Mr ADAMSON - 1997-04-22
Can he advise the House on the success of the police blitz on drunk ...
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr ADAMSON: ... and the strengthened enforcement of ...
Mr Stone interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Stone: I have been asked a question.
Mr SPEAKER: He is still asking the question.
Mr ADAMSON: ... the success of the police blitz and the more stringent enforcement of the 2 km law?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to advise ...
Mr Toyne: You finally discovered the 2 km law, after all these years!
Mr STONE: The member for Stuart interjects. He was the first one from the Labor Party to buy into this. This is the very same man who lived in the community of Yuendumu. Anyone who has been to Yuendumu would have to ask themselves why, if in fact he was serious about the social problems, the litter problems and everything else there, he did not do something in his own backyard before he came to Darwin and started to lecture us about what we should or should not do.
Then the member for MacDonnell got up and said that the Chief Minister had done a terrible thing, going out and starting to crack the whip because Territorians across the board have had enough of this antisocial, unacceptable behaviour.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr STONE: The member for Fannie Bay interjects. She went on radio and said she had a magic solution to this situation. We have to provide housing for all these drunks, itinerants and layabouts. That was her solution, and that came from the very same person who, when the Christian Outreach Centre was located in her electorate and provided some of that emergency housing ...
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Ms Martin: What about the park opposite your electorate office?
Mr STONE: If you are quiet you will be able to listen to the answer. You mounted a campaign to drive them out. It was a clear case of not in my backyard.
Over the past week, the Labor Party has attacked the CLP administration because we went out and cleaned up the streets. These same people have just launched their own campaign for law and order. Their campaign included a little plastic badge made in China which says, if you look closely, `Territory Labor Stop'. It is not until you get down to the handcuffs that you see the word `Crime' has been hidden away. This was a pathetic attempt at a policy that was lifted essentially from CLP policy. There was not an original idea in it. Most of its strategies are already being implemented.
Now we are witnessing this unsolicited attack by the Territory Labor Party on me as Minister for Police because I have dared to say that we will no longer tolerate the fornicators or the urinators on our streets and that we will not put up with drunks pestering our kids when they go to the corner store to buy bread and milk. When we took a decision to go hard on people whose behaviour is generally unacceptable, the Labor Party stood up en masse and said I was a terrible man. These people are soft on crime. For the benefit ...
Mr Bailey: It has taken 23 years!
Mrs Hickey: Shame!
Mr STONE: They all sigh. Wouldn't it have made an enormous difference if the Labor Party in the Territory had supported my call to the land councils to get behind the night patrols to help clean up the streets? What was to stop the Labor Party from saying that it was a good idea? The land councils have millions of dollars at their disposal. They are recipients of large amounts of taxpayers' dollars. What was wrong ...
Mr Ah Kit interjecting.
Mr STONE: I ask the member for Arnhem to be quiet. I know he is embarrassed by this, as a former director of the Northern Land Council.
What was to prevent the Labor Party giving some support to that initiative? What is wrong with calling on the land councils to start dealing with issues involving their own people?
However, worse was to come. The people who claimed to have a sustainable policy on law and order, who said that they would get tough on crime, attacked the government for being exactly that - tough on behaviour that we simply will not accept any longer.
Mr Bailey: 23 years of failure!
Ms Martin: You are a hypocrite.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
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Mr STONE: That is the toughest thing you have been able to throw on the table. You want to provide more houses. The member for Fannie Bay says that the answer to drunks and itinerants is to give them more housing. Would she volunteer the house next door to her own? I can take the member for Fannie Bay to numerous neighbourhoods and streets in Darwin alone where people have had enough of this behaviour. In ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bell: I know he doesn't like it.
Mr STONE: No! You do not like what I am saying because you do not want it broadcast.
Mr Bell: For 7 years, you have been the member for Port Darwin.
Mr STONE: You should be embarrassed by the stand you took. Instead of getting behind the government and supporting the police, you started to run a stupid argument designed to undermine the efforts of police on our streets. Unbelievable!
In Darwin last week, 71 people were taken into protective custody in the 24 hours of 17 April and 140 in the 24 hours to 7 am on 18 April. Another 130 were taken into protective custody over the following 24 hours of 19 April.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: Is the Leader of the Opposition not happy with these results? Doesn't she support it? Doesn't she think this is a good outcome in terms of cleaning up our parks, our streets and our shopping centres? The message may well be starting to get through because police report that, over the 48 hours ending last night, a total of 52 people were taken into protective custody.
Members interjecting.
Mr STONE: I will pick up the interjections. I have spoken out regularly on this issue and, on each and every occasion, I have been drowned out by the do-gooders and the hand-wringers in the ALP. They will not have a win this time because we will withstand the barrage. We will withstand all the Labor Party stooges who ring up on talkback radio and bag the government for getting out there and having a go. We will not be dissuaded.
