Ms CARNEY - 2004-03-31
On 16 October 2002, when talking about customary law, you said in parliament:
In contrast, minister, I refer to your comments made on Stateline on 26 March about the Jeremy Anthony payback case and, in particular, your statement that you ‘rather hope that no action will be taken against the elders’. Obviously, your position has now changed and you believe that the criminal law should be applied to some but not others. Why do you encourage the police to pursue some perpetrators of violence but not others?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is not possible to bring this issue down to a black and white presentation as you have just done. Our statement is very clear on this matter; that assault causing grievous bodily harm is against our Criminal Code and, therefore, illegal in the Northern Territory. That statement remains and I have repeated that statement each time I have been interviewed on this matter. Equally, we are guided by a principle that our government does not believe, as a government, we should be going around actively prescribing people for following their customs. Those are two principles. They are totally opposed to each other. I have said repeatedly on this issue that it is one of those situations where there are two very opposing world views that are at work within our population. That is something I cannot do anything about. It is something that governments throughout the history of the Northern Territory, along with the government mechanisms such as the courts, the police, remote based nurses, have grappled with for the last 30, 40, 50 years. It is not going to get any easier because you have two extremely different views about what punishment and reconciliation involves in a community.
The third principle, which does give some hope of resolving this over time, is that there are many processes going on in Aboriginal communities around the Territory regarding this issue. Many communities have already indicated that physical payback occasioning grievous bodily harm is not the way they want to carry out their affairs anymore, and they have suspended that practice. Other communities, I will give you a couple of examples from Groote Eylandt, Santa Teresa or Ltyentye Apurte, have made that decision very consciously because the practice is too problematic for them anymore, given that there are gaps in the family structures, and that it can be overlaid by substance abuse and basically get out of hand. Other communities, such as the Warlpiris, are very bound to the traditional practice and they have to continue to think through how that is going to place them within our community.
It is an issue that you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t, because you are either oppressing a culture that has been here for tens of thousands of years with an active process of prescription, or you are diluting the Criminal Code that should apply quite rightly to every Territorian within our community. The only way we feel we can gain ground on this issue is to work locally with each of the communities to see if we can come up with alternatives to assaults occasioning grievous bodily harm. The Chief Justice has supported that position. He has indicated that there would be versions of physical punishment that would stand within the law and can be consented to by the offender.
I am not going to stand here and say we have a great solution to this. It is a very complicated issue. It is beholden on all of us in this Chamber to treat it for what it is. It is a crucial issue within the relationships between our indigenous Territorians and the community at large. It has to be handled both sensitively and in a way that may have to be different around the community. I do not believe our police should be out there, as a general policy of government, and it is certainly not our policy that they should be hunting people throughout the Northern Territory to stamp out this practice. We have to work through negotiations.
- … the Northern Territory government affirms that the Northern Territory Criminal Code applies to all citizens of the Northern Territory without exception.
In contrast, minister, I refer to your comments made on Stateline on 26 March about the Jeremy Anthony payback case and, in particular, your statement that you ‘rather hope that no action will be taken against the elders’. Obviously, your position has now changed and you believe that the criminal law should be applied to some but not others. Why do you encourage the police to pursue some perpetrators of violence but not others?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is not possible to bring this issue down to a black and white presentation as you have just done. Our statement is very clear on this matter; that assault causing grievous bodily harm is against our Criminal Code and, therefore, illegal in the Northern Territory. That statement remains and I have repeated that statement each time I have been interviewed on this matter. Equally, we are guided by a principle that our government does not believe, as a government, we should be going around actively prescribing people for following their customs. Those are two principles. They are totally opposed to each other. I have said repeatedly on this issue that it is one of those situations where there are two very opposing world views that are at work within our population. That is something I cannot do anything about. It is something that governments throughout the history of the Northern Territory, along with the government mechanisms such as the courts, the police, remote based nurses, have grappled with for the last 30, 40, 50 years. It is not going to get any easier because you have two extremely different views about what punishment and reconciliation involves in a community.
The third principle, which does give some hope of resolving this over time, is that there are many processes going on in Aboriginal communities around the Territory regarding this issue. Many communities have already indicated that physical payback occasioning grievous bodily harm is not the way they want to carry out their affairs anymore, and they have suspended that practice. Other communities, I will give you a couple of examples from Groote Eylandt, Santa Teresa or Ltyentye Apurte, have made that decision very consciously because the practice is too problematic for them anymore, given that there are gaps in the family structures, and that it can be overlaid by substance abuse and basically get out of hand. Other communities, such as the Warlpiris, are very bound to the traditional practice and they have to continue to think through how that is going to place them within our community.
It is an issue that you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t, because you are either oppressing a culture that has been here for tens of thousands of years with an active process of prescription, or you are diluting the Criminal Code that should apply quite rightly to every Territorian within our community. The only way we feel we can gain ground on this issue is to work locally with each of the communities to see if we can come up with alternatives to assaults occasioning grievous bodily harm. The Chief Justice has supported that position. He has indicated that there would be versions of physical punishment that would stand within the law and can be consented to by the offender.
I am not going to stand here and say we have a great solution to this. It is a very complicated issue. It is beholden on all of us in this Chamber to treat it for what it is. It is a crucial issue within the relationships between our indigenous Territorians and the community at large. It has to be handled both sensitively and in a way that may have to be different around the community. I do not believe our police should be out there, as a general policy of government, and it is certainly not our policy that they should be hunting people throughout the Northern Territory to stamp out this practice. We have to work through negotiations.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016