2003-10-15
Mr Acting Speaker Wood took the Chair at 10 am.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that leave of absence be granted to the Chief Minister and the member for Sanderson due to their attendance at the funeral in Alice Springs for Mr Graeme Braham.
Motion agreed to.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that leave of absence be granted to the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition for today, as both are attending the funeral of Mr Graeme Braham in Alice Springs.
Motion agreed to.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: I advise honourable members of the presence in the Gallery of Year 6 and 7 students from Casuarina Street Primary School in Katherine, accompanied by their teacher, Cheryl-Anne Courtney; and Adult Literacy Education students from Batchelor Institute accompanied by Tony Thorpe. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I present a petition from 1108 petitioners requesting that the number of police officers allocated to the Casuarina police district be increased. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read:
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Mr Acting Speaker, this morning I brief the House on the government’s continued concerted action to deal with the number one social issue facing Territorians: the abuse of alcohol.
Of all the jurisdictions in Australia, the Northern Territory continues to have the highest per capita consumption of alcohol, and the latest estimates show the problem costs the Northern Territory around $477m per year. These figures reflect direct harms that arise from alcohol consumption, but the impact of less tangible problems such as antisocial behaviour, itinerancy, family breakdown and health problems cost the community a lot more. These are costs borne by the drinkers themselves, but also by the whole of the community.
Members will be aware that earlier this year I advised the Australian Hotels Association Conference the government would implement a five-point plan to address alcohol-related issues. That plan involves legislating against the practice of book-up for alcohol; maintaining current arrangements for take-away alcohol sales on Sunday pending the development of a comprehensive alcohol framework; considering a reduction in licensed outlets; conducting a major overhaul of the Liquor Act; and developing harm minimisation strategies to encourage responsible attitudes towards alcohol consumption.
Action has already been taken on book-up, and I have introduced a bill banning book-up for alcohol sales during these sittings. The other four points will be addressed through an alcohol framework review, which I have recently initiated. The review has 13 key points which I will not enumerate in full this morning. The main issues are: identification of the issues of concern; reviewing existing strategies for dealing with those concerns and see whether they are working with what resources are needed; an overhaul of the Liquor Act; and examination of the Licensing Commission’s powers and role. To conduct this framework development, I have announced the appointment of two key community opinion leaders and have appointed to the staff of the Racing, Gaming and Licensing Commission a team to work the review through.
The two public heads of the framework are Daryl Manzie and Donna Ah Chee. Daryl is well known to members of this House, having served the parliament as a Minister of the Crown from 1983 to 2001. Donna Ah Chee is an active Central Australian who has played a leading role in alcohol issues over many years. The staff component is headed by Gordon Renouf. Gordon is very familiar with the Territory, having practiced as a lawyer here for a long time. I am pleased that all three have agreed to be part of this framework development.
Following a widespread review of the available information on the issue and some focus discussions in key communities, the team will provide me with an interim report in December. It will form the basis of the discussion with the community in the first half of next year, culminating in a final report in May 2004. Work is already under way in the information gathering exercise. Reports are being pulled together and analysed and discussions initiated with key groups such as the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Use and Abuse of Substances. It is a key plank in the government’s determination to overcome the problems associated with alcohol consumption in the Territory. I look forward to seeing their work.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank the minister for that update, a lot of which we have heard both in the House and in the media, particularly in relation to the five-point plan of which he spoke. This side of the House has some concerns with regard to consumption of alcohol. We have participated in the Substance Abuse committee.
I congratulate the minister for appointing the team to undertake the review, particularly the two leaders, Donna Ah Chee and Daryl Manzie. Both will do an eminent job. I do not envy them because it is going be very difficult.
Book-up of course is an issue and always has been. What is happening with book-up, to our way of thinking, is that, whilst the minister wants to embed it in legislation, the legality of book-up was always there. Conditions were always embedded in the licence, so that may not change things greatly.
Liquor restrictions throughout the Northern Territory have been trialled, some with some success and others with very little success. Perhaps it is time we looked at a new way of doing that. There is a restriction I would like the minister to comment on, and that is the Nhulunbuy restrictions. He was involved with those. It ended up with court cases and has left the Commission and trial participants in an onerous position because of actions taken by the ACCC that are ongoing. Perhaps the minister would like to comment on what government is doing about those issues.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): I thank the Member for Daly for his supportive comments. Traditionally, there has been bipartisan support if we go right back to the Use and Abuse of Alcohol Committee through the 1980s and 1990s. There was bipartisan support for the Living with Alcohol strategies put in place by Chief Minister Perron in his day. I would like to think that the bipartisan approach of this House and the concerns members have in relation to use and abuse of alcohol and substance abuse overall does continue.
In relation to the Nhulunbuy issue, which has been subject to proceedings by the ACCC, the member misleads the House if he suggests that I had any part of that.
Mr BALDWIN: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. He cannot infer that I am misleading the House.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Minister, if you are inferring that, I think you should withdraw it.
Mr STIRLING: I will withdraw ‘misleading the House’. Let me put in on the record that I had no part of any of those discussions despite being the local member at that time. When it was brought to my attention, I told the Arnhem Club committee, of which I was Vice-President, that they were sailing very close to the wind in terms of collusive price fixing and were vulnerable to action by the ACCC, which is in effect what happened. I resigned at that time from the Arnhem Club.
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Mr Acting Speaker, I wish to bring to members’ attention serious matters relating to the Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex.
Cabinet has recently considered a comprehensive technical review of the physical assets of the complex. This report identified buildings and structures that are dangerous and ruinous, and others that do not appear to meet the requirements of the Building Act. The government has inherited this problem from its predecessor, and the former CLP government must take responsibility for the current state of the facilities at Hidden Valley and take full responsibility for any adverse consequences.
The CLP should be thankful that their lack of investigation into the state of the assets at the complex before simply acquiring them several years ago has to date not caused any accidents, although they have blatantly put public safety at risk. They should be ashamed of their lack of foresight, and be grateful that the Martin government has had the ability to identify the vast number of wide-ranging issues and put in place a plan to bring them up to an acceptable standard of safety.
This is a long-standing issue that we will not, unlike our predecessors, back away from. We will address the recommendations of this report and support motor sports participants to improve their facilities and increase both participant and public safety. The government will ensure that the Territory motor sports community has access to both safe and appropriate facilities that can support their sport into the future. I also emphasise that the government’s swift action means that the hosting of the V8 Supercar series at Hidden Valley next year is secure.
Members may be aware that the Hidden Valley complex is owned by government and managed on behalf of the government by the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, an organisation that was created in 2000 by the former government.
As Minister for Sport and Recreation, I currently represent the Northern Territory government as the sole shareholder of the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited and legal owner of the Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex. Upon taking up the portfolio, I became aware of serious issues in regard to the governance and viability of the management company, as well as concerns by user groups of the Hidden Valley complex regarding the role and effectiveness of the company.
Following meetings with the then directors of Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, my concerns were not allayed. I requested the resignation of the previous directors, which they agreed to do in December 2002. I immediately appointed an Interim Board consisting of three senior public sector officers. I instructed the Interim Board to immediately review and report back to me on the business and financial position of Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, and to make recommendations on the future direction of the board.
In March this year, the board reported that it could not, given the information available from the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited or government records, advise that the facilities were of sufficient standard and appropriately documented to be used for public sporting purposes.
I immediately sought the support of my Cabinet colleagues for a comprehensive technical review of the complex’s physical assets in order to gain a full understanding of the complex and what investment, if any, was required to bring each asset on site up to an acceptable standard.
That comprehensive review was carried out and Cabinet has considered the final report. The key findings bear out the serious concerns of the Interim Board. The report recommends the development of a master plan to address deficiencies in the assets at Hidden Valley and to take action to ensure that the complex can continue to operate.
The most dangerous structures have been immediately closed off from the public and, where necessary, demolished. Action has been taken to immediately commence the master plan, which will identify priorities for other remedial works. Cabinet has allocated resources for the completion of urgent occupational health and safety works, and to ensure that any minor works required in order to obtain temporary occupancy permits can be undertaken.
The Interim Board has advised the Director of Building Control of the action taken to date, of proposed actions, and will work closely with the director over the next few weeks. I emphasise that there has been consultation with the clubs operating at the site and other users, and everything has been done to limit the impact on those clubs and other hirers of the facilities.
How did this entirely unsatisfactory situation arise? When the then CLP government acquired the complex from individual user groups several years ago, it assumed direct responsibility for the land and facilities that comprised the complex. The failure of the previous government to undertake a due diligence study that adequately assessed the potential cost of taking over the assets is a crucial mistake in this whole process.
The government’s involvement in the complex is fundamentally different from other sporting facilities. Government can therefore expect to have limited success in transferring assets to users, or getting users to assume responsibility for the facilities.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Your time has expired, minister.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, what could well be a pro-active response in terms of getting on with the job of government strikes a tone that probably explains why there is a lack of confidence in the leadership capacity of this government.
Rather than simply respond to an issue which is your duty as government, you inflate your sense of purpose by trying to sleight on a former regime that was able to put into place the very facility.
You are simply getting on with the task of adequate repairs and maintenance, and getting on with the job of government. That is what you are required to do. You could well bring a report to this parliament precisely what you are doing, without bringing in this unnecessary tone of trying to shore up your own lack of confidence by looking over you shoulder and blaming someone else.
Get on with the job. I would ask, in the minister’s reply, that he confirm to the House and for Territorians that the V8 Supercar date does not conflict with the cricket. What is the date for V8 Supercars?
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Mr Acting Speaker, the shadow spokesperson said the former government ably put this facility in place.
History will show, and I will have a report to this House, and it will be interesting to debate you, on what actually happened, because when I talked to the Department of Sport and Recreation, this was a closed meeting. This was Minister Lugg at the time, who, with Cabinet’s approval, established this situation and developed it without any input from Sport and Recreation.
You were incapable of ensuring that there was diligence in this complex. It was a mad rush and it is another CLP initiative that we have inherited that they had had stuffed up once again. So you have a situation where we will fix this problem and we will work with the people. But, it is, once again, another CLP initiative that has proved to be a shemozzle.
Mr HENDERSON (Asian Relations and Trade): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise today to report on the outcomes of my recent visit to Brunei, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in relation to building the Territory’s trade and international relations within Asia.
Between 14 and 18 September 2003, I visited key ministerial counterparts and senior business leaders in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore to continue support by this government of trade and business development by Territory business. I also met with senior government leaders, and provided briefings to business groups in Singapore and Malaysia on the opportunities for trade and investment in the Territory. These business briefings also provided an opportunity to update our trading partners on major projects, including the AustralAsia Trade Route, the wharf precinct and gas coming on shore from Bayu-Undan.
In Brunei, I met with senior representatives from Royal Brunei Airlines, who continue to support Territory tourism and trade through regular twice-weekly services to Darwin. This relationship remains strong, and I am advised that in the near future, an additional weekly flight will be added to this service, thereby evidencing a strengthening of relations with this valuable friend of the Territory. As a further demonstration of our friendship with Royal Brunei, we have expressed strong support for Royal Brunei Airline’s efforts to secure landing rights in Sydney, which I believe they now have.
I also met with representatives of the Brunei government involved in the live animal trade, and discussions continue on improving supply chain efficiencies with a view to increasing livestock exports to Brunei. My department is also working with the Brunei government and with Territory business to see what interest there is among Territory business to participate in a major trade expo in Brunei in February next year. Another opportunity emerging in Brunei on which we are keeping a close watch on behalf Territory business is the potential for Alcan to build an aluminium smelter in Brunei. I believe Territory business can gain work from that massive project if it comes off.
In Sabah, I met with the Chief Minister, Datuk Haji Musa, as well as two of his deputy Chief Ministers, Datuk Tham Nyip Shan and Datuk Wences Angang. It was Datuk Wences Angang who led a strong Sabah delegation of some 23 members to our Expo in July this year. My delegation also conducted meetings with the Minister for Agriculture and several of his senior officials, as well as the operators of retail business operations who were interested in buying Territory fruit, vegetables and other produce. My department of DBIRD will disseminate details on these opportunities to Territory business and, also, the Chief Minister and I will lead a business delegation to Sabah’s regional Expo in September of next year.
In Kuala Lumpur, I met with the Chairman of Malaysia Airlines, Tan Sri Dato Aziz Zainul Abidin, and the company’s Managing Director, Datu Md Nor Yusof. The recent news that Malaysia Airlines has made the commercial decision to cancel their slot bookings at Darwin Airport was obviously disappointing, but the decision was in line with the company’s public statement over a month ago that they are not looking to expand their services at this time. There has been suggestion, in light of this commercial decision, that it was a waste of time for me to meet with the company, but nothing could be further from the truth. The company maintains an office in Darwin and still has a code-share arrangement with Garuda for Darwin-Bali flights. The government will continue to work with Malaysia Airlines to ensure that we can quickly capitalise on any changed circumstance. In fact, the troubled global tourism market makes it imperative for the government to continue to develop and build relationships with a number of airlines, including Malaysia and Royal Brunei, and to actively market the Northern Territory as a viable destination.
Major projects like the Darwin city waterfront, the AustralAsia Railway and Wickham Point LNG plant have opened up economic opportunities that were not available in the Northern Territory when Malaysia Airlines last flew to Darwin three years ago. It is these very opportunities that make it all the more important to get out there and promote the Territory and what it has to offer. My visit was warmly received, and both gentlemen gave freely of their valuable time. My visit to Malaysia Airlines follows and supports that made by the Chief Minister in March this year. Malaysia Airlines continue to review the possibility of resuming scheduled air services to Darwin.
At two briefings for the Malaysian business community, I made presentations to more than 40 representatives and government officials to update them on growth and developments in the Northern Territory. A number of trade and investment inquiries were made, and these will be distributed by my department to relevant Territory business.
In Singapore, I met with more than 50 business leaders and government officials through a reception supported by the Australian High Commissioner to Singapore, His Excellency Gary Quinlan, and a private business briefing, at which there was over 40 business people and potential investors in Territory major projects.
During discussions with Silk Air, the company advised that it is still considering options for introducing charter and/or scheduled services between Singapore and Darwin, and we are hopeful of a positive outcome there.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, I sincerely welcome the report. With the increased interest in our region as a result of the culmination of the railway and the revelation that there has been a lack of activity in ensuring that we have freight on that rail, now we do have certain amount of activity. However, the report comes at a time and in response to the clear need that we need to seriously, energetically and imaginatively engage the region.
I will be going through the report in Hansard, in detail, minister, and your chide that I need to seek a briefing, which I will seek after these sittings.
In a broader context, I am concerned by what I am hearing and what I understand about the operation of our engagement strategy. It seems to be a language that is contained in trade outcomes. Please indicate to the opposition precisely what trade outcomes would result from visits to X, Y or Z. We are in trouble when we start to look strictly at a trade outcome. You have to develop a relationship before you can trade; you have to build a bridge before you can carry anything across it. That is the point: we need to make sure that the relationship aspect of our engagement strategy is the forerunner. That is the way you commence this.
We have had a report on a series of meetings, and that is really good to hear. The ongoing strategy that does not immediately jump to the trade outcome, but to maintaining, strengthening and feeding that relationship, which is absolutely critical. With regards to the meeting in Bali, it is a great concern that you did not attend, Minister, because it would have provided you with the opportunity to represent the Northern Territory at the Bali Bombing Commemorations …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Member, your time has expired.
Mr HENDERSON (Asian Relations and Trade): Mr Acting Speaker, in responding to the shadow minister, yes, I am pleased that he will be seeking a briefing. We can put the record straight on exactly what the strategy is.
There is debate, and I accept there is debate going around the community, in terms of the Asian Relations and Trade strategy at the moment, but trade is the outcome that we want. We want economic growth in the Northern Territory and we have to be very strategic about where we focus our relationship effort so that it actually advances Territory trading opportunities and investment in the Territory. That is the strategy that we have embarked upon. It is different from the one on which the CLP embarked. We are putting $300 000 this year up for Territory exporters to access to improve Territory trade compared with $80 000 under the previous scheme. I have no hesitation in saying what we are doing is different, but we are focussed on outcomes. I will be pleased to give the shadow minister a briefing.
Members may be aware that I was in Bali earlier this year and laid a wreath at the site of the Bali bombings on behalf of the Northern Territory community.
Retail Travel Agents Familiarisation Program
Dr BURNS (Tourism): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to report on the successful promotion by the Northern Territory Tourist Commission of a Retail Travel Agents Familiarisation Program. The familiarisation program provides an opportunity for retail travel agents from our target markets to see the Territory in their own time during the shoulder and summer seasons.
It exposes these major agents to the unforgettable experiences that the Territory has to offer and will provide flow-on effects in greater sales to airlines, all NT wholesalers and tourism operators. The program has been available for travel taken by participants from 1 September 2003 to 31 March 2004, which is basically the off-peak time for domestic holiday travel in the NT.
I am very pleased to report that the response from national travel agents for the familiarisation program has been very positive. As of 13 October, 427 agents had made bookings and this number is expected to grow considerably. Further, with those 427 agents there will be 772 accompanying family members.
The familiarisation program provides both short- and long-term benefits to the Territory’s tourism industry. In the short term, with the current bookings, this program will provide around $0.75m of new business for Territory tourism operators spent while the participants and their families are visiting. As well as this immediate benefit to Territory tourism businesses over the traditional shoulder off-peak season, we will greatly benefit in the longer term by having more educated retail agents selling the Territory product to consumers interstate and in New Zealand.
The Northern Territory Tourism Strategic Plan identifies seasonality as a critical issue for the industry, and I quote from page 21 of that document:
This familiarisation program during the shoulder and summer season is an important strategy aimed at exposing travel agents to opportunities during the off peak season.
First, there has already been a series of hosted familiarisation by Territory Discovery sales staff from Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. These familiarisations were offered to some of our most significant interstate retailers and were conducted in both the Top End and Central Australia. The programming incorporated actual product featured in Territory Discoveries’ brochured programs.
The second round of familiarisation will be conducted by a broader retail travel trade, both domestically and from New Zealand. Territory Discoveries will offer full-time retail travel agents and their partners and up to two children reduced rate travel to either the Top End or Central Australia between 1 September 2003 and 31 March 2004.
Over 80 Territory tourism operators have provided industry rates as part of this program, which indicates the high level of support within the Northern Territory for this initiative. The familiarisation program demonstrates this government’s support for small tourism businesses in the Territory over the next six months and will assist in providing jobs for Territorians over this traditionally low travel period.
While the challenges of the last two years for tourism have been daunting, we, as a government, are working hard to ensure that as things now start to look up, the Territory is doing everything it can to market ourselves to our main strategic markets.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Thank you, minister, because you have indicated for the first time in a long time that your government is actually doing something.
I agree that seasonality – we both know it and I am sure other members of this parliament know it – is a problem. The shoulder season, particularly in the Top End, is a problem, and it needs to be addressed. It is an incredible challenge. It has always been a challenge and I suspect it will continue to be a challenge as to how the Territory, particularly the Top End, markets itself for the off-peak season.
It is terrific that travel agents are coming to the Territory. It is no wonder that the 80 operators to whom the minister referred are offering industry rates because they are very keen to get anyone, minister. If it means offering a mate’s rate to an agent from interstate, then it is no wonder at all that they would be willing and delighted, I would have thought, to offer those rates.
In terms of travel agents generally around the country, I received a telephone call the day before yesterday from a representative who was part of the Roadshow team with Tourism Top End and the Darwin City Council recently. They travelled broadly throughout Australia. I was advised that they had contact with 600 travel agents around the country, and the consistent message from those travel agents was that the Northern Territory needs to be in the face of Australians and the international market, and that we are being out-spent by other jurisdictions.
The minister is sick of me saying it, but when I get that information from a member of the Roadshow, it confirms the need for government to inject money. We will continue to say it for as long as the figures are not looking good. We know that they are not looking good. It does not matter what sort of spin government wants to put on it; they are not good.
Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome this initiative on the basis that it is something.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
Mr STIRLING (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Acting Speaker, at the request of and on behalf of the Chief Minister, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent bills entitled AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Amendment Bill (Serial 185) and AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill (Serial 184):
Motion agreed to.
Bills presented and read a first time.
Mr STIRLING (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bills be now read a second time.
The purpose of the AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill is to amend the AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Act and to add further provisions to that act. The amendments relate principally to occupational crossings installed along the Alice Springs to Darwin railway to enable adjoining land-holders access across the railway for a range of activities, including stock movement.
The bill ensures that private land-holders with access, electricity and/or water easements created under section 14A use their easements in accordance with any protocols setting out procedures for rail safety declared under the act. The power to make protocols will be held jointly by the Minister for the AustralAsia Railway and the minister responsible for the administration of the Northern Territory Rail Safety Act.
The AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Act recognises access, electricity and water easements in favour of private land-holders adjoining the corridor. In addition, the act requires the Registrar-General to amend the Land Register to recognise those easements. During construction, due to safety and construction requirements, the location of the access easements were varied. The bill creates a mechanism to amend the Land Register to reflect the variation of those easements.
The purpose of the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Amendment Bill is to update the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Act. The bill updates the name of the regulator of the access regime in accordance with amendments made by the South Australian parliament. I commend these bills to members.
Debate adjourned.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill is to reform the law of the Territory to remove or modify illegal distinctions based on a person’s gender, sexuality or de facto relationship with another person. By doing this, the bill will provide greater protection and equality for all Territorians. The bill also includes a package of reforms developed to strengthen laws protecting children from sexual abuse.
I have said before in this parliament that the government is committed to equality for all Territorians. Last year, the Darwin Community Legal Centre released a paper, which contained a number of proposals for law reform, but with a common goal: equality for all Territorians, regardless of gender, sexuality or marital status. Their proposals included establishing a common age of consent, extending domestic violence laws to homosexual couples, reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act and access to de facto property settlements and other general property rights and benefits like superannuation.
The package of law reform I am now introducing has been developed after careful consideration of those proposals and the wider law. The aim, in developing this package, has been to ensure equality of treatment under the law. Many of the amendments are in areas of the law that affect only the individual, for example access to superannuation, pensions and other financial benefits. Reform to those areas will ensure that same-sex de facto couples and their children are no longer entitled to fewer benefits than others in our society.
Before going into the detail of the legislation I am introducing, I would like to make a comment about reforms to the age of consent. It has been argued that equalising the age of consent for males and females reduces the protection available to young men. The government does not accept this argument. Strong protection for children and young people from the predatory behaviour of adults of either gender is provided by our sexual assault and related laws, and we have taken this opportunity to significantly strengthen Northern Territory criminal law in that area.
