2008-09-18
Madam Speaker Aagaard took the Chair at 10 am.
Mr HAMPTON (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, it is that time of the year again in Central Australia when we welcome over 4000 people to the Alice Springs Masters Games. This is the 12th biennial Masters Games. These games were the first of its kind in Australia and we have set the standard throughout Australia.
The 2008 Masters Games will start on 11 October with a very popular opening ceremony, and will finish on 18 October. Ms Dawn Fraser AO MBE is the patron and has been involved in the games since its inception. I believe she may even make a welcome return to the pool at these games, after a 20-year absence. I cannot wait to see this Australian sporting icon in action.
Mr Daryl Somers OAM is the honorary ambassador and has held this role since 2002, and is a popular choice as ambassador for Central Australia.
We have 35 sports on offer during the 2008 Masters Games including four new sports - recreational football, indoor beach volleyball, inline hockey and social lawn bowls. Organisers are planning a ‘come and try’ match in recreational football followed by a game of Darwin versus Alice Springs Legends, and it will be game on. Michael Long and I are tipped to play in this match and I am looking forward to taking to the field and playing alongside another sporting icon.
Most sports are held at the Alice Springs Town Council venues and the town council is a Diamond sponsor of the games. Alice Springs Masters Games personnel consist of two very hard-working permanent staff and four contract staff who do a magnificent job in bringing everything together. Games coordinators include staff representatives from the NT Police, Alice Springs Town Council, and Northern Territory government agencies. And we must not forget all the locals from the various sporting organisations. The games steering committee meets monthly and its role is to assist staff to improve the quality of the sporting experience, boost the local economy, and increase participation in the event.
Up to 600 volunteers, including 50 sports coordinators, 50 sports trainers and 50 ambassadors, will assist in the 2008 games. A number of local identities have registered as ambassadors including Ted Egan, Nerys Evans and our Mayor, Damien Ryan.
Up to 6000 people are expected to attend the free community concerts which are part of the opening and closing ceremonies, and a midweek concert. This year’s entertainment line up includes a who’s who of Australian music: Russell Morris and Brian Cadd at the opening ceremony and Daryl Braithwaite for the closing ceremony.
We have something for everyone and we also have local bands such as The Moxie and Pogo Monkey. The midweek concert, which is always a hit, will feature Chunky Custard and, capping off the evening, will be The Ego Has Landed, a Robbie Williams tribute band.
To ensure locals and visitors alike can make the most of the entertainment, a free bus service will be available to take people to and from the opening and closing ceremonies. I look forward to seeing many of my colleagues on this side of the House, and on the other side of the House, at the games.
If you cannot make it this time, preparations are already under way for the 2010 games, which are scheduled for 9 to 16 October. The member for Nelson is a great participant and supporter of the Masters Games, and I look forward to watching him in action.
Mr BOHLIN (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. It is very true; the Masters Games in Alice Springs is a fantastic showcase of true Territorian initiatives. It is a brilliant way to bring together sporting greats from the past, sporting wannabes, can bes and will dos ...
A member: And has beens.
Mr BOHLIN: … and has beens too. These people have looked at their life and decided age will not weary them and they will continue to enjoy their recreational hobbies and sports. I applaud every single participant - not just from the Territory - but from around Australia. These games are truly fantastic. I look forward to watching some of them. If you need a spare runner or something, maybe I can help you there, Karl.
These games are going to be great. If we are going to get there; we need to continue to support these events. The people who will be participating will have families and their children will be watching and doing what Mum and Dad and Grandpa may be doing and so we keep our young people interested in sport as well, because a healthy community is a fun community and that helps us all the way.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister for Sport and Recreation will be old enough to join in the Masters Games - perhaps looks deceive? I thank him for his report. The Masters is a terrific time. Alice Springs is just loaded with people, and not just interstate people as many people from within the Territory come and join in all the sports.
There are lawn bowlers and softball players. Our local softball team, the C Grade South Darwin - which is really another name for Litchfield - just won the premiership, so I should warn people in Alice Springs they are coming, because they certainly get out and enjoy themselves. That is what the games are about - competition, but also having a wonderful time and meeting other people. It makes it a great time when people meet from interstate as teams, such as cricket teams or softball teams or basketball teams. In fact, I am even in a team. I have not played table tennis since I was in secondary school, but Roland Maddocks, the boss of table tennis in Alice Springs, rang and asked me if I would like to play. I put my name down, and he said: ‘Do you need a partner to play in the doubles?’ He rang the other day and said I am playing with Richard Lim. I do not know whether we will be called the ‘Polliewaffles’ or not, but Richard is coming back for the Masters.
It is a terrific time. The only problem is accommodation is sometimes very scarce and quite expensive unless you have friends or you have a bunk in dormitory accommodation That is an area we need to look at.
Also, if you are playing football, minister for Sport, I will possibly be umpiring, and I will give you my bank account number, if you want some free kicks!
Mr HAMPTON (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, I thank the members for Drysdale and Nelson for their support. I am sure there is bipartisan support for this fantastic event.
I will mention two things. It is a great event for the local economy, particularly for the local sporting groups; it is a great opportunity for them to raise a bit of money that goes back to grassroots organisations and participants. The other one is volunteers. I recently attended a volunteer function at the town council hosted by our Mayor, Damien Ryan. Without the support of volunteers it would be very hard to make a success of these types of events.
I do not know about your bank account, but I have a spare room and a swag if you want to camp there, member for Nelson.
Mr KNIGHT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I report to the House on the funding approvals to community organisations for the Community Housing Program. Members will recall I spoke in the House yesterday about the $425 000 in grants for crisis and medium-term accommodation providers. That funding was provided through the Crisis Accommodation Program which is aimed at providing short-term accommodation to those Territorians who have fallen on hard times.
Today, I have the pleasure of announcing more grants. This year, the Community Housing Program will deliver a further $637 000 in grants. The grants will go towards the purchase of new homes and housing upgrades for Territorians with special needs. The Henderson government recognises that, for some Territorians, their special accommodation needs cannot always be properly met in the general rental market for public housing - needs such as wheelchair access or an additional room for carers to provide the necessary support services.
The Community Housing Program provides funding to community organisations which provide long-term accommodation for Territorians needing special, ongoing support. These grants will support community agencies to expand their valuable services. This may include funding for: crisis accommodation exit point housing; supported accommodation for those with mental and/or physical disabilities; aged-care supported accommodation; renal/medical accommodation for Indigenous people exiting hospital but requiring further treatment in one of our major centres; respite accommodation; community housing schemes for Indigenous groups in urban areas; or medium- to long-term assisted accommodation for homeless youth.
The funding can be used for such things as property purchases, home renovations or infrastructure upgrades.
Four agencies have benefited from the grants announced today, and I will detail some of those:
The YWCA of Darwin provides a wide range of community services such as parenting support, emergency relief, youth refuge support, independent living,
crisis accommodation and support, as well as youth housing. Today, I announced up to $212 000 for the YWCA of Darwin to support the purchase of a
two-bedroom unit for its Youth Housing Program.
announced up to $33000 for Carpentaria Disability Services to improve facilities at one of their Karama properties.
Support Program to offer low-cost rental accommodation to long-term clients. Today, I announced up to $360 000 for this organisation to support the
purchase of more units in Alice Springs.
Today, I announced a grant of $31000 to Somerville to upgrade six homes in Darwin, Howard Springs, and Katherine.
Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure of speaking to these organisations, and they are delighted with the support, especially the Mental Health Association of Central Australia. There are obviously housing needs for people with mental health issues within the community. This organisation already has four units and the funding will enable them to acquire more. I congratulate these organisations. This goes a long way to supporting people in our community who need it.
Ms PURICK (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. It is encouraging to see due consideration and finances are being given to those who need support, whatever their particular and personal dilemmas. It is good to see organisations like the YWCA, Somerville, Carpentaria and the Mental Health Association of Central Australia are receiving funding to provide this accommodation for people.
I did not note any reference to this kind of housing going into the rural area, apart from some to Howard Springs. From my contact with people in the Humpty Doo, Noonamah, Darwin River Dam and Berry Springs areas, I am aware there is a need for similar kind of housing there. I will be talking with the minister’s office to see how we can extend finances and funding to these groups so they can provide similar accommodation for rural people.
Mr KNIGHT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Goyder for her comments. It is a very special area of my portfolio to which I am delighted to give support. There was some money going to Howard Springs for Somerville.
I encourage other organisations to apply for these grants. It is good to see community organisations extending further into the community. I recognise there are growing needs in the rural area with an ageing population, and many issues around management of properties for people living alone. I encourage other community organisations to come on board.
Madam Speaker, this is another example of the Henderson government assisting those people in the community who need help the most.
Dr BURNS (Alcohol Policy): Madam Speaker, today I provide an update of recent Licensing Commission decisions for Tennant Creek and surrounding areas to be declared a dry town.
Alcohol abuse and related harm is one of the biggest challenges facing the Northern Territory community. The Territory government is committed to tackling alcohol abuse through a region-by-region approach. It is very pleasing to see the level of community engagement and involvement in the development of local alcohol solutions right around the Territory. It is vital that we listen to the community to implement local solutions for local problems.
For many years, Tennant Creek has suffered from widespread alcohol abuse and associated antisocial behaviour and violence. With a per capita consumption of alcohol - that is, litres of alcohol per person - of around 16 litres, Tennant Creek’s consumption far exceeds the national average of 9.8 litres per person.
In August 2007, the Tennant Creek Council made an application under the Liquor Act for the declaration of a public restricted area over all public places within the entire Tennant Creek municipal boundary. Advertisements were placed in the local media seeking local submissions, and a public hearing was held in October. The public meeting generated much discussion of the dry town application and local alcohol supply measures.
During this time, the community was also developing a local area alcohol management plan. The plan had three broad strategies: (1) to reduce alcohol supply, (2) to reduce harm, and (3) to reduce demand. The Licensing Commission had a meeting in April 2008 which considered and supported the following: an application by the Tennant Creek Council for a public restricted area over the entire municipal boundary; and variations to the liquor supply conditions currently enforced in Tennant Creek.
The dry town was introduced on 1 August 2008. There has been extensive community engagement throughout the process, with information and education programs available for both the residents of the townships and those in outlying communities.
When announcing the dry town, the commissioner also imposed further restrictions especially relating to the risk areas of alcohol abuse such as cask and fortified wine takeaway sales. Takeaway opening hours are restricted, with all operators ceasing trading at 8 pm. Cask wine, fortified wine, and Green Ginger Wine are now sold between 4 pm and 6 pm, a two-hour window. Sales are restricted to one of these products per person per day. Beer and long necks will no longer be sold.
While these measures have only been in effect for a relatively short time, early indications are very promising. There has been a dramatic fall in sobering-up shelter presentations. Stewart Naylor, Chief Executive Officer of the Barkly Region Alcohol and Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, says the past month has seen 164 people through the sobering-up shelter, compared to 304 for the same month last year. That is still considerable, but it is a significant reduction.
The township is cleaner, safer and a much more enjoyable place to live and move around. It is only through the involvement and support of the local community that we have been able to progress these measures so quickly.
As I mentioned in the House last week, a team from the Menzies School of Health Research will conduct a full evaluation of measures in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek concerning, in particular, a review of what is known as Thirsty Thursday. This is to gauge our success and guide future government policy. The evaluation is scheduled to be completed and a report provided to government in the first half of next year.
Madam Speaker, this is a government determined to tackle alcohol abuse and alcohol related crime head-on with the support and positive attitude of towns like Tennant Creek.
Mr CONLAN (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, we all know the problems alcohol causes in our society, particularly here in the Northern Territory.
I can only reiterate what I said yesterday: how can you believe anything this minister says? He has clearly failed as a Police minister, he has not demonstrated any leadership or responsibility in the Health portfolio, and here he is telling everyone how he is going to address alcohol-related issues throughout the Northern Territory. How can you believe anything this minister says?
I know he has some obsession with 8HA. I know 8HA would be very happy to know the minister has mentioned their name in parliament. However, it is a shame that his obsession does not continue outside the parliament, because he refuses to go on 8HA and answer questions put to him directly by the radio station. In fact, he has not been on the radio station since February, despite the calls and requests to his media advisors to go on radio to answer questions put to him by the presenter and the people of Alice Springs.
While he has this obsession, it would be good if he could continue that obsession outside and demonstrate to the people that he is a committed and responsible minister - something this side of the House has very grave doubts about.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. Tennant Creek is an area where many trials have occurred to curb the abuse of alcohol and I congratulate the government for continuing to try to do something about it. We also need to be spending money on ways to change people’s attitude and to help those people who have alcohol problems. In the end, if the individual does not want to change, nothing is really going to happen. Sometimes, that means government or non-government organisations need to give them assistance. We also need to be spending money trying to change people’s habits; to turn things around for many people whose lives are controlled by alcohol.
We know these problems are enormous in the Territory. Many people are in gaol because alcohol was a contributing factor, not the only factor, in some violent act; we know this is a serious problem in the Northern Territory. We have to spend just as much effort in educating people to change their ways as we do in trying to fix the abuse. We also require changes in the way we deal with it in our lives. Drunkenness is not something that is necessarily acceptable in our community. Having a good time is one thing; being drunk, a nuisance, and endangering other people’s lives is another.
If we are going to have an ID system for takeaways in several towns in the Territory, we should have it for everyone or not at all. It causes confusion with visitors and tourists and some people in the Territory feel they are being discriminated against.
I was talking to the Liquor Stores Association yesterday, and they tell me you still have to fill out a form for more than $100 worth of grog. I remember all the advertising in the NT News against the Howard government but I have not heard anything more and the advertisement still exists. What is happening in that respect?
Dr BURNS (Alcohol Policy): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Nelson for his serious contribution. We need to evaluate the ID system to see whether it works, then we will make our decisions. In our submission to the federal government we said we would like to see the $100 business reporting introduced by Mal Brough and John Howard removed.
In relation to the member for Greatorex, who did not really speak about the issue, I have been advised that I have never been asked to go on 8HA. He goes on about 8HA. We know he was a political plant under the guise of being an independent journalist, but I have a challenge for you, member for Greatorex. You would never have said the things about David Ashbridge on 8HA that you have said in here: - I challenge you to go outside and say them.
Reports noted pursuant to standing orders.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I note that the notices standing in my name relating to the acute health care service inquiry are listed under General Business.
Madam SPEAKER: I am just following the Notice Paper. That is where it is meant to be.
Mr MILLS: Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from bringing on the debate of General Business Notices Nos 3 and 4 forthwith.
This is a critical issue that the Territory needs to resolve in this parliament today. We cannot afford, in discharging our business in this Chamber, to hide behind process. If you are going to hide behind process, your motives are in question.
This is a matter of vital importance to Territorians. The Minister for Health would know that when you have a serious matter to deal with in the community - particularly when the case I am referring to is the oncology unit for those suffering from cancer - we can run the stories in here but we need to recognise that we are conducting these debates in the presence of the whole community. It was not until we got the community properly involved that there was some resolution in their hearts and minds.
If we are going to prevent a proper inquiry - a thorough and genuine investigation with a select committee into matters pertaining to our five hospitals - whose interest is served, Madam Speaker? It is not in the interest of the community but in the interest of those who want to protect themselves.
I call upon honourable members to support the call to bring this matter before the parliament. Just in case honourable members on the other side have not had a look at the terms of reference, you will note this is not a construct that is, in any way, favouring or biased towards the opposition. You have your representation. You have control of it in the numbers and the chair. Calm down and recognise that we can put something in place which will satisfy the desires, expectations, and requirements of our community.
For that reason, Madam Speaker, I request that we bring this matter on forthwith.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows the long and established practices of this parliament regarding opposition business, that matters are dealt with on General Business Days, with the next scheduled in October.
The opposition wants to set up an expensive, ineffective, inexpert body that will spend months trying lamely to score points. This government is more interested in achieving results. That is why we have brought forward an independent, expert review into Royal Darwin Hospital. I note an element of the proposed terms of reference are already being actioned by government, so any public inquiry would only serve to delay the improvements recommended by the Coroner.
The opposition can discuss and compare proposals at the next General Business Day in October in the normal course of business in this Assembly. We will be happy to discuss their proposals then. It smacks of arrogance that they want to usurp the practices of the Legislative Assembly where matters brought forward by the opposition are dealt with on General Business Day.
In the meantime, the government will keep working to improve clinical governance and procedures at the hospital. The review commissioned by the government will comprise a panel of nationally and internationally respected Australian Council on Healthcare Standards experts. The council was established with the support of the AMA. It is internationally recognised for its standards and accreditation program. We have far more access to expertise through this process than the ‘bunch of politicians’ process the Leader of the Opposition would have us embark on.
The minister is absolutely committed to making the final report public.
Mr Mills: You are a disgrace.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: It is an open, transparent body of experts undertaking a review which will be made public.
The opposition debates occur on General Business Day in October. They can have the debate then.
Madam Speaker, I move that the question be now put.
Mr Conlan: Madam Speaker, that is outrageous!
Madam SPEAKER: There is no debate when the question is put.
The Assembly divided:
Ayes 13 Noes 12
Mrs Aagaard Mr Bohlin
Ms Anderson Ms Carney
Dr Burns Mr Chandler
Mr Gunner Mr Conlan
Mr Hampton Mr Elferink
Mr Henderson Mr Giles
Mr Knight Mr Mills
Ms Lawrie Ms Purick
Mr McCarthy Mr Styles
Ms McCarthy Mr Tollner
Ms Scrymgour Mr Westra van Holthe
Mr Vatskalis Mr Wood
Ms Walker
Motion agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: The question now is that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from putting the question.
The Assembly divided:
Ayes 12 Noes 13
Mr Bohlin Mrs Aagaard
Ms Carney Ms Anderson
Mr Chandler Dr Burns
Mr Conlan Mr Gunner
Mr Elferink Mr Hampton
Mr Giles Mr Henderson
Mr Mills Mr Knight
Ms Purick Ms Lawrie
Mr Styles Mr McCarthy
Mr Tollner Ms McCarthy
Mr Westra van Holthe Ms Scrymgour
Mr Wood Mr Vatskalis
Ms Walker
Motion negatived.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Ms LAWRIE (Infrastructure and Transport): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The bill I introduce today will implement another important measure under the government’s strategy of Building Safer Communities.
During 2007, the government introduced a range of initiatives aimed at increasing the safety of Territory road users. These included: increased penalties for drink-driving, speeding, and not wearing seat belts; more education about the dangers of fatigue; red light cameras; speed limits on all Territory roads; and greater emphasis on road safety education. However, it is apparent with our rising road toll that not all people are getting the message. As a consequence, this government is introducing further measures to save lives on our roads.
This legislation delivers on the first stage of this package by introducing an alcohol ignition lock or AIL program and doubling the penalties for not wearing seat belts through subsequent amendment to regulation.
This package is targeting areas of high-risk driving behaviour that contributes significantly to the Territory’s road toll. For example, of the 57 fatalities on our roads in 2007, 22 or 38.6% were related to failing to wear a seat belt. Subsequent amendments to be made to the Traffic Regulations are to double the penalties for failing to wear a seat belt.
The new penalties which will apply from the commencement of the regulations will be: where a driver fails to wear a seat belt - $400; where a driver fails to ensure a child or young person wears a seat belt - $480; and $400 for an adult passenger who fails to wear a seat belt.
Drink-driving is another major contributor to death and serious injuries on our roads. In the last five years, 2003 to 2007, there were 244 fatalities on Territory roads. Alcohol was a factor in 124 of these deaths, which is approximately 51% of deaths on our roads.
There are even more alarming statistics provided by police. These indicate that over a three year period, 2005 to 2007, there were 6169 recorded drink-driving offences in the NT, of which 1130 people or 18.3%, were apprehended for second or subsequent offences; 2308 people or 37.4% recorded blood alcohol content (BAC) readings of more than 0.15%; and 1301 or 21.1%, were apprehended in the rural area, that is outside Darwin – Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek, and Nhulunbuy.
Enough is enough. It is apparent that some people are not heeding the message. They are continuing to risk their own lives and the lives of other innocent members of the community. People who abuse their driving privileges by continuing to drink and drive are being targeted by this legislation.
The bill singles out repeat high- and medium-range drink-drivers and young drivers who choose to repeatedly violate the zero alcohol condition on their licence. These people, who have shown that they cannot be trusted not to drink and drive, will now face the consequences of their actions.
An AIL will not be available for people who have been unlicensed for five years or more, whether they have been disqualified, have not held a licence or their licence has lapsed and not been renewed, or a combination of factors, including licence suspension for any reason. The reasoning is that these people would have to re-commence the licensing system as an entry level driver by applying for a learner’s licence and progress through the various licensing stages.
When a repeat drink-driver is sentenced by the court, the magistrate will order the driver to serve a disqualification period and also order that, following the disqualification period, the driver will be eligible to apply for an AIL licence for a period determined by the court - the minimum period being six months to a maximum of three years. The AIL device condition will appear on a person’s licence card as an ‘I’. This means if a driver wishes to drive on their licence during the AIL period, they will need to enter into an agreement with an approved AIL provider to have it installed in their vehicle for the period specified by the court. If the driver opts not to have an AIL installed, the additional period ordered by the courts will be served out as an additional licence disqualification period.
How does an AIL work? The AIL prevents the driver from starting the car if they have been drinking. When the ignition is switched on, the AIL requests a breath sample from the driver. The result of the breath alcohol concentration measurement determines whether the vehicle’s starter is released, and the engine can be started. If the driver provides a clear breath sample, the car engine will start and they can proceed on their journey. Once they have commenced their journey, the device will request them to provide a re-test breath sample at random intervals. The re-test will be within the first 15 minutes of the journey and randomly within 45 minute intervals during the journey.
The bill also introduces new offences which specifically relate to the AIL. These include driving contrary to the AIL condition on the licence and tampering with the AIL. These penalties are, by necessity, severe because if a driver is caught contravening their AIL licence or driving a vehicle where the AIL has been disabled, they will be breaching a court-imposed sanction, which is akin to contempt of court. The existing offence for driving while disqualified has also been amended to ensure that during an AIL period a person must have an AIL licence when driving a vehicle.
To enable effective enforcement of this legislation, we have also introduced the concept of compulsory carriage of driver’s licences for all Territory licence holders. Some licence holders previously had a three-day grace period in certain circumstances to produce their driver’s licence. This will no longer be the case. When police pull over a person they will need to be able to ascertain whether or not the individual is holding an AIL licence. Therefore, all drivers will now be required to carry their licence with them while driving. The current traffic infringement notice penalty of $50 for failure to produce a licence when requested will be retained in the regulation. When a driver is prosecuted through the court for a breach of this offence, a maximum penalty of $2200 will apply. Compulsory carriage of a driver’s licence is already in place for drivers of heavy vehicles, P-plate, and L-plate licence holders.
The bill delivers on this government’s commitment to introduce alcohol ignition locks for repeat drink-drivers. The introduction of alcohol ignition locks will not wipe out drink-driving. No legislation or device will wipe out drink-driving. A change in culture is required before major reductions in the rate of drink-driving are to be achieved. This legislation is designed to assist in bringing about this change in culture.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members, and I table the explanatory statement.
Debate adjourned.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr KNIGHT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
This bill provides for changes to various legislation consequent to the passing of the Local Government Act 2008. The changes will ensure that other legislation in the Northern Territory is consistent with the new act and will allow for legislation which needs to be preserved. The Local Government Act 2008 has provided welcome and significant reform to local government. It facilitated the incorporation of most of the Northern Territory and provides two types of councils – municipal and shire councils. The changed arrangements under the new Local Government Act need to be reflected in other Territory legislation which referred to the old arrangements.
The Local Government (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 deals with all the technical changes needed as a result of the new act. These include ensuring cross-references are correct. The bill amends references to community government councils and other terms which are not found in the new act. Apart from the changes necessitated by the new act and the preservation of legislation which needs to be retained, I draw honourable members’ attention to the new section 271 which will be inserted into the new Local Government Act. This section provides for the situation where a council wants the Chair to exercise a casting vote at meetings. From 1 July 2008, councils have the opportunity to choose whether the Chair has the casting vote, but the decision must be made at the first meeting after the election. This choice will be made after the council elections on 25 October this year.
However, as most municipal councils will not have elections later this year, they need the same opportunity to make a choice. The new section 271 allows that, where a council does not have an election in 2008, the council may pass a resolution to allow the Chair to hold a casting vote, provided the resolution is passed before the end of 2008. This will enable those municipal councils who wish to exercise this choice to do so.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members and table the explanatory statement to accompany the bill.
Debate adjourned.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended that would prevent the following three bills passing through all stages of these sittings: Classification of Publications, Films and Computer Games Amendment Bill 2008 (Serial 1); Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 (Serial 3); and Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and Other Endangerment Offences) Bill 2008 (Serial 2).
Motion agreed to.
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, members from the last Assembly will recall that government introduced this bill during the Tenth Assembly and, by agreement on both sides, we thought it best not to get in the way of what could be said to be routine government business in this legislative context. We agreed that we would assist the bill being introduced again and passed during these sittings.
Although the minister’s second reading speech might be seen by some as complex and confusing, the issues arising from the bill are not. Whilst the bill is substantial, it does give effect to national publications standards and for that reason it is not a controversial bill; it is not objectionable. We have looked at the bill during the Tenth Assembly and could not see any reason why the opposition would oppose it.
However, after discussions with my colleagues - and the member for Port Darwin may wish to add to this - one issue that arises, although it does not necessarily have to be in the bill, is the fact that purveyors of pornography in the Territory are not licensed. We understand government has indicated to the industry that it will move to licence suppliers. In that context, we wonder why the opportunity was not taken when introducing this bill to go down the licensing path. We make no comment on our views on licensing; we simply say, given our understanding, one wonders why the government did not use the opportunity to either put this in the bill, or run parallel to it an announcement on licensing.
Madam Speaker, the opposition supports the bill for the reasons I have outlined and also for the reasons contained in the minister’s reading speech.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, my comments in relation to this bill, as foreshadowed by the shadow Attorney-General, do pertain to the licensing of purveyors of pornography in our community.
I am certain we are all mindful that this material can be damaging in certain circumstances. If we remember the comments made in the Wild/Anderson report Little Children are Sacred, in particular the way pornography made freely available in those communities became the target of criticism. There is a potential in our community for this sort of material to be harmful. That is the indication from the Wild/Anderson report.
We are quite happy to regulate any number of other industries with licences. For example, betting and the possession or sale of liquor is licensed. We do not allow drivers of motor vehicles to jump in the motor car; we licence them prior to them driving. We go down these regulatory paths because, in each of those instances, there is a potential for harm. As we just heard during the previous debate, the Treasurer, with her Transport hat on, is introducing regulatory instruments to deal with the licensing of people who have convictions for driving whilst drunk.
If we are to believe what the Wild/Anderson report said, then I believe there should be some capacity to examine the value of licensing the purveyors of this material in our community. The Consumer Affairs department does, from time to time, clamp down on the operators who sell this material out of a post office box using the Northern Territory’s broad and laissez faire laws regarding this material as a vehicle by which they can sell it, both into the Northern Territory and other places.
I am aware there has been a clamping down on that sort of material, and I congratulate Consumer Affairs for that course of action. However, as a consequence of that I also understand, from within the industry itself, there are calls for licensing, because they appreciate the material that they are in possession of and sell, is material which has potential harm attached to it. I congratulate the industry on being so responsible in pursuing that path.
I now address the matter of providing pornography to minors. Clearly, at a commercial level, that does not occur. However, in this bill there is the capacity for a parent or guardian to provide pornographic material to a child in their care. This brings up a delicate balance for us to consider. When we talk about protecting children, I firmly believe that parents or guardians are better at protecting their children than the state. I believe I am the best person to protect my children, therefore, I decide what they are exposed to as much as I can.
This material is of a very sensitive nature and, going back to the Little Children are Sacred report, one should be cautious about this particular issue. What I hope the Attorney-General will say in reply closing debate is they will be keeping an eye on the operation of this section and this particular liberty. I am disinclined for the state to interfere in the family and I believe the judgment of parents should be relied upon, which is captured in this bill.
However, sometimes families fail. If it is a profound failure then there may be some latitude to return to this place and reconsider particular aspects of this bill. So a cautionary note, Madam Speaker, about the potential of this material in our community. I do not wish to intrude, as a parliament, any further into the family unit, however, if this material is producing negative or poor outcomes in families on a broad scale, then it is something we would have to re-visit in the future.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, taking up from the member for Port Darwin, I disagree with him to some extent about intruding into families. I understand the philosophy he is putting forward, but we do legislate to protect children when parents do something to their children – whether it is abuse or putting them in danger. This material that is regarded as pornography is doing that as well. We tend to look at the physical dangers to our young children, but there are also mental dangers in this material.
I have no problem with people saying I am prudish about it. I have seen pornography and it is stuff that really – a free society might say you can have it, but I am not sure it does our society any good at all - I believe it is just rubbish. People might call it erotic and non-violent or something, but that is glossing over the actual fact of it being animal-like behaviour. I do not think is worthy of any positive marks. Unfortunately, it creeps through our society gradually and becomes more and more acceptable, and our society is poorer for allowing it to be freely available as it is in the Northern Territory.
If this material was not available, we would not need to have this argument or discussion about whether we should protect or legislate against parents for showing it. Life has moved on since pornography was allowed in the Northern Territory. Now you can get it on the web, you can buy magazines at your local newsagency - which might have a plastic cover on them but they are, basically, pornographic magazines - and you can have it mailed. The Australian Capital Territory allows pornography to be mailed out to anywhere in Australia. It is freely available, especially on the web. Even though parents might want to protect their children, a lot of times children are cleverer than their parents and they are able to get onto these sites that probably the parents do not know about.
It is an issue that concerns me. We worry about alcohol – and so we should. We worry about driving on the road – and so we should. We worry about safety on building sites. We talk about Australian Standards when it comes to power tools so they are safer to use. We look at fencing swimming pools. Why? We want to protect children. We legislate for many things in order to protect our society. Yet we do not take into account enough the effect of this sort of garbage on our society.
The Little Children are Sacred report should not just be about Indigenous children, it should be about all children. I believe if we are going to make a rule that says parents on an Indigenous community can be prosecuted for showing pornographic material to young children then it should apply to all of us. I do not know how you can argue this material should be shown to children. It is not sex eduction - that is a different matter all together - it is just garbage.
People can put on all the spin they like, but I say to the people here: have a look at one of these movies. If 16- and 17-year-old people, especially boys, see this type of material, why do we wonder that we have this problem in Maningrida? That is the effect. It is not just on Aboriginal boys that it has this effect; it is good, healthy, young Anglo-Saxon boys as well.
Yet, we seem to think our freedoms are so important that the damage this stuff does to our society is secondary. We really need to evaluate where we are going with pornography. I would prefer it not to exist. Other people in this parliament may have different viewpoints. The member for Port Darwin talked about licensing. Maybe that is the way around it. Perhaps we should not sell pornography in normal video shops. Maybe it should only be sold in sex shops to tighten control on its availability.
Although I understand why this change to the act has come in, I believe it is actually discriminatory. I do not say that in a nasty sense. However, I would rather have it non-discriminatory so that all children are protected. That is where this law should go.
I might be wrong but I gather that R rated movies, which are now called R 18+, were only allowed to be exhibited in the same place as X rated videos - away from the public. I went to the video shop near Uncle Sam’s before the sitting to check, and there are R 18+ on the shelves ...
A member: Be careful, remember a former member.
Mr WOOD: I am not from Katherine. Anyway, R 18+ movies are allowed on the shelves.
About two years ago, I had a complaint from a mother in the rural area that there were children’s videos on a shelf right next to the R 18+s. In this case, the front covers of every video showed very scantily clad ladies. In theory, the law allows R 18+ videos to be displayed on open view and that is probably not a problem in itself. There is a problem with what is on the front covers. I went to the video shop this morning and saw great big Incredible Hulk blokes, because the R 18+ can also be violent movies. They might be sexy movies, but they did not have covers that would attract you to them.
This company - I actually rang the company and I was abused - had worked out that you could put these R 18+ videos up for sale and make them more attractive by having scantily clad women on them. They were not particularly worried where they were. It is not the issue whether R 18+ videos can be shown, but there needs to be some policing of whether the covers on those videos are deliberately designed to attract people to them because they are using sex as a means of selling them. I ended up ringing the company in Queensland and when I complained about that, they said: ‘Mind your own business’. In the end they did at least move them away from the children’s section, and that was the biggest concern this mother had.
It is funny that we change the laws, yet someone will find a little loophole in them to make their sales a bit higher in that area. Once again, the bottom line should be that we need to protect our young people. A video store has a whole range of videos from G right through to the worst kind you can get, and kids walk through those video shops as free and easy as anyone else. I hope that a manager of a video shop would understand, take that into consideration, and ensure adult content videos are not easily on view to children who are going along looking for the Wiggles.
It is a minor issue in relation to this particular legislation, minister, but it was something I did not realise had changed. I do not know if it was a regulatory change or a change to the act that had gone through parliament which I had not seen. I think it was a regulatory change …
Mr Elferink: A national change.
Mr WOOD: A national change. Even though it has happened there should have been more debate to see if there were any downsides when the change was introduced.
In general, I do not have a problem with what the legislation is about. I reiterate: if you are going to make a regulation regarding adults or parents allowing their children to see pornography, it should be across the board. It is not a good move to allow it for one group of families but not others. Children are children, no matter who they are, and we need to protect them.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank members opposite and the member for Nelson for their contributions. I believe members opposite have raised some very important issues, and I will try to respond to them.
The members for Port Darwin and Araluen raised a very valid issue about a licensing scheme or a registration scheme for purveyors of pornography. I am advised that the Department of Justice is working on a draft of this. It is hoped this will go out for consultation towards the end of this year. I understand it has taken quite some time, but that is my advice. It is an important issue. There is some vulnerability for the Northern Territory with people using the Northern Territory as a fence or a mail address to sell pornography and who do not actually reside here. It is an issue we need to tighten up.
The member for Port Darwin raised the issue about the change being brought in by this law. To repeat: it is about parents showing their children X 18+ movies and Category 1 and 2 publications, and I quote what was said in the second reading speech:
I believe everyone in this House would acknowledge that, since that time, particularly in the Northern Territory, there have been problems identified with pornography and children being shown pornography.
The views that were held in the 1990s through this bill and government’s view and, I suppose, the Commonwealth - because this bill is all about the Territory and other states working with the Commonwealth to synchronise legislation - there was a view around the table of the Standing Committee of Attorney-Generals, or SCAG, that this is the way this should go.
I believe there is general consensus but I take on board what the member for Port Darwin has said. He believes that responsible parents should retain the right to show this material to their children.
I believe the member for Nelson had a contrary view to that. He believes children should be protected. Whilst it may be taking away a right or a decision made by parents within the family - and I respect the member for Port Darwin; I am sure he is a very responsible and loving parent, along with his partner - unfortunately, there are parents out there who would abuse what they would see as a loophole to be able to show their children - or if they are in a guardian situation - this sort of material for malicious and criminal ends. My view is that I agree with the member for Nelson.
I also agree - and I am putting forward a personal view here - that children’s behaviour has become too sexualised. As the member for Nelson said there are many forces, particularly the media and also music, sexualising young children and adolescent behaviour. This is a very worrying trend. There is an old adage that ‘sex sells’, and the member for Nelson recognised or alluded to that when he said he inspected some of the covers of these videos and had a conversation with the company that markets these things. They were not happy that he was questioning them. I believe their motives are plain, member for Nelson. This is a small step towards addressing that issue, but there is a wider issue society has to deal with; that is the sexualisation of children and adolescent behaviour.
One thing particularly worries me - once again, I am speaking at a personal level - and that is rap music. There is no doubt that in a lot of rap music there is a denigration of women, which is very repugnant. I am alarmed by that, and the references to violence in rap music. To my ears …
Mr Tollner: I take it you are offended by the lyrics, not the music?
Dr BURNS: Well, the music underscores the content, particularly the aggressive way in which the rap musicians present it now. I am a bit more into melody myself. It is no secret in this House that I am a Bob Dylan fan. I also like classical music, jazz and most sorts of music.
I am speaking personally again; rap music just turns me off. However, it obviously resonates with a lot of young people. In a lot of the gang-related behaviour that we see, not only in the Northern Territory but all around Australia and the world, I believe rap music is front and centre. The music is about, as I understand it, disaffected youth in the United States. It reflects their social scenario, there is a lot of violence and denigration of women in it, and it concerns me.
I share the member for Nelson’s concerns about pornography. From documentaries I have seen on this topic, a lot of pornography is produced by a criminal element. There are drugs involved and even more serious offences. That has come to light also. The way in which women are portrayed within a lot of pornography is, once again, denigrating to them. As the member for Nelson said, it has a corrosive element, particularly for young people. As he alluded, some of the crimes that have come to the court in recent times have had their genesis in pornography and some of the views and attitudes that are put forward.
We live in a plural society and adults have the right to view this material as long as the material is classified - that is their decision. However, as the member for Nelson said, we need to protect children.
I am advised that there was a change to the regulation of R-rated movies quite some time ago, the member for Nelson is right. Maybe it was in the 1990s when this view about parents being allowed to show pornography to their children, or certain forms of it, was put forward by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Possibly, the change has its basis in that. It is something I will follow up, member for Nelson. I might even have a look around. I do not go to the video shop at all, member for Nelson, I have cable TV and my favourite shows are food shows as well as football - everyone to their own taste.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to members and thank members for their constructive contributions to the debate.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, it is very unusual to have a third reading debate. However, I will take the 10 minutes that is allowed because it is the most convenient vehicle for me to deal with an issue.
I want to place on the record - and I am sure the Attorney-General was not suggesting or did not mean to suggest, what I think he said; I may have misheard because there was a bit of noise around - that I find it incomprehensible that any parent would deliberately show this kind of material to a child. There may be reasons, but I find it incomprehensible. I cannot think of a reason or a scenario where a child should be exposed to this material even as a matter of education.
I am intrinsically aware that, from time to time, we pass laws that affect the capacity of families. I am of such a conservative disposition that I still believe there is an element of sacredness about the family environment and the capacity for the family to make decisions for itself, because 99% of families make the right decisions.
I also acknowledge and thank the Attorney-General for his observations about how I respond to my own children. I acknowledge that and thank you for the observation - it is correct. I am very protective of my children, which is why I am on my feet talking about these issues now. From what the Attorney-General said, he is very careful about these things too.
If the Attorney-General has the personal opinion he says, regarding the exposure of this material by parents to their children, then there may be room, sooner rather than later, to re-examine this particular issue. We can revisit that at the appropriate juncture.
I want to place on the record that I am not supportive in any way of children being exposed. However, I am mindful that if you look at the old Roman law of pater familias which placed the male at the head of the household - and I am not arguing that has to be the case today; clearly we live in different times – with an extraordinary set of powers for governance of the family. Not that I am suggesting we return to that old Roman law because it is fairly excessive in many areas. However, I am attracted to the system of belief where the family itself should be the place where issues of what is educational, what is not educational, what is proper punishment, what is not proper punishment - those sorts of things - should be left, in the first instance, to the family. That is the point I was trying to make.
I close with the observations that I agree with the minister. I feel the sexualisation of our society, let alone our children, is something that actually debases us. We are attracted in this world to things sensual - and that is exactly what rap music is; it is an exercise in the sensual that satisfies the senses in that sense of the word - it is almost like a distraction from the life that we live. It is like we are always looking for ways to be distracted. We want our movies to be bigger, louder, and better. We want our rap music to be bigger, louder, and better. We want drugs to make us happy, we want drugs to make us sad, and we even do it at a legal level. There is no shortage of drugs available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that will make us happy and sad. We are always looking for the quick solution and we live in a world where people want that. However, we accept the liberty of people to make decisions for themselves because one of the underpinning philosophies of a liberal society is that we believe people are smart enough to make their own decisions and suffer the consequences should they make bad ones.
That is something I subscribe to. That does not mean I agree with the decisions people make. However, in this world we have to accept that satisfaction of the sensual is going to be an element of our society - it has always been there. If you read Roman history, it was there when history was being recorded, and there was always a natural tension.
I am attracted to a world where we take a little more time to stop, think and consider things. I am attracted to a world where something higher than merely satisfying the senses impels us forward and makes us better people; where spiritual, emotional, and psychological self-examination is a matter of course. I am attracted to reinvestigating things like rhetoric as a form of study, because, if you look at rhetoric, it is actually an exercise in thinking. It is something we seem to be abandoning in an age when we are surrounded by more books than we have ever had.
Madam Speaker, those are my closing remarks. I thank the indulgence of this House for allowing me to use the third reading debate to make those observations. I will also finish with this particular observation: we have allowed this bill to pass through its stages in these sittings because we recognise that sometimes substance is more important than process. I urge members opposite to cast their minds to that observation considering what occurred prior to this debate, where process was the only defence against the recommended suspension of standing orders, which would have enabled us to discuss a very important issue.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, this was the bill introduced during the Tenth Assembly and we are happy to consent to the bill and for it to pass during these sittings.
This bill makes a series of minor amendments to several items of legislation. Amendments to the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act means the minister may appoint a Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, whereas that cannot be presently done. We say that nothing in particular flows from that.
Regarding the amendments to the Powers of Attorney Act, currently the powers of attorney need to be registered to enable any transactions signed under the Land Title Act and endorsed by the donee. The amendment ensures that the witnessing requirements are similar to those under the Registrar-General’s directions to make them consistent with other forms. The amendment also provides for the power of attorney to be witnessed by a qualified witness, which is more than sensible.
The Professional Standards Act, however, is amended in a number of ways. I understand, minister, that this is the third amendment since about December 2004. Over the years I have had a bit to say about how much legislation keeps coming back to this parliament. For an act like this, three times since 2004 - and please correct me if I am wrong - does seem to be significant. I am wondering whether in your reply you can enlighten us on that.
In relation to the Fines and Penalties Regulations, they are changed to give the Fines Recovery Unit capacity to collect victims of crimes debts. We are supportive of that. I remind you, minister, that I wrote to you - about two weeks ago - seeking some information about the Fines Recovery Unit. I remind you of that correspondence, since it has traditionally taken you a long time to reply.
Madam Speaker, that is the effect of the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill and we consent to it.
Ms WALKER (Nhulunbuy): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill. I appreciate that the Northern Territory government needs to keep on top of large amounts of legislation which it oversees, particularly within the Justice portfolio, and that, from time to time, legislation may require some fine-tuning to ensure it is effective and works efficiently and fairly.
In relation to the changes to legislation as outlined by the minister, I do not intend to speak about all the amendments listed. However, there are a couple of issues which I would like to speak about as I believe they are particularly important.
First, I refer to the proposed amendment to the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act which seeks to include a provision to enable the minister to appoint a Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. This amendment is eminently sensible and in essence allows, as has been explained:
Consumer Affairs and fair trading is an important part of the Department of Justice and aims to promote and regulate responsible business conduct through administration of a regulatory system that protects consumer interests. Consumer Affairs has a key role and responsibility to protect consumers. The appointment of a Deputy Commissioner means that Consumer Affairs can function fully, smoothly, and appropriately. It will give the commissioner and his staff the ability to investigate more complaints and, ultimately, be in a position to provide a better and timelier service to consumers.
There are many occasions when Consumer Affairs needs to be able to act quickly and decisively, and none more so than when matters of safety are at stake. It happens quite commonly at Christmas time when a toy is recalled due to some danger such as a choking hazard to a small child. Apart from reactive responses, Consumer Affairs takes a proactive role when it comes to identifying potential hazards presented by the contents, for instance, of show bags on sale each July during the Northern Territory show circuit.
The risk of scams to unsuspecting consumers is another important function which Consumer Affairs actively seeks to minimise. Again, with the appointment of a Deputy Commissioner, these scams can be investigated and dealt with quickly. We hear regularly through the media of various scams but, amongst the worst are those which target people with lower levels of literacy because English is not their first language or those whose financial literacy is challenged. By this I mean a consumer’s ability to understand clearly a financial contract in terms of repayments and possible or hidden penalties.
In the Northern Territory, particularly in bush electorates, Indigenous people are more vulnerable to scams when they are sold products. For instance, mobile phones and plans which are completely inappropriate for the needs of the user and may have undisclosed costs for text or SMS products; and mobile phones which may work well in Alice Springs or Darwin but do not have the same service provider in their home community. It is all very well to say ‘buyer beware’ but when the buyer does not fully understand what they need to be wary of with unscrupulous sales people, or the transaction is occurring in a language in which they are not proficient, then the buyer needs the protection of Consumer Affairs.
The amendment to the Fines and Penalties (Recovery) Act allows the Fines Recovery Unit to collect and enforce debts owed to the Northern Territory. The Territory’s Crime Victims Support Scheme provides a valuable and important service to victims through the provision of a free counselling service and also financial assistance up to $40 000. Under this scheme, victims now obtain assistance quickly and simply through the Crimes Victims Service Unit.
This amendment proposes to expand the role of the Fines Recovery Unit to be able to go directly to the offender in order to recover fines and penalties which have been incurred for victims’ assistance. This is an eminently sensible course of action, given that it is the Fines Recovery Unit’s core business to collect fines and penalties owed to the Northern Territory. By virtue of this being their core business as a government agency, the Fines Recovery Unit has access to information held by government which is essential in locating persons who owe money under the act. Further to this, the Fines Recovery Unit does have wide-ranging powers including suspending licences and vehicle registrations, seizing property, and garnishee of wages or salary in order to enforce payment of debts. Offenders who have harmed others and the community, and have the ability to pay, can and will be made to do so. Such an arrangement will offset arrangements which are currently associated with Crimes Victims’ Assistance and are also intended to improve recovery rates. This is good news for taxpayers who will not have to foot as much of the bill associated with the scheme and the cost of recovery.
I now refer to the proposed amendment to the Professional Standards Act. Professional standards legislation was first enacted in New South Wales to relieve the indemnity insurance crisis sweeping the state at that time. Similar legislation has now been adopted in all jurisdictions in Australia, including the Northern Territory. Under this legislation, the act seeks:
The proposed amendments to the act seek to avoid unnecessary numbering of schemes as subordinate legislation. Importantly, the act is about maintaining standards and it does have the ability to bring in professional standard schemes, but these schemes are not subordinate legislation.
Madam Speaker, I commend the minister and support this bill.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of community library officers from across the Northern Territory in Darwin for a Territory-wide Community Library Officers Forum. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I also welcome librarians from all over the Territory.
I appreciate the support of the opposition in relation to this bill. Speaking to newer members in this parliament, there are contentious matters and legislation that come before this parliament, but there is much legislation that comes through which is really attending to matters to make legislation keep pace with changes by various amendments in various areas. There are a number of areas that are amended to address issues that are raised with us, such as the Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Affairs.
As the member for Nhulunbuy said, that is quite an important area that protects consumers. However, there was a problem where an amendment was needed so there could be permission to appoint a Deputy Commissioner, thereby giving organisational flexibility within the Department of Justice.
I thank the opposition for their support. The member for Araluen alluded to a number of things. Member for Araluen, you mentioned some correspondence you wrote a fortnight or so ago about the victims of crime scheme. A response is being prepared. It has not come to my office from the Department of Justice yet, but as soon as it does I will endeavour to reply promptly, as with all correspondence.
You also asked a question about the Professional Standards Act, and I wonder whether I heard you correctly. I think you were saying there have been a number of changes, tranches of legislation brought into the House, including this one. You asked, if I am not mistaken, just how many more are in the pipeline?
Ms Carney: No, it had been amended three times, I think. Is that right? And why?
Dr BURNS: As the member for Nhulunbuy alluded to, when questions and threats were posed to the insurance industry in 2001-02, all states in Australia have been moving to amend Professional Standards legislation to address that issue. My advice is there have been a number of changes including: the Professional Standards Act 2004; the Justice Legislation Amendment Act 2006; the Professional Standards Amendment Act 2007; and the Professional Standards Amendment (Mutual Recognition) Act 2008 - which was probably one of the first bills I put through this House as Attorney-General.
This particular amendment comes at the request of the Parliamentary Counsel, concerned that there was too much being put into subordinate legislation. He wanted clarity about the subordinate legislation made in each calendar year being numbered in an arithmetical series to keep everything nice and clean so the lawyers could work out the chronology. It also shows the calendar year in which it is made.
His strong advice was that we should ensure, through this bill, that Professional Standards schemes are not, and never have been, subordinate legislation of the Interpretation Act. Further, they are not, and never have been, required to be published in the Gazette for the purposes of the Professional Standards Act.
It was really housekeeping brought forward by the Parliamentary Counsel, Geoff Hackett-Jones, who has done an excellent job. He has certainly prepared a lot of legislation, but is now moving on and we will have a new Parliamentary Counsel. I pay tribute to Geoff; he has done a great job. He is a very experienced man in the job and we are going to miss him. He worked hard and I am sure opposition members also join me in wishing Geoff all the best. I am sure we will give the same support and receive the same great service from the new Parliamentary Counsel, who I think is a woman. That is going to be very good for us.
I thank members for their contribution. I thank the member for Nhulunbuy. I suppose it is the first time she has participated in debate on a bill. She certainly highlighted the importance of Consumer Affairs and the way in which some unscrupulous operators target, particularly, Indigenous people in her electorate with scams concerning mobile phones and photographs. There is a whole range of things these people try to target Indigenous communities. The Consumer Affairs Commission is very important in informing the public about these schemes through education programs and also chasing those who do the wrong thing.
The member for Nhulunbuy also mentioned recovery of monies owed through the crimes victims’ assistance legislation. This will no longer be in the hands of debt collectors but collected through the Fines Recovery Unit, which is expert at recovering fines from people who are in default. This is important legislation to support the victims of crime and to reinforce to those who commit crimes that they will have to pay - they will be pursued. The Fines Recovery Unit has wide-ranging powers, including suspending licences and vehicle registrations, seizing property and garnishee of wages or salary in order to enforce payment of debts, where necessary. This is upping the ante. This is letting the people who commit these crimes know that we are going to chase them down and extract recompense from them.
Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. I commend the bill to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, for the sake of the Parliamentary Record, this bill was introduced during the Tenth Assembly and, by agreement and consent, it is to be passed during these sittings.
I feel certain my colleague, the member for Port Darwin, is going to talk about some aspects of the bill, Attorney-General, so in the interests of time and my voice, I am not going to go there. However, there are some points I would like to make in relation to rock throwing.
I have some questions and I would be grateful if you would respond to them in your reply.
In the proposed new section 180A(1)(b), it says:
This is repeated in the following subparagraph (b). My question is: why is the expression ‘gives rise to a danger of harm’ used? I am not familiar with that expression in this context. I wonder why an expression such as ‘the conduct results in harm’ was not used; there being, on my reading, a difference to something that gives rise to a danger of harm as opposed to resulting in harm. I am a little troubled by that and look forward to your explanation. Subject to your explanation, I wonder whether there is the ability for someone to contravene the act if they do actually harm someone, as opposed to merely giving rise to the danger of harm. I think you know where I am coming from.
You said in your second reading speech that a four-year penalty demonstrates the seriousness of the offence. You will remember, minister, that prior to the election - I think it was a couple of sittings prior to the election - I gave notice that I would introduce rock throwing legislation, and a bill was prepared by Parliamentary Counsel. The version I have in my hand is dated 28 May 2008. It was a draft and we were looking at penalties and so on. This side of the House had a significantly different penalty from the one you propose. Whereas you said four years is about right, we said 10 years, and a subsequent offence up to 14 years. The reason we went so high is that this is a particularly nasty offence committed by absolute morons.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARNEY: Because they are so congenitally stupid and reckless, our view was that a very strong, clear message needed to be sent to them: if they throw rocks at people in vehicles, particularly moving vehicles, they would go to gaol for a long time. We did not propose a minimum sentence. I feel so strongly about the idiots who do this - and I stress this as a personal view – I believe they should go to prison for a minimum sentence on a second offence. The point we make is that it is a significant offence and four years, with great respect, does not - using your language in the second reading speech - demonstrate the seriousness of the offence.
There is some history on this one, minister. You may recall in 2003, when parliament sat in Alice Springs, a young man called Brendan McGrath, whose photo was on the front page of the Centralian Advocate with half his head stitched back together, after some moron threw a rock at him while he was driving. This had been an ongoing issue for some time. In my media release dated 13 December 2004, I mentioned three or four episodes that had happened over the previous few weeks in Alice Springs. Children as young as four were pelting cars with rocks, and a jogger who stopped to confront some rock throwers was chased and bashed. Another headline in the Centralian Advocate was ‘Teens strike in rock throwing spree’.
When we had the Alice Springs sittings, Brendan McGrath attended with his family because they were very unhappy with the policing at the time and the response they had received from government. We raised this issue on 29 April 2003, and I think the now Chief Minister was Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services at the time. He said:
He went on to say:
My point is: it took your government five years - and only after the opposition gave notice that we would introduce a bill - for your government to get its collective act together and introduce a bill dealing with, among other things, rock throwers. I am not sure that is good enough, frankly. You could say we should have given notice of a bill some years beforehand. Well, we are not the government - you are. It is government’s core responsibility to do its utmost to protect the citizens of the Northern Territory, and this government has spectacularly failed on so many fronts.
I note with great interest that – I do not have the material in front of me - when the rock throwing found its way onto the front page of the Top End paper, that the government started to get twitchy and acted. I sincerely hope your third term in government is much better than your second one. Your first one, if I may say so, was your best and you have been going downhill since then. However, I do hope you improve on law and order issues.
We do support the bill because finally we have something, although I return to why you chose a four-year penalty and, in particular, the wording in the new proposed section 180A.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Mr Allister Langlands, the Chief Executive of the Wood Group, who is visiting Darwin from Aberdeen. The Wood Group operates in 46 countries and has teamed up with one of our local companies, RANS. On behalf of honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms LAWRIE (Infrastructure and Transport): Madam Speaker, the Henderson government is committed to protecting Territorians with both strong laws and strong deterrents. I commend the minister for Justice for the Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and Other Endangerment Offences) Bill we are debating today, that we introduced in our second term of government.
As Transport minister, I wholeheartedly support the range of provisions in this bill because, fundamentally, they support road safety. Sadly, some people’s behaviour requires these laws to be put in place. Rock throwing, laser pointing, and people fleeing the scene of road accidents have occurred in our community, as they have in many others.
The bill delivers strong penalties for people who flee an accident leaving victims behind rather than rendering assistance. Providing first aid at the scene of an accident can often mean the difference between life and death. Abandoning someone in need in this way deserves the strongest penalty. Sadly, in the Northern Territory there is a very poor driving culture, particularly the number of Territorians who drink and drive and flout the law and the safety of others. This bill provides a very strong deterrent to those drink-drivers who think fleeing the scene and avoiding a breath test will evade the law.
This bill also provides strong deterrents to those in the community who may think throwing rocks and pointing lasers is harmless fun. Far from it; it is stupid and extremely dangerous. The penalties in this bill reflect the seriousness of the offence and the potential harm that can be caused by such recklessness. Drivers of commercial passenger vehicles such as buses and taxis provide a much-valued service to our community but, sadly, are often targeted by senseless people, including children, throwing rocks or pointing lasers. The government, the police, and the taxi industry have worked collaboratively on this issue in the past when a number of taxis were targeted by rock throwers. In recognition of the difficulty in catching the culprits, police went undercover, posing as cab drivers in a special operation.
I believe that most general commuters will welcome these laws. These laws build on a range of initiatives delivered by this government to protect road users. Earlier this year, the Henderson government brought new aggravated offences for assault against drivers of commercial passenger vehicles. Drivers of buses and taxis are hard-working and community-minded people providing a highly-valued and often relied upon service to the community. They often work alone and can be vulnerable to assault by passengers, particularly at night. They now have stronger laws providing protection to them in the work they do. These laws have delivered a much stronger deterrent, with a person committing common assault on a bus or taxi driver, whether they are public servants or private industry drivers, now facing up to five years imprisonment compared to the previous provision of a maximum of one year.
The 1100 ‘H’ endorsed drivers across our transport system now work in the knowledge that this government has provided another tool to police to remove thuggery from the public transport network. This government has also introduced Transit Safety Officers to our public bus network to protect drivers and passengers from antisocial behaviour. This year, we boosted the Transit Safety Officer team from four to eight, and provided them with stronger powers to use reasonable force to restrain and detain people causing problems on our bus network.
Transit Safety Officers patrol the public bus network and interchanges, providing a highly visible presence to commuters. They wear distinctive green uniforms and travel in marked patrol vehicles. They are trained in skills such as first aid, cultural awareness, communications, and the use of force, and have the capacity to issue trespass and infringement notices to stop problem passengers entering the bus network. They work closely with the police and the Darwin Bus network providers, as well as the Casuarina Shopping Square management, to share intelligence on security issues at the Casuarina interchange which is closely linked to the shopping centre. The relationship with police is particularly important to provide a quick response to incidents on the bus network. Since the stronger powers came into effect in July, the Transit Safety Officers, with the assistance of police, have made two arrests.
We have also invested $800 000 into 245 CCTV cameras across the bus network, both in buses and at interchanges. The cameras catch people causing problems, and are providing a useful tool for the Transit Safety Officers and police to help identify perpetrators. I also report to the House that discussions are continuing with the Taxi Council regarding the best means to provide security cameras in taxis. I have discussed some options with the council and I am awaiting their advice ...
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! It is my understanding that we are talking about the Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and other Endangerment Offences) Bill. I fail to see how the bus security officers have anything to do with hit and run offences.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, if I could speak to the point of order. The minister for Transport is clearly speaking about this particular bill. The laws about rock throwing are important but the methods of enforcement are also important, and actually catching these idiots who are throwing rocks is crucial to this debate. I believe it is very pertinent.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Minister, please continue.
Ms LAWRIE: That just shows a lack of understanding about the importance of this ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Ms LAWRIE: Security cameras in taxis will provide additional assurance to drivers and passengers that any criminal activity is recorded and, if needed, made available to police.
On the issue of rock throwing, we have found security camera footage in the buses is very useful in evidentiary material. So, there is a direct link between the provisions contained in the bill we are debating and the enforcement and surveillance methods about which I have been informing the House.
A further tool in our package of reforms to improve our public transport systems is the opening of a secure taxi rank in Darwin CBD last month. This rank is staffed by two security guards and a concierge, and has been provided with additional lighting, seating and, importantly, CCTV cameras. The rank operates from midnight to 5 am on Saturdays and Sundays and, in its first seven weeks of operation, has transported over 3000 passengers safely, with more than 1000 taxi and minibus transactions. This rank has improved safety for drivers and passengers and improved antisocial behaviour in Mitchell Street, associated with people moving out of the nightclub precinct of our city.
My Department of Planning and Infrastructure has worked closely with Darwin City Council, the NT Australian Hotels Association, NT Police, Birch Carroll and Coyle, the Taxi Council and Metro Mini Bus Pty Ltd to deliver this important initiative.
We are a government that wants to improve safety for commuters, taxi drivers, and bus drivers. I commend the Attorney-General for this legislation. It sends a very clear, important message to those senseless idiots who put people’s lives at risk - and we have seen some horrific injuries from rock throwing incidents - that there are harsh penalties for their senseless behaviour. The way that the legislation has been constructed is to ensure that the evidentiary processes required for prosecution are as effective as they can be.
Madam Speaker, I commend the Department of Justice, working with the Department of Transport and others, and the help and assistance of Parliamentary Counsel, for the legislation that we have before us today.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the Gallery of Captain Terry Richardson, one of Australia’s longest-serving Royal Flying Doctor Service pilots, and his wife, Gaye Richardson, also a long-term Flight Nurse with the RFDS and the co-author of a recently published book Nurses with Altitude. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Debate suspended.
Madam SPEAKER: I advise honourable members of the presence in the gallery of Mr Michael Crutchfield MP, Member for South Barwon, Victoria, and Parliamentary Secretary Water Environment, accompanied by his wife, Ms Julie Hobbs. On behalf of honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I share my support with the shadow Attorney-General in relation to this matter, and my contribution will be brief.
There is one area I have some concern with and I am glad to see that the Attorney-General is casting his eyes in my direction, because it deals particularly with what you would describe as a cultural issue. I realise it might be of some surprise to the Attorney-General that I would raise a cultural issue at this juncture and in a bill of this nature. However, there is a very real concern that I have and I seek the comfort of the Attorney-General to see if he can give some advice to set my mind at ease.
The issue is the reference in the bill to ‘reasonable in all the circumstances’. I am talking particularly about the hit-and-run aspect. I presume it is written into the bill for a very specific reason. One of the problems that we have in our community, particularly in the Alice Springs area, is that in certain cultural environments, justice and retribution in acts of negligence or criminality is swift and, often brutal. We see this played out quite regularly in our remote communities, but it does wash over into the non-Aboriginal community where there is an intersection, if you like, between the Aboriginal community and the non-Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory. It specifically comes to light when we are dealing with hit-and-run cases, or people who drive over pedestrians.
From time to time, sadly and tragically, pedestrians in Alice Springs – also in other places in Central Australia, but I will focus on Alice Springs specifically – are run over by motorists. Often, it is not the motorist’s fault at European law. However, that does not prevent a swift and automatic retribution being brought to bear upon the driver of the motor vehicle by the relatives - both close and distant - of the person who has been struck by the motor vehicle.
We have seen examples in Alice Springs where a person has genuinely been motivated as a good Samaritan, stopped their vehicle, as is expected and required by this law and common courtesy, to render assistance to a person they have struck with their motor vehicle. In those instances where the person who has been run over is an Aboriginal person, the retribution under traditional law requires an instant response. Often, that means destruction of the car and a physical assault being brought to bear upon the driver of the vehicle.
It has become practice in Alice Springs – and I am aware that this advice has been given out by the police in Alice Springs in the past – that, in the unfortunate event of accidentally running over a person who is an Aboriginal, that you do not stop at the scene of the accident but proceed forthwith to the nearest police station and report the accident there. The reason being, that the cultural law brought to bear often brings great injury to both the vehicle and the driver of the vehicle should that person stop.
I am being as delicate as I possibly can because what I am describing is: if you run over an Aboriginal person in Alice Springs, you have to make, essentially, what is a racist decision - very quickly - as to whether you stop and render assistance. The fact is that, if you do, there is a possibility you will become subject of some form of assault. We have seen several examples where this has happened, that I am aware of, over the past few years.
I hope that a court, casting its eyes over the term ‘reasonable in all the circumstances’ would accept that this law does not apply because of those circumstances existing. I do not know how I can put this issue more delicately but, clearly, it is something I am concerned about and I know that other people are concerned about. I would like the minister’s guidance and comments in relation to this matter, because it is a matter of some importance, particularly to people who live in Alice Springs.
I hope this is not raised as some sort of racist attack; it is not intended to be. It is a genuine attempt to try to discover some sort of middle ground in those particular circumstances, because a person who stops in those circumstances may, on occasion, find themselves under the scrutiny of another legal system, and that other legal system can inflict some very savage and – I will strike the word savage because it is going to be misused and I do not want that to occur – a brutal response from that other legal system.
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Madam Speaker, I speak in support of the bill, and I appreciate the opposition’s cooperation in debating this and other bills today. I believe that the proposed amendments to our Criminal Code are important. We have a bill before the House to make specific offences for hit and run, for throwing things - more often than not, we are referring to rocks – and pointing lasers in the eyes of drivers.
We all agree no-one should leave the scene of an accident, and no-one should cause an accident by throwing rocks or pointing lasers at cars. Hit and run is one of those crimes that touches a special nerve in the community. I cannot understand - and I do not think any of us here can understand - how you can be involved in a car accident and take off, and possibly leave someone behind who is within an inch of his or her life.
While the bill today is welcomed, all of us would hope that it is not needed; that people do not take off from the scene of an accident but stay to lend a hand. Unfortunately, we know it has happened, and hopefully matching the penalties for leaving the scene with the penalties for dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing serious harm work.
I believe all members have agreed that rock throwing is incredibly dangerous. Unfortunately, people who throw rocks do not always understand how serious it is. It is dangerous, and I feel for bus drivers and taxi drivers who are usually the victims of rock throwing. It is an issue I have discussed with the Transport Workers Union, and with Buslink as well.
I support the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport’s comments about the practical enforcement of the issues we are debating today. Important as it is to have the offences and penalties the Attorney-General is proposing, they only work if we catch people. The minister covered what we are doing in detail: Transit Security Officers, cameras in buses, and targeted operations by the government, council and police. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I also support the legislation, but I do have a few minor questions. I wonder if I can ask them in committee stage, as it will sound too broken up if I try to ask the questions in one go.
In general, I do not have a problem with the legislation. There is existing legislation, which does not seem to cover the seriousness of the offences that the government has been talking about over the last couple of years, and these changes certainly seem to cover that.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank all members for their contribution to this debate and, generally, for the support that this bill has received from both opposition and Independent members. However, a number of questions have been asked, and I will endeavour to answer each one of those. The member for Nelson has indicated that he wishes to ask some questions in committee stage, and I welcome that as well.
Starting with the shadow, the member for Araluen, who talked about – it was before the break - a four-year penalty for rock throwing in our legislation, yet, before the election, she had drawn up a private members bill that had a 10- to 14-year penalty associated with it. Basically, she asked the question: if we believed that the offence of rock throwing was so bad and so serious, how come we only had a four-year maximum penalty as part of our particular legislative change?
The answer is that there are already a number of elements in the Criminal Code – and I will turn to the second reading speech – which cover the damage. If someone throws a rock and seriously injures someone, there are already components of the Criminal Code that cover this. I quote from the second reading speech:
Then I went on to say in the second reading speech:
In other words, as I said in the second reading speech, this is a much lower level of danger and, consequently, much easier to establish. So, in answer to the member for Araluen’s question, this specific offence has been created where there may not have been harm or damage, but it is all about endangerment. It is about when someone throws a rock and there might not necessarily be serious injury to a person, but there is an act of throwing the rock. Under the current law it is difficult, as it needs a high level of proof to get a conviction. This is what we are trying to do here in section 180A; actually set the level of proof of harm and that the defendant was reckless as to the danger.
I hope that answers the member’s question. Some of it also relates to Part IIAA of the Criminal Code, which goes to criminal responsibility. As some members opposite might be aware, the Northern Territory has adopted the model Criminal Code in relation to this aspect of criminal responsibility. The principle of criminal responsibility is that an act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty. In other words it is about intent, but not purely intent itself. There are physical and fault elements. The physical element is when the person throws the object, in this particular case, and the fault elements are about intention, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence. Part of the response to the member for Araluen’s question goes to the model Criminal Code and criminal responsibility. If there is actual harm done, there are elements in the Criminal Code which cover some aspects the member for Araluen was alluding to.
The member for Araluen also raised the case of Brendan McGrath. I am advised that, in the McGrath case - and I will read from the advice I have:
As I have said, you need to catch these idiots first before you can charge them. That is my advice concerning the Brendan McGrath issue which the member for Araluen has raised. Obviously, Brendan was very seriously injured and, if someone had been apprehended, there would have been very serious charges laid against that person - and appropriately so.
I hope I have answered the member for Araluen’s question. I am also advised that the language used in the offence is consistent with other endangerment offences; that the conduct or act gives rise to a danger. I have already covered those aspects. In essence, this is covering a gap in the existing law.
The next speaker was the member for Karama who talked about the need for strong laws in this area and about support for road safety; and basically, that abandoning someone in need, who has been hit and injured by the vehicle you are driving, is a reprehensible thing to do.
There has been a lot of activity by police, taxi drivers and buses attempting to apprehend those responsible for rock throwing. The member for Karama also mentioned that some of the CCTV footage or security camera footage within buses is very useful as evidence in some instances. She also talked about the Transit Safety Officers. I have seen them. They are very visible in their uniforms and their vehicles with the green stripe down the side. I see them at all hours of the day and night. I believe it is a very welcome addition to government strategy to reduce antisocial behaviour on public transport.
The member also talked about laws that have been brought into this parliament making it an aggravating offence if there is an assault against a bus driver, taxi driver or anyone with a H endorsement. These are strong actions government is taking.
The member for Port Darwin raised very valid issues regarding people who may feel they are in danger if they stopped. There are various situations - not necessarily an Indigenous group. It could be a group of youths partying. I understand there was an incident in Palmerston that involved this sort of scenario.
