premise you have based your whole approach on is that you have chased alcohol as being the problem itself. All the measures around the control of alcohol leave the person who has a very real problem with alcohol largely untouched or untroubled by those types of approaches.
We are going in a new direction, and that starts with getting rid of a scheme that does not work. You heard the address in here yesterday, if you had ears to hear. There is evidence aplenty that it did not work and you are going to hold on to this faded dream that it was something that really worked, and you will grow this view that it was just so wonderful in the last 12 months …
Ms Lawrie: Ten thousand fewer incidents.
Mr MILLS: Have a look at the figures. At a quiet time, go through the figures. I will not tell anyone whether you people are admitting that this thing was, in fact, not working ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Ten thousand fewer antisocial behaviour incidents, a reduction in alcohol-fuelled assault from Darwin, Palmerston, Alice Springs and Katherine ...
Mr MILLS: It is not a point of order.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr MILLS: I find it really curious when we were talking about debt yesterday, and we had all these frivolous points of order which revealed the sensitivity of this former government to its appalling failures they are trying to block from view - frivolous points of order and false assertions across the Chamber. Now it is their great scheme which they are going to hold on to and purport actually worked.
Frivolous points of order are just to conceal the fact that Territorians can see quite plainly the approach was wrong and did not work. They want a new direction. They will get it from us.
ANSWER
Thank you Madam Speaker. I believe you have had the answer you do not seek. I acknowledge your question and, with courtesy, I thank you for it. It is based on the notion that your scheme was working. It was not working ...
Mr Henderson: It was so. Speak to Tim Copping; he said it was.
Mr MILLS: The numbers speak for themselves. Your eyes have now magically opened and, all of a sudden, you are seeing people who are causing a problem on the streets. Everyone is noticing it now but, prior to this, they were not there because this scheme was magically working. However, you could not measure whether it was working or not because the crime statistics were concealed from view so we just had to take your word for it.
Now, you have a period of change, and that change is important and necessary because we have to change the direction of this whole policy implementation to effect proper change.
You see, the idea and the false premise you have based your whole approach on is that you have chased alcohol as being the problem itself. All the measures around the control of alcohol leave the person who has a very real problem with alcohol largely untouched or untroubled by those types of approaches.
We are going in a new direction, and that starts with getting rid of a scheme that does not work. You heard the address in here yesterday, if you had ears to hear. There is evidence aplenty that it did not work and you are going to hold on to this faded dream that it was something that really worked, and you will grow this view that it was just so wonderful in the last 12 months …
Ms Lawrie: Ten thousand fewer incidents.
Mr MILLS: Have a look at the figures. At a quiet time, go through the figures. I will not tell anyone whether you people are admitting that this thing was, in fact, not working ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Ten thousand fewer antisocial behaviour incidents, a reduction in alcohol-fuelled assault from Darwin, Palmerston, Alice Springs and Katherine ...
Mr MILLS: It is not a point of order.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr MILLS: I find it really curious when we were talking about debt yesterday, and we had all these frivolous points of order which revealed the sensitivity of this former government to its appalling failures they are trying to block from view - frivolous points of order and false assertions across the Chamber. Now it is their great scheme which they are going to hold on to and purport actually worked.
Frivolous points of order are just to conceal the fact that Territorians can see quite plainly the approach was wrong and did not work. They want a new direction. They will get it from us.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016