The government is also persuaded that a higher age of consent for young men in fact led to higher health and suicide risks, with young men reluctant to seek help for fear of being reported for a breach of the law. The reforms we are introducing today achieve an appropriate balance. They address those serious concerns about the impacts of the current law and strengthen the laws that protect children and young people against predatory adults of any persuasion.
These reforms will ensure equality before the law for all Territorians, no matter what their sexuality, and will bring the Territory into line with the rest of Australia.
There are three main parts to this bill. The first part reforms the Criminal Code to provide equal outcomes for sexual offences, regardless of whether the victim is male or female, and to increase protection of young people against predatory adults. The second part removes and improves laws in the Territory that discriminate against Territorians on the basis of their sexuality. The third part, a range of amendments, will ensure people of same-sex relationships have the same rights and obligations under Territory law as married persons, providing equality to all people in de facto relationships, particularly Territorians in gay and lesbian relationships. For too long, gay and lesbian people have been denied access to the same legal rights and protections provided to heterosexual Territorians, and gay and lesbian people in other states and territories.
I will now move onto the specific amendments contained in the bill; first, those related to sexuality. These reforms principally involve amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act that will create more appropriate exemptions than operate effectively to protect children from paedophiles and sexual predators.
Section 37 of the Anti-Discrimination Act currently provides that a person may discriminate on the basis of sexuality in areas of work if the work involves the care and education of children, and the discrimination in necessary to protect the wellbeing of the children. This type of provision supports the erroneous myth that homosexual people have a predatory attitude to young people and are more likely to commit paedophilia. In addition, it fails to address the possibility of abuse by heterosexual people and, in this way, does not provide sufficient protection for children. Nobody can suggest that all paedophiles are homosexual. That is not only a discriminatory assumption, but a dangerous one. A more equitable and effective way of vetting employees and ensuring protection of vulnerable people is to replace the current section with one that will allow an employer to discriminate against a potential employee on the basis of his or her criminal record. Employers can already require a criminal history check of any potential employee, but this only includes records of any actual findings of guilt against the person that have not been spent. The proposed extension will cover what is known as ‘irrelevant criminal record’ and includes the criminal record of a person that would otherwise be spent, findings of not guilty, and circumstances where criminal charges were laid but not proceeded with.
It is not just children who must be protected from potential abuse from workers. There are other vulnerable people who should be protected in this way. New section 37 defines a vulnerable person as including children, aged persons, and persons with physical and intellectual disability. This new section will provide more effectively for the protection of a wider range of vulnerable people.
Consequential to this, amendments to the Criminal Records (Spent Convictions) Act are required so as to allow for the release of those irrelevant criminal records by police. Section 15(a) is to be inserted and is carefully drafted to ensure that the records can only be released specifically for the purposes of section 37 of the Anti-Discrimination Act; that is, in order to work principally with the care, instruction and supervision of vulnerable people. I would also like to stress that these records can only be released at the request of the person who is the subject of the record. A potential employer cannot access these records without the consent of the potential employee.
The other aspect of the sexuality amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act relates to the unnecessarily wide exemptions currently given to religious bodies. The amendments we are proposing are not intended to impact on any church’s freedom of religion; they are about balancing this freedom against the right of Territorians to protection from discrimination. This government recognises and strongly supports the right of religious institutions to practise their faith without restriction and according to their beliefs and tenets. However, the current exemption for religious bodies under section 51 of Anti-Discrimination Act is unnecessarily wide. It exempts all religious bodies from the operation of the act in every respect, from sexuality to race to pregnancy to age and more, in relation to ordination, training and so on of priests, ministers of religion and other people appointed to perform church functions. It also exempts religious bodies in relation to any act done in accordance with the doctrine of religion, necessary to avoid offending the religious sensitivities of members. The concern is that the scope of the current exemption is inappropriate and unnecessary, given that many religious bodies receive government funding to perform activities that are not strictly religious such as providing crisis accommodation.
There is no reason why religious organisations should be exempt from what would otherwise be unlawful discrimination in areas in which non-religious organisations providing the same non-religious services are liable for unlawful discrimination. As I stated earlier, there is no intention to affect the right of freedom of religion. Therefore, the proposed amendment to section 51 will make no changes in relation to appointment, training or ordination of persons to perform religious functions; it only modifies the exemption slightly to restrict it in relation to other acts by religious bodies to matters of religious observance only.
There was some fear expressed to me that these changes would affect the rights of religious schools to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or religious belief when employing teachers in religious schools. It is understood that in our community of religious schools, there is concern that teachers who have different religious beliefs or attitudes to sexuality from those taught by the religious school may impact negatively on the ability of the school to impart the teachings of the religion to its students. New section 37(a) will provide exemptions to religious schools to enable them to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or religious belief where employing persons to work in the institution. The discrimination must be in good faith and for the purposes of avoiding offence to the religious sensitivities of the people of that particular religion.
Before leaving this area, I would like to stress that these exemptions do not stop any religious school from employing teachers of a different religion, or homosexual teachers. Schools have the freedom to set their own policies in that regard.
I now turn to the amendments relating to de facto relationships. These are by far the majority of the reforms contained in the bill as they have required consequential amendments to all Territory laws that make provisions in relation to married or de facto persons. For the first time, these changes make the law consistent in its application to relationships across the Territory. For the main part, the biggest impact of the changes will be felt by the gay and lesbian community, however, there are various Territory laws that currently discriminate against all de facto relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual, which will also be addressed. This includes Aboriginal traditional marriages, which are currently catered for in some legislation but are conspicuously absent in others.
I am very proud to be introducing these reforms today to recognise gay and lesbian relationships. As a government, our job is to ensure equality for all Territorians and for too long, gay and lesbian people have been ignored in our statute books. Equality before the law is a fundamental right, but until now, gay and lesbian Territorians have not enjoyed the same rights as their fellow Territorians or as gay and lesbian men and women in other parts of the country. These amendments will allow gay and lesbian people to be full and equal participants in our society. By giving gay and lesbian relationships recognition under Territory law, it is not just people in same-sex relationships who will benefit from these reforms; it is society as a whole.
Children in same-sex families will benefit from greater protection as their non-biological parents’ rights and responsibilities towards their children would be recognised and enforceable. The same financial obligations and liabilities of married people will be imposed on people in de facto relationships in the same way as married people, and society will benefit from greater participation and greater tolerance. It is a step towards reducing the stigmatisation felt by young gay people, which research shows can lead to mental illness and suicide.
The main vehicle for effecting this change across the Territory is through changes to the De facto Relationships Act, particularly the definition of what constitutes a de facto relationship. The De facto Relationships Act currently provides for a legal mechanism for the recognition of the property rights of de facto partners and the division of property after the breakdown of a de facto relationship.
It also provides for de facto partners to make certain legal agreements relating to financial matters between the partners and ex-partners. Unlike the case of a marriage breakdown, de facto couples cannot seek legal redress through the Family Court in relation to division of joint property. At the moment, the definition of a de facto relationship under that act is quite narrow and applies only to relationships of two people living together as husband and wife on a bona fide domestic basis. The definition therefore excludes same-sex relationships and Aboriginal traditional marriages where the parties to the marriage do not live in the same household.
Arguably, it may also exclude people who still consider themselves to be in a committed monogamous relationship, but who, due to financial reasons or job opportunities, maintain separate households, for example where one of the partners works at a mine or in a remote community and the other lives in town.
We propose to insert a more flexible definition to section 3(a) of the De Facto Relationships Act that can be applied across the board to a wide range of personal relationships that exist in the Territory. The proposed definition is gender non-specific and provides that de facto relationship is a marriage-like relationship between two persons. Section 3(a)(2) then goes on to specify, when determining if a de facto relationship exists, all the circumstances of the relationship must be taken into account, including relevant matters that are specifically listed in the legislation. These include matters such as the duration of the relationship, whether a sexual relationship exists, the degree of financial dependence or inter-dependence and the public aspects of the relationship. Is not an automatic bar if one of the matters on the list is not present, but the presence of any matter will go towards establishing the existence of a de facto relationship. In case there is any doubt, it is also proposed to include 3(a)(3), which expressly states that it is not relevant when determining the existence of a relationship whether the persons are of the same or opposite sex, they are married to another person, or they are in another de facto relationship.
This definition to be applied in to the De Facto Relationships Act will, for the first time in the Territory, give gay and lesbian people a mechanism in the courts to resolve property disputes with their ex-partners. Until now, the non-financial contributions of a same-sex partner to a relationship cannot be recognised in the same way as marriage or heterosexual de facto relationships. This could lead in some cases to a non-working partner not being able to obtain an appropriate property settlement. Their contributions to the relationship, such as home improvements or domestic support to the other party while they work in a highly paid demanding job, is under-recognised and cannot be practically enforced in a property settlement.
Whilst there are other ways to settle disputes over property division, these are more complex and costly than the De Facto Relationships Act. Property reform for same-sex relationships is long overdue, but the reforms do not stop here. The new definition of de facto will apply across the board to all Northern Territory legislation. The Interpretation Act is being amended to provide that unless there is an express contrary intention, where the term ‘de facto’ or ‘de facto relationship’ is used in any act, or legislation under any act enacted by this parliament, the definition under the De Facto Relationships Act will apply. Wherever ‘de facto’ appears, it will include same-sex as well as heterosexual relationships.
To clarify the position in relationship to Aboriginal traditional marriages, the Interpretation Act will also provide that wherever there is a reference to terms such as marriage, spouse, husband and wife, they are to be read as including Aboriginal traditional marriages.
The De Facto Relationships Act was enacted in 1991. The act purported to give equal treatment under Territory law to heterosexual de facto relationships as were given to married relationships. The method of providing for that reform was that at the same time to include references to de facto where necessary throughout each relevant item of legislation. Consequently, a definition of de facto was also inserted into each relevant item of the legislation.
For these new reforms, that approach has been rejected. A separate definition in each act is cumbersome and unnecessary. It is much simpler to provide for one definition in the De Facto Relationships Act, and apply it across the board. Moreover, it will apply the term automatically to any future acts of the Territory. If another interpretation is intended, it will have to be very clearly expressed and specifically justified.
You will note the vast array of amendments to acts, regulations, rules and even community government schemes. These are essentially amendments needed to remove the old definition of de facto throughout the statute books and replace them with the new terminology.
As mentioned earlier, there are some existing laws which have failed to recognise any form of de facto relationship. In those cases, these reforms will ensure that the de facto partners and relationships are dealt with under Territory law in the same way as marriage. These reforms are not as wide-ranging as those related to same-sex de facto relationships, but are necessary if we are going to successfully implement our policy of providing equality of treatment for all personal relationships in the Territory.
For example, some of the amendments needed in this regard were to acts related to statutory pensions provided to judges and administrators on retirement. In addition, spouses of judges and administrators are entitled to a part of the pension if they are widowed. At the moment, the Administrators Pensions Act and the Supreme Court (Judges Pensions) Act restrict the payment of part pension only to spouses and widows of judges. As these terms are interpreted consistently with the legal definition of marriage, de facto spouses and same-sex partners would arguably not be entitled in the same way as legally married spouses to access the part pension on the death of their partner. As with other Territorians, judges and administrators are entitled to make the same choices as to the types of personal relationships they enter. Territory legislation needs to recognise and provide for this. The reforms therefore include amendments to these acts to allow for the part pension to be paid to the surviving de facto partner in the same way as it is paid to a widow.
An additional amendment has been included in these cases for the situations where there is both a surviving de facto partner and a wife and husband to whom the judge or administrator is still legally married. In these cases, the de facto who has been in an exclusive relationship with the judge or administrator for two years will be entitled to the part pension. In any other case, the wife or husband will be eligible.
The de facto reforms will also function to remove discriminatory effects on some children under Territory law. At the moment, the lack of recognition of gay and lesbian relationships in Northern Territory law not only discriminates against men and women in homosexual relationships, but it also discriminates on many levels against the interests of children raised by same-sex parents. A significant aspect of the reforms relates to the recognition of parentage of a lesbian partner in very limited circumstances. The proposed amendments to the Status of Children Act create a presumption of parentage in relation to IVF children in lesbian families. The consenting non-biological female parent in a lesbian family will be presumed to be the parent. However, I would like to stress that this will not affect the parental obligations or rights of a biological father in situations where the mother enters into a later lesbian relationship. If there is a father with an interest in the child, this will not be affected. The aim of this amendment is purely to give IVF children in lesbian families the benefits and protections of two parents, which would otherwise not be available. These children then will not be disadvantaged or discriminated against as a result of the person they perceive as their parent being denied legal recognition under Northern Territory law. It will provide such children with the same level of security, both financial and personal, as other children should either of their parents die.
Looking at Northern Territory legislation generally, it does not recognise the relationships between children raised in same-sex families and their non-biological parents. As a result, both the children of same-sex couples and same-sex parents are discriminated against in a number of other statutes such as the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which regulates compensation for injury arising from mental or nervous shock; the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act; the Police Administration Act; the Work Health Act; the Family Provision Act; and the Taxation Administration Act.
A child would normally have an expectation that they would be entitled to ongoing support from the parent that the child is dependent upon. As the law is currently drafted, a child raised by same-sex parents is not always entitled to rely on this support. While children in heterosexual families can look to their step-parents for support, children in same-sex families do not have the same level of protection. Under the current law, there are certain benefits and rights that children of heterosexual couples are entitled to access that are not fully accessible by children of same-sex parents. For example, a child being supported by same-sex parents will not be eligible to access compensation under the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act or the Crimes (Victims Assistance) Act in relation to an accident or offence suffered by their non-biological or non-adoptive parent.
Another area that currently discriminates against such children is in the area of succession and intestacy. The Family Provisions Act provides for family members of a deceased person to apply for adequate provisions under the deceased’s personal estate if they feel that they have been inadequately provided for. A stepchild of a person is entitled to apply to a court if they were maintained immediately prior to the person’s death. Without clarification of this term to include the same-sex step parents, this would be interpreted to mean a child from a married or heterosexual de facto relationship. In addition, neither the same-sex partner or the child of a same-sex partner is entitled to a portion of the estate of their stepchild or step parent under the Administration and Probate Act where they die intestate. This is the case even if the partner or child was being fully supported by the intestate person. This could result in an incongruous situation that a remote relative is entitled to the estate over the deceased person’s dependant child.
To address these situations, a new definition of ‘stepchild’ has been inserted into the Interpretation Act, which defines the term to include a child of the person’s de facto partner. Now that the term ‘de facto’ includes same-sex partners, stepchild will include the child of a person’s same-sex de facto partner. This definition will now apply across all Territory legislation, the effect of which is to provide that the non-biological parent in a same-sex relationship is essentially treated under the law in the same manner as any other step parent.
As you can see, the reforms are addressing a wide range of discriminatory treatment under Territory law. Other areas also being addressed in relation to same-sex relationships include the provision of equal access to financial benefits. These reforms relate to schemes that entitle a person to compensation as a result of accident or criminal offence. Under these schemes, such as the Compensation (Fatal Injuries) Act, a married spouse or heterosexual partner can be eligible to apply as a dependant of the injured or deceased person. However, same-sex partners are excluded. The Stamp Duty Act will also be reformed so that exemptions will also apply in relation to property settlements between separated same-sex de facto partners.
Reforms in the area of intestacy and inheritance are also being addressed. These relate the management of the estate of the deceased person and the distribution of property when the person dies intestate. These will have the effect of ensuring that the same-sex partners are recognised and have the same entitlements under the estate as a widow or widower.
Similarly, reforms are proposed in relation to the management of personal affairs such as under the Adult Guardianship Act and the Aged and Infirm Persons’ Property Act, providing mechanisms for the care of people who become unable to manage their own affairs and protect the property of a person suffering from a disability. Currently, same-sex partners are not expressly recognised as relatives, are not entitled to apply for a protection order, and are not entitled to apply for assistance as dependants.
The Territory legislation relating to issues of human dignity and medical treatment were also identified as requiring reform. The relevant acts deal with issues such as consent to medical treatment, organ donation, post mortems and autopsies, and applications for exhumations. Currently, same-sex partners do not have an automatic right to consent to their partner’s emergency operation or organ donation in the same way as other spouses.
With the granting of the new benefits and rights also come new liabilities and obligations that are imposed on married and de facto heterosexual couples. The granting of rights to homosexual persons in other areas should be dependent on the imposition of other liabilities and obligations that already fall on heterosexual persons. The exclusion of homosexual relationships from some legislation may allow members of same-sex partnerships to access preferential loans, grants and licences from which they would be otherwise ineligible; for example, where their partner has already accessed the first home owner’s grant. This position has, in the past, prevented relevant authorities from properly assessing the assets and suitability of applicants. There are also many acts that impose an obligation on applicants for certain licences to disclose any relevant interests of their spouse and de facto partner, which does not currently include same-sex partners.
There are also provisions for members of certain boards or organisations, such as the Board of the Territory Insurance Office, to disclose the financial and other interests held by them or their associates, which include married spouses and de facto partners but does not include same-sex partners. This real and potentially damaging lack of accountability in relation to same-sex couples will be addressed in the reforms.
Other rights that are currently denied to same-sex couples, which are now being granted, include the right under the Police Administration Act to be informed if their partner is being held in custody. It is currently only applicable to married and heterosexual partners. The Mining Act and the Aboriginal Land Act automatically give limited rights to married spouses and de facto heterosexual partners of licences and permit holders. These rights are not given to same-sex partners.
You will note in Division 7 of Part 4 of the bill a list of application provisions. These are required to apply the new definitions of de facto, spouse and stepchild. Generally, under section 31 of the bill the new definitions will apply to de facto relationships in existence at the time of the commencement of the reforms and to relationships that come into existence after that date. However, this general application provision is not appropriate for every act and so specific application provisions were required in some cases. For example, where the acts were dependent on the death of the person, such as the Administration and Probate Act or the Compensation (Fatal Injuries) Act, an application provision was required to clarify that the reforms only applied to a death that occurred after the commencement of the reforms.
This is just an overview of the legislation being amended in relation to de facto relationships. The bulk of the amendments dealing with the relationship reforms are contained in Schedules 1 and 2. These amendments are quite straightforward and repetitive. I will not go through each amendment individually as they are too numerous to mention in a second reading speech.
I now turn to Part 2 of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003, which makes amendments to Territory law relating to gender. The bulk of the changes are to the Criminal Code. These include equalising the age of consent for males and females and toughening up the offences relating to sexual intercourse and activity with children, otherwise known as carnal knowledge offences by increasing the penalties, creating some new offences and tightening up inappropriate defences. There were gaps that needed to be addressed as they failed to adequately protect boys from unlawful sexual intercourse. Currently, for some offences the Code applies different penalties, depending on the gender of the victim and/or offender. This is inappropriate and inequitable. Every child, regardless of their gender or the gender of the person committing an offence against them, is entitled to the same level of protection from the law.
Equalising the age of consent for both sexes will ensure equity between the sexes under the law for consensual sex and toughening our sexual assault laws will protect all young people from predatory adults and close the loopholes that fail to adequately protect boys from unlawful sexual intercourse. The age of consent and child sexual offences, or carnal knowledge offences, are contained in Division 2 of Part V of the Criminal Code. Subdivision 2 of this division, entitled Other Offences Against Morality, has been completely overhauled. Although there is currently no specific provision in the Northern Territory legislation expressly creating a respective age of consent for males and females, the cumulative effect of Criminal Code offences created by sections 127, 128 and 129, which deal with sexual intercourse with children, is that, while either gender can legally consent to engage in heterosexual sex, and for females lesbian sex, at 16 years, a male must be 18 years of age before they can consent to engage in male homosexual sex.
Currently, the effect of these provisions is not only to create a different age of consent, but fails to protect our male children. For example, section 128 assumes that a male child who has homosexual sex will do so consensually and is not a victim, while a female under 16 years who has sexual intercourse is a victim. This could see young boys who are the victim of sexual assault by another male also being criminally liable, an obviously unacceptable situation. There is an offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency involving females under 16, but no similar offence to protect males. The changes we are making will remove these anomalies.
The bill therefore proposes to repeal sections 127, 128 and 129 and replace them with one general offence of having sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16, regardless of the gender of the child or the perpetrator.
At the same time, the penalties have been increased, sending the message to potential offenders that the community will not tolerate sexual interference with our children. Currently, the maximum penalty for a general offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency with a child is seven years imprisonment where the child is over 14, and 14 years imprisonment where the child is under the age of 14. The maximum penalty for the general offence is being increased to 16 years imprisonment.
We are introducing new aggravated offences, which will attract an even higher level of penalty. In circumstances where the child is particularly vulnerable, the penalty will increase to 20 years imprisonment. These circumstances include where the offender is in the company of others, the child is under the authority of the offender, the child has a serious disability, or the child is affected by drugs or alcohol. Where the child is under the age of 10, the maximum penalty is 25 years. The lower age of the victim is regarded as a factor of aggravation in itself.
These penalties are amongst the toughest in the nation. This government is committed to protecting our children from abuse. This approach to increasing penalties generally has been applied consistently across all child sexual intercourse offences in Subdivision 2 of Division 2 of Part V. The penalties related to the section 130 offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency by the provider of disability support services to the mentally ill or handicapped person have been revised to specifically provide for offences involving children.
Currently, if a carer had sexual relationships with a child in his or her care, he or she could be prosecuted under section 130 and would have been liable to receive a maximum penalty of only seven years, the same penalty that applies to an offence against an adult. There was no recognition of the greater level of seriousness if the offence was committed against a child. The bill addresses this deficiency by inserting higher penalties where the victim is a child and where the victim is under the age of 10 years. The penalties of 20 years and 25 years respectively reflect the penalties of aggravated carnal knowledge.
Section 131A creates the offence of maintaining a relationship of a sexual nature with a child. The penalties for this offence are graduated in the sense that if the relationship an actual sexual offence, it will attract a higher penalty, currently 14 years or life imprisonment, depending on the nature of the offence. These maximum penalties are being increased to 20 years and life. The types of offences that will attract life imprisonment if committed as part of an ongoing sexual relationship with a child include coerced sexual self-manipulation and attempted rape causing grievous bodily harm.
The penalties in the section 132 offence of ‘indecent dealing with a child under the age of 16 years’ are also being increased as they are considered to be inadequate and not reflective of the seriousness of the offences that section covers. Currently, the general maximum penalty is five years imprisonment, increasing to 10 years if the victim is under 12 years, a lineal descendant or under the offender’s care.
Section 132 is aimed at indecent dealings which are less than ‘gross indecency’ but still of a sexual nature. Such activities could include touching a child inappropriately, showing pornography to a child, taking indecent photographs of a child or talking in a sexual manner to a child. These are obviously very serious offences, but not as serious as sexual intercourse or gross indecency. The penalties are being increased to 10 years imprisonment for a general offence and 14 years imprisonment if the child is under 10 years of age.
