Mrs AAGAARD - 2004-10-13
Under the Martin Labor government, rates of property crime have fallen. How will the government continue to build safer communities across the Territory?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I had the great pleasure, along with my colleague, the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services, in launching the government’s framework of Building Safer Communities for the Northern Territory. This new framework will stand on a lot of very effective work that has already been done by our government in building safer communities in the Northern Territory, both in the reduction of property crime due to the excellent work being done by our police force supported by the community justice groups that we have set up all over the Territory, but also in taking the building blocks that have already been put in place for this - such as the $75m going into our police force, the $26.5m going into prison reforms, and the $50m going into child protection - within a whole-of-government framework and building from the base that we have already established, and building on the successes that we have already had to date as a government.
This framework makes it very clear to all of our stakeholders, whether they are people within our own agencies or the many community groups that have bought into the collaborative work that we have been seeking to make their communities safer all over the Territory. Whether they are remote communities out to the Western Australian and Queensland borders or our urban centres, they all have unique issues with antisocial behaviour, security, the impact of early childhood traumas, the impact of substance abuse, and inhalant abuse. All of those very complex problems are not new to the Territory, but have to be tackled if the government is acting responsibly.
The framework includes areas of children and young people; protecting home and business; preventing violence; two-way justice, involving the cultural issues in the justice system; and tackling substance abuse by targeting, punishment and preventing re-offending. These are key areas in building safety into our communities.
As a second set of foci are the front line responses, the reforms that we are progressing with our police force, the partnerships in crime prevention that we want to build on, and the people, places and systems that we are going to need to progress these programs for the government and, more importantly, for Territorians.
I look forward to the next stage of this, as we did with the Building Healthier Communities, which is to go to our stakeholders now - whether they are agency people or people in our communities - and say: ‘Right, let us put the detail around this now. These are the priorities that the government has expressed. Let us put the detail of the type of programs we are going to need there to express these priorities and respond to them’. That will now occur. We will be going out right around the Territory, looking at what people want us to do in a lot of detail, community by community, organisation by organisation. We want to build safer communities in the Northern Territory, based on the excellent work that our agencies have already achieved in the communities.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I had the great pleasure, along with my colleague, the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services, in launching the government’s framework of Building Safer Communities for the Northern Territory. This new framework will stand on a lot of very effective work that has already been done by our government in building safer communities in the Northern Territory, both in the reduction of property crime due to the excellent work being done by our police force supported by the community justice groups that we have set up all over the Territory, but also in taking the building blocks that have already been put in place for this - such as the $75m going into our police force, the $26.5m going into prison reforms, and the $50m going into child protection - within a whole-of-government framework and building from the base that we have already established, and building on the successes that we have already had to date as a government.
This framework makes it very clear to all of our stakeholders, whether they are people within our own agencies or the many community groups that have bought into the collaborative work that we have been seeking to make their communities safer all over the Territory. Whether they are remote communities out to the Western Australian and Queensland borders or our urban centres, they all have unique issues with antisocial behaviour, security, the impact of early childhood traumas, the impact of substance abuse, and inhalant abuse. All of those very complex problems are not new to the Territory, but have to be tackled if the government is acting responsibly.
The framework includes areas of children and young people; protecting home and business; preventing violence; two-way justice, involving the cultural issues in the justice system; and tackling substance abuse by targeting, punishment and preventing re-offending. These are key areas in building safety into our communities.
As a second set of foci are the front line responses, the reforms that we are progressing with our police force, the partnerships in crime prevention that we want to build on, and the people, places and systems that we are going to need to progress these programs for the government and, more importantly, for Territorians.
I look forward to the next stage of this, as we did with the Building Healthier Communities, which is to go to our stakeholders now - whether they are agency people or people in our communities - and say: ‘Right, let us put the detail around this now. These are the priorities that the government has expressed. Let us put the detail of the type of programs we are going to need there to express these priorities and respond to them’. That will now occur. We will be going out right around the Territory, looking at what people want us to do in a lot of detail, community by community, organisation by organisation. We want to build safer communities in the Northern Territory, based on the excellent work that our agencies have already achieved in the communities.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016