Mr Bailey: `We shall not, we shall not, we shall not be moved ...'
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bailey: How much longer do we have to put up with this?
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Mr SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri, your behaviour is unbecoming of a member of this House.
Mr STONE: The problem is that the Labor Party does not want Territorians to know and understand that there is a fundamental difference between the CLP and the ALP on issues of this kind.
Mr Ah Kit: When is it, Shane?
Mr STONE: The member for Arnhem asks what it is. I will tell him what it is. We get out there and do it.
Mr Ah Kit: No - when?
Ms Martin: When is the election?
Mr STONE: You roll over. You have not offered a single solution.
I make the final point that there is only so much that the police can do. Going around picking up drunks and sending them through the merry-go-round of sobering-up shelters and cells is not the ultimate answer. It never has been. The solution lies in the communities, and that brings me again to members opposite. They largely represent many of the communities that these people come from, and they have a very clear responsibility to work with the leadership of those communities to try to resolve these problems. There is little point in shifting them into town because that is simply transferring the problems.
That is why I took real exception to the views that were expressed by the member for Stuart. I have been to a number of communities in his electorate. Quite frankly, I have been appalled by what I have seen. There are some outstanding Aboriginal communities that are a great credit to Aboriginal Territorians, but there are also some shockers, and he knows that. Members opposite, who represent these vast electorates with a very large component of Aboriginal communities, have a clear responsibility to work with those people and with the community leadership to try to resolve the issues. That includes reassessing whether they have wet canteens. I am not talking about doing away with the dry areas legislation. We have to think laterally and we have to be constructive and positive.
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr STONE: If the member for Stuart would be quiet he might be able to take in what I am saying and go home with some ideas with which to try to resolve the issues. Simply shifting them into Alice Springs, as is the case with many of the people who come from the electorate of Stuart, is not the answer. It will not be tolerated by people who live in the towns, whether they are black, white, brindle, yellow or whatever they may be. People are affronted and offended by what they have to encounter and deal with.
It is a great disappointment that, instead of backing the government over the current clean-up and the current crackdown, the Labor Party did not get behind the government and give it the support it needed. Instead, the member for Stuart, the member for Fannie Bay and
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the member for MacDonnell have all weighed in. I do not think I heard anything from the Leader of the Opposition but, then again, that is silent Maggie. We do not hear a great deal from her. The program is generally run by her deputy. It is really time that she started to stand up and speak out on these issues, and lent some support to policies and strategies that clearly have the support of the public at large.
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Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr ADAMSON: ... and the strengthened enforcement of ...
Mr Stone interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Stone: I have been asked a question.
Mr SPEAKER: He is still asking the question.
Mr ADAMSON: ... the success of the police blitz and the more stringent enforcement of the 2 km law?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to advise ...
Mr Toyne: You finally discovered the 2 km law, after all these years!
Mr STONE: The member for Stuart interjects. He was the first one from the Labor Party to buy into this. This is the very same man who lived in the community of Yuendumu. Anyone who has been to Yuendumu would have to ask themselves why, if in fact he was serious about the social problems, the litter problems and everything else there, he did not do something in his own backyard before he came to Darwin and started to lecture us about what we should or should not do.
Then the member for MacDonnell got up and said that the Chief Minister had done a terrible thing, going out and starting to crack the whip because Territorians across the board have had enough of this antisocial, unacceptable behaviour.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr STONE: The member for Fannie Bay interjects. She went on radio and said she had a magic solution to this situation. We have to provide housing for all these drunks, itinerants and layabouts. That was her solution, and that came from the very same person who, when the Christian Outreach Centre was located in her electorate and provided some of that emergency housing ...
Page 2014
Ms Martin: What about the park opposite your electorate office?
Mr STONE: If you are quiet you will be able to listen to the answer. You mounted a campaign to drive them out. It was a clear case of not in my backyard.
Over the past week, the Labor Party has attacked the CLP administration because we went out and cleaned up the streets. These same people have just launched their own campaign for law and order. Their campaign included a little plastic badge made in China which says, if you look closely, `Territory Labor Stop'. It is not until you get down to the handcuffs that you see the word `Crime' has been hidden away. This was a pathetic attempt at a policy that was lifted essentially from CLP policy. There was not an original idea in it. Most of its strategies are already being implemented.
Now we are witnessing this unsolicited attack by the Territory Labor Party on me as Minister for Police because I have dared to say that we will no longer tolerate the fornicators or the urinators on our streets and that we will not put up with drunks pestering our kids when they go to the corner store to buy bread and milk. When we took a decision to go hard on people whose behaviour is generally unacceptable, the Labor Party stood up en masse and said I was a terrible man. These people are soft on crime. For the benefit ...
Mr Bailey: It has taken 23 years!
Mrs Hickey: Shame!