This government is concerned that child sexual intercourse offences in the Criminal Code are not enough to completely protect our young people from predatory behaviour in some adults. Therefore, a new offence is being inserted in section 128 of the Code, which will apply to sexual intercourse or gross indecency involving a child over the age of 16 but who is under the offender’s special care. This offence is in addition to the ‘carnal knowledge’ offence as it applies to child victims who are of the age of consent but are still perceived as vulnerable because of their age and relationship to the offender.
Despite being legally able to engage in sexual relationships, young persons aged 16 and 17 can still be emotionally vulnerable and easily influenced. They still need to be protected from predatory behaviour by adults who could take advantage of their youth and inexperience, particularly from persons in authority who can easily exploit their position in order to take advantage of children.
The new offence will apply to offenders who are step parents or guardians, school teachers, custodial officers, health professionals and other personal instructors, such as sporting coaches. By creating an offence in respect of these relationships, the proposed offence appropriately recognises the power imbalances that can exist in these types of relationships and how adults can exploit them.
However, in recognition of the fact that these young persons are otherwise of the age of consent, the penalties are lower than for ‘carnal knowledge’. If the young person is 16 years of age, the maximum penalty is eight years imprisonment, and four years imprisonment if the young person is 17 years of age. As a young person who is 16 or 17 can legally marry with the consent of the court, a defence is provided where the victim and the offender are in a married or in a de facto relationship.
You will also note that other defences have been either amended or inserted throughout the subdivision, for example the defence in section 127(4) that the child was actually of or above the age of 14 years, and the accused believed, on reasonable ground, that the child was of or above the age of 16 years. Currently, there is a much wider defence available to perpetrators of child sex offences. The current defence is that the accused believed on reasonable grounds that the child was of or above the age of 16 in the case of a girl, or was an adult in the case of a boy. The current defence is too wide, because it will be pleaded by a perpetrator, regardless of the actual age of the child, and therefore it discourages potential offenders from making the proper inquiries. Where there is a doubt, the onus should be on the adult to make sure that the person is not under the age of consent. The tighter defences are being inserted into sections 127, 130, 131, 131A and 132, and will provide a higher level of protection for children.
It is also proposed to entirely remove another existing defence. This is the defence that the parties to the act are married. This defence currently operates through the requirement that child sex offences involve ‘unlawful’ sexual activity. For the purposes of subdivision 2 only, ‘unlawful’ means that the parties are not husband and wife. However, the Commonwealth Marriage Act does not permit marriage of a child under the age of 16. The defence appears to have been included in 1983, where it was still possible to get a court approval to marry under the age of 16 years. This has not been the case since 1991.
Further, because the definition of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ in section 1 of the Code includes an Aboriginal marriage ‘according to tribal custom’, it has become clear that the otherwise defunct carnal knowledge defence available to a husband of a girl under 16 could be invoked in the case of customary marriage. It is significant that indigenous women’s organisations and child protection organisations have spoken out against traditional marriage being used to mitigate or excuse sexual offences committed against children. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission’s Social and Physical Wellbeing Committee supports the principle that in a conflict between customary law and criminal law, the interests of the child must come first, and that was in a media release on 16 May 2003. The availability of such a defence is also inconsistent with international human rights standards. These include Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that states must take all appropriate legislative measures to protect a child from all forms of physical and mental abuse. Additionally, Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women states that the betrothal and marriage of a child shall have no legal effect.
The defence is also arguably inconsistent with the Northern Territory Community Welfare Act, which provides for the protection of children from sexual abuse or exploitation. For these reasons, we have removed the defence altogether by repealing the definition of ‘unlawful’ in section 126, and are making amendments throughout subdivision 2 to omit all references to ‘unlawful’ or ‘unlawfully’. This government does not condone child sexual abuse in any circumstances.
The offences in sections 201 and 202 also needed to be addressed. The offence created by section 201 is the offence of taking or enticing away or detaining a child under the age of 16 with the intention that he or another shall have sexual intercourse with the child, or that that child shall be indecently dealt with or exposed to indecent behaviour. The offence contains the defence of being married to the child or having the consent of that child’s mother, father or other persons having a lawful care or charge of the child. Like the defence to carnal knowledge offences, this defence is offensive and inconsistent with the basis of human rights of the children to be protected from all kinds of physical and sexual abuse. It will be removed.
Similarly, the offence contained in section 202 of taking a child under 16 years, without consent, out of the custody or protection of that child’s mother, father or other person having the lawful care or charge contains a defence that the person was married to the child. This defence is also being removed.
The separate offences of incest contained in sections 134 and 135 are also being reformed. The current offences are both inequitable and inadequate. The maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment for incest committed by a male is far greater than the penalty for seven years committed by a female. The offences also contain offensive and inappropriate gender assumptions. That is, that a female offender is a submissive participant, while a male offender is the aggressor. Notably, there is also no specific provision for homosexual incest.
I will say it again: every child, regardless of the sex of the person who exploits them, is entitled to the same level of protection under criminal law. The bill, therefore, repeals both incest offences and replaces them with one offence applying equally to male and female victims and perpetrators. The general penalty is 14 years imprisonment. This applies to related adults engaging in sexual intercourse. If the act involves a child under 16 years, the same penalties apply as to other aggravated carnal knowledge offences, that is, 20 years imprisonment if the child is 10 years or over, and 25 years if the child is under 10 years. Section 377 of the Criminal Code, which is the evidentiary provision relating to the proof of the closed family relationship in an incest offence, is also replaced to be gender-inclusive.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the minister be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Acting Speaker, there are a range of other minor consequential amendments to the Criminal Code and Sentencing Act as a result of the changes we are making. These include changing cross-references throughout the Code where the offence numbers have been changed or omitted. There are also various amendments to the Code which include the new definition of ‘de facto’, which will apply across the board to all Territory legislation, and which I have already discussed.
Equality of treatment of gay and lesbian Territorians under the law provides self–respect, reduces stigmatisation, and promotes full participation in our community. We want to send a strong message that it is not acceptable to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their sexuality. Our statute books will not legitimise such discrimination. Our aim in government is to create a more tolerant and understanding society, and our role as government is to take that lead. The reforms that I have presented today reflect this government’s committed approach to promoting and ensuring a Territory that is free of discrimination and protects its citizens to the fullest extent. I am proud to be introducing two bills that give gay and lesbian people rights and protection denied to them for so long.
Before finishing, I acknowledge the work of the Darwin Community Legal Service in their submission entitled Equality Before the Law that was released in May 2002. Many of the reforms here today are based on recommendations contained in that submission. I thank the service for the wide consultation and work put into that submission. It was very helpful to us in developing our reforms. I am very proud of the reforms in this package of legislation that will toughen up laws protecting children from sexual abuse. Toughening up our sexual assault laws will protect all young people from predatory adults and close the loopholes that fail to adequately protect children from unlawful sexual intercourse.
Mr Acting Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
The purpose of the Commonwealth Powers (De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 is to request that the Commonwealth legislate for the Territory in relation to the division of property and other financial resources on the breakdown of a de facto relationship. It is proposed to request this in relation to both heterosexual and same-sex relationships.
This is intended to allow property disputes on the breakdown of defacto relationships to be dealt with under the Commonwealth Family Law Act in the same manner as property disputes resulting from a marriage breakdown. This bill reflects a decision made by state and territory Attorneys-General through the National Sanding Committee of Attorneys-General. The bill is based on a model bill approved in that forum. Similar bills have been introduced in New South Wales and Queensland, with the rest of the jurisdictions to follow shortly, other than Western Australia, which has its own state Family Court.
There are various advantages to the Commonwealth dealing with property settlements for de facto relationships. First, it will provide for all property settlements regarding a relationship breakdown to be dealt with consistently and efficiently. Second, there will no longer be a barrier to matters relating to children and property being dealt with in the same court. Third, the new provisions contained in the Family Law Act allowing for the court to split superannuation entitlements in order to arrive at a more equal property settlement can be accessed by persons in de facto relationships as well.
You may wonder why we are amending the Territory’s De Facto Relationships Act if de facto property settlements are going to be referred to the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, at this stage the Commonwealth has indicated that it is not prepared to accept referrals from the states and requests from the territories in relation to same-sex de facto relationships. The Commonwealth holds to the view that same-sex relationships do not deserve the same level of recognition as heterosexual relationships and that it is acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality in this case.
The Territory and the other Australian states and territories are not willing to endorse that position. Accordingly, the De Facto Relationships (Northern Territory Request) Bill 2003 includes a request in relation to same-sex de facto relationships despite the Commonwealth government’s refusal. The requests will remain there until a Commonwealth government that is willing to take the stand against discrimination agrees to legislate for same-sex persons. Until then, property settlements relating to gay and lesbian relationships will have to be dealt with under the Territory’s De Facto Relationships Act.
Mr Acting Speaker I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Mr Acting Speaker, I can indicate that, having looked at this bill in some detail, there are parts of which we are supportive and other parts that we do no support.
It may be that during the committee stage, some things can be clarified. What I thought I would do, and this is essentially for the benefit of the minister and his advisors, is to touch upon some of the matters that we have difficulty with so that they can think about those things prior to committee, although we may well have the benefit of the luncheon adjournment.
In any event, having made that introduction I will make the following points. The Attorney-General said in his second reading speech on 20 August that there were approximately 1700 incorporated associations in the Northern Territory. At the same time, he said 200 copies of the draft act were distributed. I would like to know why only 200 copies were distributed when there are 1700 incorporated associations.
The Attorney-General noted that seminars were held around the Territory and that they were well received. We would like to know whether they were well attended, and how confident is the Attorney-General and government that all of the 1700 incorporated associations were advised and are aware of these changes.
I received advice late last week from one association in particular that a representative, as I understand it, from the Justice Department attended their meeting last Thursday. I am told that the representatives of that association did not know that changes were proposed to the Associations Act. In the alternative, they say if they were sent something, then they certainly did not know the extent of it and they felt that on the Thursday night the week before this would come up again in parliament, they did not think that was very satisfactory.
I raise that because it is one example of which I know. Presumably there are others, and it is a legitimate concern for me to raise.
I also noticed in the second reading speech that the Attorney-General said the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs would be conducting information and training sessions for members, office bearers, accountants and so on, advising of the requirements of the new legislation and provide education programs to enable them to meet their accountabilities. I would like to know whether additional resources have been put aside for that purpose, as presumably more will be required and, again, have the associations been advised of the possibility of the education campaigns?
Getting down to the parts of the bill specifically, in relation to Part 2, clause 5, we note that the commissioner may exempt the association or an officer from the association from an obligation to comply with a provision of the act. We are concerned that there is no criteria at all, simply that the commissioner can exempt an association or a person. We would submit that without any legislative guidance, that is extremely unwise and borders on the bizarre.
We note that in clause 10, the commissioner is obliged to give reasons for a refusal to issue a Certificate of Incorporation, but in light of clause 5, there being no criteria as to why the commissioner can exempt an association, we see that as somewhat being in conflict and in some respects just not making any sense. The only assistance provided in respect of clause 5 is that in the event that any subsequent legal proceedings arise, lawyers may well have the opportunity or may explore the inclination to look at the second reading speech, and they will note that the Attorney-General says:
If that is the only situation government thinks there might be for an exemption, then we would submit that it should say so in the bill and should not leave it open, as there may well be troublesome consequences and, further, in the absence of any legislative guidance, there is a lot of power to be vested in the commissioner. Again, we think that may well have troublesome consequences.
In relation to clause 5(3), similarly there is no …
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I wonder if the member for Araluen could speak up a bit. I am finding it hard to hear. I am sure they are over there, too. Just bellow.
Ms CARNEY: Fair dinkum? Similarly, there is no guidance as to the circumstances in which the Commissioner may revoke or vary an extension or an exemption. I urge the Attorney-General to rethink that. It is not that it is opposed per se; it is just that it could be drafted better. There is an underlying theme. That is, in the absence of legislative guidance in some of these causes, it is left for others to ponder, and we do not think that that is good enough, given the Attorney-General’s personal commitment to overseeing some improved drafting in legislation in the Northern Territory.
Still in Part 2, clause 6, headed Secrecy, it provides what might be expected in terms of ensuring confidentiality of information obtained or provided to the commissioner or his or her delegates in the course of their employment. However, for reasons that were, interestingly, not outlined or touched upon in the second reading speech, an exception is provided in the case of court proceedings which, of course, is reasonable, but an exception is also provided so that the commissioner or delegates can – and I quote - ‘produce a document or divulge a communication’ to the minister, the Treasurer, the minister administering the Local Government Act, and the Commissioners of Police and Taxes, along with some others who might be deemed by the commissioner to be in the public interest. That is, associations have some form of security in the knowledge that the commissioner or his delegates treat their information confidentially. I have tried to undertake a search and I have not found any other legislation where this exists. That is, we will keep all of your information secret, however we will include a clause that says we can tell members of the government if we think it is in the public interest. That is very concerning. The question is: why is that necessary? Might it not create the impression that there could be some level of politicisation of associations?
In relation to Part 3, which covers clauses 8 to 26, it is the case that not all of the part is unreasonable. However, the opposition is concerned about the abolition of the need to advertise, and thereby await objections from members of the public. There are provisions that ensure that people who have been convicted of dishonesty offences and so on, as outlined in Part 4, given those, one would have thought that a notice in the local paper would in some way assist that objective. Although only one name usually appears in the ads that all of us see in the classifieds when organisations seek to incorporate, the advertising at least notifies the community of the fact that a person seeks to start up an association and now, under this proposed legislation, that process is a long way away from public gaze. We ask why was it deemed necessary to dispense with the requirement for incorporated associations to advertise their intention to commence?
We would argue that it is a good way for people to know what is happening in their community as they might want to join in an association that they think is of interest to them. Alternatively, there may be other associations with similar interests that might like to contact a new association that is being established, but in the absence of the public notice, these opportunities would no longer exist. Also, it takes away the right of Territorians to object if they so wish. I am not sure, minister, how many times it has happened, and I suspect very few, but even if it has never happened, that is, someone objects to an association’s formation, we ask: why is it that government apparently wants to take away that right? We will be asking in the committee stage what the rationale was for that.
Finally, dispensing with the need to advertise a newly-incorporated association seems inconsistent with clause 23(4)(a), which requires an association to give notice of an alteration to its constitution by, ironically, placing an advertisement in a newspaper. Further, it seems inconsistent with clause 44, which provides that, in the case of a tier 3 organisation, it must advertise that its audited accounts are available for inspection. Why was it deemed necessary when, at the same time, on the one hand, government seems to be removing a requirement to advertise an intention to start an association, and then some sections later in the act, there is this thing that pops up, which is a requirement to advertise certain things? It seems inconsistent and curious, although there may well be a sensible explanation.
In the second reading speech, the Attorney-General said, and I am not quoting, but as I understood what he was saying: some organisations could take two years to get their constitution right, that is to comply with the act, if it is a different constitution from the model to be included in the regulations. I have gone through the act, and I cannot find a specific reference to that. I would simply request the Attorney-General or his assistants to go back to the second reading speech. That appears at the bottom of, in my copy, page 2:
If it is in there, fine. I have looked at it a couple of times; I could not find it. If it is not there and it is not clear, perhaps it could be made clearer. In any event, I await advice on that.
Clause 23(6) is, I submit, very strange indeed. This is subsection of a proposed section to an act of parliament that commences with the word ‘also’. That is not good drafting. I can only assume that the instructions must have been to ask for that because I am not sure that that is an acceptable or common way to start a paragraph in legislation. I raise it on the basis that, again, the Attorney-General is committed to good drafting and coming up with good legislation in terms of its structure. It does not always happen, but when it does, it is great. I can indicate that I have checked with a couple of senior colleagues in the law, and I will not disclose exactly what they said, but it is very strange. Perhaps that can be amended from the floor.
In relation to Part 4, which covers clauses 27 to 40, we have some difficulty, minister, with clause 28. That provides that a fine of 20 penalty units, that is $2200, if a public officer does not provide within 14 days details of full name and address of the committee members or members of the association. It seems harsh. We would like to know what is the rationale behind that. I can also indicate that I have received letters and phone calls from several community organisations that are horrified, it is fair to say, about some of the very high penalties that are included in the bill. I appreciate where the government is coming from in respect of some of them, but there is great concern amongst community organisations that they might be fined anywhere between $2200 to $22 000 for oversights. We all know what committees and organisations are like; sometimes things can go wrong. I will be asking the minister to indicate why very high figures were chosen, and whether he had given any consideration to being a bit more flexible.
We are also concerned as, indeed, are the people to whom I have spoken that these very high penalties place a high onus on volunteers who, we all know, are very thin on the ground. If they think that the future of their association might be at risk because of very high fines imposed for some fairly routine oversights, then there is a concern that has been expressed to me that organisations may not be able to attract volunteers. I undertook to put that argument on the Parliamentary Record.
The same applies, minister, in relation to clause 38. That is that members must ensure that the minutes are signed and confirmed etcetera within, I think, 14 days. There is a penalty of 200 penalty units, that is $22 000. We say that is very harsh. What is the rationale? What was the consultation and what was the feedback? Again, I raise the issue of attracting volunteers to community organisations. We do know that there can be simple mistakes, slip ups and essentially, we are wanting to know whether there was any room to move. If not, why not?
In relation to clause 40, I will be asking in the committee stage how the minister envisages that clause actually working. Does it mean in a practical sense that someone has to come to the notice of the commissioner and, if so, how might that occur? There is a power to investigate associations within this bill and the original act. I know that Consumer Affairs is currently investigating a number of associations, but the question is: how does a disqualified person come to the notice of the commissioner? Might it be in the course of a normal investigation? Is it expected that a community member will ring the commissioner to say: ‘I think there is a disqualified person sitting on our committee’? There are number of possibilities, and we would be appreciative of some answers on that point but we are wanting explore it further.
In relation to the Commissioner of Police, I assume that it includes the commissioner and his or her delegate. If so, why is that not in the bill? In relation to clause 43, there is a fine of 100 penalty units, which I think is $11 000, if a number of things are not done, including if there is not a report signed by two members advising of the name of members of the committee, its principal activities and outlining its nett profit and loss. The fine seems, with respect, completely over the top. Again, it comes back to encouraging people to become involved in associations. If they are looking at fines that could potentially see the undoing or the unravelling of a community organisation, then very few people will become involved. That is not healthy for anyone in the Territory community. Again, I stress that these are concerns that have been put to me. I can foreshadow that the questions we will be asking will be: what was the basis for it? What was the consultation? What was the feedback?
It does appear that an unintended consequence could be that by an act of simple omission, an organisation could be looking at fines that could make an organisation unable to continue to operate. Similarly, in respect of clause 44, a committee must ensure that audited accounts are available for inspection 14 days prior to an annual general meeting. The penalty is 100 units. Again, that seems unreasonable for the reasons I have already outlined.
In relation to clause 45 that says an association must file with the commissioner various documents which are referred to in clause 43(1) within 28 days, there is a penalty of 100 penalty units. That seems excessive. I am wondering whether the minister has considered, or might consider, extending that 28 day period to perhaps 60 days. That has been suggested to me by two associations. They make that point because they say the nature of the material that must be filed is such that it might not always be possible to file those documents within 28 days knowing, as so many of us do, how some associations work. The right person might be away, they might be on holidays. This could have very serious and far reaching consequences. I should say that one of the people who contacted me said, and I quote:
We are looking for some answers in respect of those concerns.
In relation to clause 46, Tier 1 Organisations, in the second reading speech, the Attorney-General indicated the indicated the monetary values of the three tiers, but also said that the dollar value would be set out in the regulations. I ask: does he still intend that the values he referred to in the second reading speech will be carried through to the regulations? I would expect a positive answer, but if there is any change, now is the time to tell us.
The Attorney-General also said in the second reading speech that:
That is not, on my reading of it at least, what clause 46 actually says, which is:
and so on, and there is a penalty of 100 penalty units. We are slightly confused, and it may just be a typo or an oversight, but there seem to be two stories here: one is that Tier 1 associations may be audited by any person who is not a member of the association, yet it specifically says ‘must ensure accounts are audited by a person who is not a member of the association’.
It seems confusing. I have spoken to someone who did attend a briefing. They got the impression that in respect of Tier 1 organisations, they could get a member to audit the books, yet from clause 46 it is clear that no, if you are a member of the association, you cannot audit the books. I will be asking the Attorney-General briefly could he just confirm that he is satisfied with clause 46.
In relation to the proposed income for a Tier 1 association, the second reading speech indicates that it was $25 000 per annum. I have had people contact me to say that they think it should be increased to $50 000. Some of those associations are particularly concerned that if a member of their association cannot audit the books, they will need to have them professionally audited. They could just ask someone who is not a member of the association, or not related to a member of the association, to audit the books, but I do not think that is a very reasonable ask because volunteers are so hard to find and, essentially, the tenor of clause 46 is if you know someone who is prepared to audit the books, they can. That is increasingly difficult for organisations.
What it means, I suspect, and there is concern about this, is that organisations that receive an income of $25 000 or less will be required to obtain the services of an auditor; they will need to employ and auditor. One association has told me that they did a ring around and their advice to me is that auditors can cost between $1500 and $2000. That is not a cost for Tier 2 and Tier 3 associations, but it is a considerable cost to associations with incomes of less than $25 000 per annum.
I would like to know, and I will ask in the Committee stage, what consultation there was on Tier 1 associations; whether the Attorney-General or his department obtained information or feedback from those people who attended briefings or who made submissions, what did they say in relation to a Tier 1 association having an income of $25 000 or less? I have not done an extensive survey, but the comments to me have been consistent in that there seems to be a desire for Tier 1 associations to be associations with an income of $50 000 or less. I will be seeking some information from the Attorney-General as to why it is that he seems to be sticking with a $25 000 income or less for a Tier 1 organisation, and whether the Attorney-General or his officers at any point did consider that a Tier 1 organisation might commence at $50 000 and, if so, what was the rationale for it coming back to $25 000?
A point that a person made to me in respect of the three-tiered associations is that there is presumably going to be a significant difference between the organisations that hold licences under the Gaming Machine Act and those that do not. Was it at any stage contemplated that there could have been four tiers of association? That is, the first one a minimum income of say $25 000 or $50 000. The next, a significantly higher level of income, but a tier would extend to an organisation without a licence under the Gaming Machine Act. Then a third tier relating to an organisation that did hold a licence under the Gaming Machine Act, and then the fourth tier, which is the existing third tier. I know it sounds confusing, but I am sure the minister knows what I mean. There is, I gather, some concern about some associations holding licences under the Gaming Machine Act. It has been expressed to me that that should have perhaps had an influence on the number of tiered associations or, alternatively, the amount of income that will be prescribed in the regulations.