I turn to the new section 174FA, Hit and Run, in the act, as this is important, and I quote:
(1) The driver of a vehicle is guilty of a crime if:
(i) stop the vehicle at the scene of the incident; and
The member for Port Darwin knows it would be a matter for a court to determine. He and I have outlined scenarios. There could be other scenarios: where someone is taking a person who is in serious danger of dying to the hospital.. There are a number of things that could happen which a court may see as reasonable. I am not here to pre-empt or hypothesise about what a court may or may not find. That is why the word ‘reasonable’ is in there, member for Port Darwin. I believe the issue you have raised is a valid issue and, as this legislation was being developed, one that I questioned. I asked about different scenarios which is why that is in there. It is not there as a loophole. A court will have to see it as a very serious situation, but a reasonable explanation by someone would be accepted by the court. So, I thank the member for Port Darwin for raising his issues.
The member for Fannie Bay talked about the importance of having specific offences for rock throwing and hit and run. He pointed out that he did not believe it was right, and the community would not see it was right, for someone to leave a scene of a hit and run accident without a reasonable excuse. Also, that rock throwing is something the community abhors. He gave further support to the Transport minister regarding the measures she is implementing for better security in our transport system.
The member for Nelson has a few questions for me in committee stage. I see the Chairman of Committees ready to take her seat for her first committee stage amendments. I thank members for their participation in this debate; for their constructive and thoughtful offerings. Madam Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
Mr WOOD: Madam Chair, congratulations on your first chairmanship. It is only a little bill, so probably makes a good initiation.
My questions are nothing to do with major changes, but in section 174FA(2), which is the definitions, it talks about a driver and a vehicle. I asked at a briefing why we could not include ‘vessel’. Many people in the Territory drive boats, whether they are water skiing or fishing at Manton Dam, Dinah Beach or out in the harbour. I thought the same thing would have applied if someone had a boating accident - and they are not uncommon, as we have seen in parts of Australia – and they hit someone either in the water or in another boat. This bill that is being put forward today should also apply to vessels. I am asking the minister why, in this case, has a vessel not been included.
Dr BURNS: Madam Chair, my advice is this is about perceived need. There have not been incidences of vessels being involved in hit and runs. I suppose that is the reason why ‘vessels’ is not included. The definition of ‘vehicle’ is there also because there is a wide definition of vehicles, as you can see underneath section 174FA.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I do not quite accept your reasoning because, under ‘vehicle’ we have ‘horse-drawn carriage’. I would be pushing to say that we have had any cases of hit and runs due to horse-drawn carriages. So, using the same argument, we either withdraw the horse-drawn carriages, or we include the vessels. I believe it is not an unreasonable proposition that someone could be involved in a boating accident and, for the very same reasons people would try to run away from a car accident - maybe they are over the limit, they did something silly, they were not driving a boat which had the proper safety gear in it or, for instance at night time, did not have a light - they would not be covered by this particular action.
I should also add, minister, if the government is not willing to put ‘vessel’ in here, then what penalties will apply to a person who did hit and run someone using a boat?
Dr BURNS: I thank the member for his question. It is rather a hypothetical question. I am advised the definition of ‘vehicle’, as it appears in here, is a drafting convention to include horse-drawn carriages. I know where you are going, member for Nelson, and I suppose you are making a valid point, but I can only reiterate what my advice has been in relation to vessels.
Mr WOOD: I do not want to labour it too much, but if I turn over a page, which is the section I am going to discuss in a minute, 180A talks about endangering occupants of vehicles and vessels. I could also argue: how many cases of rock throwing have you seen recently which involved boats? Obviously, the people who put this legislation together felt there is a possibility of rocks or something being thrown at vessels, otherwise they would not be included in the legislation. It is the same as laser guns or laser pointers being used at vessels. I am not sure how often that occurs either.
Dr BURNS: I can only reiterate what I have said, member for Nelson. The bill has got to this point and, as I say, I am not aware - are you? - of any cases of hit and run with vessels in the Northern Territory.
Mr WOOD: Probably, there is a better chance of being hit by a boat than a horse-drawn carriage, minister. However, I will move on.
Regarding new section 180A, Endangering Occupants of Vehicles and Vessels, one of my questions was in relation to what part of this section meant. You answered it in your earlier reply to the member for Araluen, so I will not go over that.
I ask - you will probably say it is a bit silly – a question which was brought up in the 1960s when there were lots of protests going on. I remember vehicles going past with tomatoes and eggs plastered over them, and I thought to myself: ‘Would someone come under this particular act if they were having a protest? Would there be a definition of what harm is in this case?’ If the president from some well-known republic is in Australia, and a few people do not particularly like him and they throw a few tomatoes and eggs at the car, would they, technically, come under this legislation?
Dr BURNS: It would, but it would be for a court to determine the level of harm and the degree of recklessness.
Mr WOOD: I would not want to stop freedom of expression.
Mr Elferink: The problem is you used to supply eggs, and all you want to do is keep your weapons trade going.
Mr WOOD: I used to grow tomatoes, too.
My next point is: we have a definition of ‘vehicle’ in this act but, in new section 180A, we deal with vessels. I know the definition of a vessel is covered under section 4, Interpretation, of the Criminal Code. I imagine vehicle is also covered under the Criminal Code. I just wondered why the definition of a vessel was not put under new section 180A(3), for the sake of consistency?
Dr BURNS: My advice, member for Nelson, is there is a fairly clear understanding of what a vessel is.
Mr WOOD: It cannot be that clear, minister, because you have actually defined it under the Criminal Code.
The last question - and it should be recorded in the Parliamentary Record – is: a lot of the problems regarding laser pointers is the issue of them being pointed at planes coming in to land, yet there is no mention of that in your readings or in the act. Perhaps you could explain where that is covered if it is not covered in this act?
Dr BURNS: My advice, member for Nelson, is this is covered through Commonwealth legislation.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported, report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Draft Bill - Domestic and Family Violence Amendment Bill
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Honourable members, I table a draft bill titled Domestic and Family Violence Amendment Bill, and I have a tabling statement as well.
The tabling of this draft bill is to allow for public discussion on the proposed amendments before government formally introduces the legislation. It is proposed to amend the Domestic and Family Violence Act to create new mandatory reporting laws for abuse occurring within a domestic relationship causing serious physical harm. Our clear intention is to introduce new laws which reflect this government’s ongoing commitment to confront domestic and family violence in our community. We believe the proposed amendments provide a community-based response to a community problem.
The introduction of mandatory reporting of domestic and family violence sends a clear message to the community, to all people in the Northern Territory, that abuse perpetrated against women and children, and children being exposed to abuse within their families and their homes is unacceptable and such behaviour will not be tolerated.
The draft bill amends the Domestic and Family Violence Act 2007 to require all adults in the Northern Territory to make either a verbal or a written report to police if they believe, on reasonable grounds, that either another person’s life or safety is under serious or imminent threat because of domestic violence, or a person has caused or is likely to cause serious physical harm to another person within a domestic relationship. The draft bill creates an offence for failing to make a report unless the person has a reasonable excuse for not doing so. Such an excuse may include honestly and reasonably believing that another person had already formed the same belief and had made a report to a police officer.
We are asking the community as a whole to take a stand against domestic and family violence to help break the cycle of violence and to protect those women and children who experience abuse within their relationships and their families. Mandatory reporting is about no longer ignoring violence and abuse, and no longer remaining silent.
This government understands that domestic and family violence is a highly contentious and sensitive issue. As such, we feel it is necessary to allow time for the community as a whole to consider this approach to tackling the problem. By making this draft bill public prior to the introduction, we are providing for the maximum exposure of the proposed legislation. Our policy direction is clear: as a society we have to break this cycle of violence to protect women and children, and the Territory will have mandatory reporting laws for abuse occurring within domestic relationships causing serious harm.
Tabling this draft bill is a stage in this process of implementation. It is now our intention to seek comment over the next two weeks and to introduce a final bill at the next sitting.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the draft bill and that I have leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
Mr HENDERSON (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, over the last seven years, this Labor government has been intent on increasing resources available to police, especially by increasing police numbers, bolstering the legislation police have at their disposal to do the job, and improving the capital resources of the police with new technology and equipment, new police stations, and new communications. I am proud of these efforts and pledge my government will continue to support the police through these means.
Today, I deliver a statement specifically on what my government is doing to increase the police presence in the community across the Territory. I acknowledge that an important aspect of safety is a strong sense of safety in the community. A high profile and public police presence contributes to that sense of safety.
Over the next four years, the government intends to lift the police presence in the community in five specific ways: we are going to increase the size of the police force; we are implementing a safer streets initiative; we are introducing a new initiative called Police Beats which will be placed in major shopping centres including a police post at Bagot Community; we are rolling out a program of CCTV; and we are building new police stations.
I am advised by the Commissioner of Police that on 31 August 2008 there were 1159 paid police officers in the force. That figure includes auxiliaries, Aboriginal Community Police Officers: constables and above – 949; auxiliaries – 139; and Aboriginal Community Police Officers - 71. It does not include NT Police seconded to airport policing. It, similarly, does not include police constable recruits, police auxiliary recruits, or civilian staff. That means, on 31 August 2008, there were 255 more uniformed personnel in the force than there were in 2003.
We intend to expand those numbers further. As part of the 2008-09 budget, my government committed $9.3m to fund the Safer Streets initiative. This will place an additional 60 police on the beat. Under initiatives announced in the election, a further 24 police and 12 auxiliaries will be employed in a frontline public role supporting our new Police Beats program.
The Safer Streets initiative will deliver more patrols based in Darwin city, Casuarina, Palmerston, Alice Springs and deliver extra resources to Katherine. These additional police officers and patrols will lift the visibility of police in these suburbs, which should result in improved response times and help inspire a better sense of community safety and wellbeing. This increased police presence means there will be more police on patrol to respond to incidents such as domestic violence, public drunkenness, general disturbances, unlawful entries, and antisocial behaviour.
I am advised that police are on track in their recruitment and training to place 20 of these new police officers on the beat when they graduate in December this year, with a further 15 on the road when they graduate in February 2009. The remaining 25 police constables will be recruited and graduate as early as possible in the 2009-10 financial year. The Safer Streets initiative also provides funding for 10 additional police auxiliaries who will be recruited into the communication centres, providing valuable support to keep officers out on the beat where they are needed most.
On 23 July, I announced a new and innovative approach to increase the police presence in our community and promoting a stronger sense of safety - the Police Beats program. Police Beats will be established in five of the Territory’s main shopping centres. Members know how busy our main shopping centres are throughout the Territory and, in many cases they are the heart and soul of the community they serve. They are places where families, business people, and tourists congregate to shop and socialise. Unfortunately, they are also a magnet for those who engage in antisocial and criminal behaviour, particularly itinerants and some youths, who have little or no respect for community wellbeing or for visiting shoppers and employees who work at these centres.
The Police Beats initiative will increase the police presence and visibility in these busy areas where large numbers of people regularly visit. We have committed $12.3m to this initiative, which will deliver a further 20 police and 10 auxiliaries into our community. The funding will provide for Police Beats of two police constables and one auxiliary officer per shift at each of these locations; the constables will be on the beat at the times most needed. The funding also includes an allocation for establishing a shopfront at each location. However, I stress that whilst the facilities will provide a base from which the patrolling officers work, the intention is that the police will not be sitting behind a desk waiting for members of the public to come to them but, rather, they will be out on the beat walking around the vicinity, showing the police uniform, promoting their presence, and increasing community confidence on their patch.
In addition to delivering a more regular presence at these busy shopping centres, the Police Beats initiative will enable a faster response time to incidents that occur. Importantly, it should increase police intelligence, which can be used by other police units. As I said, this initiative will be staged over a four-year period, and we are on track to establish the first Police Beat at Casuarina Square this year. Casuarina Square is a busy shopping centre which, in many respects, represents a town centre in itself. I understand it was ranked eighth in the Shopping Centre News, Big Guns 2007, based on total centre sales per square metre. The centre management has also advised its current annual foot traffic is approximately 8.9 million people. This high visitation rate is an example of the key factors which underpin the rationale behind the initiative.
A location for the Police Beat facility within Casuarina Shopping Centre has been identified. It is highly visible and centrally located between the food hall and the bus terminal, and it has quick access to the car park and other main areas of the centre. We are aiming to have the Casuarina Square Police Beat facility available for operation over the forthcoming months before the Christmas shopping period begins in earnest. Police Beats will become important components of our commitment to making our community safe, and they will be aided by the installation of CCTV networks around shopping centres. Police Beats will also be established at Karama, Parap, Palmerston, and Alice Springs.
Extending the concept of the police beat, on 7 August I announced that my government had committed $2.7m to establish a police post at the Bagot Community from 2009-10. This will deliver four more police officers and two more police auxiliaries into the ranks, and also a police facility to provide a base from which officers will patrol. This initiative will enable police to increase their presence and influence within the Bagot Community. The Bagot Community and their close neighbours want to live a quiet and enjoyable life but they are often disturbed by those who engage in antisocial or criminal behaviour. This initiative will provide for two police officers to be regularly on the beat around the Bagot Community, engaging with residents and, through effective community policing, help residents improve the wellbeing of this community.
On 18 February, I announced that my government would establish CCTV systems around the Casuarina shopping precinct and the Darwin CBD. CCTV networks are becoming more prominent around our cities. In some situations, they act as a deterrent but, importantly, they provide information and evidence to police on criminal and antisocial behaviour issues. I announced that my government had committed $3.125m over three years towards the installation and operation of the CCTV networks. We have also submitted a proposal to the Australian government to obtain funding from their Safer Suburbs Plan which specifically funds such initiatives to allow the networks to be installed across a number of areas. The project is progressing well, guided by an expert consultant’s report. The monitoring centre for the CCTV network will be constructed within the Peter McAulay Centre to allow the monitoring to be virtually integrated into the Police Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre. Experts monitoring locations covered by the cameras will be able to direct police on the beat or on patrol to locations needing police attendance.
The CCTV network in Alice Springs is already demonstrating good value in tackling crime and antisocial behaviour. Whilst in Alice on 26 August with Cabinet, I announced that my government had approved $1.1m in grants to the Alice Springs Town Council to install more camera sites around the CBD, providing a more complete coverage of the area. On top of the grant, my government will also provide the council with up to $200 000 in the current funding to monitor the network. The CCTV network in Alice Springs will remain a council-driven project, and the Territory government is pleased to be working in partnership with the council to make it safer and more enjoyable for residents to shop and work in the Alice Springs CBD. The grant is on top of the $150 000 committed by the government to support the installation of the first round of cameras.
My government’s commitment to installing CCTV networks in specific areas will expand police surveillance and intelligence gathering and, when the existence of these cameras increasingly becomes known, should help these areas become safer places for people to live, work or play.
We are also investing in police infrastructure to lift the police presence within communities, and deliver to police contemporary facilities to operate from, which will help them do their job even better. We are constructing a state-of-the-art police station at Casuarina, which will include new administration and counter areas, holding cells, training and meeting rooms, an exhibits room, and pre-wired interview rooms. There will also be a specialised area for investigative teams, including the Domestic Violence Unit. The new facility, purpose-built at a current project cost of $7.34m, will replace the current police station which is over 30 years old, with a badly leaking roof. The station is being constructed next to the existing building which will be demolished and replaced with a 50-vehicle car park for staff and members of the public.
Following my visits to Alice Springs and Tennant Creek and meeting with police at those locations, I have announced that my government will also upgrade the existing police stations. On 1 August, I announced that we would invest $6m to redevelop the Alice Springs Police Station. The current station is almost 40 years old and no longer meets the needs of our force. The upgrade will extend the police station through to the watch-house and above the car park. A secure route connecting the watch-house to the Court House will also be established.
My government is also committed to investing $2.5m to upgrade the Tennant Creek Police Station.
Under an agreement between the Australian and Northern Territory governments, we are constructing a new station and accommodation at Galiwinku to accommodate a permanent police presence at that community. Galiwinku is one of the Northern Territory’s largest remote Indigenous communities. The Australian government has committed $7.7m to build and fit-out the station, construct four staff houses, and provide transport and equipment to support police officers. This includes a boat, electronic interview recording equipment, and breath analysis equipment. This joint project will deliver a good level of accommodation for police to live and work at Galiwinku and, importantly, it will increase the police presence at that community to deliver improved community safety so residents can enjoy a better quality of life.
These measures complement other initiatives taken earlier this year to bolster the public presence of police and other law enforcers, including $2.2m the government has committed over three years to establish and run First Response Patrols. These patrols are now fully operational and are already achieving significant outcomes. The patrols are staffed by eight community engagement officers employed by police. They respond to reported incidents of antisocial behaviour, providing a first response service to the community. Their primary role is to provide targeted interventions and to minimise the impact of itinerant camps on the community. The teams are supervised by a Senior Constable and operate seven days a week, working early day shifts as this is the best time to attempt engagement with these particular groups.
First Response Patrol officers work closely with relevant agencies and individuals and include uniformed police, the Larrakia Nation and their Night Patrols, Mission Australia, and Department of Health officials, to coordinate appropriate responses to antisocial behaviour. A dedicated antisocial behaviour reporting line, which is also coordinated by police, has been established for members of the public to report antisocial behaviour. This service helps inform and direct the activities of the First Response Patrols, Night Patrols and, where necessary, uniformed police patrols.
My government’s commitment to delivering funding and increasing the police presence on our streets has required the Police, Fire and Emergency Services College to increase its tempo. Judging by the number of graduation ceremonies I am attending, it is delivering professional, competent and, in some cases, well experienced officers from interstate onto our streets at a very fast rate. It is keeping up with the aspirations of my government, and I pay tribute to the dedication and commitment of the professional staff at the college.
Over the forthcoming 11 months, the college anticipates a further 162 police constables to graduate; a further 17 to be reappointed; 18 Aboriginal Community Police Officers to graduate; and another five police auxiliaries to graduate. Importantly, in September next year, they anticipate a further 15 Indigenous constables will graduate. The staffing plan will, of course, be amended as time progresses, according to need, but it will certainly provide for the recruitment and training of sufficient personnel to respond to both attrition and growth.
In making this statement, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the professionalism of our police force and the men and women who choose policing as an honourable career. There are not many jobs in which individuals are expected to be pillars of society, demonstrate their care for people and, at the same time, often deal with violent situations, placing their own health and safety in danger to serve and protect their community. I am proud of our police force and of the excellent service its members deliver to our communities across the Northern Territory.
Making our community safe is one of the key priorities I have articulated for my government in this term, and I reiterate my commitment to ensuring that we increase the police presence across the Territory so the Northern Territory Police Force is able to effectively play its part in meeting this priority.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for making this statement and bringing on discussions about policing. We, on this side of the House, also have great respect and admiration for the important work of the Territory police. I suspect, at no time in the history of the parliament, has the Territory police service been so well represented by its own. We have four former police officers in this parliament. That is extraordinary but, significantly, I have learnt two of those four were former Policemen of the Year, so that really is quite special. Nothing, of course, can replace the experience of frontline service, and these four former police officers in the opposition’s ranks bring a great deal of depth and experience to any debate on law and order issues.
We support genuine increases to Territory police numbers. The Chief Minister has a habit of boasting in the media about increased police numbers; yet, the fact is crime rates have soared over the past seven years. The community expects some rigour when we are presenting our credentials before them; bearing in mind that we are advancing their best interests. So, on one hand, to talk about increased numbers, and on the other, to pay little or reduced attention to the increasing crime rates, is not doing Territorians due service. We need to tell the whole story, and we know the Territory community expects a comprehensive approach to comprehensive and complex problems. They are expecting something new. I have heard this Chief Minister and this government say they will be taking a new approach. That new approach must balance the statements, repeated again and again, about the increased numbers with the crime rate, and not be selective about it.
The rhetoric of increased numbers is challenged by the attrition rate. We do not have clear information presented to the Territory community regarding the attrition rate. You can talk about the increase but, if you do not talk about the attrition rate, you are not being completely honest. If you talk about the increase in police numbers, you create the impression that things are improving. But, if you do not talk about the spiralling crime rate, you are being dishonest. Whose interest is being advanced in that case? Government’s. Our purpose is to advance the welfare of Territorians, not our own. So, we need to have both sides of the story told. Territorians expect a more comprehensive approach.
Where are these police going? There clearly is an attrition rate. Are they actually getting onto the beat as general duty police or are they being siloed into ever expanding specialist divisions? Specialist divisions work well in police forces with very large numbers, but it is not an efficient use of resources in a jurisdiction such as the Northern Territory. We are a community where engagement on the front line is so important. It is people-to-people, rather than systems, trying to deal with social problems. It is people-to-people that makes the difference. So, we support a more frontline approach where there is a strong interface between the police force and the community.
You have boasted about the 60 new police throughout the Territory over two years, but Alice Springs, a region where the assault rate has risen by 40% since 2002, will not receive any new officers until the 2009-10 financial year. A reshuffle of establishment numbers reported an extra 30 police were assigned to Alice Springs. That was the statement, but the real increase in numbers was zero. The reshuffle only achieved moving those officers from control of commanders in Darwin to commanders in Alice Springs - details that would have been omitted from any press release circulated in Alice Springs. It was a fudging of the figures. Really, whose interests are being advanced in that case? The interests of the government, not the interests of the community. When the Chief Minister was asked to comment on this matter, he declined by stating ‘operational’ reasons. I read George Orwell’s 1984, where you can make those kind of statements - covering all sorts of conniving and carrying on - which are an abdication of your responsibility to serve the genuine interests of the community, not your own.
Continued calls by the Police Association for a scientific resource allocation model have been ignored. The purpose of science is to weigh and measure, and science is the heart of the word ‘conscience’, the same word as ‘truth’ - working out what is right. If we are going to take a scientific model, it is going to analyse and cut through. However, government does not want to take that scientific approach because it would create an environment of greater accountability.
Chief Minister, it is not possible to enforce the laws and bring more criminals before the courts without a strong and well-resourced police force which has a strong and effective presence on the streets. The Labor Party seems to think the Territory’s problems can be solved by public servants in special uniforms; the so-called First Response Patrols. You cannot help but spot them. The vehicles are painted orange and the two blokes sitting in this bright orange truck with First Response written down the side are wearing orange uniforms - you cannot miss them. That is possibly the purpose of all this; so people will see them and say: ‘Aha, there is some activity on the street’. At the same time, the crime rate is continuing and the complex, underlying issues are not being addressed. But you certainly have the presence. Bright orange is an eye-catching colour.
Was that the purpose before the election, to make an announcement of these kinds of activities to create an impression, but not a difference? I will ask that question, and we will actually see, when the crime stats come out whether a difference has been achieved, in real terms, to the benefit of Territorians and not to the perception in the community of the government - a very different proposition.
This side of the Chamber believes only by putting more coppers on the streets can we really deal with crime. You have to get out there on that front line, as already explained. We also believe we need to strengthen the laws that support our police in making our streets and suburbs safe again because, ultimately, at the heart of the debate, the purpose of all this is not to make government look good or to solve a political problem, it is to make our community safe. That is the purpose of it. That is the objective that we are endeavouring to achieve. It is not to create an impression to support the interests of government.
We do not want - and I do not want - to see the Territory become a fortress society. We have to build a stronger community to be able to mount a defence against lawlessness. You have to have that strengthened interface between the police and the community on the front line to help strengthened the community against lawlessness; not to create the impression in the best interests of the government.
I am embarrassed, as are many Territorians that I have to tell visitors not to walk on the streets at night. That is a very sad fact. Sadly, there are younger people, like my son - a strapping young stockman – who are a little wary walking down to the shops at certain times. I do not like living in a community where my young man feels a little unsafe walking down to the shops. Whether this feeling is justified or not - we could have that debate and members could frown and say perhaps I am drumming it up – some young people are very sensitive to these things, they feel unsafe on the streets, and I do not like that.
I believe we have to go a bit deeper than just talking about numbers and the amount of money that is being spent. We need to try to find ways to address this. That is why we need a comprehensive approach which goes way beyond press releases and statements about quantities.
In broad terms, I agree with the Chief Minister. However, like other things with this government, they believe numbers and figures actually equals outcomes - results for ordinary people living in our community. We have heard it from them regarding the health system and we are hearing it again today. It is an approach that is too cold and calculated for me.
Clearly, our police are doing the very best they can. I have worked in the education profession; a service industry. I look at teachers and I know how hard it is to work in an increasingly difficult environment with society placing pressures on you. I look at police in a similar situation. I look at them and I know how hard it is, how dispiriting it is to continue this fight where feel you are not really making up much ground. The expectation of the community increases and you cannot make progress. That must be very difficult for our police officers. They have to have more reasoned and comprehensive consideration given to them for the underlying things which can support them, such as building a stronger community, standing up for the things that are right, having clear standards that are reinforced, and clear consequences for those who step across the line.
What the coppers do not have is a legal system that acts as a deterrent to committing crime. That is the issue. The difference between members on the other side and members on this side, is Labor’s general belief that society, or the community, generally speaking, is the cause of the problem. Therefore, they are societal problems and if you spend lots of money on programs, bit by bit you might be able to improve the society and reduce the lawlessness that way. But, whatever you do, do not hold anybody personally responsible, because they are not really responsible; it is society’s fault or it is their background or upbringing that is the problem. If you deal with those amorphous problems, bit by bit, you can make a change. That is nonsense; it will not work.
By contrast, on this side of the House there is recognition that every individual has real value and therefore can be held responsible and accountable. Unless there is a clear sense that a person is responsible for their actions, you will not make any change. The Treasurer often speaks about the road safety issue and how they want to create behavioural change. Behavioural change is an individual making another decision; it is not society making another decision. Therefore, you must have a framework that comes from the premise that an individual needs to have a direct consequence for their action. If you do not have that direct and meaningful consequence for that individual, you will never have behavioural change.
That is what the coppers want; they want that type of language spoken and that stance taken, so the law has value and meaning, that the rule of law begins to operate and you have the capacity to enforce it. Not only someone who crosses the line is brought to recognise they have a responsibility to the law, but all those good, quiet folk who do their very best to live on the right side of the law, will be encouraged, strengthened, and emboldened to know that justice is being done. The kind of approach where standards are described and backed up is needed. You do not see a social problem and then chuck up eight laws and reassure everyone in a glossy brochure: ‘Do not worry, everyone, we have tough new laws, tough new measures’, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
Well, no more. They have seen these new tough laws and that there is no intention of enforcing them and, therefore, the new tough laws and every other law loses its value. You have to back the law up. You have to reinstate that sense of personal responsibility and accountability. That is the sort of reinforcing that our hard-working coppers need. A change in attitude to the way we deal with the problems in society, not the Labor approach where everyone is involved but no-one is directly or personally responsible. Change that paradigm and we will see a change in the Territory.
The evidence of the approach Labor has taken is very clear. You will see the evidence of it in talk about the amounts of money spent on programs, but no real interest in the results. You will also see it in these statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics where, since 2001, the number of assaults reported in the Territory has increased by 83%. The Chief Minister could stand here, or during the campaign, and explain that away by saying: ‘Well, a lot of those are Indigenous’. I was gobsmacked! As though that does not count. We hear the same sort of talk today: ‘The education results can be explained away because our urban kids are doing really well, it is just the other mob bringing it down, letting it down’.
I cannot abide by that sentiment. It is just explaining it away. In whose interest? The government’s interest. The fact is, you have to really respond to these things. You cannot just categorise it and say: ‘Oh, well, it is domestic violence in Aboriginal communities’ as though it explains it away. Or, ‘It is Aboriginal kids in the Aboriginal schools that are letting the side down, the urban kids are doing really well’. That is not the approach of a responsible and caring government – a government that is going to take the weight of its mandate and effect change. That is an excuse; passing away things and exempting yourself from the responsibility of cutting through these things.
I find the kind of explanation that was raised during the campaign totally unacceptable. I am sure there will be a member who will pop up - probably the member for Karama - and have a shot at this and try to dice it up. Sitting behind the words and the positions taken would be in the interest of government, because that is the most important thing here - to make government look and sound good. To heck with the real problem, as long as we can explain it away and pass it onto someone - like the 27 years of the Country Liberals, blame them or blame John Howard - do not look at us, we are not responsible. That is the very attitude that has caused the problem: no one is responsible. This government is responsible, but they do not know it.
I am also concerned that too many crimes are not reported because the legal system has let the victims down. I have heard awful stories of late, many of them about kids getting bashed by gangs and are too scared to report to the police and too scared of the consequences that may occur if they make that call. We heard stories in this Chamber earlier in the year, where kids in schools have been victims of bullying and they have to keep quiet. There were a couple of courageous ones who spoke up, but then they became victims, in a sense, because they spoke up; it seemed the others were ruling the roost. We have the same on the street. I know of some horrible cases where families have not made a complaint. They will phone me, but they said: ‘For goodness sake, don’t report this because we are afraid of what might happen’. These are families in the northern suburbs who are afraid of what may happen. I visited their homes and have seen what has happened. It is heartbreaking to see good families feeling so afraid in our community.
This is the environment that our police work in. You can talk about numbers of police but not about attrition. You can talk about the amount of money that has been spent but do not talk about the crime statistics - in a vain attempt to try to create an impression. Our citizens need better service than that. It is against this background that many Territorians find it hard to retain their confidence in the legal system’s ability and capacity to protect citizens.
We have the example of Todd Trainer, who was bashed in his own home. He does not feel he has received justice - justice is something you get a sense of when you know it has been done - he does not feel that. Those who are close to him, who have observed this case, do not feel that. What does that do for the core strength of our community? It erodes it. It erodes the confidence and core strength – if anyone has done fitness, you know that your core fitness is the most important thing - the core fitness of our community is weakened when justice is not done, when the victim is left hanging, and the support swings in behind the offender. It becomes confusing.
Members may be able to pick fault with my argument, but I know, as a school principal, that if you do not deal justly in the face of that school community when an incident arises - so that justice is seen to be done for everybody in the school - you will have a hell of a problem. If you deal with each one and say: ‘Well, you have this sort of background, you live in this sort of street’, and this, that, and the other, and then you deal with another incident in a completely different way, you have half the kids scratching their heads wondering whether it is right or wrong. No one knows whether it is right or wrong. In the end, there is confusion.
However, there is a rule of law. If you do X, irrespective of who you are or what you have done, there is a direct consequence. Everyone can see it, everyone knows. The core strength of your community returns because they see justice being done. Then you deal with it. If they have other issues, you can deal with them afterwards, but you have to make sure the rule of law operates otherwise you weaken and confuse your citizens. That is what has happened. In Todd’s case, even after admitting to the offence, the perpetrator walked free – there is confusion and a weakening of the core strength of the community. The system has let down Todd Trainer and many others far too often.
Chief Minister and members opposite, this side of the Chamber takes law and order very seriously. We went to the election with a very comprehensive plan for law and order in the Territory. We focused on taking a firm, but very fair, approach to justice. This is the support our police need. They need a change of direction. Our plans included a full-scale offensive on crime, particularly street level crime, with a show of strength on the streets. We spoke of new powers for the Police minister to impose youth curfews to counter the problems with youth crime and antisocial behaviour, so they had the capacity - no question about it - to deal with what happens on the street. We spoke of an introduction of zero tolerance policing with amendments of the Summary Offences Act. We spoke of an introduction of amendments to tighten bail provisions and tighten the meaning of a life sentence for those convicted of murder, to strengthen our community. There would be the introduction of new legislation to control public drunkenness and to review sentencing guidelines for assaults.
Importantly, we believe it is no use just sticking criminals in gaol only for them to come out and re-offend again. You only have to look at the statistics; you will see that is what happens - in, out, in, out, in, out. The current system sees more than two-thirds of prisoners learn nothing or very little from their experience of gaol. Our plan included a commitment that all new inmates to all Territory correctional facilities undergo testing to assess their levels of literacy and numeracy. Prisoners who do not meet the basis standards, who cannot read or write well enough to function normally in the community, will be put through basic literacy and numeracy courses. We were taking it very seriously. Education in prison is not a reward for those who have broken our laws. However, if the correction system is to be called a correction system, we want to see it correct and provide them with skills, abilities, and experiences to provide the possibility of a new path when they came out. We would take the correction system very seriously. It is important to give them an opportunity, a second chance at life, once they have paid their debt to society. There is a debt that has to be repaid so that justice can be seen to be done, so that the core strength of your community increases.
Chief Minister, it is our hope and, I believe, the expectation of many Territorians, that you will adopt our plans on law and order. I would welcome that. I would welcome that change of direction and attitude in dealing with lawlessness in our community, because we cannot have another four years of what we have. You cannot just keep spinning this over and over again. We heard the community speak loud and clear. There were only four members here. You do not need to be reminded. Now, there are many more and that is a direct result of what was said to the community and what they said back to us. They gave support. They want a change of direction and we will not back away from this, because this is what they require. There needs to be a new approach.
When we came to the last stages of the campaign and were speaking to the community, we said there would be a 100-day plan; there would be direct action. I specified exactly what would happen. My calculations were about 40 days in, and I stand by what I said. If I had the opportunity, we would have been 40 days into that 100-day plan. Many of those things we have just read out to you were elements of that plan.
However, what do we have by contrast? What sort of action do we have from the newly-elected Labor government? What sort of action have we had since they came back to office? We have had statements: ‘Now we are listening’; ‘Now I am going to speak more from the heart, not from the head’. Apart from that, we have no change. We have had no legislation on urgency related to law and order, specifically. We have had no real change. We have had a statement. After about 40 days, this is the best you can do.
We have had some notice, but no attempt to push something through the parliament to get things changed; to change the direction. No real effort, just a statement. So what is really going on? It is more of the same. You think you have four years now to calculate how you can spin and maintain your appearances in the community, but the community’s expectation has changed. We will do the best we can to address this issue. I invite the Chief Minister to recognise what the community has said.
I am very happy for any of these elements which have been described during the campaign to be adopted by government. They could be modified in some ways. There is a fundamental shift that needs to occur. That is how you will strengthen our coppers; by having that underlying policy frame that recognises personal responsibility so we can target things and have a direct consequence for action. That is the support they need. That is the support we will continue to lobby for, so we can genuinely support our coppers, strengthen our community, and see the very concerning crime statistics go in the right direction.
We can have young people feel better about going down to the shops. We can have older people and visitors feel better about their community. That would be an actual outcome; a result, as opposed to saying more coppers, this, that, and the other, talking about 27 years or something like that. The outcome is making people think and feel differently about their community. That is the challenge, the objective; that will be the result of all our efforts.
Madam Speaker, I commend this statement. I am pleased it has been brought forward. I am disappointed that after 40 days - perhaps it is 40 days, I am not sure, I have not counted exactly - we have only had a statement. That is all we have had - a statement. Our community had their expectations raised with so much said during the campaign, and all we have is a statement.
Ms LAWRIE (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, I commend the Chief Minister on his statement. The Chief Minister decides portfolios, and it is very clear that safer communities is at the core of our government’s policy settings, because the Chief Minister has chosen to maintain the important portfolio of Police, as they are at the centre of our safer communities initiatives.
I take one exception with the Leader of the Opposition’s comments. We have done more than a police statement in the Chamber today. We have introduced legislation. The serious violent offender’s legislation has been introduced in the first sittings of this parliament. That is the reality and it stands on the record. Are we proceeding with it as urgent? No. Why? Because we recognise that urgency is an exception, not the rule. The legislative agenda, as important as that is, needs time for all members to have the opportunity to look at it, consider it, and then participate in the debate in the October sittings. It showed a clear commitment by the government to move as quickly and reasonably as it could to pursue the initiatives and the election commitments addressing the unacceptable level of violence we have witnessed in our communities right across the Territory.
The domestic violence mandatory reporting draft bill tabled today is on the government’s work agenda as early as possible in our third term of government, because we have been given the privilege to pursue the government’s policy settings with a third term. Very clearly, we are saying that mandatory reporting of domestic violence is a strong policy direction of this government.
I recognise and pay due respect to the member for Araluen who has had the protection of women and children at the core of her campaign. This government stands strong. I know, having had the child protection portfolio in the past, that it is the exception, not the rule, to have mandatory reporting regimes in this nation. Having introduced, passed, and implemented care and protection of children legislation in our second term - when we have been accused of having done little - we can justifiably point to that legislation and say: ‘That is contemporary work, but it kept at its core mandatory reporting of the neglect of children and the harm of children’.
We will have a mandatory reporting regime in the Territory for domestic violence. We know that at the core of our horrendous assault rates are our unacceptable levels of domestic violence. It goes to what we know is an intent and a direction of government to tackle that. Therefore, I take exception. I know the Leader of the Opposition is genuine in his desire to see safer communities, as we are, but I take exception to the allegation made in this Chamber that we have done nothing but this police statement. We have introduced legislation. Anyone who understands the legislative process will know that is a significant step. Not only have we produced the legislation, but we have also produced a discussion bill on mandatory reporting of domestic violence.
Policing has to be one of the most important jobs anyone can undertake in our community, and I wholeheartedly thank our police force because I believe they do a great job. As the Chief Minister mentioned, this government has a strong record in improving police resources and giving them the legislative tools they need to do their job. Tools are provided in legislation and we have serious and violent offender’s legislation before parliament. The police are also required to do their job through functional tools such as their communication systems. Millions of dollars are committed to upgrading their communications in this current financial year, which will roll over two financial years - such is the extent of that significant communications upgrade.
In the Territory, we now have roughly twice the police-to-population ratio than any other state. Labor has put approximately 255 more police into the police force since coming to government. We are committed to continuing to put resources into the police budget to ensure that we increase our police numbers. Through the budget and the election campaign, this government committed to an extra 84 police. This is an incredibly important aspect because, whilst there are many programs - preventative and enforcement - that go to safer communities, without the actual police resources, it is an extremely unsafe community. So, putting resources into additional police does, our government believes, achieve safer communities, and those are the outcomes we are looking for. There is no better, shining example of that than the Operation Themis in the bush. The police were not posted there previously. It has seen an improvement in the safety of those communities because a physical police presence does provide for a safer community. Resources, in additional funding into the police budget to hire additional police, equate to the outcomes that the Leader of the Opposition, quite reasonably, is calling for.
Our Safer Streets initiative involves an additional 60 police who will be targeted to our streets and in our suburbs. They are not police who will go into the intelligence-led policing end of the spectrum; they will go into the stations and stay there. They will be police directed out onto our streets; they will be the extra patrols. There is also funding for patrol cars so it is not, ‘Here we are, here are some police, but do not worry about the resources for the patrol cars’. It includes resources for the patrol cars as well.
Funding is important and, as Treasurer, I know how difficult it is to try to make a budget stretch as far as it has to stretch across the areas of need. We have enormous unmet need in the Territory, but we put safer communities at such a high level that the most significant resources are heading into the area of our Safer Streets and Safer Communities initiatives.
One of the initiatives I wholeheartedly welcome and look forward to seeing implemented in this term of government is the Police Beats, known as police shopfronts. This is a new initiative for the Territory ...
Mr Elferink: Oh rubbish! They have been around for a long time. I have worked out of police shopfronts. It is not a new initiative. It has been done before.
Ms LAWRIE: He just cannot help himself being rude. He cannot help his rudeness.
We are talking about a designated police beat, police shopfront initiative. It exists in Queensland. I have been in Queensland as a backbencher and had a look at how they operate, and how they are different to the sort of police stations the member for Port Darwin used to work in. They are a very different operational concept ...
Mr Elferink: They were not stations; they were shopfronts.
Ms LAWRIE: I am surprised that the member for Port Darwin seems to be somewhat agitated about it. I believe they will be a great asset to the communities. I welcome the fact that my own electorate of Karama is going to be the recipient of a Police Beat. While talking to people in my electorate about the initiative during the campaign, people were really interested and excited about it, and are looking forward to seeing the establishment of a Police Beat in Karama, as I am.
It is not just about police resources when you talk about safer communities in the context of suburban Darwin, which is my experience as a local member. The new initiative of a First Response Patrol has been a significant initiative. It is great that it is done under the auspices of the Department of Justice, because it is about Indigenous people with appropriate skills and qualifications, who work in a daytime setting with people who are otherwise itinerant, to find out what their holistic needs are. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition: you have to address it from a holistic perspective if you are going to actually get the outcomes you are seeking in safer communities; safer communities for the broader community while improving the safety and life quality of the people who would otherwise be living pretty rough in a suburban context.
I am a fan of the First Response Patrols. They have had some impressive statistics in their early period of operation when looking at how many people have been returning to country under the Return to Country program; how many people are being taken to appropriate places for accommodation; how many people are being taken to the hospital when a health need arises; and how many people will go to the sobering-up shelter. The First Response Patrols are doing fantastic additional work, complementary to what the police are doing. I am delighted with this initiative.
When you look at the alcohol rehabilitation side of the spectrum, when you have those patrols - and the patrols vary across the Territory, some are all night patrols when, in fact they have cut patrols during the day - I know what an enormous difference these initiatives make to communities. For example, I have been to Nhulunbuy this year, and people are talking about the success of the patrols there, of the sobering-up shelter, and the rehab that now exists in Nhulunbuy. It does not matter where you are in the Territory, if you have these other initiatives complementary to police, you are taking a far more holistic approach.
Complementary to the First Response Patrol in the context of the urban area in which I live and work in is the Night Patrol. The Night Patrol is run by Larrakia Nation. They get out and about. They have equipped patrol vehicles at night and are in contact with the police, but they are also in contact with the hospital. If required, if people are unwell, they will take them to the hospital. And, obviously, there is the sobering-up shelter. They liaise with police concerning the behaviour of anyone they might come across.
When you look at the people who work within the police structures, I cannot go further than acknowledging my Transit Security Officers again. They are a dedicated, skilled workforce who are not police, but they certainly are complementary and work in close communication with the police. They serve a separate purpose. All these additional initiatives are about letting the police get on with the job of policing, and let all the other needs in the spectrum of community safety be taken up by a specialist, skilled workforce who free up the police to do the police work.
It is dedicated resources into these areas that are essential to the broader need for a safer community. I sincerely thank the police who are very much at the front of our road safety campaigns - the highway patrols and breath testing. In the 11 months from 1 July of last year to the end of May this year, there were 88 531 breath tests carried out by Northern Territory Police. I say thank you to the police. I know they do a tough job. They certainly do a horrific job at the scene of an accident, as do our ambulance services. I take my hat off to Bob Rennie and his team who are wholeheartedly supporting the initiatives to try to address our horrendous road toll.
Disturbingly, 3012 people tested positive for a blood alcohol content. That figure is way too high and we will continue to support police to crack down on drink-driving. A breakdown of the prisoners in Territory gaols shows that there are a number in our gaols as a result of traffic offences including drink-driving. It is a great shame. There is a whole body of work that we still have to do to address the repeat offenders we have on our road network, and it is a job we are committed to pursuing.
We will do that with the police at the core of the Road Safety Coordination Group that provides advice on the policy settings to government on road safety initiatives. As Transport minister, I offer a wholehearted thank you to the police for the work they do to improve safety on our roads.
I acknowledge the important role that police play in CAT Force, the Child Abuse Task Force. Again, it is not something that is common around Australia. We are more an exception rather than a rule by having a combined police/child protection worker dedicated task force, who do the front end of the child protection work. When calls of a suspected neglect/child abuse case are received, it is CAT Force who work on the investigation side. I have been out to CAT Force at the Peter McAuley Centre, and the feedback from the child protection workers in CAT Force and the police was that it is an incredibly effective mechanism to use, combining police and child protection. They have their own separate intelligence systems, and by being able to cross-check with each other, they are far more accurate in their assessments of the type and nature of that report. Having the extra information that police hold, that a child protection team would not have access to, is critically important to the due diligence undertaken by CAT Force. They are based in both Darwin and Alice Springs and they go out to investigate those child protection alerts at that very high level right across the Territory.
Other feedback I have received is that it has been very useful for the CAT Force to have access to police tools and resources, such as the Pilatus PC-12 in the Air Wing. I congratulate the CAT Force initiative and sincerely thank the police officers and child protection workers who are working in CAT Force. It is probably one of the most unenviable tasks anyone has - investigating child abuse - and these people do it day in and day out with integrity and skill sets. I am delighted that, as a small jurisdiction, we are punching above our weight nationally in our response to the uglier end of child abuse through the important initiative of CAT Force.
I also thank the Police Association. When I was the Public Employment minister and negotiating the Police EBA through the Office of the Public Service Commissioner, the Police Association acted with integrity. They were an association very focused on the outcomes they wanted to achieve for their membership. They have a great success rate. We know police officers in the Territory enjoy conditions in excess of other public servants in the Territory and for good reason. They have an incredibly hard job and they work in hard conditions. They work shifts which applies pressures on families, as anyone who has done shiftwork appreciates.
I sincerely thank the Police Association for representing their members with integrity and strength. They ended up achieving a generous deal with the government. I congratulate them on driving a hard bargain and for getting a good result for their members. This means the police will receive increased salary and conditions. Rather than being distracted by concerns about an EBA, it was sorted out very quickly, and they got on with the job of policing, which is what we need our police force to be doing.
We will all have a view on what initiatives work in community safety and, broadly, the law and order agenda including the courts. I do not think there is anyone in this House without a commitment to a safer community. Do we have complex and challenging tasks? Yes, we do. As a former minister for FACS, I am very aware of the families in crisis work that has to occur to provide for safer communities and a safer environment for the children of the Territory.
The intensive models for family responsibility orders are critically important. They are highly resourced because intensive case management is required for those families. They are models that have proved their worth around the world, so we do not shy away from the need to resource these complex areas of community safety. Increasing that type of work in the department of Families assists the police to get on with their job, because they have somewhere to take problematic juveniles, both diversion programs and complex case management.
Madam Deputy Speaker, my sincere thanks go to the police, the officers of the Departments of Justice and Health and Families, the important non-government organisations, and the people who work in the alcohol and drugs rehabilitation sector who all do an amazing job in complex, difficult ways across the Territory.
Mr BOHLIN (Drysdale): Madam Deputy Speaker, the government is so interested in numbers and not really interested in the facts of the people they are supposed to serve. There are 250 extra police and there are 949 police constables and above. How many are on stress leave, sick leave or maternity leave? How many are just allocated, but not actually on the roster - on the front line delivering the first response service - police by your side when you need them, not just a phone service?
There are cases, such as that which occurred in Malak prior to this general election, where a house was overrun by offenders, a vehicle was trashed and jumped on, whilst multiple 000 calls over a period of two hours were made - with no response. The house and family were being attacked and there was no response from police. Where were your 200 police for that family?
Where were your 200 extra police on the beat for the Yarrawonga and Pinelands businesses that have been battered by a crime spree weekly over the past two months? This is forcing business people to install caretakers at great cost and to consider whether continuing with the business is viable. Businesses are considering shutting down because of the crime in Yarrawonga.
Sam Delaney - a lovely lady - and her family from Durack, you and your child are not forgotten by us. Twenty or more youths lay in wait with a little trap to attack your family. They enticed your husband out and then tried to attack him. Your family stayed under siege until police could come and help you. You now live in Durack in fear. Where are the 200 extra police for that family, Chief Minister?
Paul Rooney of Durack, you are not forgotten with your concerns of graffiti through the Durack walkways. Graffiti, particularly tagging, is not just an ugly blight on society, but a display of disrespect and disorder.
I must ask: is Bagot community in such a manner of disorder that you must invest four police officers, two auxiliaries, plus the infrastructure? Would it not be a greater benefit and support to the community to deal directly with the problems - the actual core problems - and penalise the offenders in those areas? Create penalties - do something to fix it. Do not just put police there. The residents of this area – 200 to 250 people - are going to have four police officers and two auxiliaries and a building.
The Humpty Doo community, with a much larger area and more people, does not get that same level of support. They have four police officers, one Officer-in-Charge, and a couple of auxiliaries - and the police station is not even open 24 hours a day. How is that supporting a larger community? Why not put those extra resources intended for Bagot out there, and deal with the people who are causing the trouble in Bagot? Deal with them properly, so they understand what they are doing to society. Do not tie up large numbers of police in one area for small numbers of people. Deal with it.
Are crime statistics lower today than in 2002? No, they are not. We know they are not. I was picked up for making a comment last week - and I have been mentioned in the paper again - about the reporting of the PROMIS system. It is a very difficult system. Ladies and gentlemen of this House, it takes some time to understand how to work the PROMIS system. That is why we have great training for our police officers. However, it is important to understand that with all statistical data, there are methods - you put data in, qualify it and then draw upon that data. If you do that wrongly, or you ask the wrong question of the data, it will not give you a true reflection.
For a very short, basic lesson - and it is only short - we have a reported ‘Incident’ field. When you ring up and say: ‘My house has been broken into’, that goes into the report ‘Incident’ field. Later, the officer adds a ‘confirmed incident’ type, and this is where there have been directions given. If someone was assaulted and they were bleeding and needed an ambulance and, for whatever reason they decided not to make a complaint, did that assault actually occur? Were they bleeding? Did they need treatment? Yes, it occurred, but the directive is if there is no complaint, it is reported as ‘no offence’, or ‘information only’. When that information is drawn upon, it is as if that offence did not even occur. But, it did. So, if we ask the questions of ‘confirmed incident’ types against ‘reported incident’ types, we have two vastly different results. It is hard to work these things out, I admit that. That is why we have the intelligence section to do that for us. However, it is important to note that there is a difference, and there have been directives on how we report crime.
In the old days - and, for me, it is only 10 years - when we started with the PROMIS system, a reported incident, say an assault, or a ‘confirmed incident’ was an assault. We saw the blood, the broken bones, and torn tissues. If there was no complaint, we wrote the words or picked up the field that said ‘no complaint forthcoming’ or ‘information only’ in our ‘Result’ field, which still exists. When we drew down the information, it showed that there was an assault; it did happen. My point is simple: if you are an alcoholic and you do not admit you are an alcoholic then you are not an alcoholic in your own mind. Therefore, if you do not admit there is a problem with crime, how can you fix that crime? You must admit what is going on to be able to rectify it, to make changes, and to educate people so we can make a difference to society. I believe that is important, for everyone’s benefit. I will move on from there, because it is complex.
CCTV is a great working tool. England is a fantastic example of how you can track people, cars, and robberies. It is a fantastic tool, but it is labour intensive to monitor, so we need to be mindful of that. I support the use of CCTV for investigations of crime. However, I am concerned when it comes to such venues as the Casuarina Shopping Centre. It is a private operation. Why is it a government obligation, not the private owners’ responsibility, to provide the high level of security to its customers under a basic duty of care, particularly when lease costs are so high? Surely that is part of their responsibility to the shops and shopkeepers, not just the government.
I applaud the redevelopment of Casuarina Police Station. I worked in that police station, and it is truly depressing. It is a horrible station to work in, and I commend the officers who are still working there, because it is very difficult. We expect a state-of-the-art police station to support our fine police officers. All the facilities listed by the Chief Minister - the administration and front counter areas; holding cells; training and meeting rooms; exhibit room; and a pre-wired interview room, where there will be specialist areas for investigation teams - I honestly hope a police station has all that. I am very grateful the Chief Minister took the extra time to point out the basic heart and lungs of a police station. It is important that we have them, but we do not necessarily need to point them out for a political win’s sake. I hope you have also included a muster room, and showers and toilets, because you did not mention that. It would also be nice to see, in writing, a current and accurate completion date and operational date for the Casuarina Police Station, so that the people of Casuarina know when it is going to happen.
I applaud the building of the Galiwinku Police Station, but question the Northern Territory government’s financial input - you spruik so proudly, ‘we are constructing’ - when it appears the federal government are the main financiers of this station.
However, I urge the Chief Minister to engage and discuss with me and remote police officers the plans for the station and the housing, to ensure the Chief Minister receives real input on the needs of remote police families. Having recently served in remote areas, I believe we can assist to deliver quality of life for serving officers. I genuinely urge that the Chief Minister takes the time to ask these questions. I will freely give that advice and help him to make these decisions so we build a better police force.
Night Patrols do a fantastic and thankless job, but we must remember that it was this government that shut down the Night Patrol a couple of years ago, only to re-introduce them just before the election: ‘Look what we have done, look what we have done. We have brought back the Night Patrol’. It is good of you. Pity you shut it down two years ago.
We have youth gangs running around the suburbs, and we have the Territory Response Section, or TRS, tied up in red tape instead of taking back our streets and suburbs for our families, making the life of our youth gangs uncomfortable. It is achievable, it can be done. No one has to ask for it to be done ...
A member: What do we do, harass them?
Mr BOHLIN: That is all we have to do. Make life hard. They harass us. Why not make sure that their life is difficult?
We also have dog handlers with fantastically trained general purpose dogs - beautiful and well trained canines. They are a brilliant tool for policing everywhere else in the world. We have two fantastic animals here in Darwin ready to be used, but their use is tied up in red tape. Get them out on the street to take back our community for our people. Why not get those creatures out there? They are brilliant tools and we have paid good money for them, so why not use them? Let the dogs off the chain and let us take back our community.
This party and I strongly support the officers on the street. They are doing what they can within the limitations and are doing an amazing job for all Territorians. I am truly proud to have formerly been a police officer for 10 years and served the public. I am proud of our men and women officers of all ranks and all persuasions who work in the Territory today. They go out day and night when we fear to go out, and do an amazing job. There are many times when the person on whose door you are knocking does not want to hear from you and makes your life very hard. It is scary. I must admit that going out there at times is fearful, and you know that going beyond that fence is not the safest or the smartest thing you have done. However, those officers put their life on the line for you, the community and this Territory, because they are great people.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I support the Chief Minister’s statement on the important steps this government is taking to increase the police presence across the Territory and the benefits this brings to our community.
Antisocial or violent behaviour, harassment, and humbugging cannot be tolerated, whatever form it takes - brawls outside nightclubs in the CBD, threats or violence by youths, or drunken abuse hurled around in residential areas. To combat these issues, the government has made a concerted effort to increase police effectiveness and visibility. As the Chief Minister noted, a high-profile public police presence contributes to a peaceful and secure neighbourhood and also ensures they can be on the scene of any disturbance or incident quickly.
I welcome the Chief Minister’s comprehensive plan to further boost the police presence in our community through increasing the size of the force, implementing a Safer Streets initiative, bringing CCTV into hot spots, and a program of new stations across the Territory.
Perhaps, most importantly, this government is introducing Police Beats into the major shopping centres and the Bagot community. The member for Drysdale raised the issue, and I hope I am not misinterpreting what he said. I believe he said that he did not believe it was appropriate for police to regularly patrol or have a presence within major shopping centres. I am pretty sure he said that he believed that it was the duty of the centre managers, those who collect the rents there, to ensure that there is adequate security within those shopping centres. I agree with elements of that; there should be a contribution from the people who run these shopping centres to provide adequate security. However, my and the government’s view is that the primary goal of those security officers is to protect property and keep some order, or try to keep some people away from the shopping centre who may have trespass notices issued against them.
I believe the fundamental duty and actions of the police is to keep the peace. There is no doubt in my mind. I formed the view very early on that these shopping centres form a stage or a theatre for these young people who are out to make trouble; self-aggrandisement. I have observed it. These young people - whether it is through fighting, bullying or just generally behaving badly - feel these places are a theatre for them. That is why it is so essential for police to be there to let them know that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.
The police often know these kids by name because they come from families known in Darwin. There are a number of families who feature high-profile offenders, and there are probably generations of them. The police know who these people are and they can have a gentle word and say: ‘Listen, Billy, I am watching. Why are you not at school? Why are you not doing such and such? Why are you hanging around with that person?’ Give them the message that they are being watched.
I disagree with the member for Drysdale on that issue. I believe the police have a mighty role in these shopping centres. Let us face it: there are huge numbers of people who go through these shopping centres. They are the public, and they want to see order. It is very important for police to be involved in that.
The security officers have their role, and those commercial entities that run the shopping centres should be made to pay for that and ensure that there is adequate security staff there for their functions. However, they are not sworn officers and they do not have the powers that sworn officers do. Therefore, I welcome this initiative to put police in these major shopping centres, particularly those with high numbers of people through them.
As the Chief Minister outlined, Police Beats will be established in five of the Territory’s main shopping centres. A lot of Territory families love a trip to the airconditioned mall, especially at this time of year when the heat and the humidity increases. They are great places for young people to meet friends, for families to have lunch and stock up on next week’s supplies. The numerous retail stores also provide opportunities for young people to get part-time jobs when they complete school or study their courses. These people have every right to enjoy themselves or work without being subject to abuse or threats of antisocial behaviour. Having a strong and immediate police presence in these areas will make people who want to cause trouble think twice before they do anything, especially if they know they have a good chance of being nabbed and facing charges.
As for the young people who cause the problems, this is a stage for them. That is why some of these young kids go there and act as they do at these shopping centres, as well as these other people who are there humbugging, etcetera. We have to nip it in the bud. We have to show them that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. It is also important for us to realise there is a minority of young people who do the wrong thing. However, there are a hell of a lot of young people who are decent, well behaved, and really good kids. It is unfortunate that the behaviour of a few drags all youth down. It is very important for us to say in this place, that there are a lot of good kids out there. I have met many of them. They are engaged in sport and in their studies. They like to go there and enjoy themselves and have a cup of coffee and walk around with their friends. They have every right to do so without being harassed or bullied.
Alongside this focus on direct resourcing, training, and technological support, one of the most important ways government can support police is to provide them with the legislative tools to perform their job well. This government has been determined to bring forward legislation that helps police on the ground, as well as police prosecutors and the Director of Public Prosecution to secure convictions. Earlier today, we debated legislation that specifically creates offences for throwing rocks at cars, which is a favourite of some incredibly stupid young people who appear to care little for the injuries that are caused when a rock goes through the window of a car driving at 80 km/h. Police have conducted operations to target this sort of activity. We will now have a perfect offence to charge them with under the Criminal Code amendments that were debated today.
I will not go into too much detail, but other bills are currently before the House that limit bail for repeat violent offenders, and ensure serious violent offenders serve a term of imprisonment. Police have welcomed these amendments which ensure that once they have done the hard work, violent offenders will not just walk from court, despite a conviction or repeated bail violation.
We have introduced legislation that makes it easier for children and vulnerable witnesses to testify at trial. I announced recently, as a particular focus of this term, the strengthening of DPP capacity and its working relationship with police prosecutions.
One important legislative reform we introduced was the package of measures to specifically combat gang-related activity in the suburbs and in our remote communities. Gang activity can take a wide variety of forms, from bands of youth congregating and causing trouble, regular violence and intimidation of community members, and high-level criminal activities involved in drug running, violence and other illegal activities. This package addresses every level of such activity, and the laws we brought in are achieving goals.
Members opposite did not like this package of measures, and they took every opportunity to criticise the positive steps that government took to give police the tools to shut down such activity before it leads to serious harm to individuals or their communities. The member for Drysdale, I believe, was saying that he did not believe that gang-related activities were being adequately addressed. I would like him to listen to these particular statistics that I have received.
Government reviewed the number of apprehensions under the new laws after one year of operation. Police recorded 173 apprehensions under these laws, of which 95% proceeded to court. Of the cases finalised, 83% were convicted and 44% of those actually received a custodial sentence. I believe these are good statistics and show that these laws are working and having an effect. As the member for Drysdale said, we want to disrupt these gang activities and make it harder for them. The statistics I have just mentioned are very impressive, and they are going a long way to disrupting some of this gang activity. It also shows that police are using these tools to deal with offenders and carry them through the justice system, culminating in real penalties.
Our anti-loitering laws will work particularly well with the government Police Beats initiative, to allow certain people to be easily removed from within centres, and be prohibited from areas immediately adjacent to such centres for a period of time. If they return in contravention of their notice, they will face charges.
Alcohol goes hand-in-hand with much of the offending that goes on in the Northern Territory and much of the work that police do. Therefore, our alcohol initiatives are very important to reduce the burden on police and the amount of offending that occurs in the Territory. As Minister for Alcohol Policy, I have introduced a range of policies to address the Territory’s excessive and alarming levels of alcohol consumption and decrease alcohol-related harm. It is a simple equation: reducing alcohol abuse will reduce the police workload. These strategies include: development of local alcohol management plans based on the principles of supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction; new conditions on takeaway licences and on premises sales to reduce trading hours and the types of products being sold; the introduction of an electronic ID system for the purchase of alcohol in Katherine and Alice Springs; a permit system for the purchase of takeaway alcohol in the East Arnhem region; and declaration of dry restricted areas in urban areas where the possession and consumption of alcohol is prohibited.
We only have to look at what has happened at Groote Eylandt with the alcohol restrictions that were brought in and the incredible reduction in offending and matters brought before the courts. More importantly, Aboriginal people are taking up employment on Groote Eylandt and staying in employment - that is a very promising sign. We have had initial promising signs from Nhulunbuy with the measures that are being introduced. I must commend the police. Sergeant Tony Fuller was central to what happened at Groote Eylandt, and also drove many of the reforms at Nhulunbuy. Police have been involved in many of these initiatives.
Police have also been involved with developing a new Liquor Act, which we will be putting out to consultation in the very near future. Two agencies that I have invited to be part of the development of the new Liquor Act are the Police and the Health department, because they both deal with the aftermath of alcohol and alcohol abuse. The focus of the new Liquor Act will be reducing alcohol-related harm in the Northern Territory. Police have had major input into that. I would like to see the Liquor Commissioner take into account submissions from police and Health, which have a lot of weight in the deliberations of the Liquor Commission, and that will be built into the act. Police have been involved, and will continue to be involved. We welcome the amendments to the Liquor Act and we will be putting it out for consultation.
Government has also provided a range of support services to take the workload off police so that they can concentrate on the most pressing and immediate problems. These include: establishing a First Response Patrol at a cost of $2.2m over three years, made up of sworn police officers; liaison officers to monitor and intervene in antisocial behaviour hot spots; introduction of a dedicated Darwin area Night Patrol at a cost of $1.4m over three years that will respond quickly to remove drunk people from the streets and into suitable accommodation while they sober up; and setting up a reporting line so that residents and members of the public can inform patrols or police about incidents of antisocial behaviour, violence or harassment.
The hard work and targeted intelligence employed by police have led to significant and sustained drops in property crime levels over the past six years. Crime statistics are independently compiled and released by the Department of Justice Statistics Unit, and show a 58% drop in house break-ins, and a 35% drop in motor vehicle thefts. Since 2001, total property thefts have dropped by 34%, which is 10 795 fewer property offences every year.
I heard what the member for Drysdale had to say about what he thinks is under-reporting of crime, but he did not quantify it at all, or even try to put an estimate on it. I am very interested to hear what sort of estimate the member for Drysdale and other police might have from the categories that he mentioned before.
Mr Bohlin: Let us have an inquiry, shall we?
Dr BURNS: He did not mention it, and that is an important element of any statistic. Of course, we acknowledge that there are people who do not want to continue with a matter for various reasons, but I would have thought the majority of matters are continued with.
Members opposite have questioned these big improvements, perhaps even questioned the integrity of our police force in reporting offences. That is where it seemed to go in the interjection from the member for Drysdale last week, but I am glad he has clarified it to some degree, and I will be interested to follow up on what he has said in here today.
These statistics do mirror the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ figures, which reflect the number of victims, not offences. That is an important element, and I would like the member for Drysdale to address that issue as well.
The ABS statistics show a 46% drop in unlawful entries, and a 28% drop in motor vehicle theft. I have made it clear that assault rates are too high, and they are largely fuelled by alcohol in domestic violence cases. That is why this government is tackling this head on by introducing mandatory reporting for domestic violence.
I am on the public record as saying and acknowledging that assaults have risen in the Northern Territory over the past six to seven years. There are reasons for that. There are a lot more police out there - 200 extra police. Strategies are put in place by police to really target domestic violence; but every assault is one too many. Alcohol has fuelled many of these incidents. Government does not shirk or resile from the fact that there has been an increase year after year of violent offences. However, we are committed to reducing them. We are committed to targeting repeat offenders, particularly with domestic violence. That is what the statistics do show, but I ask members opposite to reflect: before we came into government, those figures were not published. As Peter Toyne said: ‘We will be judged on what the statistics say’. Okay?
I believe the statistics show very clearly a reduction in property crime and they also show very clearly that there has been an increase in violent offences. So, it is out there for public debate. It would never have been out there before under the previous CLP government because they did not publish them - fact. Let us have the debate. Let us monitor the figures and see how our strategies will bring a reduction in assaults and crime. I acknowledge that it is a good public debate to have. Domestic Violence Units are established in every major centre.
The Chief Minister’s statement has my support. We have put extra police on. The member for Drysdale has talked about how they are organised. I listened carefully to what the member for Drysdale said, as I will to the members for Katherine and Sanderson and, although it has been a while since he has been a policeman, the member for Port Darwin. It is good that you are here and that you can put forward a point of view. I will listen very carefully.
Madam Speaker, I support the Chief Minister’s statement and I believe the government is headed in the right direction.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I will be brief, despite the temptation to have a bit to say to the Attorney-General, who has not had a great week. Resisting the temptation for the most part, I am compelled to say that the Attorney-General was the worst Police minister the Labor government has produced. That is why he was moved aside. Therefore, I cannot take very seriously what the Attorney-General has to say in relation to this.
This is not, in my view, the debate where we talk about mandatory reporting for domestic violence. However, to allow a two-week consultation period is just bloody outrageous and you people should be ashamed of yourselves. This is not listening. This is a really serious issue; we all know that. Non-government organisations cannot mobilise themselves in two weeks to have a look at this bill. You know what it is like to call committee meetings, to get volunteers involved, and write submissions. You are not serious! I thought that after the election result, you might have at least tried to demonstrate, or to at least pretend, or give the impression that you were serious about things. Two weeks for mandatory reporting of domestic violence in a bill? You have to be joking. That is under your portfolio, Attorney-General, so it is very difficult to take much of what you say seriously.
As Police minister, you and your predecessor, the Chief Minister, were the ones who promised, along with the former Chief Minister, 200 extra police on the beat. Then, in late 2006, the language started to change. It was no longer ‘extra police on the beat’; it was ‘police personnel’. You people have notoriously bad form when it comes to being up-front with police numbers.
In the Chief Minister’s statement - and I propose mostly to talk about it from an Alice Springs perspective - he said that:
I have the media release dated 14 April 2008 headed, ‘60 More Police on the Beat in our Suburbs’. It has been months and months and months. I thought something that was about five months old does not need to find its way into a current statement.
I note with great interest that, after an election campaign, on the final day of sittings, you came in here with basically a police/law and order statement. It does rather beg the question as to how serious this government is.
The Police minister, Chief Minister, and government as a collective, will no doubt keep saying, ‘60 police on the beat’, in the same way that you keep saying, ‘200 police on the beat’, since 2001, I think. There is a big difference between saying it and putting it in statements and actually delivering it. You people have notoriously bad form.
In relation to the so-called delivery of more patrols to Alice Springs, I remember earlier this year - and it was almost by accident, if my memory serves me correctly - an ABC journalist was interviewing the Police Commissioner, and asked: ‘When are these patrols, resources and personnel going to be delivered in Alice Springs?’ He replied: ‘About 2010’. Do you think this is good enough? I do not. That is nowhere near good enough, given the issues that we have in Alice Springs.
On page 9 of the Chief Minister’s statement, he talked about a shopfront at ‘each of these locations’. By that, I assume he is referring to Darwin city, Casuarina, Palmerston, and Alice Springs. If a shopfront is to be located in Alice Springs, do I assume that it is one similar to Casuarina shopfront, which, as I understand it, is extremely close to the Casuarina Police Station? If you are talking about your cops in shops initiative, it is something that is likely - I could be wrong - to work better in the Top End than it is in Alice Springs, because we have a wider area where there is crime and antisocial behaviour. Basically, it takes in all of the CBD from Coles all the way to the road parallel to the river. So, where are the police officers going to stand in the shops in Alice Springs? Are they are going to be at Coles, at Yipirinya centre, at Ford Plaza, the mall or at Flynn Drive supermarket? Will they be at the Eastside shops? Where exactly are they going to be?
