Ms McCARTHY - 2008-02-13
Today, we saw our national parliament take a fresh approach to closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage. Can you please let the Assembly know what the Territory’s Closing the Gap policy has achieved so far, and how this fresh approach nationally is going to help us?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem, because I know it has been a momentous day for her and her family as well.
We welcome the commitment from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage. One of the six COAG working groups that has been established will be focused on this very single issue. COAG will meet four times this year to progress a whole range of issues but, very particularly, this issue of closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage.
I discussed the issue with the Prime Minister when he was here just before Christmas. I was at that meeting where the Prime Minister, along with the new Indigenous Affairs minister, met indigenous people from right across the Northern Territory regarding where the federal intervention was heading and where his incoming government would be working with Aboriginal people. At that meeting, I heard a personal commitment from the Prime Minister to meet with a representative group of indigenous people in the Northern Territory on a regular basis this year. I know he has a personal and deep commitment to this particular issue.
The Prime Minister said today in his historical speech that we need a destination for our nation. He has put the targets in place, in the same way that we put targets in place here some six months ago. As I said before, we have allocated an additional $286m in health, housing, education and a whole range of other areas to improving indigenous disadvantage. Since then, some highlights have been: 11 new classrooms installed for the beginning of the school term this year; construction and installation of four additional classrooms and 22 teacher houses is also under way - a number of those in the member for Arnhem’s electorate. We worked hard together, particularly at Ngukurr, to get additional classrooms and teachers out there for the start of this term. I pay tribute to the staff of DEET and the department of Infrastructure, because they have done an amazing job to get that infrastructure in place during the Wet Season in such a short period of time. To date, 67 new houses have been constructed and 69 renovations completed. Also, 120 new houses are anticipated to be completed in 2007-08, and that is making a real difference to people’s lives.
In talking to the member for Macdonnell a couple of days ago she spoke of the new houses that have gone up in Kintore and how remarkable they are in construction, how construction costs have come down, and indigenous people are actually working on putting those houses together. I look forward to visiting communities and seeing this new housing being delivered.
We are supporting 12 additional Sport and Recreational Officers in communities. Five additional Alcohol Compliance Inspectors have commenced with funding from Closing the Gap. Nine new Community Courts have been established across the Northern Territory to deliver justice in communities, resulting from communities saying - when we travel as a Community Cabinet or as ministers or local members - they want justice to be delivered in their communities so they can see justice being delivered and participate in the court process.
Forty-nine additional police are currently deployed under Closing the Gap, and a Child Abuse Task Force Southern Unit has been established in Alice Springs. That is just in six months of enormous focus and hard work. There is a lot more that needs to be done. This is a government that will be working in partnership with the federal government to continue to build on the work that we have done and, over time, end the disadvantage that indigenous people have had to suffer for so long.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem, because I know it has been a momentous day for her and her family as well.
We welcome the commitment from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage. One of the six COAG working groups that has been established will be focused on this very single issue. COAG will meet four times this year to progress a whole range of issues but, very particularly, this issue of closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage.
I discussed the issue with the Prime Minister when he was here just before Christmas. I was at that meeting where the Prime Minister, along with the new Indigenous Affairs minister, met indigenous people from right across the Northern Territory regarding where the federal intervention was heading and where his incoming government would be working with Aboriginal people. At that meeting, I heard a personal commitment from the Prime Minister to meet with a representative group of indigenous people in the Northern Territory on a regular basis this year. I know he has a personal and deep commitment to this particular issue.
The Prime Minister said today in his historical speech that we need a destination for our nation. He has put the targets in place, in the same way that we put targets in place here some six months ago. As I said before, we have allocated an additional $286m in health, housing, education and a whole range of other areas to improving indigenous disadvantage. Since then, some highlights have been: 11 new classrooms installed for the beginning of the school term this year; construction and installation of four additional classrooms and 22 teacher houses is also under way - a number of those in the member for Arnhem’s electorate. We worked hard together, particularly at Ngukurr, to get additional classrooms and teachers out there for the start of this term. I pay tribute to the staff of DEET and the department of Infrastructure, because they have done an amazing job to get that infrastructure in place during the Wet Season in such a short period of time. To date, 67 new houses have been constructed and 69 renovations completed. Also, 120 new houses are anticipated to be completed in 2007-08, and that is making a real difference to people’s lives.
In talking to the member for Macdonnell a couple of days ago she spoke of the new houses that have gone up in Kintore and how remarkable they are in construction, how construction costs have come down, and indigenous people are actually working on putting those houses together. I look forward to visiting communities and seeing this new housing being delivered.
We are supporting 12 additional Sport and Recreational Officers in communities. Five additional Alcohol Compliance Inspectors have commenced with funding from Closing the Gap. Nine new Community Courts have been established across the Northern Territory to deliver justice in communities, resulting from communities saying - when we travel as a Community Cabinet or as ministers or local members - they want justice to be delivered in their communities so they can see justice being delivered and participate in the court process.
Forty-nine additional police are currently deployed under Closing the Gap, and a Child Abuse Task Force Southern Unit has been established in Alice Springs. That is just in six months of enormous focus and hard work. There is a lot more that needs to be done. This is a government that will be working in partnership with the federal government to continue to build on the work that we have done and, over time, end the disadvantage that indigenous people have had to suffer for so long.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016