I can indicate that we have no difficulty with Part 6, that is clauses 53 to55.
In relation to Part 7, we note that the Attorney-General said in his second reading speech that, under certain circumstances, the commissioner must take into account matters to be included in the regulations, and that is when considering what associations would become incorporated under the Corporations Act. When dealing with that point in the second reading speech, the Attorney-General said that there would be certain circumstances that the commissioner must take into account, and those circumstances would be included in the regulations. We ask: why could they not be included in the act? Some examples are outlined in the Attorney-General’s second reading speech, but I guess we would say that if you have a fair idea of what they are, why will you not outline them in the act?
In relation to Part 8, that is clauses 64 to 71, we have no difficulty with that part on the basis that it is mostly unchanged from the existing act.
Part 9, dealing with clauses 72 to 92, deals with the winding up area of the Corporations Act. We have no difficulty with that part.
In relation to Part 10, clauses 93 to 100, we do not have difficulty with the clauses. However, we do note that what was omitted from the second reading speech was the commissioner has power to investigate an association. We know that some associations are being investigated. Perhaps the minister could outline in reply why those organisations are being investigated and perhaps give an indication as to how many might be investigated per year and even outline, in general terms, because I appreciate it is sensitive, how some of those investigations are going.
This is what worries people in the community who are members of associations. I have some sympathy for their concerns, and I wonder whether the minister might at least like to give some reassuring words in his reply or, alternatively, perhaps assure us that in the education campaign that is commenced when this bill passes, as it will, that the fears of so many people can be allayed on the basis of various assurances that the Attorney-General will give, or that the Department of Justice can give. Could those assurances be in pamphlets and so on? The bottom line is: we all know how important associations are in the Northern Territory. Almost everyone in this Chamber has been or is a member of an association. We all know people who are on half a dozen committees, and most of those committees are associations. This raft of changes cannot be underestimated in their reach, and it is critically important for all of us in this Chamber to ensure that those who are going to be affected by it, and there are so many, are not concerned; that concerns that have been raised with me, and I can only assume have been raised with government as well, have been dealt with in a sensible and caring way.
Having outlined some of the concerns we have, that is probably helpful to everyone so that they can come back to us. This should not be overly contentious, but the issues we have raised have been raised in good faith, not only from our own reading of the materials, but from phone calls and letters that I have been receiving. I hope we can get through this in a sensible way later on, Mr Acting Speaker.
Debate suspended.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Year 10 and 11 students from St John’s College, accompanied by their teacher, Stephen Meara. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to you.
Members: Hear, hear!
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I speak in relation to the Associations Bill in my capacity as the shadow minister for both Aboriginal Affairs and Local Government.
In this bill, there are a couple of issues I wish to bring to the attention of the minister particularly about how this bill is intended to operate, how the bill has been operating in the past and what it is intended to achieve.
This bill has a long history in its various forms - Incorporated Associations ordinances go back to the 1890s. The purpose of these Associations acts is to create legal life or standing, into bodies and collectives of people who wish to become more organised in the way that they approach the business of what they do. These organisations can be everything from the local pony club to bridge clubs and those sorts of things. An unincorporated association is not capable of receiving any form of bequest, having any trust property given to it or having contractual capacity. Therefore, when you have clubs you are required to bring a legal reality to those clubs. For that purpose, you need some structure and, for that purpose, the legislature has chosen to create an Associations Bill to give a design to that structure.
The fact is that the Associations Bill or act in the Northern Territory has changed somewhat over time in respect of who has been using. Particularly, it is being used by a lot of Aboriginal communities which have used it to give themselves legal entity. What is the purpose for these Aboriginal communities? It is so that they may receive grants, hold those grants in trust for the people who they serve, their constituency? To add complexity to this dilemma, you have a federal version of the same legislation. Most Aboriginal communities are under the federal version; however, many are still under the auspices of the Northern Territory legislation. That is part of what drives the desire to make amendments to this bill; in fact, introduce a whole new bill into the House.
I am starting to sense, reading through this bill, a tension between the pony club and then organisations which, at the end of the day, have the responsibility to hold and trust and care for millions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds. Where you are going to start seeing this tension play itself into reality is in some of the penalty schedules, which are targeted at those associations that deal with large amounts of money. Those penalty clauses are substantial.
The problem is that you now have a situation where you have a small volunteer group which seeks to create some sort of legal standing for itself for any number of reasons: it can receive bequests, raise money or, for that matter, so it can insure itself. Insurance for an unincorporated association, I believe, is impossible. If not, it is certainly much more difficult than insurance for an incorporated association. The consequence of this is that you have the same penalty and reporting regime hanging over the top of small clubs as well as multimillion dollar organisations. The act tries to address this tension between those two situations by creating tiers of auditing and such like, but the problem is that the act still has to try and cover, basically, from the local bridge club incorporated all the way to multimillion dollar organisations. It is a very broad brush stroke to paint, especially when the structure of the original legislation was never really intended to cover multimillion dollar organisations or Aboriginal governance and the like; it was intended to give legal breath to small associations that needed legal capacity.
Over time, there seems to have been an evolution of reliance on the act, and of course the act was going to struggle as time passed and bigger and bigger organisations came under the coverage of that act. The act would have to respond to that pressure by changing, which is essentially the reason the act is now before this House.
That brings me to one of the issues I wish to raise, and that is the issue in section 5, which gives the commissioner a very broad power. The quote from the minister when introducing the legislation was:
I am a little concerned that that is also a very broad power. The minister explained some of the reasons why the commissioner may choose to give an exemption. In fact, he gave the example of indigenous organisations formed for the sole purpose of holding title to land. I could well understand that there would be good reason for such exemptions to exist. What concerns me, however, is that the courts, should any of these issues ever end up in court, will only turn their attention to the minister’s second reading speech when there is an ambiguity in the legislation itself. Having read the legislation, although the wording seems a bit complex, it is quite straight forward in terms of what it …
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I ask that the member indicate the clause that he is talking about.
Mr Elferink: I am referring to section 5 of the legislation.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, but that is a whole section.
Mr Elferink: Specifically the whole section, but sections 1(a) and 1(b).
Dr TOYNE: You mean clause?
Mr Elferink: For the purposes of the minister, I will concentrate on section 1(b).
Dr TOYNE: Do you mean clause 5, or …
Mr Elferink: Exempt the association or an officer of the association from the obligation to comply …
Dr TOYNE:. I see. It is clause 5. Okay.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, the Attorney-General wants to know to which clause you are referring.
Mr ELFERINK: I am sorry. Clause 5 in the bill.
Dr Toyne: Clause 5, yes. The numbering applies to the clauses.
Mr ELFERINK: Part 2, Administration.
Dr Toyne: After the word ‘administration’.
Mr ELFERINK: Part 2 Administration. It then goes into a …
Dr Toyne: Yes, okay. It is clause 5. If you would refer to the numbers as clauses rather than section, we will know which part of the bill you are talking about.
Mr ELFERINK: I am referring to clause 5, for the sake of the minister …
Dr Toyne: Thank you.
Mr ELFERINK: … and I have now quite lost my thread. The subsection of the clause that allows the Commissioner to exempt an association or an officer of the association from the obligation to comply with a provision of this act or the regulations.
That is a very broad power and is quite unambiguous. I doubt that any court would have to read beyond the section to try to discover what the power is because the power is basically that the commissioner may, by the stroke of an pen, exempt any organisation from complying with the act or complying with its regulations. That may mean non compliance with any section, AGMs, the requirements of having certain structures inside the association. I am concerned that there does not appear, from what I can make out, any reporting system or system by which the public or parliament could scrutinise which organisations have received exemptions.
Bearing in mind that it is the thrust of open, honest and accountable government to have systems by which the processes of governance can be checked, I would be reassured if the minister would be able to tell me during his reply to this debate that there will be checks and balances in place that can come under the scrutiny of the parliament or some other body to make certain that these exemptions, when and if they are granted, are given for good and reasonable causes, which can be checked, most importantly, by the people themselves who become subject of this association’s choices.
In the instance of an indigenous organisation formed for the purpose of holding title, there may be good reason why people who fall within the management of that land may need to know what is happening in their association. There needs to be some process of public review as an addendum to this bill that allows people to check what exemptions are given to which associations, and there should be a public statement of reason.
The problem in the Northern Territory is that there are no processes, effectively, for administrative review. We do not have an Administrative Review Tribunal, nor do we have an administrative review act, so we are entirely on the common law rules of administrative review. As a sweeping generalisation, the common law provides only one major way to review the administrative process and that is the means by which an act can be declared by an administrative function to be ultra vires or beyond its power. With the wording of this clause, I have the impression that there would be very little that would be beyond the power in terms of the commissioner granting these exemptions, so the scope for appeal would be very limited indeed.
Having made those points, I hope that the minister will give us some indication that there will be some sort of reviewing process.
I add my concern in relation to clause 111 of the legislation, because it is a bug bear of mine, the regulatory offences provision. I know that it is a reproduction of what is in the existing act, but the penalties for regulatory offences are generally not considered to be onerous. Where you have 20 penalty units applied to some of these offences, that is $2200 under the current regime, they are fairly serious fines, especially when they are targeted at individuals who are attached to these organisations. Consequently, I ask the minister to reconsider that clause and its effects because it does not strike me as having the flavour of a regulatory offence when there is a $2200 fine attached to it. I hope the minister would allow, through the normal processes of justice, a proper defence to be mounted should a prosecution be pursued.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to support the minister. This bill is overdue and is very important legislation.
I will be concentrating on the Association Bill and its impact on incorporated associations, particularly those that receive funding from the Department of Health and Community Services. There are approximately 1700 associations in the Northern Territory that have been incorporated under the current Associations Incorporation Act. These associations reflect the richness and diversity of interests throughout the community, as well as the commitment of their members to enhance the quality of life within the Northern Territory. Many incorporated bodies offer the community the opportunity to pursue a wide range of sporting, cultural and other special interest activities. Other associations have been formed when a group of people develop and embrace a vision on how they can establish a service in response to the needs of the community.
Within my portfolio, there are now over 120 incorporated associations that receive funding to provide a wide range of health and community services. Each year, this number grows as this government supports further community-based service provision. The entire community benefits by having access to a different and more diverse range of services than those offered by government or commercial enterprises.
It is a big commitment for associations to take on the full responsibility of running a service. When the Associations Incorporation Act was enacted in 1963, it reflected the expectation that incorporated bodies would have a higher level of accountability than groups that met informally. Many of these incorporated associations receive substantial government funding. Incorporation serves as an indicator that the association is committed to meet a higher standard of accountability for the activities it plans to undertake.
Over recent years, a number of these incorporated associations have run into difficulties. I am aware that some of these difficulties are associated with poor governance; a lack of accountability to the membership; conflict of interest; the incursion of debts; and the possibility of insolvency. When an association collapses, I have seen the distress this causes to its members and the community at large. If the association has been providing services in the community, the service recipients also face uncertainty and disruption about future service provision.
I know that better outcomes are achieved if more efforts can focus on preventing the breakdown of an association, instead of making the concerted effort to overcome problems once they have occurred. Over the past few years, my department has made a concerted effort to support and monitor the performance of associations. In addition to this one-on-one assistance, my department has funded the Northern Territory Council of Social Services to implement training and support strategies that promote good governance and cooperate management practices throughout the non-government sector. Although these efforts play an important role in building the capacity of the community, they do not address the issue of outdated legislation that is deficient in dealing with the high level of accountability that we require in 2003. Prior to the introduction of the Associations Bill to parliament, a comprehensive review and consultation process highlighted the deficiencies of the current legislation. This thorough process has resulted in the drafting of new legislation that addresses the unique issues facing associations of the Northern Territory today.
After looking at the new legislation, I would like to comment on several aspects of the Associations Bill that I believe will promote effective governance and management practices right from the start, and groups start to think about what it means to an incorporated body. First, I would like to comment on the language used in the new legislation. The plain English wording of the Associations Bill is easy to read and will help associations to understand their responsibilities as an incorporated body. This will be particularly helpful for small associations, and associations whose members do not speak English as their first language.
In addition, the Associations Bill has simplified requirements for associations. For example, the incorporation process will allow associations to incorporate more quickly and will incur less expense. Features such as this support community development endeavours by allowing associations to concentrate their expertise and resources on their core business activities.
I also welcome the greater emphasis in the new legislation on the management of the internal affairs of the association. Good governance and management can only be enhanced through clearly setting out the responsibilities of the office bearers, detailing which persons are prohibited from holding office and requiring members to declare their pecuniary interests, and refraining from voting in matters where there is a conflict of interest.
In addition, the new legislation enhances the accounting and audit provisions that apply to incorporated associations. The new legislation requires more comprehensive and transparent disclosure of financial information. My department also welcomes the different tiers of incorporated associations for auditing purposes. The more stringent requirements for auditor qualifications with the increasing size and complexity of associations will ensure a more rigorous auditing process occurs as the size of the incorporated body increases. These more demanding accounting provisions will assist the association’s members, as well as funding bodies, to obtain a truer picture of the association’s financial status.
My department has noted that the current information provided as part of the association’s reporting requirements is not always sufficient to get a clear picture of its financial status, and to be alerted to possible financial difficulties. The changes outlined in the Associations Bill will allow a more comprehensive assessment of the association’s financial status. I believe that the legislation will play an important role in supporting the development of the community sector.
The legislation by itself cannot promise to rectify the well known difficulties that have been faced by many associations. However, the Associations Act provides further evidence of this government’s commitment to supporting community endeavours and assisting incorporated associations to become more accountable and better managed. In this way, we hope to pave the way for building a sustainable community sector and enhancing the long-term viability of incorporated bodies throughout the Northern Territory.
Mr Acting Speaker, I offer my department’s support to this legislation and other endeavours that will assist the development of strong and lasting incorporated bodies. This will allow my department, as well as other government departments, to enhance the collaborative working relationship with the community sector, and to be responsive to the needs of all Territorians. I commend the bill to honourable members.
Mr VATSKALIS (Ethnic Affairs): Mr Acting Speaker, I support the Associations Bill 2003, Serial 174, and wish to speak about the application of the bill to a special group of associations: those involving ethnic communities.
Ethnic communities have been in the Territory for a long time. Back in the 1950s, we saw a rise of a formal organisations whereby the first migrants came together in order to maintain the links, traditions, customs and the social structures back in their counties. While these associations evolved in the beginning as a group of friends, they are now very professional and official associations.
I was a member of such an organisation, the Greek Orthodox Community of Northern Australia. When I had a look at the original constitution that was drafted in the 1950s, I was astounded. It was a museum piece because it was written in the official Greek language that was used in the 1950s. It bears very little resemblance to modern Greek language. Despite the fact that the constitution was translated into English to be submitted to the relevant authorities, the official constitution still used by the Greek Orthodox Community of Northern Territory is the original Greek constitution. Actually, we cannot find the original; it has been photocopied and photocopied and photocopied. The way it is drafted creates quite a few problems, especially when there are disputes because there are not many people in the Greek community who can understand the official language of the time.
The new act, however, will provide the basis and assist the migrant and ethic community associations by clearly setting out the responsibilities of office bearers. As I said before, the Greek Association was created by a group of friends who got together. More or less, they knew what they were all about, but there was not a clear delineation of their areas of responsibilities, and how things were done. Probably in the 1960s, they tended to cut corners in order to achieve some things they wanted to achieve that, strictly speaking today, would not be considered appropriate or legal. Things have changed, as I mentioned before, and now we have associations, in some cases, that have considerable property that they have to manage.
It is a very important bill for the ethnic communities. We have about 80 ethnic organisations in the Northern Territory representing people from about 100 different countries and speaking 120 different languages. The plethora of these organisations represent the multicultural fabric of the society in the Northern Territory and I would not use the word ‘tolerance’, but also the acceptance by Northern Territory society in general of people from a different backgrounds and the acceptance by the Territory community of the different forms of associations they have formed today. You might have an official umbrella organisation that covers a number of people coming from the same country and, underneath, you might have other smaller organisations representing people who come from a special locality or people with special interests. You might have, for example, the Greek community on this occasion, then you have the Kalymnian Brotherhood, the Cypriot Brotherhood, and then you have the dancing groups and all the other associations.
The previous government supported ethnic organisations and, in some cases, generously, by providing land, grants, and facilities. In our organisation, we have a significant piece of real estate in the centre of Darwin. The Greek community has a piece of real estate where the Greek Church and the Greek Hall are, and the estimated value exceeds $1m. That was gifted for nothing by the previous government. In addition, it has the Greek School in Nightcliff that was sold to the Greek community by the then government for $1. I recall very well the previous minister, Mick Palmer, saying to the Greek President at one of our celebrations that he had not received the dollar and was still waiting. We now have an organisation that has to deal with property in excess of $1m.
We have organisations that have membership that exceeds 500 or 600 people. At the same time, we have organisations that are dealing only with 10, 20, 30 or 40 financial members. Coming from an ethnic organisation myself, I know sometimes things are not peaceful, there is no brotherly love among all the members and some of the hardest and bitter disputes are fought between members that come from the same country or ethnic group trying to find out who is going to be the president or vice-president of this organisation.
However, I have to say that the Association Bill provides the basis for a modern, fully accountable, fully responsible organisation and the information will provide the basis for this organisation to be run efficiently and appropriately. Bear in mind that ethnic organisations, and I am speaking now as the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, form a very narrow part of associations in the Northern Territory. They are already fully accountable because many of them apply for grants from the Office of Ethnic Affairs, which is very strict on assessment of the grant applications. No grant will be provided to an association if that association has not fully acquitted a previous grant. There are occasions when I refuse to sign off, on the advice of my Office of Ethnic Affairs, for the reason that the parent association has not provided acquittal of a grant. To their credit, I have to say that more than 95% of ethnic organisations realise that unless they fully acquit, they are responsible, they have their papers in order, fully audited and have done things according to the existing legislation, things are not going to progress.
In effect, this bill seeks to safeguard the interests of the Territory, because a lot of these organisations are funded by Territory taxpayers’ funds, and safeguards the interests of members. It is very important. Members who participate in organisations do so because they have a common purpose, but they quickly become disappointed if they see that nothing is happening properly and, at the same, time nobody cares. We have discovered that many organisations go from being very active and strong to a ghost organisation with five or six members that do not have greater membership because people walk away when they do not like what is happening, they had no avenue to address their problems and because they found out that nobody was prepared to sort out the mess.
Many people want to have an active, efficient and legal organisation in order to participate. I understand some of the concerns because, of course, it is going to place a lot of responsibilities on office bearers, and it is very difficult these days to find volunteers to put their hand up to be president, vice-president and all the other positions because it involves a lot of work and responsibility. You have to make decisions about things that will affect your whole group and very few people are keen to do that. That is why we often see the same person being president for 10 or 15 years. We are now putting the onus on the office bearers. They have to act in good faith, within the legal framework of the act, and they will be accountable not only to their members, but to the Northern Territory community.
We are not just abandoning these organisations. We are not just saying: ‘That’s it. This is the legislation; read it and run your organisation’ because the true story is even today there will be members of an organisation that will not have good English skills; English is their second language, and they will not be able to fully comprehend the legislation as presented unless it is explained to them. I doubt very much, especially in newly arrived ethnic groups, that there are many people with this ability. The last thing we need is an ethnic organisation run by mainstream Anglo-Saxon people because the ethnic people do not understand the legislation about how to operate the organisation. That is why this government is committed to provide assistance to people in different organisations. We will provide assistance to explain to them how this legislation is structured, and how it is going to be implemented. My Office of Ethnic Affairs is committed to provide either translated versions or assistance with translators and interpreters to explain how the legislation is structured.
It is very good legislation. Personally, I think is long overdue; it should have been up and running a long time ago. I have heard complaints about organisations, I have seen organisations split and completely dissolve because things were not run properly. This will strengthen organisations, and in the particular case of ethnic organisations, it will give confidence to Territorians that money provided to these organisations in the form of grants is money well allocated, well spent, well acquitted; it is not just money for a party, that disappears in a black hole and nobody knows anything about it.
It will be good for the members of ethnic organisations; it will be good for Territorians and it will be very good to see at last modern legislation applied to some of the organisations whose roots go back to the 1950s and, in some cases, have refused to come in to the 21st century. It is not as tough as I would like to have seen it; I would like to have seen tougher legislation, especially in provisions for modern constitutions, tougher provisions for the ways things are run. It has very good elements, but it is never too late; there is always the opportunity of amending it in the future.
Speaking as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, this is good legislation and it will benefit ethnic organisations. On the other hand, it will be very good for all organisations in the Territory. It will be good for all Territorians to have confidence that the money they are allocating through public coffers to these organisations go for a good purpose and are not disappearing down the drain, never to be seen again.
We pledge that this government will provide training and support. We will not just abandon people and, in particular, people who do not speak English as a first language. We will provide assistance; we are prepared to translate the legislation. If there is a summary of legislation, which I will discuss with my colleague, the Minister for Justice, the key points will be translated and provided in most languages used in the Territory today. It will be a small expense today to avoid problems that might appear tomorrow.
Mr Acting Speaker, this is good legislation. I commend my colleague, the Minister for Justice, for presenting it.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Speaker, since the Commonwealth Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act was enacted in 1976, Aboriginal community organisations and groups in the Territory have had a choice of two instruments of legislation under which they could incorporate themselves as an association: the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act, which I will refer to as ‘the Commonwealth act’, and the statute which, after self-government in 1978, became known as the Associations Incorporation Act, previously the Associations Incorporation Ordinance.
Community groups seek incorporation for obvious principal reasons of seeking the benefits and protection of corporate identity. It is simply not viable or sensible for organisations or groups that are receiving even a modest amount of income, or which own or possess any kind of valuable community asset, to present themselves to the world as a collection of individuals who can be made jointly and severally liable for actions taken in the name of the group.
The standard vehicle for incorporation in Australia is the proprietary limited company, and some Aboriginal organisations have utilised that corporate structure either on its own or in conjunction with an ancillary legal entity known as a trust. Alternatively, some have incorporated themselves as a company limited by guarantee. However, the cost of establishing such structures, together with the demands of complying with the applicable regulatory and reporting regimes, which, until now, have been more onerous than those imposed in respect of incorporated associations, have made incorporation as a company an undesirable option for the great majority of community organisations and groups.