Given that the terminology is ‘shopfront’, we have called for some time for a shopfront to be in the Larapinta Drive area. I note that the Chief Minister is silent as to the exact location of the shopfront. So, when the Chief Minister replies to this statement, will he be good enough to tell an elected member from Alice Springs if the shopfront is an actual shopfront? If so, where is it going to be? If not in the Larapinta area, why not? As for the word ‘shopfront’: does that extend to the ‘cops-in-shops’ proposal? If so, where are the police officers going to be located?
I note also in the statement there is no reference to the mobile police vans. Has that become pass these days? Is that no longer electorally sexy for the Labor government? That was popular mid-term last time round, and has fallen off the radar a bit. Every time I walk past the car park of the Alice Springs Police Station, I look at the mobile police van and it looks at me. I do not see it deployed very often. It is deployed for particular events such as footy games and other big public occasions in Alice Springs. I believe it should be deployed more than that. That is what the government promised when they said: ‘Oh, yippie, we are going to have a mobile police van in Alice Springs’. This is the form of the people opposite. They say all these wonderful things but, when it actually comes to delivering and performing, there is always a difference.
There is always a difference between the media releases they issue about the legislation that comes before us, and the legislation itself. I believe Territorians were a wake up to it on 9 August. Just because Labor was elected, albeit narrowly, to government does not mean that people have stopped watching you. If you people take your job seriously, you need to do considerably better than during your last term.
I note the reference to the CCTV cameras. Has not the Labor government been dragged kicking and screaming on that one? It was at the beginning of 2007, I suspect, when a petition was tabled asking ‘Can we have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs?’ No. The now Attorney-General, who was the Police minister at the time, made a response to the petition: ‘No, you cannot have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs’. Then, we had the demonstration in Alice Springs at the parliament and, then, there was the backflip. So, dragged kicking and screaming, they delivered the CCTV cameras.
However, despite the media release flurry about CCTV cameras in Alice Springs, the devil was in the detail. We asked: how would they be monitored? Will it be 24-hour, seven day a week monitoring? Who will monitor it? Scratch below the surface, these people are not capable of providing the answers because they do not know - because they just make policy up on the run. We have seen it pretty much across the board. Now, however, we have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs and government said during the election campaign or, perhaps prior to it, that they are going to put more CCTV cameras in Alice Springs.
I note in the Chief Minister’s statement that he makes the point, deliberately so, that it is a joint initiative with council. What that means, I believe, is that the council has to find someone to monitor the extra cameras and, basically, administer the whole thing. My question is - and if the Chief Minister could respond to it in his reply I would be grateful: why is that the case in Alice Springs, whereas in Darwin it is monitored, as I understand, by the police at the police station? There seems to be an A-grade version in Darwin and a B-grade version in Alice Springs. I do not think that is good enough. Why does the Chief Minister apparently think that that is good enough?
Also, in relation to the allocation of the $1.1m, when will that money come through, how many cameras will it buy and, again, can the Chief Minister talk about how it will be monitored, and why it is different from Darwin?
On page 18 of the statement, the Chief Minister talked about police infrastructure. He talked about the upgrade of the Alice Springs Police Station. Well, of course he should do that. The member for Greatorex and I mentioned that, probably a year or so ago. I make the point, though, that it is not in the overall scheme of things a spectacular announcement because it is what government should do. Government should upgrade buildings on a regular basis. Government should regularly be monitoring the buildings and constantly asking those who work in them: ‘Are they meeting your demands? Are they meeting your expectations?’ Everyone knows that the Alice Springs Police Station has needed some work on it for a very long time. The government’s self-serving media releases and references in this statement are disappointing to say the least but, I suppose, not very surprising.
However, when speaking about police infrastructure, I was surprised about the phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station. I know members opposite do not want to hear about this, and I know it has been going on for a very long time. The now Attorney-General, once Police minister, got himself into trouble about this at the Alice Springs sittings. This was the bloke who said: ‘No, if you ring this number you can get through 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ring this number. People of Alice Springs, you can have confidence’. Well, they rang the number and were not able to get through and, pretty much, people in Alice Springs have experienced difficulties with the phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station ever since. Not a week goes by, almost, where I, as a local member, do not get a complaint - either someone ringing my office or bumping into someone at the supermarket - a story about how long they were waiting on the phone system. They are diverted to Darwin, Adelaide, and Katherine. The phone system is just not good enough.
We talked about this issue at estimates and I asked the Chief Minister and the Police Commissioner some questions. It seems to me as though the line from government has changed over time. When the former Police minister stood up in Alice Springs, he said: ‘The technical difficulties have been fixed or they would be fixed in the next six weeks’. The problems continued. In June this year at estimates, it was a mish-mash of recruitment problems and, maybe at a stretch, some technical problems. I do not believe what you people say any more when it comes to the Alice Springs police communications system.
Without issuing a media release - because you people issue a media release when you want the public to know things, and when you do not want anyone to know, you do not even like to talk about it – that it was revealed that you gave to a consultant, in Adelaide I believe, the job of assessing the police communications system at the Alice Springs Police Station. There is a report commissioned in the last six months - I do not even know whether it has been finished or if it is sitting in someone’s office upstairs - about the police phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station.
Can the Chief Minister, in reply, indicate whether he is prepared to table that report? If not, why not? Second, and most importantly, what were the findings and the outcomes of the report? We, as Territorians, paid for it. Surely we are entitled to know, even if he does not want to show it to us, the effect of the recommendations? I ask the Chief Minister to ’fess up and come clean on that one. At least, can you give the people of Alice Springs an indication if things are going to improve, because they must. I really do not want to be standing here again, in the next sittings or the sittings after that, or the year after that, or the year after that, talking about the police communications system in Alice Springs. You people need to fix it. Just do it. It is not that hard.
I refer to page 23 of the Chief Minister’s statement about the First Response Patrols. I note with interest that - and I am happy for the Police minister to correct me if I am wrong - if they are so terrific, why are they not in Alice Springs? Is this a Darwin thing again? I am thinking it might be.
On page 25 of this statement, he referred to the antisocial behaviour hotline. He gives the number for that hotline. I have the following questions in relation to it. Is that hotline operational now? If it is not operational now, when will it be? Has it been advertised? Is advertising planned for it? Does the government actually really want people to ring that number? What sort of advertising is planned, and when is it going to hit the airwaves, newspapers, etcetera? What will the cost be? Also, what are the expectations or performance indicators of this hotline? At estimates next year, we will ask how many calls were received; what the response time was; and how many people do you have picking up the phone? Does this number go to police stations in Darwin, Katherine, Alice, and Tennant? If not, where does the phone go? If this number somehow hooks into Alice Springs, will it be answered? In addition, if a person in Alice Springs rings, and it goes to Darwin, how will it actually be filtered down so that police on the ground in Alice Springs can respond?
Sounds great - typical Labor stuff - sounds terrific: ‘Oh, let us have an antisocial behaviour hotline’. My job is to ask a few more questions, because this statement is very light on when it comes to detail. I know that is the government’s form. I know they do not like it when I stand up and ask questions, but it is my right, and that is what the people in my electorate would expect me to do.
Madam Speaker, I feel certain that people upstairs have been taking notes. I want the Chief Minister and Police minister to answer those questions. If he does not, well, I will just have to tell everyone in Alice Springs that he is as arrogant as he was before the election - that is why he nearly lost it - and that he does not care about the people of Alice Springs, that my questions remain unanswered and I remain very unhappy about that. I suppose that is all I can do. I would be very disappointed if that was what I had to do, however.
Mr VATSKALIS (Business and Employment): Madam Speaker, I have been 13 years in the Territory and, over those years, one of the major issues that has been debated in the Territory is crime and the numbers of police. It does not matter if it was the CLP or the ALP, I well recall the headlines, ‘too much crime, too little police’.
In the Territory, we have a split personality. I believe a lot of people come here from down south to avoid over-regulation. However, the moment they arrive, they want more police, tougher sentences, and every other restriction that bothers them to do what they want without fear of any legislation. Everyone else has to be regulated, but not ourselves. In the debate about the police, I have seen it in the newspaper, people complain about the bad drivers in the Territory. At the same time, they are the same people who say, ‘We want more unlimited speed limits in the Territory’. The people are complaining about people turning in front of them, yellow light or red light but, at the same time, they do not want any lights on the streets. There must be something really wrong with us Territorians; it must be the weather or the mango madness.
The other thing I always find fascinating is our fixation with crime. You open a newspaper, there is crime. Not that there is no crime - do not get me wrong, there is crime - but let us get it into perspective. You turn tomorrow morning to The Australian, have a look on your computer, have a look on the Internet. Three out of four breaking news items would be some crimes committed somewhere else. Our crimes pale into insignificance compared to things that happen in Sydney or Brisbane. I was in Sydney. There was a murder reported on page 7. If there was a murder in the Territory it would be on the front page of the newspaper for a week and, if there was a crocodile involved, it would be for a month.
The other thing that always concerns me is there are two different types of crimes in the Territory: the one’s committed by white people affecting white people and the one’s committed by black people affecting black people. The one’s that are committed by black people affecting black people do not matter - out of sight, out of mind. However, if it is a white on white, then it becomes an issue.
I will give you another example. If I and the members for Nelson and Drysdale decide to go to the park and sit down and drink a couple of bottles of beer, is any neighbour going to ring the police? No, but if we were from Yuendumu or Yirrkala, there will be people ringing the police in five or six minutes. So, you have to keep in mind that there is always this difference.
Crime and police has always been a matter for discussion in the Territory. I well recall before the ALP came into power, there was discussion about the police response then. You could pick up the phone and call the police but they would not turn up. Also, there was too much crime. The then government decided that one way to resolve the problem - because they knew there was a problem - was mandatory sentencing. Did it resolve the problem? No, it did not. There are reports that say mandatory sentencing did not reduce property crime, did not reduce crime at all. So, what was the solution …
Mr Elferink: Actually no, they determined that it was inconclusive, if memory serves me.
Mr VATSKALIS: Member for Port Darwin, you are really good with books and reading from books and reports. I would like to quote from a report done by the NT Crime Prevention. It was presented at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Technology Conference in 2003. It said clearly:
Even the diagram and the graphs they have on page 10 - and I can give you the web page address if you want to go and find out - show clearly that in the two years prior to repealing mandatory sentencing, crime steadily increased - and then decreased very quickly after mandatory sentencing was repealed. Either these statistics are fudged, or something actually does work.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, could you please pause. We are just hearing that when you are not directing your comments though the Chair, Hansard has not been able to hear you. Please direct your comments through the Chair.
Mr VATSKALIS: Thank you. I repeat again for the benefit of Hansard, the graph on page 10 of the report I just quoted shows that property crime for the two years that mandatory sentencing was in place, it steadily increased and after it was repealed, it started declining and it had gone below the initial level in about 2003. So, mandatory sentencing was not the solution.
Then the Labor Party came into government. During the election campaign I recall - I have quite a few police who are my constituents - I was stopped in the street by a police officer who actually wanted to complain to me - I cannot reveal his name, which is fair - about the situation at the Casuarina Police Station: what was the proper allocation or what should have been; how many people were on duty; how many people were absent? I could not believe my ears when he was telling me the stories about the Casuarina Police Station and the lack of policemen to actually attend to the everyday duties a policeman should have attended to.
That actually led this government to start wondering about the level of police. The member for Drysdale is an expert and is quite right; you need a certain police capacity if you are going to address the issues around society. That is why we engaged Mr O’Sullivan, an ex-Police Commissioner from Queensland. Mr O’Sullivan was not a card-carrying member of the Labor Party; he was a professional who came in to do the survey and put it on the table and of course, everything became obvious - there were not enough police in the Territory. The reason being that the previous government, in 1994, put a freeze on the hiring of police.
That is the reason why this government put in additional money and effort to increase the police numbers. Yes, I know people say: ‘Oh, you can get police but how many police are leaving?’ You cannot lock people in the Territory. People have the right to leave, and quite a few people actually left the police force. Some of them went to the Federal Police and some went interstate, some of them are very much wanted by other states, probably because our police force is very good and has received very good training. It knows how to deal with different circumstances and with people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Despite people leaving, we still have 255 more uniformed policemen today than we had in 2003. Obviously, police numbers are not the issue. I have always said - and Casuarina Police Station is in my electorate and I have very close contact with the police there – that a lot of time the police allocation depends on the person who is in charge of the police station.
That became obvious to me when there were two police commanders in Casuarina. Both of them went to Alice Springs. I will not name them. When these two commanding officers were in Casuarina, we had foot patrols, bike patrols, and motorcycle patrols. When they were moved, another person came in and, all of a sudden, you could not see a police officer on the streets in Casuarina. Two months later, there was a change. A new commanding officer came and, again, I saw police officers on patrol, in cars, on bikes, and in Casuarina Shopping Square.
That shows you that it is not the government that dictates where police are going to be allocated, what shifts they are going to work, or how many police there are going to be. It is the police themselves. It is the commanding officers who decide the allocation of the police officers. We have provided the resources. It is like you, as a senior teacher, dictating to your staff how to work. If you are not allocating the proper staff to do their job, there are going to be gaps.
However, you cannot claim there is not enough police. The numbers speak for themselves: 255 more uniformed personnel than there were in 2003. I know the member for Drysdale says it is probably in senior management. It might be the senior management, but there are many avenues for junior police officers to complain to their union or demand a better allocation of duties from the senior management. There is no argument that it is the police force. You cannot blame the government for the allocation of the police force.
Regarding the Casuarina Police Station and the new police station that we are putting in place, I agree with you. I visited the Casuarina Police Station and I wrote to the then Police minister, alerting him to the fact that Casuarina Police Station was a disaster waiting to happen for occupational health and safety. I am very pleased that my calls were heard, and that is why we are allocating money to have a new police station in Casuarina. I am not talking about the other police stations; I speak specifically for my electorate.
I know that there is going to be money spent in Alice Springs and in Tennant Creek because the police stations there need some attention. You cannot tell me that these police stations, all of a sudden, became substandard in the seven years since the Labor government. Money was not spent on police stations for many years, and that is the reason why these police stations came to that state. I believe that the government has seen the problems, is prepared to act, and is acting.
I believe that having two police stations, one in Casuarina and one in Darwin, is not very good. I believe there should be more police centres allocated throughout the state. By appointing a police force at Bagot, we can cover the gap between the city and Casuarina. It might be an allocation of four policemen and two auxiliaries based in Bagot, but that should not and will not stop patrolling the area around Bagot because, sometimes, preventing things happening around the area will resolve problems inside Bagot. I am saying preventing because quite a few people will drift to Bagot. Police officers patrolling there can actually prevent some of these issues happening.
Another thing we did is establish the First Response Patrol. It is an excellent idea. It is an excellent idea because it is better to prevent the problem than try to treat it. We have seen a significant influx of people from the communities. These people come in because there is an urban drift and that influx was accelerated by the intervention.
The reality is, in urban drift, people want to come to the city for education, health reasons, or for a job. The problem with the intervention is we have all the people who had created problems in the community, and they wanted to keep accessing their money. The way the intervention and the quarantining of income was implemented was totally inappropriate. It does not take many brains to think that, if you declare an area as a controlled area, people are going to pack up and move out, and go somewhere else and actually have access to their money. The people who came to the urban centres like Darwin, Katherine, or Alice Springs, are the people who cause problems in the community - the people who used to drink or take drugs. All of a sudden, they found that half of their money was taken away from them and they moved to Darwin or Alice Springs, declared they are now living in Darwin, Alice Springs, or Katherine, so they have 100% access to their money - so they continue to drink. That, of course, creates problems.
My area in Casuarina has a large shopping centre which is like a light that attracts moths. The big lights of the shopping centre attract any young person. You only have to take a trip to Casuarina Shopping Square about 3.15 pm after Casuarina Senior College and Dripstone Middle School have finished, and you will be amazed by the number of young kids hanging around with their schoolbags and school uniforms. They are there to meet their friends, to go to play some electronic games, or just hang around. This is sometimes a recipe for disaster. I have seen some of the fights between some hot-headed people in Casuarina. I applaud the fact that we are putting a police post in Casuarina because the best deterrent for these activities is people knowing there are police around the corner. I am very pleased that the police have reinstated some of the patrols in the Casuarina Shopping Square because this has eliminated a lot of the problems that existed before when police were not around.
I know the CCTV is an excellent tool, and can probably be used to identify someone after the event. However, many times these people would know that they are monitored and filmed, and they will think twice before they commit a crime.
Many times we tend to forget that there is a clear separation of power. Often we criticise the judiciary, but we cannot really demand that the judiciary punish people the way we think fit. The judiciary makes the decision considering all circumstances and, most of the time, they get it right. Sometimes, as we are all human and we make mistakes, they will let somebody go through. However, there are cases where the decisions of the judiciary have been made on the information by the prosecuting officer, who is human, can make a mistake, and give or withhold information, which will give the real picture to the judiciary.
From experience, I want to tell you, that the last thing you need is for the police force to be the police force, the judiciary, and the prison officer. This is the worst thing that can happen to any civilised society. There are no second balances, and people can be arrested and imprisoned for minute offences, or even no offences at all. I was very proud to see in Australia how close the police force is to the community when, in other states and other countries, the community despises the police because they have been used by government as an instrument for oppression. Here, people are actually very keen to work with and be close to police, and provide information to them when it is required.
It is not only policing that will reduce crime; it is also the way we design buildings and shopping centres. That is how we will help prevent crime; through an environment design audit at the Casuarina precinct. Many times, people from the Casuarina Shopping Square and the Casuarina Shopping Village have complained to me about petty crime and itinerants. I have said to them: look at your establishment and find out where you provide either a hiding place or shelter, and put in lights or fencing. A lot of people did not want to go to the extra expense, and they expected a police patrol to be around their premises all the time, because that is the best way to prevent people committing an offence in their area. It is a combination of police, audits, and design.
We can sit here and complain about crimes and the police and argue about the number of the police. The reality is that we have more police today in the Territory than we ever had before. Actually, we are one of the most policed states and territories around Australia. It is not just a matter of the police; we cannot have a police officer in every corner. You have to remember that the kids and people who commit the crimes can be our children, our relatives, or our own friends. So, it is not the police who are going to prevent the crime, it is actually ourselves, by providing guidance to our children. I have police come to me to complain that they take 8-year-old or 4-year-old kids home at 2 am, knock on the door, and the parents do not apologise for their kids. They abuse the police, or they are drunk or under the influence. Some of them even say they ‘do not want the little bastard home’. A police officer tries to do the job and is stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with a little child that nobody wants. It is not only the police, it is also our society and our community, and it is probably ourselves.
I congratulate the Chief Minister. I know there are problems in the Territory. We are not a perfect society - far from it - but you have to remember we also have a number of people and communities with different standards and ideas. Another thing we have to remember is that we are prepared to tolerate things that can be the root of a problem or the root of a crime.
I have not been to a nightclub in Mitchell Street. I refuse to go there, because most of the assaults happening in Darwin do not happen in Nightcliff, Alawa, or Anula. The largest numbers of assaults happen between 2 am and 3 am, especially on the weekend, in Mitchell Street, when people are drunk, fighting, or frustrated because they did not get a girlfriend that night. They go out, and hit the first person who is in front of them or walks past. Some people will laugh, but we have to face reality and say, do we really want all these liquor licences along a kilometre of the road?
In Katherine, people complain about the problems with itinerants, but this is the only town I have seen that has about seven liquor outlets in about 500 m to 600 m. The community sometimes has to question themselves about that. You can hire another 1000 police; you are not going to …
Mr Elferink: You are in government.
Mr VATSKALIS: It is the community that has to be responsible …
Mr Elferink: No, you do the licensing, mate.
Mr VATSKALIS: The community members sometimes have to decide what they want. You cannot tell me that I want to go out and get drunk every night in Mitchell Street but, at the same time, it is a government responsibility if I glass someone. It is your own responsibility as well. We are people, and we have our own limitations and our own moral code. We should accept that.
Again, the government has done a lot about police. It has recruited a number of police. It allocated money for the tools for the police to do their jobs properly, in providing the stations and the places where people work. We will continue to work with the police, and to ensure that the Territory is a safe place for families.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the debate be adjourned.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak to that motion.
We will resist the motion that this debate is being adjourned. I am actually surprised that the Leader of Government Business is doing it, because it is my instruction from my Whip that the Government Whip had been advised that we wanted to debate this matter out tonight.
There is a propensity of this government to bring in ministerial statements to which all members should have a right to respond on the day they are delivered, however, it has become the habit of this government, over time, to simply adjourn those statements before all members get the opportunity to contribute to the debate.
I have discussed this matter with my colleagues on this side of the House, and we do not support the government’s intention and desire to shift these matters to later debate times, when the issues may be less topical. One would think that, if a minister brings a statement into this House, and says, ‘This is a matter of such importance that I want to let Territorians know what I feel, and I want to raise this issue and speak for 30 minutes on this issue in this House’, then every member of this House should have the right to respond to that statement on the day that statement is brought into the House. Is there any reason why we should not debate these matters out in their entirety? Is there any reason why I should, by the majority of members in this House, be effectively gagged by the desire to have dinner early or to go home early?
The fact is, we are elected by the people of the Northern Territory to speak up for them, and I would like my opportunity to do so. I know there are quite a few other members on this side of the House who would also like their opportunity to do so. I am putting on the record now, as part of my debate in this motion, that we will not be supporting this motion to have this matter adjourned. I would like to have my opportunity to have my say tonight. I would like to see other members have their opportunity to have their say tonight. If the Chief Minister thinks it is so important, then we should all have the right to discuss this matter.
The Whip on the other side of this House has been advised of our desire not to have this matter adjourned and, whilst I appreciate that there is a dinner break in the very near future, I urge this House to continue debating this matter immediately after the dinner break until the question is put.
So, Madam Speaker, no, we do not support the motion of the Leader of Government Business.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I support the member for Port Darwin. One of the most frustrating things is that last night a copy of the ministerial statement on police was delivered, so I spent part of the night working out a response. I then came to parliament today thinking this is a very important issue. I sit here presuming that I will be able to speak at some time. I know the Whip said that they were limiting the number of people who would speak. However, this is not the first time this has happened.
For me to come back and talk about this at the next sittings, nearly makes it irrelevant. It has gone stale. It is not saying the issue is not important, but it is not the time any more. I want to hear what both sides of parliament are saying about this very important issue. I listened to the member for Casuarina. He raised some very important points. I know that we do have argy-bargy here but, in general, we all want the Territory to be a safer place. This is the place where we can put forward ideas and this is a great opportunity to do it.
This is probably one of the most important statements we have had during this sittings, because there have been some pretty mild statements. This is one of those issues that we would all like to have a say on. I certainly would. I do not feel it is a good method that I spend my time preparing a statement and, then, am told 24 hours later: ‘You will have to come back next sittings’.
Madam Speaker, I support what the member for Port Darwin is putting forward.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, in moving the debate, yes, there was a discussion between the Whips and, as is normally the case, our Whip indicated that we were adjourning this matter to the October sittings ...
Mr Elferink: You are gagging us.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Ms LAWRIE: I understand the petulance of the member for Port Darwin.
This debate will be as relevant in October as it is today. It is a statement on the police. It is a statement on community safety. It is a very relevant debate in October.
Madam Speaker, I move that the debate be now adjourned.
The Assembly divided:
Motion agreed to.
Debate adjourned.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly at its rising adjourn until Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 10 am in Parliament House or such other time and/or date as may be advised by the Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have received the following letter from the member for Katherine:
Is the proposal supported? It is supported. I call the member for Katherine.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE (Katherine): Madam Speaker, the matter of public importance about which I wish to speak today relates to what I describe as the incompetent and appalling manner in which the local government reform has been implemented and managed by the Labor government, and the failure of the Territory government to take heed of community concerns about local government reform.
On 1 July this year, the new Local Government Act came into force. It is quite a hefty act and, no doubt, took a lot of work in its planning, drafting and publishing. There was some robust debate during the sittings when this legislation was introduced and read. You would think that such important legislation would have attracted more than just lip service when it came to taking into account the concerns of the community about how all this was going to run.
The reform brought together some 81 local government areas and amalgamated them into eight new shires. In the early stages of the inception of this new legislation, an advisory board was set up to take community concerns and convey them to government, as well as facilitating the flow of information back to the people of the Northern Territory. The very first issue raised at the first meeting of the board - and I mean the very first issue - was about community consultation. I quote from the minutes of the first meeting of the Local Government Advisory Board held on 8 and 9 February 2007:
In this first meeting, this issue was raised three times. At least, that is what the minutes reflect. We all know that minutes are only a very shallow prcis of what was actually said. So, it was probably mentioned more than is reflected in those minutes.
In the second meeting - although I cannot find reference to it in the minutes of the first meeting - there is a reference in the business arising section, a notation - and again I quote from the government representative:
At the third meeting of the advisory committee, the overall tenor of submissions from the delegates was to get some plain, simple English explanations out into the communities.
In the minutes of the fourth meeting of the committee, it was noted that:
community government council:
Were they serious about this transition? Thus far, there certainly has been a transition but, most definitely, it has not been smooth. Even at that stage, many communities feared that they would lose specific services. However, assurances were made again, and I quote from the minutes of that meeting:
During the fifth meeting, all the same concerns were reiterated. In the meeting on 4 March 2008, attended by the minister, he said in relation to consultation:
The minister stressed that the Northern Territory government is absolutely committed to the reforms. I ask you to read between the lines here. Did the minister say that the reform is happening without regard to consultation? I say this because consultation should have been well and truly completed, with just 15 weeks to implementation. Perhaps the minister meant to say ‘community advice’. I doubt this also.
Further in support of my contention, at the same meeting, the Chair tabled a letter to the advisory board from the Laynhapuy Homelands Association. The letter expressed concerns that the association had been left out of the picture through a lack of consultation. The Laynhapuy Homelands is in the East Arnhem Shire on the Gove Peninsula. There is much anecdotal evidence similar to the views espoused by the Laynhapuy Homelands.
Last night, I talked in the adjournment debate, and mentioned that where there is smoke there is fire. I would have thought it wise for the minister, even at that late stage, to go looking for the source of that smoke. So much was the fear by some communities that, for example, the Galiwinku Community Incorporated commenced legal action against the NT government regarding the transfer of assets to the community government council and, subsequently, to the shire council. That is definitely not a good sign that the message got through to that community. Where is the so-called community consultation?
It was then acknowledged in the same meeting that there were concerns in some communities that the shires will remove assets and services that had been established to make the community work. For what it is it worth, the board held its final meeting in Darwin on 17 June.
In my maiden speech last week, I spoke briefly about matters of local government. I said this:
I will be honest here: I had no idea at the time that the government had really got it so wrong. What a baptism of fire for me as a new member of the Legislative Assembly. Perhaps in my maiden speech I naively exposed my belief that all things are for the greater good. I do not think I will make the same mistake twice.
Now that I have set the stage, let us look at what is really happening out there in the communities which have fallen under the shire councils. The rhetoric coming from government at the time talked about smooth transition. Do you call this smooth transition? This is yesterday’s copy of the Katherine Times. I refer you to the classifieds section, under Positions Vacant, and there it is: some third of a page with ads for the Roper Gulf Shire still looking for employees. They are looking for a Senior CDEP Project Coordinator, based in Katherine; a Payroll Officer, based in Katherine; a Government Support Officer, based in Katherine - remember, this is yesterday’s Katherine Times - Housing Maintenance Officer by two, based in Katherine; a CDEP Coordinator, based in Ngukurr; a Family and Community Services Coordinator, based in Ngukurr. There are no less than 10 positions available in that council. I know that other papers carry ads for positions in other shires. I have seen the papers and I have been watching it. I have seen advertisements for the Daly Shire as well in the Northern Territory News, and there are ads in southern papers for positions there as well.
What is happening here, Madam Speaker? Where is the plan? Why did the minister not take issues like this into account at earlier stages and delay assent to the bill? Does the minister not realise that we would have trouble attracting and maintaining staff in the Northern Territory? Why was the question not asked: what happens if we cannot get employees? The question probably was not asked is the truth. I can tell you the end result: the people in the communities get it in the neck.
I mention the community of Jilkminggan, which is east of the township of Mataranka. Jilkminggan used to look after its own purchasing. The community there supports an aged-care facility and a crche. The community used to purchase food for both but, now, all purchasing must be done through purchase orders through the shire. No problem so far. But, what happens when a purchase order is raised, sent through to the relevant shire office, but sits in the office unprocessed and the food runs out for the children and the old people? Not the fault of the shire staff; it is a result of not having enough staff to keep up with the workload. You only have to look at how many jobs are available at Roper Gulf Shire. The implementation of that part has just been abysmal.
While we are talking about staff, let us mention the fact that already staff are resigning from the shires. They are resigning because it is not what they expected - nothing is happening, they do not know what direction to take, and they are not getting any help or advice and they are short on staff. There are a whole bunch of reasons why these people are resigning. These resignations out there are through sheer frustration. So, the transition is not so smooth after all.
I do not know if any of the government ministers have ever run a business, but I have. I venture to say that cash flow is one of the most important aspects in underpinning the successful day-to-day operations of a small business. I note the concerns raised with me from business owners about purchasing at shire level. These are real business owners with real concerns. What occurred in the past, where possible, was that community government councils purchased locally in the vast majority of cases. For example, Jilkminggan would have done some of its purchasing in Mataranka based on its needs at the time. The purchasing process was simple and it supported local business. They would also have a choice about where they were going to purchase their goods. But, now, without regard for the survival of local business, shires make decisions about where the purchasing is to be done.
Mr Wood: Not locally.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: Precisely! Here is an example. Jilkminggan would have spent about $30 000 a year on meat for their community, and they went to a particular butchery in Katherine for this. Now, Jilkminggan has been told they cannot buy their meat from the aforementioned butchers; they have to purchase through another butcher ...
Ms Purick interjecting.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: I pick up the interjection from the member for Goyder. There is nothing wrong with the first butcher. What is happening here is the shires are imposing their will over the communities ...
Mr Wood: No elected members either.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: At this stage - and I pick up on the interjection from the member for Nelson – there are absolutely no elected members; all employees, albeit short staffed.
Then there is the case where purchasing of some non-food supplies has stopped altogether because this so-called smooth transition is taking place - a hit to more businesses’ cash flows. What happens when the shires get their act together and start buying mowers, slashers and brush cutters, and they decide they do not need one or two of those but they need eight, nine or 10 of those items? Will the local small business be able to compete with larger firms on price? This is a real concern for small business. Will the local businesses be able to supply the larger quantities required? These are the concerns of people who own small businesses who have come to me and said: ‘This is a debacle. This is so poorly implemented we do not know if we are up or down’.
Cash flow is all about being steady, not spasmodic. For the sake of pinning the Local Government Act medal to their chests, this government has forgotten about the impacts on locals who would ordinarily be supporting this process of change.
Let us review the progress of this reform when it comes to assets. Let me remind the House of the earlier quote from the minutes of meetings of the advisory board:
At Yirrkala, which has been a very tidily run community over many years, they have managed to acquire a pool of about 20 well-maintained vehicles. They boast infrastructure out there that, in some instances, would rival small towns like Tennant Creek or Katherine - and this is a community of some 400 people. These vehicles were purchased through their own means and not - and I repeat not - with NT government funding. These vehicles belong to the community residents. Yet, the shire has bullied its way into the community, acquired these vehicles and started relocating them to other communities in the shire. I suppose you could argue that they are still community assets, but they are now another community’s assets. Why does a well-run community like Yirrkala have to be punished for its ability to manage its own affairs as well as it has over the years? This is not peculiar to Yirrkala. There are other communities out there that are hiding their assets so the shires do not come and take them away. That is not an exaggeration. Just yesterday, a concerned resident spoke with me on the telephone and said just that.
I have another question: where are the new shire staff posted to remote communities going to live? I will tell you the answer. In Yirrkala, the shire went there and said: ‘We want 10 houses’. This would have involved displacing 10 families from their homes at Yirrkala. The community kicked up a stink, quite rightly, and now the shire only wants ‘three or four houses’. This is clearly unacceptable. What are the shire councils doing? Do they know themselves what they are doing? I would not be surprised if they do not know what they are doing in that regard.
In a media statement attributed to the minister on 1 July 2008, he said:
Perhaps he should have said, ‘We are seizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth assets and will do with them as we please, and thousands of local government jobs are in serious jeopardy for we cannot guarantee they will be given new placements in the new structure’.
I have yet another question. The minister mentioned hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets. What are those assets comprised of? Surely, they cannot be that dollar amount worth of non-fixed assets attributed to communities around the Territory. By deduction, these assets must then include fixed assets which would include houses and buildings. Perhaps this is where the shires got the idea that they could walk into communities and take over houses and other buildings. In Yirrkala, for example, shire staff walked into the community and occupied the old council office. Where is their power to do this? Even to this day, some shire staff, still without agreement from Yirrkala community members, occupy that office, despite being offered other office accommodation. The reason for this – and no one in the shires will come out and actually say it to anyone - the old council office sits on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and the new shire staff like the view.
In my reading of the act, section 178(1), Acquisition of property, says:
I do not know that this covers walking into communities and taking over. I also do not think that staying for the view is covered in that section of the act either.
Alas, I have left myself a little short of time. However, the overall feedback I have been receiving is that, given the magnitude of importance of this act and the potential effects it has on the lives of so many throughout the whole Northern Territory, the minister should have kept his finger right on the pulse. Clearly, Madam Speaker, the Minister for Local Government has dropped the ball in the implementation of the local government reforms …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Katherine, your time has expired.
Mr KNIGHT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, there have been three MPIs this week, and this one would probably be the weakest one of all ...
Mr Elferink: Excuse me?
Mr Bohlin: Communities are not important?
Mr KNIGHT: The weakest presented MPI of all.
Mr Tollner: Are you the minister, or what?
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 51. We sat and let the member for Katherine have his say, and listened very attentively. I ask members opposite to extend the same courtesy to my colleague.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister for Local Government, could you please direct your comments through the Chair …
Mr KNIGHT: I will try, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: … which may mean less interjections.
Mr KNIGHT: I doubt it. I will start with a quote:
Another quote from the same person:
I will read a third quote from a different person:
The first quotes were from the CLP minister, Loraine Braham in 1999. The next quote was from Tim Baldwin, also a minister for Local Government, in 2000. It actually started in, I think, 1998 when the CLP had a proposal for local government. I have lots of quotes here and I will sprinkle them through my speech …
Mr Westra van Holthe: That is all right. I am not disputing that; it is about how you have done your job.
Mr KNIGHT: Here we have absolute recognition from the CLP that something was wrong ...
Mr Westra van Holthe: That is what it is; the poor record that the government has in doing this job.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Katherine, cease interjecting!
Mr KNIGHT: Something was wrong, Madam Speaker, and nothing …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, direct your comments through the Chair.
Mr KNIGHT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Nothing was done - they sat on their hands and dithered.
In October, minister McAdam launched the local government reform process at the annual conference of the Northern Territory Local Government Association. This announcement took place after many years of discussion with people of all political persuasions right across the Territory, arguing the pressing need for broad-based reform.
Let me remind you, the member for Fong Lim voted in the Australian parliament for legislation giving Australian government officials the capacity to take control of the affairs of community government and association councils in prescribed communities across the Territory as part of the emergency intervention …
Mr Tollner: And why was that?
Mr KNIGHT: Wait a second.
Mr Tollner: You fell over on your job. You could not do your job!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr KNIGHT: That was part of the legislation that the member for Fong Lim did not get a chance to read, obviously. Thankfully, activating that legislative tool did not occur because we were able to demonstrate that the Territory government was acting responsibly and leading reform for local government in the bush …
Mr Tollner: The intervention happened because of your irresponsibility. You embarrassed the Territory in the eyes of Australians.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr KNIGHT: Over the past two years, there has been enormous debate and discussion across the Territory about local government reform - discussion about …
Mr Tollner: You are a shame!
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! As the Health Minister indicated, members of government sat and listened with courtesy to the member for Katherine. It is a matter of public importance, and the minister is now responding in terms of the government’s response. The member for Fong Lim continually interjects, despite being advised that interjections are in breach of the standing order.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I will read my favourite standing order, Standing Order 51. You are becoming very familiar with it:
I have to say there has been an amount of noise and conversation allowed which has disturbed the member speaking. I ask if members could cease interjecting so we can hear the minister. Minister, can you please direct your comments through the Chair. Perhaps when you are looking at other members, you are drawing attention to yourself in a way that is not necessary.
Mr KNIGHT: … discussions on how we could work together to make local government more relevant to people’s day-to-day needs, and how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local government, especially the critical role of local government in delivering services out bush.
Quite apart from the council debate, debate in this place, and ongoing media commentary, there have been thousands of hours of consultation and discussion about local government reform in the community-based local government transition committees, and the Local Government Advisory Board has been established to guide this reform process. I will give you an idea of some of the meetings which have been held. There have been six meetings of the advisory board. There have been 33 meetings of transition committees, 22 meetings of CEO workshops, 32 presentations of the story board, 169 stakeholder meetings, 14 public meetings and 49 community meetings on this subject - and that is just our process ...
Members interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: That does not go back 10 years of local government reform, where it has been talked about and discussed. So, there has been an enormous amount of consultation ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr KNIGHT: Madam Speaker, we have seen petitions and rallies in relation to the Top End Shire. We have listened to the concerns about local government reform. The Chief Minister acknowledged that in February this year, where he said we are listening to the Top End Shire about the reforms and we made a change …
Members interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: Tellingly, the opposition and the member for Nelson have repeatedly said that they accept the need for local government reform. They have said it publicly, and they have said it in this place. The reality is that local government reform has been discussed in this place for almost 20 years. In fact, in the previous government, they really did dither. They had neither the courage nor the capacity to do anything about it, and this reflects poorly on them.
Unsustainable and fragile local government has a broader impact than just poor local government service provision. It restricts employment, stymies environmental health outcomes, and slows economic development. How can a dysfunctional shire attract investment? It does not. It perpetuates a perception that second best is good enough for people living outside the main towns and cities. We had to confront the risk of more of the same. More crises and more failed councils, perpetuating disadvantage for another generation in remote communities.
Had this government wanted to be dictatorial about the processes, it would have rammed through all the reforms without public consultations and without the two-year consultation period. Members might have been aware of the Kennett Liberal government’s process of local government reform in Victoria. Governments are often criticised for their failure to act quickly enough. This government has done the right thing for the community, moving forward together and developing a more professional and reliable third tier of government for all Territorians. Local government is now in position to lead the way, to work with communities to help build prosperity and wellbeing through support for jobs, small business and a vibrant community lifestyle. We have demonstrated responsible leadership and have taken decisive actions to ensure strong, sustainable local government for the Northern Territory into the future.
Members opposite cry that there has been a lack of consultation, but this is simply not true. Members well know that the Local Government Advisory Boards have been established comprising nominees from key stakeholders including, government, LGANT, the Local Government Managers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the NT Cattlemen’s Association, the land councils, unions, and the Minerals Council. There has been an enormous amount of consultation and involvement.
Over 300 Territorians, with good working knowledge of local government issues in their home communities, were actively engaged in our shire transitional committees. Turning to the detail of the local government reform at the local level, we should all thank those hard-working, committed Territorians for the diligent work designing our new local government. Hard work by committed Territorians - work that members opposite seem very dismissive of.
The member for Nelson, whilst supportive of local government reform in principle, has said that Territorians were presented with a fait accompli, with the release of the indicative shire boundaries. This is simply not the case. The government took into account demographic, financial, service delivery, and community interest perspectives in arriving at the indicative boundaries ...
Mr Wood interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: I can tell you, member for Nelson, there was a lot more work done in this previous two years than was going on for years before that. In fact, there is an optimal size for local government in the Territory context: too small and we risk sustainability, too large and servicing over large districts becomes problematic.
Yesterday, I presented a report about the upcoming shire elections. I noted that the shire residents will be elected councillors for individual shire wards, wards designed and named by local people. As a part of our consultation process, many issues about representation were raised and discussed at the local level. Local people, through their local councils and local government transition committees, made recommendations to us and what we have is a result of their work - a result built on the back of good advice from local Territorians. I have listened to the member for Nelson, but I have also listened to the many Territorians directly affected and infinitely more knowledgeable about the needs of their own communities.
Our new local government scheme also provides for the establishment of local boards to assist elected members and their shire staff with the management of local issues. These boards will comprise local people who want to help make their community stronger, healthier, and safer. The vital element of community involvement will not be lost. Community involvement will be a strong and ongoing process. Release of the draft shire business plans has provided an opportunity for public comment on specific work of the new shire councils. Plans will be a living document reflecting public submissions and the decisions of shire council around their priorities and service standards. New arrangements for local government in the bush include the regional management plans that will set out the core services and the standard of services to be delivered by the new shire councils. These documents are now available for public comment.
I would also like touch on the issue of the transition of employees from the former community government and association council to the new shire. As I said here on Tuesday, there have been about 4500 local government employees to transition to new employment arrangements as part of the local government reform. As a part of the local government reform, we have agreed on a 12-month transition period, where existing employees’ conditions would be honoured and in the first 12 months, the relevant unions - the ASU and the LHMU - will provide a collective agreement for local government employees.
In transitioning those employees, we have come across some conditions of employment far in excess of what most people would suggest is fair and reasonable. I will give a highlight. You alluded to the fact that everything was going hunky-dory on the other side of the House. We had one situation where, prior to the reform, a CEO orchestrated a payout to himself for accrued holidays and unused sick leave - his contract allowed for such a payout - the total payout of which was $98 000. Calculations using the payout amount would indicate that the CEO had not taken a day’s holiday in about 13 years. You say everything was hunky-dory and we should have left them alone but …
Members interjecting.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I refute what the member for Daly just said. I never said that at all. I never said that things were sailing along smoothly and this reform was not needed nor should it have been put in place. I ask the member for Daly to withdraw that. It is not a reflection of what I said.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. If you feel you have been misrepresented you can approach me after the MPI to make a personal explanation. Minister, please continue.
Mr KNIGHT: Madam Speaker, in all fairness, particularly to co-workers, shires could not agree to continue with some of those benefits. We are talking here about a handful of circumstances among thousands of employees. Where these cases have been highlighted and some conditions have not been transitioned, the shires have sought to negotiate a fair and reasonable result. As I have previously stated, we can no longer look backwards. It is my job, as a minister in the Henderson government, to support the Territory moving forward.
For those who worry about local government rates increasing over time, we have put in a three-year cap - CPI for those three years - and we will be protecting these new ratepayers from excess increases in rates. So, it will be a very smooth transition.
It is human nature to be apprehensive when faced with change. I do not pretend the local government reform process has been easy. There has been substantial expenditure of time and money to ensure that local citizens and representative organisations have been engaged in the change. The product we have now is a product of exhaustive consultation, debate, and discussion of options. Without some leadership, there will always be a risk of local government reform bogging down in a talkfest for another two decades.
The situation of plugging holes in the leaking hull of small community government councils would have continued to the detriment of the wellbeing of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Territorians. Such a situation is unacceptable to me and the government. We must go forward together as one Territory, and that is what we have done, with fellow Territorians working together to develop and implement effective change. New local government in the Territory, built and refined on the advice of local Territorians and our local government practitioners, will provide a foundation for good governance, sustainable infrastructure and service delivery. This is an essential ingredient for long-term development, full employment, and opportunities in health and wellbeing for all Territorians.
In 2007, we saw many newspaper reports predicting doom and gloom in Queensland as they embarked on their own local government reform. In this month’s edition of the newspaper, the Local Government Focus, you might see – I will just hold it up. The headline proclaims: ‘Post-amalgamations - Queensland councils are forging ahead’. This is an outcome I confidently predict for the Territory: our new shires forging ahead and getting on with the job.
I am very proud to be the Minister for Local Government because this reform has been long overdue. I will acknowledge it was started by the CLP. They waded into the shallow end of local government reform, and ran like girls with their skirts in the air back up the beach. They were scared of local government reform. We had the courage. It was a much-needed reform.
I will talk briefly about the few points that the member for Katherine highlighted. In relation to assets, we have openly acknowledged when assets have belonged to individuals or individual organisations, if it can be proved, they do not belong to the shires. Remember, the shires are the community. This is not taking assets into government hands. This is putting them into the peoples’ hands ...
Mr Wood: No they are not, there are no elected members.
Mr KNIGHT: You will get your chance.
This is about bringing some openness, transparency, and normalisation to local government. We have 5% of the Territory incorporated under the Local Government Act. What an embarrassment to go down to a Local Government Ministerial Council Meeting, whether you are CLP or Labor, and walk in and you have the Local Government Act only covering 5% of the land mass and less than half of your population. What an embarrassment.
This is about legitimate local government. We know why these community government councils were set up. It was to battle against the setting up of associations and councils in the past. We will be looking after those communities out there. The assets will be preserved in public hands, in the hands of those local communities.
In relation to staff, it is great to see that there are jobs out there. We have created new jobs. We have attracted more money into local government because of these reforms. The federal government - both the Howard government and now the Rudd government - is actively investing in these shires because they see that we have done something about it. So, we do not get the sort of intervention that the member for Fong Lim voted for in the federal parliament. What we have are strong, stable councils which can deliver services so we can improve lives of the people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory, and in regional centres as well.
The naysayers will always be naysayers, Madam Speaker. We got on with the job. We had the courage to make this reform happen, and we will forge ahead. We have strong partnerships out bush now and we will work very strongly as a government with those shires. They are the future of service delivery at the local level, and we will make them a strong part of the Territory.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I feel ashamed that a Minister for Local Government can stand up here tonight and say that this motion is the weakest motion of all the debates we have had in parliament this week. Here we have a chance for the minister to debate something in his bailiwick that he should be proud to debate. He, obviously, supports the changes and I have no problem with that. However, to put it down as if it was something that was just not worth debating is a disgrace for the Local Government Minister ...
Mr Knight: It is over with.
Mr WOOD: Did you say it was over?
Mr Knight: It is looking backwards.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr WOOD: No, minister, this is not looking backwards and I will tell you why. I rang Daly River tonight and was told that, at the moment, people feel they have hit rock bottom. CDEP has been taken away, so has people’s dignity. They have taken their money. They just do not know what to do. They are not interested in working. I will just give you a practical implication. I was told by a Daly River person, around the opening of parliament, if you want a flat tyre fixed now at Daly River - which was a successful community government council - you now have to go to Adelaide River because you cannot get a flat tyre fixed under this new wonderful scheme of super shire. I was nearly going to quote Wicking’s cartoon, but I will not.
It is not as rosy as the government is putting forward. They believe their own propaganda. They will tell you that they negotiated when this first happened. They did not negotiate with anyone but themselves about how many shires there should be. They worked out some magic formula in the department and they said: ‘There will be nine super shires’. There was no discussion with the people of Litchfield - no discussion at all. It is funny, there are nine shires. Nearly all have Labor Party people in the electorates of those shires. I was the only one who was not a member of the Labor Party that represented one of those super shires.
I am not here to beat my own breast about why we actually convinced the government to drop the amalgamation. I simply ask the question: when the government quotes transition meetings, advisory board meetings, and all these meetings, was there someone there who put alternative points of view? That is all I ever did at these meetings. I did not say we should not have reform, but I challenged some of the proposals the government was putting forward. Was there anyone in those other eight shires who queried some of these things? Some of these things, in the end, changed because there was some noise made about them. Why is Litchfield not amalgamated? Because people did not accept what the government was putting forward - because there were independent meetings, not run by the government, not run by the Labor Party’s Sheila O’Sullivan, who had a pseudo public meeting in the high school ...
Ms Lawrie: She is not Labor Party.
Mr WOOD: She is so. Read your own web pages. She is very much a member of the Labor Party in Victoria. Yes, and brought up to sell something which was simply trying to tell us what we should have. I do not believe that many people out there had a chance to hear the other side of the story. I am not saying that it will not work in some cases. But I query the minister saying there was good, open consultation at the very beginning.
I will give you a classic example of the advisory board. What was the point of the advisory board? People might remember that the boundary for the new Top End Shire took in several cattle stations near Pine Creek. The transition committee said: ‘We do not want that boundary to change’, and told the advisory board. The advisory board made sure it did happen. They changed the boundaries, and those cattle stations, I think, are now in the Victoria Daly Shire. Your transition meetings might have passed resolutions, but they were not always listened to.
Minister, you said consultation. The government capped the rates with no consultation with anyone. Just said – boom - these are the rates. That is fine, that is what they do in other countries. However, whether you like it or not, the elected members are supposed to decide the rates. That is why they are elected members. They take the brunt of the criticism if people do not like those rates, and they kick them out at the next election. That is what democracy is about. The minister is not an elected member of the council. He cannot be kicked off any council if he decides to cap the rates. What happens to a council now, for instance, if it has a road program and the price of bitumen goes up 30% in the next three years? Well, it would have to cut back on that road program. It will have to do less grading, because it is using diesel, because its rates will not be as high as required to run a council properly. It is all very nice to say that the rates are going to be capped. It sounds good politically but, from a council’s perspective, I do not think it is the government’s job to do it.
I will continue to say that these councils are far too big. The member for Katherine highlighted that very fact. The government can talk about the numbers of people, efficiency, and all these dynamic things. This is the Victoria Daly Shire Business Structure and Service Delivery Plan. It is like something that should be for the Melbourne City Council. It is complex and covers a large number of requirements the council will possibly, or will have to, look after. You have created a centralised bureaucracy in the case of Victoria River, based in Katherine. Not even the decency to base it in the shire at Wadeye, where it should have been. That is why you now lose your sense of community. That is why some of these communities, as the member for Katherine said, are not supporting their local areas anymore. You have worried about efficiencies, the dollar sign at the end - and that is not saying that is not important - but you have forgotten one of the key things about local government is community. Community cannot be one-third of the Northern Territory; that is regional.
The big con in all this is that the government really approved regional councils. If they said that at the beginning, I might have accepted that, and said all right, and we will have some local governments within that region. But we have set up these enormous councils and, then, we have told them they have to have regional plans. You created the two bottom shires of MacDonnell and Central Desert. I am not sure they take up some of the Barkly but, on their own, they take up nearly a third of the Northern Territory. Do we get what we are supposed to be doing - make sure the roads are right, no pot holes, make sure the town is clean, make sure the rubbish is picked up, and ensure we run our communities so that we can be proud of them?
I believe we lose sight of that. The government keeps saying: ‘This will attract more funds, this will attract more funds, local government will be able to employ more people’. That may be the case, but local government itself needs to ensure that it sticks with its basic services that it should supply to the people. If it wants to take on this great list of other things, do it when it knows it can run the basics. When it runs the basics and can do it well and people are happy with that, take on some of these other things.
This is the business plan - the second draft by the way - and it talks about the commercial things. Community stores and retailers ask why a shire should run a community store. Why is that not private? Employment and training - is that not the job of the Department of Employment and Training? Regarding horticulture, I have said what I think before. There are Indigenous art enterprises, a Post Office agency, and visitor accommodation. Even if you do take those on, it is not the shire that actually creates those jobs. The Post Office, depending on how it is formed, will either pay people to run the agency or it will have to run as a business. I do not think that is the shire’s job. If someone wants to run it as a business, that is fine. If it cannot be done, I am not sure that it is the shire’s job to pick it up.
Minister, at the moment there is a lot of salesmanship and spin saying: ‘The previous CLP government could not do the job, we are doing the job’. That might be the case.
However, I look at Bathurst Island. There was a case with the previous government that made the Tiwi Island Local Government. It was in your area for six years, you looked after it. I saw in the paper recently it was paid $2.7m because it was going bankrupt. Why was it doing that? That was under your period of reign or rule. Nothing much has really changed because it is still the same council. I have to be asking: why has that local government failed when it was under your rules and regulations?
I have 45 pages here of Estimates Committee. We took 2 hours discussing this issue. It highlights many issues in relation to the reform. It is not a case of saying: ‘Well, that is it, goodbye’. We need people like the member for Katherine to question where you are going. You need people, like the people who spoke to me at Daly River, to be able to get up without fear or favour and tell you that things are not good at the Daly. Nauiyu Nambiyu was a fine community council. Here are the words: people are walking around with no jobs and there is no money. They are saying that CDEP is not there any more, CDEP has been withdrawn ...
Mr Knight: Who took it away? This mob here - Tollner.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr WOOD: Well, they are blaming you. You said that this was going to create more jobs, that is what you told the people at Nauiyu. They are saying that is not happening. You ought to go and talk to them and say why it is happening.
You have produced a you-beaut model that looks fantastic in the showroom but, in fact, you have lost sight of the people who have to live with it. You have created a huge council.
I still say that if you had gone through Jack Ah Kit’s model with the 22 regional councils that he was trying to put together - he called them regional councils - you would have come up with a much better model; one that actually had the community involved and dealt more with the community, rather than just about economic efficiencies. I believe that was the way to go.
As I said before in the Estimates Committee, this model is now on its way and we will have to see how it goes. In the long run, it is going to be detrimental to the old concept of local government. Many communities will find they are now just part of a great bureaucracy with a very well-paid CEO, in some local town not even in their shire, and that will be to the detriment of many Aboriginal people. I believe smaller councils can give Aboriginal people a chance to move into management. You now have CEOs being paid $250 000 each. That was the advertised salary. What chance do Aboriginal people have of moving up to that extent? You have more of a chance when you have smaller councils where people can see a chain of employment, where they can start to take control over their own lives. After all, is that not the reason we try to do these things, so Aboriginal people have more control over their own lives? When we start to get close to that, we say: ‘Well, the model is no good; it has some problems. We will develop this big new model which is so complex that it takes the idea of Aboriginal control further away from them’. We have created this you-beaut, southern model of how to run a local government and we have lost sight of what we are going to do.
I cannot say I agree with what is happening - and I am told I am nitpicking - that we can have unelected CEOs and Department of Local Government officials making decisions about these councils when there are no elected members. That is one of the biggest disgraces. The minister quoted the Queensland situation. Queensland has many more shires, even under the amalgamated model. All those councils had elected members from day one. There were no unelected members in Queensland running the council. That is the biggest scandal of this whole thing; that the people who should be having a say are not there to have a say. If the people of Nauiyu believe they are not getting a fair deal, who do they run to? An unelected CEO. If he says, ‘Too bad’, so what? However, if you go to your elected member and say: ‘I have a problem’, that elected member is more likely to jump because he might not have a job at the next election.
Madam Speaker, it looks good on paper, it might be efficient, and the economics might all add up, but I believe you have lost the people. You have lost the community and, in this case, you have lost democratic processes.
Mr GILES (Braitling): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Katherine for his contribution tonight. I recognise that he was not talking about not needing local council reform. He recognised the need for local council reform. Member for Katherine, the assertion that that is not what you are trying to do is completely wrong. I also recognise the member for Daly and his contribution, and what the member for Nelson said.
I am not going to talk about the past. Many people in this Chamber would be well aware that I did not support the process of local council reform in the first place. I will not go over the Star Wars program the minister for stealth liked to ram straight through. What I want to talk about is where we are now and some of the problems, and try to provide a contribution of some ideas about how things need to be fixed.
The big thing that has been touched on by the members for Katherine and Nelson is that people are unhappy with what is happening. Pastoralists, community leaders, community members, council staff, ex-council staff, council managers, and government business managers from the federal government; everyone has a complaint about what is happening with local government reform. Things need to be looked at.
Some of the things I have witnessed in my travels - both before and since entering this House - since the starting up of the shire councils in Central Australia is a quite worrying increase in alcohol consumption in communities. Clearly, cleanliness is deteriorating. There is a lot more rubbish in the communities. Things are starting to fall apart a bit. There are fewer people working and many more people moving away. These are real signs of something that the member for Nelson alluded to; that is, a lack of community control. There are community managers in these communities, but the communities are losing control of their destiny about how they move forward.
I recognise these communities are in the regions. On Tuesday, the Chief Minister alluded in his economic statement about the need to build the regions. We have a Minister for Regional Development from Central Australia - and it is really positive that he is from Central Australia. What the shires have become is fiefdoms in themselves. They have become big centralised models outside of the shire in Alice Springs or Katherine, or wherever it may be but, not actually in the shire. A lesson we can take from the recent election is that when you create centralised models like Darwin, the people from Alice Springs and Katherine and the bush all start to fall away. That is why they do not vote the way people thought they would. What we are seeing now with the shires is people falling away from the council as they know it, and communities are starting to fall apart.
One of the big things that I see as a concern as part of the shire process - and it is something I would like to see fixed - is the exclusion of the private sector investment in the shires. When we talk about economic development and building the regions, it is very important for us to get the private sector into the regions and the shire processes taken out - removing jobs and so forth. The key focus is - and the member for Nelson is right - if you are going to have this new model, get the roads, rates, and rubbish right first before you start moving into other areas.
I am not going to talk about pastoralists tonight, but I will just give you one example from Santa Teresa in the member for Macdonnell’s electorate, and part of the MacDonnell Shire. The community store there has had to change ownership. It used to be owned by the council and different things have happened - new managers have come in. When we talk about employment, what has actually happened on the ground is they used to have six Indigenous staff, now they have gone back to two Indigenous staff. They have more non-Indigenous staff there. You must have the right management, but there were more local people who were working there. What we are actually seeing in that store is the quality of food has gone down. These are reports from all officials in Santa Teresa. The quality of food has gone down, and it costs $7.50 to buy a stale old lettuce in Santa Teresa. Part of our approach in trying to build regions is trying to improve the quality, improve jobs, and all that sort of thing. This is a real problem, and I encourage members on the other side - the member for Stuart in his role of Economic Development, and the member for Macdonnell - to go there and check some of these things out because there are real concerns.
The government likes to talk up the creation of Indigenous jobs in these communities. We have heard all about, in the last couple of days, trying to flag the economic development approach. I am very passionate about that as most people would know. Regarding the creation of jobs in these shires - these people are already working either on CDEP or some other measure. It is actually a bit of a fairytale to talk about creating jobs through this shire process. What has happened is they have transitioned from a CDEP job to a real job or what they should have been in the first place. I do not care whether it goes back to CLP or Labor days, this was always wrong and it should have always been the right way.
What we are seeing with councils moving away from roads, rates and rubbish, and now taking on Night Patrol, CDEP and many other things, is they are losing sight, with that centralised model, of what is actually happening on the ground. They have managed CDEP, and they have managed it right across the Territory. Although in MacDonnell Shire - and I am sure the member for Macdonnell will be interested to know - they have had a contract since 1 July, but they have not started it yet. No one in MacDonnell is on CDEP except for one other alternate provider. No one who is on CDEP in the MacDonnell Shire is actually doing anything. That is why things are falling apart; no one has a job. Whether you call CDEP a job or not, they do not even have anything to do there. They cannot start it because they cannot fill those jobs that the member for Katherine spoke about. That is a real tragedy, and that is why the alcohol and the social behaviours are going backwards.
One of the things that happened on CDEP for many years, which they tried to change last year, was to try to remove the cost-shifting nature of CDEP where, instead of paying someone to do a job, they just put in a CDEP position. That was one of the biggest changes. The Territory government likes to flag how they have removed all that; there are transitioning jobs going, the feds are putting all the money in to change these jobs from CDEP to full-time jobs - which is a good thing. However, there is an underlying problem here that people are not really seeing. I have been at liberty to see some of this stuff. There is actually a new cost-shifting model that is going on. When we see that the shires are running CDEP - I will just run through some figures here and explain how some of the CDEP works.
We talk about how some of the shires are getting propped up by federal money through a cost-shifting approach. For every person that the shire takes off CDEP and puts into one their own jobs, they get $3025. Across the Territory, there are a number of jobs, and a number of outcomes that they have to achieve. I have done a rough calculation on a very minimal scale of 400. If the shire takes 400 people off CDEP and gets them into a job, they get $1.2m to fill their coffers. That is exactly what happens. I am aware that the shires have taken the CDEPs and kept the private sector and the local community organisations out, and not let anyone local do it, and not let any local jobs happen to support economic development. They all have it based out of a central approach. Now, when they are trying to fill jobs in their communities, they are not letting the private sector in, they are going straight to the Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations and negotiating contracts for those people with that federal government agency, to try to get more money to employ Aboriginal people, because they cannot do it on their own.
They cannot get a private sector company to do it; they want to try to get the money for themselves because they are not going to fund it properly. They go out there and they say: ‘We would like direct wage assistance because we are going to put an Aboriginal person on. That is the kind of people we are’. So, they get $4400 for each person they put on. Or, if they are smart, which I think they are, they go and negotiate what is called a ‘steppers’ contract - Structured Training Employment Related Services contract. They negotiate $13 000 to put an Aboriginal person in a full-time job.
If they put 400 people on, as I was talking about, they will get paid $5.2m just to employ Aboriginal people. Well, it is part of their job to employ Aboriginal people. This is out in the communities. They should not get paid this. They should be helping set up local businesses, and the local Aboriginal businesses get paid this money and supply the labour to these shire councils. This is what economic development is all about. This is not about creating these little kingdoms in Alice Springs to run shire councils.
Let me talk about one other financial aspect. I do not know what the ACP is - what they term how many CDEP places each shire has - but I know that in the middle of last year there were about 8000 in the Northern Territory. So, I am predicting there will be minimum of 5000 across the shires in the Northern Territory. For every CDEP participant that you are allocated, whether they start or not, you get $5100 per person. So, if you have 5000 people on CDEP across the shires in the Northern Territory, whether they started in MacDonnell or not, that is $25.5m going into their coffers from the federal government to help run CDEP for the shires. That $25.5m would be much better out in the bush, for an Aboriginal business, an Aboriginal organisation, or somewhere local - not based out of Alice Springs where the administrative money stays in Alice Springs or in Katherine. That is not how it is supposed to be done. If we are talking about real regional development, we should have the money in the bush, and that is what it is all about.
I only say these things because I would really like to see change there. I am not criticising, I am saying that you have it wrong, and so these are some of the things that need to change. In total, that comes to $31.4m as an under-estimation of what I predict the shire councils will receive by taking money from the federal process just on CDEP, wage assistance, and structure training and employment.
On Tuesday, we heard the fluff piece about the economic direction going into the regions. If we have $30m going to the shires, you have to get it to local businesses, not to Alice Springs. It cannot go to Alice Springs or Katherine. I support Alice Springs in economic development, but you have to develop business in the bush. You have to get local bush people working and, if you take all those jobs out and put them in town, where we see those kingdoms in Ford Plaza there, it is just not the way to go. It does not support the Territory, it does not support the bush, and that is what it is about.
We heard yesterday, and the day before, about the 408 jobs, I think it was, that the shires have apparently created. No matter how it works, whether those people were on CDEP plus top-up before or whatever, the amount of people now complaining to me that, ‘we are on 35 hours a week’. The Local Government Minister, the member for Daly, said: ‘This is how good we are going, we have 408 people in jobs’. How many of those were on 35 hours a week before the council changes and, now, have gone back to 25 hours a week or 16 hours a week? With the number of people who have actually had a pay cut by the local shires coming, I do not think that 408 is actually a positive thing. Those people should have been paid properly in the first place.
When you are employing Aboriginal people, we recognise that, sometimes, you want the skill set up here, and sometimes you pay the people here. People may not always have the skill set, but the most important thing in getting Aboriginal people into work is to give them a job. It is not about dropping their pay. You have to give people a job. It is not about the education. You have to give people a job. People will work if you give them a job. Now, we are seeing with the shires people taking pay cuts, and that is why people are leaving their jobs. They are going back to welfare and back to CDEP. That is not what the shire creation is about, and that is happening all over the Territory.
I give another example about some of the impacts of the shires coming in. I have four examples of this that I will just quickly cover. We spoke a little about the assets and vehicles. In the MacDonnell Shire, one of the key concerns is the access to community buses. I am not a big supporter of community buses. I know the problems there, and all the inherent things that go on. However, a community bus was used to get people to football. We have this new football model in Alice Springs. We have five bush teams and five town teams. I am sure the member for Stuart knows a lot about the football and how it operates down there. What is happening is that all their games, home and away, are played in Alice Springs. So, if you are from Papunya, Yuendumu, Ti Tree, Santa Teresa, or Hermannsburg, you have to travel in. I do not fully support that football model, but that is the way it works. All these communities come in and play football, and they used to use the bus.
What the MacDonnell Shire has done is say: ‘No more bus. We are not letting you use the bus anymore. We are not giving you petrol. You cannot use the bus’. So, what is happening? We have seen a couple of forfeited games, which is not that good, but what we are also seeing is people now driving their cars. I have no problem with people driving their cars. We all know how bad most of the bush roads are, all except for Hermannsburg, which has a reasonable sealed road. People are driving in when they normally get the bus in. They come together, that community spirit, that team spirit, and they get the bus home.
Now, people are staying in town because they drive in and they do not have enough petrol to get back. They are all staying in town. We know urban drift. We know the over-population problems. What is happening? They are all drinking. Not all, I should not say all. However, a lot of people who have come into town are drinking and then driving home. We have heard about the problems with the road toll and this is a cross-portfolio issue. People are driving into town, watching the football and drinking and driving home. There have been unfortunate accidents where people have died going home after being in town watching the football. This is a significant problem. This is a side effect of what is happening with the shire councils. People are driving on these roads and there are more accidents.
When you are in government, it is not just about programs and putting money in; it is about having key policies and thinking about how they have other effects down the track. This is a significant problem that is coming out of the shires. It is not just about people getting pay cuts, or not getting jobs or CDEP not operating. People are now driving and drinking. I know it is their responsibility not to do that, but it is a significant problem.
We should look at all the different policy areas that are involved in these shires, and get the members for Daly, Karama, Stuart, Arafura, and Casuarina and, maybe, if they borrowed the famous stapler that the member for Fong Lim spoke about yesterday, bring all of those things together and start talking about what some of those issues are. You have set up this little kingdom and the areas of each one of your portfolios are affected in each one of those shires. There is only one department looking after that and they are not looking at any of those problems.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I speak to this matter of public importance. I agree that the issue of local government in the Northern Territory and the reforms that we have taken with local government is important. It is one that our government has taken quite seriously. It is quite offensive to say that members - and I do not mean this as a cheap political shot - whose electorates are where this reform of local government and the shires are, are out of touch, or that we do not have the discussion, the communication, or the consultation with our communities regarding the importance of what these reforms have meant to these communities. Like any reform, you are going to encounter problems. We all know that if you are going to change a system that has been deeply embedded in the Northern Territory for a long time - for a long time we have seen the neglect that has been out there and the problems that we saw with community government council’s and association councils.
The member for Nelson stands often and talks about his wealth of knowledge with local government. I am not disputing he has a wealth of knowledge. He is quite a passionate advocate when it comes to local government. Since being in this Chamber with him since 2001, he sometimes sounds like a broken record, but you cannot accuse him of not being passionate about the issues with local government, which goes back to his experience on the Tiwi Islands and also Daly River.
One of the running sores of political life in the Northern Territory has been the inefficiency and the dysfunctionality of much of what has passed for local government in the Territory over the last two decades. There is not one member in this House who can say that we have a history that we can be proud of in what has been complete dysfunction in some of our communities. We all know the impact when a council has gone belly-up in the past in many of our communities with small community government councils. Services stop and no-one in that community can get services.
In March 2002 in this House, the then Local Government Minister, John Ah Kit, made the point that, at any one point in time in the Northern Territory, the majority of community councils were on the point of collapse. I just want to take some members back to that. He said:
What John Ah Kit was talking about in 2002 is an area of dysfunction that the nation was alerted to more than half a decade before Mal Brough and John Howard discovered a national emergency in the lead-up to an election. It is an area in which, in the past, there have been calls for reforms from both the current Leader of the Opposition, and the members for Port Darwin and Nelson. You hear them constantly: ‘Something has to be fixed in these Aboriginal communities’. Not everyone is going to be happy with the reforms. We have a very good framework. This is a fantastic policy, but we are only going to make it work by working with it and ensuring our policy is bedded down properly.
Any suggestion that this side of politics has had no worries about community concerns on local government is absolute nonsense. Every member on our side who holds a bush seat hears those concerns loud and clear, and we advocate to our Minister for Local Government so we can work through these difficulties. We too, are sick and tired of seeing the impact on the ground in our communities when they are not working ...
A member: Why does the minister treat it as though it is not important, then?
Ms SCRYMGOUR: The minister does think it is important. We have worked through addressing this. It is important. Not only is it nonsense, it is also deeply insulting to the many people out bush who have been raising the profound concerns about local government that have led us to the current reform process, commenced by us two years ago. It is also deeply insulting to the hundreds of Territorians who have been actively involved in bringing the shires into fruition.