Mr STONE: They all sigh. Wouldn't it have made an enormous difference if the Labor Party in the Territory had supported my call to the land councils to get behind the night patrols to help clean up the streets? What was to stop the Labor Party from saying that it was a good idea? The land councils have millions of dollars at their disposal. They are recipients of large amounts of taxpayers' dollars. What was wrong ...
Mr Ah Kit interjecting.
Mr STONE: I ask the member for Arnhem to be quiet. I know he is embarrassed by this, as a former director of the Northern Land Council.
What was to prevent the Labor Party giving some support to that initiative? What is wrong with calling on the land councils to start dealing with issues involving their own people?
However, worse was to come. The people who claimed to have a sustainable policy on law and order, who said that they would get tough on crime, attacked the government for being exactly that - tough on behaviour that we simply will not accept any longer.
Mr Bailey: 23 years of failure!
Ms Martin: You are a hypocrite.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Page 2015
Mr STONE: That is the toughest thing you have been able to throw on the table. You want to provide more houses. The member for Fannie Bay says that the answer to drunks and itinerants is to give them more housing. Would she volunteer the house next door to her own? I can take the member for Fannie Bay to numerous neighbourhoods and streets in Darwin alone where people have had enough of this behaviour. In ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bell: I know he doesn't like it.
Mr STONE: No! You do not like what I am saying because you do not want it broadcast.
Mr Bell: For 7 years, you have been the member for Port Darwin.
Mr STONE: You should be embarrassed by the stand you took. Instead of getting behind the government and supporting the police, you started to run a stupid argument designed to undermine the efforts of police on our streets. Unbelievable!
In Darwin last week, 71 people were taken into protective custody in the 24 hours of 17 April and 140 in the 24 hours to 7 am on 18 April. Another 130 were taken into protective custody over the following 24 hours of 19 April.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: Is the Leader of the Opposition not happy with these results? Doesn't she support it? Doesn't she think this is a good outcome in terms of cleaning up our parks, our streets and our shopping centres? The message may well be starting to get through because police report that, over the 48 hours ending last night, a total of 52 people were taken into protective custody.
Members interjecting.
Mr STONE: I will pick up the interjections. I have spoken out regularly on this issue and, on each and every occasion, I have been drowned out by the do-gooders and the hand-wringers in the ALP. They will not have a win this time because we will withstand the barrage. We will withstand all the Labor Party stooges who ring up on talkback radio and bag the government for getting out there and having a go. We will not be dissuaded.
Mr Bailey: `We shall not, we shall not, we shall not be moved ...'
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Bailey: How much longer do we have to put up with this?
Page 2016
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri, your behaviour is unbecoming of a member of this House.
Mr STONE: The problem is that the Labor Party does not want Territorians to know and understand that there is a fundamental difference between the CLP and the ALP on issues of this kind.
Mr Ah Kit: When is it, Shane?
Mr STONE: The member for Arnhem asks what it is. I will tell him what it is. We get out there and do it.
Mr Ah Kit: No - when?
Ms Martin: When is the election?
Mr STONE: You roll over. You have not offered a single solution.
I make the final point that there is only so much that the police can do. Going around picking up drunks and sending them through the merry-go-round of sobering-up shelters and cells is not the ultimate answer. It never has been. The solution lies in the communities, and that brings me again to members opposite. They largely represent many of the communities that these people come from, and they have a very clear responsibility to work with the leadership of those communities to try to resolve these problems. There is little point in shifting them into town because that is simply transferring the problems.
That is why I took real exception to the views that were expressed by the member for Stuart. I have been to a number of communities in his electorate. Quite frankly, I have been appalled by what I have seen. There are some outstanding Aboriginal communities that are a great credit to Aboriginal Territorians, but there are also some shockers, and he knows that. Members opposite, who represent these vast electorates with a very large component of Aboriginal communities, have a clear responsibility to work with those people and with the community leadership to try to resolve the issues. That includes reassessing whether they have wet canteens. I am not talking about doing away with the dry areas legislation. We have to think laterally and we have to be constructive and positive.
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr STONE: If the member for Stuart would be quiet he might be able to take in what I am saying and go home with some ideas with which to try to resolve the issues. Simply shifting them into Alice Springs, as is the case with many of the people who come from the electorate of Stuart, is not the answer. It will not be tolerated by people who live in the towns, whether they are black, white, brindle, yellow or whatever they may be. People are affronted and offended by what they have to encounter and deal with.
It is a great disappointment that, instead of backing the government over the current clean-up and the current crackdown, the Labor Party did not get behind the government and give it the support it needed. Instead, the member for Stuart, the member for Fannie Bay and
Page 2017
the member for MacDonnell have all weighed in. I do not think I heard anything from the Leader of the Opposition but, then again, that is silent Maggie. We do not hear a great deal from her. The program is generally run by her deputy. It is really time that she started to stand up and speak out on these issues, and lent some support to policies and strategies that clearly have the support of the public at large.
Page 2018
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016