Even large and apparently relatively sophisticated entities that have utilised company and trust structures have fallen into serious difficulties, a recent high profile example being the Tiwi Health Board. As well as being simpler to manage and run, organisations are conceptionally better suited to carrying out the aims and objectives of community organisations and groups. There is a significant difference between the notion of an association member and a company shareholder. The designation of ‘shareholder’ reflects a focus on the raising of capital, the generation of profit and the distribution of dividends. While those Aboriginal community organisations and groups that have an economic enterprise charter may be very keen to generate profit, the object in so doing is almost always to uplift conditions in the community generally rather than converting such profit as may be generated into occasional cash payments to be remitted to individual shareholders.
As is evident from the article by Nicholas Way, published in the latest issue of the Business Review Weekly, in very few cases would Northern Territory Aboriginal community organisations involved in economic enterprise activities be in a trading position that would enable them to distribute profits to individuals in any event. The role of being a member of an incorporated association is one that is familiar to most Aboriginal Territorians and involves participation in a democratic governance and management process, whether this be at general meetings or governing committee level. That is focussed on the achievement of aims and objectives framed with a view to benefiting the community as a whole, not just certain individuals within that community.
For the reasons outlined in the Attorney-General’s second reading speech, updating of the Associations Incorporation Act was long overdue, and I welcome the modernised and more user friendly regime that is to be put in place through the replacement statute, the Associations Bill. Ironically, many Aboriginal organisations and groups in the past opted for incorporation under the Associations Incorporation Act rather than the Commonwealth act because the regulatory and accountability provisions in the Commonwealth act were regarded as being dramatically more onerous. The regulatory and accountability provisions in the this bill are very similar to those in the Commonwealth act, so it will be interesting to see what legislation Aboriginal community organisations opt to use from now on.
There are two areas in respect of which this bill has retained key features of the current Associations Incorporation Act. In both areas, the Territory legislation continues to provide a point of clear distinction as opposed to the Commonwealth act. The first is in relation to eligibility for membership. Under the Commonwealth act, membership of an association is restricted to individuals, and in terms of those individuals, who must be Aboriginal or the spouse of an Aboriginal person. By contrast, the definition of ‘member’ in the Associations Bill reads as follows:
In other words, the organisation or body can be made up of members, which are themselves not individual Aboriginal community members, but rather other incorporated Aboriginal community organisations or groups. This point of distinction between the Territory and Commonwealth legislation is important for organisations like AMSANT and Tangentyere that act as representative peak bodies for a network of participating incorporated Aboriginal community entities.
The second point of distinction is that the Associations Bill, like the Associations Incorporation Act before it, includes important protective provisions in relation to government funded assets, which are referred to as ‘prescribed property.’ These provisions are particularly important in protecting the residents and occupants of remote Aboriginal communities situated on land held not under Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act title, but under Northern Territory title.
The nature and scale of the sort of problems that can arise can be absorbed by reading in the Hansard the speeches that accompanied amendments to the prescribed properties provision in the Associations Incorporation Act back in the late 1980s, amendments that were compelled by the need to address a disaster that had befallen the community of Yarralin. Ideally, of course, incorporated Aboriginal community associations holding title to significant parcels of Territory title land should not be entering into contractual transactions, especially not of a trading or a speculative kind. There should be separately incorporated bodies set up to pursue economic enterprise objectives.
Before I finish, I would like to reiterate that the changes in this bill are welcome. The bill has modernised legislation and will establish a more user friendly regime.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank all members for their constructive contribution to the debate. I welcome the spirit in which ideas and concerns have been raised.
This is important legislation and I say at the outset that the very strong intention of our government – and I am very happy to put this on Hansard – is to support and extend the work of volunteers working in associations around the Territory, not to make life harder or more threatening for them.
The reality in a lot of the associations and their operation around the Territory, as we speak, is that it is often quite difficult for volunteers who have given their time, efforts and talents for the good of community organisations. So it is important to say at the outset that we are trying to fix something that is broke. There are certainly some quite extensive problems with the operation of associations throughout the Territory at present.
In partial answer to the member for Araluen’s question about how many are being investigated and for what, at any given time there would be a number of associations that would have caught the attention of the Commissioner for Associations. They come and go because as they are repaired, or they fold on some rare occasions, obviously we move onto other problems. However, there is no doubt that the current provisions in our statutes are not sufficiently supportive of the operation of our associations, given the huge diversity that has been already commented on. We simply do not have the framework to allow the systematic support and accountability to be applied through the operation of these very important bodies.
The other point I would make in a general start to this response is that life is moving on. We are in a different world from when this legislation appeared on our statute books. Running associations today is a much more complicated matter than it used to be. There are stronger commercial elements in many of the activities that exist in our communities. I point to realities such as most sporting codes now have to provide an enormous focus on funding from sponsorship, fundraising and other activities than might have been the case when the legislation was first introduced. With that has come a greater capacity for things to go wrong, things to become dishonest, hence the need for these reforms.
I propose that I will deal with the more generic concerns that have been raised by speakers in the second reading debate, and will leave the clause- specific things to the committee stage.
First, the member for Araluen’s point about consultation, I have some notes prepared covering the issues you raised. I will read them. There have been extensive consultations on this bill. There was a wide advertising campaign in newspapers and media coverage of the discussion paper and draft bill that was circulated; it was on the Department of Justice web page. Seminars were held in every major centre at which the 200 hard copies were distributed that were referred to in the second reading speech. However, in addition to those 200 copies, countless other copies were distributed by mail and downloaded from the Internet in response to direct requests from clubs and associations.
The act will commence in 2004. Prior to that, there is to be an extensive communication plan implemented that includes advertising, printed materials and training sessions about the act throughout the Territory. As part of that campaign, each association will receive a copy of the new act and explanatory documents. There will also be an extensive capacity building training and education campaign made available to all associations throughout the Territory. This campaign will be a joint exercise with the Commonwealth, which has indicated that it will commit significant resources to that campaign. You will understand, of course, that many of the associations have been incorporated under the Commonwealth Associations Act, particularly indigenous organisations. This government will be committing significant resources to this package and I will be quite happy to make information available on that as soon as it has been finalised; we are still working on the detail.
In respect of penalties, in accordance with the Interpretation Act, a penalty in this legislation is the maximum penalty a court can impose. In accordance with the Sentencing Act, the court applies general principles in deciding what specific penalty will apply in a particular case. In a prosecution under this act, the court will take into account issues such as the nature of the association and whether the act or omission was deliberate or inadvertent. Of course, the defences available in Part 2 of the Criminal Code as regards criminal responsibility apply to a person accused of breaching this act. For example, mistake of fact, accident, emergency and so on.
The intent of the penalty in this bill is to find a maximum penalty that encourages compliance with the act and encourages prosecution by the commissioner in appropriate cases. We believe we have found a correct balance with these maximum penalties. It is not intended to prosecute simple oversights; the penalties are aimed at intentional breaches of the act.
The training and education package that accompanies this act will assist committee members to avoid conduct that amounts to an offence. The member for Araluen cited provisions, saying they are too onerous on volunteers, for example, the requirement to keep accurate minutes. There are many examples of associations that have failed to keep accurate minutes and as a result are unable years later to discover what exactly their constitution requires of them. This can result in serious problems for the association and for the community in some cases. It is fair to say that we have made obvious, both in the second reading speech and I hope on Hansard today, that we are not out there to prosecute or give a hard time to honest volunteers working in these associations. We will monitor very closely the impact of the legislation on associations that may attract some attention because of failure to adhere to some of the provisions. If the upshot of that is that we are making life harder for the volunteer workers or volunteer public office holders, we will certainly move to curtail that.
Given that there are strong defences within the act itself and within the Criminal Code, given that these are maximum penalties, given that we will be going out and helping associations, in a very direct way, to set up compliant arrangements and given, finally, that those compliant arrangements are probably going to reduce rather than increase the incidences of a public office holder in one these associations finding themselves tangled up with an ugly situation, either financially or legally, life will be in balance a lot better for the office bearers under the bill’s provisions than the current act.
Regarding investigations, I am quite happy to say that there are always some of these matters going through at any given time. I would be quite happy to offer the member for Araluen a briefing on the investigations that might be in train at the moment on the basis that it remains confidential. You will understand that there are sensitivities with this, and our major aim in investigating an organisation is not to close it down, but to rescue it and return it to an even keel. There is often a mix of financial dysfunction and potential illegality in these sorts of investigations. On the basis that it is a confidential briefing regarding the particulars of these organisations and the situation they might be in, I will make a general offer to any member with an interest in this. I know there are quite a number of these associations in everyone’s electorate. We will try to do it as a job lot. I do not think we would want to be doing this as a sequence for the next 12 months, but the offer is there.
You mentioned during your contribution that there was a transition provision giving associations two years to comply with the constitutions that will be required under the legislation. That is at section 127 in the Miscellaneous Provisions at the back, and that has been deliberately made a lengthy time period in that there are two AGMs in which to process changes that might be needed to the constitution of an organisation. We think that is fair, and we will be providing model or framework constitutions that can be simply contextualised to each association that is adopting the compliant constitution, so they will not need to be written from scratch or developed with legal support or anything like that. That will all be done, and it is a matter of adopting the appropriate version of it through an appropriate meeting or AGM.
The rest of your concerns were clause specific, so I will leave them to one side and we will pick them up in the Committee of the Whole.
I turn now to the member for Macdonnell’s comments. In respect of the discretion of the commissioner, we believe that in exercising discretion in terms of applying exemptions to groups, we are confident that the commissioner, a senior public servant, will apply his decisions according to the intent of the act. You will appreciate that there is a very wide spread of the context and the detail of what these associations involve, so there will be a need to make decisions on criteria that are specific to a particular association as to whether the act should apply and, if so, what sort of provisions under the act should apply in terms of their incorporation.
If someone from the general public wants to apprise themselves of a decision made by the commissioner regarding an association, there are two ways that that could potentially happen. One is in the annual report, and I would make an offer that the commissioner be asked to include in the annual report decisions of this nature that have been made during the reporting year; and second, there is the Information Act and any member of the public, given that this is a public servant making decisions, which I would not believe in most cases would contravene the privacy or other provisions of the act, could apply for the release the information under that legislation. So there are two ways you could do it.
In terms of the regulatory offences of clause 111, two things may have happened in your contribution, and I do not want you to get into strife for misinformation too many times in the one sittings. The regulatory offences, as distinct from offences generally, in the bill are in clauses 16, 17, 22, 23, 27, 34 and 71. You will find when you check that all the regulatory offences are 20 penalty units and 20 times 110 equals 2200, not 22 000. The maximum penalty for these regulatory offences is $2200, and that would be at the very low end of regulatory offences generally in our legislation. I will contrast that with, for example, to the Fisheries Act, where regulatory offences can carry everything up to a term of imprisonment. If I have not gone right to the heart of your concerns, you can raise those again in the committee stage.
With that, Mr Acting Speaker, I think we can probably move through to committee.
Ms CARNEY: Mr Acting Speaker, may I seek one point of clarification? We are trying to be constructive, and this question arises from something the Attorney-General said that does not, strictly speaking, fit within a part or a clause, and I wonder whether I could ask a question? I do not think it is an unreasonable one. It is straightforward.
Dr Toyne: I am sorry, I missed that.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. The minister has actually wrapped, so really there is no provision for …
Dr Toyne: Look, bring it up in committee. I will be pretty wide about what we talk about, okay?
Ms CARNEY: All right. So you are happy for me to do that in committee?
Dr Toyne: Yes.
Ms Lawrie: There is process behind ...
Ms CARNEY: Sit down, Delia! So, you are happy for me to do that in committee? Thank you.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker! The member for Araluen well knows that we refer to members by their constituency in the Chamber, and I have pointed out that she is in breach of standing orders by standing and speaking now.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Settle this down. We will continue.
Mr Kiely: There was a point of order!
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I am making a ruling. The Attorney-General has said he will deal with the matter in committee. Let us leave it at that. Let us go on.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 3, by leave, taken together:
Ms CARNEY: Madam Deputy Chair, it is the question I was going to ask before. In fact, there is probably a second one. In your reply, you referred to the fact that, as far as you were concerned, associations were fairly well advised of this draft bill and the amendments. What you did not answer – and it may have just been an omission – how many submissions were received back? A general guess would be all right.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, in answer to the question, 10 written submissions, roughly 100 e-mails and phone discussions, so fairly extensive.
Ms CARNEY: The other one you did not answer was: was it common for representatives from your department to attend meetings of various associations, such as the one that happened on Thursday night in Darwin?
Dr TOYNE: No, it was not the practice. Generally, it was either done through the seminars or through the individual contacts that I have referred to. Can I also say that the work on public consultation on this bill built on the earlier public consultations that were done in preparing a similar bill during the previous government in 1997-98. That bill was introduced, but lapsed when parliament was prorogued. However, we went back and made full use of the earlier consultations and the issues that people had raised.
Ms CARNEY: A final question since we are dealing with general things that naturally and logically follow from your reply, you mentioned prosecutions and how they would flow from the act, various penalty provisions and so on. Have you given any thought, or is it the case that if prosecuted, an association would need to obtain its own solicitors to represent the association in a prosecution? If yes, can you anticipate a situation arising where an association might put an application to government for a grant for legal assistance?
Dr TOYNE: I will say a couple of things about that. First of all, we have taken the attitude in all of the cases that have come through over the last couple of years since I have been in this role, of always looking to the public/community interest and how best to prevent any negative impact on that. So even if there is an individual involved in an organisation who had acted dishonestly or incompetently, we have tried to repair the situation within the association, preserve its value to the community and, generally, to divorce that from any of the prosecution of wrongdoing. That is the general approach we have taken to it in terms of what we are focussing on. Given that, you would quite rightly deduce that prosecutions would be an action of last resort against the organisation as a whole if it was doing a valuable job in the community, which almost all if not all of these organisations are.
Whether we would provide legal support to an organisation would depend entirely on the situation. For example, if an organisation itself needed to take action against one of its own members or defend itself as a co-defendant with someone who had been acting illegally, then we could well look at that. However, the over-arching thing is that we want to preserve or protect the public interest that is bound up in that organisation and its activities.
Ms CARNEY: Finally, if a prosecution is going to be a last resort outcome, do I take it from that that the commissioner would make a decision as to whether or not to proceed with a prosecution, and that it is possible at some point for government to step in to dissuade or further encourage the commissioner to pursue the prosecution?
Dr TOYNE: Our bottom line is that the law is the law and if there is outright wrongdoing, like fraud or some other wrongdoing, we would certainly would not be stepping in by way of preventing wrongdoing being punished. Equally, we would not be stepping in with the commissioner, who is an independent statutory person, and telling him or her what to do in a particular context. All I am saying is that, as a general policy, the approach to this is that we try to repair the organisation in every way available under the bill and under other provisions that might impact on the situation, depending on the activity in which the organisation is involved prior to using the action of prosecuting an association or a member of its public office.
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.1
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.2
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.3. It is a bit unfair to the opposition, so I will give some explanation of what these amendments are doing.
Clause 78 of the bill provides for the appointment by the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs of an administrator to conduct the affairs of an incorporated association. To avoid potential confusion with an administrator appointed under the applied provisions of the Corporations Act 2001, a person appointed under section 78 is to be called a Statutory Manager rather than an administrator. Clause 4 of the bill provides for the definition of administrator and this definition is then omitted. The other amendments are applying that elsewhere in the bill. So we are on 56.3
Amendment agreed to.
Ms CARNEY: A point of clarification. We are still on clause 4, correct?
Dr TOYNE: Yes.
Ms CARNEY: And we have made amendments to various definitions?
Dr TOYNE: That is replacing that terminology, that is all.
Ms CARNEY: Can I suggest another one? I apologise, I meant to mention this when I stood up before lunch, but I omitted it. It relates to clause 17(2), but I think it should go back to clause 4, that is the definition section, and the point I make is this: You will see that in 17(2) there is reference to a ‘prescribed unauthorised name’. I looked through the definition section and could not find a definition of ‘prescribed unauthorised name’. I could only find a definition of ‘prescribed property’, so I wonder why - and there may well be a sensible explanation for it, but there may not - it is that ‘prescribed unauthorised name’ is not defined.
Dr TOYNE: The unauthorised names will be prescribed in the regulations which will accompany the act.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 5 to 77, by leave, taken together:
Dr TOYNE: I can give you response to your clause 5 query. How do you want to do it? You raised clause 5 in your second reading contribution. Do you want me to give you a response to that?
Ms CARNEY: Yes.
Dr TOYNE: You queried why in clause 5, which deals with the exemptions that are offered by the commissioner to organisations, there are no criteria for the commissioner to apply when considering exemptions. The commissioner is a senior government official, and the government is comfortable charging him with the responsibility, and confident that he will discharge it appropriately. It is not possible to consider every contingency that would come in to the decision of whether to grant an exemption, given the very wide diversity of our associations in the Northern Territory. It would be pretty near impossible to codify that.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you for that, but I feel compelled to ask one or two more questions. Given that the power to exempt exists and it is the commissioner who makes that decision, you will appreciate that the world at large does not know what the basis could be for seeking an exemption. Do you believe that there is consequently any benefit in providing legislative guidance for what might be considered in support of a request for an exemption? I do not think it would happen often, but it could happen so we want to know what the story is.
Dr TOYNE: We envisage that most organisations that might apply for exemption are the Aboriginal associations that simply hold title to land; they do not have any transactional activity at all. It is really hard to predict. It is specific to the organisations. They have 28 days to submit an audited report. During that period, an unknown number of them will say: ‘We don’t think this makes any sense to our situation’. They will go to the commissioner with an application. The commissioner will have to deal with it on its merits, on the details of how it is operating and what it is doing.
Ms CARNEY: Finally, I know that the member for Macdonnell would like to ask some questions on this point, I assume that your answer is pretty much the same in respect of clause 5(3), that is, the commissioner’s ability to revoke, vary or extend the exemption.
Dr TOYNE: Again, it is about flexibility to the situation. We felt that we do need to provide that flexibility. It may be, over time, that it codifies itself into something that can be better defined, but at the moment we are going into a new regime, and we want the commissioner to have the ability to deal with the particulars that he or she finds. I am saying ‘he’ because it is a he at the moment, but it can be a she.
Mr ELFERINK: Just on clause 5, it is a very broad power, and I am sure that the Attorney-General will accept that he is asking for a very broad power in this House for the commissioner. I am heartened to hear his comments in relation to the annual reporting process in terms of placing it in the annual report.
Just to drill down into a little bit of detail, the first question is: can you ensure that for the purposes of the annual report, if there are no such exemptions, a nil return goes in? Second, if exemptions are entered into the annual report, perhaps a paragraph or two as to the reasoning why the exemption was granted. As I say, it is a very sweeping power, and to give that sort of power to somebody who, although I do not doubt their integrity, you have to look into the future as to who may fill that position and how that position may be used. There has to be a check or a balance built into it somewhere. Annual reporting is good. I am not sure that FOI would extend to personal details of somebody inside an association if there was an exemption under FOI legislation in terms of personal details.
That is the only comment I wish to make, so if you could outline that there will be a couple of paragraphs on each exemption given, and the reasons for it, that would probably be acceptable.
The other thing I want to touch on very quickly is that if I said $22 000, I did not mean it.
Dr TOYNE: I thank the member for both his comments and his attitude. The Commissioner of Associations will, no doubt, pore over the whole of the Hansard to this debate, and I would expect he would. He will not only see there my commitment to that process, but he will also see your suggestions about it. Yes, I am sure he will be taking note of that.
I have a response to clause 6(3)(c). Why provide these exemptions from the secrecy provisions? Many associations receive government funding and/or the government is involved in some way in the administration of the association. Hence, access is provided to the minister and the Treasurer. The Minister for Local Government needs to be informed by associations incorporated under that act. The Commissioner for Police may need to be involved in offences. The Commissioner for Taxes needs access to information for taxation purposes; the Licensing Commissioner regarding licensed premises, many of which are incorporated associations; ATSIC funds many associations. An auditor needs to be free of secrecy requirements because of his obligation to report fraud. They are the reasons.
Ms CARNEY: Can you advise whether similar provisions exist in similar legislation in other jurisdictions?
Dr TOYNE: I am assured they do. We do not have the specifics with us at the moment. We could certainly hunt it up for you.
Ms CARNEY: Were associations advised of this provision or was any material provided to them, other than the draft bill, to alert them to what could be seen by some as a disturbing development, that their confidential information might be used for purposes that they did not intend or envisage?
Dr TOYNE: I can only say that there are many situations where the state of an association in terms of financial dysfunction or alleged illegality where this sort of information is sought as a matter of course. I do not think this is a new process. I am pretty sure that is already involved in investigations. The only change, I am apprised, is that the existing secrecy provisions, the ones that are in the current act, have been extended and clarified in some regards, but the basic process is still the same.
Ms CARNEY: But it was not the case under the existing act that the commissioner or his or her delegate can produce a document or divulge a communication to a minister, one of several, and others. The point which I asked first, and I will put it again because you replied with ‘those associations that are being investigated’. Fine, let us put them to one side because we know there is not terribly many out of the 1700 in the Northern Territory.
So my question is: of the 1700 that were advised of this significant change to the act, were they advised of this new development? That is, that the commissioner or his or her delegate could produce a document or divulge a communication to a government minister?
Dr TOYNE: Probably the best way to resolve this, hopefully to your satisfaction, would be that in the public campaign prior to when the act commences early next year, we will certainly ensure that is pointed out. I am not saying it has not been; I am just saying that, blow by blow, association by association, we will make sure that they are aware of those provisions.
Ms CARNEY: I will tell them beforehand. Thank you.
In relation to Part 3, clauses 8 to 26, I talked about abolishing the need to advertise. Would you like to deal with that, then I can ask some more questions?
Dr TOYNE: I can, yes. Why still require advertising? The objection process is very rarely used. There would be a cost burden on the association to advertise. If a new association wants to attract new members, it can advertise its incorporation if it chooses to do so. The removal of this requirement to advertise was welcomed during the consultations that were held.
We have worked out when advertising actually serves a useful purpose. One is clause 23(3)(a): advertising is required when an existing association proposes to change the liability of its members to contribute to debt. Advertising is necessary to protect the creditors and members of the association. Section 44(b): tier 3 associations must publish availability of audited statements of accounts in a newspaper. It is appropriate that larger organisations, which are the over $250 000 per annum category, should be more accountable to their members and the public generally.
We have picked out those areas where we feel that it is a justified cost, but the general reaction of the associations is that they are very happy not to be paying for the placements.
Ms CARNEY: I believe I know what you are going to say, minister, but for the sake of the Hansard I will ask the question.
Dr TOYNE: Try me.