The fact is, this government has been prepared to take on those concerns, rather than sweeping them to one side, as was the case of successive CLP governments and now, it seems, successive CLP oppositions; whose main concerns, appear to be self-interest rather than public interest. The opposition is raising a straw man. Just because they say we have not listened to people’s concerns, does not make it true. Assertions from those members opposite do not square with reality. In fact, the opposite is true.
This government’s passion for people’s concerns about local government has led to many thousands of hours of consultation across the Territory. These consultations have been carried out by many public servants, and have seen the participation of many hundreds of Territorians whose lives will be affected by the new shire structure to local government.
I went, with the former Minister for Local Government, Elliot McAdam, who was very passionate about the reforms, to my own electorate and other electorates of West Arnhem, consulting with people from Gunbalanya, Maningrida and through the outstations at Minjilang and Warruwi, picking up those concerns. We were talking to people about what the shires would to be able to do.
In some of the regions, people are saying that they have lost their ability to control or businesses have moved away. If anything, what I have seen in West Arnhem - and maybe because that region was talking amalgamations and shires for four years prior to the actual reform - it has made those structures a lot stronger.
Sure, there are problems. I am not saying that there are 100% problem-free zones out there in some of those communities. There are issues, but the communities are working through some of those problems. They have most of their staff, if not all. When I was talking to the West Arnhem Shire CEO, Mark Griffioen, nearly all of the managers in those communities have now been put in place and work is commencing. The main impact of people feeling demoralised, which the member for Nelson talked about, was already happening because of the intervention, and there was also the local government reform that people were trying to grapple with.
There were problems on the Tiwi Islands for a long time. The Tiwi Islands was part of the first lot of councils that went through the amalgamations and then turned into a shire. There are, and have been, issues within these structures, but people have worked on them. The communities want much of this. You are always going to get a group in a community that does not want the change and will not work with it. They will always want to have life as it always has been.
I have spent many hours in my electorate talking to people about their concerns about local government, both the limited regional governance adopted by the CLP, and the more far-reaching shire models that we now have. These discussions have occurred on the mainland and the islands. They have been passionate discussions, sometimes even heated arguments, but they have been real and have involved the people actually being affected by the changes. More importantly, they have built on years, if not decades, of concern about local government. The assertion by the opposition that we have not allowed the time for, or listened to, the concerns raised about local government is false. The last two years have seen more discussion about local government than over the last two decades. The discussions, the debates, and the consultations have been a healthy development for Territory democracy. In 12 months time, when things bed down in many of the communities - because when you look at where the benchmark has been in some of these communities, they have been pretty low - the bar will have lifted for Aboriginal people.
I ask: ‘Why should Aboriginal people in remote communities not have the best local government structures?’, as the member for Nelson also said. I agree with some of the things that the member for Braitling was saying. We have to stimulate the economy in those communities. The shires can do it or the local community could do it. It does not need the shires to do it. Why should roads, rates, and rubbish only be for people in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant, Alice Springs or even the Litchfield Shire? Why should it only be people who live in our urban or regional towns who have good local government services? Why should Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities not have a shire structure that is going to provide a more centralised, streamlined service in local government services and delivery into their communities?
Until this reform we have had a two-tiered system which has been discriminatory. One local government system for everyone else and a very low benchmark of local government services for people living out in the bush. This reform has changed that. It is hypocritical of members on the other side to say that we should not have it or it should not be there.
Of course, there are concerns. I acknowledge the member for Katherine when he said there are concerns. With any reforms there are concerns. Any major reform you bring into the Northern Territory will have problems which you are going to have to work through.
Discussion concluded.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Madam Speaker, I place on the record the success of one of our Northern Territory police officers, Constable First Class Michael Deutrom, who has today been awarded the 2008 Rotary Police Officer of the Year.
Today I praised our police force for the good work they do, and for the professionalism of the men and women who choose policing as an honourable career. As I said, there cannot be many jobs where individuals are expected to be good pillars of society, demonstrate their care for people and, at the same time, often deal with violent situations placing their own health and safety in danger to serve and protect their community.
The Rotary Police Officer of the Year Award is a truly prestigious award, and is highly contested each year. It is very much a great sense of achievement for a police officer to win this particular award, especially given that the police service has a highly structured and determinant award system, based on years served and other professional aspects. However, this is really valued because it is community-based, and it is the community that nominates these officers for this particular award.
I understand that this year Michael was selected for this award from a field of 34 highly commendable police members. Michael is still a young member of the Northern Territory Police Force but this significant achievement recognises his outstanding career to date. I understand that since joining the Northern Territory Police Force in October 1998, Michael has served in Alice Springs, Katherine, Yulara, and Darwin, virtually all in the General Duties area.
I remember meeting Michael for the first time with the member for Macdonnell. It must have been around 2005-06, just after the member for Macdonnell was elected. I was on a visit to Yulara with the member for Macdonnell, and we spent quite some time with young Michael Deutrom. As the Police minister, he really impressed me as a man who was really going to go places in our police force, such was his passion for his job, and his determination as a police officer to make a real difference in the community in which he was serving. I remember him from that day. He has, obviously, gone on and achieved this significant success.
Michael is currently a member of the Commander’s Tactical Team at the Darwin Police Station and deals with property crime. Michael also worked at the Mutitjulu community with Taskforce Themis from July 2007 to February 2008. This will be one of the milestones in his career that Michael will look back on in years to come. From July to December 2006, Michael worked in Dili, East Timor, on secondment to the Australian Federal Police. I am advised Michael was born in New Guinea, where his father was a magistrate, and he has a brother who is also a member of the Northern Territory Police Force.
Madam Speaker, I congratulate the Rotary Club of Darwin for their ongoing commitment in conducting these awards each year.
Earlier this week, I hosted a function with Madam Speaker in the Main Hall to celebrate the Rotary Club of Darwin’s 50th birthday of them contributing to our community in Darwin. I mentioned at that function that this particular award has been going - I might be wrong here, I am remembering my speech to the Rotary Club - for 24 years. It certainly has been going for a long time. I spoke to members of Rotary that evening about how well received this award was by police officers who achieved it.
I would have liked to have been present when Michael received his award earlier this evening; however, my parliamentary duties precluded me from attending the function. I look forward to catching up with Michael to congratulate him in person. As I said, I have met him a couple of times as Police minister. I specifically remember those few hours spent with him and other officers at Yulara a few years ago. I was very impressed by a young police officer who was dedicated and committed to his job.
I invite members to join with me in paying tribute to Michael’s success and wishing him well for his future career in our Northern Territory Police Force.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak on an issue I wanted to raise in the police debate. I am glad to see that the minister for Police is here because I would like him to listen to this. If what I have gleaned from his annual report is true, it could actually go some way to saving some lives. I urge the minister to stay to listen to this because it is very important. I urge the staff on the fifth floor to listen to this so they can tell the Police minister there is a very important statistical anomaly that he needs to be aware of, because it might make a difference.
I have been tracking back through some old police annual reports. In those annual reports, I discovered that police changed the way they used speed cameras for a very short period of time. I direct members’ attention to the original estimate - you can find this, by the way, on page 67 of the 2004-05 annual report for police. On page 67, you can find the original estimate for that year for the number of speed and red light camera checks that were going to be conducted that year. The proposal for that year was 1.15 million speed camera checks. However, they changed their philosophy somewhat and, towards the end of the year, they actually lowered their estimates by almost half - they went to 660 000 speed camera checks, and their final result for the year was 624 918 speed checks using speed cameras.
The reason I raise this issue now, all these years later, was that there was actually a change in the way that they thought about using speed cameras. In footnote 2 on that page, which I quote, it says:
What they have, basically, said is: ‘We are going to change the way we use these speed cameras. We are going to step away from the volumetric approach and we are going to target them at hot spots’.
They abandoned that approach and they returned in the following year - and I now refer to page 60 of the 2005-06 annual report, the speed camera checks. Having abandoned the approach of targeting hot spots they returned to simple volumetric approaches. Their original estimate for the year was 660 000. They thought: ‘We will not do hot spots. We will do volume and we will get lots and lots of cars, so we will do 850 000’. Their actual result for the year was 804 914.
They said, as a deterrent, that speed cameras should perform in the following way: that it should nab less than or equal to 3% of drivers actually speeding, through the volumetric process. Their final result for that year on that page was 3%, so they were at the very top end of the range of what they expected was going to be the result.
The following year - and I am now referring to page 43 of the annual report in 2006-07 - they set a target of 850 000 speed camera checks, once again pursuing the volumetric approach rather than targeting hot spots. They checked 723 549 vehicles. However, they used the same benchmark of less than or equal to 3% of all vehicles checked would be committing an offence. The result was 4%. What you see from this is that the volumetric approach has not changed driver behaviour. What is portrayed by these figures on page 43 of the 2006-07 report is that 4% of drivers are now getting caught.
It is curious because, in the year when they used the targeted approach, they did not actually report what the hit rate was. But, I can tell you something: there is a very interesting correlation between using the targeted approach - the hot-spot approach rather than the volumetric approach – and road fatalities, which can be discovered on page 65 of the 2005-06 annual report and extrapolated and tacked onto the end.
I am also going to be referring to page 45 of the 2006-07 annual report because - guess what happened? On the year that they decide to use speed cameras to actually target hot spots, places where they know drivers are going to be speeding, and the places and the times when they know drivers are going to be speeding, there is a surprising fall in the number of road fatalities during that period. In the year 2004-05, there were 40 deaths on our roads. The police then moved away from using the targeted approach and they started going back to the volumetric approach. They started going after 750 000 to one million or whatever. Instantly, we started to see an increase in the number of fatalities. In the year 2005-06, the number of fatalities leapt from 40 to 48, in the 2006-07 year to 49, and we already know how disgusting this year’s is starting to look.
It is a great disappointment to me that when I turn to Budget Paper No 3, page 50, the police are insisting on continuing to use the volumetric approach to using speed cameras. The reason this is frustrating - and I point out that on that page they are now back to checking a million vehicles - The more vehicles they have to check means that they use the speed cameras in a particular way. As a speed camera operator, if I have a target where I have to check a million vehicles in a year, then that target means I have to sit in high density, high traffic areas. Often we see that these cameras are set up on Bagot Road taking a photograph of every car they see.
It is an intuitive thing, but it is a fair comment, that you do not get that many fatal accidents on Bagot Road in peak hour. What you get is fender benders, but you do not get fatal accidents during that period. However, the cameras have to be there during that period to meet the targets of a million camera checks a year. There are only 155 000 cars in the Northern Territory, so each car has to be checked about four or five times.
Would it not be better to abandon the volumetric approach and return to using speed cameras where they are going to act as an actual deterrent? The place that you use those speed cameras is Salonika at 3 am, when those young hoons in their souped-up WRXs, or God knows what else they are driving, seem to think that the Salonika crossing is an area where you have to set land speed records. That is where they wrap themselves around the trees. That is where they are killing themselves. That is where they are killing their passengers.
Without pre-empting the Coroner’s investigation into recent fatal accidents, nearly every accident I have seen reported has happened out of hours in places where people tend to drive fast, and at times you know they are going to drive fast. So why are we focused on this volumetric approach as a solution? The police force’s own figures show that it is not acting as a deterrent and they are not even meeting their own benchmarks of driver behaviour as a result of the use of speed cameras.
If this correlation - and it is a very real correlation - is actually matched by the intuitive interpretation I am putting on it, that the year they used a targeted approach is the year that fatal motor vehicle accidents markedly came down because the young hoons who do so much of the damage to themselves and other people actually thought to themselves: ‘Holy moley, I am going to get picked up by a speed camera at 3 am’ - or at 5 am or whenever in these targeted hot spots - then, surely, we should stop using these cameras in such a way that we are only chasing volume.
We can test two million drivers a year, and it just means we have to get an extra speed camera at Bagot Road during peak hour - or on the Stuart Highway or wherever.
It is something that must be looked at by the police force as well as the government. I urge the Chief Minister to look very carefully at these numbers because there is a very strong correlation between the one opportunity they used hot-spot-based police camera work and the actual number of fatalities for that 12-month period. It cannot be ignored. I plead with this government to look at these numbers and these annual reports - I am happy to table the material that I have quoted from because it is all publicly available - and look at the way the number of deaths correlate to that particular year.
It may be coincidental but if it is not, and even if there is a remote opportunity that is not coincidental, then I recommend in the strongest possible terms that the minister for Transport and the minister for Police look again at how we are using those cameras. If we are just using these cameras to check a million drivers a year, you can well understand why so many people are critical of government using these speed cameras, not in a genuine attempt to limit speed, but simply as a revenue-raising exercise.
Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table these documents.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Deputy Speaker, the opposition was due to have General Business Day on 30 October, 2008, the last day of next sittings. There have been discussions between the government and opposition because of the important visit of President Jose Ramos-Horta to the Legislative Assembly on 30 October 2008, and we felt it would be better to move the General Business Day. Therefore, the General Business Day will be held on Wednesday, 29 October 2008.
I stand here tonight as a local member, minister and Leader of Government Business, disappointed at the carry-on in this place over the past two weeks. It saddens me that this parliament has been used to victimise those who cannot defend themselves in here. Parliamentary privilege is just that -- a privilege. That privilege, I believe, has been misused in the past two weeks.
Some members of the opposition have used this House as a coward’s castle, throwing unsubstantiated allegations around at public servants. Those members have been unwilling to back up those comments when they walk out the front door because they know they will be sued for defamation. Those members who have done that are shameless; attacking those who cannot defend themselves. There is one member of the opposition who, I believe, can right that wrong.
The member for Drysdale should take the opportunity tonight to retract the statements he made about the Police Commissioner, and apologise. Last week, the member for Drysdale, in this House, accused the Police Commissioner of doctoring crime statistics - an incredibly serious allegation. Referring to the crime statistics, he said: ‘Very good, it is all doctored’. He went on to say: ‘It is all doctored’. When it was pointed out that, as a former police officer he must have been involved, he defended himself by pointing the finger at the Police Commissioner: ‘The commissioner made a direction’. He accused the commissioner of directing crime statistics to be doctored. If you look up ‘doctored’ in the Macquarie Dictionary it says: ‘to tamper with, falsify, adulterate’. It is an absolutely outrageous claim and misuse of parliamentary privilege.
When asked what he thought of the comment, I thought the Police Commissioner was very restrained. I quote the Police Commissioner from ABC midday radio news:
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, the member for Drysdale should know better. He should withdraw those comments and he should apologise unreservedly.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to say a few things tonight about a friend of mine, one whom I do not always agree with, but who is a very passionate Territorian and that is Rob Wesley-Smith. He is also a constituent. Everyone in this House would know that he is seriously ill so I thought I would talk about this fine Territorian.
Rob worked for many years for the department of Primary Industry and, as you know, Berrimah Farm is a bit of a hot topic at the moment. He came to see me - this is the sort of person he is - concerned about the heritage value of the Berrimah Farm. He brought documents and photographs showing me where the communication centre used to be at Berrimah Farm.
He is not just about Timor, although Timor has probably taken up 30 years of his life. Anyone who has followed the issues of Timor would know that Rob Wesley-Smith stands out like a shining beacon. I did not always agree with him, but you could not ever say that this man was not passionate. He is a person who stands up for what he believes in, and that is what makes him a great bloke.
He has also been concerned about the environment. He is a great supporter of no INPEX in the harbour. He is a great supporter of no industrial development in the harbour. He supported the preservation of the mangroves. He has a passion about a whole range of issues.
He has also been a school bus driver. When he lost his job with the department of Primary Industry, he had difficulty finding other work. As far as I know, the kids loved him and he enjoyed the job.
He is a singer and his brother, Martin, is a very famous singer, involved in opera and all those sort of things. Rob is quite a good singer and has been part of the Darwin Chorale from time to time, and he enjoys his singing.
He is also very much a part of Howard Springs. In fact, earlier this year, I think it was this year, he pulled up in his car up – oh, he has a new car now. He drove up to the Howard Springs Shopping Centre and asked me to come out and have a look at his pumpkin. Well, he had a pumpkin! It was so big that I took a photograph of him and the pumpkin and put it in my newsletter as Rob’s answer to affordable housing. That is how big the pumpkin was.
The man is passionate, and has a great sense of humour as well. He has many talents. We should be proud to have people like that in the Territory, regardless of our political persuasions. He is the sort of person that makes you feel proud to be in the Territory because we do have people like Rob. Tonight I say: I hope, Rob, if you are reading this at some stage, that you are getting better, and that you will have a full recovery. I am sure everyone in this House would also wish him well.
I will be visiting him as soon as he can have visitors; at the present time, he is still seriously ill. I was listening to his brother on the radio this morning, and I think he said Rob is still sedated. He has nine broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe head injuries, which is not something you would recover from quickly. I do hope he is back on the road, back out fighting for causes. The Howard Springs is one of the causes, making sure Howard Springs is open. He is a Friend of the Springs, and a Friend of the Fogg. He is out there fighting on many issues, and I want to see him come back. Regardless of whether we agree with him or not, we love him.
The second issue is a favourite topic of mine. I pulled a page off the web the other day because I had heard that there had been some changes in South Australia. I quickly looked up whether that was true. A media release from the government of South Australia, dated 13 February 2008, said:
There is a quote here from the Environment and Conservation Minister:
A Labor minister:
It went on:
This is something I had not taken into account, and I am sure ministers will take note of:
If that does not convince this government to get off its rear end and do something about CDL, I do not know what will get them off …
Ms Scrymgour: National, national.
Mr WOOD: No, I just do not believe I heard that word.
It is implemented now:
I should not need to say any more. South Australia - good old South Australia - is the only state in Australia to have enough brains to introduce a system which we know works. What do we do in the Territory? Put it in the too-hard basket. We have some trials in some of the communities. We have money given to us by the beverage industry to make pretty 44 gallon drums. We spend an absolute fortune picking up rubbish up and down our highways - an absolute fortune. Our highways are dirty - they are filthy. The only reason they sometimes look clean is because there is a little quad bike going up and down every day picking up rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. We should not need to be doing that. We should be able to recycle those things. How much of that stuff is going into the Shoal Bay tip? A huge amount. It should not be. How much of this stuff is in community landfill sites? Heaps and heaps and heaps.
I say to the government: come on. I have been going on about this long before local government amalgamations - way back in the good old days when life was simple and we seemed to understand simple solutions really work in some cases. This is one that can work. Do not wait for the national government to introduce a deposit scheme. They are going to be continually pounded by the beverage industry and the packaging industry not to introduce it. The chance of us having a national CDL deposit scheme is about as much as it snows in Darwin at Christmas. That is the chances of having a national deposit scheme. I say, come on government. You are in your third term. Do something for the community. Do something to reduce greenhouse gases. It is a positive approach, a realistic approach, for reducing greenhouse gases. Do it. Do not hide behind all the excuses, just do it.
The issue of the pool came up today and I heard a comment from the Chief Minister, having a little go at the Litchfield Shire Council, right at the end. I went to a Litchfield Shire Council meeting to discuss the pool. We need to sit down and see whether this can actually work. They told me that they have not been involved; that the previous member for Goyder went to a meeting and promised they would get a full analysis of how this pool was going to work and how it was going to be costed, and the government has not sent them anything.
I take exception to what the Chief Minister has said about Litchfield Shire. I thought we were coming in for a bit of a change. There has been talk from Graeme Sawyer from Darwin City Council trying to form a cooperative approach between the Territory government and local government yet, because Litchfield does not quite sit neatly sometimes with this government, it likes to have a dig. In this case, the government should be doing the right thing. The council has been promised they would see the details.
I make it clear that I do not have a problem with the pool per se but it would be a foolish local politician to say ‘Just build it’, and then find out the thing cost $400 000 a year and have no idea where that money is coming from. Surely, it is my job to query the government about how it has reached a decision that a pool will be built for this much money, it will go on this block of land, the YMCA will be involved in it, and God only knows who will own it? Those basic answers are not known to the public. They are not known to me, and I am a local member. They do not appear to be known to the school. I ask that the government provide us with those figures so we can have a proper analysis - which includes the public having a look at it - to make sure if we build a pool, it will not cost a fortune to run it, and it will be in the right place.
There are many people in my area who oppose the pool. The pool is not 100% popularly supported. I have had a lady who has said: ‘Spend it on the library. Do not spend it on silly old swimming pools. You can go and swim in the creek or you have your own pool’. She thinks the money should be spent somewhere else. I must admit, if there is one place that needs to be upgraded to a bigger size that is the community library because it is far too small for the number of students now. However, I digress.
If you want to convince people who are a bit suspicious about whether this pool is really needed in the Litchfield Shire, then come back with the figures and show us who is going to run it, who is going to own it, and which is the best place to put it. The minister mentioned Taminmin High School. It is not going to belong to Taminmin High. It was already decided they are going to excise the land. That means it is going to be a public pool not a school pool. Is that the right place for the pool?
You want to have the pool in the most effective place that will get the most use. If it means Humpty Doo, terrific; if it means Freds Pass, terrific. But no one has said: ‘We have done a study and we have looked at the population, school and sporting club figures and we have worked out this might be the best site to have it’. We have not had any of that. We have had a bit of secret squirrel business.
The previous member for Goyder got together a group. Today, I rang a lady today who is in that group and they are not sure where it is going. I am not even sure the YMCA knows where it is going.
In Question Time today I was asking for some details. It is much easier for me to convince people the pool is good if I have some details. However, when I am told: ‘You are just Woody Woodpecker and just knock everything’ - well, if I am Woody Woodpecker then I say the minister is a beaver. He gets stuck into the big logs and knocks them over.
Ms Scrymgour interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, I ask the questions because they are the ones the government needs to answer. It is not about knocking; it is about my job on this side of parliament. I am not a member of the opposition. My job as a local member is to question the government, and that is what this is about. It is not about Litchfield Shire. I say to the Chief Minister: please send the details to Litchfield Shire and let us see if we can improve the relationship between Litchfield and the NT government because, in the end, that will benefit everyone in the rural area.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I join with the member for Nelson in acknowledging the contribution of Rob Wesley-Smith. He is a passionate advocate. In my time as the minister for the Environment, he was a purist. Rob has very strong convictions and he does not waiver from them. That is seen in his passion and fight for the people of East Timor. My husband had a lot to do with him when they were working between East Timor and here. He is a man of integrity. Member for Nelson, it is not only you who disagreed with him; he has differing views to many people. However, he is a man of integrity. I join with you in hoping that he does recover. All of us, when we read the news that he had been hurt, sent their thoughts to him because he epitomises a true Territorian and one who does care about people. It is not just about East Timor or the environment; he is a very strong advocate for Aboriginal issues and Aboriginal people. He sees himself as the advocate and the sole fighter for many of the disadvantaged. That is what Rob Wesley-Smith stands for.
I am not going to get in the CDL debate. I have had the CDL debate with the member for Nelson many times.
Tonight, I inform the House about the government’s latest efforts to settle the long-running teachers’ dispute. I say up-front that the Northern Territory government has been negotiating in good faith with the Australian Education Union. The existing Enterprise Bargaining Agreement covers approximately 2500 teachers, and the Australian Education Union has engaged in industrial action, with some 900 to 1100 Australian Education Union Northern Territory members participating.
On 20 August 2008, the Commissioner for Public Employment made a formal, revised offer which represented a substantial increase over the government’s previous offers, and addressed issues such as strongly competitive salaries for the duration of the agreement, reduction in maximum class sizes, improvements to remote conditions, and work/life balance initiatives. The offer was taken by the union executive to members during meetings across the Territory, and it was rejected. This result is very disappointing.
We are now faced with the Australian Education Union taking strike action for three days next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This is absolutely shocking. Next week, Year 12 students at Casuarina Secondary College, Casuarina Senior College, Nhulunbuy High School and Palmerston High School will be doing their trial exams. There are Year 9 students involved in Try-a-Trade, as well as Year 11 and 12 students who have major assessment pieces due to be submitted.
As the Education minister, I met with the executive of the Australian Education Union this afternoon to discuss their issues surrounding resourcing and non-contact time for primary teachers. I put forward a clear plan; a way forward that would benefit students and teachers. I committed to fully costing their resourcing proposals and taking them to Cabinet. I pleaded with the executive to consider the students and to not to take strike action. However, I have been advised the plan I put forward has been rejected by the executive of the Australian Education Union.
We would be irresponsible as a government if we did not cost all measures carefully. In Question Time today, we heard the opposition stirring this matter up. They are supporting the three-day teachers strike next week. As Education minister, I urge our teachers and the opposition to think about the repercussions of this action; to think about the disruptions this will cause to families and to students who are getting close to exam time.
Today, I had a story relayed to me about a Year 12 student who cried when told that her teachers were going to be stopping work for three days next week. Those opposite run the economic vandal argument. They are willing to do and say anything to please people without considering the consequences. Open-ended salary increases can only lead to cuts in services - and that is what the opposition proposes.
The Northern Territory government does value our teachers. We know the importance of having quality teachers and leaders in all our schools. We are putting more resources into Territory schools. Under Closing the Gap, the Department of Education and Training has responsibility for delivering $80.5m over the next four years, and this includes additional teachers and counsellors. We are committed to a $246m schools infrastructure program over the next four years which includes providing each primary and large group school with a $300 000 upgrade. This is the biggest ever schools infrastructure program in the history of the Territory.
I implore teachers to consider their actions carefully. I urge the union executive to put a stop to the strike. The government will do as much as it can, including taking action in the Industrial Relations Commission, to prevent the strike from going ahead. I urge all members to think about the students. It is students and their families who will be caught up in this avoidable dispute. I urge the teachers to reconsider strike action. I urge members opposite to back the government’s attempt to bring an end to this dispute.
We are genuine in our desire to negotiate a solution. Industrial action is unnecessary and disruptive.
Mr GILES (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I pay tribute to a constituent of mine. It is the first time I have risen to pay respect to someone who lives in the electorate of Braitling. We all have these people in our community and in our electorates who are stalwart - and we have used the word ‘stalwart’ many times. She is a stalwart of our community in Alice Springs. Her name is Mary Meldrum and she lives in Larapinta. She is 74-years-old and is involved in everything that has to do with charity in Alice Springs.
Mary Meldrum is from South Australia. She was the first female auctioneer in Australia and was a real estate agent. She moved to Alice Springs quite a few years ago. She is involved in any community events where we need to raise money for community groups. She has been a Justice of the Peace since 1970. She was Centralian of the Year in 2005. Mary was a Commonwealth baton relay runner and has been Ambassador for the Masters Games seven times - and going around again this year, and I thank her for that. She is a check-in scrutineer with the Finke Desert Race, and is involved as a hobby steward at the Alice Springs Show.
I digress for a minute to put on the public record that my prize-winning fruit cake won first place at the Alice Springs Show. Mary Meldrum was one of the hobby stewards, as you call them. I also entered a carrot cake. The carrot cake I entered did not win, it came fourth. I said to her: ‘Mary, how come my cake did not win?’ She said: ‘It did not win because it does not look like a carrot cake; it looks like a mud cake’. Anyhow, she took it home and ate it with all her mates. She said it was very tasty cake, it just did not look right.
Mary is also a volunteer with the Alice Springs Hospital drivers and helps out at Alice Springs Hospital. She is a retired member of the Cancer Council Alice Springs. She is a volunteer with the Breast Cancer Golf Day - and I had a great day with her a couple of weeks ago. She was a volunteer for the Relay of Life, and volunteer for The Residency Museum. Mary was a member of the Women’s Hall of Fame, and Chairperson of the Bowls Club.
Last Sunday, I was at a hockey fundraiser for some kids from Alice Springs who are flying to Darwin to represent the Northern Territory in the national titles in Canberra, and we played bowls together. She ran the day and raised a fair amount of money. Mary has been involved in many different things. She also helps out with Reclink.
She estimates that, over the last number of years, she has raised around $200 000 for various charities including Palliative Care, Royal Flying Doctor Service, Eye Care, Leukaemia Foundation, Red Nose Day, and for some of the bushfire victims. For Cyclone Larry, she raised money in Alice Springs and flew over and donated money in North Queensland. She helps kids in all sports and all needs in our community.
Mary has helped me a bit, and I know she helps other people in the community more than anyone else. I really appreciate the work that Mary does. I put on record that people like Mary are stalwarts in our community. They are the backbones that keep things moving. She is a very tough woman, and she is the sort of person who makes things happen. It is that community spirit that drives things. I say thanks to Mary.
Mary is like a number of other people who live in Larapinta. Mary lives in a Territory Housing complex on Larapinta Drive in Larapinta, in my electorate of Braitling. Mary suffers from the same thing that many other people in the electorate of Braitling and Alice Springs suffer from; that is, law and order problems - social misbehaviour in Alice Springs.
We hear a lot about the need for more police, or the problems that are going on, but we never get to the root cause of these problems. Yes, we need more police to fix up some of our social problems, but we have to get to the cause of what is going on.
The complex where Mary Meldrum lives, and the complex next door at 28 Larapinta Drive, reflects some of the problems that are going on. There are so many units in those two complexes, but there are this many people living in them. It is like all of Alice Springs: Alice Springs can fit this many people, but there are this many people living in Alice Springs. Many people are calling it urban drift.
Through the intervention, we have a lot of people moving into town. There are tourists and backpackers who come to town and all our accommodation is full - hotel-type and hostel accommodation. All our residences are full, our rental rate is zero. What drives the real estate market is listings, listings, listings - being an ex-real estate person myself. There are barely any listings in the real estate listings. I was talking to the LJ Hooker estate agent on Sunday at the hockey function with Mary Meldrum, and she was saying rentals are zero. There is just nowhere to rent in Alice Springs through LJ Hooker, which is a big provider. In terms of house sales, she said there are barely any listings.
We have a significant problem with where people can live in Alice Springs. That is contributing to the social problems we have in terms of homelessness, alcoholism, kids going to school, law and order, and calling the police all the time. Then, the police are not available because they are overworked and underpaid. We have significant problems in Alice Springs in terms of accommodation.
Urban drift is a major part of that, and some of my comments before about local council reform are reflective of the numbers of people moving into town. I fail to see that this government has a plan to address some of those problems. I am more than happy to work with this government to fix things. I have sat down with the local mayor, Damien Ryan, who is very well educated on some these issues. We need to work out how to fix the urban drift problem with housing accommodation costs in Alice Springs. Until we have a plan of how to fix some of these things, nothing is going to change. We are going to continue to see things get worse. We are going to call for more police, and more people are going to get beaten up, be alcoholics, and live on the streets.
Let me talk about three people I know who are from Kintore on the Western Australian border. This reflects the urban drift or the overpopulation in Alice Springs. These three people have to come from Kintore into Alice Springs because they need dialysis in Alice Springs. Unfortunately, all the accommodation in Alice Springs is taken up so these three people are living in the spinifex in the scrub, sleeping in the bush at night and coming in to get their dialysis in the day - not sleeping or eating properly, and then trying to get dialysis.
We heard a lot from the Health Minister earlier this week about renal support, and I applaud the government on the additional renal services that they are providing. However, when we have people coming in for dialysis services and there is nowhere to sleep, we have lost sight of what the problem is.
This is part of the whole approach by program, program, program, and nothing coming together in a clear and coherent policy setting. We do have not any planning. Until this government starts looking at some of the problems in housing and accommodation, things are going to get worse.
Regarding the news from the member for Arafura about the teachers strike which is going to continue for three days, that is tough for all parents in the Northern Territory. I am a parent, my daughter goes to school. I am not sure if it is the primary schools we are talking about. I am not sure if it is going to be Braitling Primary School. It is very unfortunate that this is going to happen. It looks like my daughter will be coming to work with me next week, doorknocking. She will be having a lot of fun. I have to say that it is a very sensitive issue. I am aware of the negotiations in place here.
One of the things that came out of the election is the need for the government to listen. I know that there are issues that the education union must be talking about with the Education minister. The importance of listening is that you can set the path forward and you can get the planning and policy. That is how I have put so many things across these last two weeks. I have tried to come up with ideas for people so that they can take them to try to help build the Territory. When we look at the education strike, we have to take in the context the results from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN, report that came out last weekend which showed …
Ms Scrymgour: Come and get a briefing. I can give you a briefing.
Mr GILES: I would be happy to. Thank you very much. I will take that up - over a coffee would be good.
I look at the results from NAPLAN and see that 40% of Territory students in the years tested are not performing, or are below the national average benchmark. That is a sad indictment on the Northern Territory. There is a long way to go to get improvements. It is quite terrible.
In terms of the government listening to people, their centralised model of government, and not listening to people outside of Darwin, we saw the election results - and the thumping results that they were.
Here we have the teachers, represented by the education union, who are in the bush who know what they need to do to make improvement to try to overcome that 40%. However, the government is so arrogant and is not listening to the teachers. If we want the teachers to improve the outcomes of the NAPLAN survey results, surely we have to listen to what they are saying to try to get the improvements so they can improve the outcomes for the kids? If we do not listen to the teachers, how are we going to get the improvements? These are the key stakeholders who deliver education to our kids - to my kids, to anyone’s kids - who go to school in the Northern Territory. If we do not listen to those people, how are we going to get improvements in the results next time? How are our kids going to get properly educated so that they can get a job? That is what it is about: getting a job.
As much as I do not like strikes, I do not like my daughter not being educated for three days next week. But, if she has to have a strike at her school so that teachers get the right outcomes to try to make improvements so that she can read and write properly so that she can get a job at 17, 18 or 19, or whatever she chooses to do, I will support that.
On another matter, I thoroughly enjoyed my first two weeks of parliament. I have enjoyed working with many different people on the opposite side and on my side, too. I thank everyone, including all of the administrative staff who put in so much time and listened to - I think we had the word ‘constipation’ – sometimes, verbal diarrhoea.
Ms WALKER (Nhulunbuy): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, we heard the Minister for Arts and Museums during last week’s sittings talk about the proposed international tour of Papunya Tula material, which highlights the fact that the Territory possesses some significant works of art and some extraordinary talent, particularly amongst Indigenous people.
The Nhulunbuy electorate is no exception. It is home to many talented people, including a host of Yolngu artists. I barely have enough wall space and corners in my home to hang and place the beautiful items that I have acquired during more than 21 years in the Northern Territory. However, I have managed to find some new space in my parliamentary office where I have two beautiful works hanging. One is by Naminapu Maymuru-White. The other is by Marrnyula Munungurr. Both ladies are well known and highly respected artists from Buku-Larrnggay Mulka’s Print Space. Members are welcome to call by my office to take a look at these prints. Like the Papunya artists, Yirrkala and regional artists have not only been well presented at national and international art competitions, but also take pride of place in art galleries and overseas.
Each year, artists from the Nhulunbuy region enter the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Art Award and, every year, at least one of our artists comes away with a prize and national recognition for their extraordinary talent. This year was no exception. I was delighted to attend the awards night. It was the 25th anniversary of these awards in Darwin on Friday, 15 August, where our Minister for Arts and Museums was in attendance to present the awards.
It was a beautiful evening on the lawns of the Northern Territory museum, and wonderful to see so many people in attendance to celebrate and share the achievements of Indigenous artists. While I congratulate all artists who received awards that evening, I particularly acknowledge and offer sincere congratulations to an outstanding artist, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu from Yirrkala. It was terrific to see that she was able to travel to Darwin to personally accept her award. Nyapanyapa won the Wandjuk Marika Memorial Three Dimensional Prize with her entry Incident at Mutpi (1975). Her entry consisted of a bark painting and the artist’s retelling of the event Gatapangawuy Dhawu, which translates to Buffalo Story, in an eight-minute narrative filmed by the Mulka Project at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala.
The bark painting and film are based on an incident from 1975 when Nyapanyapa was badly gored by a buffalo. Filmed and edited by younger members of the community, the film features the artist who describes the story in the bark painting and retells of the very frightening encounter.
I also acknowledge the excellent work being done by the Mulka Project, an emerging new entity and enterprise at Yirrkala. I recently visited Buku-Larrnggay and had the opportunity to see and hear firsthand how the Mulka Projects works, and was pleased to see Yolngu people seated at computers working in a multimedia environment with images on screens, manipulating them with a far greater degree of skill than I could ever hope to possess. The Mulka Project, as described on their website:
the project:
Following that visit, I took home with me a copy of the Mulka Project’s first release, a compilation DVD of 12 short films completed during the first year of operation, and launched at the Garma Festival last month at Gulkula near Nhulunbuy. It includes everything from music videos of secondary students’ songs to a drama re-enacting ancestral events using the 1950s original field recordings as the sound track, and directed by and starring residents of the remote homeland community of Dhalinybuy. The DVD also includes some dancing from the Chooky Dancers of Elcho Island, who made a name for themselves on YouTube when they shot to fame with their unique version of Zorba the Greek.
I watched the DVD titled Nhama that evening with family, and we were not only highly entertained and greatly impressed with the quality of what we were watching, but also struck by how significant it was to not only see Yolngu people using, with great skill, a different creative medium, but the ability to capture stories and culture for future generations. I remember the conversation I had with Randin Graves from the Mulka Project about how, with this kind of talent in Yirrkala, we would not need in future the likes of Rolf de Heer coming to the Territory to make films such as Ten Canoes when we had Yolngu people who had the talent and skills to tell their own stories in the medium of film.
I am pleased to report a further success among our local artists. In July, the Queensland Premier announced that another local artist from my region, Gunybi Ganambarr from Gangan, as the winner of the lucrative Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award for 2008. His winning work was described by the selection panel as:
Gunybi has been mentored and influenced by local great artists including Gawirrin Gumana, Yumutjin Wunungmurra and Djambawa Marawili. Prior to this, another artist from Gangan – and, yes, another artist from Buku-Larrnggay - was recognised for her talent. In June, Djirrirra Wunungmurra won the TOGART Contemporary Art Award 2008 with her winning piece, a set of five Larrakitj poles. The poles carry the design of Buyku, a fish trap water site sacred to her Yirritja moiety, the Dhalwangu clan near her homeland of Gangan. Indeed, the Chief Minister made the announcement of Djirrirra’s success at the opening of the wonderful Darwin Convention Centre, where the work of the 33 finalists for the TOGART Awards were on display.
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala provides outstanding opportunities for our north-east Arnhem Land communities to promote their culture through art. Indeed, Buku-Larrnggay has won more awards than any other community art centre in Australia. I congratulate them for their ongoing commitment and dedication.
Continuing with the proud record of East Arnhem Land talent - in this case Elcho Island talent - I was delighted to learn last week of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s nomination for no less than four ARIA Awards - Australia’s prestigious awards which recognise, at national level, the outstanding talent in this country’s music and recording industry. He has been nominated for Album of the Year, Best Male Voice of the Year, Best Independent Release, and Best World Music Release for his self-titled album.
These nominations follow hot on the heels of winning four major categories in the 2008 Northern Territory Indigenous Awards held at Darwin Botanic Gardens Amphitheatre last month. Amongst the four awards Gurrumul picked up on that occasion were Best Act and Best Album of the Year. Gurrumul, a strong Gumatj man who has been blind from birth, displays an amazing talent as a singer, songwriter and musician, singing songs about his Gumatj country with his beautiful voice. The magnitude of his achievements was summed up by the Northern Territory News last week which noted:
Even before these awards had been announced, he had already been recognised both nationally and internationally for his extraordinary talent. Gurrumul is a former member of Yothu Yindi and currently leads the Saltwater Band from his home country of Galiwinku with great passion and pride. I saw on the Internet this afternoon that he is on the front page of The Weekend Australian Magazine this weekend, with Peter Garrett. Peter Garrett has nominated him, Gurrumul, as his number one song. I sincerely congratulate Gurrumul on this journey through the music world with his tremendous talent that certainly tugs at the heartstrings when you hear his voice.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I congratulate these artists from my region on their outstanding achievements on the national art scene.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I believe it is mostly appropriate to strike while the iron is hot, and I take the opportunity in this adjournment debate tonight to present my response to the Chief Minister’s ministerial statement earlier in the day regarding police numbers.
First of all, it is my first opportunity to speak to matters directly affecting the police force. I take this opportunity to acknowledge my former colleagues in the Northern Territory Police Force. They are and remain my very good friends. I place on the public record that I will continue to work as an advocate for police officers to improve their lot in the Northern Territory and in the Northern Territory Police Force.
In relation to the Chief Minister’s statement this morning, let us add a little more credibility to this debate. I know that the Chief Minister has quoted …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Katherine, the standing orders do not allow you to actually speak on a statement which has been adjourned, so if you can just make sure that your comments are more general about police matters. You are not allowed to relate to the statement, except in the most general way. You are not allowed to refer to the fact that you were responding to the Chief Minister’s statement.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: In that case, Madam Speaker, as opposed to responding to the Chief Minister’s statement, I would like to submit the following as an adjournment.
I am going to suggest to the Chief Minister that he needs to be careful about figures supplied by the Police Commissioner, for they are surely true in one sense, but they certainly do not reflect the true state of play in today’s Northern Territory Police Force. Some numbers would suggest that the police force is bursting at the seams. If this is true, why, Chief Minister, are some police stations ready to have their roofs fall in on them?
Case in point: Katherine Police Station is meant to have an establishment of around 60, including management, prosecutions, the Investigations Unit, General Duties, Domestic Violence Unit, auxiliaries and ACPOs. That is about 60 from the very top to the very bottom of the ranks. In early August, the Katherine Police Station was down on its number by a total of 15 personnel; that is, 15 actual vacancies in Katherine - just vacancies, the type where no one fills the position. This number includes sergeants, constables and, more than likely, auxiliaries and ACPOs as well. On its own, this represents a staggering 25% of the establishment of the Katherine Police Station. On that point, they are down to 45 members. That figure does not include members on sick leave, recreation leave, performing relief duties, or attending training courses.
Let us have a look at those figures in a bit more detail. At any one time, Katherine Police Station management allow for up to eight personnel away on recreation leave. That takes the numbers down to 37. Next, there is an allowance for two or three members away on courses. This is not a hard and fast rule, so let us go with the figure three because I know that right now there are at least three members here in Darwin on a course. That takes the number down to 34. Then there are those on sick leave, and some of those are long-term sick leave. I am not going to talk about sick leave in the police force today for that is a whole other topic. Today, there is at least one person away on long-term sick leave. Now, let us deduct management. At the time, there was one commander, two superintendents and one senior sergeant. That take us down below half the establishment - yes, 29 is less than half of 60. Then, there are supposed to be four or five in the Investigations Unit. Let us go with four, just to be conservative, three more in prosecutions, and two in domestic violence. Where are we at with those figures? Twenty-two.
The formula for providing one full-time position policing on a 24-hour basis is, I think, 4.2 people. That is, to maintain one person on the road for 24 hours a day - which is the case in Katherine, for it is a 24-hour police station - you actually need to have 4.2 people employed. With the figure of 22 police officers, that allows for five police officers on that basis of 4.2. There is an enormous amount of overtime incurred as a result.
I do not want to do any more mathematics but, when there is only one substantive sergeant in Katherine General Duties as is the case today, when the relief OIC, because there is no pool of sergeants to choose from, has to be borrowed from Alyangula, and when relief for the Katherine Investigations Unit had to be sent from Darwin, I do not think the Chief Minister can crow about satisfactory police numbers.
Katherine is not the only location that has been bled dry. The Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre is screaming for staff. Tennant Creek is at even worse levels than Katherine - and the list goes on.
I have not even touched on the bush stations. Ask some of the bush station guys if they are happy being out there on their own for periods of up to a week because the regional centres do not have the staff to relieve. I said last night in the adjournment debate that the police force is full of good people willing to give their all to make a flawed system work. This is goodwill and the members of the police force should be congratulated in their perseverance for keeping the ship afloat.
Since the beginning of August, admittedly, eight new recruits have arrived in Katherine and that has gone a long way to alleviating the crisis. However, this raises, in itself, another issue. Right now and for years, senior police officers have been bleeding from the police force. Right now, the only way the commissioner can fill vacancies in General Duties is with recruits. This is occurring across the Territory. Senior members are not applying to move to regional centres. No one in the police force seems willing or able to address the one question that begs - why?
Ms Lawrie: We had a bad freeze, didn’t we? It was a bad freeze under the CLP government; it affected the experienced ranks.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: I take up that interjection. The freeze by the CLP government had nothing to do with the police numbers of today. Let me state for the record: a lot of police come to the Northern Territory, and we are used as a training ground to move on to other police forces. There are members in this police force right now who have tried to get into police forces in other states. They have been rejected, told to go to the Northern Territory, do four years up here, and then they will be accepted. That has nothing to do with ancient history - nothing whatsoever. This is the reality of what is happening in the Northern Territory Police Force now.
In the space of four or five years, the Katherine Police Station has gone from being one of the most senior to one of the most junior stations in the Territory. The average length of service amongst General Duties officers across the Territory continues to drop. On the face of it, this sounds bad and, believe me, it is. The reality is right now there are probationary constables teaching and training more junior probationary constables. The nett effect of this is a decrease in the quality of service provided to Territorians by the police force. It is not the officers’ fault. They work hard and do the very best they can. I know because I have lived it. New officers need the training and guidance of senior members to round out their training. That makes for good police officers who will be able to provide the level of service that Territorians deserve.
Back to the question: why can we not keep senior police officers in General Duties in the Territory? In particular, why can we not keep them in regional centres? The reason is not money. The police force has tried that: increases to General Duties allowance and other incentives to get the guys back into uniform. Nothing has worked. When will the commissioner figure out that morale and how officers actually feel about coming to work each day is of paramount importance?
Just last week, I am advised an Assistant Commissioner visited the Katherine Police Station and conveyed to the troops that management had got it wrong with regard to the effective staffing in Katherine Police Station, and acknowledged they will be looking at reviewing the situation. On the face of it, that sounds good, but I can assure this House that the general feeling in the ranks is that management has an ulterior motive for looking to increase numbers in the Katherine Police Station relating to the implementation of a roster that will be extremely unpopular.
There has been a strong push by the Executive Leadership Group to rid Katherine of their 12-hour roster. No one on the ground can understand why this needs to take place, for the reason has either not been fully explained or the explanation has lacked substance. On top of that, the proposed new roster would have incurred somewhere between 800 and 1000 hours of overtime in the first month of operation with staffing levels as they were. Do you think the thought of this has had an adverse effect on the officers who will be called upon to perform this extra duty? You bet it does.
I am not going to go into further details about the history of that particular matter, but suffice to say that there are General Duties officers who will leave Katherine if the new roster regime is implemented. Rostering is one of those things I alluded to earlier when I mentioned morale and how members feel about coming to work. One might ask where have the General Duties coppers gone? I will tell you. They have gone into little pigeonhole sections created to satisfy political niceties for the benefit of Labor politicians in the northern suburbs of Darwin. That is where they have gone.
Did you know that the checking system for frontline police officers involve supervision of their work by a sergeant and, then usually, the senior sergeant? Of course, you do. That makes total sense. But, did you know there is now a whole new section including constables and sergeants created to check on the senior sergeants? Yes, it is true.
Most of you will be familiar with the term PROMIS. That is the computer system which allows recording of jobs and from which statistics can be drawn. There is a whole section devoted to checking the checkers of PROMIS. That is where they have gone. That is where the General Duties uniformed officers have gone, into positions like that.
We all know that statistics can tell you whatever you want them to. Last week, my colleague, the member for Drysdale, mentioned how policy decisions had previously affected crime reporting statistics. I heard the Commissioner of Police this morning on the ABC radio, and some of what he said is true. The PROMIS computer system, in its current incarnation, has a tendency to over-report on crimes, and over-report the number of offences where there are multiple offences committed in the course of one particular incident. However, I am of the vintage as to remember the occurrence, as it was the same occurrence that the member for Drysdale pointed out. Where police officers attended an incident that could have been recorded as a crime, they were instructed not to record the crime if there was no complaint from an alleged victim ...
Mr Elferink: I must be getting old, I do not remember that.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: After your time?
Mr Elferink: It was 1997, I think, when I left.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: Yes. Rather, it would be recorded as ‘no complaint’, ‘information only’ or something similar. These entries would not have been picked up in crime reporting statistics. Territorians should draw their own conclusions as to the reasoning behind this move.
Chief Minister, despite your rosy figures that you have espoused, there are still some serious staffing issues in the police force today. It sounds like a theme that seems to be becoming the hallmark of the Territory Labor government. However, I do make this offer to you: when you would like have the real state of play exposed to you on the staffing in the police force, I - and I am sure my other former police colleagues now in this House – will, at your request, sit down and brief you with the reality that is not tainted by politics. The ball is in your court.
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk, the Tabled Papers Office, and all the staff. I know the first week back in parliament is always a big week, and they have done a great job.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr GUNNER: Tonight, I want to talk about the 50th anniversary of the Trailer Boat Club. Last week, I spoke about the 50th anniversary of the Parap Primary School, and the 40th anniversary of Parap Fine Foods. Mid-week, I went to the 50th anniversary dinner of Rotary. It seems to be the season for anniversaries.
I went to the official celebrations for the Trailer Boat Club’s 50th anniversary with the Lord Mayor, Graeme Sawyer. It was a fantastic day. Like most people here, some of my best memories, and some of my family and my friends’ best memories, have been at the Trailer Boat Club. It is a beautiful place and they do a great job - birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, everything. This book I am holding up, which I will table later, is a fantastic book put together by the Trailer Boat Club. It opens up with a quote:
A lot of good things in life have started with a few mates sitting around an Esky, having a few quiet drinks and the Darwin Trailer Boat Club is not alone. Today, in 2008, the Trailer Boat Club has 2800 members and over 40 staff. It all began in the late 1950s when a group of enthusiastic Darwin locals, all with a passion for boating, formed a group and named themselves the Blue Water Club. They used to meet at the beach very near to where the present clubhouse is located.
Special mention must be made of Lindsay Thompson who was fundamental in the foundation of the club. Without his vision, drive and dedication, the club would not be where it is today. In fact, the very first club meeting held in May 1959 took place in Lindsay and Audrey Thompson’s home in MacDonald Street, Parap. I acknowledge the founding committee for their involvement in that meeting: R Barnes, K Haigh, Stan Perron, A Edwards, R Wessels, R Humphries, L Cooper, Lindsay Thompson and H Nudl - who, while a member of the founding committee, was not actually present that evening.
At the meeting, the name Darwin Trailer Boat Club was proposed and accepted by all members. Until construction of the clubhouse was complete, the dilapidated caravan I mentioned earlier was conveniently located at the top of the boat ramp and, on weekends and Thursday evening movie nights, soft drinks, hot pies, ice cream and lollies were sold from it. The ladies auxiliary comprising Audrey Thompson, June Cameron, Eileen Vasey, Iris Downey and Mary Cuttler, ran the caravan and did a marvellous job.
The clubhouse was opened for business in the mid-1960s. On the weekend, beer kegs were brought down from Dowling’s Parap Hotel and members were expected to bring their own chair to sit on. In the time before the arrival of television, it was an important social part of the week for members and their families. I would like to think that it still is often an important part of the social week for many people. The following members made significant contributions to the club’s development in those early years and I recognise them as their efforts put the club in good stead for the future: George Redmond, Barry Morton, William Hull, Bob Eastick, Peter Garone, the Manning family and Jean Vickery.
In the 1970s, the clubhouse was extended, enabling it to provide its members with more substantial meals. No longer did they have to drive up to the Fannie Bay shops to satisfy their appetites. When Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in 1974, it amazingly did not cause extensive damage to the club and its new extension. A working bee was quickly organised and, once again, their hard work and dedication to their club enabled it to resume limited trading in the New Year once windows were replaced, sand was swept away and the roof was repaired.
The Darwin Trailer Boat Club has not looked back since and, over the years, its popularity and membership has continued to increase. This is not only due to its friendly staff, great food and customer services; its facilities are always being improved, such as the large verandah, modern coolroom, manager’s office, swimming pool, children’s play area and, recently, the new front entrance. New plans are in place to redevelop the office and toilet area, and they include a meeting and conference room. A new kitchen worth $1.5m is going to be built and is expected to be in operation by mid-2009. Despite its renovations, the history of the club still remains. Steel structures from the original clubrooms are clearly visible in the famous Fishos Bar with its Gone Fishin mural organised by Gary Smith. If you are seeking fishing knowledge or a story or two, the Fishos Bar is the place to go.
Fishing days for women and children have become very popular at the club, and so too has the annual Blue Water Classic. This release and weigh-in event began in 2002 to encourage more member involvement in fishing and boating, and is now Darwin’s only premier blue water fishing competition.
Boating and fishing is not the only item appearing in the club’s calendar. At the end of this month, the famous Sandbar Cricket Match will take place on Bare Sand Island, once used for bombing and shelling practice by Mirages and F111s. Jeff ‘Thommo’ Thomson and Darren ‘Boof’ Lehman are heading to Darwin for the big match, so that will make it pretty interesting. I am told that it is a great day for all. The usual beach cricket rules apply. Well, I do not know how usual they are: in the water is six and out, no running on the pitch, no running with your stubbie, because you might spill it, and the club has also introduced the Duckworth/Lewis scoring system for water on the pitch. International cricket captains struggle with the Duckworth/Lewis scoring system, so it is going to be interesting to see how it works at the sandbar.
In fact, I was at the Trailer Boat Club the other day for a Leukaemia fundraising lunch with the member for Drysdale. It was a top day and, I have to say, they do a top job down there.
Congratulations to the Trailer Boat Club for reaching this milestone. It is a wonderful club and, as local member for Fannie Bay, I look forward to working with the current President, Kevin Jenkins, and the Vice President, Brant Butterworth.
Mr Wood: You better mention my sister, she put the 50th anniversary magazine together: Trish Butler.
Mr GUNNER: She did a fantastic job. Congratulations, Trish.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about the 2008 Australian Geography Competition that was held in Term 1. This year, 90 000 students from 820 schools across the country took part in the competition and, out of that number, 50 students were from Darwin High School.
There are many competitions that schools in my electorate participate in, and students are consistently working hard to achieve good marks. I cannot talk about them all, and I will not. However, regarding this particular competition, a very proud mum came to my office and brought it to my attention, and I will give her son a rap in a second.
I take this opportunity to congratulate all the students who were recently presented with a prize winner’s certificate by Marion Guppy, the school’s principal. Their fantastic results reflect the hard work they put in. First, I congratulate the 11 students who received credits, placing them in the top 25% of students who participated in the competition: Eric Clatworthy; Sarah Cowan; Dylan Elford; Dominique Giese; Heath Hudson; Danelle Jeffery; Connie Marcroft; Derek Mayo-Spry; Emma McLaughlin; Maria Melas; and Ben Vincent. Well done.
I also congratulate those students who received Distinction Certificates, placing them in the top 20% of students who participated: Dylan Jessop; April Prime; Kathryn Rehrmann; L Roncevich; and Kevin Williams-Besy. Congratulations.
Six students received High Distinction Certificates for their hard work, placing them in the top 10%: Rey Dayap; Connor Flynn; Jack Heath; Gryffyn Pryce; Sam Van Den Nieuwenhof; and Lang Williamson. Congratulations to them.
Finally, a special mention must be made of Sam Van Den Nieuwenhof. Not only did he receive a High Distinction, but he was placed in the top 1% of the 100 000 students. This earns Sam the top place in the Intermediate Division for the Territory. This is a fantastic achievement and I congratulate Sam on his result.
Darwin High participates every year in the Australian Geography Competition and its geography students consistently receive high marks. This is a wonderful achievement by the students and reflects the hard work and dedication of both the students and the teachers. Last year, Angus Sandford won through to the national finals of the Geography Competition which were held in Sydney. Angus finished third in Australia and, as a result of his effort, Darwin High School now features on the Australian Geographic Competition’s website as one of the top 10 schools in Australia. Well done to all the students who took part in the competition this year; your hard work paid off and you should be very proud. I wish you all the best for the remainder of the year.
I thank all the staff, my colleagues, the opposition, and a friend called Travis Dowling who said I had to make sure that I say in the House that he is a good bloke.
Mr CHANDLER (Brennan): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, education has been a long passion for me, being involved with the Bakewell Primary School for over five years, most of that time as chair, which provided valuable insight into the daily operations of a large primary school. Did I say large? You bet! Bakewell is the largest primary school in the Northern Territory and it has been so for many years. Being the largest primary school in the Northern Territory, I can attest to seeing firsthand many of the daily challenges it faces - daily challenges that did not need to occur but for the lack of foresight and planning by this government for the growth at Palmerston. There is something this government is going to be remembered for; that is, no planning.
It is quite apparent that, until recently, Palmerston - together with Alice Springs, Katherine and our good rural folk - has been forgotten by this government. With millions of dollars of development money being spent on the city side of Berrimah, I recall commenting to the member for Nelson on Tuesday that, since 2001 the Berrimah Line has become a wall with a new layer of blocks put down each financial year.
I know only too well how challenging it has been working with this administration over the years to deliver much-needed education infrastructure in Palmerston. I know the frustrations of working with a government which approved an interstate unproven contractor to build the new high school senior facility. If it was not for a government department stepping in and taking over and project managing the site, I doubt the facility would have been open until next year. Congratulations must go to that department, the project manager as well, and all the local subcontractors who ensured the facility was completed and open in time for the students to commence the second semester.
I am positive their job was not made any easier by this government’s choice in the original contractor. I would appreciate seeing the final numbers on its true cost, as I am certain the true cost must have blown out to ensure the project was delivered on time - I mean the revised time. I cannot actually recall because the goalposts were moved so many times.
The latest literacy results come as no surprise to me. I have a son in Year 9 who attends Palmerston High School. He is being tutored each week to teach him basic maths, and we pay for that tutor. He is being tutored each week and I question how a student reaches Year 9, after spending his entire education career in the Northern Territory, within that curriculum, and does not understand basic maths? How does a student get through without parents knowing, even after being told by teachers they are doing fine, and even after reviewing report cards year in and year out? How is it possible for them to have no idea of the seriousness of the situation that today requires a tutor to bring him up to speed with basic maths?
I worry about many things happening within our schools. One area that concerns me is discipline and its direct link to student results. The reality is inconsistent discipline processes make it near impossible to ensure all students receive an adequate education. Of course, discipline and consistent delivery is impacted by the size of our schools today. This would appear a modern phenomenon, which has only appeared in this millennium. I recall the days when smaller, easier manageable schools dotted our suburbs - one suburb, one school - allowing our students to walk to school each day without the need for parents to travel distances just to drop them off and pick them up.
Just think how this affects the day-to-day operations of the school. Car parking and dangerous driving conditions occurring each and every day around our schools, staggered starting times and finishing times, separate lunch breaks, and even separate assemblies, just because the school does not have adequate facilities to host such events. How disappointing it must be for a young student with a friend who happens to be just one year different, and they cannot spend lunch breaks together because this government prefers large, hard-to-manage establishments which cause the students, parents, teachers and senior management much angst each and every day. Why are we left in this position? Simply because of this government’s lack of planning and social conscience for the residents of Palmerston.
In all public schools today, a disciplinary program using restorative justice is used. A restorative justice program is a fantastic tool for most young students. Most students have some level of empathy and respect provided by good parenting, provided by a firm but fair hand and by real parenting guidance. The problem, however, is that we all know where law and order issues are today in the Northern Territory. We are only too aware of the lack of respect some young people have today for our community, for each other, and even themselves. This attitude is a direct result of bad parenting and a lack of structured legislation to deal with many of our community issues.
The problem is that children raised with little or no respect for our community, themselves, or for their peers, will not understand the fundamentals of restorative justice. They cannot. They cannot understand how another may feel about their actions if they do not have empathy. This is just another causative effect of many of the community issues we face today. It is important to recognise that fact. How government addresses these issues of law and order can and does have an effect on different aspects of our community, even student educational outcomes.
Mr STYLES (Sanderson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I speak about 2008 which is the Year of the Scout. 2008 marks a century of scouting in Australia and has been designated by the federal government as the Year of the Scout. I am very proud to stand here in this House as a former Cub Scout and Scout, and would like to register my gratitude to the scouting movement for their input into my personal development. I also express my gratitude to the people of Sanderson, the volunteers who provide their time and expertise to the Sanderson Scout Group, which operates from their premises located adjacent to the Anula Shopping Centre.
Scouting Australia conducts a diverse range of activities throughout the year at national, state and local levels. Scouting is the largest youth development organisation in Australia and, indeed, the world, and is a leader in the countries non-formal education sector. The scouting program delivered by Scouts Australia prepares young people aged six to 26 years for business and community leadership.
In its centenary year, Australian scouting is a strong organisation with around 60 000 male and female members. Scouts Australia operates through the volunteer efforts of over 13 000 leaders and countless other supporters. They regularly review and expand their programs for young people, continually changing the activities on offer to keep up with contemporary interests. An estimated 2 000 000 Australians have been Scouts since the movement was established in Australia in 1908. Many of these have used the skills and confidence gained in Scouts to achieve success in their careers, or made other community contributions. Scouts Australia has taught millions of young people resourcefulness, self-reliance, leadership, decision-making and concern for their community and the environment. They continually provide our community with young Australians who have a greater range of skills, understanding, knowledge and leadership than normally gained through regular formal education systems. The saying is ‘Scouting - The Way to Success’.
Over the past 100 years, scouting has shaped the lives of many individuals worldwide. These individuals have found ways to make their mark within the societies and their countries. I will take a few moments to mention some of these in their various categories.
In sport, for instance, Shane Mattiske is the National Rugby League Director of Strategy; David Parkin is an AFL legend; Olympian, Regan Harrison; Paralympian, Kieran Ault-Connell; and Sir Jack Brabham. In the media, Jamie Durie; Shane Jacobson is a former Scout and the lead actor in the famous Australian movie, Kenny; Bert Newton; Adam Spencer, a current breakfast host at radio station ABC702 and he also features on the ABC television comedy series The Glass House, and also youth radio station Triple J. Others include Jack Yabsley; Dave Lawson; Keith Conlon; and writer, actor and comedian Dave O’Neil. In other walks of life, the likes of Andrew Condon; famous Scout Warwick White, managing Director of Australia and New Zealand Coca-Cola Amatil; famous Scout Nigel Scullion; Dr Brendan Nelson MP, federal member; and another famous Scout is former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie; Peter Garrett; Dick Smith; Jack Heath, the best selling author and famous Scout; Geoffrey Blainey; Tim Jarvis; Jamie Wall; Sally Browne; John Leece; Helen Sham-Ho, a member of the Legislative Council; and Georgina Sutton. These are just an enormous number of very successful people worldwide.
We now move to Scouts in Space. A statistic I found very interesting, and those here this evening might find interesting, is that there have been 294 men and women selected to be astronauts since 1959 through to 2005 and more than 180 of those were former Scouts. In fact, an astonishing number is that 11 out of the 12 men who went to the moon had been Scouts. That is rather a remarkable achievement for a community organisation.
This coming weekend, we are doing some very special activities in this very important year of Australian Scouting to celebrate 100 years of the centenary. Tomorrow, Friday, 19 September, the Northern Territory Branch of Scouts has their AGM at the FreeSpirit Resort, followed by the Year of the Scout Dinner where they will have an Adult Recognition evening where Scouting Australia present the 2008 Recognition Awards to some outstanding community members.
On Saturday, 20 September, the Darwin City Council is hosting a civic reception at 2.30 pm at the Civic Centre for youth members, leaders and their parents.
On Sunday, 21 September 2008, at Vestey’s Beach there will be a picnic basket dinner and camp fire commencing at 4 pm. It is a very busy weekend to celebrate a great community organisation.
In this very special year for the Scouting movement, I also register thanks to those people who have led this organisation in the Northern Territory in past years for their work, and also to the current Chief Commissioner, Ms Chris Doidge, for her work and dedication to this very worthwhile and outstanding community organisation.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Masters Games 2008
Masters Games 2008
Mr HAMPTON (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, it is that time of the year again in Central Australia when we welcome over 4000 people to the Alice Springs Masters Games. This is the 12th biennial Masters Games. These games were the first of its kind in Australia and we have set the standard throughout Australia.
The 2008 Masters Games will start on 11 October with a very popular opening ceremony, and will finish on 18 October. Ms Dawn Fraser AO MBE is the patron and has been involved in the games since its inception. I believe she may even make a welcome return to the pool at these games, after a 20-year absence. I cannot wait to see this Australian sporting icon in action.
Mr Daryl Somers OAM is the honorary ambassador and has held this role since 2002, and is a popular choice as ambassador for Central Australia.
We have 35 sports on offer during the 2008 Masters Games including four new sports - recreational football, indoor beach volleyball, inline hockey and social lawn bowls. Organisers are planning a ‘come and try’ match in recreational football followed by a game of Darwin versus Alice Springs Legends, and it will be game on. Michael Long and I are tipped to play in this match and I am looking forward to taking to the field and playing alongside another sporting icon.
Most sports are held at the Alice Springs Town Council venues and the town council is a Diamond sponsor of the games. Alice Springs Masters Games personnel consist of two very hard-working permanent staff and four contract staff who do a magnificent job in bringing everything together. Games coordinators include staff representatives from the NT Police, Alice Springs Town Council, and Northern Territory government agencies. And we must not forget all the locals from the various sporting organisations. The games steering committee meets monthly and its role is to assist staff to improve the quality of the sporting experience, boost the local economy, and increase participation in the event.
Up to 600 volunteers, including 50 sports coordinators, 50 sports trainers and 50 ambassadors, will assist in the 2008 games. A number of local identities have registered as ambassadors including Ted Egan, Nerys Evans and our Mayor, Damien Ryan.
Up to 6000 people are expected to attend the free community concerts which are part of the opening and closing ceremonies, and a midweek concert. This year’s entertainment line up includes a who’s who of Australian music: Russell Morris and Brian Cadd at the opening ceremony and Daryl Braithwaite for the closing ceremony.
We have something for everyone and we also have local bands such as The Moxie and Pogo Monkey. The midweek concert, which is always a hit, will feature Chunky Custard and, capping off the evening, will be The Ego Has Landed, a Robbie Williams tribute band.
To ensure locals and visitors alike can make the most of the entertainment, a free bus service will be available to take people to and from the opening and closing ceremonies. I look forward to seeing many of my colleagues on this side of the House, and on the other side of the House, at the games.
If you cannot make it this time, preparations are already under way for the 2010 games, which are scheduled for 9 to 16 October. The member for Nelson is a great participant and supporter of the Masters Games, and I look forward to watching him in action.
Mr BOHLIN (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. It is very true; the Masters Games in Alice Springs is a fantastic showcase of true Territorian initiatives. It is a brilliant way to bring together sporting greats from the past, sporting wannabes, can bes and will dos ...
A member: And has beens.
Mr BOHLIN: … and has beens too. These people have looked at their life and decided age will not weary them and they will continue to enjoy their recreational hobbies and sports. I applaud every single participant - not just from the Territory - but from around Australia. These games are truly fantastic. I look forward to watching some of them. If you need a spare runner or something, maybe I can help you there, Karl.
These games are going to be great. If we are going to get there; we need to continue to support these events. The people who will be participating will have families and their children will be watching and doing what Mum and Dad and Grandpa may be doing and so we keep our young people interested in sport as well, because a healthy community is a fun community and that helps us all the way.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister for Sport and Recreation will be old enough to join in the Masters Games - perhaps looks deceive? I thank him for his report. The Masters is a terrific time. Alice Springs is just loaded with people, and not just interstate people as many people from within the Territory come and join in all the sports.
There are lawn bowlers and softball players. Our local softball team, the C Grade South Darwin - which is really another name for Litchfield - just won the premiership, so I should warn people in Alice Springs they are coming, because they certainly get out and enjoy themselves. That is what the games are about - competition, but also having a wonderful time and meeting other people. It makes it a great time when people meet from interstate as teams, such as cricket teams or softball teams or basketball teams. In fact, I am even in a team. I have not played table tennis since I was in secondary school, but Roland Maddocks, the boss of table tennis in Alice Springs, rang and asked me if I would like to play. I put my name down, and he said: ‘Do you need a partner to play in the doubles?’ He rang the other day and said I am playing with Richard Lim. I do not know whether we will be called the ‘Polliewaffles’ or not, but Richard is coming back for the Masters.
