Ms MOSS - 2015-08-27
You reduced your KPI for priority one, child in danger investigations to commence within 24 hours from 100% to 85% at the time of the budget. How many children in danger did not receive an investigation within 24 hours and for how many days?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I would have been happy to take that question before we came into the Chamber as I would have been in a position to answer it. Running cold I cannot even guess. I will make a commitment to getting an answer to that question and I will make certain it is communicated to the member in due course.
However, I understand the member’s concern. All members of this House should be concerned about child protection issues in our community. A great sadness of our child protection system is that we have in our care, as a government, 1000 children. In the prison system you can add another 1600 people. That is 2600 people in the care and custody of the Northern Territory government, which is about 1% of our population. That is a great tragedy of the community in which we live. We, as a government, do everything we possibly can to challenge things that confront us.
We have so many people in custody. The unfortunate truth is that number is way over-represented with Indigenous people. I have said before in this House and in any number of other places that we as a government continue to struggle with this issue for a number of reasons, not least of which is a passive welfare system which continues to degrade people by stripping them of their self-worth. We see it in our parks and gardens. We see it manifest in our families and in remote communities.
Everywhere we go we are providing domestic violence responses which are cutting-edge. The Sentenced to a Job program works very hard. We have Alcohol Protection Orders and alcohol mandatory treatment, along with a raft of responses which are peculiar to the Northern Territory because of the enormity of the problem we face. We still have a bizarre situation where every fortnight the federal government, in the shape of passive welfare payments, pours millions of dollars into this jurisdiction and we then have the duty to spend millions of dollars cleaning up the resultant mess. I am frustrated by this process.
For political reasons, I understand why the member raised this issue, but if you want to talk about these issues do not talk about the minor ones, talk about the major ones as they are the ones that matter.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I would have been happy to take that question before we came into the Chamber as I would have been in a position to answer it. Running cold I cannot even guess. I will make a commitment to getting an answer to that question and I will make certain it is communicated to the member in due course.
However, I understand the member’s concern. All members of this House should be concerned about child protection issues in our community. A great sadness of our child protection system is that we have in our care, as a government, 1000 children. In the prison system you can add another 1600 people. That is 2600 people in the care and custody of the Northern Territory government, which is about 1% of our population. That is a great tragedy of the community in which we live. We, as a government, do everything we possibly can to challenge things that confront us.
We have so many people in custody. The unfortunate truth is that number is way over-represented with Indigenous people. I have said before in this House and in any number of other places that we as a government continue to struggle with this issue for a number of reasons, not least of which is a passive welfare system which continues to degrade people by stripping them of their self-worth. We see it in our parks and gardens. We see it manifest in our families and in remote communities.
Everywhere we go we are providing domestic violence responses which are cutting-edge. The Sentenced to a Job program works very hard. We have Alcohol Protection Orders and alcohol mandatory treatment, along with a raft of responses which are peculiar to the Northern Territory because of the enormity of the problem we face. We still have a bizarre situation where every fortnight the federal government, in the shape of passive welfare payments, pours millions of dollars into this jurisdiction and we then have the duty to spend millions of dollars cleaning up the resultant mess. I am frustrated by this process.
For political reasons, I understand why the member raised this issue, but if you want to talk about these issues do not talk about the minor ones, talk about the major ones as they are the ones that matter.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016