Ms CARNEY - 2006-02-21
Will you take up the CLP’s Safe Streets Policy which would, once and for all, deal with habitual drunks who are picked up three times in six months for protective custody? If not, why not? Other than shifting itinerants from place to place, and bleating that it will take time, what effective policies do you have? Or, will you continue to be soft on antisocial behaviour and allow the growing and disgraceful behaviour in our streets, parks and malls to continue?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, what happens with the opposition is they are locked into a line of questioning. I have already answered that question. No, I will not be adopting the Safe Streets Policy. I say to the Opposition Leader, I did read it. It has two pages, and I read those over lunch and thought about it. However, if you think about what their option is, it is to make drunkenness a crime. I do not say that in an unreasonable sense. It will make drunkenness a crime, and for thousands of Territorians, it would put an end to a night out. Ask the Mitchell Street publicans what they think of that. To be an innocent drunk is part of the Territory’s life …
Ms Carney: So you reckon a pile of drunks in the park is just fine and dandy, Chief Minister? It is not.
Ms MARTIN: The Opposition Leader can interject all she likes, but that is the fact of what this policy is about; it is about recriminalising drunkenness. It is about not tackling what is a complex problem with strategies. The Opposition Leader says: ‘None of your strategies are working’ …
Ms Carney: Look around you, they are not.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Ms MARTIN: If I can give an example - in the Darwin/Palmerston area, our Return to Home program, which is paid for by those who use it, there have been 4314 people use that. That is one strategy of people returning to home. There are many aspects of the strategy. There is the Larrakia Intervention and Transport Service, and a lot of other aspects of what we are doing. To simply say: ‘We have a solution’, and put out two pages and say we will recriminalise drunkenness, is not a solution at all.
While I say to the opposition, yes, I have read your policy; yes, you can go out and be loud and raucous about it, it is not an effective policy. As I said before, if you are talking about a night out in Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy or Darwin, it will end them. It will end them, as sure as anything.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, what happens with the opposition is they are locked into a line of questioning. I have already answered that question. No, I will not be adopting the Safe Streets Policy. I say to the Opposition Leader, I did read it. It has two pages, and I read those over lunch and thought about it. However, if you think about what their option is, it is to make drunkenness a crime. I do not say that in an unreasonable sense. It will make drunkenness a crime, and for thousands of Territorians, it would put an end to a night out. Ask the Mitchell Street publicans what they think of that. To be an innocent drunk is part of the Territory’s life …
Ms Carney: So you reckon a pile of drunks in the park is just fine and dandy, Chief Minister? It is not.
Ms MARTIN: The Opposition Leader can interject all she likes, but that is the fact of what this policy is about; it is about recriminalising drunkenness. It is about not tackling what is a complex problem with strategies. The Opposition Leader says: ‘None of your strategies are working’ …
Ms Carney: Look around you, they are not.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Ms MARTIN: If I can give an example - in the Darwin/Palmerston area, our Return to Home program, which is paid for by those who use it, there have been 4314 people use that. That is one strategy of people returning to home. There are many aspects of the strategy. There is the Larrakia Intervention and Transport Service, and a lot of other aspects of what we are doing. To simply say: ‘We have a solution’, and put out two pages and say we will recriminalise drunkenness, is not a solution at all.
While I say to the opposition, yes, I have read your policy; yes, you can go out and be loud and raucous about it, it is not an effective policy. As I said before, if you are talking about a night out in Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy or Darwin, it will end them. It will end them, as sure as anything.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016