It is a terrific time. The only problem is accommodation is sometimes very scarce and quite expensive unless you have friends or you have a bunk in dormitory accommodation That is an area we need to look at.
Also, if you are playing football, minister for Sport, I will possibly be umpiring, and I will give you my bank account number, if you want some free kicks!
Mr HAMPTON (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, I thank the members for Drysdale and Nelson for their support. I am sure there is bipartisan support for this fantastic event.
I will mention two things. It is a great event for the local economy, particularly for the local sporting groups; it is a great opportunity for them to raise a bit of money that goes back to grassroots organisations and participants. The other one is volunteers. I recently attended a volunteer function at the town council hosted by our Mayor, Damien Ryan. Without the support of volunteers it would be very hard to make a success of these types of events.
I do not know about your bank account, but I have a spare room and a swag if you want to camp there, member for Nelson.
Community Housing Program – Funding Approvals
Mr KNIGHT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I report to the House on the funding approvals to community organisations for the Community Housing Program. Members will recall I spoke in the House yesterday about the $425 000 in grants for crisis and medium-term accommodation providers. That funding was provided through the Crisis Accommodation Program which is aimed at providing short-term accommodation to those Territorians who have fallen on hard times.
Today, I have the pleasure of announcing more grants. This year, the Community Housing Program will deliver a further $637 000 in grants. The grants will go towards the purchase of new homes and housing upgrades for Territorians with special needs. The Henderson government recognises that, for some Territorians, their special accommodation needs cannot always be properly met in the general rental market for public housing - needs such as wheelchair access or an additional room for carers to provide the necessary support services.
The Community Housing Program provides funding to community organisations which provide long-term accommodation for Territorians needing special, ongoing support. These grants will support community agencies to expand their valuable services. This may include funding for: crisis accommodation exit point housing; supported accommodation for those with mental and/or physical disabilities; aged-care supported accommodation; renal/medical accommodation for Indigenous people exiting hospital but requiring further treatment in one of our major centres; respite accommodation; community housing schemes for Indigenous groups in urban areas; or medium- to long-term assisted accommodation for homeless youth.
The funding can be used for such things as property purchases, home renovations or infrastructure upgrades.
Four agencies have benefited from the grants announced today, and I will detail some of those:
The YWCA of Darwin provides a wide range of community services such as parenting support, emergency relief, youth refuge support, independent living,
crisis accommodation and support, as well as youth housing. Today, I announced up to $212 000 for the YWCA of Darwin to support the purchase of a
two-bedroom unit for its Youth Housing Program.
announced up to $33000 for Carpentaria Disability Services to improve facilities at one of their Karama properties.
Support Program to offer low-cost rental accommodation to long-term clients. Today, I announced up to $360 000 for this organisation to support the
purchase of more units in Alice Springs.
Today, I announced a grant of $31000 to Somerville to upgrade six homes in Darwin, Howard Springs, and Katherine.
Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure of speaking to these organisations, and they are delighted with the support, especially the Mental Health Association of Central Australia. There are obviously housing needs for people with mental health issues within the community. This organisation already has four units and the funding will enable them to acquire more. I congratulate these organisations. This goes a long way to supporting people in our community who need it.
Ms PURICK (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. It is encouraging to see due consideration and finances are being given to those who need support, whatever their particular and personal dilemmas. It is good to see organisations like the YWCA, Somerville, Carpentaria and the Mental Health Association of Central Australia are receiving funding to provide this accommodation for people.
I did not note any reference to this kind of housing going into the rural area, apart from some to Howard Springs. From my contact with people in the Humpty Doo, Noonamah, Darwin River Dam and Berry Springs areas, I am aware there is a need for similar kind of housing there. I will be talking with the minister’s office to see how we can extend finances and funding to these groups so they can provide similar accommodation for rural people.
Mr KNIGHT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Goyder for her comments. It is a very special area of my portfolio to which I am delighted to give support. There was some money going to Howard Springs for Somerville.
I encourage other organisations to apply for these grants. It is good to see community organisations extending further into the community. I recognise there are growing needs in the rural area with an ageing population, and many issues around management of properties for people living alone. I encourage other community organisations to come on board.
Madam Speaker, this is another example of the Henderson government assisting those people in the community who need help the most.
Tennant Creek – Alcohol Restrictions
Dr BURNS (Alcohol Policy): Madam Speaker, today I provide an update of recent Licensing Commission decisions for Tennant Creek and surrounding areas to be declared a dry town.
Alcohol abuse and related harm is one of the biggest challenges facing the Northern Territory community. The Territory government is committed to tackling alcohol abuse through a region-by-region approach. It is very pleasing to see the level of community engagement and involvement in the development of local alcohol solutions right around the Territory. It is vital that we listen to the community to implement local solutions for local problems.
For many years, Tennant Creek has suffered from widespread alcohol abuse and associated antisocial behaviour and violence. With a per capita consumption of alcohol - that is, litres of alcohol per person - of around 16 litres, Tennant Creek’s consumption far exceeds the national average of 9.8 litres per person.
In August 2007, the Tennant Creek Council made an application under the Liquor Act for the declaration of a public restricted area over all public places within the entire Tennant Creek municipal boundary. Advertisements were placed in the local media seeking local submissions, and a public hearing was held in October. The public meeting generated much discussion of the dry town application and local alcohol supply measures.
During this time, the community was also developing a local area alcohol management plan. The plan had three broad strategies: (1) to reduce alcohol supply, (2) to reduce harm, and (3) to reduce demand. The Licensing Commission had a meeting in April 2008 which considered and supported the following: an application by the Tennant Creek Council for a public restricted area over the entire municipal boundary; and variations to the liquor supply conditions currently enforced in Tennant Creek.
The dry town was introduced on 1 August 2008. There has been extensive community engagement throughout the process, with information and education programs available for both the residents of the townships and those in outlying communities.
When announcing the dry town, the commissioner also imposed further restrictions especially relating to the risk areas of alcohol abuse such as cask and fortified wine takeaway sales. Takeaway opening hours are restricted, with all operators ceasing trading at 8 pm. Cask wine, fortified wine, and Green Ginger Wine are now sold between 4 pm and 6 pm, a two-hour window. Sales are restricted to one of these products per person per day. Beer and long necks will no longer be sold.
While these measures have only been in effect for a relatively short time, early indications are very promising. There has been a dramatic fall in sobering-up shelter presentations. Stewart Naylor, Chief Executive Officer of the Barkly Region Alcohol and Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, says the past month has seen 164 people through the sobering-up shelter, compared to 304 for the same month last year. That is still considerable, but it is a significant reduction.
The township is cleaner, safer and a much more enjoyable place to live and move around. It is only through the involvement and support of the local community that we have been able to progress these measures so quickly.
As I mentioned in the House last week, a team from the Menzies School of Health Research will conduct a full evaluation of measures in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek concerning, in particular, a review of what is known as Thirsty Thursday. This is to gauge our success and guide future government policy. The evaluation is scheduled to be completed and a report provided to government in the first half of next year.
Madam Speaker, this is a government determined to tackle alcohol abuse and alcohol related crime head-on with the support and positive attitude of towns like Tennant Creek.
Mr CONLAN (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, we all know the problems alcohol causes in our society, particularly here in the Northern Territory.
I can only reiterate what I said yesterday: how can you believe anything this minister says? He has clearly failed as a Police minister, he has not demonstrated any leadership or responsibility in the Health portfolio, and here he is telling everyone how he is going to address alcohol-related issues throughout the Northern Territory. How can you believe anything this minister says?
I know he has some obsession with 8HA. I know 8HA would be very happy to know the minister has mentioned their name in parliament. However, it is a shame that his obsession does not continue outside the parliament, because he refuses to go on 8HA and answer questions put to him directly by the radio station. In fact, he has not been on the radio station since February, despite the calls and requests to his media advisors to go on radio to answer questions put to him by the presenter and the people of Alice Springs.
While he has this obsession, it would be good if he could continue that obsession outside and demonstrate to the people that he is a committed and responsible minister - something this side of the House has very grave doubts about.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report. Tennant Creek is an area where many trials have occurred to curb the abuse of alcohol and I congratulate the government for continuing to try to do something about it. We also need to be spending money on ways to change people’s attitude and to help those people who have alcohol problems. In the end, if the individual does not want to change, nothing is really going to happen. Sometimes, that means government or non-government organisations need to give them assistance. We also need to be spending money trying to change people’s habits; to turn things around for many people whose lives are controlled by alcohol.
We know these problems are enormous in the Territory. Many people are in gaol because alcohol was a contributing factor, not the only factor, in some violent act; we know this is a serious problem in the Northern Territory. We have to spend just as much effort in educating people to change their ways as we do in trying to fix the abuse. We also require changes in the way we deal with it in our lives. Drunkenness is not something that is necessarily acceptable in our community. Having a good time is one thing; being drunk, a nuisance, and endangering other people’s lives is another.
If we are going to have an ID system for takeaways in several towns in the Territory, we should have it for everyone or not at all. It causes confusion with visitors and tourists and some people in the Territory feel they are being discriminated against.
I was talking to the Liquor Stores Association yesterday, and they tell me you still have to fill out a form for more than $100 worth of grog. I remember all the advertising in the NT News against the Howard government but I have not heard anything more and the advertisement still exists. What is happening in that respect?
Dr BURNS (Alcohol Policy): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Nelson for his serious contribution. We need to evaluate the ID system to see whether it works, then we will make our decisions. In our submission to the federal government we said we would like to see the $100 business reporting introduced by Mal Brough and John Howard removed.
In relation to the member for Greatorex, who did not really speak about the issue, I have been advised that I have never been asked to go on 8HA. He goes on about 8HA. We know he was a political plant under the guise of being an independent journalist, but I have a challenge for you, member for Greatorex. You would never have said the things about David Ashbridge on 8HA that you have said in here: - I challenge you to go outside and say them.
Reports noted pursuant to standing orders.
MOTION
Proposed Suspension of Standing Orders - Order of Business – General Business
Notices Nos 3 and 4 relating to an Inquiry into Acute Care Services
Proposed Suspension of Standing Orders - Order of Business – General Business
Notices Nos 3 and 4 relating to an Inquiry into Acute Care Services
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I note that the notices standing in my name relating to the acute health care service inquiry are listed under General Business.
Madam SPEAKER: I am just following the Notice Paper. That is where it is meant to be.
Mr MILLS: Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from bringing on the debate of General Business Notices Nos 3 and 4 forthwith.
This is a critical issue that the Territory needs to resolve in this parliament today. We cannot afford, in discharging our business in this Chamber, to hide behind process. If you are going to hide behind process, your motives are in question.
This is a matter of vital importance to Territorians. The Minister for Health would know that when you have a serious matter to deal with in the community - particularly when the case I am referring to is the oncology unit for those suffering from cancer - we can run the stories in here but we need to recognise that we are conducting these debates in the presence of the whole community. It was not until we got the community properly involved that there was some resolution in their hearts and minds.
If we are going to prevent a proper inquiry - a thorough and genuine investigation with a select committee into matters pertaining to our five hospitals - whose interest is served, Madam Speaker? It is not in the interest of the community but in the interest of those who want to protect themselves.
I call upon honourable members to support the call to bring this matter before the parliament. Just in case honourable members on the other side have not had a look at the terms of reference, you will note this is not a construct that is, in any way, favouring or biased towards the opposition. You have your representation. You have control of it in the numbers and the chair. Calm down and recognise that we can put something in place which will satisfy the desires, expectations, and requirements of our community.
For that reason, Madam Speaker, I request that we bring this matter on forthwith.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows the long and established practices of this parliament regarding opposition business, that matters are dealt with on General Business Days, with the next scheduled in October.
The opposition wants to set up an expensive, ineffective, inexpert body that will spend months trying lamely to score points. This government is more interested in achieving results. That is why we have brought forward an independent, expert review into Royal Darwin Hospital. I note an element of the proposed terms of reference are already being actioned by government, so any public inquiry would only serve to delay the improvements recommended by the Coroner.
The opposition can discuss and compare proposals at the next General Business Day in October in the normal course of business in this Assembly. We will be happy to discuss their proposals then. It smacks of arrogance that they want to usurp the practices of the Legislative Assembly where matters brought forward by the opposition are dealt with on General Business Day.
In the meantime, the government will keep working to improve clinical governance and procedures at the hospital. The review commissioned by the government will comprise a panel of nationally and internationally respected Australian Council on Healthcare Standards experts. The council was established with the support of the AMA. It is internationally recognised for its standards and accreditation program. We have far more access to expertise through this process than the ‘bunch of politicians’ process the Leader of the Opposition would have us embark on.
The minister is absolutely committed to making the final report public.
Mr Mills: You are a disgrace.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: It is an open, transparent body of experts undertaking a review which will be made public.
The opposition debates occur on General Business Day in October. They can have the debate then.
Madam Speaker, I move that the question be now put.
Mr Conlan: Madam Speaker, that is outrageous!
Madam SPEAKER: There is no debate when the question is put.
The Assembly divided:
Ayes 13 Noes 12
Mrs Aagaard Mr Bohlin
Ms Anderson Ms Carney
Dr Burns Mr Chandler
Mr Gunner Mr Conlan
Mr Hampton Mr Elferink
Mr Henderson Mr Giles
Mr Knight Mr Mills
Ms Lawrie Ms Purick
Mr McCarthy Mr Styles
Ms McCarthy Mr Tollner
Ms Scrymgour Mr Westra van Holthe
Mr Vatskalis Mr Wood
Ms Walker
Motion agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: The question now is that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from putting the question.
The Assembly divided:
Ayes 12 Noes 13
Mr Bohlin Mrs Aagaard
Ms Carney Ms Anderson
Mr Chandler Dr Burns
Mr Conlan Mr Gunner
Mr Elferink Mr Hampton
Mr Giles Mr Henderson
Mr Mills Mr Knight
Ms Purick Ms Lawrie
Mr Styles Mr McCarthy
Mr Tollner Ms McCarthy
Mr Westra van Holthe Ms Scrymgour
Mr Wood Mr Vatskalis
Ms Walker
Motion negatived.
TRANSPORT LEGISLATION (ALCOHOL IGNITION LOCKS) AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 9)
(Serial 9)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Ms LAWRIE (Infrastructure and Transport): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The bill I introduce today will implement another important measure under the government’s strategy of Building Safer Communities.
During 2007, the government introduced a range of initiatives aimed at increasing the safety of Territory road users. These included: increased penalties for drink-driving, speeding, and not wearing seat belts; more education about the dangers of fatigue; red light cameras; speed limits on all Territory roads; and greater emphasis on road safety education. However, it is apparent with our rising road toll that not all people are getting the message. As a consequence, this government is introducing further measures to save lives on our roads.
This legislation delivers on the first stage of this package by introducing an alcohol ignition lock or AIL program and doubling the penalties for not wearing seat belts through subsequent amendment to regulation.
This package is targeting areas of high-risk driving behaviour that contributes significantly to the Territory’s road toll. For example, of the 57 fatalities on our roads in 2007, 22 or 38.6% were related to failing to wear a seat belt. Subsequent amendments to be made to the Traffic Regulations are to double the penalties for failing to wear a seat belt.
The new penalties which will apply from the commencement of the regulations will be: where a driver fails to wear a seat belt - $400; where a driver fails to ensure a child or young person wears a seat belt - $480; and $400 for an adult passenger who fails to wear a seat belt.
Drink-driving is another major contributor to death and serious injuries on our roads. In the last five years, 2003 to 2007, there were 244 fatalities on Territory roads. Alcohol was a factor in 124 of these deaths, which is approximately 51% of deaths on our roads.
There are even more alarming statistics provided by police. These indicate that over a three year period, 2005 to 2007, there were 6169 recorded drink-driving offences in the NT, of which 1130 people or 18.3%, were apprehended for second or subsequent offences; 2308 people or 37.4% recorded blood alcohol content (BAC) readings of more than 0.15%; and 1301 or 21.1%, were apprehended in the rural area, that is outside Darwin – Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek, and Nhulunbuy.
Enough is enough. It is apparent that some people are not heeding the message. They are continuing to risk their own lives and the lives of other innocent members of the community. People who abuse their driving privileges by continuing to drink and drive are being targeted by this legislation.
The bill singles out repeat high- and medium-range drink-drivers and young drivers who choose to repeatedly violate the zero alcohol condition on their licence. These people, who have shown that they cannot be trusted not to drink and drive, will now face the consequences of their actions.
An AIL will not be available for people who have been unlicensed for five years or more, whether they have been disqualified, have not held a licence or their licence has lapsed and not been renewed, or a combination of factors, including licence suspension for any reason. The reasoning is that these people would have to re-commence the licensing system as an entry level driver by applying for a learner’s licence and progress through the various licensing stages.
When a repeat drink-driver is sentenced by the court, the magistrate will order the driver to serve a disqualification period and also order that, following the disqualification period, the driver will be eligible to apply for an AIL licence for a period determined by the court - the minimum period being six months to a maximum of three years. The AIL device condition will appear on a person’s licence card as an ‘I’. This means if a driver wishes to drive on their licence during the AIL period, they will need to enter into an agreement with an approved AIL provider to have it installed in their vehicle for the period specified by the court. If the driver opts not to have an AIL installed, the additional period ordered by the courts will be served out as an additional licence disqualification period.
How does an AIL work? The AIL prevents the driver from starting the car if they have been drinking. When the ignition is switched on, the AIL requests a breath sample from the driver. The result of the breath alcohol concentration measurement determines whether the vehicle’s starter is released, and the engine can be started. If the driver provides a clear breath sample, the car engine will start and they can proceed on their journey. Once they have commenced their journey, the device will request them to provide a re-test breath sample at random intervals. The re-test will be within the first 15 minutes of the journey and randomly within 45 minute intervals during the journey.
The bill also introduces new offences which specifically relate to the AIL. These include driving contrary to the AIL condition on the licence and tampering with the AIL. These penalties are, by necessity, severe because if a driver is caught contravening their AIL licence or driving a vehicle where the AIL has been disabled, they will be breaching a court-imposed sanction, which is akin to contempt of court. The existing offence for driving while disqualified has also been amended to ensure that during an AIL period a person must have an AIL licence when driving a vehicle.
To enable effective enforcement of this legislation, we have also introduced the concept of compulsory carriage of driver’s licences for all Territory licence holders. Some licence holders previously had a three-day grace period in certain circumstances to produce their driver’s licence. This will no longer be the case. When police pull over a person they will need to be able to ascertain whether or not the individual is holding an AIL licence. Therefore, all drivers will now be required to carry their licence with them while driving. The current traffic infringement notice penalty of $50 for failure to produce a licence when requested will be retained in the regulation. When a driver is prosecuted through the court for a breach of this offence, a maximum penalty of $2200 will apply. Compulsory carriage of a driver’s licence is already in place for drivers of heavy vehicles, P-plate, and L-plate licence holders.
The bill delivers on this government’s commitment to introduce alcohol ignition locks for repeat drink-drivers. The introduction of alcohol ignition locks will not wipe out drink-driving. No legislation or device will wipe out drink-driving. A change in culture is required before major reductions in the rate of drink-driving are to be achieved. This legislation is designed to assist in bringing about this change in culture.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members, and I table the explanatory statement.
Debate adjourned.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL
(Serial 5)
(Serial 5)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr KNIGHT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
This bill provides for changes to various legislation consequent to the passing of the Local Government Act 2008. The changes will ensure that other legislation in the Northern Territory is consistent with the new act and will allow for legislation which needs to be preserved. The Local Government Act 2008 has provided welcome and significant reform to local government. It facilitated the incorporation of most of the Northern Territory and provides two types of councils – municipal and shire councils. The changed arrangements under the new Local Government Act need to be reflected in other Territory legislation which referred to the old arrangements.
The Local Government (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 deals with all the technical changes needed as a result of the new act. These include ensuring cross-references are correct. The bill amends references to community government councils and other terms which are not found in the new act. Apart from the changes necessitated by the new act and the preservation of legislation which needs to be retained, I draw honourable members’ attention to the new section 271 which will be inserted into the new Local Government Act. This section provides for the situation where a council wants the Chair to exercise a casting vote at meetings. From 1 July 2008, councils have the opportunity to choose whether the Chair has the casting vote, but the decision must be made at the first meeting after the election. This choice will be made after the council elections on 25 October this year.
However, as most municipal councils will not have elections later this year, they need the same opportunity to make a choice. The new section 271 allows that, where a council does not have an election in 2008, the council may pass a resolution to allow the Chair to hold a casting vote, provided the resolution is passed before the end of 2008. This will enable those municipal councils who wish to exercise this choice to do so.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members and table the explanatory statement to accompany the bill.
Debate adjourned.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS
Pass Three Bills Through All Stages
Pass Three Bills Through All Stages
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended that would prevent the following three bills passing through all stages of these sittings: Classification of Publications, Films and Computer Games Amendment Bill 2008 (Serial 1); Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 (Serial 3); and Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and Other Endangerment Offences) Bill 2008 (Serial 2).
Motion agreed to.
CLASSIFICATION OF PUBLICATIONS, FILMS AND COMPUTER GAMES AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 1)
(Serial 1)
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, members from the last Assembly will recall that government introduced this bill during the Tenth Assembly and, by agreement on both sides, we thought it best not to get in the way of what could be said to be routine government business in this legislative context. We agreed that we would assist the bill being introduced again and passed during these sittings.
Although the minister’s second reading speech might be seen by some as complex and confusing, the issues arising from the bill are not. Whilst the bill is substantial, it does give effect to national publications standards and for that reason it is not a controversial bill; it is not objectionable. We have looked at the bill during the Tenth Assembly and could not see any reason why the opposition would oppose it.
However, after discussions with my colleagues - and the member for Port Darwin may wish to add to this - one issue that arises, although it does not necessarily have to be in the bill, is the fact that purveyors of pornography in the Territory are not licensed. We understand government has indicated to the industry that it will move to licence suppliers. In that context, we wonder why the opportunity was not taken when introducing this bill to go down the licensing path. We make no comment on our views on licensing; we simply say, given our understanding, one wonders why the government did not use the opportunity to either put this in the bill, or run parallel to it an announcement on licensing.
Madam Speaker, the opposition supports the bill for the reasons I have outlined and also for the reasons contained in the minister’s reading speech.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, my comments in relation to this bill, as foreshadowed by the shadow Attorney-General, do pertain to the licensing of purveyors of pornography in our community.
I am certain we are all mindful that this material can be damaging in certain circumstances. If we remember the comments made in the Wild/Anderson report Little Children are Sacred, in particular the way pornography made freely available in those communities became the target of criticism. There is a potential in our community for this sort of material to be harmful. That is the indication from the Wild/Anderson report.
We are quite happy to regulate any number of other industries with licences. For example, betting and the possession or sale of liquor is licensed. We do not allow drivers of motor vehicles to jump in the motor car; we licence them prior to them driving. We go down these regulatory paths because, in each of those instances, there is a potential for harm. As we just heard during the previous debate, the Treasurer, with her Transport hat on, is introducing regulatory instruments to deal with the licensing of people who have convictions for driving whilst drunk.
If we are to believe what the Wild/Anderson report said, then I believe there should be some capacity to examine the value of licensing the purveyors of this material in our community. The Consumer Affairs department does, from time to time, clamp down on the operators who sell this material out of a post office box using the Northern Territory’s broad and laissez faire laws regarding this material as a vehicle by which they can sell it, both into the Northern Territory and other places.
I am aware there has been a clamping down on that sort of material, and I congratulate Consumer Affairs for that course of action. However, as a consequence of that I also understand, from within the industry itself, there are calls for licensing, because they appreciate the material that they are in possession of and sell, is material which has potential harm attached to it. I congratulate the industry on being so responsible in pursuing that path.
I now address the matter of providing pornography to minors. Clearly, at a commercial level, that does not occur. However, in this bill there is the capacity for a parent or guardian to provide pornographic material to a child in their care. This brings up a delicate balance for us to consider. When we talk about protecting children, I firmly believe that parents or guardians are better at protecting their children than the state. I believe I am the best person to protect my children, therefore, I decide what they are exposed to as much as I can.
This material is of a very sensitive nature and, going back to the Little Children are Sacred report, one should be cautious about this particular issue. What I hope the Attorney-General will say in reply closing debate is they will be keeping an eye on the operation of this section and this particular liberty. I am disinclined for the state to interfere in the family and I believe the judgment of parents should be relied upon, which is captured in this bill.
However, sometimes families fail. If it is a profound failure then there may be some latitude to return to this place and reconsider particular aspects of this bill. So a cautionary note, Madam Speaker, about the potential of this material in our community. I do not wish to intrude, as a parliament, any further into the family unit, however, if this material is producing negative or poor outcomes in families on a broad scale, then it is something we would have to re-visit in the future.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, taking up from the member for Port Darwin, I disagree with him to some extent about intruding into families. I understand the philosophy he is putting forward, but we do legislate to protect children when parents do something to their children – whether it is abuse or putting them in danger. This material that is regarded as pornography is doing that as well. We tend to look at the physical dangers to our young children, but there are also mental dangers in this material.
I have no problem with people saying I am prudish about it. I have seen pornography and it is stuff that really – a free society might say you can have it, but I am not sure it does our society any good at all - I believe it is just rubbish. People might call it erotic and non-violent or something, but that is glossing over the actual fact of it being animal-like behaviour. I do not think is worthy of any positive marks. Unfortunately, it creeps through our society gradually and becomes more and more acceptable, and our society is poorer for allowing it to be freely available as it is in the Northern Territory.
If this material was not available, we would not need to have this argument or discussion about whether we should protect or legislate against parents for showing it. Life has moved on since pornography was allowed in the Northern Territory. Now you can get it on the web, you can buy magazines at your local newsagency - which might have a plastic cover on them but they are, basically, pornographic magazines - and you can have it mailed. The Australian Capital Territory allows pornography to be mailed out to anywhere in Australia. It is freely available, especially on the web. Even though parents might want to protect their children, a lot of times children are cleverer than their parents and they are able to get onto these sites that probably the parents do not know about.
It is an issue that concerns me. We worry about alcohol – and so we should. We worry about driving on the road – and so we should. We worry about safety on building sites. We talk about Australian Standards when it comes to power tools so they are safer to use. We look at fencing swimming pools. Why? We want to protect children. We legislate for many things in order to protect our society. Yet we do not take into account enough the effect of this sort of garbage on our society.
The Little Children are Sacred report should not just be about Indigenous children, it should be about all children. I believe if we are going to make a rule that says parents on an Indigenous community can be prosecuted for showing pornographic material to young children then it should apply to all of us. I do not know how you can argue this material should be shown to children. It is not sex eduction - that is a different matter all together - it is just garbage.
People can put on all the spin they like, but I say to the people here: have a look at one of these movies. If 16- and 17-year-old people, especially boys, see this type of material, why do we wonder that we have this problem in Maningrida? That is the effect. It is not just on Aboriginal boys that it has this effect; it is good, healthy, young Anglo-Saxon boys as well.
Yet, we seem to think our freedoms are so important that the damage this stuff does to our society is secondary. We really need to evaluate where we are going with pornography. I would prefer it not to exist. Other people in this parliament may have different viewpoints. The member for Port Darwin talked about licensing. Maybe that is the way around it. Perhaps we should not sell pornography in normal video shops. Maybe it should only be sold in sex shops to tighten control on its availability.
Although I understand why this change to the act has come in, I believe it is actually discriminatory. I do not say that in a nasty sense. However, I would rather have it non-discriminatory so that all children are protected. That is where this law should go.
I might be wrong but I gather that R rated movies, which are now called R 18+, were only allowed to be exhibited in the same place as X rated videos - away from the public. I went to the video shop near Uncle Sam’s before the sitting to check, and there are R 18+ on the shelves ...
A member: Be careful, remember a former member.
Mr WOOD: I am not from Katherine. Anyway, R 18+ movies are allowed on the shelves.
About two years ago, I had a complaint from a mother in the rural area that there were children’s videos on a shelf right next to the R 18+s. In this case, the front covers of every video showed very scantily clad ladies. In theory, the law allows R 18+ videos to be displayed on open view and that is probably not a problem in itself. There is a problem with what is on the front covers. I went to the video shop this morning and saw great big Incredible Hulk blokes, because the R 18+ can also be violent movies. They might be sexy movies, but they did not have covers that would attract you to them.
This company - I actually rang the company and I was abused - had worked out that you could put these R 18+ videos up for sale and make them more attractive by having scantily clad women on them. They were not particularly worried where they were. It is not the issue whether R 18+ videos can be shown, but there needs to be some policing of whether the covers on those videos are deliberately designed to attract people to them because they are using sex as a means of selling them. I ended up ringing the company in Queensland and when I complained about that, they said: ‘Mind your own business’. In the end they did at least move them away from the children’s section, and that was the biggest concern this mother had.
It is funny that we change the laws, yet someone will find a little loophole in them to make their sales a bit higher in that area. Once again, the bottom line should be that we need to protect our young people. A video store has a whole range of videos from G right through to the worst kind you can get, and kids walk through those video shops as free and easy as anyone else. I hope that a manager of a video shop would understand, take that into consideration, and ensure adult content videos are not easily on view to children who are going along looking for the Wiggles.
It is a minor issue in relation to this particular legislation, minister, but it was something I did not realise had changed. I do not know if it was a regulatory change or a change to the act that had gone through parliament which I had not seen. I think it was a regulatory change …
Mr Elferink: A national change.
Mr WOOD: A national change. Even though it has happened there should have been more debate to see if there were any downsides when the change was introduced.
In general, I do not have a problem with what the legislation is about. I reiterate: if you are going to make a regulation regarding adults or parents allowing their children to see pornography, it should be across the board. It is not a good move to allow it for one group of families but not others. Children are children, no matter who they are, and we need to protect them.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank members opposite and the member for Nelson for their contributions. I believe members opposite have raised some very important issues, and I will try to respond to them.
The members for Port Darwin and Araluen raised a very valid issue about a licensing scheme or a registration scheme for purveyors of pornography. I am advised that the Department of Justice is working on a draft of this. It is hoped this will go out for consultation towards the end of this year. I understand it has taken quite some time, but that is my advice. It is an important issue. There is some vulnerability for the Northern Territory with people using the Northern Territory as a fence or a mail address to sell pornography and who do not actually reside here. It is an issue we need to tighten up.
The member for Port Darwin raised the issue about the change being brought in by this law. To repeat: it is about parents showing their children X 18+ movies and Category 1 and 2 publications, and I quote what was said in the second reading speech:
- However, in other situations persons are excused from criminal liability if they are the parents or guardians of the child. That is, the legislation permits parents and guardians to allow their own children in the home and other non-public places access to X 18+ films and Category 1 and 2 publications. These provisions reflect the model bill developed by the Australian Law Reform Commission in the early 1990s.
I believe everyone in this House would acknowledge that, since that time, particularly in the Northern Territory, there have been problems identified with pornography and children being shown pornography.
The views that were held in the 1990s through this bill and government’s view and, I suppose, the Commonwealth - because this bill is all about the Territory and other states working with the Commonwealth to synchronise legislation - there was a view around the table of the Standing Committee of Attorney-Generals, or SCAG, that this is the way this should go.
I believe there is general consensus but I take on board what the member for Port Darwin has said. He believes that responsible parents should retain the right to show this material to their children.
I believe the member for Nelson had a contrary view to that. He believes children should be protected. Whilst it may be taking away a right or a decision made by parents within the family - and I respect the member for Port Darwin; I am sure he is a very responsible and loving parent, along with his partner - unfortunately, there are parents out there who would abuse what they would see as a loophole to be able to show their children - or if they are in a guardian situation - this sort of material for malicious and criminal ends. My view is that I agree with the member for Nelson.
I also agree - and I am putting forward a personal view here - that children’s behaviour has become too sexualised. As the member for Nelson said there are many forces, particularly the media and also music, sexualising young children and adolescent behaviour. This is a very worrying trend. There is an old adage that ‘sex sells’, and the member for Nelson recognised or alluded to that when he said he inspected some of the covers of these videos and had a conversation with the company that markets these things. They were not happy that he was questioning them. I believe their motives are plain, member for Nelson. This is a small step towards addressing that issue, but there is a wider issue society has to deal with; that is the sexualisation of children and adolescent behaviour.
One thing particularly worries me - once again, I am speaking at a personal level - and that is rap music. There is no doubt that in a lot of rap music there is a denigration of women, which is very repugnant. I am alarmed by that, and the references to violence in rap music. To my ears …
Mr Tollner: I take it you are offended by the lyrics, not the music?
Dr BURNS: Well, the music underscores the content, particularly the aggressive way in which the rap musicians present it now. I am a bit more into melody myself. It is no secret in this House that I am a Bob Dylan fan. I also like classical music, jazz and most sorts of music.
I am speaking personally again; rap music just turns me off. However, it obviously resonates with a lot of young people. In a lot of the gang-related behaviour that we see, not only in the Northern Territory but all around Australia and the world, I believe rap music is front and centre. The music is about, as I understand it, disaffected youth in the United States. It reflects their social scenario, there is a lot of violence and denigration of women in it, and it concerns me.
I share the member for Nelson’s concerns about pornography. From documentaries I have seen on this topic, a lot of pornography is produced by a criminal element. There are drugs involved and even more serious offences. That has come to light also. The way in which women are portrayed within a lot of pornography is, once again, denigrating to them. As the member for Nelson said, it has a corrosive element, particularly for young people. As he alluded, some of the crimes that have come to the court in recent times have had their genesis in pornography and some of the views and attitudes that are put forward.
We live in a plural society and adults have the right to view this material as long as the material is classified - that is their decision. However, as the member for Nelson said, we need to protect children.
I am advised that there was a change to the regulation of R-rated movies quite some time ago, the member for Nelson is right. Maybe it was in the 1990s when this view about parents being allowed to show pornography to their children, or certain forms of it, was put forward by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Possibly, the change has its basis in that. It is something I will follow up, member for Nelson. I might even have a look around. I do not go to the video shop at all, member for Nelson, I have cable TV and my favourite shows are food shows as well as football - everyone to their own taste.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to members and thank members for their constructive contributions to the debate.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, it is very unusual to have a third reading debate. However, I will take the 10 minutes that is allowed because it is the most convenient vehicle for me to deal with an issue.
I want to place on the record - and I am sure the Attorney-General was not suggesting or did not mean to suggest, what I think he said; I may have misheard because there was a bit of noise around - that I find it incomprehensible that any parent would deliberately show this kind of material to a child. There may be reasons, but I find it incomprehensible. I cannot think of a reason or a scenario where a child should be exposed to this material even as a matter of education.
I am intrinsically aware that, from time to time, we pass laws that affect the capacity of families. I am of such a conservative disposition that I still believe there is an element of sacredness about the family environment and the capacity for the family to make decisions for itself, because 99% of families make the right decisions.
I also acknowledge and thank the Attorney-General for his observations about how I respond to my own children. I acknowledge that and thank you for the observation - it is correct. I am very protective of my children, which is why I am on my feet talking about these issues now. From what the Attorney-General said, he is very careful about these things too.
If the Attorney-General has the personal opinion he says, regarding the exposure of this material by parents to their children, then there may be room, sooner rather than later, to re-examine this particular issue. We can revisit that at the appropriate juncture.
I want to place on the record that I am not supportive in any way of children being exposed. However, I am mindful that if you look at the old Roman law of pater familias which placed the male at the head of the household - and I am not arguing that has to be the case today; clearly we live in different times – with an extraordinary set of powers for governance of the family. Not that I am suggesting we return to that old Roman law because it is fairly excessive in many areas. However, I am attracted to the system of belief where the family itself should be the place where issues of what is educational, what is not educational, what is proper punishment, what is not proper punishment - those sorts of things - should be left, in the first instance, to the family. That is the point I was trying to make.
I close with the observations that I agree with the minister. I feel the sexualisation of our society, let alone our children, is something that actually debases us. We are attracted in this world to things sensual - and that is exactly what rap music is; it is an exercise in the sensual that satisfies the senses in that sense of the word - it is almost like a distraction from the life that we live. It is like we are always looking for ways to be distracted. We want our movies to be bigger, louder, and better. We want our rap music to be bigger, louder, and better. We want drugs to make us happy, we want drugs to make us sad, and we even do it at a legal level. There is no shortage of drugs available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that will make us happy and sad. We are always looking for the quick solution and we live in a world where people want that. However, we accept the liberty of people to make decisions for themselves because one of the underpinning philosophies of a liberal society is that we believe people are smart enough to make their own decisions and suffer the consequences should they make bad ones.
That is something I subscribe to. That does not mean I agree with the decisions people make. However, in this world we have to accept that satisfaction of the sensual is going to be an element of our society - it has always been there. If you read Roman history, it was there when history was being recorded, and there was always a natural tension.
I am attracted to a world where we take a little more time to stop, think and consider things. I am attracted to a world where something higher than merely satisfying the senses impels us forward and makes us better people; where spiritual, emotional, and psychological self-examination is a matter of course. I am attracted to reinvestigating things like rhetoric as a form of study, because, if you look at rhetoric, it is actually an exercise in thinking. It is something we seem to be abandoning in an age when we are surrounded by more books than we have ever had.
Madam Speaker, those are my closing remarks. I thank the indulgence of this House for allowing me to use the third reading debate to make those observations. I will also finish with this particular observation: we have allowed this bill to pass through its stages in these sittings because we recognise that sometimes substance is more important than process. I urge members opposite to cast their minds to that observation considering what occurred prior to this debate, where process was the only defence against the recommended suspension of standing orders, which would have enabled us to discuss a very important issue.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
JUSTICE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 3)
(Serial 3)
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, this was the bill introduced during the Tenth Assembly and we are happy to consent to the bill and for it to pass during these sittings.
This bill makes a series of minor amendments to several items of legislation. Amendments to the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act means the minister may appoint a Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, whereas that cannot be presently done. We say that nothing in particular flows from that.
Regarding the amendments to the Powers of Attorney Act, currently the powers of attorney need to be registered to enable any transactions signed under the Land Title Act and endorsed by the donee. The amendment ensures that the witnessing requirements are similar to those under the Registrar-General’s directions to make them consistent with other forms. The amendment also provides for the power of attorney to be witnessed by a qualified witness, which is more than sensible.
The Professional Standards Act, however, is amended in a number of ways. I understand, minister, that this is the third amendment since about December 2004. Over the years I have had a bit to say about how much legislation keeps coming back to this parliament. For an act like this, three times since 2004 - and please correct me if I am wrong - does seem to be significant. I am wondering whether in your reply you can enlighten us on that.
In relation to the Fines and Penalties Regulations, they are changed to give the Fines Recovery Unit capacity to collect victims of crimes debts. We are supportive of that. I remind you, minister, that I wrote to you - about two weeks ago - seeking some information about the Fines Recovery Unit. I remind you of that correspondence, since it has traditionally taken you a long time to reply.
Madam Speaker, that is the effect of the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill and we consent to it.
Ms WALKER (Nhulunbuy): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill. I appreciate that the Northern Territory government needs to keep on top of large amounts of legislation which it oversees, particularly within the Justice portfolio, and that, from time to time, legislation may require some fine-tuning to ensure it is effective and works efficiently and fairly.
In relation to the changes to legislation as outlined by the minister, I do not intend to speak about all the amendments listed. However, there are a couple of issues which I would like to speak about as I believe they are particularly important.
First, I refer to the proposed amendment to the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act which seeks to include a provision to enable the minister to appoint a Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. This amendment is eminently sensible and in essence allows, as has been explained:
- The minister may appoint a public sector employee to be the Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Affairs.
- … the Deputy Commissioner may exercise the powers and perform the functions of the Commissioner.
Consumer Affairs and fair trading is an important part of the Department of Justice and aims to promote and regulate responsible business conduct through administration of a regulatory system that protects consumer interests. Consumer Affairs has a key role and responsibility to protect consumers. The appointment of a Deputy Commissioner means that Consumer Affairs can function fully, smoothly, and appropriately. It will give the commissioner and his staff the ability to investigate more complaints and, ultimately, be in a position to provide a better and timelier service to consumers.
There are many occasions when Consumer Affairs needs to be able to act quickly and decisively, and none more so than when matters of safety are at stake. It happens quite commonly at Christmas time when a toy is recalled due to some danger such as a choking hazard to a small child. Apart from reactive responses, Consumer Affairs takes a proactive role when it comes to identifying potential hazards presented by the contents, for instance, of show bags on sale each July during the Northern Territory show circuit.
The risk of scams to unsuspecting consumers is another important function which Consumer Affairs actively seeks to minimise. Again, with the appointment of a Deputy Commissioner, these scams can be investigated and dealt with quickly. We hear regularly through the media of various scams but, amongst the worst are those which target people with lower levels of literacy because English is not their first language or those whose financial literacy is challenged. By this I mean a consumer’s ability to understand clearly a financial contract in terms of repayments and possible or hidden penalties.
In the Northern Territory, particularly in bush electorates, Indigenous people are more vulnerable to scams when they are sold products. For instance, mobile phones and plans which are completely inappropriate for the needs of the user and may have undisclosed costs for text or SMS products; and mobile phones which may work well in Alice Springs or Darwin but do not have the same service provider in their home community. It is all very well to say ‘buyer beware’ but when the buyer does not fully understand what they need to be wary of with unscrupulous sales people, or the transaction is occurring in a language in which they are not proficient, then the buyer needs the protection of Consumer Affairs.
The amendment to the Fines and Penalties (Recovery) Act allows the Fines Recovery Unit to collect and enforce debts owed to the Northern Territory. The Territory’s Crime Victims Support Scheme provides a valuable and important service to victims through the provision of a free counselling service and also financial assistance up to $40 000. Under this scheme, victims now obtain assistance quickly and simply through the Crimes Victims Service Unit.
This amendment proposes to expand the role of the Fines Recovery Unit to be able to go directly to the offender in order to recover fines and penalties which have been incurred for victims’ assistance. This is an eminently sensible course of action, given that it is the Fines Recovery Unit’s core business to collect fines and penalties owed to the Northern Territory. By virtue of this being their core business as a government agency, the Fines Recovery Unit has access to information held by government which is essential in locating persons who owe money under the act. Further to this, the Fines Recovery Unit does have wide-ranging powers including suspending licences and vehicle registrations, seizing property, and garnishee of wages or salary in order to enforce payment of debts. Offenders who have harmed others and the community, and have the ability to pay, can and will be made to do so. Such an arrangement will offset arrangements which are currently associated with Crimes Victims’ Assistance and are also intended to improve recovery rates. This is good news for taxpayers who will not have to foot as much of the bill associated with the scheme and the cost of recovery.
I now refer to the proposed amendment to the Professional Standards Act. Professional standards legislation was first enacted in New South Wales to relieve the indemnity insurance crisis sweeping the state at that time. Similar legislation has now been adopted in all jurisdictions in Australia, including the Northern Territory. Under this legislation, the act seeks:
- (a) to enable the creation of schemes to limit the civil liability of professionals and others;
(b) to facilitate the improvement of occupational standards of professionals and others;
(c) to protect the consumers of the services provided by professionals and others; and
- (d) to constitute the Professional Standards Council to supervise the preparation and application of schemes and to assist in the improvement
of occupational standards and protection of consumers.
The proposed amendments to the act seek to avoid unnecessary numbering of schemes as subordinate legislation. Importantly, the act is about maintaining standards and it does have the ability to bring in professional standard schemes, but these schemes are not subordinate legislation.
Madam Speaker, I commend the minister and support this bill.
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Visitors
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of community library officers from across the Northern Territory in Darwin for a Territory-wide Community Library Officers Forum. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I also welcome librarians from all over the Territory.
I appreciate the support of the opposition in relation to this bill. Speaking to newer members in this parliament, there are contentious matters and legislation that come before this parliament, but there is much legislation that comes through which is really attending to matters to make legislation keep pace with changes by various amendments in various areas. There are a number of areas that are amended to address issues that are raised with us, such as the Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Affairs.
As the member for Nhulunbuy said, that is quite an important area that protects consumers. However, there was a problem where an amendment was needed so there could be permission to appoint a Deputy Commissioner, thereby giving organisational flexibility within the Department of Justice.
I thank the opposition for their support. The member for Araluen alluded to a number of things. Member for Araluen, you mentioned some correspondence you wrote a fortnight or so ago about the victims of crime scheme. A response is being prepared. It has not come to my office from the Department of Justice yet, but as soon as it does I will endeavour to reply promptly, as with all correspondence.
You also asked a question about the Professional Standards Act, and I wonder whether I heard you correctly. I think you were saying there have been a number of changes, tranches of legislation brought into the House, including this one. You asked, if I am not mistaken, just how many more are in the pipeline?
Ms Carney: No, it had been amended three times, I think. Is that right? And why?
Dr BURNS: As the member for Nhulunbuy alluded to, when questions and threats were posed to the insurance industry in 2001-02, all states in Australia have been moving to amend Professional Standards legislation to address that issue. My advice is there have been a number of changes including: the Professional Standards Act 2004; the Justice Legislation Amendment Act 2006; the Professional Standards Amendment Act 2007; and the Professional Standards Amendment (Mutual Recognition) Act 2008 - which was probably one of the first bills I put through this House as Attorney-General.
This particular amendment comes at the request of the Parliamentary Counsel, concerned that there was too much being put into subordinate legislation. He wanted clarity about the subordinate legislation made in each calendar year being numbered in an arithmetical series to keep everything nice and clean so the lawyers could work out the chronology. It also shows the calendar year in which it is made.
His strong advice was that we should ensure, through this bill, that Professional Standards schemes are not, and never have been, subordinate legislation of the Interpretation Act. Further, they are not, and never have been, required to be published in the Gazette for the purposes of the Professional Standards Act.
It was really housekeeping brought forward by the Parliamentary Counsel, Geoff Hackett-Jones, who has done an excellent job. He has certainly prepared a lot of legislation, but is now moving on and we will have a new Parliamentary Counsel. I pay tribute to Geoff; he has done a great job. He is a very experienced man in the job and we are going to miss him. He worked hard and I am sure opposition members also join me in wishing Geoff all the best. I am sure we will give the same support and receive the same great service from the new Parliamentary Counsel, who I think is a woman. That is going to be very good for us.
I thank members for their contribution. I thank the member for Nhulunbuy. I suppose it is the first time she has participated in debate on a bill. She certainly highlighted the importance of Consumer Affairs and the way in which some unscrupulous operators target, particularly, Indigenous people in her electorate with scams concerning mobile phones and photographs. There is a whole range of things these people try to target Indigenous communities. The Consumer Affairs Commission is very important in informing the public about these schemes through education programs and also chasing those who do the wrong thing.
The member for Nhulunbuy also mentioned recovery of monies owed through the crimes victims’ assistance legislation. This will no longer be in the hands of debt collectors but collected through the Fines Recovery Unit, which is expert at recovering fines from people who are in default. This is important legislation to support the victims of crime and to reinforce to those who commit crimes that they will have to pay - they will be pursued. The Fines Recovery Unit has wide-ranging powers, including suspending licences and vehicle registrations, seizing property and garnishee of wages or salary in order to enforce payment of debts, where necessary. This is upping the ante. This is letting the people who commit these crimes know that we are going to chase them down and extract recompense from them.
Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. I commend the bill to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT (HIT AND RUN AND OTHER ENDANGERMENT OFFENCES) BILL
(Serial 2)
(Serial 2)
Continued from 10 September 2008.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, for the sake of the Parliamentary Record, this bill was introduced during the Tenth Assembly and, by agreement and consent, it is to be passed during these sittings.
I feel certain my colleague, the member for Port Darwin, is going to talk about some aspects of the bill, Attorney-General, so in the interests of time and my voice, I am not going to go there. However, there are some points I would like to make in relation to rock throwing.
I have some questions and I would be grateful if you would respond to them in your reply.
In the proposed new section 180A(1)(b), it says:
- the act mentioned in paragraph (a) gives rise to a danger of harm to someone in or on the vehicle or vessel.
This is repeated in the following subparagraph (b). My question is: why is the expression ‘gives rise to a danger of harm’ used? I am not familiar with that expression in this context. I wonder why an expression such as ‘the conduct results in harm’ was not used; there being, on my reading, a difference to something that gives rise to a danger of harm as opposed to resulting in harm. I am a little troubled by that and look forward to your explanation. Subject to your explanation, I wonder whether there is the ability for someone to contravene the act if they do actually harm someone, as opposed to merely giving rise to the danger of harm. I think you know where I am coming from.
You said in your second reading speech that a four-year penalty demonstrates the seriousness of the offence. You will remember, minister, that prior to the election - I think it was a couple of sittings prior to the election - I gave notice that I would introduce rock throwing legislation, and a bill was prepared by Parliamentary Counsel. The version I have in my hand is dated 28 May 2008. It was a draft and we were looking at penalties and so on. This side of the House had a significantly different penalty from the one you propose. Whereas you said four years is about right, we said 10 years, and a subsequent offence up to 14 years. The reason we went so high is that this is a particularly nasty offence committed by absolute morons.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARNEY: Because they are so congenitally stupid and reckless, our view was that a very strong, clear message needed to be sent to them: if they throw rocks at people in vehicles, particularly moving vehicles, they would go to gaol for a long time. We did not propose a minimum sentence. I feel so strongly about the idiots who do this - and I stress this as a personal view – I believe they should go to prison for a minimum sentence on a second offence. The point we make is that it is a significant offence and four years, with great respect, does not - using your language in the second reading speech - demonstrate the seriousness of the offence.
There is some history on this one, minister. You may recall in 2003, when parliament sat in Alice Springs, a young man called Brendan McGrath, whose photo was on the front page of the Centralian Advocate with half his head stitched back together, after some moron threw a rock at him while he was driving. This had been an ongoing issue for some time. In my media release dated 13 December 2004, I mentioned three or four episodes that had happened over the previous few weeks in Alice Springs. Children as young as four were pelting cars with rocks, and a jogger who stopped to confront some rock throwers was chased and bashed. Another headline in the Centralian Advocate was ‘Teens strike in rock throwing spree’.
When we had the Alice Springs sittings, Brendan McGrath attended with his family because they were very unhappy with the policing at the time and the response they had received from government. We raised this issue on 29 April 2003, and I think the now Chief Minister was Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services at the time. He said:
- In regard to the spate of rock throwing incidents we have had in Alice Springs over the last few weeks …
He went on to say:
- … is outrageous behaviour that is extremely dangerous. It is intolerable behaviour, wherever it occurs in the Northern Territory.
My point is: it took your government five years - and only after the opposition gave notice that we would introduce a bill - for your government to get its collective act together and introduce a bill dealing with, among other things, rock throwers. I am not sure that is good enough, frankly. You could say we should have given notice of a bill some years beforehand. Well, we are not the government - you are. It is government’s core responsibility to do its utmost to protect the citizens of the Northern Territory, and this government has spectacularly failed on so many fronts.
I note with great interest that – I do not have the material in front of me - when the rock throwing found its way onto the front page of the Top End paper, that the government started to get twitchy and acted. I sincerely hope your third term in government is much better than your second one. Your first one, if I may say so, was your best and you have been going downhill since then. However, I do hope you improve on law and order issues.
We do support the bill because finally we have something, although I return to why you chose a four-year penalty and, in particular, the wording in the new proposed section 180A.
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Visitor
Visitor
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Mr Allister Langlands, the Chief Executive of the Wood Group, who is visiting Darwin from Aberdeen. The Wood Group operates in 46 countries and has teamed up with one of our local companies, RANS. On behalf of honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Ms LAWRIE (Infrastructure and Transport): Madam Speaker, the Henderson government is committed to protecting Territorians with both strong laws and strong deterrents. I commend the minister for Justice for the Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and Other Endangerment Offences) Bill we are debating today, that we introduced in our second term of government.
As Transport minister, I wholeheartedly support the range of provisions in this bill because, fundamentally, they support road safety. Sadly, some people’s behaviour requires these laws to be put in place. Rock throwing, laser pointing, and people fleeing the scene of road accidents have occurred in our community, as they have in many others.
The bill delivers strong penalties for people who flee an accident leaving victims behind rather than rendering assistance. Providing first aid at the scene of an accident can often mean the difference between life and death. Abandoning someone in need in this way deserves the strongest penalty. Sadly, in the Northern Territory there is a very poor driving culture, particularly the number of Territorians who drink and drive and flout the law and the safety of others. This bill provides a very strong deterrent to those drink-drivers who think fleeing the scene and avoiding a breath test will evade the law.
This bill also provides strong deterrents to those in the community who may think throwing rocks and pointing lasers is harmless fun. Far from it; it is stupid and extremely dangerous. The penalties in this bill reflect the seriousness of the offence and the potential harm that can be caused by such recklessness. Drivers of commercial passenger vehicles such as buses and taxis provide a much-valued service to our community but, sadly, are often targeted by senseless people, including children, throwing rocks or pointing lasers. The government, the police, and the taxi industry have worked collaboratively on this issue in the past when a number of taxis were targeted by rock throwers. In recognition of the difficulty in catching the culprits, police went undercover, posing as cab drivers in a special operation.
I believe that most general commuters will welcome these laws. These laws build on a range of initiatives delivered by this government to protect road users. Earlier this year, the Henderson government brought new aggravated offences for assault against drivers of commercial passenger vehicles. Drivers of buses and taxis are hard-working and community-minded people providing a highly-valued and often relied upon service to the community. They often work alone and can be vulnerable to assault by passengers, particularly at night. They now have stronger laws providing protection to them in the work they do. These laws have delivered a much stronger deterrent, with a person committing common assault on a bus or taxi driver, whether they are public servants or private industry drivers, now facing up to five years imprisonment compared to the previous provision of a maximum of one year.
The 1100 ‘H’ endorsed drivers across our transport system now work in the knowledge that this government has provided another tool to police to remove thuggery from the public transport network. This government has also introduced Transit Safety Officers to our public bus network to protect drivers and passengers from antisocial behaviour. This year, we boosted the Transit Safety Officer team from four to eight, and provided them with stronger powers to use reasonable force to restrain and detain people causing problems on our bus network.
Transit Safety Officers patrol the public bus network and interchanges, providing a highly visible presence to commuters. They wear distinctive green uniforms and travel in marked patrol vehicles. They are trained in skills such as first aid, cultural awareness, communications, and the use of force, and have the capacity to issue trespass and infringement notices to stop problem passengers entering the bus network. They work closely with the police and the Darwin Bus network providers, as well as the Casuarina Shopping Square management, to share intelligence on security issues at the Casuarina interchange which is closely linked to the shopping centre. The relationship with police is particularly important to provide a quick response to incidents on the bus network. Since the stronger powers came into effect in July, the Transit Safety Officers, with the assistance of police, have made two arrests.
We have also invested $800 000 into 245 CCTV cameras across the bus network, both in buses and at interchanges. The cameras catch people causing problems, and are providing a useful tool for the Transit Safety Officers and police to help identify perpetrators. I also report to the House that discussions are continuing with the Taxi Council regarding the best means to provide security cameras in taxis. I have discussed some options with the council and I am awaiting their advice ...
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! It is my understanding that we are talking about the Criminal Code Amendment (Hit and Run and other Endangerment Offences) Bill. I fail to see how the bus security officers have anything to do with hit and run offences.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, if I could speak to the point of order. The minister for Transport is clearly speaking about this particular bill. The laws about rock throwing are important but the methods of enforcement are also important, and actually catching these idiots who are throwing rocks is crucial to this debate. I believe it is very pertinent.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Minister, please continue.
Ms LAWRIE: That just shows a lack of understanding about the importance of this ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Ms LAWRIE: Security cameras in taxis will provide additional assurance to drivers and passengers that any criminal activity is recorded and, if needed, made available to police.
On the issue of rock throwing, we have found security camera footage in the buses is very useful in evidentiary material. So, there is a direct link between the provisions contained in the bill we are debating and the enforcement and surveillance methods about which I have been informing the House.
A further tool in our package of reforms to improve our public transport systems is the opening of a secure taxi rank in Darwin CBD last month. This rank is staffed by two security guards and a concierge, and has been provided with additional lighting, seating and, importantly, CCTV cameras. The rank operates from midnight to 5 am on Saturdays and Sundays and, in its first seven weeks of operation, has transported over 3000 passengers safely, with more than 1000 taxi and minibus transactions. This rank has improved safety for drivers and passengers and improved antisocial behaviour in Mitchell Street, associated with people moving out of the nightclub precinct of our city.
My Department of Planning and Infrastructure has worked closely with Darwin City Council, the NT Australian Hotels Association, NT Police, Birch Carroll and Coyle, the Taxi Council and Metro Mini Bus Pty Ltd to deliver this important initiative.
We are a government that wants to improve safety for commuters, taxi drivers, and bus drivers. I commend the Attorney-General for this legislation. It sends a very clear, important message to those senseless idiots who put people’s lives at risk - and we have seen some horrific injuries from rock throwing incidents - that there are harsh penalties for their senseless behaviour. The way that the legislation has been constructed is to ensure that the evidentiary processes required for prosecution are as effective as they can be.
Madam Speaker, I commend the Department of Justice, working with the Department of Transport and others, and the help and assistance of Parliamentary Counsel, for the legislation that we have before us today.
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Visitors
Visitors
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the Gallery of Captain Terry Richardson, one of Australia’s longest-serving Royal Flying Doctor Service pilots, and his wife, Gaye Richardson, also a long-term Flight Nurse with the RFDS and the co-author of a recently published book Nurses with Altitude. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Debate suspended.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
Madam SPEAKER: I advise honourable members of the presence in the gallery of Mr Michael Crutchfield MP, Member for South Barwon, Victoria, and Parliamentary Secretary Water Environment, accompanied by his wife, Ms Julie Hobbs. On behalf of honourable members, I extend to you a very warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT (HIT AND RUN AND OTHER ENDANGERMENT OFFENCES) BILL
(Serial 2)
(Serial 2)
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I share my support with the shadow Attorney-General in relation to this matter, and my contribution will be brief.
There is one area I have some concern with and I am glad to see that the Attorney-General is casting his eyes in my direction, because it deals particularly with what you would describe as a cultural issue. I realise it might be of some surprise to the Attorney-General that I would raise a cultural issue at this juncture and in a bill of this nature. However, there is a very real concern that I have and I seek the comfort of the Attorney-General to see if he can give some advice to set my mind at ease.
The issue is the reference in the bill to ‘reasonable in all the circumstances’. I am talking particularly about the hit-and-run aspect. I presume it is written into the bill for a very specific reason. One of the problems that we have in our community, particularly in the Alice Springs area, is that in certain cultural environments, justice and retribution in acts of negligence or criminality is swift and, often brutal. We see this played out quite regularly in our remote communities, but it does wash over into the non-Aboriginal community where there is an intersection, if you like, between the Aboriginal community and the non-Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory. It specifically comes to light when we are dealing with hit-and-run cases, or people who drive over pedestrians.
From time to time, sadly and tragically, pedestrians in Alice Springs – also in other places in Central Australia, but I will focus on Alice Springs specifically – are run over by motorists. Often, it is not the motorist’s fault at European law. However, that does not prevent a swift and automatic retribution being brought to bear upon the driver of the motor vehicle by the relatives - both close and distant - of the person who has been struck by the motor vehicle.
We have seen examples in Alice Springs where a person has genuinely been motivated as a good Samaritan, stopped their vehicle, as is expected and required by this law and common courtesy, to render assistance to a person they have struck with their motor vehicle. In those instances where the person who has been run over is an Aboriginal person, the retribution under traditional law requires an instant response. Often, that means destruction of the car and a physical assault being brought to bear upon the driver of the vehicle.
It has become practice in Alice Springs – and I am aware that this advice has been given out by the police in Alice Springs in the past – that, in the unfortunate event of accidentally running over a person who is an Aboriginal, that you do not stop at the scene of the accident but proceed forthwith to the nearest police station and report the accident there. The reason being, that the cultural law brought to bear often brings great injury to both the vehicle and the driver of the vehicle should that person stop.
I am being as delicate as I possibly can because what I am describing is: if you run over an Aboriginal person in Alice Springs, you have to make, essentially, what is a racist decision - very quickly - as to whether you stop and render assistance. The fact is that, if you do, there is a possibility you will become subject of some form of assault. We have seen several examples where this has happened, that I am aware of, over the past few years.
I hope that a court, casting its eyes over the term ‘reasonable in all the circumstances’ would accept that this law does not apply because of those circumstances existing. I do not know how I can put this issue more delicately but, clearly, it is something I am concerned about and I know that other people are concerned about. I would like the minister’s guidance and comments in relation to this matter, because it is a matter of some importance, particularly to people who live in Alice Springs.
I hope this is not raised as some sort of racist attack; it is not intended to be. It is a genuine attempt to try to discover some sort of middle ground in those particular circumstances, because a person who stops in those circumstances may, on occasion, find themselves under the scrutiny of another legal system, and that other legal system can inflict some very savage and – I will strike the word savage because it is going to be misused and I do not want that to occur – a brutal response from that other legal system.
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Madam Speaker, I speak in support of the bill, and I appreciate the opposition’s cooperation in debating this and other bills today. I believe that the proposed amendments to our Criminal Code are important. We have a bill before the House to make specific offences for hit and run, for throwing things - more often than not, we are referring to rocks – and pointing lasers in the eyes of drivers.
We all agree no-one should leave the scene of an accident, and no-one should cause an accident by throwing rocks or pointing lasers at cars. Hit and run is one of those crimes that touches a special nerve in the community. I cannot understand - and I do not think any of us here can understand - how you can be involved in a car accident and take off, and possibly leave someone behind who is within an inch of his or her life.
While the bill today is welcomed, all of us would hope that it is not needed; that people do not take off from the scene of an accident but stay to lend a hand. Unfortunately, we know it has happened, and hopefully matching the penalties for leaving the scene with the penalties for dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing serious harm work.
I believe all members have agreed that rock throwing is incredibly dangerous. Unfortunately, people who throw rocks do not always understand how serious it is. It is dangerous, and I feel for bus drivers and taxi drivers who are usually the victims of rock throwing. It is an issue I have discussed with the Transport Workers Union, and with Buslink as well.
I support the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport’s comments about the practical enforcement of the issues we are debating today. Important as it is to have the offences and penalties the Attorney-General is proposing, they only work if we catch people. The minister covered what we are doing in detail: Transit Security Officers, cameras in buses, and targeted operations by the government, council and police. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I also support the legislation, but I do have a few minor questions. I wonder if I can ask them in committee stage, as it will sound too broken up if I try to ask the questions in one go.
In general, I do not have a problem with the legislation. There is existing legislation, which does not seem to cover the seriousness of the offences that the government has been talking about over the last couple of years, and these changes certainly seem to cover that.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank all members for their contribution to this debate and, generally, for the support that this bill has received from both opposition and Independent members. However, a number of questions have been asked, and I will endeavour to answer each one of those. The member for Nelson has indicated that he wishes to ask some questions in committee stage, and I welcome that as well.
Starting with the shadow, the member for Araluen, who talked about – it was before the break - a four-year penalty for rock throwing in our legislation, yet, before the election, she had drawn up a private members bill that had a 10- to 14-year penalty associated with it. Basically, she asked the question: if we believed that the offence of rock throwing was so bad and so serious, how come we only had a four-year maximum penalty as part of our particular legislative change?
The answer is that there are already a number of elements in the Criminal Code – and I will turn to the second reading speech – which cover the damage. If someone throws a rock and seriously injures someone, there are already components of the Criminal Code that cover this. I quote from the second reading speech:
- There are, of course, already a number of offences in the Northern Territory that apply when someone throws an object and causes injury or damage - ranging from murder, manslaughter, causing serious harm to aggravated assault and criminal damage. There are also general endangerment offences in the Criminal Code that apply in situations where the act results in the danger or death or serious harm.
Then I went on to say in the second reading speech:
- There is, however, a gap in the law, particularly in relation to throwing things. The act of intentionally throwing something at a car where there is a potential to harm someone, is inadequately catered for in our current laws. If no injury or damage results, then under the endangerment offences in the Criminal Code the prosecution must prove that the act gave rise to the danger of death or serious harm and that the defendant was reckless as to those levels of danger. Depending on the particular scenario it might not be possible to prove that there was a danger or death or serious harm or that the defendant was reckless as to those levels of danger.
- Section 180A provides that the danger be only that of harm and the defendant be reckless as to the danger of harm.
In other words, as I said in the second reading speech, this is a much lower level of danger and, consequently, much easier to establish. So, in answer to the member for Araluen’s question, this specific offence has been created where there may not have been harm or damage, but it is all about endangerment. It is about when someone throws a rock and there might not necessarily be serious injury to a person, but there is an act of throwing the rock. Under the current law it is difficult, as it needs a high level of proof to get a conviction. This is what we are trying to do here in section 180A; actually set the level of proof of harm and that the defendant was reckless as to the danger.
I hope that answers the member’s question. Some of it also relates to Part IIAA of the Criminal Code, which goes to criminal responsibility. As some members opposite might be aware, the Northern Territory has adopted the model Criminal Code in relation to this aspect of criminal responsibility. The principle of criminal responsibility is that an act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty. In other words it is about intent, but not purely intent itself. There are physical and fault elements. The physical element is when the person throws the object, in this particular case, and the fault elements are about intention, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence. Part of the response to the member for Araluen’s question goes to the model Criminal Code and criminal responsibility. If there is actual harm done, there are elements in the Criminal Code which cover some aspects the member for Araluen was alluding to.
The member for Araluen also raised the case of Brendan McGrath. I am advised that, in the McGrath case - and I will read from the advice I have:
- The issue in the McGrath case was that there was no one apprehended, therefore, there was no one to charge with any offence.
As I have said, you need to catch these idiots first before you can charge them. That is my advice concerning the Brendan McGrath issue which the member for Araluen has raised. Obviously, Brendan was very seriously injured and, if someone had been apprehended, there would have been very serious charges laid against that person - and appropriately so.
I hope I have answered the member for Araluen’s question. I am also advised that the language used in the offence is consistent with other endangerment offences; that the conduct or act gives rise to a danger. I have already covered those aspects. In essence, this is covering a gap in the existing law.
The next speaker was the member for Karama who talked about the need for strong laws in this area and about support for road safety; and basically, that abandoning someone in need, who has been hit and injured by the vehicle you are driving, is a reprehensible thing to do.
There has been a lot of activity by police, taxi drivers and buses attempting to apprehend those responsible for rock throwing. The member for Karama also mentioned that some of the CCTV footage or security camera footage within buses is very useful as evidence in some instances. She also talked about the Transit Safety Officers. I have seen them. They are very visible in their uniforms and their vehicles with the green stripe down the side. I see them at all hours of the day and night. I believe it is a very welcome addition to government strategy to reduce antisocial behaviour on public transport.
The member also talked about laws that have been brought into this parliament making it an aggravating offence if there is an assault against a bus driver, taxi driver or anyone with a H endorsement. These are strong actions government is taking.
The member for Port Darwin raised very valid issues regarding people who may feel they are in danger if they stopped. There are various situations - not necessarily an Indigenous group. It could be a group of youths partying. I understand there was an incident in Palmerston that involved this sort of scenario.
I turn to the new section 174FA, Hit and Run, in the act, as this is important, and I quote:
(1) The driver of a vehicle is guilty of a crime if:
(i) stop the vehicle at the scene of the incident; and
The member for Port Darwin knows it would be a matter for a court to determine. He and I have outlined scenarios. There could be other scenarios: where someone is taking a person who is in serious danger of dying to the hospital.. There are a number of things that could happen which a court may see as reasonable. I am not here to pre-empt or hypothesise about what a court may or may not find. That is why the word ‘reasonable’ is in there, member for Port Darwin. I believe the issue you have raised is a valid issue and, as this legislation was being developed, one that I questioned. I asked about different scenarios which is why that is in there. It is not there as a loophole. A court will have to see it as a very serious situation, but a reasonable explanation by someone would be accepted by the court. So, I thank the member for Port Darwin for raising his issues.
The member for Fannie Bay talked about the importance of having specific offences for rock throwing and hit and run. He pointed out that he did not believe it was right, and the community would not see it was right, for someone to leave a scene of a hit and run accident without a reasonable excuse. Also, that rock throwing is something the community abhors. He gave further support to the Transport minister regarding the measures she is implementing for better security in our transport system.