Ms CARNEY: I take it, then, that you do not see it as in any way inconsistent that, on the one hand you are doing away with need to advertise and yet, in respect of clauses you mentioned, clause 23 and clause 44, there is a need to advertise?
Dr TOYNE: It is a cost-benefit judgment. There is a cost involved in these placements and, for a larger organisation, we feel that it is more justified to keep the public generally informed about its trading position. In a situation where there is a direct change to the liability of members, it is also seen as justified, but not as a general informative thing in the community. The point you were making earlier about the need to inform the community about what groups are getting going and whether they can cluster or join in, we do not have big communities here in the Northern Territory, and I would have thought that most people would be vaguely if not specifically aware of the broad range of organisations that are going on in our communities. You and I would probably be able to run off a fairly decent list for Alice Springs.
Ms CARNEY: Probably. I was not suggesting earlier that it was essential to advertise; I just saw it as a community benefit that was not an expensive one for associations, but I will not pursue it further. In relation to clause 23(6), minister, would you be prepared to amend that clause so that subclause (6) starts with the word ‘and’ and it follows on so we can delete the word ‘also’.
Dr TOYNE: I am assured that Parliamentary Counsel had a specific reason why they put ‘also’ there and it was to do with the general readability and style of the bill that they were producing. It was conscious rather than inadvertent. I am not a parliamentary drafter and nor are you, but they have a specific reason why they put it there. We queried them on it and they say that is what they want. They are the experts.
Ms CARNEY: I accept that. Why parliamentary draftsmen insist on this is something that perhaps only parliamentary draftsmen can understand, but for the record I will restate the difficulty I have as a lawyer starting a paragraph in legislation with the word ‘also’. I will not pursue it any further. No doubt lawyers, when they get a copy of this will smile when they see it. I do not mean any disrespect to parliamentary draftsmen; it is just that this is the first legislation I and some of my colleagues, whom I rang to check, have ever seen with the word ‘also’. I do not understand why there is this sudden development, but I will leave it at that, unless you wanted to comment further.
Dr TOYNE: Could I just make a comment here, and I feel bound to say this, that we have a long run up to preparing legislation, and I am sure the Parliamentary Counsel would be more than happy, prior to it coming into the House for debate, to either to talk that over with you, accept your arguments if they are persuaded.. I have absolutely no problem with you to discussing drafting issues with them. I just do not think that there is much point when neither of us have immediate access during this debate to Parliamentary Counsel to quiz them on the reason they have used particular words.
I have always felt that those details should be dealt with outside the debate. I know we have had a long history over the last couple of years of having these kind of discussions about hanging ors and all the other things that we find in legislation. I commend to you that when the bill is available, if you have those sort of problems, to access Parliamentary Counsel and see if we can work it out.
Ms CARNEY: By way of a reply, two things: one, it is not the case that it is keeping me awake at night, and you can be very sure about that; and, second, I do not want to speak to Parliamentary Counsel about it. I want to hear from you. You are the Territory’s first law officer; you are the one who introduced this legislation to the parliament; and I am quite entitled, in this democratic process, to ask the sponsor of the legislation why he has a particular word in a particular paragraph. I will continue to do so for as long as I see any benefit in it. That point does need to be made and, with respect, you need to understand it.
Moving on to clause 40, that was the part that dealt with a disqualified person. You will recall that I raised some issues prior to lunch, would you like to comment on those in a general sense before I ascertain whether I would like to ask you more questions about it?
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Deputy Chair, I would just like to point that this is very comprehensive legislation. It is very detailed legislation that ushers in the single most significant change to incorporated bodies that the parliament has seen for many years.
All of us as members of parliament, in our electorates, would belong to, be patrons of, work with any number incorporated bodies. I pick up on the member for Araluen’s comment: ‘You need to understand this’. Let me give a little bit of advice: what the member for Araluen needs to understand is that, as the shadow Attorney-General and the shadow minister, she should take her responsibilities seriously. It is absolutely beholden on the shadow minister, in terms of debating legislation, to seek access and to have a briefing from the departmental officers in regards to the bill, the structure of the bill, the reason why various clauses are in the bill …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Deputy Chair. A point of order. It is actually not a requirement that shadow ministers seek briefings.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: There is no point of order.
Ms CARNEY: It is desirable, but the shadow ministers can decide when they elect to take one or not.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Araluen, respect the Chair. I said there was no point of order. Leader of Government Business, continue your remarks.
Mr HENDERSON: I am trying to be helpful in terms of expediting the process. I was a shadow minister for two years and, in fact, there is a parliamentary handbook that we give to school kids here that identifies the responsibilities of ministers and shadow ministers. It is the responsibility of shadow ministers to understand the legislation that is to be debated. They have a responsibility for scrutiny and, in terms of understanding that legislation, to seek a briefing to clear these issues up prior to debate. If the honourable member had not been so lazy and had received a briefing, we could have curtailed this debate by a number of hours.
When she says: ‘You need to understand this’, I think the honourable member needs to understand what her responsibilities are as a shadow minister and seek a briefing, particularly on legislation that is as comprehensive and detailed as this.
Ms CARNEY: Madam Deputy Chair, the member for Wanguri, typically, obviously has not been listening to what I said before lunch, or, indeed, the points I have made since. I appreciate more than the member for Wanguri will ever appreciate how detailed this legislation is. I understand it better than the member for Wanguri will ever understand it. I do not need to be lectured by the member for Wanguri about what I do and do not do.
Who would have thought, Madam Deputy Chair, that the word ‘also’ would have created such a stir? In any event, it is very clear that both parties know where they are coming from. I do not heed any of the advice from the member for Wanguri. I can assure the Attorney-General that I would imagine that I will seek briefings on all sorts of things on a fairly regular basis. However, because I am a lawyer, there are some things I do not need a briefing on, and this bill was one of them.
I repeat what I said earlier, that as the Territory’s first law officer, he is in the very privileged position of introducing a raft of legislation into this parliament, and with that privilege comes the responsibility to answer questions about it. It is the role of the opposition to ask the Attorney-General questions as they see fit.
I think we can move off that topic and go on to clause 40, Attorney-General. Are you happy to do that?
Dr TOYNE: I think that would be an excellent idea, yes.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, but for the member for Wanguri.
Dr TOYNE: Also, Madam Deputy Chair, I have some words on clause 40. How does a person come to the notice of the commissioner and why is the Commissioner of Police personally required to issue a certificate? The Commissioner of Consumer Affairs is informed by the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner of Police is informed of the person’s unsuitability to be an office bearer through criminal intelligence processes. The Commissioner of Police is required to issue a certificate personally, as it is a serious step to be taken and should be exercised by the commissioner alone. The disqualified person can appeal to a court pursuant to clause 40(4).
Ms CARNEY: I am sorry, I missed the first sentence or two. My initial question was: how does a person come to the notice of the commissioner? Did you answer that in the first sentence or two?
Dr TOYNE: The process is that as individuals come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police due to criminal intelligence processes, he issues a certificate regarding that individual and apprises the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs of that individual’s presence in that listing, if you like, of the …
Ms CARNEY: By criminal intelligence, I assume you are referring to something other than the standard investigations that occur under the act. Is that right?
Dr TOYNE: It can be either. It is just an individual who has come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police because of some wrongdoing - the obvious one might be, say, a drug dealer - becoming involved with a trading association. It is that kind of process.
Ms CARNEY: How, then, and I am referring to Clause 40 (1)(b), which refers to somebody having taken part in the management of at least two bodies corporate that have ceased to exist by reason of financial mismanagement, that sort of person you would not have thought would have come to the attention of the police in, certainly the garden variety for the want of a better description, criminal intelligence. How do you envisage the police, or the commissioner, finding out who those people are?
Dr TOYNE: Clearly, the police will not be aware of someone’s activities unless they are either investigating it or they come across it in the course of their general intelligence gathering. There is no guarantee that a person in a particular association is acting illegally or will necessarily come to the attention of the police. It is simply that anyone who does, through to the Commissioner of Police, will be passed across to the commissioner.
Ms CARNEY: You will recall that I raised prior to lunch whether the definition of Commissioner of Police included the Commissioner of Police and his or her delegate. Can you confirm whether that …
Dr TOYNE: I have already answered that, Madam Deputy Chair. It is the Commissioner of Police alone, not delegated.
Ms CARNEY: Going to the concerns expressed in relation to the various penalties, and whether there was consideration given to extending the 28 days to the suggestion that I received, 60 days.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, clause 45, why 28 days? Why not 60 days, you raised. Twenty-eight days is four weeks. Just stating the bleeding obvious there.
Ms Carney: Even I know that one.
Dr TOYNE: This is considered an appropriate time for filing documents already presented to an AGM. Note that an extension of time is available pursuant to clause 5 if necessary. The commissioner has the discretion not to prosecute, and I would expect that the commissioner would make an inquiry of the circumstances before proceeding to prosecution in any particular case. I have already stated that we would certainly want to see, as a matter of policy, that prosecution will be used as the last resort.
Ms CARNEY: All right. For your benefit, I will not pursue the concerns I had in relation to fines, generally, because you addressed that earlier on. Can we move to tier 1?
Dr TOYNE: Clause 46?
Ms CARNEY: Yes.
Dr TOYNE: You flagged the possibility of having, first of all, the tier thresholds in the act rather than in the regulations, and whether tier 1 should be $50 000 instead of $25 000. The regulations will be used to have the three thresholds which have been indicated in the second reading speech. Tier 1, up to $25 000, represents 47% of all associations in the Territory; tier 2, $25 000 to $250 000, catches 42% of all associations in that category; and over $250 000, 11% of the associations, fall into tier 3.
There have been divergent opinions about how you cut the cake, if you like. However, all people who did give feedback – and we are talking about the written submissions, e-mails and so on that I referred to earlier - said these thresholds were acceptable. There might have been opinions about a bit up or down from where they were; but they were acceptable. The accounting profession supports this structure. At this stage, there is no need to really change the thresholds as they are currently planned, in our opinion. The thresholds for tiers will be in the regulations because it gives flexibility to change them relatively easily, rather than having to bring it back and amend it.
Ms CARNEY: Did you consider the other point I raised, and that was in your second reading speech, the bit about auditing?
Dr TOYNE: Yes, this is of tier 1 associations. My notes here say any person who is not a member of the association can audit a tier 1 association, yet the clause extends the restriction to persons who are not a partner, employee or employer of a member of the association and not a partner of the employee of a member of the association. The second reading speech was, on this occasion, just providing a general overview of the structure of the bill. It was not comprehensive to the actual provisions in the bill.
You can appreciate that with legislation of this sort of complexity, you cannot include every provision into a second reading speech. So the intended restrictions are the ones in the act and always have been.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you. I take your point that, comparing the two, there may have been that confusion. However, you have just confirmed that it was always the intention for tier 1 organisations to have an audit done by someone other than a member, yes?
Dr TOYNE: Or someone close to them, yes.
Ms CARNEY: Sure, but given the difficulties that creates, you would accept, I imagine, that for all intents and purposes, this means that tier 1 associations will need to retain the services of an auditor for the most part.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, the tier 1 arrangements are basically the status quo in the current legislation and to provide additional support to these smaller, less well resourced associations, we are intending to provide a standard kit, if you like, for the auditing of their affairs. They are generally very simple financial exercises and it should not disadvantage any association over and beyond how they are currently operating. In fact, I think they will probably have additional support in carrying out that annual exercise.
Ms CARNEY: Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand the present situation is that associations are not required to have their books audited by a professional auditor. Some clubs take up the option of, say, a retired accountant who provides the bit of paper that all of us have seen confirming that the books have been duly audited and so on. That is what is I assume the present situation would be. Unless you correct me and say no, that is not the case, then surely it does mean that under this arrangement, those associations can no longer do that if the retired accountant is a member of their association and that they must retain the services of an auditor.
Dr TOYNE: The current legislation would preclude an accountant or a retired accountant who was a member from doing the accounts or the audit of that association. It has to be someone external to their membership. Further to that, tier 1 organisations do not have to have their audit done by a professional accountant; they can have it done by a non-member, any non-member, of the association who can competently carry out the very simple financial audit according to a standard kit.
Ms CARNEY: So, again, just for clarification, do you envisage that the kit you will provide to 1700 associations will essentially be a pro forma audit?
Dr TOYNE: No, 47% of them. Tier 1 represents 47%.
Ms CARNEY: Yes, I am sorry. The 47% of the 1700 associations will receive a kit with a pro forma audit set up and they could then take their books to someone, not a member of the association, and say: ‘Follow it; join the dots’.
Dr TOYNE: Correct.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you. I have some people who will be very interested in that explanation. I think that completes all of the points that we raised earlier on, thank you, minister.
Clauses 5 to 77 agreed to.
Clause 78:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.4.
Clause 78, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 79:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.5. These are continuing to put that term throughout the bill.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.6.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.7.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 79, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 80:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.8.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.9.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.10.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.11.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.12.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.13.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 80, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 81:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.14.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.15.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.16.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.17.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 81, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 82:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.18.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.19.
Amendment agreed to
Clause 82, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 83 agreed to.
Clause 84:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.20.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.21.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 84, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 85:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.22.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 85, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 86:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.23.
Clause 86, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time. Before we put the motion, I would like to clear up a matter. It sounds like I have been naughty in encouraging a direct approach to Parliamentary Counsel. I am very sincere in my offer that we can sort out these drafting issues prior to us coming into the House. Please use my office and I will facilitate the process if you want to sort out the details of drafting. It just shows I am still learning.
This is a very important day. We are very aware as a government that we are taking on a responsibility to many people throughout the Territory in implementing this new legislation. We are very aware of how much community interest is hanging off those 1700 organisations, and we are going to be very diligent in making sure this legislation helps rather than hinders their operation and does not impact badly on the office bearers of these associations.
We will be out there. You can judge the efficacy of our campaign to bring all these organisations into this new legislative structure. Again, I say we are very sincere in trying to do this job properly with proper resources and through a proper process between now and early next year. With that, we can move to the third reading motion being put.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise today to outline to the Assembly how this government is embracing the important challenge of addressing one of the most debilitating illnesses of the 21st century.
Mental illness is responsible for 11% of disease burden worldwide, and accounts for five of the 10 leading causes of disability. In fact, according to the World Health Organisation, by 2020, major depression will be the second leading cause of disease worldwide. Many of us may experience the blues occasionally, but one in five, or 18%, of Australians will experience a mental illness at some time in their lives. These statistics demonstrate the increasing need for a mental health service system with the capacity to deliver timely, accountable and culturally appropriate responses to Territorians with mental health problems.
This government acknowledges that there is no health without mental health. It is fundamental to the physical health, quality of life and productivity of our community. It is particularly important to children and young people, as good mental health through childhood and adolescence often underpins mental health and wellbeing throughout adult life.
Mental illness is a general term used to refer to a variety of mental health problems in the same way that heart disease is frequently used to describe a complex range of physical conditions. Some of the most common mental illnesses include depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and psychoses. It is estimated that three million Australians will experience a major depressive illness during their lifetime, and three in 100 Australians will experience a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia or drug-induced psychosis. These statistics represent an enormous personal, social and economic cost to individuals and the community. The impact on people’s quality of life, family and carer wellbeing, as well as lost productivity and employment opportunities, is massive and far-reaching. It is a challenge that needs to be tackled on many fronts, nationally and locally.
Last week was National Mental Health Week. This year’s theme was ‘Promoting and protecting the mental health of all children and young people’, which has had a particular significance here in the Territory. Children and adolescents are a priority group for this government. We all know that we have a very youthful population compared to other states and territories. A greater proportion of our young people are under 15 years of age. In fact, 41% of our population is under 25 years of age. This demographic profile is of particular concern if one considers figures published by the World Health Organisation that indicate up to 20% of children and adolescents experience mental illness.
Nationally, approximately 14% of children and adolescents experience mental health problems. Mental illnesses such as depression, first onset psychosis and anxiety disorders pose particular problems for young people and their families. Contemporary research suggests that up to 24% of adolescents experience depression by the time they are 18 years old. In the absence of early intervention and prevention initiatives, mental health problems in childhood can result in great suffering for young people and their families, and can impair their educational, emotional, psychological and social development. Even mild emotional or behavioural issues can lead children and young people to feel stressed, contribute to poor physical health, affect relationships with family and friends, create educational problems, and increase the risk of alcohol and drug abuse or involvement in other self-harming behaviours.
By investing in the emotional wellbeing of our young people and ensuring their mental health is promoted and protected, we can contribute positively to the future of our society. By reducing the risk factors associated with the development of mental health problems and promoting protective factors for emotional wellbeing, which enhance individual resilience, much can be done to reduce the incidence of mental health problems in our community. Some of the factors that influence and protect the mental health of children and young people include physical health and development, social and psychological development, family relationships, cultural influences, social advantage, and positive, rewarding school environments.
All members present would be aware that the tragedy of suicide affects many Australian families and communities each year. Suicide is, in fact, the third leading cause of death among adolescents. It is a complex issue that intersects with the range of other problems across society. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing documents the following contributing factors associated with suicide: socioeconomic disadvantage, including low education achievement and unemployment; legal problems, imprisonments or behaviour that brings the person into conflict with the law or society; sexual orientation with studies showing gay, lesbian and bisexual people, particularly adolescents and young adults, are at increased risk of suicidal behaviours and thinking; family adversity and child abuse and neglect; availability of means of suicide; stress, crises and losses, including loss of employment or physical health, relationship breakdown, death and other interpersonal loss; and cultural and social factors including in particular those related to grief, loss and trauma experienced by Aboriginal people and community.
Suicide is an issue of concern here in the Territory. Of course, we must interpret the evidence carefully, given the relatively small population of the Northern Territory. However, a few facts are clear. First, the data shows that while national suicide rates have remained relatively constant over the last decade, suicide deaths in the Northern Territory have increased, such that in 2000, the Northern Territory rate was approximately 45% to 50% higher than the national rate of 20 per 100 000 compared to 13 per 100 000.
It is also a major concern that indigenous suicide has significantly increased in this period. Until the early 1990s, reported suicide rates amongst indigenous people in the Territory were significantly lower than for non-indigenous Territorians. In fact, in 1990, no suicide deaths were recorded amongst indigenous people. Whilst the relatively small numbers overall make it difficult to identify significant trend changes, 15 indigenous people were recorded as having completed suicide in 1999, reflecting a substantial increase over a relatively short period of time. For some, but of course not all, Aboriginal communities, suicide or the threat of suicide has become the source of considerable fear and stress. Another cause of concern is that young men of whatever background also have high and increasing rates of suicide death. The suicide rate for Northern Territory indigenous males significantly increased in the 15 to 24 year age group from 0 per 100 000 in 1992 to approximately 120 per 100 000 in 1999. There has also been an increase in the suicide rate for non-indigenous males in the 15 to 24 year age group from 20 per 100 000 in 1992 to approximately 40 per 100 000 in 1999. Unfortunately, this is not just a problem for men in teenage years and early adulthood. Increasingly, men in the 25 to 44 year old age bracket are also at risk of suicide and the increasing rate for men in this age group in the Northern Territory is consistent with national trends.
Last, it appears that attempted suicide and deliberate self-harm is also a serious problem. Evidence from international studies suggests that the ratio of attempted suicide to suicide ranges from 4:1 to around 200:1 and that women are also thought to be more likely to attempt suicide than are men. Despite a number of difficulties with recording and interpreting these incidents, the available data indicates that the incidence of these behaviours presents a serious problem in the Northern Territory.
These are sobering facts. The challenge may seem all the greater because there is no single route to a reduction in suicide rates. It is nationally and internationally recognised that effective suicide prevention needs to combine both population strategies with those aimed at high-risk groups. Prevention efforts need to minimise risk and enhance protective factors using a range of approaches targeting the whole population, specific groups and individuals at risk. This means a whole-of-government and community approach is needed to respond to this tragedy. It means the cornerstone of suicide prevention lies in cooperative partnership approaches between government and non-government organisations and the broader community.
This government has taken its responsibility seriously and through this very process of partnerships, has developed the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. The development of the strategic framework involved the Suicide Prevention Interdepartmental Committee, which included representatives from the Departments of Health and Community Services; Employment, Education and Training; Chief Minister; Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs; Justice; Police, Fire and Emergency Services; and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. There were additional contributions from the Northern Territory Coroner’s Office and many local community groups and individuals through inter-sectoral and public forums.
Today, I officially launched the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. This is the first suicide prevention strategy to be endorsed by a Northern Territory government. The strategic framework acknowledges and builds on existing suicide prevention initiatives as well as confirming key directions and pathways for future activities. This framework provides a platform to guide future planning and development of programs with a focus on life promotion and prevention. It is based on a whole-of-government and community approach that supports action across all levels of government, covers the entire lifespan and includes a spectrum of interventions. The strategic framework identifies six areas for action. These include:
promoting wellbeing resilience and community capacity, which means enhancing protection against suicide
by strengthening wellbeing, optimism, connectedness, resilience, health and capacity across the entire
community, with a particular focus on young people and their families;
supporting initiatives that reduce risk factors and promote protective factors for suicide and self harm, giving
increasing attention to critical periods or transition points through the life course where interventions have the
potential to be most effective;
improving the ability of a wider range of service systems and support networks to meet the needs of groups at
an increased risk of suicide and self harm;
strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk;
providing culturally appropriate programs that support community responses to high rates of suicide in
indigenous communities; and, finally
ensuring that programs have the greatest chance of benefit by building the evidence base, sharing good practice
and providing education and training.
This strategic framework takes into account the unique circumstances in the Territory, as well being consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and National Mental Health Strategy. Some members will be aware that the National Mental Health Strategy has been the flagship for major reforms in mental health over the past 10 years. On 31 July this year at the Australian Health Ministers Conference held in Perth, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments renewed their commitment to the strategy by endorsing the National Mental Health Plan 2003-2008. This plan signposts key priority themes and directions for future activity in the mental health arena. The priority areas include improvement of population mental health, improving service responsiveness, access and continuity of care, strengthening safety and quality, fostering innovation and ensuring sustainability of services.
The Territory commenced the National Mental Health Strategy in 1993 with per capita funding spending 14% below the national average. Although there was some increased investment in the mental health system between 1993 and 1998, per capita expenditure decreased in the first two years of the second National Mental Health Plan. In fact, by 1999-2000, mental health spending in the Northern Territory had fallen so far below the national per capita average that we were ranked the second lowest jurisdiction in Australia. In effect, there have been only minimal funding increases over the past five years, despite increasing community demand for services, a fact that the Bansemer Review, commissioned by this government to review the Department of Health and Community Services, clearly recognised when it stated:
The Bansemer Review recommended bringing mental services in the Northern Territory to a parity level with other Australian jurisdictions. In addition, this government commissioned a separate specialist examination of mental health programs. The Mental Health Service System Development Strategy Report also highlighted the urgent need for action.