The member for Nelson has a few questions for me in committee stage. I see the Chairman of Committees ready to take her seat for her first committee stage amendments. I thank members for their participation in this debate; for their constructive and thoughtful offerings. Madam Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
Mr WOOD: Madam Chair, congratulations on your first chairmanship. It is only a little bill, so probably makes a good initiation.
My questions are nothing to do with major changes, but in section 174FA(2), which is the definitions, it talks about a driver and a vehicle. I asked at a briefing why we could not include ‘vessel’. Many people in the Territory drive boats, whether they are water skiing or fishing at Manton Dam, Dinah Beach or out in the harbour. I thought the same thing would have applied if someone had a boating accident - and they are not uncommon, as we have seen in parts of Australia – and they hit someone either in the water or in another boat. This bill that is being put forward today should also apply to vessels. I am asking the minister why, in this case, has a vessel not been included.
Dr BURNS: Madam Chair, my advice is this is about perceived need. There have not been incidences of vessels being involved in hit and runs. I suppose that is the reason why ‘vessels’ is not included. The definition of ‘vehicle’ is there also because there is a wide definition of vehicles, as you can see underneath section 174FA.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I do not quite accept your reasoning because, under ‘vehicle’ we have ‘horse-drawn carriage’. I would be pushing to say that we have had any cases of hit and runs due to horse-drawn carriages. So, using the same argument, we either withdraw the horse-drawn carriages, or we include the vessels. I believe it is not an unreasonable proposition that someone could be involved in a boating accident and, for the very same reasons people would try to run away from a car accident - maybe they are over the limit, they did something silly, they were not driving a boat which had the proper safety gear in it or, for instance at night time, did not have a light - they would not be covered by this particular action.
I should also add, minister, if the government is not willing to put ‘vessel’ in here, then what penalties will apply to a person who did hit and run someone using a boat?
Dr BURNS: I thank the member for his question. It is rather a hypothetical question. I am advised the definition of ‘vehicle’, as it appears in here, is a drafting convention to include horse-drawn carriages. I know where you are going, member for Nelson, and I suppose you are making a valid point, but I can only reiterate what my advice has been in relation to vessels.
Mr WOOD: I do not want to labour it too much, but if I turn over a page, which is the section I am going to discuss in a minute, 180A talks about endangering occupants of vehicles and vessels. I could also argue: how many cases of rock throwing have you seen recently which involved boats? Obviously, the people who put this legislation together felt there is a possibility of rocks or something being thrown at vessels, otherwise they would not be included in the legislation. It is the same as laser guns or laser pointers being used at vessels. I am not sure how often that occurs either.
Dr BURNS: I can only reiterate what I have said, member for Nelson. The bill has got to this point and, as I say, I am not aware - are you? - of any cases of hit and run with vessels in the Northern Territory.
Mr WOOD: Probably, there is a better chance of being hit by a boat than a horse-drawn carriage, minister. However, I will move on.
Regarding new section 180A, Endangering Occupants of Vehicles and Vessels, one of my questions was in relation to what part of this section meant. You answered it in your earlier reply to the member for Araluen, so I will not go over that.
I ask - you will probably say it is a bit silly – a question which was brought up in the 1960s when there were lots of protests going on. I remember vehicles going past with tomatoes and eggs plastered over them, and I thought to myself: ‘Would someone come under this particular act if they were having a protest? Would there be a definition of what harm is in this case?’ If the president from some well-known republic is in Australia, and a few people do not particularly like him and they throw a few tomatoes and eggs at the car, would they, technically, come under this legislation?
Dr BURNS: It would, but it would be for a court to determine the level of harm and the degree of recklessness.
Mr WOOD: I would not want to stop freedom of expression.
Mr Elferink: The problem is you used to supply eggs, and all you want to do is keep your weapons trade going.
Mr WOOD: I used to grow tomatoes, too.
My next point is: we have a definition of ‘vehicle’ in this act but, in new section 180A, we deal with vessels. I know the definition of a vessel is covered under section 4, Interpretation, of the Criminal Code. I imagine vehicle is also covered under the Criminal Code. I just wondered why the definition of a vessel was not put under new section 180A(3), for the sake of consistency?
Dr BURNS: My advice, member for Nelson, is there is a fairly clear understanding of what a vessel is.
Mr WOOD: It cannot be that clear, minister, because you have actually defined it under the Criminal Code.
The last question - and it should be recorded in the Parliamentary Record – is: a lot of the problems regarding laser pointers is the issue of them being pointed at planes coming in to land, yet there is no mention of that in your readings or in the act. Perhaps you could explain where that is covered if it is not covered in this act?
Dr BURNS: My advice, member for Nelson, is this is covered through Commonwealth legislation.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported, report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Draft Bill - Domestic and Family Violence Amendment Bill
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Honourable members, I table a draft bill titled Domestic and Family Violence Amendment Bill, and I have a tabling statement as well.
The tabling of this draft bill is to allow for public discussion on the proposed amendments before government formally introduces the legislation. It is proposed to amend the Domestic and Family Violence Act to create new mandatory reporting laws for abuse occurring within a domestic relationship causing serious physical harm. Our clear intention is to introduce new laws which reflect this government’s ongoing commitment to confront domestic and family violence in our community. We believe the proposed amendments provide a community-based response to a community problem.
The introduction of mandatory reporting of domestic and family violence sends a clear message to the community, to all people in the Northern Territory, that abuse perpetrated against women and children, and children being exposed to abuse within their families and their homes is unacceptable and such behaviour will not be tolerated.
The draft bill amends the Domestic and Family Violence Act 2007 to require all adults in the Northern Territory to make either a verbal or a written report to police if they believe, on reasonable grounds, that either another person’s life or safety is under serious or imminent threat because of domestic violence, or a person has caused or is likely to cause serious physical harm to another person within a domestic relationship. The draft bill creates an offence for failing to make a report unless the person has a reasonable excuse for not doing so. Such an excuse may include honestly and reasonably believing that another person had already formed the same belief and had made a report to a police officer.
We are asking the community as a whole to take a stand against domestic and family violence to help break the cycle of violence and to protect those women and children who experience abuse within their relationships and their families. Mandatory reporting is about no longer ignoring violence and abuse, and no longer remaining silent.
This government understands that domestic and family violence is a highly contentious and sensitive issue. As such, we feel it is necessary to allow time for the community as a whole to consider this approach to tackling the problem. By making this draft bill public prior to the introduction, we are providing for the maximum exposure of the proposed legislation. Our policy direction is clear: as a society we have to break this cycle of violence to protect women and children, and the Territory will have mandatory reporting laws for abuse occurring within domestic relationships causing serious harm.
Tabling this draft bill is a stage in this process of implementation. It is now our intention to seek comment over the next two weeks and to introduce a final bill at the next sitting.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the draft bill and that I have leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Increasing Police Presence – Making Our Communities Safer
Increasing Police Presence – Making Our Communities Safer
Mr HENDERSON (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, over the last seven years, this Labor government has been intent on increasing resources available to police, especially by increasing police numbers, bolstering the legislation police have at their disposal to do the job, and improving the capital resources of the police with new technology and equipment, new police stations, and new communications. I am proud of these efforts and pledge my government will continue to support the police through these means.
Today, I deliver a statement specifically on what my government is doing to increase the police presence in the community across the Territory. I acknowledge that an important aspect of safety is a strong sense of safety in the community. A high profile and public police presence contributes to that sense of safety.
Over the next four years, the government intends to lift the police presence in the community in five specific ways: we are going to increase the size of the police force; we are implementing a safer streets initiative; we are introducing a new initiative called Police Beats which will be placed in major shopping centres including a police post at Bagot Community; we are rolling out a program of CCTV; and we are building new police stations.
I am advised by the Commissioner of Police that on 31 August 2008 there were 1159 paid police officers in the force. That figure includes auxiliaries, Aboriginal Community Police Officers: constables and above – 949; auxiliaries – 139; and Aboriginal Community Police Officers - 71. It does not include NT Police seconded to airport policing. It, similarly, does not include police constable recruits, police auxiliary recruits, or civilian staff. That means, on 31 August 2008, there were 255 more uniformed personnel in the force than there were in 2003.
We intend to expand those numbers further. As part of the 2008-09 budget, my government committed $9.3m to fund the Safer Streets initiative. This will place an additional 60 police on the beat. Under initiatives announced in the election, a further 24 police and 12 auxiliaries will be employed in a frontline public role supporting our new Police Beats program.
The Safer Streets initiative will deliver more patrols based in Darwin city, Casuarina, Palmerston, Alice Springs and deliver extra resources to Katherine. These additional police officers and patrols will lift the visibility of police in these suburbs, which should result in improved response times and help inspire a better sense of community safety and wellbeing. This increased police presence means there will be more police on patrol to respond to incidents such as domestic violence, public drunkenness, general disturbances, unlawful entries, and antisocial behaviour.
I am advised that police are on track in their recruitment and training to place 20 of these new police officers on the beat when they graduate in December this year, with a further 15 on the road when they graduate in February 2009. The remaining 25 police constables will be recruited and graduate as early as possible in the 2009-10 financial year. The Safer Streets initiative also provides funding for 10 additional police auxiliaries who will be recruited into the communication centres, providing valuable support to keep officers out on the beat where they are needed most.
On 23 July, I announced a new and innovative approach to increase the police presence in our community and promoting a stronger sense of safety - the Police Beats program. Police Beats will be established in five of the Territory’s main shopping centres. Members know how busy our main shopping centres are throughout the Territory and, in many cases they are the heart and soul of the community they serve. They are places where families, business people, and tourists congregate to shop and socialise. Unfortunately, they are also a magnet for those who engage in antisocial and criminal behaviour, particularly itinerants and some youths, who have little or no respect for community wellbeing or for visiting shoppers and employees who work at these centres.
The Police Beats initiative will increase the police presence and visibility in these busy areas where large numbers of people regularly visit. We have committed $12.3m to this initiative, which will deliver a further 20 police and 10 auxiliaries into our community. The funding will provide for Police Beats of two police constables and one auxiliary officer per shift at each of these locations; the constables will be on the beat at the times most needed. The funding also includes an allocation for establishing a shopfront at each location. However, I stress that whilst the facilities will provide a base from which the patrolling officers work, the intention is that the police will not be sitting behind a desk waiting for members of the public to come to them but, rather, they will be out on the beat walking around the vicinity, showing the police uniform, promoting their presence, and increasing community confidence on their patch.
In addition to delivering a more regular presence at these busy shopping centres, the Police Beats initiative will enable a faster response time to incidents that occur. Importantly, it should increase police intelligence, which can be used by other police units. As I said, this initiative will be staged over a four-year period, and we are on track to establish the first Police Beat at Casuarina Square this year. Casuarina Square is a busy shopping centre which, in many respects, represents a town centre in itself. I understand it was ranked eighth in the Shopping Centre News, Big Guns 2007, based on total centre sales per square metre. The centre management has also advised its current annual foot traffic is approximately 8.9 million people. This high visitation rate is an example of the key factors which underpin the rationale behind the initiative.
A location for the Police Beat facility within Casuarina Shopping Centre has been identified. It is highly visible and centrally located between the food hall and the bus terminal, and it has quick access to the car park and other main areas of the centre. We are aiming to have the Casuarina Square Police Beat facility available for operation over the forthcoming months before the Christmas shopping period begins in earnest. Police Beats will become important components of our commitment to making our community safe, and they will be aided by the installation of CCTV networks around shopping centres. Police Beats will also be established at Karama, Parap, Palmerston, and Alice Springs.
Extending the concept of the police beat, on 7 August I announced that my government had committed $2.7m to establish a police post at the Bagot Community from 2009-10. This will deliver four more police officers and two more police auxiliaries into the ranks, and also a police facility to provide a base from which officers will patrol. This initiative will enable police to increase their presence and influence within the Bagot Community. The Bagot Community and their close neighbours want to live a quiet and enjoyable life but they are often disturbed by those who engage in antisocial or criminal behaviour. This initiative will provide for two police officers to be regularly on the beat around the Bagot Community, engaging with residents and, through effective community policing, help residents improve the wellbeing of this community.
On 18 February, I announced that my government would establish CCTV systems around the Casuarina shopping precinct and the Darwin CBD. CCTV networks are becoming more prominent around our cities. In some situations, they act as a deterrent but, importantly, they provide information and evidence to police on criminal and antisocial behaviour issues. I announced that my government had committed $3.125m over three years towards the installation and operation of the CCTV networks. We have also submitted a proposal to the Australian government to obtain funding from their Safer Suburbs Plan which specifically funds such initiatives to allow the networks to be installed across a number of areas. The project is progressing well, guided by an expert consultant’s report. The monitoring centre for the CCTV network will be constructed within the Peter McAulay Centre to allow the monitoring to be virtually integrated into the Police Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre. Experts monitoring locations covered by the cameras will be able to direct police on the beat or on patrol to locations needing police attendance.
The CCTV network in Alice Springs is already demonstrating good value in tackling crime and antisocial behaviour. Whilst in Alice on 26 August with Cabinet, I announced that my government had approved $1.1m in grants to the Alice Springs Town Council to install more camera sites around the CBD, providing a more complete coverage of the area. On top of the grant, my government will also provide the council with up to $200 000 in the current funding to monitor the network. The CCTV network in Alice Springs will remain a council-driven project, and the Territory government is pleased to be working in partnership with the council to make it safer and more enjoyable for residents to shop and work in the Alice Springs CBD. The grant is on top of the $150 000 committed by the government to support the installation of the first round of cameras.
My government’s commitment to installing CCTV networks in specific areas will expand police surveillance and intelligence gathering and, when the existence of these cameras increasingly becomes known, should help these areas become safer places for people to live, work or play.
We are also investing in police infrastructure to lift the police presence within communities, and deliver to police contemporary facilities to operate from, which will help them do their job even better. We are constructing a state-of-the-art police station at Casuarina, which will include new administration and counter areas, holding cells, training and meeting rooms, an exhibits room, and pre-wired interview rooms. There will also be a specialised area for investigative teams, including the Domestic Violence Unit. The new facility, purpose-built at a current project cost of $7.34m, will replace the current police station which is over 30 years old, with a badly leaking roof. The station is being constructed next to the existing building which will be demolished and replaced with a 50-vehicle car park for staff and members of the public.
Following my visits to Alice Springs and Tennant Creek and meeting with police at those locations, I have announced that my government will also upgrade the existing police stations. On 1 August, I announced that we would invest $6m to redevelop the Alice Springs Police Station. The current station is almost 40 years old and no longer meets the needs of our force. The upgrade will extend the police station through to the watch-house and above the car park. A secure route connecting the watch-house to the Court House will also be established.
My government is also committed to investing $2.5m to upgrade the Tennant Creek Police Station.
Under an agreement between the Australian and Northern Territory governments, we are constructing a new station and accommodation at Galiwinku to accommodate a permanent police presence at that community. Galiwinku is one of the Northern Territory’s largest remote Indigenous communities. The Australian government has committed $7.7m to build and fit-out the station, construct four staff houses, and provide transport and equipment to support police officers. This includes a boat, electronic interview recording equipment, and breath analysis equipment. This joint project will deliver a good level of accommodation for police to live and work at Galiwinku and, importantly, it will increase the police presence at that community to deliver improved community safety so residents can enjoy a better quality of life.
These measures complement other initiatives taken earlier this year to bolster the public presence of police and other law enforcers, including $2.2m the government has committed over three years to establish and run First Response Patrols. These patrols are now fully operational and are already achieving significant outcomes. The patrols are staffed by eight community engagement officers employed by police. They respond to reported incidents of antisocial behaviour, providing a first response service to the community. Their primary role is to provide targeted interventions and to minimise the impact of itinerant camps on the community. The teams are supervised by a Senior Constable and operate seven days a week, working early day shifts as this is the best time to attempt engagement with these particular groups.
First Response Patrol officers work closely with relevant agencies and individuals and include uniformed police, the Larrakia Nation and their Night Patrols, Mission Australia, and Department of Health officials, to coordinate appropriate responses to antisocial behaviour. A dedicated antisocial behaviour reporting line, which is also coordinated by police, has been established for members of the public to report antisocial behaviour. This service helps inform and direct the activities of the First Response Patrols, Night Patrols and, where necessary, uniformed police patrols.
My government’s commitment to delivering funding and increasing the police presence on our streets has required the Police, Fire and Emergency Services College to increase its tempo. Judging by the number of graduation ceremonies I am attending, it is delivering professional, competent and, in some cases, well experienced officers from interstate onto our streets at a very fast rate. It is keeping up with the aspirations of my government, and I pay tribute to the dedication and commitment of the professional staff at the college.
Over the forthcoming 11 months, the college anticipates a further 162 police constables to graduate; a further 17 to be reappointed; 18 Aboriginal Community Police Officers to graduate; and another five police auxiliaries to graduate. Importantly, in September next year, they anticipate a further 15 Indigenous constables will graduate. The staffing plan will, of course, be amended as time progresses, according to need, but it will certainly provide for the recruitment and training of sufficient personnel to respond to both attrition and growth.
In making this statement, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the professionalism of our police force and the men and women who choose policing as an honourable career. There are not many jobs in which individuals are expected to be pillars of society, demonstrate their care for people and, at the same time, often deal with violent situations, placing their own health and safety in danger to serve and protect their community. I am proud of our police force and of the excellent service its members deliver to our communities across the Northern Territory.
Making our community safe is one of the key priorities I have articulated for my government in this term, and I reiterate my commitment to ensuring that we increase the police presence across the Territory so the Northern Territory Police Force is able to effectively play its part in meeting this priority.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for making this statement and bringing on discussions about policing. We, on this side of the House, also have great respect and admiration for the important work of the Territory police. I suspect, at no time in the history of the parliament, has the Territory police service been so well represented by its own. We have four former police officers in this parliament. That is extraordinary but, significantly, I have learnt two of those four were former Policemen of the Year, so that really is quite special. Nothing, of course, can replace the experience of frontline service, and these four former police officers in the opposition’s ranks bring a great deal of depth and experience to any debate on law and order issues.
We support genuine increases to Territory police numbers. The Chief Minister has a habit of boasting in the media about increased police numbers; yet, the fact is crime rates have soared over the past seven years. The community expects some rigour when we are presenting our credentials before them; bearing in mind that we are advancing their best interests. So, on one hand, to talk about increased numbers, and on the other, to pay little or reduced attention to the increasing crime rates, is not doing Territorians due service. We need to tell the whole story, and we know the Territory community expects a comprehensive approach to comprehensive and complex problems. They are expecting something new. I have heard this Chief Minister and this government say they will be taking a new approach. That new approach must balance the statements, repeated again and again, about the increased numbers with the crime rate, and not be selective about it.
The rhetoric of increased numbers is challenged by the attrition rate. We do not have clear information presented to the Territory community regarding the attrition rate. You can talk about the increase but, if you do not talk about the attrition rate, you are not being completely honest. If you talk about the increase in police numbers, you create the impression that things are improving. But, if you do not talk about the spiralling crime rate, you are being dishonest. Whose interest is being advanced in that case? Government’s. Our purpose is to advance the welfare of Territorians, not our own. So, we need to have both sides of the story told. Territorians expect a more comprehensive approach.
Where are these police going? There clearly is an attrition rate. Are they actually getting onto the beat as general duty police or are they being siloed into ever expanding specialist divisions? Specialist divisions work well in police forces with very large numbers, but it is not an efficient use of resources in a jurisdiction such as the Northern Territory. We are a community where engagement on the front line is so important. It is people-to-people, rather than systems, trying to deal with social problems. It is people-to-people that makes the difference. So, we support a more frontline approach where there is a strong interface between the police force and the community.
You have boasted about the 60 new police throughout the Territory over two years, but Alice Springs, a region where the assault rate has risen by 40% since 2002, will not receive any new officers until the 2009-10 financial year. A reshuffle of establishment numbers reported an extra 30 police were assigned to Alice Springs. That was the statement, but the real increase in numbers was zero. The reshuffle only achieved moving those officers from control of commanders in Darwin to commanders in Alice Springs - details that would have been omitted from any press release circulated in Alice Springs. It was a fudging of the figures. Really, whose interests are being advanced in that case? The interests of the government, not the interests of the community. When the Chief Minister was asked to comment on this matter, he declined by stating ‘operational’ reasons. I read George Orwell’s 1984, where you can make those kind of statements - covering all sorts of conniving and carrying on - which are an abdication of your responsibility to serve the genuine interests of the community, not your own.
Continued calls by the Police Association for a scientific resource allocation model have been ignored. The purpose of science is to weigh and measure, and science is the heart of the word ‘conscience’, the same word as ‘truth’ - working out what is right. If we are going to take a scientific model, it is going to analyse and cut through. However, government does not want to take that scientific approach because it would create an environment of greater accountability.
Chief Minister, it is not possible to enforce the laws and bring more criminals before the courts without a strong and well-resourced police force which has a strong and effective presence on the streets. The Labor Party seems to think the Territory’s problems can be solved by public servants in special uniforms; the so-called First Response Patrols. You cannot help but spot them. The vehicles are painted orange and the two blokes sitting in this bright orange truck with First Response written down the side are wearing orange uniforms - you cannot miss them. That is possibly the purpose of all this; so people will see them and say: ‘Aha, there is some activity on the street’. At the same time, the crime rate is continuing and the complex, underlying issues are not being addressed. But you certainly have the presence. Bright orange is an eye-catching colour.
Was that the purpose before the election, to make an announcement of these kinds of activities to create an impression, but not a difference? I will ask that question, and we will actually see, when the crime stats come out whether a difference has been achieved, in real terms, to the benefit of Territorians and not to the perception in the community of the government - a very different proposition.
This side of the Chamber believes only by putting more coppers on the streets can we really deal with crime. You have to get out there on that front line, as already explained. We also believe we need to strengthen the laws that support our police in making our streets and suburbs safe again because, ultimately, at the heart of the debate, the purpose of all this is not to make government look good or to solve a political problem, it is to make our community safe. That is the purpose of it. That is the objective that we are endeavouring to achieve. It is not to create an impression to support the interests of government.
We do not want - and I do not want - to see the Territory become a fortress society. We have to build a stronger community to be able to mount a defence against lawlessness. You have to have that strengthened interface between the police and the community on the front line to help strengthened the community against lawlessness; not to create the impression in the best interests of the government.
I am embarrassed, as are many Territorians that I have to tell visitors not to walk on the streets at night. That is a very sad fact. Sadly, there are younger people, like my son - a strapping young stockman – who are a little wary walking down to the shops at certain times. I do not like living in a community where my young man feels a little unsafe walking down to the shops. Whether this feeling is justified or not - we could have that debate and members could frown and say perhaps I am drumming it up – some young people are very sensitive to these things, they feel unsafe on the streets, and I do not like that.
I believe we have to go a bit deeper than just talking about numbers and the amount of money that is being spent. We need to try to find ways to address this. That is why we need a comprehensive approach which goes way beyond press releases and statements about quantities.
In broad terms, I agree with the Chief Minister. However, like other things with this government, they believe numbers and figures actually equals outcomes - results for ordinary people living in our community. We have heard it from them regarding the health system and we are hearing it again today. It is an approach that is too cold and calculated for me.
Clearly, our police are doing the very best they can. I have worked in the education profession; a service industry. I look at teachers and I know how hard it is to work in an increasingly difficult environment with society placing pressures on you. I look at police in a similar situation. I look at them and I know how hard it is, how dispiriting it is to continue this fight where feel you are not really making up much ground. The expectation of the community increases and you cannot make progress. That must be very difficult for our police officers. They have to have more reasoned and comprehensive consideration given to them for the underlying things which can support them, such as building a stronger community, standing up for the things that are right, having clear standards that are reinforced, and clear consequences for those who step across the line.
What the coppers do not have is a legal system that acts as a deterrent to committing crime. That is the issue. The difference between members on the other side and members on this side, is Labor’s general belief that society, or the community, generally speaking, is the cause of the problem. Therefore, they are societal problems and if you spend lots of money on programs, bit by bit you might be able to improve the society and reduce the lawlessness that way. But, whatever you do, do not hold anybody personally responsible, because they are not really responsible; it is society’s fault or it is their background or upbringing that is the problem. If you deal with those amorphous problems, bit by bit, you can make a change. That is nonsense; it will not work.
By contrast, on this side of the House there is recognition that every individual has real value and therefore can be held responsible and accountable. Unless there is a clear sense that a person is responsible for their actions, you will not make any change. The Treasurer often speaks about the road safety issue and how they want to create behavioural change. Behavioural change is an individual making another decision; it is not society making another decision. Therefore, you must have a framework that comes from the premise that an individual needs to have a direct consequence for their action. If you do not have that direct and meaningful consequence for that individual, you will never have behavioural change.
That is what the coppers want; they want that type of language spoken and that stance taken, so the law has value and meaning, that the rule of law begins to operate and you have the capacity to enforce it. Not only someone who crosses the line is brought to recognise they have a responsibility to the law, but all those good, quiet folk who do their very best to live on the right side of the law, will be encouraged, strengthened, and emboldened to know that justice is being done. The kind of approach where standards are described and backed up is needed. You do not see a social problem and then chuck up eight laws and reassure everyone in a glossy brochure: ‘Do not worry, everyone, we have tough new laws, tough new measures’, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
Well, no more. They have seen these new tough laws and that there is no intention of enforcing them and, therefore, the new tough laws and every other law loses its value. You have to back the law up. You have to reinstate that sense of personal responsibility and accountability. That is the sort of reinforcing that our hard-working coppers need. A change in attitude to the way we deal with the problems in society, not the Labor approach where everyone is involved but no-one is directly or personally responsible. Change that paradigm and we will see a change in the Territory.
The evidence of the approach Labor has taken is very clear. You will see the evidence of it in talk about the amounts of money spent on programs, but no real interest in the results. You will also see it in these statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics where, since 2001, the number of assaults reported in the Territory has increased by 83%. The Chief Minister could stand here, or during the campaign, and explain that away by saying: ‘Well, a lot of those are Indigenous’. I was gobsmacked! As though that does not count. We hear the same sort of talk today: ‘The education results can be explained away because our urban kids are doing really well, it is just the other mob bringing it down, letting it down’.
I cannot abide by that sentiment. It is just explaining it away. In whose interest? The government’s interest. The fact is, you have to really respond to these things. You cannot just categorise it and say: ‘Oh, well, it is domestic violence in Aboriginal communities’ as though it explains it away. Or, ‘It is Aboriginal kids in the Aboriginal schools that are letting the side down, the urban kids are doing really well’. That is not the approach of a responsible and caring government – a government that is going to take the weight of its mandate and effect change. That is an excuse; passing away things and exempting yourself from the responsibility of cutting through these things.
I find the kind of explanation that was raised during the campaign totally unacceptable. I am sure there will be a member who will pop up - probably the member for Karama - and have a shot at this and try to dice it up. Sitting behind the words and the positions taken would be in the interest of government, because that is the most important thing here - to make government look and sound good. To heck with the real problem, as long as we can explain it away and pass it onto someone - like the 27 years of the Country Liberals, blame them or blame John Howard - do not look at us, we are not responsible. That is the very attitude that has caused the problem: no one is responsible. This government is responsible, but they do not know it.
I am also concerned that too many crimes are not reported because the legal system has let the victims down. I have heard awful stories of late, many of them about kids getting bashed by gangs and are too scared to report to the police and too scared of the consequences that may occur if they make that call. We heard stories in this Chamber earlier in the year, where kids in schools have been victims of bullying and they have to keep quiet. There were a couple of courageous ones who spoke up, but then they became victims, in a sense, because they spoke up; it seemed the others were ruling the roost. We have the same on the street. I know of some horrible cases where families have not made a complaint. They will phone me, but they said: ‘For goodness sake, don’t report this because we are afraid of what might happen’. These are families in the northern suburbs who are afraid of what may happen. I visited their homes and have seen what has happened. It is heartbreaking to see good families feeling so afraid in our community.
This is the environment that our police work in. You can talk about numbers of police but not about attrition. You can talk about the amount of money that has been spent but do not talk about the crime statistics - in a vain attempt to try to create an impression. Our citizens need better service than that. It is against this background that many Territorians find it hard to retain their confidence in the legal system’s ability and capacity to protect citizens.
We have the example of Todd Trainer, who was bashed in his own home. He does not feel he has received justice - justice is something you get a sense of when you know it has been done - he does not feel that. Those who are close to him, who have observed this case, do not feel that. What does that do for the core strength of our community? It erodes it. It erodes the confidence and core strength – if anyone has done fitness, you know that your core fitness is the most important thing - the core fitness of our community is weakened when justice is not done, when the victim is left hanging, and the support swings in behind the offender. It becomes confusing.
Members may be able to pick fault with my argument, but I know, as a school principal, that if you do not deal justly in the face of that school community when an incident arises - so that justice is seen to be done for everybody in the school - you will have a hell of a problem. If you deal with each one and say: ‘Well, you have this sort of background, you live in this sort of street’, and this, that, and the other, and then you deal with another incident in a completely different way, you have half the kids scratching their heads wondering whether it is right or wrong. No one knows whether it is right or wrong. In the end, there is confusion.
However, there is a rule of law. If you do X, irrespective of who you are or what you have done, there is a direct consequence. Everyone can see it, everyone knows. The core strength of your community returns because they see justice being done. Then you deal with it. If they have other issues, you can deal with them afterwards, but you have to make sure the rule of law operates otherwise you weaken and confuse your citizens. That is what has happened. In Todd’s case, even after admitting to the offence, the perpetrator walked free – there is confusion and a weakening of the core strength of the community. The system has let down Todd Trainer and many others far too often.
Chief Minister and members opposite, this side of the Chamber takes law and order very seriously. We went to the election with a very comprehensive plan for law and order in the Territory. We focused on taking a firm, but very fair, approach to justice. This is the support our police need. They need a change of direction. Our plans included a full-scale offensive on crime, particularly street level crime, with a show of strength on the streets. We spoke of new powers for the Police minister to impose youth curfews to counter the problems with youth crime and antisocial behaviour, so they had the capacity - no question about it - to deal with what happens on the street. We spoke of an introduction of zero tolerance policing with amendments of the Summary Offences Act. We spoke of an introduction of amendments to tighten bail provisions and tighten the meaning of a life sentence for those convicted of murder, to strengthen our community. There would be the introduction of new legislation to control public drunkenness and to review sentencing guidelines for assaults.
Importantly, we believe it is no use just sticking criminals in gaol only for them to come out and re-offend again. You only have to look at the statistics; you will see that is what happens - in, out, in, out, in, out. The current system sees more than two-thirds of prisoners learn nothing or very little from their experience of gaol. Our plan included a commitment that all new inmates to all Territory correctional facilities undergo testing to assess their levels of literacy and numeracy. Prisoners who do not meet the basis standards, who cannot read or write well enough to function normally in the community, will be put through basic literacy and numeracy courses. We were taking it very seriously. Education in prison is not a reward for those who have broken our laws. However, if the correction system is to be called a correction system, we want to see it correct and provide them with skills, abilities, and experiences to provide the possibility of a new path when they came out. We would take the correction system very seriously. It is important to give them an opportunity, a second chance at life, once they have paid their debt to society. There is a debt that has to be repaid so that justice can be seen to be done, so that the core strength of your community increases.
Chief Minister, it is our hope and, I believe, the expectation of many Territorians, that you will adopt our plans on law and order. I would welcome that. I would welcome that change of direction and attitude in dealing with lawlessness in our community, because we cannot have another four years of what we have. You cannot just keep spinning this over and over again. We heard the community speak loud and clear. There were only four members here. You do not need to be reminded. Now, there are many more and that is a direct result of what was said to the community and what they said back to us. They gave support. They want a change of direction and we will not back away from this, because this is what they require. There needs to be a new approach.
When we came to the last stages of the campaign and were speaking to the community, we said there would be a 100-day plan; there would be direct action. I specified exactly what would happen. My calculations were about 40 days in, and I stand by what I said. If I had the opportunity, we would have been 40 days into that 100-day plan. Many of those things we have just read out to you were elements of that plan.
However, what do we have by contrast? What sort of action do we have from the newly-elected Labor government? What sort of action have we had since they came back to office? We have had statements: ‘Now we are listening’; ‘Now I am going to speak more from the heart, not from the head’. Apart from that, we have no change. We have had no legislation on urgency related to law and order, specifically. We have had no real change. We have had a statement. After about 40 days, this is the best you can do.
We have had some notice, but no attempt to push something through the parliament to get things changed; to change the direction. No real effort, just a statement. So what is really going on? It is more of the same. You think you have four years now to calculate how you can spin and maintain your appearances in the community, but the community’s expectation has changed. We will do the best we can to address this issue. I invite the Chief Minister to recognise what the community has said.
I am very happy for any of these elements which have been described during the campaign to be adopted by government. They could be modified in some ways. There is a fundamental shift that needs to occur. That is how you will strengthen our coppers; by having that underlying policy frame that recognises personal responsibility so we can target things and have a direct consequence for action. That is the support they need. That is the support we will continue to lobby for, so we can genuinely support our coppers, strengthen our community, and see the very concerning crime statistics go in the right direction.
We can have young people feel better about going down to the shops. We can have older people and visitors feel better about their community. That would be an actual outcome; a result, as opposed to saying more coppers, this, that, and the other, talking about 27 years or something like that. The outcome is making people think and feel differently about their community. That is the challenge, the objective; that will be the result of all our efforts.
Madam Speaker, I commend this statement. I am pleased it has been brought forward. I am disappointed that after 40 days - perhaps it is 40 days, I am not sure, I have not counted exactly - we have only had a statement. That is all we have had - a statement. Our community had their expectations raised with so much said during the campaign, and all we have is a statement.
Ms LAWRIE (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, I commend the Chief Minister on his statement. The Chief Minister decides portfolios, and it is very clear that safer communities is at the core of our government’s policy settings, because the Chief Minister has chosen to maintain the important portfolio of Police, as they are at the centre of our safer communities initiatives.
I take one exception with the Leader of the Opposition’s comments. We have done more than a police statement in the Chamber today. We have introduced legislation. The serious violent offender’s legislation has been introduced in the first sittings of this parliament. That is the reality and it stands on the record. Are we proceeding with it as urgent? No. Why? Because we recognise that urgency is an exception, not the rule. The legislative agenda, as important as that is, needs time for all members to have the opportunity to look at it, consider it, and then participate in the debate in the October sittings. It showed a clear commitment by the government to move as quickly and reasonably as it could to pursue the initiatives and the election commitments addressing the unacceptable level of violence we have witnessed in our communities right across the Territory.
The domestic violence mandatory reporting draft bill tabled today is on the government’s work agenda as early as possible in our third term of government, because we have been given the privilege to pursue the government’s policy settings with a third term. Very clearly, we are saying that mandatory reporting of domestic violence is a strong policy direction of this government.
I recognise and pay due respect to the member for Araluen who has had the protection of women and children at the core of her campaign. This government stands strong. I know, having had the child protection portfolio in the past, that it is the exception, not the rule, to have mandatory reporting regimes in this nation. Having introduced, passed, and implemented care and protection of children legislation in our second term - when we have been accused of having done little - we can justifiably point to that legislation and say: ‘That is contemporary work, but it kept at its core mandatory reporting of the neglect of children and the harm of children’.
We will have a mandatory reporting regime in the Territory for domestic violence. We know that at the core of our horrendous assault rates are our unacceptable levels of domestic violence. It goes to what we know is an intent and a direction of government to tackle that. Therefore, I take exception. I know the Leader of the Opposition is genuine in his desire to see safer communities, as we are, but I take exception to the allegation made in this Chamber that we have done nothing but this police statement. We have introduced legislation. Anyone who understands the legislative process will know that is a significant step. Not only have we produced the legislation, but we have also produced a discussion bill on mandatory reporting of domestic violence.
Policing has to be one of the most important jobs anyone can undertake in our community, and I wholeheartedly thank our police force because I believe they do a great job. As the Chief Minister mentioned, this government has a strong record in improving police resources and giving them the legislative tools they need to do their job. Tools are provided in legislation and we have serious and violent offender’s legislation before parliament. The police are also required to do their job through functional tools such as their communication systems. Millions of dollars are committed to upgrading their communications in this current financial year, which will roll over two financial years - such is the extent of that significant communications upgrade.
In the Territory, we now have roughly twice the police-to-population ratio than any other state. Labor has put approximately 255 more police into the police force since coming to government. We are committed to continuing to put resources into the police budget to ensure that we increase our police numbers. Through the budget and the election campaign, this government committed to an extra 84 police. This is an incredibly important aspect because, whilst there are many programs - preventative and enforcement - that go to safer communities, without the actual police resources, it is an extremely unsafe community. So, putting resources into additional police does, our government believes, achieve safer communities, and those are the outcomes we are looking for. There is no better, shining example of that than the Operation Themis in the bush. The police were not posted there previously. It has seen an improvement in the safety of those communities because a physical police presence does provide for a safer community. Resources, in additional funding into the police budget to hire additional police, equate to the outcomes that the Leader of the Opposition, quite reasonably, is calling for.
Our Safer Streets initiative involves an additional 60 police who will be targeted to our streets and in our suburbs. They are not police who will go into the intelligence-led policing end of the spectrum; they will go into the stations and stay there. They will be police directed out onto our streets; they will be the extra patrols. There is also funding for patrol cars so it is not, ‘Here we are, here are some police, but do not worry about the resources for the patrol cars’. It includes resources for the patrol cars as well.
Funding is important and, as Treasurer, I know how difficult it is to try to make a budget stretch as far as it has to stretch across the areas of need. We have enormous unmet need in the Territory, but we put safer communities at such a high level that the most significant resources are heading into the area of our Safer Streets and Safer Communities initiatives.
One of the initiatives I wholeheartedly welcome and look forward to seeing implemented in this term of government is the Police Beats, known as police shopfronts. This is a new initiative for the Territory ...
Mr Elferink: Oh rubbish! They have been around for a long time. I have worked out of police shopfronts. It is not a new initiative. It has been done before.
Ms LAWRIE: He just cannot help himself being rude. He cannot help his rudeness.
We are talking about a designated police beat, police shopfront initiative. It exists in Queensland. I have been in Queensland as a backbencher and had a look at how they operate, and how they are different to the sort of police stations the member for Port Darwin used to work in. They are a very different operational concept ...
Mr Elferink: They were not stations; they were shopfronts.
Ms LAWRIE: I am surprised that the member for Port Darwin seems to be somewhat agitated about it. I believe they will be a great asset to the communities. I welcome the fact that my own electorate of Karama is going to be the recipient of a Police Beat. While talking to people in my electorate about the initiative during the campaign, people were really interested and excited about it, and are looking forward to seeing the establishment of a Police Beat in Karama, as I am.
It is not just about police resources when you talk about safer communities in the context of suburban Darwin, which is my experience as a local member. The new initiative of a First Response Patrol has been a significant initiative. It is great that it is done under the auspices of the Department of Justice, because it is about Indigenous people with appropriate skills and qualifications, who work in a daytime setting with people who are otherwise itinerant, to find out what their holistic needs are. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition: you have to address it from a holistic perspective if you are going to actually get the outcomes you are seeking in safer communities; safer communities for the broader community while improving the safety and life quality of the people who would otherwise be living pretty rough in a suburban context.
I am a fan of the First Response Patrols. They have had some impressive statistics in their early period of operation when looking at how many people have been returning to country under the Return to Country program; how many people are being taken to appropriate places for accommodation; how many people are being taken to the hospital when a health need arises; and how many people will go to the sobering-up shelter. The First Response Patrols are doing fantastic additional work, complementary to what the police are doing. I am delighted with this initiative.
When you look at the alcohol rehabilitation side of the spectrum, when you have those patrols - and the patrols vary across the Territory, some are all night patrols when, in fact they have cut patrols during the day - I know what an enormous difference these initiatives make to communities. For example, I have been to Nhulunbuy this year, and people are talking about the success of the patrols there, of the sobering-up shelter, and the rehab that now exists in Nhulunbuy. It does not matter where you are in the Territory, if you have these other initiatives complementary to police, you are taking a far more holistic approach.
Complementary to the First Response Patrol in the context of the urban area in which I live and work in is the Night Patrol. The Night Patrol is run by Larrakia Nation. They get out and about. They have equipped patrol vehicles at night and are in contact with the police, but they are also in contact with the hospital. If required, if people are unwell, they will take them to the hospital. And, obviously, there is the sobering-up shelter. They liaise with police concerning the behaviour of anyone they might come across.
When you look at the people who work within the police structures, I cannot go further than acknowledging my Transit Security Officers again. They are a dedicated, skilled workforce who are not police, but they certainly are complementary and work in close communication with the police. They serve a separate purpose. All these additional initiatives are about letting the police get on with the job of policing, and let all the other needs in the spectrum of community safety be taken up by a specialist, skilled workforce who free up the police to do the police work.
It is dedicated resources into these areas that are essential to the broader need for a safer community. I sincerely thank the police who are very much at the front of our road safety campaigns - the highway patrols and breath testing. In the 11 months from 1 July of last year to the end of May this year, there were 88 531 breath tests carried out by Northern Territory Police. I say thank you to the police. I know they do a tough job. They certainly do a horrific job at the scene of an accident, as do our ambulance services. I take my hat off to Bob Rennie and his team who are wholeheartedly supporting the initiatives to try to address our horrendous road toll.
Disturbingly, 3012 people tested positive for a blood alcohol content. That figure is way too high and we will continue to support police to crack down on drink-driving. A breakdown of the prisoners in Territory gaols shows that there are a number in our gaols as a result of traffic offences including drink-driving. It is a great shame. There is a whole body of work that we still have to do to address the repeat offenders we have on our road network, and it is a job we are committed to pursuing.
We will do that with the police at the core of the Road Safety Coordination Group that provides advice on the policy settings to government on road safety initiatives. As Transport minister, I offer a wholehearted thank you to the police for the work they do to improve safety on our roads.
I acknowledge the important role that police play in CAT Force, the Child Abuse Task Force. Again, it is not something that is common around Australia. We are more an exception rather than a rule by having a combined police/child protection worker dedicated task force, who do the front end of the child protection work. When calls of a suspected neglect/child abuse case are received, it is CAT Force who work on the investigation side. I have been out to CAT Force at the Peter McAuley Centre, and the feedback from the child protection workers in CAT Force and the police was that it is an incredibly effective mechanism to use, combining police and child protection. They have their own separate intelligence systems, and by being able to cross-check with each other, they are far more accurate in their assessments of the type and nature of that report. Having the extra information that police hold, that a child protection team would not have access to, is critically important to the due diligence undertaken by CAT Force. They are based in both Darwin and Alice Springs and they go out to investigate those child protection alerts at that very high level right across the Territory.
Other feedback I have received is that it has been very useful for the CAT Force to have access to police tools and resources, such as the Pilatus PC-12 in the Air Wing. I congratulate the CAT Force initiative and sincerely thank the police officers and child protection workers who are working in CAT Force. It is probably one of the most unenviable tasks anyone has - investigating child abuse - and these people do it day in and day out with integrity and skill sets. I am delighted that, as a small jurisdiction, we are punching above our weight nationally in our response to the uglier end of child abuse through the important initiative of CAT Force.
I also thank the Police Association. When I was the Public Employment minister and negotiating the Police EBA through the Office of the Public Service Commissioner, the Police Association acted with integrity. They were an association very focused on the outcomes they wanted to achieve for their membership. They have a great success rate. We know police officers in the Territory enjoy conditions in excess of other public servants in the Territory and for good reason. They have an incredibly hard job and they work in hard conditions. They work shifts which applies pressures on families, as anyone who has done shiftwork appreciates.
I sincerely thank the Police Association for representing their members with integrity and strength. They ended up achieving a generous deal with the government. I congratulate them on driving a hard bargain and for getting a good result for their members. This means the police will receive increased salary and conditions. Rather than being distracted by concerns about an EBA, it was sorted out very quickly, and they got on with the job of policing, which is what we need our police force to be doing.
We will all have a view on what initiatives work in community safety and, broadly, the law and order agenda including the courts. I do not think there is anyone in this House without a commitment to a safer community. Do we have complex and challenging tasks? Yes, we do. As a former minister for FACS, I am very aware of the families in crisis work that has to occur to provide for safer communities and a safer environment for the children of the Territory.
The intensive models for family responsibility orders are critically important. They are highly resourced because intensive case management is required for those families. They are models that have proved their worth around the world, so we do not shy away from the need to resource these complex areas of community safety. Increasing that type of work in the department of Families assists the police to get on with their job, because they have somewhere to take problematic juveniles, both diversion programs and complex case management.
Madam Deputy Speaker, my sincere thanks go to the police, the officers of the Departments of Justice and Health and Families, the important non-government organisations, and the people who work in the alcohol and drugs rehabilitation sector who all do an amazing job in complex, difficult ways across the Territory.
Mr BOHLIN (Drysdale): Madam Deputy Speaker, the government is so interested in numbers and not really interested in the facts of the people they are supposed to serve. There are 250 extra police and there are 949 police constables and above. How many are on stress leave, sick leave or maternity leave? How many are just allocated, but not actually on the roster - on the front line delivering the first response service - police by your side when you need them, not just a phone service?
There are cases, such as that which occurred in Malak prior to this general election, where a house was overrun by offenders, a vehicle was trashed and jumped on, whilst multiple 000 calls over a period of two hours were made - with no response. The house and family were being attacked and there was no response from police. Where were your 200 police for that family?
Where were your 200 extra police on the beat for the Yarrawonga and Pinelands businesses that have been battered by a crime spree weekly over the past two months? This is forcing business people to install caretakers at great cost and to consider whether continuing with the business is viable. Businesses are considering shutting down because of the crime in Yarrawonga.
Sam Delaney - a lovely lady - and her family from Durack, you and your child are not forgotten by us. Twenty or more youths lay in wait with a little trap to attack your family. They enticed your husband out and then tried to attack him. Your family stayed under siege until police could come and help you. You now live in Durack in fear. Where are the 200 extra police for that family, Chief Minister?
Paul Rooney of Durack, you are not forgotten with your concerns of graffiti through the Durack walkways. Graffiti, particularly tagging, is not just an ugly blight on society, but a display of disrespect and disorder.
I must ask: is Bagot community in such a manner of disorder that you must invest four police officers, two auxiliaries, plus the infrastructure? Would it not be a greater benefit and support to the community to deal directly with the problems - the actual core problems - and penalise the offenders in those areas? Create penalties - do something to fix it. Do not just put police there. The residents of this area – 200 to 250 people - are going to have four police officers and two auxiliaries and a building.
The Humpty Doo community, with a much larger area and more people, does not get that same level of support. They have four police officers, one Officer-in-Charge, and a couple of auxiliaries - and the police station is not even open 24 hours a day. How is that supporting a larger community? Why not put those extra resources intended for Bagot out there, and deal with the people who are causing the trouble in Bagot? Deal with them properly, so they understand what they are doing to society. Do not tie up large numbers of police in one area for small numbers of people. Deal with it.
Are crime statistics lower today than in 2002? No, they are not. We know they are not. I was picked up for making a comment last week - and I have been mentioned in the paper again - about the reporting of the PROMIS system. It is a very difficult system. Ladies and gentlemen of this House, it takes some time to understand how to work the PROMIS system. That is why we have great training for our police officers. However, it is important to understand that with all statistical data, there are methods - you put data in, qualify it and then draw upon that data. If you do that wrongly, or you ask the wrong question of the data, it will not give you a true reflection.
For a very short, basic lesson - and it is only short - we have a reported ‘Incident’ field. When you ring up and say: ‘My house has been broken into’, that goes into the report ‘Incident’ field. Later, the officer adds a ‘confirmed incident’ type, and this is where there have been directions given. If someone was assaulted and they were bleeding and needed an ambulance and, for whatever reason they decided not to make a complaint, did that assault actually occur? Were they bleeding? Did they need treatment? Yes, it occurred, but the directive is if there is no complaint, it is reported as ‘no offence’, or ‘information only’. When that information is drawn upon, it is as if that offence did not even occur. But, it did. So, if we ask the questions of ‘confirmed incident’ types against ‘reported incident’ types, we have two vastly different results. It is hard to work these things out, I admit that. That is why we have the intelligence section to do that for us. However, it is important to note that there is a difference, and there have been directives on how we report crime.
In the old days - and, for me, it is only 10 years - when we started with the PROMIS system, a reported incident, say an assault, or a ‘confirmed incident’ was an assault. We saw the blood, the broken bones, and torn tissues. If there was no complaint, we wrote the words or picked up the field that said ‘no complaint forthcoming’ or ‘information only’ in our ‘Result’ field, which still exists. When we drew down the information, it showed that there was an assault; it did happen. My point is simple: if you are an alcoholic and you do not admit you are an alcoholic then you are not an alcoholic in your own mind. Therefore, if you do not admit there is a problem with crime, how can you fix that crime? You must admit what is going on to be able to rectify it, to make changes, and to educate people so we can make a difference to society. I believe that is important, for everyone’s benefit. I will move on from there, because it is complex.
CCTV is a great working tool. England is a fantastic example of how you can track people, cars, and robberies. It is a fantastic tool, but it is labour intensive to monitor, so we need to be mindful of that. I support the use of CCTV for investigations of crime. However, I am concerned when it comes to such venues as the Casuarina Shopping Centre. It is a private operation. Why is it a government obligation, not the private owners’ responsibility, to provide the high level of security to its customers under a basic duty of care, particularly when lease costs are so high? Surely that is part of their responsibility to the shops and shopkeepers, not just the government.
I applaud the redevelopment of Casuarina Police Station. I worked in that police station, and it is truly depressing. It is a horrible station to work in, and I commend the officers who are still working there, because it is very difficult. We expect a state-of-the-art police station to support our fine police officers. All the facilities listed by the Chief Minister - the administration and front counter areas; holding cells; training and meeting rooms; exhibit room; and a pre-wired interview room, where there will be specialist areas for investigation teams - I honestly hope a police station has all that. I am very grateful the Chief Minister took the extra time to point out the basic heart and lungs of a police station. It is important that we have them, but we do not necessarily need to point them out for a political win’s sake. I hope you have also included a muster room, and showers and toilets, because you did not mention that. It would also be nice to see, in writing, a current and accurate completion date and operational date for the Casuarina Police Station, so that the people of Casuarina know when it is going to happen.
I applaud the building of the Galiwinku Police Station, but question the Northern Territory government’s financial input - you spruik so proudly, ‘we are constructing’ - when it appears the federal government are the main financiers of this station.
However, I urge the Chief Minister to engage and discuss with me and remote police officers the plans for the station and the housing, to ensure the Chief Minister receives real input on the needs of remote police families. Having recently served in remote areas, I believe we can assist to deliver quality of life for serving officers. I genuinely urge that the Chief Minister takes the time to ask these questions. I will freely give that advice and help him to make these decisions so we build a better police force.
Night Patrols do a fantastic and thankless job, but we must remember that it was this government that shut down the Night Patrol a couple of years ago, only to re-introduce them just before the election: ‘Look what we have done, look what we have done. We have brought back the Night Patrol’. It is good of you. Pity you shut it down two years ago.
We have youth gangs running around the suburbs, and we have the Territory Response Section, or TRS, tied up in red tape instead of taking back our streets and suburbs for our families, making the life of our youth gangs uncomfortable. It is achievable, it can be done. No one has to ask for it to be done ...
A member: What do we do, harass them?
Mr BOHLIN: That is all we have to do. Make life hard. They harass us. Why not make sure that their life is difficult?
We also have dog handlers with fantastically trained general purpose dogs - beautiful and well trained canines. They are a brilliant tool for policing everywhere else in the world. We have two fantastic animals here in Darwin ready to be used, but their use is tied up in red tape. Get them out on the street to take back our community for our people. Why not get those creatures out there? They are brilliant tools and we have paid good money for them, so why not use them? Let the dogs off the chain and let us take back our community.
This party and I strongly support the officers on the street. They are doing what they can within the limitations and are doing an amazing job for all Territorians. I am truly proud to have formerly been a police officer for 10 years and served the public. I am proud of our men and women officers of all ranks and all persuasions who work in the Territory today. They go out day and night when we fear to go out, and do an amazing job. There are many times when the person on whose door you are knocking does not want to hear from you and makes your life very hard. It is scary. I must admit that going out there at times is fearful, and you know that going beyond that fence is not the safest or the smartest thing you have done. However, those officers put their life on the line for you, the community and this Territory, because they are great people.
Dr BURNS (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I support the Chief Minister’s statement on the important steps this government is taking to increase the police presence across the Territory and the benefits this brings to our community.
Antisocial or violent behaviour, harassment, and humbugging cannot be tolerated, whatever form it takes - brawls outside nightclubs in the CBD, threats or violence by youths, or drunken abuse hurled around in residential areas. To combat these issues, the government has made a concerted effort to increase police effectiveness and visibility. As the Chief Minister noted, a high-profile public police presence contributes to a peaceful and secure neighbourhood and also ensures they can be on the scene of any disturbance or incident quickly.
I welcome the Chief Minister’s comprehensive plan to further boost the police presence in our community through increasing the size of the force, implementing a Safer Streets initiative, bringing CCTV into hot spots, and a program of new stations across the Territory.
Perhaps, most importantly, this government is introducing Police Beats into the major shopping centres and the Bagot community. The member for Drysdale raised the issue, and I hope I am not misinterpreting what he said. I believe he said that he did not believe it was appropriate for police to regularly patrol or have a presence within major shopping centres. I am pretty sure he said that he believed that it was the duty of the centre managers, those who collect the rents there, to ensure that there is adequate security within those shopping centres. I agree with elements of that; there should be a contribution from the people who run these shopping centres to provide adequate security. However, my and the government’s view is that the primary goal of those security officers is to protect property and keep some order, or try to keep some people away from the shopping centre who may have trespass notices issued against them.
I believe the fundamental duty and actions of the police is to keep the peace. There is no doubt in my mind. I formed the view very early on that these shopping centres form a stage or a theatre for these young people who are out to make trouble; self-aggrandisement. I have observed it. These young people - whether it is through fighting, bullying or just generally behaving badly - feel these places are a theatre for them. That is why it is so essential for police to be there to let them know that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated.
The police often know these kids by name because they come from families known in Darwin. There are a number of families who feature high-profile offenders, and there are probably generations of them. The police know who these people are and they can have a gentle word and say: ‘Listen, Billy, I am watching. Why are you not at school? Why are you not doing such and such? Why are you hanging around with that person?’ Give them the message that they are being watched.
I disagree with the member for Drysdale on that issue. I believe the police have a mighty role in these shopping centres. Let us face it: there are huge numbers of people who go through these shopping centres. They are the public, and they want to see order. It is very important for police to be involved in that.
The security officers have their role, and those commercial entities that run the shopping centres should be made to pay for that and ensure that there is adequate security staff there for their functions. However, they are not sworn officers and they do not have the powers that sworn officers do. Therefore, I welcome this initiative to put police in these major shopping centres, particularly those with high numbers of people through them.
As the Chief Minister outlined, Police Beats will be established in five of the Territory’s main shopping centres. A lot of Territory families love a trip to the airconditioned mall, especially at this time of year when the heat and the humidity increases. They are great places for young people to meet friends, for families to have lunch and stock up on next week’s supplies. The numerous retail stores also provide opportunities for young people to get part-time jobs when they complete school or study their courses. These people have every right to enjoy themselves or work without being subject to abuse or threats of antisocial behaviour. Having a strong and immediate police presence in these areas will make people who want to cause trouble think twice before they do anything, especially if they know they have a good chance of being nabbed and facing charges.
As for the young people who cause the problems, this is a stage for them. That is why some of these young kids go there and act as they do at these shopping centres, as well as these other people who are there humbugging, etcetera. We have to nip it in the bud. We have to show them that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. It is also important for us to realise there is a minority of young people who do the wrong thing. However, there are a hell of a lot of young people who are decent, well behaved, and really good kids. It is unfortunate that the behaviour of a few drags all youth down. It is very important for us to say in this place, that there are a lot of good kids out there. I have met many of them. They are engaged in sport and in their studies. They like to go there and enjoy themselves and have a cup of coffee and walk around with their friends. They have every right to do so without being harassed or bullied.
Alongside this focus on direct resourcing, training, and technological support, one of the most important ways government can support police is to provide them with the legislative tools to perform their job well. This government has been determined to bring forward legislation that helps police on the ground, as well as police prosecutors and the Director of Public Prosecution to secure convictions. Earlier today, we debated legislation that specifically creates offences for throwing rocks at cars, which is a favourite of some incredibly stupid young people who appear to care little for the injuries that are caused when a rock goes through the window of a car driving at 80 km/h. Police have conducted operations to target this sort of activity. We will now have a perfect offence to charge them with under the Criminal Code amendments that were debated today.
I will not go into too much detail, but other bills are currently before the House that limit bail for repeat violent offenders, and ensure serious violent offenders serve a term of imprisonment. Police have welcomed these amendments which ensure that once they have done the hard work, violent offenders will not just walk from court, despite a conviction or repeated bail violation.
We have introduced legislation that makes it easier for children and vulnerable witnesses to testify at trial. I announced recently, as a particular focus of this term, the strengthening of DPP capacity and its working relationship with police prosecutions.
One important legislative reform we introduced was the package of measures to specifically combat gang-related activity in the suburbs and in our remote communities. Gang activity can take a wide variety of forms, from bands of youth congregating and causing trouble, regular violence and intimidation of community members, and high-level criminal activities involved in drug running, violence and other illegal activities. This package addresses every level of such activity, and the laws we brought in are achieving goals.
Members opposite did not like this package of measures, and they took every opportunity to criticise the positive steps that government took to give police the tools to shut down such activity before it leads to serious harm to individuals or their communities. The member for Drysdale, I believe, was saying that he did not believe that gang-related activities were being adequately addressed. I would like him to listen to these particular statistics that I have received.
Government reviewed the number of apprehensions under the new laws after one year of operation. Police recorded 173 apprehensions under these laws, of which 95% proceeded to court. Of the cases finalised, 83% were convicted and 44% of those actually received a custodial sentence. I believe these are good statistics and show that these laws are working and having an effect. As the member for Drysdale said, we want to disrupt these gang activities and make it harder for them. The statistics I have just mentioned are very impressive, and they are going a long way to disrupting some of this gang activity. It also shows that police are using these tools to deal with offenders and carry them through the justice system, culminating in real penalties.
Our anti-loitering laws will work particularly well with the government Police Beats initiative, to allow certain people to be easily removed from within centres, and be prohibited from areas immediately adjacent to such centres for a period of time. If they return in contravention of their notice, they will face charges.
Alcohol goes hand-in-hand with much of the offending that goes on in the Northern Territory and much of the work that police do. Therefore, our alcohol initiatives are very important to reduce the burden on police and the amount of offending that occurs in the Territory. As Minister for Alcohol Policy, I have introduced a range of policies to address the Territory’s excessive and alarming levels of alcohol consumption and decrease alcohol-related harm. It is a simple equation: reducing alcohol abuse will reduce the police workload. These strategies include: development of local alcohol management plans based on the principles of supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction; new conditions on takeaway licences and on premises sales to reduce trading hours and the types of products being sold; the introduction of an electronic ID system for the purchase of alcohol in Katherine and Alice Springs; a permit system for the purchase of takeaway alcohol in the East Arnhem region; and declaration of dry restricted areas in urban areas where the possession and consumption of alcohol is prohibited.
We only have to look at what has happened at Groote Eylandt with the alcohol restrictions that were brought in and the incredible reduction in offending and matters brought before the courts. More importantly, Aboriginal people are taking up employment on Groote Eylandt and staying in employment - that is a very promising sign. We have had initial promising signs from Nhulunbuy with the measures that are being introduced. I must commend the police. Sergeant Tony Fuller was central to what happened at Groote Eylandt, and also drove many of the reforms at Nhulunbuy. Police have been involved in many of these initiatives.
Police have also been involved with developing a new Liquor Act, which we will be putting out to consultation in the very near future. Two agencies that I have invited to be part of the development of the new Liquor Act are the Police and the Health department, because they both deal with the aftermath of alcohol and alcohol abuse. The focus of the new Liquor Act will be reducing alcohol-related harm in the Northern Territory. Police have had major input into that. I would like to see the Liquor Commissioner take into account submissions from police and Health, which have a lot of weight in the deliberations of the Liquor Commission, and that will be built into the act. Police have been involved, and will continue to be involved. We welcome the amendments to the Liquor Act and we will be putting it out for consultation.
Government has also provided a range of support services to take the workload off police so that they can concentrate on the most pressing and immediate problems. These include: establishing a First Response Patrol at a cost of $2.2m over three years, made up of sworn police officers; liaison officers to monitor and intervene in antisocial behaviour hot spots; introduction of a dedicated Darwin area Night Patrol at a cost of $1.4m over three years that will respond quickly to remove drunk people from the streets and into suitable accommodation while they sober up; and setting up a reporting line so that residents and members of the public can inform patrols or police about incidents of antisocial behaviour, violence or harassment.
The hard work and targeted intelligence employed by police have led to significant and sustained drops in property crime levels over the past six years. Crime statistics are independently compiled and released by the Department of Justice Statistics Unit, and show a 58% drop in house break-ins, and a 35% drop in motor vehicle thefts. Since 2001, total property thefts have dropped by 34%, which is 10 795 fewer property offences every year.
I heard what the member for Drysdale had to say about what he thinks is under-reporting of crime, but he did not quantify it at all, or even try to put an estimate on it. I am very interested to hear what sort of estimate the member for Drysdale and other police might have from the categories that he mentioned before.
Mr Bohlin: Let us have an inquiry, shall we?
Dr BURNS: He did not mention it, and that is an important element of any statistic. Of course, we acknowledge that there are people who do not want to continue with a matter for various reasons, but I would have thought the majority of matters are continued with.
Members opposite have questioned these big improvements, perhaps even questioned the integrity of our police force in reporting offences. That is where it seemed to go in the interjection from the member for Drysdale last week, but I am glad he has clarified it to some degree, and I will be interested to follow up on what he has said in here today.
These statistics do mirror the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ figures, which reflect the number of victims, not offences. That is an important element, and I would like the member for Drysdale to address that issue as well.
The ABS statistics show a 46% drop in unlawful entries, and a 28% drop in motor vehicle theft. I have made it clear that assault rates are too high, and they are largely fuelled by alcohol in domestic violence cases. That is why this government is tackling this head on by introducing mandatory reporting for domestic violence.
I am on the public record as saying and acknowledging that assaults have risen in the Northern Territory over the past six to seven years. There are reasons for that. There are a lot more police out there - 200 extra police. Strategies are put in place by police to really target domestic violence; but every assault is one too many. Alcohol has fuelled many of these incidents. Government does not shirk or resile from the fact that there has been an increase year after year of violent offences. However, we are committed to reducing them. We are committed to targeting repeat offenders, particularly with domestic violence. That is what the statistics do show, but I ask members opposite to reflect: before we came into government, those figures were not published. As Peter Toyne said: ‘We will be judged on what the statistics say’. Okay?
I believe the statistics show very clearly a reduction in property crime and they also show very clearly that there has been an increase in violent offences. So, it is out there for public debate. It would never have been out there before under the previous CLP government because they did not publish them - fact. Let us have the debate. Let us monitor the figures and see how our strategies will bring a reduction in assaults and crime. I acknowledge that it is a good public debate to have. Domestic Violence Units are established in every major centre.
The Chief Minister’s statement has my support. We have put extra police on. The member for Drysdale has talked about how they are organised. I listened carefully to what the member for Drysdale said, as I will to the members for Katherine and Sanderson and, although it has been a while since he has been a policeman, the member for Port Darwin. It is good that you are here and that you can put forward a point of view. I will listen very carefully.
Madam Speaker, I support the Chief Minister’s statement and I believe the government is headed in the right direction.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I will be brief, despite the temptation to have a bit to say to the Attorney-General, who has not had a great week. Resisting the temptation for the most part, I am compelled to say that the Attorney-General was the worst Police minister the Labor government has produced. That is why he was moved aside. Therefore, I cannot take very seriously what the Attorney-General has to say in relation to this.
This is not, in my view, the debate where we talk about mandatory reporting for domestic violence. However, to allow a two-week consultation period is just bloody outrageous and you people should be ashamed of yourselves. This is not listening. This is a really serious issue; we all know that. Non-government organisations cannot mobilise themselves in two weeks to have a look at this bill. You know what it is like to call committee meetings, to get volunteers involved, and write submissions. You are not serious! I thought that after the election result, you might have at least tried to demonstrate, or to at least pretend, or give the impression that you were serious about things. Two weeks for mandatory reporting of domestic violence in a bill? You have to be joking. That is under your portfolio, Attorney-General, so it is very difficult to take much of what you say seriously.
As Police minister, you and your predecessor, the Chief Minister, were the ones who promised, along with the former Chief Minister, 200 extra police on the beat. Then, in late 2006, the language started to change. It was no longer ‘extra police on the beat’; it was ‘police personnel’. You people have notoriously bad form when it comes to being up-front with police numbers.
In the Chief Minister’s statement - and I propose mostly to talk about it from an Alice Springs perspective - he said that:
- As part of the 2008 budget, my government committed $9.3m over two years to fund the Safer Streets initiative. This will place an additional 60 police on the beat.
I have the media release dated 14 April 2008 headed, ‘60 More Police on the Beat in our Suburbs’. It has been months and months and months. I thought something that was about five months old does not need to find its way into a current statement.
I note with great interest that, after an election campaign, on the final day of sittings, you came in here with basically a police/law and order statement. It does rather beg the question as to how serious this government is.
The Police minister, Chief Minister, and government as a collective, will no doubt keep saying, ‘60 police on the beat’, in the same way that you keep saying, ‘200 police on the beat’, since 2001, I think. There is a big difference between saying it and putting it in statements and actually delivering it. You people have notoriously bad form.
In relation to the so-called delivery of more patrols to Alice Springs, I remember earlier this year - and it was almost by accident, if my memory serves me correctly - an ABC journalist was interviewing the Police Commissioner, and asked: ‘When are these patrols, resources and personnel going to be delivered in Alice Springs?’ He replied: ‘About 2010’. Do you think this is good enough? I do not. That is nowhere near good enough, given the issues that we have in Alice Springs.
On page 9 of the Chief Minister’s statement, he talked about a shopfront at ‘each of these locations’. By that, I assume he is referring to Darwin city, Casuarina, Palmerston, and Alice Springs. If a shopfront is to be located in Alice Springs, do I assume that it is one similar to Casuarina shopfront, which, as I understand it, is extremely close to the Casuarina Police Station? If you are talking about your cops in shops initiative, it is something that is likely - I could be wrong - to work better in the Top End than it is in Alice Springs, because we have a wider area where there is crime and antisocial behaviour. Basically, it takes in all of the CBD from Coles all the way to the road parallel to the river. So, where are the police officers going to stand in the shops in Alice Springs? Are they are going to be at Coles, at Yipirinya centre, at Ford Plaza, the mall or at Flynn Drive supermarket? Will they be at the Eastside shops? Where exactly are they going to be?
Given that the terminology is ‘shopfront’, we have called for some time for a shopfront to be in the Larapinta Drive area. I note that the Chief Minister is silent as to the exact location of the shopfront. So, when the Chief Minister replies to this statement, will he be good enough to tell an elected member from Alice Springs if the shopfront is an actual shopfront? If so, where is it going to be? If not in the Larapinta area, why not? As for the word ‘shopfront’: does that extend to the ‘cops-in-shops’ proposal? If so, where are the police officers going to be located?
I note also in the statement there is no reference to the mobile police vans. Has that become pass these days? Is that no longer electorally sexy for the Labor government? That was popular mid-term last time round, and has fallen off the radar a bit. Every time I walk past the car park of the Alice Springs Police Station, I look at the mobile police van and it looks at me. I do not see it deployed very often. It is deployed for particular events such as footy games and other big public occasions in Alice Springs. I believe it should be deployed more than that. That is what the government promised when they said: ‘Oh, yippie, we are going to have a mobile police van in Alice Springs’. This is the form of the people opposite. They say all these wonderful things but, when it actually comes to delivering and performing, there is always a difference.
There is always a difference between the media releases they issue about the legislation that comes before us, and the legislation itself. I believe Territorians were a wake up to it on 9 August. Just because Labor was elected, albeit narrowly, to government does not mean that people have stopped watching you. If you people take your job seriously, you need to do considerably better than during your last term.
I note the reference to the CCTV cameras. Has not the Labor government been dragged kicking and screaming on that one? It was at the beginning of 2007, I suspect, when a petition was tabled asking ‘Can we have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs?’ No. The now Attorney-General, who was the Police minister at the time, made a response to the petition: ‘No, you cannot have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs’. Then, we had the demonstration in Alice Springs at the parliament and, then, there was the backflip. So, dragged kicking and screaming, they delivered the CCTV cameras.
However, despite the media release flurry about CCTV cameras in Alice Springs, the devil was in the detail. We asked: how would they be monitored? Will it be 24-hour, seven day a week monitoring? Who will monitor it? Scratch below the surface, these people are not capable of providing the answers because they do not know - because they just make policy up on the run. We have seen it pretty much across the board. Now, however, we have CCTV cameras in Alice Springs and government said during the election campaign or, perhaps prior to it, that they are going to put more CCTV cameras in Alice Springs.
I note in the Chief Minister’s statement that he makes the point, deliberately so, that it is a joint initiative with council. What that means, I believe, is that the council has to find someone to monitor the extra cameras and, basically, administer the whole thing. My question is - and if the Chief Minister could respond to it in his reply I would be grateful: why is that the case in Alice Springs, whereas in Darwin it is monitored, as I understand, by the police at the police station? There seems to be an A-grade version in Darwin and a B-grade version in Alice Springs. I do not think that is good enough. Why does the Chief Minister apparently think that that is good enough?
Also, in relation to the allocation of the $1.1m, when will that money come through, how many cameras will it buy and, again, can the Chief Minister talk about how it will be monitored, and why it is different from Darwin?
On page 18 of the statement, the Chief Minister talked about police infrastructure. He talked about the upgrade of the Alice Springs Police Station. Well, of course he should do that. The member for Greatorex and I mentioned that, probably a year or so ago. I make the point, though, that it is not in the overall scheme of things a spectacular announcement because it is what government should do. Government should upgrade buildings on a regular basis. Government should regularly be monitoring the buildings and constantly asking those who work in them: ‘Are they meeting your demands? Are they meeting your expectations?’ Everyone knows that the Alice Springs Police Station has needed some work on it for a very long time. The government’s self-serving media releases and references in this statement are disappointing to say the least but, I suppose, not very surprising.
However, when speaking about police infrastructure, I was surprised about the phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station. I know members opposite do not want to hear about this, and I know it has been going on for a very long time. The now Attorney-General, once Police minister, got himself into trouble about this at the Alice Springs sittings. This was the bloke who said: ‘No, if you ring this number you can get through 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ring this number. People of Alice Springs, you can have confidence’. Well, they rang the number and were not able to get through and, pretty much, people in Alice Springs have experienced difficulties with the phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station ever since. Not a week goes by, almost, where I, as a local member, do not get a complaint - either someone ringing my office or bumping into someone at the supermarket - a story about how long they were waiting on the phone system. They are diverted to Darwin, Adelaide, and Katherine. The phone system is just not good enough.
We talked about this issue at estimates and I asked the Chief Minister and the Police Commissioner some questions. It seems to me as though the line from government has changed over time. When the former Police minister stood up in Alice Springs, he said: ‘The technical difficulties have been fixed or they would be fixed in the next six weeks’. The problems continued. In June this year at estimates, it was a mish-mash of recruitment problems and, maybe at a stretch, some technical problems. I do not believe what you people say any more when it comes to the Alice Springs police communications system.
Without issuing a media release - because you people issue a media release when you want the public to know things, and when you do not want anyone to know, you do not even like to talk about it – that it was revealed that you gave to a consultant, in Adelaide I believe, the job of assessing the police communications system at the Alice Springs Police Station. There is a report commissioned in the last six months - I do not even know whether it has been finished or if it is sitting in someone’s office upstairs - about the police phone system at the Alice Springs Police Station.
Can the Chief Minister, in reply, indicate whether he is prepared to table that report? If not, why not? Second, and most importantly, what were the findings and the outcomes of the report? We, as Territorians, paid for it. Surely we are entitled to know, even if he does not want to show it to us, the effect of the recommendations? I ask the Chief Minister to ’fess up and come clean on that one. At least, can you give the people of Alice Springs an indication if things are going to improve, because they must. I really do not want to be standing here again, in the next sittings or the sittings after that, or the year after that, or the year after that, talking about the police communications system in Alice Springs. You people need to fix it. Just do it. It is not that hard.
I refer to page 23 of the Chief Minister’s statement about the First Response Patrols. I note with interest that - and I am happy for the Police minister to correct me if I am wrong - if they are so terrific, why are they not in Alice Springs? Is this a Darwin thing again? I am thinking it might be.
On page 25 of this statement, he referred to the antisocial behaviour hotline. He gives the number for that hotline. I have the following questions in relation to it. Is that hotline operational now? If it is not operational now, when will it be? Has it been advertised? Is advertising planned for it? Does the government actually really want people to ring that number? What sort of advertising is planned, and when is it going to hit the airwaves, newspapers, etcetera? What will the cost be? Also, what are the expectations or performance indicators of this hotline? At estimates next year, we will ask how many calls were received; what the response time was; and how many people do you have picking up the phone? Does this number go to police stations in Darwin, Katherine, Alice, and Tennant? If not, where does the phone go? If this number somehow hooks into Alice Springs, will it be answered? In addition, if a person in Alice Springs rings, and it goes to Darwin, how will it actually be filtered down so that police on the ground in Alice Springs can respond?
Sounds great - typical Labor stuff - sounds terrific: ‘Oh, let us have an antisocial behaviour hotline’. My job is to ask a few more questions, because this statement is very light on when it comes to detail. I know that is the government’s form. I know they do not like it when I stand up and ask questions, but it is my right, and that is what the people in my electorate would expect me to do.
Madam Speaker, I feel certain that people upstairs have been taking notes. I want the Chief Minister and Police minister to answer those questions. If he does not, well, I will just have to tell everyone in Alice Springs that he is as arrogant as he was before the election - that is why he nearly lost it - and that he does not care about the people of Alice Springs, that my questions remain unanswered and I remain very unhappy about that. I suppose that is all I can do. I would be very disappointed if that was what I had to do, however.
Mr VATSKALIS (Business and Employment): Madam Speaker, I have been 13 years in the Territory and, over those years, one of the major issues that has been debated in the Territory is crime and the numbers of police. It does not matter if it was the CLP or the ALP, I well recall the headlines, ‘too much crime, too little police’.
In the Territory, we have a split personality. I believe a lot of people come here from down south to avoid over-regulation. However, the moment they arrive, they want more police, tougher sentences, and every other restriction that bothers them to do what they want without fear of any legislation. Everyone else has to be regulated, but not ourselves. In the debate about the police, I have seen it in the newspaper, people complain about the bad drivers in the Territory. At the same time, they are the same people who say, ‘We want more unlimited speed limits in the Territory’. The people are complaining about people turning in front of them, yellow light or red light but, at the same time, they do not want any lights on the streets. There must be something really wrong with us Territorians; it must be the weather or the mango madness.
The other thing I always find fascinating is our fixation with crime. You open a newspaper, there is crime. Not that there is no crime - do not get me wrong, there is crime - but let us get it into perspective. You turn tomorrow morning to The Australian, have a look on your computer, have a look on the Internet. Three out of four breaking news items would be some crimes committed somewhere else. Our crimes pale into insignificance compared to things that happen in Sydney or Brisbane. I was in Sydney. There was a murder reported on page 7. If there was a murder in the Territory it would be on the front page of the newspaper for a week and, if there was a crocodile involved, it would be for a month.
The other thing that always concerns me is there are two different types of crimes in the Territory: the one’s committed by white people affecting white people and the one’s committed by black people affecting black people. The one’s that are committed by black people affecting black people do not matter - out of sight, out of mind. However, if it is a white on white, then it becomes an issue.
I will give you another example. If I and the members for Nelson and Drysdale decide to go to the park and sit down and drink a couple of bottles of beer, is any neighbour going to ring the police? No, but if we were from Yuendumu or Yirrkala, there will be people ringing the police in five or six minutes. So, you have to keep in mind that there is always this difference.
Crime and police has always been a matter for discussion in the Territory. I well recall before the ALP came into power, there was discussion about the police response then. You could pick up the phone and call the police but they would not turn up. Also, there was too much crime. The then government decided that one way to resolve the problem - because they knew there was a problem - was mandatory sentencing. Did it resolve the problem? No, it did not. There are reports that say mandatory sentencing did not reduce property crime, did not reduce crime at all. So, what was the solution …
Mr Elferink: Actually no, they determined that it was inconclusive, if memory serves me.
Mr VATSKALIS: Member for Port Darwin, you are really good with books and reading from books and reports. I would like to quote from a report done by the NT Crime Prevention. It was presented at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Technology Conference in 2003. It said clearly:
- The length of the minimum sentence was not an effective deterrent for the population known to have been subject to mandatory sentencing regime.
Even the diagram and the graphs they have on page 10 - and I can give you the web page address if you want to go and find out - show clearly that in the two years prior to repealing mandatory sentencing, crime steadily increased - and then decreased very quickly after mandatory sentencing was repealed. Either these statistics are fudged, or something actually does work.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, could you please pause. We are just hearing that when you are not directing your comments though the Chair, Hansard has not been able to hear you. Please direct your comments through the Chair.
Mr VATSKALIS: Thank you. I repeat again for the benefit of Hansard, the graph on page 10 of the report I just quoted shows that property crime for the two years that mandatory sentencing was in place, it steadily increased and after it was repealed, it started declining and it had gone below the initial level in about 2003. So, mandatory sentencing was not the solution.
Then the Labor Party came into government. During the election campaign I recall - I have quite a few police who are my constituents - I was stopped in the street by a police officer who actually wanted to complain to me - I cannot reveal his name, which is fair - about the situation at the Casuarina Police Station: what was the proper allocation or what should have been; how many people were on duty; how many people were absent? I could not believe my ears when he was telling me the stories about the Casuarina Police Station and the lack of policemen to actually attend to the everyday duties a policeman should have attended to.
That actually led this government to start wondering about the level of police. The member for Drysdale is an expert and is quite right; you need a certain police capacity if you are going to address the issues around society. That is why we engaged Mr O’Sullivan, an ex-Police Commissioner from Queensland. Mr O’Sullivan was not a card-carrying member of the Labor Party; he was a professional who came in to do the survey and put it on the table and of course, everything became obvious - there were not enough police in the Territory. The reason being that the previous government, in 1994, put a freeze on the hiring of police.
That is the reason why this government put in additional money and effort to increase the police numbers. Yes, I know people say: ‘Oh, you can get police but how many police are leaving?’ You cannot lock people in the Territory. People have the right to leave, and quite a few people actually left the police force. Some of them went to the Federal Police and some went interstate, some of them are very much wanted by other states, probably because our police force is very good and has received very good training. It knows how to deal with different circumstances and with people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Despite people leaving, we still have 255 more uniformed policemen today than we had in 2003. Obviously, police numbers are not the issue. I have always said - and Casuarina Police Station is in my electorate and I have very close contact with the police there – that a lot of time the police allocation depends on the person who is in charge of the police station.
That became obvious to me when there were two police commanders in Casuarina. Both of them went to Alice Springs. I will not name them. When these two commanding officers were in Casuarina, we had foot patrols, bike patrols, and motorcycle patrols. When they were moved, another person came in and, all of a sudden, you could not see a police officer on the streets in Casuarina. Two months later, there was a change. A new commanding officer came and, again, I saw police officers on patrol, in cars, on bikes, and in Casuarina Shopping Square.
That shows you that it is not the government that dictates where police are going to be allocated, what shifts they are going to work, or how many police there are going to be. It is the police themselves. It is the commanding officers who decide the allocation of the police officers. We have provided the resources. It is like you, as a senior teacher, dictating to your staff how to work. If you are not allocating the proper staff to do their job, there are going to be gaps.
However, you cannot claim there is not enough police. The numbers speak for themselves: 255 more uniformed personnel than there were in 2003. I know the member for Drysdale says it is probably in senior management. It might be the senior management, but there are many avenues for junior police officers to complain to their union or demand a better allocation of duties from the senior management. There is no argument that it is the police force. You cannot blame the government for the allocation of the police force.
Regarding the Casuarina Police Station and the new police station that we are putting in place, I agree with you. I visited the Casuarina Police Station and I wrote to the then Police minister, alerting him to the fact that Casuarina Police Station was a disaster waiting to happen for occupational health and safety. I am very pleased that my calls were heard, and that is why we are allocating money to have a new police station in Casuarina. I am not talking about the other police stations; I speak specifically for my electorate.
I know that there is going to be money spent in Alice Springs and in Tennant Creek because the police stations there need some attention. You cannot tell me that these police stations, all of a sudden, became substandard in the seven years since the Labor government. Money was not spent on police stations for many years, and that is the reason why these police stations came to that state. I believe that the government has seen the problems, is prepared to act, and is acting.
I believe that having two police stations, one in Casuarina and one in Darwin, is not very good. I believe there should be more police centres allocated throughout the state. By appointing a police force at Bagot, we can cover the gap between the city and Casuarina. It might be an allocation of four policemen and two auxiliaries based in Bagot, but that should not and will not stop patrolling the area around Bagot because, sometimes, preventing things happening around the area will resolve problems inside Bagot. I am saying preventing because quite a few people will drift to Bagot. Police officers patrolling there can actually prevent some of these issues happening.
Another thing we did is establish the First Response Patrol. It is an excellent idea. It is an excellent idea because it is better to prevent the problem than try to treat it. We have seen a significant influx of people from the communities. These people come in because there is an urban drift and that influx was accelerated by the intervention.
The reality is, in urban drift, people want to come to the city for education, health reasons, or for a job. The problem with the intervention is we have all the people who had created problems in the community, and they wanted to keep accessing their money. The way the intervention and the quarantining of income was implemented was totally inappropriate. It does not take many brains to think that, if you declare an area as a controlled area, people are going to pack up and move out, and go somewhere else and actually have access to their money. The people who came to the urban centres like Darwin, Katherine, or Alice Springs, are the people who cause problems in the community - the people who used to drink or take drugs. All of a sudden, they found that half of their money was taken away from them and they moved to Darwin or Alice Springs, declared they are now living in Darwin, Alice Springs, or Katherine, so they have 100% access to their money - so they continue to drink. That, of course, creates problems.
My area in Casuarina has a large shopping centre which is like a light that attracts moths. The big lights of the shopping centre attract any young person. You only have to take a trip to Casuarina Shopping Square about 3.15 pm after Casuarina Senior College and Dripstone Middle School have finished, and you will be amazed by the number of young kids hanging around with their schoolbags and school uniforms. They are there to meet their friends, to go to play some electronic games, or just hang around. This is sometimes a recipe for disaster. I have seen some of the fights between some hot-headed people in Casuarina. I applaud the fact that we are putting a police post in Casuarina because the best deterrent for these activities is people knowing there are police around the corner. I am very pleased that the police have reinstated some of the patrols in the Casuarina Shopping Square because this has eliminated a lot of the problems that existed before when police were not around.
I know the CCTV is an excellent tool, and can probably be used to identify someone after the event. However, many times these people would know that they are monitored and filmed, and they will think twice before they commit a crime.
Many times we tend to forget that there is a clear separation of power. Often we criticise the judiciary, but we cannot really demand that the judiciary punish people the way we think fit. The judiciary makes the decision considering all circumstances and, most of the time, they get it right. Sometimes, as we are all human and we make mistakes, they will let somebody go through. However, there are cases where the decisions of the judiciary have been made on the information by the prosecuting officer, who is human, can make a mistake, and give or withhold information, which will give the real picture to the judiciary.
From experience, I want to tell you, that the last thing you need is for the police force to be the police force, the judiciary, and the prison officer. This is the worst thing that can happen to any civilised society. There are no second balances, and people can be arrested and imprisoned for minute offences, or even no offences at all. I was very proud to see in Australia how close the police force is to the community when, in other states and other countries, the community despises the police because they have been used by government as an instrument for oppression. Here, people are actually very keen to work with and be close to police, and provide information to them when it is required.
It is not only policing that will reduce crime; it is also the way we design buildings and shopping centres. That is how we will help prevent crime; through an environment design audit at the Casuarina precinct. Many times, people from the Casuarina Shopping Square and the Casuarina Shopping Village have complained to me about petty crime and itinerants. I have said to them: look at your establishment and find out where you provide either a hiding place or shelter, and put in lights or fencing. A lot of people did not want to go to the extra expense, and they expected a police patrol to be around their premises all the time, because that is the best way to prevent people committing an offence in their area. It is a combination of police, audits, and design.
We can sit here and complain about crimes and the police and argue about the number of the police. The reality is that we have more police today in the Territory than we ever had before. Actually, we are one of the most policed states and territories around Australia. It is not just a matter of the police; we cannot have a police officer in every corner. You have to remember that the kids and people who commit the crimes can be our children, our relatives, or our own friends. So, it is not the police who are going to prevent the crime, it is actually ourselves, by providing guidance to our children. I have police come to me to complain that they take 8-year-old or 4-year-old kids home at 2 am, knock on the door, and the parents do not apologise for their kids. They abuse the police, or they are drunk or under the influence. Some of them even say they ‘do not want the little bastard home’. A police officer tries to do the job and is stuck in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with a little child that nobody wants. It is not only the police, it is also our society and our community, and it is probably ourselves.
I congratulate the Chief Minister. I know there are problems in the Territory. We are not a perfect society - far from it - but you have to remember we also have a number of people and communities with different standards and ideas. Another thing we have to remember is that we are prepared to tolerate things that can be the root of a problem or the root of a crime.
I have not been to a nightclub in Mitchell Street. I refuse to go there, because most of the assaults happening in Darwin do not happen in Nightcliff, Alawa, or Anula. The largest numbers of assaults happen between 2 am and 3 am, especially on the weekend, in Mitchell Street, when people are drunk, fighting, or frustrated because they did not get a girlfriend that night. They go out, and hit the first person who is in front of them or walks past. Some people will laugh, but we have to face reality and say, do we really want all these liquor licences along a kilometre of the road?
In Katherine, people complain about the problems with itinerants, but this is the only town I have seen that has about seven liquor outlets in about 500 m to 600 m. The community sometimes has to question themselves about that. You can hire another 1000 police; you are not going to …
Mr Elferink: You are in government.
Mr VATSKALIS: It is the community that has to be responsible …
Mr Elferink: No, you do the licensing, mate.
Mr VATSKALIS: The community members sometimes have to decide what they want. You cannot tell me that I want to go out and get drunk every night in Mitchell Street but, at the same time, it is a government responsibility if I glass someone. It is your own responsibility as well. We are people, and we have our own limitations and our own moral code. We should accept that.
Again, the government has done a lot about police. It has recruited a number of police. It allocated money for the tools for the police to do their jobs properly, in providing the stations and the places where people work. We will continue to work with the police, and to ensure that the Territory is a safe place for families.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the debate be adjourned.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak to that motion.
We will resist the motion that this debate is being adjourned. I am actually surprised that the Leader of Government Business is doing it, because it is my instruction from my Whip that the Government Whip had been advised that we wanted to debate this matter out tonight.
There is a propensity of this government to bring in ministerial statements to which all members should have a right to respond on the day they are delivered, however, it has become the habit of this government, over time, to simply adjourn those statements before all members get the opportunity to contribute to the debate.
I have discussed this matter with my colleagues on this side of the House, and we do not support the government’s intention and desire to shift these matters to later debate times, when the issues may be less topical. One would think that, if a minister brings a statement into this House, and says, ‘This is a matter of such importance that I want to let Territorians know what I feel, and I want to raise this issue and speak for 30 minutes on this issue in this House’, then every member of this House should have the right to respond to that statement on the day that statement is brought into the House. Is there any reason why we should not debate these matters out in their entirety? Is there any reason why I should, by the majority of members in this House, be effectively gagged by the desire to have dinner early or to go home early?
The fact is, we are elected by the people of the Northern Territory to speak up for them, and I would like my opportunity to do so. I know there are quite a few other members on this side of the House who would also like their opportunity to do so. I am putting on the record now, as part of my debate in this motion, that we will not be supporting this motion to have this matter adjourned. I would like to have my opportunity to have my say tonight. I would like to see other members have their opportunity to have their say tonight. If the Chief Minister thinks it is so important, then we should all have the right to discuss this matter.
The Whip on the other side of this House has been advised of our desire not to have this matter adjourned and, whilst I appreciate that there is a dinner break in the very near future, I urge this House to continue debating this matter immediately after the dinner break until the question is put.
So, Madam Speaker, no, we do not support the motion of the Leader of Government Business.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I support the member for Port Darwin. One of the most frustrating things is that last night a copy of the ministerial statement on police was delivered, so I spent part of the night working out a response. I then came to parliament today thinking this is a very important issue. I sit here presuming that I will be able to speak at some time. I know the Whip said that they were limiting the number of people who would speak. However, this is not the first time this has happened.
For me to come back and talk about this at the next sittings, nearly makes it irrelevant. It has gone stale. It is not saying the issue is not important, but it is not the time any more. I want to hear what both sides of parliament are saying about this very important issue. I listened to the member for Casuarina. He raised some very important points. I know that we do have argy-bargy here but, in general, we all want the Territory to be a safer place. This is the place where we can put forward ideas and this is a great opportunity to do it.
This is probably one of the most important statements we have had during this sittings, because there have been some pretty mild statements. This is one of those issues that we would all like to have a say on. I certainly would. I do not feel it is a good method that I spend my time preparing a statement and, then, am told 24 hours later: ‘You will have to come back next sittings’.
Madam Speaker, I support what the member for Port Darwin is putting forward.
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, in moving the debate, yes, there was a discussion between the Whips and, as is normally the case, our Whip indicated that we were adjourning this matter to the October sittings ...
Mr Elferink: You are gagging us.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Ms LAWRIE: I understand the petulance of the member for Port Darwin.
This debate will be as relevant in October as it is today. It is a statement on the police. It is a statement on community safety. It is a very relevant debate in October.
Madam Speaker, I move that the debate be now adjourned.
The Assembly divided:
- Ayes 13 Nos 11
Mrs Aagaard Mr Bohlin
Ms Anderson Ms Carney
Dr Burns Mr Chandler
Mr Gunner Mr Conlan
Mr Hampton Mr Elferink
Mr Henderson Mr Giles
Mr Knight Mr Mills
Ms Lawrie Ms Purick
Mr McCarthy Mr Tollner
Ms McCarthy Mr Westra van Holthe
Ms Scrymgour Mr Wood
Mr Vatskalis
Ms Walker
Motion agreed to.
Debate adjourned.
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly at its rising adjourn until Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 10 am in Parliament House or such other time and/or date as may be advised by the Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
_____________________
The sitting suspended.
_____________________
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MATTER OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Local Government Reform
Local Government Reform
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have received the following letter from the member for Katherine:
- I propose for discussion this day the following definite matter of public importance: the failure of the Territory government to take heed of community concerns about local government reform.
Member for Katherine.
Is the proposal supported? It is supported. I call the member for Katherine.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE (Katherine): Madam Speaker, the matter of public importance about which I wish to speak today relates to what I describe as the incompetent and appalling manner in which the local government reform has been implemented and managed by the Labor government, and the failure of the Territory government to take heed of community concerns about local government reform.
On 1 July this year, the new Local Government Act came into force. It is quite a hefty act and, no doubt, took a lot of work in its planning, drafting and publishing. There was some robust debate during the sittings when this legislation was introduced and read. You would think that such important legislation would have attracted more than just lip service when it came to taking into account the concerns of the community about how all this was going to run.
The reform brought together some 81 local government areas and amalgamated them into eight new shires. In the early stages of the inception of this new legislation, an advisory board was set up to take community concerns and convey them to government, as well as facilitating the flow of information back to the people of the Northern Territory. The very first issue raised at the first meeting of the board - and I mean the very first issue - was about community consultation. I quote from the minutes of the first meeting of the Local Government Advisory Board held on 8 and 9 February 2007:
- There was concern that consultation is occurring too late in the process ...
In this first meeting, this issue was raised three times. At least, that is what the minutes reflect. We all know that minutes are only a very shallow prcis of what was actually said. So, it was probably mentioned more than is reflected in those minutes.
In the second meeting - although I cannot find reference to it in the minutes of the first meeting - there is a reference in the business arising section, a notation - and again I quote from the government representative:
- Assets:
It is not the intention of the Local Government Reform process to remove assets from a community.
At the third meeting of the advisory committee, the overall tenor of submissions from the delegates was to get some plain, simple English explanations out into the communities.
In the minutes of the fourth meeting of the committee, it was noted that:
- A Transition Bill which will provide the Minister with the temporary power to make the changes necessary to move from the current CGC …
community government council:
… system to the Shires, and will also bring Association Councils under the Local Government Act to allowing for a smooth transition to the new shires.
Were they serious about this transition? Thus far, there certainly has been a transition but, most definitely, it has not been smooth. Even at that stage, many communities feared that they would lose specific services. However, assurances were made again, and I quote from the minutes of that meeting:
- Under the new local government arrangements community assets remain just that - community assets and are not the assets of an individual or private interest.
During the fifth meeting, all the same concerns were reiterated. In the meeting on 4 March 2008, attended by the minister, he said in relation to consultation:
- Local government reform will be implemented in fifteen weeks and community consultation from here on is extremely important. The Advisory Board members are
integral to this, as they represent the community and can report back to the people.
The minister stressed that the Northern Territory government is absolutely committed to the reforms. I ask you to read between the lines here. Did the minister say that the reform is happening without regard to consultation? I say this because consultation should have been well and truly completed, with just 15 weeks to implementation. Perhaps the minister meant to say ‘community advice’. I doubt this also.
Further in support of my contention, at the same meeting, the Chair tabled a letter to the advisory board from the Laynhapuy Homelands Association. The letter expressed concerns that the association had been left out of the picture through a lack of consultation. The Laynhapuy Homelands is in the East Arnhem Shire on the Gove Peninsula. There is much anecdotal evidence similar to the views espoused by the Laynhapuy Homelands.
Last night, I talked in the adjournment debate, and mentioned that where there is smoke there is fire. I would have thought it wise for the minister, even at that late stage, to go looking for the source of that smoke. So much was the fear by some communities that, for example, the Galiwinku Community Incorporated commenced legal action against the NT government regarding the transfer of assets to the community government council and, subsequently, to the shire council. That is definitely not a good sign that the message got through to that community. Where is the so-called community consultation?
It was then acknowledged in the same meeting that there were concerns in some communities that the shires will remove assets and services that had been established to make the community work. For what it is it worth, the board held its final meeting in Darwin on 17 June.
In my maiden speech last week, I spoke briefly about matters of local government. I said this:
We are in an interesting time with the formation of the new shires still under way. What a great opportunity for the government, CEOs, and senior management of the newly formed shire councils to get it right.
I will be honest here: I had no idea at the time that the government had really got it so wrong. What a baptism of fire for me as a new member of the Legislative Assembly. Perhaps in my maiden speech I naively exposed my belief that all things are for the greater good. I do not think I will make the same mistake twice.
Now that I have set the stage, let us look at what is really happening out there in the communities which have fallen under the shire councils. The rhetoric coming from government at the time talked about smooth transition. Do you call this smooth transition? This is yesterday’s copy of the Katherine Times. I refer you to the classifieds section, under Positions Vacant, and there it is: some third of a page with ads for the Roper Gulf Shire still looking for employees. They are looking for a Senior CDEP Project Coordinator, based in Katherine; a Payroll Officer, based in Katherine; a Government Support Officer, based in Katherine - remember, this is yesterday’s Katherine Times - Housing Maintenance Officer by two, based in Katherine; a CDEP Coordinator, based in Ngukurr; a Family and Community Services Coordinator, based in Ngukurr. There are no less than 10 positions available in that council. I know that other papers carry ads for positions in other shires. I have seen the papers and I have been watching it. I have seen advertisements for the Daly Shire as well in the Northern Territory News, and there are ads in southern papers for positions there as well.
What is happening here, Madam Speaker? Where is the plan? Why did the minister not take issues like this into account at earlier stages and delay assent to the bill? Does the minister not realise that we would have trouble attracting and maintaining staff in the Northern Territory? Why was the question not asked: what happens if we cannot get employees? The question probably was not asked is the truth. I can tell you the end result: the people in the communities get it in the neck.
I mention the community of Jilkminggan, which is east of the township of Mataranka. Jilkminggan used to look after its own purchasing. The community there supports an aged-care facility and a crche. The community used to purchase food for both but, now, all purchasing must be done through purchase orders through the shire. No problem so far. But, what happens when a purchase order is raised, sent through to the relevant shire office, but sits in the office unprocessed and the food runs out for the children and the old people? Not the fault of the shire staff; it is a result of not having enough staff to keep up with the workload. You only have to look at how many jobs are available at Roper Gulf Shire. The implementation of that part has just been abysmal.
While we are talking about staff, let us mention the fact that already staff are resigning from the shires. They are resigning because it is not what they expected - nothing is happening, they do not know what direction to take, and they are not getting any help or advice and they are short on staff. There are a whole bunch of reasons why these people are resigning. These resignations out there are through sheer frustration. So, the transition is not so smooth after all.
I do not know if any of the government ministers have ever run a business, but I have. I venture to say that cash flow is one of the most important aspects in underpinning the successful day-to-day operations of a small business. I note the concerns raised with me from business owners about purchasing at shire level. These are real business owners with real concerns. What occurred in the past, where possible, was that community government councils purchased locally in the vast majority of cases. For example, Jilkminggan would have done some of its purchasing in Mataranka based on its needs at the time. The purchasing process was simple and it supported local business. They would also have a choice about where they were going to purchase their goods. But, now, without regard for the survival of local business, shires make decisions about where the purchasing is to be done.
Mr Wood: Not locally.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: Precisely! Here is an example. Jilkminggan would have spent about $30 000 a year on meat for their community, and they went to a particular butchery in Katherine for this. Now, Jilkminggan has been told they cannot buy their meat from the aforementioned butchers; they have to purchase through another butcher ...
Ms Purick interjecting.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: I pick up the interjection from the member for Goyder. There is nothing wrong with the first butcher. What is happening here is the shires are imposing their will over the communities ...
Mr Wood: No elected members either.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: At this stage - and I pick up on the interjection from the member for Nelson – there are absolutely no elected members; all employees, albeit short staffed.
Then there is the case where purchasing of some non-food supplies has stopped altogether because this so-called smooth transition is taking place - a hit to more businesses’ cash flows. What happens when the shires get their act together and start buying mowers, slashers and brush cutters, and they decide they do not need one or two of those but they need eight, nine or 10 of those items? Will the local small business be able to compete with larger firms on price? This is a real concern for small business. Will the local businesses be able to supply the larger quantities required? These are the concerns of people who own small businesses who have come to me and said: ‘This is a debacle. This is so poorly implemented we do not know if we are up or down’.
Cash flow is all about being steady, not spasmodic. For the sake of pinning the Local Government Act medal to their chests, this government has forgotten about the impacts on locals who would ordinarily be supporting this process of change.
Let us review the progress of this reform when it comes to assets. Let me remind the House of the earlier quote from the minutes of meetings of the advisory board:
- Under the new local government arrangements community assets remain just that - community assets and are not the assets of an individual or private interest.
At Yirrkala, which has been a very tidily run community over many years, they have managed to acquire a pool of about 20 well-maintained vehicles. They boast infrastructure out there that, in some instances, would rival small towns like Tennant Creek or Katherine - and this is a community of some 400 people. These vehicles were purchased through their own means and not - and I repeat not - with NT government funding. These vehicles belong to the community residents. Yet, the shire has bullied its way into the community, acquired these vehicles and started relocating them to other communities in the shire. I suppose you could argue that they are still community assets, but they are now another community’s assets. Why does a well-run community like Yirrkala have to be punished for its ability to manage its own affairs as well as it has over the years? This is not peculiar to Yirrkala. There are other communities out there that are hiding their assets so the shires do not come and take them away. That is not an exaggeration. Just yesterday, a concerned resident spoke with me on the telephone and said just that.
I have another question: where are the new shire staff posted to remote communities going to live? I will tell you the answer. In Yirrkala, the shire went there and said: ‘We want 10 houses’. This would have involved displacing 10 families from their homes at Yirrkala. The community kicked up a stink, quite rightly, and now the shire only wants ‘three or four houses’. This is clearly unacceptable. What are the shire councils doing? Do they know themselves what they are doing? I would not be surprised if they do not know what they are doing in that regard.
In a media statement attributed to the minister on 1 July 2008, he said:
- The Local Government Minister Rob Knight says during the 18-month project, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets and thousands of local government staff have been reshuffled into the eight shires.
Perhaps he should have said, ‘We are seizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth assets and will do with them as we please, and thousands of local government jobs are in serious jeopardy for we cannot guarantee they will be given new placements in the new structure’.
I have yet another question. The minister mentioned hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets. What are those assets comprised of? Surely, they cannot be that dollar amount worth of non-fixed assets attributed to communities around the Territory. By deduction, these assets must then include fixed assets which would include houses and buildings. Perhaps this is where the shires got the idea that they could walk into communities and take over houses and other buildings. In Yirrkala, for example, shire staff walked into the community and occupied the old council office. Where is their power to do this? Even to this day, some shire staff, still without agreement from Yirrkala community members, occupy that office, despite being offered other office accommodation. The reason for this – and no one in the shires will come out and actually say it to anyone - the old council office sits on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and the new shire staff like the view.
In my reading of the act, section 178(1), Acquisition of property, says:
- A council may acquire real or personal property (including intellectual property) by agreement.
I do not know that this covers walking into communities and taking over. I also do not think that staying for the view is covered in that section of the act either.
Alas, I have left myself a little short of time. However, the overall feedback I have been receiving is that, given the magnitude of importance of this act and the potential effects it has on the lives of so many throughout the whole Northern Territory, the minister should have kept his finger right on the pulse. Clearly, Madam Speaker, the Minister for Local Government has dropped the ball in the implementation of the local government reforms …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Katherine, your time has expired.
Mr KNIGHT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, there have been three MPIs this week, and this one would probably be the weakest one of all ...
Mr Elferink: Excuse me?
Mr Bohlin: Communities are not important?
Mr KNIGHT: The weakest presented MPI of all.
Mr Tollner: Are you the minister, or what?
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 51. We sat and let the member for Katherine have his say, and listened very attentively. I ask members opposite to extend the same courtesy to my colleague.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister for Local Government, could you please direct your comments through the Chair …
Mr KNIGHT: I will try, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: … which may mean less interjections.
Mr KNIGHT: I doubt it. I will start with a quote:
- A key issue for the government is the sustainability of local government in rural and remote areas. It is the government’s view that there should eventually be fewer councils in the Territory. These councils should ideally provide access to services for the entire Territory population.
Another quote from the same person:
- It seems, though, that councils with a population of less than about 2000 people encounter greater difficulties in maintaining adequate levels of administration and service delivery over the long term than those with larger populations.
I will read a third quote from a different person:
- … when a population of fewer than 200 000 in the Northern Territory has more than 68 councils, something needs to happen. We cannot just go on creating small councils that all have the same sort of infrastructure, all have the same administrative structures and the costs that go with them, the representation costs, and the responsibilities for roads ...
The first quotes were from the CLP minister, Loraine Braham in 1999. The next quote was from Tim Baldwin, also a minister for Local Government, in 2000. It actually started in, I think, 1998 when the CLP had a proposal for local government. I have lots of quotes here and I will sprinkle them through my speech …
Mr Westra van Holthe: That is all right. I am not disputing that; it is about how you have done your job.
Mr KNIGHT: Here we have absolute recognition from the CLP that something was wrong ...
Mr Westra van Holthe: That is what it is; the poor record that the government has in doing this job.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Katherine, cease interjecting!
Mr KNIGHT: Something was wrong, Madam Speaker, and nothing …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, direct your comments through the Chair.
Mr KNIGHT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Nothing was done - they sat on their hands and dithered.
In October, minister McAdam launched the local government reform process at the annual conference of the Northern Territory Local Government Association. This announcement took place after many years of discussion with people of all political persuasions right across the Territory, arguing the pressing need for broad-based reform.
Let me remind you, the member for Fong Lim voted in the Australian parliament for legislation giving Australian government officials the capacity to take control of the affairs of community government and association councils in prescribed communities across the Territory as part of the emergency intervention …
Mr Tollner: And why was that?
Mr KNIGHT: Wait a second.
Mr Tollner: You fell over on your job. You could not do your job!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr KNIGHT: That was part of the legislation that the member for Fong Lim did not get a chance to read, obviously. Thankfully, activating that legislative tool did not occur because we were able to demonstrate that the Territory government was acting responsibly and leading reform for local government in the bush …
Mr Tollner: The intervention happened because of your irresponsibility. You embarrassed the Territory in the eyes of Australians.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr KNIGHT: Over the past two years, there has been enormous debate and discussion across the Territory about local government reform - discussion about …
Mr Tollner: You are a shame!
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! As the Health Minister indicated, members of government sat and listened with courtesy to the member for Katherine. It is a matter of public importance, and the minister is now responding in terms of the government’s response. The member for Fong Lim continually interjects, despite being advised that interjections are in breach of the standing order.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I will read my favourite standing order, Standing Order 51. You are becoming very familiar with it:
- No Member may converse aloud or make any noise or disturbance which in the opinion of the Speaker …
- … is designed to interrupt or has the effect of interrupting a Member speaking.
I have to say there has been an amount of noise and conversation allowed which has disturbed the member speaking. I ask if members could cease interjecting so we can hear the minister. Minister, can you please direct your comments through the Chair. Perhaps when you are looking at other members, you are drawing attention to yourself in a way that is not necessary.
Mr KNIGHT: … discussions on how we could work together to make local government more relevant to people’s day-to-day needs, and how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local government, especially the critical role of local government in delivering services out bush.
Quite apart from the council debate, debate in this place, and ongoing media commentary, there have been thousands of hours of consultation and discussion about local government reform in the community-based local government transition committees, and the Local Government Advisory Board has been established to guide this reform process. I will give you an idea of some of the meetings which have been held. There have been six meetings of the advisory board. There have been 33 meetings of transition committees, 22 meetings of CEO workshops, 32 presentations of the story board, 169 stakeholder meetings, 14 public meetings and 49 community meetings on this subject - and that is just our process ...
Members interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: That does not go back 10 years of local government reform, where it has been talked about and discussed. So, there has been an enormous amount of consultation ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr KNIGHT: Madam Speaker, we have seen petitions and rallies in relation to the Top End Shire. We have listened to the concerns about local government reform. The Chief Minister acknowledged that in February this year, where he said we are listening to the Top End Shire about the reforms and we made a change …
Members interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: Tellingly, the opposition and the member for Nelson have repeatedly said that they accept the need for local government reform. They have said it publicly, and they have said it in this place. The reality is that local government reform has been discussed in this place for almost 20 years. In fact, in the previous government, they really did dither. They had neither the courage nor the capacity to do anything about it, and this reflects poorly on them.
Unsustainable and fragile local government has a broader impact than just poor local government service provision. It restricts employment, stymies environmental health outcomes, and slows economic development. How can a dysfunctional shire attract investment? It does not. It perpetuates a perception that second best is good enough for people living outside the main towns and cities. We had to confront the risk of more of the same. More crises and more failed councils, perpetuating disadvantage for another generation in remote communities.
Had this government wanted to be dictatorial about the processes, it would have rammed through all the reforms without public consultations and without the two-year consultation period. Members might have been aware of the Kennett Liberal government’s process of local government reform in Victoria. Governments are often criticised for their failure to act quickly enough. This government has done the right thing for the community, moving forward together and developing a more professional and reliable third tier of government for all Territorians. Local government is now in position to lead the way, to work with communities to help build prosperity and wellbeing through support for jobs, small business and a vibrant community lifestyle. We have demonstrated responsible leadership and have taken decisive actions to ensure strong, sustainable local government for the Northern Territory into the future.
Members opposite cry that there has been a lack of consultation, but this is simply not true. Members well know that the Local Government Advisory Boards have been established comprising nominees from key stakeholders including, government, LGANT, the Local Government Managers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the NT Cattlemen’s Association, the land councils, unions, and the Minerals Council. There has been an enormous amount of consultation and involvement.
Over 300 Territorians, with good working knowledge of local government issues in their home communities, were actively engaged in our shire transitional committees. Turning to the detail of the local government reform at the local level, we should all thank those hard-working, committed Territorians for the diligent work designing our new local government. Hard work by committed Territorians - work that members opposite seem very dismissive of.
The member for Nelson, whilst supportive of local government reform in principle, has said that Territorians were presented with a fait accompli, with the release of the indicative shire boundaries. This is simply not the case. The government took into account demographic, financial, service delivery, and community interest perspectives in arriving at the indicative boundaries ...
Mr Wood interjecting.
Mr KNIGHT: I can tell you, member for Nelson, there was a lot more work done in this previous two years than was going on for years before that. In fact, there is an optimal size for local government in the Territory context: too small and we risk sustainability, too large and servicing over large districts becomes problematic.
Yesterday, I presented a report about the upcoming shire elections. I noted that the shire residents will be elected councillors for individual shire wards, wards designed and named by local people. As a part of our consultation process, many issues about representation were raised and discussed at the local level. Local people, through their local councils and local government transition committees, made recommendations to us and what we have is a result of their work - a result built on the back of good advice from local Territorians. I have listened to the member for Nelson, but I have also listened to the many Territorians directly affected and infinitely more knowledgeable about the needs of their own communities.
Our new local government scheme also provides for the establishment of local boards to assist elected members and their shire staff with the management of local issues. These boards will comprise local people who want to help make their community stronger, healthier, and safer. The vital element of community involvement will not be lost. Community involvement will be a strong and ongoing process. Release of the draft shire business plans has provided an opportunity for public comment on specific work of the new shire councils. Plans will be a living document reflecting public submissions and the decisions of shire council around their priorities and service standards. New arrangements for local government in the bush include the regional management plans that will set out the core services and the standard of services to be delivered by the new shire councils. These documents are now available for public comment.
I would also like touch on the issue of the transition of employees from the former community government and association council to the new shire. As I said here on Tuesday, there have been about 4500 local government employees to transition to new employment arrangements as part of the local government reform. As a part of the local government reform, we have agreed on a 12-month transition period, where existing employees’ conditions would be honoured and in the first 12 months, the relevant unions - the ASU and the LHMU - will provide a collective agreement for local government employees.
In transitioning those employees, we have come across some conditions of employment far in excess of what most people would suggest is fair and reasonable. I will give a highlight. You alluded to the fact that everything was going hunky-dory on the other side of the House. We had one situation where, prior to the reform, a CEO orchestrated a payout to himself for accrued holidays and unused sick leave - his contract allowed for such a payout - the total payout of which was $98 000. Calculations using the payout amount would indicate that the CEO had not taken a day’s holiday in about 13 years. You say everything was hunky-dory and we should have left them alone but …
Members interjecting.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I refute what the member for Daly just said. I never said that at all. I never said that things were sailing along smoothly and this reform was not needed nor should it have been put in place. I ask the member for Daly to withdraw that. It is not a reflection of what I said.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. If you feel you have been misrepresented you can approach me after the MPI to make a personal explanation. Minister, please continue.
Mr KNIGHT: Madam Speaker, in all fairness, particularly to co-workers, shires could not agree to continue with some of those benefits. We are talking here about a handful of circumstances among thousands of employees. Where these cases have been highlighted and some conditions have not been transitioned, the shires have sought to negotiate a fair and reasonable result. As I have previously stated, we can no longer look backwards. It is my job, as a minister in the Henderson government, to support the Territory moving forward.
For those who worry about local government rates increasing over time, we have put in a three-year cap - CPI for those three years - and we will be protecting these new ratepayers from excess increases in rates. So, it will be a very smooth transition.
It is human nature to be apprehensive when faced with change. I do not pretend the local government reform process has been easy. There has been substantial expenditure of time and money to ensure that local citizens and representative organisations have been engaged in the change. The product we have now is a product of exhaustive consultation, debate, and discussion of options. Without some leadership, there will always be a risk of local government reform bogging down in a talkfest for another two decades.
The situation of plugging holes in the leaking hull of small community government councils would have continued to the detriment of the wellbeing of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Territorians. Such a situation is unacceptable to me and the government. We must go forward together as one Territory, and that is what we have done, with fellow Territorians working together to develop and implement effective change. New local government in the Territory, built and refined on the advice of local Territorians and our local government practitioners, will provide a foundation for good governance, sustainable infrastructure and service delivery. This is an essential ingredient for long-term development, full employment, and opportunities in health and wellbeing for all Territorians.
In 2007, we saw many newspaper reports predicting doom and gloom in Queensland as they embarked on their own local government reform. In this month’s edition of the newspaper, the Local Government Focus, you might see – I will just hold it up. The headline proclaims: ‘Post-amalgamations - Queensland councils are forging ahead’. This is an outcome I confidently predict for the Territory: our new shires forging ahead and getting on with the job.
I am very proud to be the Minister for Local Government because this reform has been long overdue. I will acknowledge it was started by the CLP. They waded into the shallow end of local government reform, and ran like girls with their skirts in the air back up the beach. They were scared of local government reform. We had the courage. It was a much-needed reform.
I will talk briefly about the few points that the member for Katherine highlighted. In relation to assets, we have openly acknowledged when assets have belonged to individuals or individual organisations, if it can be proved, they do not belong to the shires. Remember, the shires are the community. This is not taking assets into government hands. This is putting them into the peoples’ hands ...
Mr Wood: No they are not, there are no elected members.
Mr KNIGHT: You will get your chance.
This is about bringing some openness, transparency, and normalisation to local government. We have 5% of the Territory incorporated under the Local Government Act. What an embarrassment to go down to a Local Government Ministerial Council Meeting, whether you are CLP or Labor, and walk in and you have the Local Government Act only covering 5% of the land mass and less than half of your population. What an embarrassment.
This is about legitimate local government. We know why these community government councils were set up. It was to battle against the setting up of associations and councils in the past. We will be looking after those communities out there. The assets will be preserved in public hands, in the hands of those local communities.
In relation to staff, it is great to see that there are jobs out there. We have created new jobs. We have attracted more money into local government because of these reforms. The federal government - both the Howard government and now the Rudd government - is actively investing in these shires because they see that we have done something about it. So, we do not get the sort of intervention that the member for Fong Lim voted for in the federal parliament. What we have are strong, stable councils which can deliver services so we can improve lives of the people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory, and in regional centres as well.
The naysayers will always be naysayers, Madam Speaker. We got on with the job. We had the courage to make this reform happen, and we will forge ahead. We have strong partnerships out bush now and we will work very strongly as a government with those shires. They are the future of service delivery at the local level, and we will make them a strong part of the Territory.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I feel ashamed that a Minister for Local Government can stand up here tonight and say that this motion is the weakest motion of all the debates we have had in parliament this week. Here we have a chance for the minister to debate something in his bailiwick that he should be proud to debate. He, obviously, supports the changes and I have no problem with that. However, to put it down as if it was something that was just not worth debating is a disgrace for the Local Government Minister ...
Mr Knight: It is over with.
Mr WOOD: Did you say it was over?
Mr Knight: It is looking backwards.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr WOOD: No, minister, this is not looking backwards and I will tell you why. I rang Daly River tonight and was told that, at the moment, people feel they have hit rock bottom. CDEP has been taken away, so has people’s dignity. They have taken their money. They just do not know what to do. They are not interested in working. I will just give you a practical implication. I was told by a Daly River person, around the opening of parliament, if you want a flat tyre fixed now at Daly River - which was a successful community government council - you now have to go to Adelaide River because you cannot get a flat tyre fixed under this new wonderful scheme of super shire. I was nearly going to quote Wicking’s cartoon, but I will not.
It is not as rosy as the government is putting forward. They believe their own propaganda. They will tell you that they negotiated when this first happened. They did not negotiate with anyone but themselves about how many shires there should be. They worked out some magic formula in the department and they said: ‘There will be nine super shires’. There was no discussion with the people of Litchfield - no discussion at all. It is funny, there are nine shires. Nearly all have Labor Party people in the electorates of those shires. I was the only one who was not a member of the Labor Party that represented one of those super shires.
I am not here to beat my own breast about why we actually convinced the government to drop the amalgamation. I simply ask the question: when the government quotes transition meetings, advisory board meetings, and all these meetings, was there someone there who put alternative points of view? That is all I ever did at these meetings. I did not say we should not have reform, but I challenged some of the proposals the government was putting forward. Was there anyone in those other eight shires who queried some of these things? Some of these things, in the end, changed because there was some noise made about them. Why is Litchfield not amalgamated? Because people did not accept what the government was putting forward - because there were independent meetings, not run by the government, not run by the Labor Party’s Sheila O’Sullivan, who had a pseudo public meeting in the high school ...
Ms Lawrie: She is not Labor Party.
Mr WOOD: She is so. Read your own web pages. She is very much a member of the Labor Party in Victoria. Yes, and brought up to sell something which was simply trying to tell us what we should have. I do not believe that many people out there had a chance to hear the other side of the story. I am not saying that it will not work in some cases. But I query the minister saying there was good, open consultation at the very beginning.
I will give you a classic example of the advisory board. What was the point of the advisory board? People might remember that the boundary for the new Top End Shire took in several cattle stations near Pine Creek. The transition committee said: ‘We do not want that boundary to change’, and told the advisory board. The advisory board made sure it did happen. They changed the boundaries, and those cattle stations, I think, are now in the Victoria Daly Shire. Your transition meetings might have passed resolutions, but they were not always listened to.
Minister, you said consultation. The government capped the rates with no consultation with anyone. Just said – boom - these are the rates. That is fine, that is what they do in other countries. However, whether you like it or not, the elected members are supposed to decide the rates. That is why they are elected members. They take the brunt of the criticism if people do not like those rates, and they kick them out at the next election. That is what democracy is about. The minister is not an elected member of the council. He cannot be kicked off any council if he decides to cap the rates. What happens to a council now, for instance, if it has a road program and the price of bitumen goes up 30% in the next three years? Well, it would have to cut back on that road program. It will have to do less grading, because it is using diesel, because its rates will not be as high as required to run a council properly. It is all very nice to say that the rates are going to be capped. It sounds good politically but, from a council’s perspective, I do not think it is the government’s job to do it.
I will continue to say that these councils are far too big. The member for Katherine highlighted that very fact. The government can talk about the numbers of people, efficiency, and all these dynamic things. This is the Victoria Daly Shire Business Structure and Service Delivery Plan. It is like something that should be for the Melbourne City Council. It is complex and covers a large number of requirements the council will possibly, or will have to, look after. You have created a centralised bureaucracy in the case of Victoria River, based in Katherine. Not even the decency to base it in the shire at Wadeye, where it should have been. That is why you now lose your sense of community. That is why some of these communities, as the member for Katherine said, are not supporting their local areas anymore. You have worried about efficiencies, the dollar sign at the end - and that is not saying that is not important - but you have forgotten one of the key things about local government is community. Community cannot be one-third of the Northern Territory; that is regional.
The big con in all this is that the government really approved regional councils. If they said that at the beginning, I might have accepted that, and said all right, and we will have some local governments within that region. But we have set up these enormous councils and, then, we have told them they have to have regional plans. You created the two bottom shires of MacDonnell and Central Desert. I am not sure they take up some of the Barkly but, on their own, they take up nearly a third of the Northern Territory. Do we get what we are supposed to be doing - make sure the roads are right, no pot holes, make sure the town is clean, make sure the rubbish is picked up, and ensure we run our communities so that we can be proud of them?
I believe we lose sight of that. The government keeps saying: ‘This will attract more funds, this will attract more funds, local government will be able to employ more people’. That may be the case, but local government itself needs to ensure that it sticks with its basic services that it should supply to the people. If it wants to take on this great list of other things, do it when it knows it can run the basics. When it runs the basics and can do it well and people are happy with that, take on some of these other things.
This is the business plan - the second draft by the way - and it talks about the commercial things. Community stores and retailers ask why a shire should run a community store. Why is that not private? Employment and training - is that not the job of the Department of Employment and Training? Regarding horticulture, I have said what I think before. There are Indigenous art enterprises, a Post Office agency, and visitor accommodation. Even if you do take those on, it is not the shire that actually creates those jobs. The Post Office, depending on how it is formed, will either pay people to run the agency or it will have to run as a business. I do not think that is the shire’s job. If someone wants to run it as a business, that is fine. If it cannot be done, I am not sure that it is the shire’s job to pick it up.
Minister, at the moment there is a lot of salesmanship and spin saying: ‘The previous CLP government could not do the job, we are doing the job’. That might be the case.
However, I look at Bathurst Island. There was a case with the previous government that made the Tiwi Island Local Government. It was in your area for six years, you looked after it. I saw in the paper recently it was paid $2.7m because it was going bankrupt. Why was it doing that? That was under your period of reign or rule. Nothing much has really changed because it is still the same council. I have to be asking: why has that local government failed when it was under your rules and regulations?
I have 45 pages here of Estimates Committee. We took 2 hours discussing this issue. It highlights many issues in relation to the reform. It is not a case of saying: ‘Well, that is it, goodbye’. We need people like the member for Katherine to question where you are going. You need people, like the people who spoke to me at Daly River, to be able to get up without fear or favour and tell you that things are not good at the Daly. Nauiyu Nambiyu was a fine community council. Here are the words: people are walking around with no jobs and there is no money. They are saying that CDEP is not there any more, CDEP has been withdrawn ...
Mr Knight: Who took it away? This mob here - Tollner.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr WOOD: Well, they are blaming you. You said that this was going to create more jobs, that is what you told the people at Nauiyu. They are saying that is not happening. You ought to go and talk to them and say why it is happening.
You have produced a you-beaut model that looks fantastic in the showroom but, in fact, you have lost sight of the people who have to live with it. You have created a huge council.
I still say that if you had gone through Jack Ah Kit’s model with the 22 regional councils that he was trying to put together - he called them regional councils - you would have come up with a much better model; one that actually had the community involved and dealt more with the community, rather than just about economic efficiencies. I believe that was the way to go.
As I said before in the Estimates Committee, this model is now on its way and we will have to see how it goes. In the long run, it is going to be detrimental to the old concept of local government. Many communities will find they are now just part of a great bureaucracy with a very well-paid CEO, in some local town not even in their shire, and that will be to the detriment of many Aboriginal people. I believe smaller councils can give Aboriginal people a chance to move into management. You now have CEOs being paid $250 000 each. That was the advertised salary. What chance do Aboriginal people have of moving up to that extent? You have more of a chance when you have smaller councils where people can see a chain of employment, where they can start to take control over their own lives. After all, is that not the reason we try to do these things, so Aboriginal people have more control over their own lives? When we start to get close to that, we say: ‘Well, the model is no good; it has some problems. We will develop this big new model which is so complex that it takes the idea of Aboriginal control further away from them’. We have created this you-beaut, southern model of how to run a local government and we have lost sight of what we are going to do.
I cannot say I agree with what is happening - and I am told I am nitpicking - that we can have unelected CEOs and Department of Local Government officials making decisions about these councils when there are no elected members. That is one of the biggest disgraces. The minister quoted the Queensland situation. Queensland has many more shires, even under the amalgamated model. All those councils had elected members from day one. There were no unelected members in Queensland running the council. That is the biggest scandal of this whole thing; that the people who should be having a say are not there to have a say. If the people of Nauiyu believe they are not getting a fair deal, who do they run to? An unelected CEO. If he says, ‘Too bad’, so what? However, if you go to your elected member and say: ‘I have a problem’, that elected member is more likely to jump because he might not have a job at the next election.
Madam Speaker, it looks good on paper, it might be efficient, and the economics might all add up, but I believe you have lost the people. You have lost the community and, in this case, you have lost democratic processes.
Mr GILES (Braitling): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Katherine for his contribution tonight. I recognise that he was not talking about not needing local council reform. He recognised the need for local council reform. Member for Katherine, the assertion that that is not what you are trying to do is completely wrong. I also recognise the member for Daly and his contribution, and what the member for Nelson said.
I am not going to talk about the past. Many people in this Chamber would be well aware that I did not support the process of local council reform in the first place. I will not go over the Star Wars program the minister for stealth liked to ram straight through. What I want to talk about is where we are now and some of the problems, and try to provide a contribution of some ideas about how things need to be fixed.
The big thing that has been touched on by the members for Katherine and Nelson is that people are unhappy with what is happening. Pastoralists, community leaders, community members, council staff, ex-council staff, council managers, and government business managers from the federal government; everyone has a complaint about what is happening with local government reform. Things need to be looked at.
Some of the things I have witnessed in my travels - both before and since entering this House - since the starting up of the shire councils in Central Australia is a quite worrying increase in alcohol consumption in communities. Clearly, cleanliness is deteriorating. There is a lot more rubbish in the communities. Things are starting to fall apart a bit. There are fewer people working and many more people moving away. These are real signs of something that the member for Nelson alluded to; that is, a lack of community control. There are community managers in these communities, but the communities are losing control of their destiny about how they move forward.
I recognise these communities are in the regions. On Tuesday, the Chief Minister alluded in his economic statement about the need to build the regions. We have a Minister for Regional Development from Central Australia - and it is really positive that he is from Central Australia. What the shires have become is fiefdoms in themselves. They have become big centralised models outside of the shire in Alice Springs or Katherine, or wherever it may be but, not actually in the shire. A lesson we can take from the recent election is that when you create centralised models like Darwin, the people from Alice Springs and Katherine and the bush all start to fall away. That is why they do not vote the way people thought they would. What we are seeing now with the shires is people falling away from the council as they know it, and communities are starting to fall apart.
One of the big things that I see as a concern as part of the shire process - and it is something I would like to see fixed - is the exclusion of the private sector investment in the shires. When we talk about economic development and building the regions, it is very important for us to get the private sector into the regions and the shire processes taken out - removing jobs and so forth. The key focus is - and the member for Nelson is right - if you are going to have this new model, get the roads, rates, and rubbish right first before you start moving into other areas.
I am not going to talk about pastoralists tonight, but I will just give you one example from Santa Teresa in the member for Macdonnell’s electorate, and part of the MacDonnell Shire. The community store there has had to change ownership. It used to be owned by the council and different things have happened - new managers have come in. When we talk about employment, what has actually happened on the ground is they used to have six Indigenous staff, now they have gone back to two Indigenous staff. They have more non-Indigenous staff there. You must have the right management, but there were more local people who were working there. What we are actually seeing in that store is the quality of food has gone down. These are reports from all officials in Santa Teresa. The quality of food has gone down, and it costs $7.50 to buy a stale old lettuce in Santa Teresa. Part of our approach in trying to build regions is trying to improve the quality, improve jobs, and all that sort of thing. This is a real problem, and I encourage members on the other side - the member for Stuart in his role of Economic Development, and the member for Macdonnell - to go there and check some of these things out because there are real concerns.
The government likes to talk up the creation of Indigenous jobs in these communities. We have heard all about, in the last couple of days, trying to flag the economic development approach. I am very passionate about that as most people would know. Regarding the creation of jobs in these shires - these people are already working either on CDEP or some other measure. It is actually a bit of a fairytale to talk about creating jobs through this shire process. What has happened is they have transitioned from a CDEP job to a real job or what they should have been in the first place. I do not care whether it goes back to CLP or Labor days, this was always wrong and it should have always been the right way.
What we are seeing with councils moving away from roads, rates and rubbish, and now taking on Night Patrol, CDEP and many other things, is they are losing sight, with that centralised model, of what is actually happening on the ground. They have managed CDEP, and they have managed it right across the Territory. Although in MacDonnell Shire - and I am sure the member for Macdonnell will be interested to know - they have had a contract since 1 July, but they have not started it yet. No one in MacDonnell is on CDEP except for one other alternate provider. No one who is on CDEP in the MacDonnell Shire is actually doing anything. That is why things are falling apart; no one has a job. Whether you call CDEP a job or not, they do not even have anything to do there. They cannot start it because they cannot fill those jobs that the member for Katherine spoke about. That is a real tragedy, and that is why the alcohol and the social behaviours are going backwards.
One of the things that happened on CDEP for many years, which they tried to change last year, was to try to remove the cost-shifting nature of CDEP where, instead of paying someone to do a job, they just put in a CDEP position. That was one of the biggest changes. The Territory government likes to flag how they have removed all that; there are transitioning jobs going, the feds are putting all the money in to change these jobs from CDEP to full-time jobs - which is a good thing. However, there is an underlying problem here that people are not really seeing. I have been at liberty to see some of this stuff. There is actually a new cost-shifting model that is going on. When we see that the shires are running CDEP - I will just run through some figures here and explain how some of the CDEP works.
We talk about how some of the shires are getting propped up by federal money through a cost-shifting approach. For every person that the shire takes off CDEP and puts into one their own jobs, they get $3025. Across the Territory, there are a number of jobs, and a number of outcomes that they have to achieve. I have done a rough calculation on a very minimal scale of 400. If the shire takes 400 people off CDEP and gets them into a job, they get $1.2m to fill their coffers. That is exactly what happens. I am aware that the shires have taken the CDEPs and kept the private sector and the local community organisations out, and not let anyone local do it, and not let any local jobs happen to support economic development. They all have it based out of a central approach. Now, when they are trying to fill jobs in their communities, they are not letting the private sector in, they are going straight to the Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations and negotiating contracts for those people with that federal government agency, to try to get more money to employ Aboriginal people, because they cannot do it on their own.
They cannot get a private sector company to do it; they want to try to get the money for themselves because they are not going to fund it properly. They go out there and they say: ‘We would like direct wage assistance because we are going to put an Aboriginal person on. That is the kind of people we are’. So, they get $4400 for each person they put on. Or, if they are smart, which I think they are, they go and negotiate what is called a ‘steppers’ contract - Structured Training Employment Related Services contract. They negotiate $13 000 to put an Aboriginal person in a full-time job.
If they put 400 people on, as I was talking about, they will get paid $5.2m just to employ Aboriginal people. Well, it is part of their job to employ Aboriginal people. This is out in the communities. They should not get paid this. They should be helping set up local businesses, and the local Aboriginal businesses get paid this money and supply the labour to these shire councils. This is what economic development is all about. This is not about creating these little kingdoms in Alice Springs to run shire councils.
Let me talk about one other financial aspect. I do not know what the ACP is - what they term how many CDEP places each shire has - but I know that in the middle of last year there were about 8000 in the Northern Territory. So, I am predicting there will be minimum of 5000 across the shires in the Northern Territory. For every CDEP participant that you are allocated, whether they start or not, you get $5100 per person. So, if you have 5000 people on CDEP across the shires in the Northern Territory, whether they started in MacDonnell or not, that is $25.5m going into their coffers from the federal government to help run CDEP for the shires. That $25.5m would be much better out in the bush, for an Aboriginal business, an Aboriginal organisation, or somewhere local - not based out of Alice Springs where the administrative money stays in Alice Springs or in Katherine. That is not how it is supposed to be done. If we are talking about real regional development, we should have the money in the bush, and that is what it is all about.
I only say these things because I would really like to see change there. I am not criticising, I am saying that you have it wrong, and so these are some of the things that need to change. In total, that comes to $31.4m as an under-estimation of what I predict the shire councils will receive by taking money from the federal process just on CDEP, wage assistance, and structure training and employment.
On Tuesday, we heard the fluff piece about the economic direction going into the regions. If we have $30m going to the shires, you have to get it to local businesses, not to Alice Springs. It cannot go to Alice Springs or Katherine. I support Alice Springs in economic development, but you have to develop business in the bush. You have to get local bush people working and, if you take all those jobs out and put them in town, where we see those kingdoms in Ford Plaza there, it is just not the way to go. It does not support the Territory, it does not support the bush, and that is what it is about.
We heard yesterday, and the day before, about the 408 jobs, I think it was, that the shires have apparently created. No matter how it works, whether those people were on CDEP plus top-up before or whatever, the amount of people now complaining to me that, ‘we are on 35 hours a week’. The Local Government Minister, the member for Daly, said: ‘This is how good we are going, we have 408 people in jobs’. How many of those were on 35 hours a week before the council changes and, now, have gone back to 25 hours a week or 16 hours a week? With the number of people who have actually had a pay cut by the local shires coming, I do not think that 408 is actually a positive thing. Those people should have been paid properly in the first place.
When you are employing Aboriginal people, we recognise that, sometimes, you want the skill set up here, and sometimes you pay the people here. People may not always have the skill set, but the most important thing in getting Aboriginal people into work is to give them a job. It is not about dropping their pay. You have to give people a job. It is not about the education. You have to give people a job. People will work if you give them a job. Now, we are seeing with the shires people taking pay cuts, and that is why people are leaving their jobs. They are going back to welfare and back to CDEP. That is not what the shire creation is about, and that is happening all over the Territory.
I give another example about some of the impacts of the shires coming in. I have four examples of this that I will just quickly cover. We spoke a little about the assets and vehicles. In the MacDonnell Shire, one of the key concerns is the access to community buses. I am not a big supporter of community buses. I know the problems there, and all the inherent things that go on. However, a community bus was used to get people to football. We have this new football model in Alice Springs. We have five bush teams and five town teams. I am sure the member for Stuart knows a lot about the football and how it operates down there. What is happening is that all their games, home and away, are played in Alice Springs. So, if you are from Papunya, Yuendumu, Ti Tree, Santa Teresa, or Hermannsburg, you have to travel in. I do not fully support that football model, but that is the way it works. All these communities come in and play football, and they used to use the bus.
What the MacDonnell Shire has done is say: ‘No more bus. We are not letting you use the bus anymore. We are not giving you petrol. You cannot use the bus’. So, what is happening? We have seen a couple of forfeited games, which is not that good, but what we are also seeing is people now driving their cars. I have no problem with people driving their cars. We all know how bad most of the bush roads are, all except for Hermannsburg, which has a reasonable sealed road. People are driving in when they normally get the bus in. They come together, that community spirit, that team spirit, and they get the bus home.
Now, people are staying in town because they drive in and they do not have enough petrol to get back. They are all staying in town. We know urban drift. We know the over-population problems. What is happening? They are all drinking. Not all, I should not say all. However, a lot of people who have come into town are drinking and then driving home. We have heard about the problems with the road toll and this is a cross-portfolio issue. People are driving into town, watching the football and drinking and driving home. There have been unfortunate accidents where people have died going home after being in town watching the football. This is a significant problem. This is a side effect of what is happening with the shire councils. People are driving on these roads and there are more accidents.
When you are in government, it is not just about programs and putting money in; it is about having key policies and thinking about how they have other effects down the track. This is a significant problem that is coming out of the shires. It is not just about people getting pay cuts, or not getting jobs or CDEP not operating. People are now driving and drinking. I know it is their responsibility not to do that, but it is a significant problem.
We should look at all the different policy areas that are involved in these shires, and get the members for Daly, Karama, Stuart, Arafura, and Casuarina and, maybe, if they borrowed the famous stapler that the member for Fong Lim spoke about yesterday, bring all of those things together and start talking about what some of those issues are. You have set up this little kingdom and the areas of each one of your portfolios are affected in each one of those shires. There is only one department looking after that and they are not looking at any of those problems.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I speak to this matter of public importance. I agree that the issue of local government in the Northern Territory and the reforms that we have taken with local government is important. It is one that our government has taken quite seriously. It is quite offensive to say that members - and I do not mean this as a cheap political shot - whose electorates are where this reform of local government and the shires are, are out of touch, or that we do not have the discussion, the communication, or the consultation with our communities regarding the importance of what these reforms have meant to these communities. Like any reform, you are going to encounter problems. We all know that if you are going to change a system that has been deeply embedded in the Northern Territory for a long time - for a long time we have seen the neglect that has been out there and the problems that we saw with community government council’s and association councils.
The member for Nelson stands often and talks about his wealth of knowledge with local government. I am not disputing he has a wealth of knowledge. He is quite a passionate advocate when it comes to local government. Since being in this Chamber with him since 2001, he sometimes sounds like a broken record, but you cannot accuse him of not being passionate about the issues with local government, which goes back to his experience on the Tiwi Islands and also Daly River.