After reviewing the findings of these reports, this government has undertaken to implement some long overdue changes to the mental health system. In May this year, I announced that this government would inject an additional $7.2m into the mental health system over the next three years. This began with a $900 000 boost this financial year and will be followed by an additional $2.4m in 2004-05 and $3.9m in the 2005-06 financial year.
The new funding will enhance clinical care, provide increased support for consumers and carers, help reduce hospital admissions, and provide more intensive post-discharge follow up and rehabilitation services. It will also employ and train clinicians in the child, youth and adult mental health services and enhance partnership approaches to provide better care for Aboriginal people.
A number of national and Northern Territory publications have highlighted the need for strategy formulation on co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems. The evidence indicates that there are increasing numbers of people presenting at our health services with these types of problems. At the same time, the research suggests that they are associated with poor treatment outcomes, a more prolonged illness course and more frequent service use. This is an issue in the Northern Territory, particularly where rates of substance misuse are reportedly increasing amongst young people and in remote communities.
I would like to emphasise that considerable effort is already being made to boost the Territory’s capacity to respond to this issue in the Territory. A number of training events have been held for clinicians and front-line workers from non-government organisations. Accredited training workshops on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems, which were run in Alice Springs and Darwin last year, have been funded again in 2003-04. Training has also recently been provided to approximately 30 rural and remote community workers. Senior departmental officers are establishing a working group to progress strategy formulation and link with the national co-morbidity task force that is co-auspiced by the National Mental Health Working Group and Inter-governmental Committee on Drugs.
In 2002, this government spearheaded legislative reforms to the Criminal Code relating to mental impairment and unfitness to plead. Additional resources have been allocated this year to increase the capacity of the forensic mental health team in Darwin to respond to these provisions, which are aligned with model legislation. My department and the Department of Justice have developed draft protocols and engaged in joint service planning to ensure we are able to appropriately respond to the needs of individuals affected by this legislation.
In a context where there have been many competing pressures and demands on mental health services in the Northern Territory, quality and safety has been of central concern. In July 2003, senior departmental staff met with staff and union representatives to respond to concerns about the Top End Mental Health inpatients units, including increased admission rates. The Top End Mental Health Service Project, which has a broad stakeholder steering committee, is focussing on these issues, and others raised in the Bansemer and Mental Health reviews. A similar project will guide mental health service development in Central Australia. Critical elements of the project brief include an examination of existing resources as well as new service models, a detailed examination of the staffing and operation of inpatient and community-based mental health services is one of the first tasks being undertaken. This analysis will be linked to a consideration of alternative and sub-acute models of care that can help prevent admissions and provide more intensive follow up post-discharge. Other project tasks include a range of admission and discharge policies, and a proposal for trialling a different model for after hours coverage for mental health emergencies.
Assessments in the emergency departments of Royal Darwin and Alice Springs Hospitals will be better managed with the establishment of new mental health consultation liaison nurse positions. Affirming the central place of safety and quality in our health services, the Top End Mental Health Service has made a commitment to participate in an independent accreditation survey by the Australian Council on Health Care Standards in November 2003. External surveyors will assess the service’s compliance with the National Standards for Mental Health Services and make recommendations for action in clinical and management areas.
Mental health is not alone in being challenged by very considerable difficulties in attracting and retaining a skilled specialist workforce in the Territory. In fact, we know that there is a shortage of mental health nurses and psychiatrists in regional and remote areas around the country. A new mental health workforce position will take a lead role in shaping a more coherent and strategic approach to workforce development in mental health. The position will complement existing training and education initiatives supported by my department and professional associations.
The Mental Health and Related Services Act is also currently under review. Since the legislation commenced on 1 February 2000, a number of unanticipated problems with the day-to-day application of some provisions have been identified by a range of stakeholders, including mental health practitioners, the Mental Health Review Tribunal, non-government organisations and the legal profession. The government will soon release an issues paper and invite comment on options for amendment. Senior departmental officers are liaising with the Department of Justice to ensure mental health matters are appropriately considered in a more extensive review of legislation relating to substituted decision-making.
The small numbers, cultural diversity, and wide geographical dispersion of the Northern Territory population present unique challenges for the delivery of mental health services. Some 28% of the Northern Territory population is Aboriginal, and over 50% of indigenous Territorians are under 25 years of age. Although accurate prevalence rates for Aboriginal Territorians are not currently available, it is generally accepted that the incidence of mental health problems is high in Aboriginal communities. I am advised that 33% of all consumers assisted by the community-based mental health services are Aboriginal, and that Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory also have high admission rates to our inpatient facilities.
A fundamental challenge for the Northern Territory is to provide culturally effective mental health care in an area characterised by great diversity and, at times, an overwhelming clash of cultures. The use of non-Aboriginal approaches, which may be culturally inappropriate and fail to meet the needs of Aboriginal people, can contribute to greater ill health and social problems within the communities. One of the major challenges for the Mental Health Program is to build the capacity of Aboriginal communities, families, and individuals to effectively manage emotional and social wellbeing issues.
A working party endorsed by the Northern Territory Aboriginal Health Forum has developed a Draft Strategic Plan for Aboriginal Emotional and Social Wellbeing, with extensive community input. This work is aligned with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander National Strategic Framework for Mental Health and Emotional and Social Wellbeing, which is under development.
A fundamental shared tenet of the approaches supported in these documents and Mental Health Services in the Territory is the strong belief in the central role that Aboriginal mental health workers have in fostering culturally sensitive interventions with Aboriginal people. We are all keenly aware of the complex health and wellbeing problems faced by Aboriginal people, particularly in remote communities. Aboriginal mental health workers deal with a broad range of concerns including substance misuse, family relationship problems and other emotional and social wellbeing issues. Their work is complex. They often have to deal with high work loads and be available for after-hours consultation. They also must consider issues arising from their remoteness and their own family responsibilities.
A priority of the Mental Health Program in the Territory is to enhance Aboriginal mental health workforce numbers and capacity. A proportion of the new funding has been allocated to additional senior Aboriginal mental health positions in the Top End and Central Australia. These positions will play a critical coordinating and mentoring role for Aboriginal mental health workers. They will also contribute to a partnership agreement, which I launched last year, between the Top End Mental Health Service, the Top End Division of General Practice, Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education. This agreement provides a platform to support the Top End Division of General Practice’s Aboriginal Mental Health Worker Program. The program is funded by the division, the Alcohol and Education Rehabilitation Foundation and beyondblue.
Many of you will be aware that in 2002, the Northern Territory government became a fully voting member of the National Depression Initiative, beyondblue. Professor Veronica Arbon, Director of the Batchelor of Indigenous Tertiary Education, represents the views and interests of Territorians on the beyondblue Board, and has a strong commitment to supporting the partnership agreement.
The principal aim of the agreement is to ensure that the Aboriginal mental health workers have access to ongoing coordinated training and support, as well as strong links with general practitioners and specialist mental health services. The partners to this agreement believe that services in remote indigenous communities should be delivered in the context of learning both ways. This means that all parties recognise the essential knowledge held by Aboriginal mental health workers around cultural, family and traditional ways of working in mental health. Partners work together in an environment of cross-cultural learning.
I am very pleased to announce today that this innovative Territory-conceived partnership received an achievement award for service partnership at the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Services Conference recently held in Canberra.
This government has recognised that mental health is one of the most important health challenges of the 21st century. The government has reviewed our current system and found it to be an area that has been seriously neglected and underfunded in the past. We have given a firm commitment to progressing long overdue change in mental health services in the Northern Territory.
Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of this statement.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement.
It is a sad fact that mental health problems are escalating both in Australia and internationally. Of course, as the minister said, mental health is vitally important. Health is probably the most important aspect in anybody’s life, for unless you have good health, you are of little use to anybody. It is incredibly important that people have good health, and when I use the term ‘health’, I encapsulate the concept of mental health.
I was expecting and looking forward to the statement, given the May budget. I felt that, at some time, the minister would give us some details as to how that money was going to be spent. Also, in February of this year, a document entitled Mental Health Service System: Development Strategy Project of the Northern Territory was published. It is quite a detailed review of mental health services in the Territory.
I was looking to see how the minister would interpret this strategy document and the budget commitment that was made in May. I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed with the lack of real substance in the statement with regard to detail. The statement, for example, provides a basic description of mental health problems internationally, nationally and locally and gives five pages to that activity. It then lists contributing factors to suicide. It was interesting that substance abuse was not included in any of the dot points provided, yet we all know that Coroner Greg Cavanagh, in his findings on Bathurst Island with regard to the high rates of suicide and the problems there, listed substance abuse as a cause of suicide. It was interesting that in the minister’s statement, substance abuse was not listed as a cause of suicide.
The statement touched on the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention, which I understand was launched today. If I turn to page 15, with regard to the strategic framework and as an illustration of the lack of real detail in this statement, lack of things that we can actually have a hook to hang a hat on, something that we can evaluate things by, the minister’s statement said:
It goes on in those very general terms, rather than providing anything that is really measurable and something that the community can come back to in perhaps 12 months or so and be able to measure whether any actual activity has occurred in response to what appears to be a strategy.
In her statement, the minister also touched on the budget commitment of an extra $900 000 a year but, once again, there was no detail as to how this money would be spent. She comments:
Yet there is no real detail as to exactly how that will be done - no mention, for example, of new positions or something like that in any particular location.
Given what happened in the last financial year, 2002-03, with regard to the spending of $500 000 that was promised to the Royal Darwin Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department for specialist positions, when we were going through the Estimates process and subsequently when I was permitted to discuss this issue with the CEO of the Department of Health and Community Services, I asked about this issue of how this $500 000 was spent. How many extra staff did we see in the Accident and Emergency Department? Who were those staff? What positions did they hold? The CEO was able to cite a couple of positions, but then said that, really, with regard to money like that, nowadays the view is not so much that you can point at a specific staff member, but it is related to payment of salaries and things like that. So his view was that the money went into the area, but it probably paid for overtime and things like that. My concern is with the $900 000 that has been promised with regard to this year’s spending on mental health, we have not been told exactly where a significant proportion of that money will go. It would be great to get that detail now as we are getting pretty close to half-way through the financial year without that information.
In her statement, the minister advised that the Top End Mental Health Service project will look at staffing and service models for services. I have some concerns with this view of looking at service models and staffing. The reason I have a concern is that on page 56 of the strategy, it goes into the area called Distribution of Resources and provides some information about the issue of the distribution of resources across the Northern Territory with regard to the funding of mental health services. At the end of almost a page of information, it provides from the strategy, recommendation 6, and I quote:
The inference is that funding for inpatient services may well be reduced, and that concerns me. It could result, for example, in a reduction of the staff-patient ratio. We have had some problems in the unit, and I speak specifically about Cowdy Ward at Royal Darwin Hospital. There was an article in this weekend’s paper headed: ‘Nurse wants more staff; Coroner queries Cowdy Ward tragedy’. My concern is that based on recommendation 6, which appears to be implying the need to reduce the costs incurred by inpatient services, and we all know that staffing is always the greatest cost with provision of health services, there is an inference that there will be a reduction in staff-patient ratios.
The newspaper raised two cases in Cowdy Ward: one was about the death of a woman; and another a man who hanged himself shortly after discharge. The woman was found dead, having committed suicide in Cowdy Ward last year. Mr Cavenagh made the comment that he wanted to know basically how the department resourced the psychiatric unit. The unit, a week after the woman’s death, had been described by an independent expert as ‘dysfunctional’. One of the nurses who was quizzed at the inquest said she had never been refused increased resources, but there was a need for more full-time staff. The nurse appears to have been quoted in the paper as saying:
Still from the article:
So the newspaper article raised the issue of staffing on the unit, the fact that staff are working overtime and extra shifts, and the concern that some of the staff from the agency were not the normal staff on the unit, which meant that they probably did not understand how it operated.
That article was of concern, and I know members will be aware there have been a number of instances over the last few years that have appeared in the paper with regards to mental health services. In today’s NT News on page 9, there is an article headed ‘Mental Health System Alarm’, which also deals with problems in the service.
When you take a report like this, which certainly appears to be advocating a reduction in spending on inpatient services, we have to take care. I suspect the authors are from interstate. Although it is interesting to compare Territory costs to those interstate, we are different from interstate jurisdictions. For example, we often lack the family support in the Territory that people have interstate. We also have a significant proportion of our community who are disadvantaged people, who come from families that have significant disruptions in them. I also wonder how recommendation 6 has been calculated with regard to the staff-patient ratios because I have been advised over the last six to eight weeks that there is significant overcrowding in Cowdy Ward so that could affect how these statistics came about.
Quite frankly, I do not believe that we have to be like jurisdictions interstate because they are not doing very well, either. Two weeks ago, on 1 October 2003, The Bulletin headline was: ‘A National scandal’ with regards to mental health services. Quite a lengthy article appeared in this issue of The Bulletin. I will quote some of the passages in it, given that this mental health strategy that was done in the Territory in February seems to be inferring we should reduce our services in Cowdy Ward to be like the services provided interstate. I quote from The Bulletin article, which was written by Hall Greenland:
Mr Acting Speaker, you will be aware that approximately 15 to 20 years ago, there was a move in Australia, which replicated a move across the board in many western countries, to de-institutionalise mental health facilities, and this essentially meant the closing of large inpatient services. When I did my training as a student nurse on the Gold Coast, we did not have a psychiatric inpatient unit. People from the Gold Coast with mental health problems had to go to a place called Wolston Park in Brisbane. I remember, as a student nurse, spending a day at Wolston Park and, quite frankly, being pretty spooked by it all. I do not think those institutions that existed 20 or 30 years ago, certainly the one that I saw, were perfect and we could certainly do a lot better, but there was, to a degree, a knee-jerk reaction across this country in the closure of those sorts of institutions. The result has been that many beds were lost in the mental health areas, clients go into mental health services and are given prescriptions for drugs, and are essentially discharged pretty quickly, and this article certainly argues that case. The result is, and this article argues points to it, that a lot of people go on to commit suicide, have other problems, or even commit murder.
The other thing that all of us see in our electorates is people who quite obviously have mental health problems roaming around. My electorate is the inner city of Darwin. I am sure any of you who have spent some time in this electorate would certainly recognise some of the people on the streets who quite obviously have mental health problems. Most of them seem to survive quite well, and get on with their life and their business in a way. I have seen them and known them for many years and they are obviously surviving quite well, and obviously have a support system in their lives that is working well. On the other hand, you will see people, from time to time, who are struggling with their mental health problems, as they live in our community, who do not appear to have linked in well with support or family services. Because our accommodation services are so stretched, these people often find themselves still on the street and struggling to survive.
I will read another quote from The Bulletin article with regard to the problems that are occurring Australia-wide:
That reflects what I just said; that we have a significant number of people with mental health problems who, 10 years, ago would have been admitted to hospital or an institution and, at the moment, they are classified as being quite okay to be released. There are some real issues with regard to the type of service that we are providing as a community.
Another point, and the minister makes this point in her statement, is that it is hard to get qualified staff in this area to work and stay in the Territory. It is very important that we provide a system that not only caters for the clients, but is one that staff will want to work in, so we are not driving them away. From page 28 in the same Bulletin article, I will read a comment where the National Association of Practicing Psychiatrists’ President, Rachel Falk, said:
that being the mental health system. That reflects a national problem with regard to the staffing in mental health areas. I stress to the minister to do all she can to ensure that she is providing a workplace environment that will keep our staff here.
I know that things are not great out there for staff. I am going to be careful what I say now, because I do not want to allude to the identity of an area that is having some problems, but it is in mental health. I received a phone call yesterday from a staff member in a particular location. She does not work in mental health but, in her area, meaning her township, there is a community Mental Health Unit in which there are a number of staff. One of the staff members recently was very stressed out, so she and the person who spoke to me decided that she should call in sick. The cause of the stress was the work situation. When she rang in sick, nobody answered the phone and so, after a couple of hours she went into the office, and the other staff members were all off sick, too. That is the current situation that we have in Territory, with significant workloads for our mental health services staff. I will argue significant stress for some of them, and we need to do all we can to ensure we keep the staff that we have and, ideally, attract more to our area.
Since I became a member of parliament, I have had the great honour and privilege to be able to travel throughout the Territory, going to all sorts of communities in my various roles. At the moment, those include being the shadow Health minister. When I go to communities, I take particular note of and interest in health services in the area. One of the things that has come up from time to time has been the role of Aboriginal mental health workers. It strikes me that we do not have enough of them. Something I encourage the minister to do is to recruit and train more Aboriginal mental health workers and create more positions for them. In communities such as Bathurst Island, we all acknowledge that there has been and continues to be an ongoing, incredibly serious problem with mental health issues.
I believe that Aboriginal mental health workers would and could have a major influence on what is happening in that community. I am not sure how many Aboriginal mental health workers we even have here in the Territory and at some point, I would be interested if the minister could advise the House, because they are not very common. It is certainly rare for me to meet one, yet they have a real role to play, and I know the minister drew attention to that in her statement.
I welcome this statement from the minister but, as I said before, it is a bit frustrating because it does lack detail as to what will actually be occurring. All I can say is: ‘Well, the government says that by November, we will employ 10 extra Aboriginal mental health workers in the Top End and they will be located here, here and here’, or however the money might be spent. It is going to be quite difficult for someone such as myself to be able to assess how the program is going, and that is one of the frustrations of this statement.
I certainly hope that services do improve over the next few years. I believe there has been a fair bit of talk with regard to mental health services over the years. This year, for example, we had the Bansemer Review, which was published in January/February, and which certainly dealt with mental health issues. We had the Mental Health Services System Development Strategy, which was published in February this year. We had the Territory budget, which included mental health services, in May. We now have the minister’s statement today, October. The Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention was launched today and that has more talk in it. From the minister’s statement, we learnt that the Top End Mental Health Services Project is now under way and the Central Australian Mental Health Services Project is going to commence. There is a lot of talk; it will be great to see some action.
Next Tuesday, I will be going to visit Cowdy Ward. I thank the minister and her unit for allowing me to do that and arranging for that to happen. I will be very interested to look at the ward and speak to the staff. I know the staff will not be able to provide me with certain information, but hopefully by touching base they will know that I am somebody that they can come to if they ever feel they need to let someone know how things are going there. In my role as the shadow health minister, it is my job to do what I can to lobby to improve services. I take that role very seriously and will do all I can on that issue if people feel that it is necessary.
Let us get the review and talk over as soon as possible and the action started, changes made and spending under way to benefit those in our community who really do need help.
Dr BURNS (Tourism): Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement on this very important topic. As the minister has pointed out, mental health services were identified as a priority area within the Bansemer Review published earlier this year. Indeed, to quote from page 112 of the Bansemer Review, significantly paragraph 666:
Further evidence of the way in which the previous government inadequately resourced and failed to support this important health area is the fact alluded to by the Health minister in her statement that by 1999-2000, per capita expenditure on mental health in the Territory was the second lowest in Australia. Whilst the member for Port Darwin can say: ‘Let’s get the talk over; there are all these reports’, there is a bit of history there as well. The challenge is for this government, as the member for Port Darwin pointed out, to take the information that we have been given, the reports, the directions, the strategic framework, and move forward. The minister’s statement, the significant sums that he has talked about and the strategic framework and planning all point to the fact that this government is serious about this issue.
The CLP failed in its duty of care to Territorians in this area but, more importantly, this government has demonstrated a real and substantial commitment to supporting and developing mental health services in the Northern Territory. We have done this in three major and substantial ways: first, a substantial funding increase; second, setting out clearly defined processes for the implementation of the Bansemer Review and other relevant reviews such as the Mental Health Review; and third, this statement, which gives the House the opportunity to debate and review this important area of health services.
In relation to the new funding, the Health minister has already stated that this government has allocated an extra $7.2m to the Northern Territory mental health system over the next three years. That is, $900 000 in 2003-04, $2.4m in 2004-05, and $3.9m in 2005-06.
The Health minister has comprehensively outlined the extent and impact of mental illness in our community. Unfortunately, the prevalence of mental illness may be increasing and, I have to be honest here, I am basing this on my own perceptions. I know in the Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention and other documents, there seems to be a fairly static rate of mental illness, but it has been my experience over the past 50 or so years that it seems to be increasing. As a pharmacist, I worked for some time in mental institutions dispensing drugs in those very sad places, so it is an area that I have had an interest and contact with.
In addition, the minister has comprehensively outlined the extent and impact of mental illness in our community, as I said before, but it is not clear if this is a reflection of increased rates of mental illness, earlier identification of conditions, increased community awareness of and preparedness to access available services and support, or simply due to more data collection systems or a combination of all of the above, which I suspect is probably the answer.
There seems to be an increase in mental illness and, maybe as the member for Port Darwin said, there was a push a number of years ago to close down large mental institutions and basically force some people out on the streets, so it has become more visible. These are things with which we as a society need to come to grips.
Whilst government has a definite role in addressing this issue, and I will go through some of those roles soon, I never cease to admire the work of community groups such as GROW. I am very fortunate to have in my electorate Julie James, who is a real stayer and very energetic person who supports GROW in the Northern Territory. GROW is a community mental health organisation. I am reading from their pamphlet, which tells a little bit about their organisation. It is a community mental health organisation that began in Sydney in 1957 and has now gone international, so there is something that was developed in Australia and has gone international. It is a support group for those with mental illness or simply interested in personal growth.
The membership has broadened over the years, and they have weekly meetings in particular areas, so it is mutual help, and they are able to share common experiences in a friendly, caring and confidential atmosphere. This really does a lot for people’s self-esteem. It does a lot for people, knowing that there are others out in the community with the same problem, and those who have been through the problems of mental illness are able to give support to others who are going through the same problems. The groups may vary in size from three to 15. They have a lot of sayings within GROW, and one of them is: ‘Mostly, when things go wrong, they are meant to go wrong, so we can outgrow what we have to outgrow’.
Here is a group that meets the challenges of life. They do not keep saying: ‘Why does this have to happen to me?’. That is something we all say to each other every now and again: ‘Why has this happened to me, why have I been dealt this particular hand?’. They say: ‘No, this is something that has happened to me through life and I am determined to meet that challenge and to grow thereby’.
Julie supplied some statistics to me from the GROW centre from January 2003 to June 2003: visitors to the centre – 643; phone inquiries – 57; personal inquiries – 84; and support – 61. That is very important. She reports that 448 have attended the groups over this year. These groups are held on Monday nights at Coolalinga and Casuarina, Wednesday morning at the GROW centre in Casuarina, and Friday morning at Palmerston. They are a very active group. They are trying to help all people in the community. I commend them.