One of the running sores of political life in the Northern Territory has been the inefficiency and the dysfunctionality of much of what has passed for local government in the Territory over the last two decades. There is not one member in this House who can say that we have a history that we can be proud of in what has been complete dysfunction in some of our communities. We all know the impact when a council has gone belly-up in the past in many of our communities with small community government councils. Services stop and no-one in that community can get services.
In March 2002 in this House, the then Local Government Minister, John Ah Kit, made the point that, at any one point in time in the Northern Territory, the majority of community councils were on the point of collapse. I just want to take some members back to that. He said:
- The simple fact is that it is almost impossible to find a functional Aboriginal community anywhere in the Northern Territory. I just do not just mean the 10 or 15 communities that my department tells me that, at any one stage, are managerial or financial basket cases. The fact that a community may not get their quarterly statements in on time is only part of the story.
I am talking about the dysfunction that is endemic through virtually all of our communities, both in towns and the bush.
What John Ah Kit was talking about in 2002 is an area of dysfunction that the nation was alerted to more than half a decade before Mal Brough and John Howard discovered a national emergency in the lead-up to an election. It is an area in which, in the past, there have been calls for reforms from both the current Leader of the Opposition, and the members for Port Darwin and Nelson. You hear them constantly: ‘Something has to be fixed in these Aboriginal communities’. Not everyone is going to be happy with the reforms. We have a very good framework. This is a fantastic policy, but we are only going to make it work by working with it and ensuring our policy is bedded down properly.
Any suggestion that this side of politics has had no worries about community concerns on local government is absolute nonsense. Every member on our side who holds a bush seat hears those concerns loud and clear, and we advocate to our Minister for Local Government so we can work through these difficulties. We too, are sick and tired of seeing the impact on the ground in our communities when they are not working ...
A member: Why does the minister treat it as though it is not important, then?
Ms SCRYMGOUR: The minister does think it is important. We have worked through addressing this. It is important. Not only is it nonsense, it is also deeply insulting to the many people out bush who have been raising the profound concerns about local government that have led us to the current reform process, commenced by us two years ago. It is also deeply insulting to the hundreds of Territorians who have been actively involved in bringing the shires into fruition.
The fact is, this government has been prepared to take on those concerns, rather than sweeping them to one side, as was the case of successive CLP governments and now, it seems, successive CLP oppositions; whose main concerns, appear to be self-interest rather than public interest. The opposition is raising a straw man. Just because they say we have not listened to people’s concerns, does not make it true. Assertions from those members opposite do not square with reality. In fact, the opposite is true.
This government’s passion for people’s concerns about local government has led to many thousands of hours of consultation across the Territory. These consultations have been carried out by many public servants, and have seen the participation of many hundreds of Territorians whose lives will be affected by the new shire structure to local government.
I went, with the former Minister for Local Government, Elliot McAdam, who was very passionate about the reforms, to my own electorate and other electorates of West Arnhem, consulting with people from Gunbalanya, Maningrida and through the outstations at Minjilang and Warruwi, picking up those concerns. We were talking to people about what the shires would to be able to do.
In some of the regions, people are saying that they have lost their ability to control or businesses have moved away. If anything, what I have seen in West Arnhem - and maybe because that region was talking amalgamations and shires for four years prior to the actual reform - it has made those structures a lot stronger.
Sure, there are problems. I am not saying that there are 100% problem-free zones out there in some of those communities. There are issues, but the communities are working through some of those problems. They have most of their staff, if not all. When I was talking to the West Arnhem Shire CEO, Mark Griffioen, nearly all of the managers in those communities have now been put in place and work is commencing. The main impact of people feeling demoralised, which the member for Nelson talked about, was already happening because of the intervention, and there was also the local government reform that people were trying to grapple with.
There were problems on the Tiwi Islands for a long time. The Tiwi Islands was part of the first lot of councils that went through the amalgamations and then turned into a shire. There are, and have been, issues within these structures, but people have worked on them. The communities want much of this. You are always going to get a group in a community that does not want the change and will not work with it. They will always want to have life as it always has been.
I have spent many hours in my electorate talking to people about their concerns about local government, both the limited regional governance adopted by the CLP, and the more far-reaching shire models that we now have. These discussions have occurred on the mainland and the islands. They have been passionate discussions, sometimes even heated arguments, but they have been real and have involved the people actually being affected by the changes. More importantly, they have built on years, if not decades, of concern about local government. The assertion by the opposition that we have not allowed the time for, or listened to, the concerns raised about local government is false. The last two years have seen more discussion about local government than over the last two decades. The discussions, the debates, and the consultations have been a healthy development for Territory democracy. In 12 months time, when things bed down in many of the communities - because when you look at where the benchmark has been in some of these communities, they have been pretty low - the bar will have lifted for Aboriginal people.
I ask: ‘Why should Aboriginal people in remote communities not have the best local government structures?’, as the member for Nelson also said. I agree with some of the things that the member for Braitling was saying. We have to stimulate the economy in those communities. The shires can do it or the local community could do it. It does not need the shires to do it. Why should roads, rates, and rubbish only be for people in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant, Alice Springs or even the Litchfield Shire? Why should it only be people who live in our urban or regional towns who have good local government services? Why should Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities not have a shire structure that is going to provide a more centralised, streamlined service in local government services and delivery into their communities?
Until this reform we have had a two-tiered system which has been discriminatory. One local government system for everyone else and a very low benchmark of local government services for people living out in the bush. This reform has changed that. It is hypocritical of members on the other side to say that we should not have it or it should not be there.
Of course, there are concerns. I acknowledge the member for Katherine when he said there are concerns. With any reforms there are concerns. Any major reform you bring into the Northern Territory will have problems which you are going to have to work through.
Discussion concluded.
ADJOURNMENT
Ms LAWRIE (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Madam Speaker, I place on the record the success of one of our Northern Territory police officers, Constable First Class Michael Deutrom, who has today been awarded the 2008 Rotary Police Officer of the Year.
Today I praised our police force for the good work they do, and for the professionalism of the men and women who choose policing as an honourable career. As I said, there cannot be many jobs where individuals are expected to be good pillars of society, demonstrate their care for people and, at the same time, often deal with violent situations placing their own health and safety in danger to serve and protect their community.
The Rotary Police Officer of the Year Award is a truly prestigious award, and is highly contested each year. It is very much a great sense of achievement for a police officer to win this particular award, especially given that the police service has a highly structured and determinant award system, based on years served and other professional aspects. However, this is really valued because it is community-based, and it is the community that nominates these officers for this particular award.
I understand that this year Michael was selected for this award from a field of 34 highly commendable police members. Michael is still a young member of the Northern Territory Police Force but this significant achievement recognises his outstanding career to date. I understand that since joining the Northern Territory Police Force in October 1998, Michael has served in Alice Springs, Katherine, Yulara, and Darwin, virtually all in the General Duties area.
I remember meeting Michael for the first time with the member for Macdonnell. It must have been around 2005-06, just after the member for Macdonnell was elected. I was on a visit to Yulara with the member for Macdonnell, and we spent quite some time with young Michael Deutrom. As the Police minister, he really impressed me as a man who was really going to go places in our police force, such was his passion for his job, and his determination as a police officer to make a real difference in the community in which he was serving. I remember him from that day. He has, obviously, gone on and achieved this significant success.
Michael is currently a member of the Commander’s Tactical Team at the Darwin Police Station and deals with property crime. Michael also worked at the Mutitjulu community with Taskforce Themis from July 2007 to February 2008. This will be one of the milestones in his career that Michael will look back on in years to come. From July to December 2006, Michael worked in Dili, East Timor, on secondment to the Australian Federal Police. I am advised Michael was born in New Guinea, where his father was a magistrate, and he has a brother who is also a member of the Northern Territory Police Force.
Madam Speaker, I congratulate the Rotary Club of Darwin for their ongoing commitment in conducting these awards each year.
Earlier this week, I hosted a function with Madam Speaker in the Main Hall to celebrate the Rotary Club of Darwin’s 50th birthday of them contributing to our community in Darwin. I mentioned at that function that this particular award has been going - I might be wrong here, I am remembering my speech to the Rotary Club - for 24 years. It certainly has been going for a long time. I spoke to members of Rotary that evening about how well received this award was by police officers who achieved it.
I would have liked to have been present when Michael received his award earlier this evening; however, my parliamentary duties precluded me from attending the function. I look forward to catching up with Michael to congratulate him in person. As I said, I have met him a couple of times as Police minister. I specifically remember those few hours spent with him and other officers at Yulara a few years ago. I was very impressed by a young police officer who was dedicated and committed to his job.
I invite members to join with me in paying tribute to Michael’s success and wishing him well for his future career in our Northern Territory Police Force.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak on an issue I wanted to raise in the police debate. I am glad to see that the minister for Police is here because I would like him to listen to this. If what I have gleaned from his annual report is true, it could actually go some way to saving some lives. I urge the minister to stay to listen to this because it is very important. I urge the staff on the fifth floor to listen to this so they can tell the Police minister there is a very important statistical anomaly that he needs to be aware of, because it might make a difference.
I have been tracking back through some old police annual reports. In those annual reports, I discovered that police changed the way they used speed cameras for a very short period of time. I direct members’ attention to the original estimate - you can find this, by the way, on page 67 of the 2004-05 annual report for police. On page 67, you can find the original estimate for that year for the number of speed and red light camera checks that were going to be conducted that year. The proposal for that year was 1.15 million speed camera checks. However, they changed their philosophy somewhat and, towards the end of the year, they actually lowered their estimates by almost half - they went to 660 000 speed camera checks, and their final result for the year was 624 918 speed checks using speed cameras.
The reason I raise this issue now, all these years later, was that there was actually a change in the way that they thought about using speed cameras. In footnote 2 on that page, which I quote, it says:
- The emphasis on intelligence-led policing concepts has led to the active targeting of identified hot spots in relation to excessive speeding resulting in fewer random camera checks being conducted. This measure will be changed in the next reporting period to reflect the number of vehicles passing a speed camera checkpoint ...
What they have, basically, said is: ‘We are going to change the way we use these speed cameras. We are going to step away from the volumetric approach and we are going to target them at hot spots’.
They abandoned that approach and they returned in the following year - and I now refer to page 60 of the 2005-06 annual report, the speed camera checks. Having abandoned the approach of targeting hot spots they returned to simple volumetric approaches. Their original estimate for the year was 660 000. They thought: ‘We will not do hot spots. We will do volume and we will get lots and lots of cars, so we will do 850 000’. Their actual result for the year was 804 914.
They said, as a deterrent, that speed cameras should perform in the following way: that it should nab less than or equal to 3% of drivers actually speeding, through the volumetric process. Their final result for that year on that page was 3%, so they were at the very top end of the range of what they expected was going to be the result.
The following year - and I am now referring to page 43 of the annual report in 2006-07 - they set a target of 850 000 speed camera checks, once again pursuing the volumetric approach rather than targeting hot spots. They checked 723 549 vehicles. However, they used the same benchmark of less than or equal to 3% of all vehicles checked would be committing an offence. The result was 4%. What you see from this is that the volumetric approach has not changed driver behaviour. What is portrayed by these figures on page 43 of the 2006-07 report is that 4% of drivers are now getting caught.
It is curious because, in the year when they used the targeted approach, they did not actually report what the hit rate was. But, I can tell you something: there is a very interesting correlation between using the targeted approach - the hot-spot approach rather than the volumetric approach – and road fatalities, which can be discovered on page 65 of the 2005-06 annual report and extrapolated and tacked onto the end.
I am also going to be referring to page 45 of the 2006-07 annual report because - guess what happened? On the year that they decide to use speed cameras to actually target hot spots, places where they know drivers are going to be speeding, and the places and the times when they know drivers are going to be speeding, there is a surprising fall in the number of road fatalities during that period. In the year 2004-05, there were 40 deaths on our roads. The police then moved away from using the targeted approach and they started going back to the volumetric approach. They started going after 750 000 to one million or whatever. Instantly, we started to see an increase in the number of fatalities. In the year 2005-06, the number of fatalities leapt from 40 to 48, in the 2006-07 year to 49, and we already know how disgusting this year’s is starting to look.
It is a great disappointment to me that when I turn to Budget Paper No 3, page 50, the police are insisting on continuing to use the volumetric approach to using speed cameras. The reason this is frustrating - and I point out that on that page they are now back to checking a million vehicles - The more vehicles they have to check means that they use the speed cameras in a particular way. As a speed camera operator, if I have a target where I have to check a million vehicles in a year, then that target means I have to sit in high density, high traffic areas. Often we see that these cameras are set up on Bagot Road taking a photograph of every car they see.
It is an intuitive thing, but it is a fair comment, that you do not get that many fatal accidents on Bagot Road in peak hour. What you get is fender benders, but you do not get fatal accidents during that period. However, the cameras have to be there during that period to meet the targets of a million camera checks a year. There are only 155 000 cars in the Northern Territory, so each car has to be checked about four or five times.
Would it not be better to abandon the volumetric approach and return to using speed cameras where they are going to act as an actual deterrent? The place that you use those speed cameras is Salonika at 3 am, when those young hoons in their souped-up WRXs, or God knows what else they are driving, seem to think that the Salonika crossing is an area where you have to set land speed records. That is where they wrap themselves around the trees. That is where they are killing themselves. That is where they are killing their passengers.
Without pre-empting the Coroner’s investigation into recent fatal accidents, nearly every accident I have seen reported has happened out of hours in places where people tend to drive fast, and at times you know they are going to drive fast. So why are we focused on this volumetric approach as a solution? The police force’s own figures show that it is not acting as a deterrent and they are not even meeting their own benchmarks of driver behaviour as a result of the use of speed cameras.
If this correlation - and it is a very real correlation - is actually matched by the intuitive interpretation I am putting on it, that the year they used a targeted approach is the year that fatal motor vehicle accidents markedly came down because the young hoons who do so much of the damage to themselves and other people actually thought to themselves: ‘Holy moley, I am going to get picked up by a speed camera at 3 am’ - or at 5 am or whenever in these targeted hot spots - then, surely, we should stop using these cameras in such a way that we are only chasing volume.
We can test two million drivers a year, and it just means we have to get an extra speed camera at Bagot Road during peak hour - or on the Stuart Highway or wherever.
It is something that must be looked at by the police force as well as the government. I urge the Chief Minister to look very carefully at these numbers because there is a very strong correlation between the one opportunity they used hot-spot-based police camera work and the actual number of fatalities for that 12-month period. It cannot be ignored. I plead with this government to look at these numbers and these annual reports - I am happy to table the material that I have quoted from because it is all publicly available - and look at the way the number of deaths correlate to that particular year.
It may be coincidental but if it is not, and even if there is a remote opportunity that is not coincidental, then I recommend in the strongest possible terms that the minister for Transport and the minister for Police look again at how we are using those cameras. If we are just using these cameras to check a million drivers a year, you can well understand why so many people are critical of government using these speed cameras, not in a genuine attempt to limit speed, but simply as a revenue-raising exercise.
Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table these documents.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Deputy Speaker, the opposition was due to have General Business Day on 30 October, 2008, the last day of next sittings. There have been discussions between the government and opposition because of the important visit of President Jose Ramos-Horta to the Legislative Assembly on 30 October 2008, and we felt it would be better to move the General Business Day. Therefore, the General Business Day will be held on Wednesday, 29 October 2008.
I stand here tonight as a local member, minister and Leader of Government Business, disappointed at the carry-on in this place over the past two weeks. It saddens me that this parliament has been used to victimise those who cannot defend themselves in here. Parliamentary privilege is just that -- a privilege. That privilege, I believe, has been misused in the past two weeks.
Some members of the opposition have used this House as a coward’s castle, throwing unsubstantiated allegations around at public servants. Those members have been unwilling to back up those comments when they walk out the front door because they know they will be sued for defamation. Those members who have done that are shameless; attacking those who cannot defend themselves. There is one member of the opposition who, I believe, can right that wrong.
The member for Drysdale should take the opportunity tonight to retract the statements he made about the Police Commissioner, and apologise. Last week, the member for Drysdale, in this House, accused the Police Commissioner of doctoring crime statistics - an incredibly serious allegation. Referring to the crime statistics, he said: ‘Very good, it is all doctored’. He went on to say: ‘It is all doctored’. When it was pointed out that, as a former police officer he must have been involved, he defended himself by pointing the finger at the Police Commissioner: ‘The commissioner made a direction’. He accused the commissioner of directing crime statistics to be doctored. If you look up ‘doctored’ in the Macquarie Dictionary it says: ‘to tamper with, falsify, adulterate’. It is an absolutely outrageous claim and misuse of parliamentary privilege.
When asked what he thought of the comment, I thought the Police Commissioner was very restrained. I quote the Police Commissioner from ABC midday radio news:
- I flatly reject the assertion. There’s no substance to it whatsoever. Mr Bohlin as a former police officer should know better quite frankly.
In my time as Commissioner we’ve worked hard to produce meaningful crime statistics to the community in the Northern Territory.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, the member for Drysdale should know better. He should withdraw those comments and he should apologise unreservedly.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to say a few things tonight about a friend of mine, one whom I do not always agree with, but who is a very passionate Territorian and that is Rob Wesley-Smith. He is also a constituent. Everyone in this House would know that he is seriously ill so I thought I would talk about this fine Territorian.
Rob worked for many years for the department of Primary Industry and, as you know, Berrimah Farm is a bit of a hot topic at the moment. He came to see me - this is the sort of person he is - concerned about the heritage value of the Berrimah Farm. He brought documents and photographs showing me where the communication centre used to be at Berrimah Farm.
He is not just about Timor, although Timor has probably taken up 30 years of his life. Anyone who has followed the issues of Timor would know that Rob Wesley-Smith stands out like a shining beacon. I did not always agree with him, but you could not ever say that this man was not passionate. He is a person who stands up for what he believes in, and that is what makes him a great bloke.
He has also been concerned about the environment. He is a great supporter of no INPEX in the harbour. He is a great supporter of no industrial development in the harbour. He supported the preservation of the mangroves. He has a passion about a whole range of issues.
He has also been a school bus driver. When he lost his job with the department of Primary Industry, he had difficulty finding other work. As far as I know, the kids loved him and he enjoyed the job.
He is a singer and his brother, Martin, is a very famous singer, involved in opera and all those sort of things. Rob is quite a good singer and has been part of the Darwin Chorale from time to time, and he enjoys his singing.
He is also very much a part of Howard Springs. In fact, earlier this year, I think it was this year, he pulled up in his car up – oh, he has a new car now. He drove up to the Howard Springs Shopping Centre and asked me to come out and have a look at his pumpkin. Well, he had a pumpkin! It was so big that I took a photograph of him and the pumpkin and put it in my newsletter as Rob’s answer to affordable housing. That is how big the pumpkin was.
The man is passionate, and has a great sense of humour as well. He has many talents. We should be proud to have people like that in the Territory, regardless of our political persuasions. He is the sort of person that makes you feel proud to be in the Territory because we do have people like Rob. Tonight I say: I hope, Rob, if you are reading this at some stage, that you are getting better, and that you will have a full recovery. I am sure everyone in this House would also wish him well.
I will be visiting him as soon as he can have visitors; at the present time, he is still seriously ill. I was listening to his brother on the radio this morning, and I think he said Rob is still sedated. He has nine broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe head injuries, which is not something you would recover from quickly. I do hope he is back on the road, back out fighting for causes. The Howard Springs is one of the causes, making sure Howard Springs is open. He is a Friend of the Springs, and a Friend of the Fogg. He is out there fighting on many issues, and I want to see him come back. Regardless of whether we agree with him or not, we love him.
The second issue is a favourite topic of mine. I pulled a page off the web the other day because I had heard that there had been some changes in South Australia. I quickly looked up whether that was true. A media release from the government of South Australia, dated 13 February 2008, said:
- South Australia is increasing the incentive for the community to recycle by doubling the current 5 cent deposit on drink containers to 10 cents, the first increase since the scheme began in 1977.
- Premier Mike Rann says that while South Australia continues to lead the rest of Australia with recycling of its drink containers, there are still about 8000 tonnes - or more than 185 million of them - going into landfill each year.
There is a quote here from the Environment and Conservation Minister:
- We know that CDL is extremely popular in the community and effective …
A Labor minister:
- … in reducing litter and encouraging recycling with 92% of respondents supporting the CDL scheme in a detailed consumer survey in 2004.
It went on:
- Premier Rann says increasing the deposit to 10 cents will help on many levels.
‘It will ensure even more containers are recycled, as well as reducing litter and increasing the amount community groups can generate in income for the return of CDL containers’.
This is something I had not taken into account, and I am sure ministers will take note of:
- ‘Importantly, it will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 000 tonnes a year’.
If that does not convince this government to get off its rear end and do something about CDL, I do not know what will get them off …
Ms Scrymgour: National, national.
Mr WOOD: No, I just do not believe I heard that word.
- Recycling industry figures indicate that each year South Australians return more than 420 million containers, made up of 140 million glass bottles, 168 million cans, 92 million PET bottles and 20 million fruit drink and flavoured milk cartons. More than $20m is collected each year by South Australians returning drink containers within the scheme.
The 10 cent deposit will be implemented later this year …
It is implemented now:
- … in consultation with the beverage industry ...
I should not need to say any more. South Australia - good old South Australia - is the only state in Australia to have enough brains to introduce a system which we know works. What do we do in the Territory? Put it in the too-hard basket. We have some trials in some of the communities. We have money given to us by the beverage industry to make pretty 44 gallon drums. We spend an absolute fortune picking up rubbish up and down our highways - an absolute fortune. Our highways are dirty - they are filthy. The only reason they sometimes look clean is because there is a little quad bike going up and down every day picking up rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. We should not need to be doing that. We should be able to recycle those things. How much of that stuff is going into the Shoal Bay tip? A huge amount. It should not be. How much of this stuff is in community landfill sites? Heaps and heaps and heaps.
I say to the government: come on. I have been going on about this long before local government amalgamations - way back in the good old days when life was simple and we seemed to understand simple solutions really work in some cases. This is one that can work. Do not wait for the national government to introduce a deposit scheme. They are going to be continually pounded by the beverage industry and the packaging industry not to introduce it. The chance of us having a national CDL deposit scheme is about as much as it snows in Darwin at Christmas. That is the chances of having a national deposit scheme. I say, come on government. You are in your third term. Do something for the community. Do something to reduce greenhouse gases. It is a positive approach, a realistic approach, for reducing greenhouse gases. Do it. Do not hide behind all the excuses, just do it.
The issue of the pool came up today and I heard a comment from the Chief Minister, having a little go at the Litchfield Shire Council, right at the end. I went to a Litchfield Shire Council meeting to discuss the pool. We need to sit down and see whether this can actually work. They told me that they have not been involved; that the previous member for Goyder went to a meeting and promised they would get a full analysis of how this pool was going to work and how it was going to be costed, and the government has not sent them anything.
I take exception to what the Chief Minister has said about Litchfield Shire. I thought we were coming in for a bit of a change. There has been talk from Graeme Sawyer from Darwin City Council trying to form a cooperative approach between the Territory government and local government yet, because Litchfield does not quite sit neatly sometimes with this government, it likes to have a dig. In this case, the government should be doing the right thing. The council has been promised they would see the details.
I make it clear that I do not have a problem with the pool per se but it would be a foolish local politician to say ‘Just build it’, and then find out the thing cost $400 000 a year and have no idea where that money is coming from. Surely, it is my job to query the government about how it has reached a decision that a pool will be built for this much money, it will go on this block of land, the YMCA will be involved in it, and God only knows who will own it? Those basic answers are not known to the public. They are not known to me, and I am a local member. They do not appear to be known to the school. I ask that the government provide us with those figures so we can have a proper analysis - which includes the public having a look at it - to make sure if we build a pool, it will not cost a fortune to run it, and it will be in the right place.
There are many people in my area who oppose the pool. The pool is not 100% popularly supported. I have had a lady who has said: ‘Spend it on the library. Do not spend it on silly old swimming pools. You can go and swim in the creek or you have your own pool’. She thinks the money should be spent somewhere else. I must admit, if there is one place that needs to be upgraded to a bigger size that is the community library because it is far too small for the number of students now. However, I digress.
If you want to convince people who are a bit suspicious about whether this pool is really needed in the Litchfield Shire, then come back with the figures and show us who is going to run it, who is going to own it, and which is the best place to put it. The minister mentioned Taminmin High School. It is not going to belong to Taminmin High. It was already decided they are going to excise the land. That means it is going to be a public pool not a school pool. Is that the right place for the pool?
You want to have the pool in the most effective place that will get the most use. If it means Humpty Doo, terrific; if it means Freds Pass, terrific. But no one has said: ‘We have done a study and we have looked at the population, school and sporting club figures and we have worked out this might be the best site to have it’. We have not had any of that. We have had a bit of secret squirrel business.
The previous member for Goyder got together a group. Today, I rang a lady today who is in that group and they are not sure where it is going. I am not even sure the YMCA knows where it is going.
In Question Time today I was asking for some details. It is much easier for me to convince people the pool is good if I have some details. However, when I am told: ‘You are just Woody Woodpecker and just knock everything’ - well, if I am Woody Woodpecker then I say the minister is a beaver. He gets stuck into the big logs and knocks them over.
Ms Scrymgour interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, I ask the questions because they are the ones the government needs to answer. It is not about knocking; it is about my job on this side of parliament. I am not a member of the opposition. My job as a local member is to question the government, and that is what this is about. It is not about Litchfield Shire. I say to the Chief Minister: please send the details to Litchfield Shire and let us see if we can improve the relationship between Litchfield and the NT government because, in the end, that will benefit everyone in the rural area.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I join with the member for Nelson in acknowledging the contribution of Rob Wesley-Smith. He is a passionate advocate. In my time as the minister for the Environment, he was a purist. Rob has very strong convictions and he does not waiver from them. That is seen in his passion and fight for the people of East Timor. My husband had a lot to do with him when they were working between East Timor and here. He is a man of integrity. Member for Nelson, it is not only you who disagreed with him; he has differing views to many people. However, he is a man of integrity. I join with you in hoping that he does recover. All of us, when we read the news that he had been hurt, sent their thoughts to him because he epitomises a true Territorian and one who does care about people. It is not just about East Timor or the environment; he is a very strong advocate for Aboriginal issues and Aboriginal people. He sees himself as the advocate and the sole fighter for many of the disadvantaged. That is what Rob Wesley-Smith stands for.
I am not going to get in the CDL debate. I have had the CDL debate with the member for Nelson many times.
Tonight, I inform the House about the government’s latest efforts to settle the long-running teachers’ dispute. I say up-front that the Northern Territory government has been negotiating in good faith with the Australian Education Union. The existing Enterprise Bargaining Agreement covers approximately 2500 teachers, and the Australian Education Union has engaged in industrial action, with some 900 to 1100 Australian Education Union Northern Territory members participating.
On 20 August 2008, the Commissioner for Public Employment made a formal, revised offer which represented a substantial increase over the government’s previous offers, and addressed issues such as strongly competitive salaries for the duration of the agreement, reduction in maximum class sizes, improvements to remote conditions, and work/life balance initiatives. The offer was taken by the union executive to members during meetings across the Territory, and it was rejected. This result is very disappointing.
We are now faced with the Australian Education Union taking strike action for three days next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This is absolutely shocking. Next week, Year 12 students at Casuarina Secondary College, Casuarina Senior College, Nhulunbuy High School and Palmerston High School will be doing their trial exams. There are Year 9 students involved in Try-a-Trade, as well as Year 11 and 12 students who have major assessment pieces due to be submitted.
As the Education minister, I met with the executive of the Australian Education Union this afternoon to discuss their issues surrounding resourcing and non-contact time for primary teachers. I put forward a clear plan; a way forward that would benefit students and teachers. I committed to fully costing their resourcing proposals and taking them to Cabinet. I pleaded with the executive to consider the students and to not to take strike action. However, I have been advised the plan I put forward has been rejected by the executive of the Australian Education Union.
We would be irresponsible as a government if we did not cost all measures carefully. In Question Time today, we heard the opposition stirring this matter up. They are supporting the three-day teachers strike next week. As Education minister, I urge our teachers and the opposition to think about the repercussions of this action; to think about the disruptions this will cause to families and to students who are getting close to exam time.
Today, I had a story relayed to me about a Year 12 student who cried when told that her teachers were going to be stopping work for three days next week. Those opposite run the economic vandal argument. They are willing to do and say anything to please people without considering the consequences. Open-ended salary increases can only lead to cuts in services - and that is what the opposition proposes.
The Northern Territory government does value our teachers. We know the importance of having quality teachers and leaders in all our schools. We are putting more resources into Territory schools. Under Closing the Gap, the Department of Education and Training has responsibility for delivering $80.5m over the next four years, and this includes additional teachers and counsellors. We are committed to a $246m schools infrastructure program over the next four years which includes providing each primary and large group school with a $300 000 upgrade. This is the biggest ever schools infrastructure program in the history of the Territory.
I implore teachers to consider their actions carefully. I urge the union executive to put a stop to the strike. The government will do as much as it can, including taking action in the Industrial Relations Commission, to prevent the strike from going ahead. I urge all members to think about the students. It is students and their families who will be caught up in this avoidable dispute. I urge the teachers to reconsider strike action. I urge members opposite to back the government’s attempt to bring an end to this dispute.
We are genuine in our desire to negotiate a solution. Industrial action is unnecessary and disruptive.
Mr GILES (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I pay tribute to a constituent of mine. It is the first time I have risen to pay respect to someone who lives in the electorate of Braitling. We all have these people in our community and in our electorates who are stalwart - and we have used the word ‘stalwart’ many times. She is a stalwart of our community in Alice Springs. Her name is Mary Meldrum and she lives in Larapinta. She is 74-years-old and is involved in everything that has to do with charity in Alice Springs.
Mary Meldrum is from South Australia. She was the first female auctioneer in Australia and was a real estate agent. She moved to Alice Springs quite a few years ago. She is involved in any community events where we need to raise money for community groups. She has been a Justice of the Peace since 1970. She was Centralian of the Year in 2005. Mary was a Commonwealth baton relay runner and has been Ambassador for the Masters Games seven times - and going around again this year, and I thank her for that. She is a check-in scrutineer with the Finke Desert Race, and is involved as a hobby steward at the Alice Springs Show.
I digress for a minute to put on the public record that my prize-winning fruit cake won first place at the Alice Springs Show. Mary Meldrum was one of the hobby stewards, as you call them. I also entered a carrot cake. The carrot cake I entered did not win, it came fourth. I said to her: ‘Mary, how come my cake did not win?’ She said: ‘It did not win because it does not look like a carrot cake; it looks like a mud cake’. Anyhow, she took it home and ate it with all her mates. She said it was very tasty cake, it just did not look right.
Mary is also a volunteer with the Alice Springs Hospital drivers and helps out at Alice Springs Hospital. She is a retired member of the Cancer Council Alice Springs. She is a volunteer with the Breast Cancer Golf Day - and I had a great day with her a couple of weeks ago. She was a volunteer for the Relay of Life, and volunteer for The Residency Museum. Mary was a member of the Women’s Hall of Fame, and Chairperson of the Bowls Club.
Last Sunday, I was at a hockey fundraiser for some kids from Alice Springs who are flying to Darwin to represent the Northern Territory in the national titles in Canberra, and we played bowls together. She ran the day and raised a fair amount of money. Mary has been involved in many different things. She also helps out with Reclink.
She estimates that, over the last number of years, she has raised around $200 000 for various charities including Palliative Care, Royal Flying Doctor Service, Eye Care, Leukaemia Foundation, Red Nose Day, and for some of the bushfire victims. For Cyclone Larry, she raised money in Alice Springs and flew over and donated money in North Queensland. She helps kids in all sports and all needs in our community.
Mary has helped me a bit, and I know she helps other people in the community more than anyone else. I really appreciate the work that Mary does. I put on record that people like Mary are stalwarts in our community. They are the backbones that keep things moving. She is a very tough woman, and she is the sort of person who makes things happen. It is that community spirit that drives things. I say thanks to Mary.
Mary is like a number of other people who live in Larapinta. Mary lives in a Territory Housing complex on Larapinta Drive in Larapinta, in my electorate of Braitling. Mary suffers from the same thing that many other people in the electorate of Braitling and Alice Springs suffer from; that is, law and order problems - social misbehaviour in Alice Springs.
We hear a lot about the need for more police, or the problems that are going on, but we never get to the root cause of these problems. Yes, we need more police to fix up some of our social problems, but we have to get to the cause of what is going on.
The complex where Mary Meldrum lives, and the complex next door at 28 Larapinta Drive, reflects some of the problems that are going on. There are so many units in those two complexes, but there are this many people living in them. It is like all of Alice Springs: Alice Springs can fit this many people, but there are this many people living in Alice Springs. Many people are calling it urban drift.
Through the intervention, we have a lot of people moving into town. There are tourists and backpackers who come to town and all our accommodation is full - hotel-type and hostel accommodation. All our residences are full, our rental rate is zero. What drives the real estate market is listings, listings, listings - being an ex-real estate person myself. There are barely any listings in the real estate listings. I was talking to the LJ Hooker estate agent on Sunday at the hockey function with Mary Meldrum, and she was saying rentals are zero. There is just nowhere to rent in Alice Springs through LJ Hooker, which is a big provider. In terms of house sales, she said there are barely any listings.
We have a significant problem with where people can live in Alice Springs. That is contributing to the social problems we have in terms of homelessness, alcoholism, kids going to school, law and order, and calling the police all the time. Then, the police are not available because they are overworked and underpaid. We have significant problems in Alice Springs in terms of accommodation.
Urban drift is a major part of that, and some of my comments before about local council reform are reflective of the numbers of people moving into town. I fail to see that this government has a plan to address some of those problems. I am more than happy to work with this government to fix things. I have sat down with the local mayor, Damien Ryan, who is very well educated on some these issues. We need to work out how to fix the urban drift problem with housing accommodation costs in Alice Springs. Until we have a plan of how to fix some of these things, nothing is going to change. We are going to continue to see things get worse. We are going to call for more police, and more people are going to get beaten up, be alcoholics, and live on the streets.
Let me talk about three people I know who are from Kintore on the Western Australian border. This reflects the urban drift or the overpopulation in Alice Springs. These three people have to come from Kintore into Alice Springs because they need dialysis in Alice Springs. Unfortunately, all the accommodation in Alice Springs is taken up so these three people are living in the spinifex in the scrub, sleeping in the bush at night and coming in to get their dialysis in the day - not sleeping or eating properly, and then trying to get dialysis.
We heard a lot from the Health Minister earlier this week about renal support, and I applaud the government on the additional renal services that they are providing. However, when we have people coming in for dialysis services and there is nowhere to sleep, we have lost sight of what the problem is.
This is part of the whole approach by program, program, program, and nothing coming together in a clear and coherent policy setting. We do have not any planning. Until this government starts looking at some of the problems in housing and accommodation, things are going to get worse.
Regarding the news from the member for Arafura about the teachers strike which is going to continue for three days, that is tough for all parents in the Northern Territory. I am a parent, my daughter goes to school. I am not sure if it is the primary schools we are talking about. I am not sure if it is going to be Braitling Primary School. It is very unfortunate that this is going to happen. It looks like my daughter will be coming to work with me next week, doorknocking. She will be having a lot of fun. I have to say that it is a very sensitive issue. I am aware of the negotiations in place here.
One of the things that came out of the election is the need for the government to listen. I know that there are issues that the education union must be talking about with the Education minister. The importance of listening is that you can set the path forward and you can get the planning and policy. That is how I have put so many things across these last two weeks. I have tried to come up with ideas for people so that they can take them to try to help build the Territory. When we look at the education strike, we have to take in the context the results from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy, or NAPLAN, report that came out last weekend which showed …
Ms Scrymgour: Come and get a briefing. I can give you a briefing.
Mr GILES: I would be happy to. Thank you very much. I will take that up - over a coffee would be good.
I look at the results from NAPLAN and see that 40% of Territory students in the years tested are not performing, or are below the national average benchmark. That is a sad indictment on the Northern Territory. There is a long way to go to get improvements. It is quite terrible.
In terms of the government listening to people, their centralised model of government, and not listening to people outside of Darwin, we saw the election results - and the thumping results that they were.
Here we have the teachers, represented by the education union, who are in the bush who know what they need to do to make improvement to try to overcome that 40%. However, the government is so arrogant and is not listening to the teachers. If we want the teachers to improve the outcomes of the NAPLAN survey results, surely we have to listen to what they are saying to try to get the improvements so they can improve the outcomes for the kids? If we do not listen to the teachers, how are we going to get the improvements? These are the key stakeholders who deliver education to our kids - to my kids, to anyone’s kids - who go to school in the Northern Territory. If we do not listen to those people, how are we going to get improvements in the results next time? How are our kids going to get properly educated so that they can get a job? That is what it is about: getting a job.
As much as I do not like strikes, I do not like my daughter not being educated for three days next week. But, if she has to have a strike at her school so that teachers get the right outcomes to try to make improvements so that she can read and write properly so that she can get a job at 17, 18 or 19, or whatever she chooses to do, I will support that.
On another matter, I thoroughly enjoyed my first two weeks of parliament. I have enjoyed working with many different people on the opposite side and on my side, too. I thank everyone, including all of the administrative staff who put in so much time and listened to - I think we had the word ‘constipation’ – sometimes, verbal diarrhoea.
Ms WALKER (Nhulunbuy): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, we heard the Minister for Arts and Museums during last week’s sittings talk about the proposed international tour of Papunya Tula material, which highlights the fact that the Territory possesses some significant works of art and some extraordinary talent, particularly amongst Indigenous people.
The Nhulunbuy electorate is no exception. It is home to many talented people, including a host of Yolngu artists. I barely have enough wall space and corners in my home to hang and place the beautiful items that I have acquired during more than 21 years in the Northern Territory. However, I have managed to find some new space in my parliamentary office where I have two beautiful works hanging. One is by Naminapu Maymuru-White. The other is by Marrnyula Munungurr. Both ladies are well known and highly respected artists from Buku-Larrnggay Mulka’s Print Space. Members are welcome to call by my office to take a look at these prints. Like the Papunya artists, Yirrkala and regional artists have not only been well presented at national and international art competitions, but also take pride of place in art galleries and overseas.
Each year, artists from the Nhulunbuy region enter the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Art Award and, every year, at least one of our artists comes away with a prize and national recognition for their extraordinary talent. This year was no exception. I was delighted to attend the awards night. It was the 25th anniversary of these awards in Darwin on Friday, 15 August, where our Minister for Arts and Museums was in attendance to present the awards.
It was a beautiful evening on the lawns of the Northern Territory museum, and wonderful to see so many people in attendance to celebrate and share the achievements of Indigenous artists. While I congratulate all artists who received awards that evening, I particularly acknowledge and offer sincere congratulations to an outstanding artist, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu from Yirrkala. It was terrific to see that she was able to travel to Darwin to personally accept her award. Nyapanyapa won the Wandjuk Marika Memorial Three Dimensional Prize with her entry Incident at Mutpi (1975). Her entry consisted of a bark painting and the artist’s retelling of the event Gatapangawuy Dhawu, which translates to Buffalo Story, in an eight-minute narrative filmed by the Mulka Project at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala.
The bark painting and film are based on an incident from 1975 when Nyapanyapa was badly gored by a buffalo. Filmed and edited by younger members of the community, the film features the artist who describes the story in the bark painting and retells of the very frightening encounter.
I also acknowledge the excellent work being done by the Mulka Project, an emerging new entity and enterprise at Yirrkala. I recently visited Buku-Larrnggay and had the opportunity to see and hear firsthand how the Mulka Projects works, and was pleased to see Yolngu people seated at computers working in a multimedia environment with images on screens, manipulating them with a far greater degree of skill than I could ever hope to possess. The Mulka Project, as described on their website:
- … provides meaningful employment and empowerment to the Yirrkala community by allowing Yolngu … people to take control of documents of their culture in modern digital media. On one side is the repatriation of valuable documentation of the region’s cultural heritage that is kept in outside collections. The other is training Yolngu to take the reins of modern media to tell their own stories from now on.
- … currently dependent on government and philanthropic funding, but are developing products and services to make …
the project:
- … more sustainable into the future.
Following that visit, I took home with me a copy of the Mulka Project’s first release, a compilation DVD of 12 short films completed during the first year of operation, and launched at the Garma Festival last month at Gulkula near Nhulunbuy. It includes everything from music videos of secondary students’ songs to a drama re-enacting ancestral events using the 1950s original field recordings as the sound track, and directed by and starring residents of the remote homeland community of Dhalinybuy. The DVD also includes some dancing from the Chooky Dancers of Elcho Island, who made a name for themselves on YouTube when they shot to fame with their unique version of Zorba the Greek.
I watched the DVD titled Nhama that evening with family, and we were not only highly entertained and greatly impressed with the quality of what we were watching, but also struck by how significant it was to not only see Yolngu people using, with great skill, a different creative medium, but the ability to capture stories and culture for future generations. I remember the conversation I had with Randin Graves from the Mulka Project about how, with this kind of talent in Yirrkala, we would not need in future the likes of Rolf de Heer coming to the Territory to make films such as Ten Canoes when we had Yolngu people who had the talent and skills to tell their own stories in the medium of film.
I am pleased to report a further success among our local artists. In July, the Queensland Premier announced that another local artist from my region, Gunybi Ganambarr from Gangan, as the winner of the lucrative Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award for 2008. His winning work was described by the selection panel as:
- … an imposing and impressive work that confidently asserts the desire of a young artist to innovate within the brilliant and long-standing tradition of painting on bank in north-east Arnhem Land.
Gunybi has been mentored and influenced by local great artists including Gawirrin Gumana, Yumutjin Wunungmurra and Djambawa Marawili. Prior to this, another artist from Gangan – and, yes, another artist from Buku-Larrnggay - was recognised for her talent. In June, Djirrirra Wunungmurra won the TOGART Contemporary Art Award 2008 with her winning piece, a set of five Larrakitj poles. The poles carry the design of Buyku, a fish trap water site sacred to her Yirritja moiety, the Dhalwangu clan near her homeland of Gangan. Indeed, the Chief Minister made the announcement of Djirrirra’s success at the opening of the wonderful Darwin Convention Centre, where the work of the 33 finalists for the TOGART Awards were on display.
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala provides outstanding opportunities for our north-east Arnhem Land communities to promote their culture through art. Indeed, Buku-Larrnggay has won more awards than any other community art centre in Australia. I congratulate them for their ongoing commitment and dedication.
Continuing with the proud record of East Arnhem Land talent - in this case Elcho Island talent - I was delighted to learn last week of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s nomination for no less than four ARIA Awards - Australia’s prestigious awards which recognise, at national level, the outstanding talent in this country’s music and recording industry. He has been nominated for Album of the Year, Best Male Voice of the Year, Best Independent Release, and Best World Music Release for his self-titled album.
These nominations follow hot on the heels of winning four major categories in the 2008 Northern Territory Indigenous Awards held at Darwin Botanic Gardens Amphitheatre last month. Amongst the four awards Gurrumul picked up on that occasion were Best Act and Best Album of the Year. Gurrumul, a strong Gumatj man who has been blind from birth, displays an amazing talent as a singer, songwriter and musician, singing songs about his Gumatj country with his beautiful voice. The magnitude of his achievements was summed up by the Northern Territory News last week which noted:
- It is a remarkable achievement for Yunupingu, who is in many ways is outside the mainstream music industry, to be so successful.
Even before these awards had been announced, he had already been recognised both nationally and internationally for his extraordinary talent. Gurrumul is a former member of Yothu Yindi and currently leads the Saltwater Band from his home country of Galiwinku with great passion and pride. I saw on the Internet this afternoon that he is on the front page of The Weekend Australian Magazine this weekend, with Peter Garrett. Peter Garrett has nominated him, Gurrumul, as his number one song. I sincerely congratulate Gurrumul on this journey through the music world with his tremendous talent that certainly tugs at the heartstrings when you hear his voice.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I congratulate these artists from my region on their outstanding achievements on the national art scene.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I believe it is mostly appropriate to strike while the iron is hot, and I take the opportunity in this adjournment debate tonight to present my response to the Chief Minister’s ministerial statement earlier in the day regarding police numbers.
First of all, it is my first opportunity to speak to matters directly affecting the police force. I take this opportunity to acknowledge my former colleagues in the Northern Territory Police Force. They are and remain my very good friends. I place on the public record that I will continue to work as an advocate for police officers to improve their lot in the Northern Territory and in the Northern Territory Police Force.
In relation to the Chief Minister’s statement this morning, let us add a little more credibility to this debate. I know that the Chief Minister has quoted …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Katherine, the standing orders do not allow you to actually speak on a statement which has been adjourned, so if you can just make sure that your comments are more general about police matters. You are not allowed to relate to the statement, except in the most general way. You are not allowed to refer to the fact that you were responding to the Chief Minister’s statement.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: In that case, Madam Speaker, as opposed to responding to the Chief Minister’s statement, I would like to submit the following as an adjournment.
I am going to suggest to the Chief Minister that he needs to be careful about figures supplied by the Police Commissioner, for they are surely true in one sense, but they certainly do not reflect the true state of play in today’s Northern Territory Police Force. Some numbers would suggest that the police force is bursting at the seams. If this is true, why, Chief Minister, are some police stations ready to have their roofs fall in on them?
Case in point: Katherine Police Station is meant to have an establishment of around 60, including management, prosecutions, the Investigations Unit, General Duties, Domestic Violence Unit, auxiliaries and ACPOs. That is about 60 from the very top to the very bottom of the ranks. In early August, the Katherine Police Station was down on its number by a total of 15 personnel; that is, 15 actual vacancies in Katherine - just vacancies, the type where no one fills the position. This number includes sergeants, constables and, more than likely, auxiliaries and ACPOs as well. On its own, this represents a staggering 25% of the establishment of the Katherine Police Station. On that point, they are down to 45 members. That figure does not include members on sick leave, recreation leave, performing relief duties, or attending training courses.
Let us have a look at those figures in a bit more detail. At any one time, Katherine Police Station management allow for up to eight personnel away on recreation leave. That takes the numbers down to 37. Next, there is an allowance for two or three members away on courses. This is not a hard and fast rule, so let us go with the figure three because I know that right now there are at least three members here in Darwin on a course. That takes the number down to 34. Then there are those on sick leave, and some of those are long-term sick leave. I am not going to talk about sick leave in the police force today for that is a whole other topic. Today, there is at least one person away on long-term sick leave. Now, let us deduct management. At the time, there was one commander, two superintendents and one senior sergeant. That take us down below half the establishment - yes, 29 is less than half of 60. Then, there are supposed to be four or five in the Investigations Unit. Let us go with four, just to be conservative, three more in prosecutions, and two in domestic violence. Where are we at with those figures? Twenty-two.
The formula for providing one full-time position policing on a 24-hour basis is, I think, 4.2 people. That is, to maintain one person on the road for 24 hours a day - which is the case in Katherine, for it is a 24-hour police station - you actually need to have 4.2 people employed. With the figure of 22 police officers, that allows for five police officers on that basis of 4.2. There is an enormous amount of overtime incurred as a result.
I do not want to do any more mathematics but, when there is only one substantive sergeant in Katherine General Duties as is the case today, when the relief OIC, because there is no pool of sergeants to choose from, has to be borrowed from Alyangula, and when relief for the Katherine Investigations Unit had to be sent from Darwin, I do not think the Chief Minister can crow about satisfactory police numbers.
Katherine is not the only location that has been bled dry. The Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre is screaming for staff. Tennant Creek is at even worse levels than Katherine - and the list goes on.
I have not even touched on the bush stations. Ask some of the bush station guys if they are happy being out there on their own for periods of up to a week because the regional centres do not have the staff to relieve. I said last night in the adjournment debate that the police force is full of good people willing to give their all to make a flawed system work. This is goodwill and the members of the police force should be congratulated in their perseverance for keeping the ship afloat.
Since the beginning of August, admittedly, eight new recruits have arrived in Katherine and that has gone a long way to alleviating the crisis. However, this raises, in itself, another issue. Right now and for years, senior police officers have been bleeding from the police force. Right now, the only way the commissioner can fill vacancies in General Duties is with recruits. This is occurring across the Territory. Senior members are not applying to move to regional centres. No one in the police force seems willing or able to address the one question that begs - why?
Ms Lawrie: We had a bad freeze, didn’t we? It was a bad freeze under the CLP government; it affected the experienced ranks.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: I take up that interjection. The freeze by the CLP government had nothing to do with the police numbers of today. Let me state for the record: a lot of police come to the Northern Territory, and we are used as a training ground to move on to other police forces. There are members in this police force right now who have tried to get into police forces in other states. They have been rejected, told to go to the Northern Territory, do four years up here, and then they will be accepted. That has nothing to do with ancient history - nothing whatsoever. This is the reality of what is happening in the Northern Territory Police Force now.
In the space of four or five years, the Katherine Police Station has gone from being one of the most senior to one of the most junior stations in the Territory. The average length of service amongst General Duties officers across the Territory continues to drop. On the face of it, this sounds bad and, believe me, it is. The reality is right now there are probationary constables teaching and training more junior probationary constables. The nett effect of this is a decrease in the quality of service provided to Territorians by the police force. It is not the officers’ fault. They work hard and do the very best they can. I know because I have lived it. New officers need the training and guidance of senior members to round out their training. That makes for good police officers who will be able to provide the level of service that Territorians deserve.
Back to the question: why can we not keep senior police officers in General Duties in the Territory? In particular, why can we not keep them in regional centres? The reason is not money. The police force has tried that: increases to General Duties allowance and other incentives to get the guys back into uniform. Nothing has worked. When will the commissioner figure out that morale and how officers actually feel about coming to work each day is of paramount importance?
Just last week, I am advised an Assistant Commissioner visited the Katherine Police Station and conveyed to the troops that management had got it wrong with regard to the effective staffing in Katherine Police Station, and acknowledged they will be looking at reviewing the situation. On the face of it, that sounds good, but I can assure this House that the general feeling in the ranks is that management has an ulterior motive for looking to increase numbers in the Katherine Police Station relating to the implementation of a roster that will be extremely unpopular.
There has been a strong push by the Executive Leadership Group to rid Katherine of their 12-hour roster. No one on the ground can understand why this needs to take place, for the reason has either not been fully explained or the explanation has lacked substance. On top of that, the proposed new roster would have incurred somewhere between 800 and 1000 hours of overtime in the first month of operation with staffing levels as they were. Do you think the thought of this has had an adverse effect on the officers who will be called upon to perform this extra duty? You bet it does.
I am not going to go into further details about the history of that particular matter, but suffice to say that there are General Duties officers who will leave Katherine if the new roster regime is implemented. Rostering is one of those things I alluded to earlier when I mentioned morale and how members feel about coming to work. One might ask where have the General Duties coppers gone? I will tell you. They have gone into little pigeonhole sections created to satisfy political niceties for the benefit of Labor politicians in the northern suburbs of Darwin. That is where they have gone.
Did you know that the checking system for frontline police officers involve supervision of their work by a sergeant and, then usually, the senior sergeant? Of course, you do. That makes total sense. But, did you know there is now a whole new section including constables and sergeants created to check on the senior sergeants? Yes, it is true.
Most of you will be familiar with the term PROMIS. That is the computer system which allows recording of jobs and from which statistics can be drawn. There is a whole section devoted to checking the checkers of PROMIS. That is where they have gone. That is where the General Duties uniformed officers have gone, into positions like that.
We all know that statistics can tell you whatever you want them to. Last week, my colleague, the member for Drysdale, mentioned how policy decisions had previously affected crime reporting statistics. I heard the Commissioner of Police this morning on the ABC radio, and some of what he said is true. The PROMIS computer system, in its current incarnation, has a tendency to over-report on crimes, and over-report the number of offences where there are multiple offences committed in the course of one particular incident. However, I am of the vintage as to remember the occurrence, as it was the same occurrence that the member for Drysdale pointed out. Where police officers attended an incident that could have been recorded as a crime, they were instructed not to record the crime if there was no complaint from an alleged victim ...
Mr Elferink: I must be getting old, I do not remember that.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: After your time?
Mr Elferink: It was 1997, I think, when I left.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE: Yes. Rather, it would be recorded as ‘no complaint’, ‘information only’ or something similar. These entries would not have been picked up in crime reporting statistics. Territorians should draw their own conclusions as to the reasoning behind this move.
Chief Minister, despite your rosy figures that you have espoused, there are still some serious staffing issues in the police force today. It sounds like a theme that seems to be becoming the hallmark of the Territory Labor government. However, I do make this offer to you: when you would like have the real state of play exposed to you on the staffing in the police force, I - and I am sure my other former police colleagues now in this House – will, at your request, sit down and brief you with the reality that is not tainted by politics. The ball is in your court.
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk, the Tabled Papers Office, and all the staff. I know the first week back in parliament is always a big week, and they have done a great job.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr GUNNER: Tonight, I want to talk about the 50th anniversary of the Trailer Boat Club. Last week, I spoke about the 50th anniversary of the Parap Primary School, and the 40th anniversary of Parap Fine Foods. Mid-week, I went to the 50th anniversary dinner of Rotary. It seems to be the season for anniversaries.
I went to the official celebrations for the Trailer Boat Club’s 50th anniversary with the Lord Mayor, Graeme Sawyer. It was a fantastic day. Like most people here, some of my best memories, and some of my family and my friends’ best memories, have been at the Trailer Boat Club. It is a beautiful place and they do a great job - birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, everything. This book I am holding up, which I will table later, is a fantastic book put together by the Trailer Boat Club. It opens up with a quote:
- Nothing more: In 1958, the Darwin Trailer Boat Club started as nothing more than a couple of fishing mates sitting around an old Esky on the beach telling yarns, and it grew from a dilapidated caravan.
A lot of good things in life have started with a few mates sitting around an Esky, having a few quiet drinks and the Darwin Trailer Boat Club is not alone. Today, in 2008, the Trailer Boat Club has 2800 members and over 40 staff. It all began in the late 1950s when a group of enthusiastic Darwin locals, all with a passion for boating, formed a group and named themselves the Blue Water Club. They used to meet at the beach very near to where the present clubhouse is located.
Special mention must be made of Lindsay Thompson who was fundamental in the foundation of the club. Without his vision, drive and dedication, the club would not be where it is today. In fact, the very first club meeting held in May 1959 took place in Lindsay and Audrey Thompson’s home in MacDonald Street, Parap. I acknowledge the founding committee for their involvement in that meeting: R Barnes, K Haigh, Stan Perron, A Edwards, R Wessels, R Humphries, L Cooper, Lindsay Thompson and H Nudl - who, while a member of the founding committee, was not actually present that evening.
At the meeting, the name Darwin Trailer Boat Club was proposed and accepted by all members. Until construction of the clubhouse was complete, the dilapidated caravan I mentioned earlier was conveniently located at the top of the boat ramp and, on weekends and Thursday evening movie nights, soft drinks, hot pies, ice cream and lollies were sold from it. The ladies auxiliary comprising Audrey Thompson, June Cameron, Eileen Vasey, Iris Downey and Mary Cuttler, ran the caravan and did a marvellous job.
The clubhouse was opened for business in the mid-1960s. On the weekend, beer kegs were brought down from Dowling’s Parap Hotel and members were expected to bring their own chair to sit on. In the time before the arrival of television, it was an important social part of the week for members and their families. I would like to think that it still is often an important part of the social week for many people. The following members made significant contributions to the club’s development in those early years and I recognise them as their efforts put the club in good stead for the future: George Redmond, Barry Morton, William Hull, Bob Eastick, Peter Garone, the Manning family and Jean Vickery.
In the 1970s, the clubhouse was extended, enabling it to provide its members with more substantial meals. No longer did they have to drive up to the Fannie Bay shops to satisfy their appetites. When Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in 1974, it amazingly did not cause extensive damage to the club and its new extension. A working bee was quickly organised and, once again, their hard work and dedication to their club enabled it to resume limited trading in the New Year once windows were replaced, sand was swept away and the roof was repaired.
The Darwin Trailer Boat Club has not looked back since and, over the years, its popularity and membership has continued to increase. This is not only due to its friendly staff, great food and customer services; its facilities are always being improved, such as the large verandah, modern coolroom, manager’s office, swimming pool, children’s play area and, recently, the new front entrance. New plans are in place to redevelop the office and toilet area, and they include a meeting and conference room. A new kitchen worth $1.5m is going to be built and is expected to be in operation by mid-2009. Despite its renovations, the history of the club still remains. Steel structures from the original clubrooms are clearly visible in the famous Fishos Bar with its Gone Fishin mural organised by Gary Smith. If you are seeking fishing knowledge or a story or two, the Fishos Bar is the place to go.
Fishing days for women and children have become very popular at the club, and so too has the annual Blue Water Classic. This release and weigh-in event began in 2002 to encourage more member involvement in fishing and boating, and is now Darwin’s only premier blue water fishing competition.
Boating and fishing is not the only item appearing in the club’s calendar. At the end of this month, the famous Sandbar Cricket Match will take place on Bare Sand Island, once used for bombing and shelling practice by Mirages and F111s. Jeff ‘Thommo’ Thomson and Darren ‘Boof’ Lehman are heading to Darwin for the big match, so that will make it pretty interesting. I am told that it is a great day for all. The usual beach cricket rules apply. Well, I do not know how usual they are: in the water is six and out, no running on the pitch, no running with your stubbie, because you might spill it, and the club has also introduced the Duckworth/Lewis scoring system for water on the pitch. International cricket captains struggle with the Duckworth/Lewis scoring system, so it is going to be interesting to see how it works at the sandbar.
In fact, I was at the Trailer Boat Club the other day for a Leukaemia fundraising lunch with the member for Drysdale. It was a top day and, I have to say, they do a top job down there.
Congratulations to the Trailer Boat Club for reaching this milestone. It is a wonderful club and, as local member for Fannie Bay, I look forward to working with the current President, Kevin Jenkins, and the Vice President, Brant Butterworth.
Mr Wood: You better mention my sister, she put the 50th anniversary magazine together: Trish Butler.
Mr GUNNER: She did a fantastic job. Congratulations, Trish.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about the 2008 Australian Geography Competition that was held in Term 1. This year, 90 000 students from 820 schools across the country took part in the competition and, out of that number, 50 students were from Darwin High School.
There are many competitions that schools in my electorate participate in, and students are consistently working hard to achieve good marks. I cannot talk about them all, and I will not. However, regarding this particular competition, a very proud mum came to my office and brought it to my attention, and I will give her son a rap in a second.
I take this opportunity to congratulate all the students who were recently presented with a prize winner’s certificate by Marion Guppy, the school’s principal. Their fantastic results reflect the hard work they put in. First, I congratulate the 11 students who received credits, placing them in the top 25% of students who participated in the competition: Eric Clatworthy; Sarah Cowan; Dylan Elford; Dominique Giese; Heath Hudson; Danelle Jeffery; Connie Marcroft; Derek Mayo-Spry; Emma McLaughlin; Maria Melas; and Ben Vincent. Well done.
I also congratulate those students who received Distinction Certificates, placing them in the top 20% of students who participated: Dylan Jessop; April Prime; Kathryn Rehrmann; L Roncevich; and Kevin Williams-Besy. Congratulations.
Six students received High Distinction Certificates for their hard work, placing them in the top 10%: Rey Dayap; Connor Flynn; Jack Heath; Gryffyn Pryce; Sam Van Den Nieuwenhof; and Lang Williamson. Congratulations to them.
Finally, a special mention must be made of Sam Van Den Nieuwenhof. Not only did he receive a High Distinction, but he was placed in the top 1% of the 100 000 students. This earns Sam the top place in the Intermediate Division for the Territory. This is a fantastic achievement and I congratulate Sam on his result.
Darwin High participates every year in the Australian Geography Competition and its geography students consistently receive high marks. This is a wonderful achievement by the students and reflects the hard work and dedication of both the students and the teachers. Last year, Angus Sandford won through to the national finals of the Geography Competition which were held in Sydney. Angus finished third in Australia and, as a result of his effort, Darwin High School now features on the Australian Geographic Competition’s website as one of the top 10 schools in Australia. Well done to all the students who took part in the competition this year; your hard work paid off and you should be very proud. I wish you all the best for the remainder of the year.
I thank all the staff, my colleagues, the opposition, and a friend called Travis Dowling who said I had to make sure that I say in the House that he is a good bloke.
Mr CHANDLER (Brennan): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, education has been a long passion for me, being involved with the Bakewell Primary School for over five years, most of that time as chair, which provided valuable insight into the daily operations of a large primary school. Did I say large? You bet! Bakewell is the largest primary school in the Northern Territory and it has been so for many years. Being the largest primary school in the Northern Territory, I can attest to seeing firsthand many of the daily challenges it faces - daily challenges that did not need to occur but for the lack of foresight and planning by this government for the growth at Palmerston. There is something this government is going to be remembered for; that is, no planning.
It is quite apparent that, until recently, Palmerston - together with Alice Springs, Katherine and our good rural folk - has been forgotten by this government. With millions of dollars of development money being spent on the city side of Berrimah, I recall commenting to the member for Nelson on Tuesday that, since 2001 the Berrimah Line has become a wall with a new layer of blocks put down each financial year.
I know only too well how challenging it has been working with this administration over the years to deliver much-needed education infrastructure in Palmerston. I know the frustrations of working with a government which approved an interstate unproven contractor to build the new high school senior facility. If it was not for a government department stepping in and taking over and project managing the site, I doubt the facility would have been open until next year. Congratulations must go to that department, the project manager as well, and all the local subcontractors who ensured the facility was completed and open in time for the students to commence the second semester.
I am positive their job was not made any easier by this government’s choice in the original contractor. I would appreciate seeing the final numbers on its true cost, as I am certain the true cost must have blown out to ensure the project was delivered on time - I mean the revised time. I cannot actually recall because the goalposts were moved so many times.
The latest literacy results come as no surprise to me. I have a son in Year 9 who attends Palmerston High School. He is being tutored each week to teach him basic maths, and we pay for that tutor. He is being tutored each week and I question how a student reaches Year 9, after spending his entire education career in the Northern Territory, within that curriculum, and does not understand basic maths? How does a student get through without parents knowing, even after being told by teachers they are doing fine, and even after reviewing report cards year in and year out? How is it possible for them to have no idea of the seriousness of the situation that today requires a tutor to bring him up to speed with basic maths?
I worry about many things happening within our schools. One area that concerns me is discipline and its direct link to student results. The reality is inconsistent discipline processes make it near impossible to ensure all students receive an adequate education. Of course, discipline and consistent delivery is impacted by the size of our schools today. This would appear a modern phenomenon, which has only appeared in this millennium. I recall the days when smaller, easier manageable schools dotted our suburbs - one suburb, one school - allowing our students to walk to school each day without the need for parents to travel distances just to drop them off and pick them up.
Just think how this affects the day-to-day operations of the school. Car parking and dangerous driving conditions occurring each and every day around our schools, staggered starting times and finishing times, separate lunch breaks, and even separate assemblies, just because the school does not have adequate facilities to host such events. How disappointing it must be for a young student with a friend who happens to be just one year different, and they cannot spend lunch breaks together because this government prefers large, hard-to-manage establishments which cause the students, parents, teachers and senior management much angst each and every day. Why are we left in this position? Simply because of this government’s lack of planning and social conscience for the residents of Palmerston.
In all public schools today, a disciplinary program using restorative justice is used. A restorative justice program is a fantastic tool for most young students. Most students have some level of empathy and respect provided by good parenting, provided by a firm but fair hand and by real parenting guidance. The problem, however, is that we all know where law and order issues are today in the Northern Territory. We are only too aware of the lack of respect some young people have today for our community, for each other, and even themselves. This attitude is a direct result of bad parenting and a lack of structured legislation to deal with many of our community issues.
The problem is that children raised with little or no respect for our community, themselves, or for their peers, will not understand the fundamentals of restorative justice. They cannot. They cannot understand how another may feel about their actions if they do not have empathy. This is just another causative effect of many of the community issues we face today. It is important to recognise that fact. How government addresses these issues of law and order can and does have an effect on different aspects of our community, even student educational outcomes.
Mr STYLES (Sanderson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I speak about 2008 which is the Year of the Scout. 2008 marks a century of scouting in Australia and has been designated by the federal government as the Year of the Scout. I am very proud to stand here in this House as a former Cub Scout and Scout, and would like to register my gratitude to the scouting movement for their input into my personal development. I also express my gratitude to the people of Sanderson, the volunteers who provide their time and expertise to the Sanderson Scout Group, which operates from their premises located adjacent to the Anula Shopping Centre.
Scouting Australia conducts a diverse range of activities throughout the year at national, state and local levels. Scouting is the largest youth development organisation in Australia and, indeed, the world, and is a leader in the countries non-formal education sector. The scouting program delivered by Scouts Australia prepares young people aged six to 26 years for business and community leadership.
In its centenary year, Australian scouting is a strong organisation with around 60 000 male and female members. Scouts Australia operates through the volunteer efforts of over 13 000 leaders and countless other supporters. They regularly review and expand their programs for young people, continually changing the activities on offer to keep up with contemporary interests. An estimated 2 000 000 Australians have been Scouts since the movement was established in Australia in 1908. Many of these have used the skills and confidence gained in Scouts to achieve success in their careers, or made other community contributions. Scouts Australia has taught millions of young people resourcefulness, self-reliance, leadership, decision-making and concern for their community and the environment. They continually provide our community with young Australians who have a greater range of skills, understanding, knowledge and leadership than normally gained through regular formal education systems. The saying is ‘Scouting - The Way to Success’.
Over the past 100 years, scouting has shaped the lives of many individuals worldwide. These individuals have found ways to make their mark within the societies and their countries. I will take a few moments to mention some of these in their various categories.
In sport, for instance, Shane Mattiske is the National Rugby League Director of Strategy; David Parkin is an AFL legend; Olympian, Regan Harrison; Paralympian, Kieran Ault-Connell; and Sir Jack Brabham. In the media, Jamie Durie; Shane Jacobson is a former Scout and the lead actor in the famous Australian movie, Kenny; Bert Newton; Adam Spencer, a current breakfast host at radio station ABC702 and he also features on the ABC television comedy series The Glass House, and also youth radio station Triple J. Others include Jack Yabsley; Dave Lawson; Keith Conlon; and writer, actor and comedian Dave O’Neil. In other walks of life, the likes of Andrew Condon; famous Scout Warwick White, managing Director of Australia and New Zealand Coca-Cola Amatil; famous Scout Nigel Scullion; Dr Brendan Nelson MP, federal member; and another famous Scout is former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie; Peter Garrett; Dick Smith; Jack Heath, the best selling author and famous Scout; Geoffrey Blainey; Tim Jarvis; Jamie Wall; Sally Browne; John Leece; Helen Sham-Ho, a member of the Legislative Council; and Georgina Sutton. These are just an enormous number of very successful people worldwide.
We now move to Scouts in Space. A statistic I found very interesting, and those here this evening might find interesting, is that there have been 294 men and women selected to be astronauts since 1959 through to 2005 and more than 180 of those were former Scouts. In fact, an astonishing number is that 11 out of the 12 men who went to the moon had been Scouts. That is rather a remarkable achievement for a community organisation.
This coming weekend, we are doing some very special activities in this very important year of Australian Scouting to celebrate 100 years of the centenary. Tomorrow, Friday, 19 September, the Northern Territory Branch of Scouts has their AGM at the FreeSpirit Resort, followed by the Year of the Scout Dinner where they will have an Adult Recognition evening where Scouting Australia present the 2008 Recognition Awards to some outstanding community members.
On Saturday, 20 September, the Darwin City Council is hosting a civic reception at 2.30 pm at the Civic Centre for youth members, leaders and their parents.
On Sunday, 21 September 2008, at Vestey’s Beach there will be a picnic basket dinner and camp fire commencing at 4 pm. It is a very busy weekend to celebrate a great community organisation.
In this very special year for the Scouting movement, I also register thanks to those people who have led this organisation in the Northern Territory in past years for their work, and also to the current Chief Commissioner, Ms Chris Doidge, for her work and dedication to this very worthwhile and outstanding community organisation.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016