Government is trying to do as much as it can. We have allocated significant extra funding, but we need the work with groups like GROW. There was an issue that Julie raised in relation to the extended hours service, and there were some problems in one particular case of accessing it. I made inquiries in the Health minister’s office and I am sure that those issue have been addressed. Julie James is someone who works tirelessly for those with mental illness and, as her local member, if she brings concerns to me, I certainly carry them on. They are an important part of mental health system in the Northern Territory.
In relation to the issue that Julie raised, the Health minister mentioned new mental health nurse positions. I am informed that some of those will be placed in the emergency department, and the issues that Julie raised will be satisfactorily addressed. People have had issues but, as a government, we are trying to address those issues in a realistic and effective way.
I particularly welcome the initiatives flagged within the minister’s statement in relation to suicide prevention. Sadly, suicide, particularly youth suicide, appears to have become an increasingly common phenomenon within Australian society. I must add that, once again, this is my perception over five decades of life. Perhaps suicide was something that was covered up in past decades, I do not know. There was a lot of shame associated with suicide in the past, and it was something previous generations have covered up. Most people in our community are very concerned about the increasing rate of suicide.
While national suicide rates have remained relatively constant over recent years, and I suppose I am talking about the past 10 years, suicide rates in the Northern Territory have increased. In 2000, the NT rate was approximately 45% to 50% higher than the national rate. Furthermore, the incidence of Aboriginal suicide is a fairly recent occurrence in the Northern Territory. It was almost unheard of when I came to the Territory some 25 years ago. It was very rare. I never heard of it, and Aboriginal youth suicide was very, very rare, something that I did not hear about, but it is something that I have been hearing a lot about within the last four to five years. That is very unfortunate. So, although the effects of suicide and attempted suicide are profound, the causes of suicide and attempted suicide are complex and, I believe, often obscure. Along with the increase in suicide rates, in time over the wider Australian society, and I am talking about a longer timeframe for the apparent increase, the increase in Aboriginal suicide rate for males aged 15 to 24 is cause for great concern and may involve a range of additional factors or exacerbation of factors in common with wider Australian society. These factors may include loss of self-esteem; perceptions of hopelessness and alienation, or a lack of what many people call ‘connectedness’ to your community, your family, and to your peers.
I commend the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. I heard what the member for Port Darwin was saying: ‘Oh, well, you have not really flagged up the role of substance abuse in suicide’. It is very plain on page 11 of this framework: ‘Mental health problems’, and right at the top there is: ‘Harmful Drug Use’. That is the risk pathway for suicide and suicide attempts. There has been no attempt to bury this issue; it is an important issue and I am going to deal with it in some detail. Page 12 deals with the research that Rob Parker has done in the Top End, and the significant alcohol abuse prior to suicide.
Coming back to the wider factors related to suicide, these are addressed to a large degree in the Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. I would like to specifically deal with inter-related issues affecting substance abuse, mental health and suicide. This is because I believe that these issues are interlinked, and provide significant challenges to the Northern Territory in general.
There have been concerns expressed by psychiatrists working in this area, such as Hunter and Parker. Of course, Rob Parker is a local psychiatrist, someone who enjoys a lot of respect. As most people would know, he is married to a Tiwi lady and he has spent a lot of time in the company of Tiwi people. I particularly respect Rob Parker, his experience and what he might have to say about this issue. These psychiatrists hypothesise that a generation of Aboriginal people have been made more susceptible to suicide through witnessing alcohol-related violence and abuse by their parents and extended family, and within their community. Although seemingly calm on the exterior, various factors may precipitate unfortunate consequences and impulsive behaviour such as suicide.
One of the main things that is often raised is the issue of the relationship of heavy cannabis use, psychoses and suicide. There is a body of literature on cannabis and psychoses, and the possible link between cannabis and mental illness including schizophrenia. Wayne Hall and others in NDARC, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, in Sydney have done a lot of research in this area as well as overseas people. It seems that they are moving towards the conclusion that, with all other factors including pre-existing mental illnesses catered for, heavy cannabis use can contribute to mental illness. It certainly causes psychoses and that, in itself, is a mental illness. That is very important to remember. Cannabis is not a safe drug. A lot of people say it is a harmless drug; it is a recreational drug. For a certain percentage of people in our community, it is a very dangerous drug and can have very dangerous consequences. We should never underestimate the harm that cannabis can do within our community and to individuals’ lives.
There are further concerns about the combined effects of alcohol and cannabis in relation to suicide, and I quote from an interview given by Alan Clough, at the Menzies School of Health Research on ABC Radio’s PM on 22 August 2003:
He went on to say:
So heavy cannabis use combined with alcohol use and the setting in which many young Aboriginal people find themselves, often hopelessness and despair, wondering what does it all mean, where is it all going, settings of depression, cannabis and alcohol exacerbate that situation. I am pleased to say that the minister’s statement addressed the issue of cannabis and alcohol use, and I will come to that.
In view of the above factors, importantly, the minister’s statement details this government’s Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. The framework is consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and the National Mental Health Strategy, endorsed by all Australian jurisdictions. As described by the Health minister, there are six areas for action in the strategic framework. These include: promoting wellbeing, resilience and community capacity; supporting initiatives that reduce risk factors; improving the ability of a wider range of service systems and support networks to meet the needs of groups at increased risk of suicide and self-harm; strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk; providing culturally appropriate programs; and ensuring that our programs and services are backed by a strong evidence base to ensure good practice.
In relation to the issues that I have raised, I was pleased to learn, particularly in relation to drugs and their possible link with suicide – there is a lot of research to be done yet, but on the face of it, there are very strong links - I was pleased to hear in the minister’s statement that:
Within the minister’s statement, she certainly flagged the important issue of drug abuse, mental health and suicide. We really need to work on those things to ensure that they are properly addressed within the framework.
I now move onto unfit to plead, that is an important part of the minister’s statement.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that that the minister be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Dr BURNS: I will be brief, Mr Acting Speaker. I am talking about unfitness to plead. It is evident from a number of recent court cases that the scourge of petrol sniffing has caused substantial brain damage in a number of young Aboriginal men. In some cases, the courts have determined that this impairment has been a substantial contributor to sometimes violent crimes, often rendering them unfit to plead. Furthermore, there have been other celebrated unfit to plead cases in the Northern Territory not necessarily related to petrol sniffing or substance abuse. Being unfit to plead is a problem.
As members would be aware, this government passed mental impairment and unfitness to plead provisions of the Criminal Code, which commenced in June 2002. Additional resources have been allocated this year to increase the capacity of the Forensic Mental Health team in Darwin to respond to the requirements of this legislation. That is a positive aspect.
The member for Port Darwin mentioned Aboriginal mental health workers, and that is a very important issue. I remember when I first came to the Territory there were Aboriginal people I knew with mental illness, but within the framework of Aboriginal community and traditional life, these people were catered for, they were supported. They were not ostracised; they were part of the whole and they were accommodated. It was a big lesson to me, coming from a society that locked people up, as the member for Port Darwin said, in all sorts of terrible institutions, that Aboriginal people, in their way of accommodating those with mental illness, were very generous and supportive.
Over the years at Maningrida, I got to know Mr Albert Mileran who has had a long-term commitment to mental health, illness and well-being. Albert, over many years, has been knocked down a few times because he has not really had the support that he should have for the important work that he has done also in the drug and alcohol area. I have a hell of a lot of admiration for Albert Mileran. He is committed. He has gone away and had training, and has the respect of his community. If there is one thing that we can do through these mental health initiatives, it is support people like Albert Mileran who will do a power of good. I know he already has done a power of good with very few resources. We need to support Aboriginal mental health workers, and Albert Mileran would have a lot to teach some of the younger ones who want to enter into this very important field.
Finally, the minister’s statement has recognised the challenges of delivering suitable and adequate mental health services in the Northern Territory. Unlike the opposition, we have risen to the challenge and have allocated funding and developed a specific and strategic framework to reach the goal outlined in the Bansemer Review:
We want to move it from the second lowest in Australia to at least parity and, given the talented nature and commitment of people we have within the department, people like Julie James out in the community, we can not only reach parity, I think we have a lot to show the rest of Australia. In conclusion, Mr Acting Speaker, I commend the minister’s statement to the House.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Mr Acting Speaker, there is absolutely no doubt that this is a very important subject. Mental health is just as important as physical health. In our modern western societies, researchers are becoming more and more aware of some of the causes and issues that affect the mental health of our wider population.
May I say at the outset that the hard work of the men and women employed by the Department of Health and Community Services who deal with this topic should be appreciated and acknowledged. They should be congratulated for the amount of effort they put in. Also, of course, the unpaid people, the volunteers. The honourable member for Johnston talked about community groups like GROW. GROW uses my electorate office at Coolalinga to hold regular meetings, and my door remains open. In fact, I encourage them to use the conference room and the facilities that are available in my office to further their cause.
Mental illness takes many forms and I have absolutely no reason to doubt the minister’s statement in terms of the fairly compelling statistics contained in it. Somewhere in the document, on the first couple of pages, the minister referred to one in five people being affected or will experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives. That in itself is a compelling static. It is something which, invariably through the course of our lives, we will know someone who is affected by mental illness if not one in five of us being the subject of that particular illness.
If this ministerial statement is to do anything, at least it will raise the issue in the public arena. I hope it will raise public awareness of the issue, and give the House and members an opportunity to further publicise and increase awareness of mental health in our broader community.
The catchphrase that appears in the statement ‘There is no health without mental health’ is absolutely true. It is a great philosophy for the mental health community to champion. Everyone knows that last week was National Mental Health Week. I did my best to get involved in promoting it and raising public awareness of the issues. I am sure many other members attended the art exhibition which was in the Main Hall of Parliament House. There were a number of other media events that went along the path of raising the issue. Well done to those people, community groups and Department of Health employees who were involved and helped put together the exhibition and other activities for National Mental Health Week.
A large portion of the statement dealt with suicide. Indeed, there was the launch of the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. I am not a pharmacist, nor am I qualified in this area, but I can, from my own life experiences, make some observations about the subject matter. The first and most obvious one is that the high rates of suicide that exist in the Northern Territory are a real concern to the general community. Obviously, there is a significant link between people with mental illness and their propensity to commit an act of self-harm. In my view, governments of all ilks cannot do enough to really investigate and implement initiatives to address the issue.
From my reading of it, the statement does state a number of self-evident norms that I have heard bandied about in my decade or so of being both a prosecutor and defence lawyer. There are a couple of points I want to touch upon. For a number of reasons, it seems that youth suicide is more prevalent in some Aboriginal communities. That is a real concern. I suppose it begs the question: why is that so? Why is it prevalent in one particular remote community and not another? There are a number of reasons cited in the statement, and there is probably no single root cause.
There is one other matter that needs to be amplified and is not contained in detail in the statement, and that is that, if you look at it logically, you cannot have a community of 200, 500 or 1000 people living somewhere where there is effectively no worthwhile employment. You cannot have a group of people living in a state where there is not a work ethic. You cannot have a group of people living somewhere where mum and dad do not work, where the dignity that comes with having a job and a pride in the things you buy and the things you do does not exist. That will create problems. If there is no land tenure or work ethic, then this inevitable damage will occur to a person’s dignity, the family structure. Then coupled with - and I suppose these are systemic factors and not the root cause - alcohol abuse and excessive use of cannabis flow from these things. Unfortunately, we witness it, and those of us who have friends who have lived on remote communities who are affected will know that these symptoms go on to cause a number of tragedies, one of which can be mental illness, and sometimes people commit acts of self-harm.
I was surprised by some comments by the member for Johnston. I was not going to politicise the issue at all, but I was surprised to hear him try to put a spin on it that the previous government had not done anything to try and deal with the issue. From a very narrow academic perspective, he was saying the previous government spent less money on this therefore they were not taking it seriously, or that seemed to be the implication. The bottom line is this, fairly obviously: you deal with a problem as complicated as mental illness in a number of ways.
An accolade bestowed upon this person who, as Australian of the Year, a professor from Western Australia, a medical practitioner. What is her name?
Ms Carney: Professor Fiona Stanley.
Mr MALEY: That is right.
Mrs Aagaard: What was her name?
Mr MALEY: The member for Arafura said her name. Perhaps she could remind the minister.
Ms Scrymgour: It was the member for Araluen.
Mr MALEY: Anyway, this person was one of those absolutely committed flag wavers; a bit mixed up in the Aboriginal cause of things, but at the end of the day, she was saying this: it is not about a race, it is not about having more programs for alcohol abuse or consumption of cannabis or building schools or another 10 police stations; it is about intervention. She was saying that it is about governments being serious about the problem and the intervention at stages as early as this: if you have mothers who are alcoholics who have babies who are affected by alcohol, it will lead to problems through life and the propensity for mental illness increases.
The thrust of her argument, and it is a very good one, is that if you are serious about the issue, you can talk about it and have all the committee meetings that say: ‘This is a symptom and here is a bandaid’, but you have to really grab the bull by the horns and intervene at a very early stage to deal with these systemic failures that are occurring in a community.
The fact that you have raised it in parliament today, after last week’s Mental Health Awareness Week, is a credit to the minister; the public awareness aspect of it. As a community, we need to continue to move forward and deal with the issue. The broad framework announced today in the ministerial statement is welcome. There is little doubt that the minister has the best of intention in dealing with the issue.
Another aspect that received some attention - and I am relying upon the information contained in the statement – is that it seems that men are one of the high risk groups. It is good to see that this group will be targeted. Often men’s health and education, particularly white men, seem to be ignored. It is good to see that things are beginning to change and there is an emphasis on dealing with the issues affecting this group in our community.
This is a good statement on a topic that demands our support and all the attention that we can give to it.
There is a I have, and it is nothing really to do with the statement, but with what happens next. Honourable members will all be aware that at the Economic Development Summit in November 2001, in this very building, in this very room, a number of recommendations were made. There was real engagement by the community, and there were a number of important recommendations made.
Of course, those recommendations were duly posted on the government Internet site and, like most verbal initiatives from the Martin Labor government, it then languished before it slipped away into the ether. That was a tragedy. There is no denying that one of the key recommendations in that report was to fast track the wharf precinct development. Well, it took nearly two years for this government to even announce that they were going to make a decision about the construction of something. Those recommendations were ignored; that wonderful framework was ignored. I just hope that this ministerial statement and the initiatives it announces are not also ignored and suffer the inevitable fate that most, indeed all, of the Martin Labor government initiatives have seem to have suffered over the past two years. With that small rider, I support the matters raised in the statement.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it is so tempting to digress from what I want to say and touch on what the member for Goyder said because what he just did was totally denigrate an area that is very important, not just amongst indigenous people but the whole of the community. It is an issue that people need to take quite seriously because whilst we look at hospitals and clinics and talk about primary health care, very little attention is paid to, and people rarely talk about, the issues of mental health or wellbeing. He was saying some good things, but there were some things said out of total ignorance and not having worked in that area or having any understanding of it. But rather than being tempted to slide down to the level to which the member for Goyder went, I will go to what I wanted to say.
We heard a statement from the Minister for Health and Community Services that is extensive and comprehensive. I thank the minister for providing us with a status report that covers a range of discrete but interrelated issues relevant to the complex social problems that we refer to by the shorthand title ‘mental health’. I am only going to touch on a number of them, with a view to suggesting ways that existing or developing policy might be adapted or finetuned for the benefit of people living in remote area electorates like my own.
I welcome the minister’s candid acknowledgment that the nature of the bundle of issues comprising mental health in the Territory is such as requires ongoing consultation with and feedback from various individuals and agencies. I note that in addition to there being under way or in progress various reviews in respect of discrete issues or processes, the Mental Health and Related Services Act is itself currently under review. The coming months are obviously a timely window of opportunity to address matters of concern, including those that have been raised and outlined in the minister’s statement.
Before I mention matters of particular concern to me, it would be useful to provide some background context in terms of the shift. The member for Port Darwin stole a bit of my thunder. Had we all read the article cited by the member for Port Darwin from The Bulletin magazine, we would agree with the banner headline of ‘A National Scandal’. The special investigation report published inside the magazine commenced with the following three paragraphs, and I will go back over them. I know she read extracts, but I am going cite parts that I feel are relevant not only throughout Australia, and I know she was speaking from a national perspective, but if you look at mental health nationally, it is irrelevant to when we look at the Northern Territory, although there are issues that have happened nationally that are relevant to us.
I quote from The Bulletin of October 1:
The bottom line conclusion of The Bulletin report is that the pendulum has swung too far away from the interventionist, hands-on treatment that characterised mental health care prior to the 1980s.
I agree with that conclusion and analysis, but qualify my comments by explaining that I am in no way advocating a return to the kind of institutionalisation portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - I am sure all of us have seen that movie - but rather, the investigation and implementation of compromise arrangements that enable any individual seeking to integrate into the mainstream community, either directly or by way of residence in half-way houses or hostels, to feel secure in the knowledge that appropriate institutional care and support is readily available as a safety net and back up.
I am encouraged by the minister’s words that better care for those with co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems is also a particular concern for this government. The subject matter of that concern is necessarily of importance to the Substance Abuse Committee, and I am keen to set up meetings between the committee, the minister and relevant key departmental staff with a view to both identifying and dealing with the negative impact of drugs and alcohol on those underlying mental health problems.
The dilemma is, of course, not unique to the Territory. The Bulletin report I mentioned earlier had this to say this about it:
When it comes to the co-occurrence of mental health and substance misuse problems in remote communities, what we need to be working towards is a situation where both Aboriginal mental health workers and fully qualified psychiatrists are available on the ground to catch early deterioration of those individuals who have significant and potentially fatal underlying mental health problems.
One of the things that we have to get away from is the urban myth that mental health problems did not exist in Aboriginal communities until of late. Many of us who grew up in and worked with communities know that the old people used to say when someone did not quite fit into the community or was sick, that person was either cursed, or was sung. That was their way of coming to terms with the fact that the person had mental health problems. Because of the lack of health resources, and in those days people did not particularly think of that, it was probably convenient for a number of players to accept that as the most plausible explanation, that they were sung or cursed.
Furthermore, the integration of mental health and substance abuse services is something that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Some progress is being made with placement of Aboriginal mental health workers on the ground in communities, and I welcome that. However, when it comes to diagnosis by qualified mental medical staff out bush, the task almost falls to the GP for the local clinic, and bush visits from qualified psychiatrists are few and far between. While there are difficulties, even for Darwin and Alice Springs-based patients in arranging to quickly see a departmental psychiatrist, an appointment can be made, usually within a matter of days. Bush people are substantially deprived of this access. I hope that access disparity will be addressed and overcome in the very near future.
The minister has informed us that the government is meeting the increased demands in forensic mental health care associated with legislative reforms to the Criminal Code. She was referring to the new mental impairment and unfitness to plead provisions in the Code. Of course, it is imperative that human and other resources be made available to enable the new reforms to be implemented. However, I hope that additional resources can be allocated to enable court requested mental health assessments to be carried out by psychiatrists in relation to cases where the defendant is regarded as being fit to plead, but nevertheless appears to suffer from a mental health problem which may have critical links with the offending behaviour for which he or she is to be sentenced. When I spoke on this bill, one of the areas that was identified was petrol sniffers, where there are huge gap and often those petrol sniffers do fall between those gaps.
However, when such an offender is to be sentenced by a circuit court magistrate at a remote community far from Darwin, and when the offender has been granted bail pending the completion of reports requested by the magistrate, the response to the court for mental health services tends to be that, due to a lack of staff and resources, the requested assessment could only be carried out in Darwin. If the offender has been remanded in custody and is, therefore, sent in to the remand section of the prison at Berrimah, the problem solves itself. However, in many cases the circumstances do not justify the revoking of the offender’s bail; and that, of course, should not be taken simply in order to facilitate the obtaining of a court requested mental health assessment.
The minister has pointed out that a fundamental challenge for the Northern Territory is to provide culturally effective mental health care in an area characterised by great diversity and, at times, an overwhelming clash of cultures. The allocation of funding and resources to enhance Aboriginal mental health workforce numbers and capacity is an extremely positive and important initiative. However, considerable thought, consultation and planning needs to go into the implementation of the proposed enhancement program. Aboriginal mental health workers should not simply be slotted into remote community health centres to be used exclusively in clinical and crisis management work. The prioritisation of longer range primary health care strategies would see their optimum role being one of working together with visiting mental health professionals, including fully qualified psychiatrists, amongst the community generally. This would involve the casual and non-invasive identification and treatment of individuals with latent or dormant mental health problems that may not yet have fully manifested themselves, and the promotion of lifestyle and family harmony choices that tend to prevent mental health conditions from escalating.
In many of our remote Aboriginal communities where traditional lifestyles and practices are still intact, the one area the health system has found hard to grapple with or to try to integrate is the use of traditional healers, particularly in a lot of our communities where traditions, cultures and practices are still quite strong, and where people’s beliefs are more with traditional healers rather than the western concept of Aboriginal health workers. Certainly, running the Katherine West Health Board in Katherine, I was fortunate to see very positive outcomes in integrating traditional healers in a primary health care setting where, rather than being a burden on that system, those people can be complementary. Many communities recognise the benefits these healers can play. That is something that, at some stage, the system needs to recognise.
The issue of suicide has been raised in this House during this debate. I suppose when we talk about the rate of suicide, particularly amongst young indigenous men, the one community that springs to the minds of many people is the Tiwi Islands. Suicide among those young males is horrific and unacceptable. The member for Port Darwin raised the issue of the Coroner’s report, and in that report, substance abuse was a major factor and played a major role in the suicides of those young men. However, one of the things that is not discussed in a lot of our communities - and having known a number of those young men who have committed suicide, it is like a sleeping giant, pushed under the carpet and not talked about or faced, is the issue of sexual assault. Nearly every single one of those five suicides that the Coroner was dealing with are boys who were left with the legacy of horrible sexual assault. That needs to be put in context of why those young men grew up and had spent a short part of their lives abusing both alcohol and cannabis.
Misuse of cannabis and alcohol are contributing agents, but so are social and economic factors such as inadequate education, lack of meaningful or any employment, family dysfunction, and associated low self-esteem. It is crucial that during the period in which the department will essentially be taking over the functions previously undertaken by the Tiwi Health Board, it focusses sharply on trying to implement a suicide minimisation strategy. Minister, I have seen this strategy and it will be a good thing, but we need to ensure that the strategy combines the allocation of appropriate mental health resources with inter-agency initiatives aimed at the other contributing factors I have highlighted. Because the Tiwi Islands are closer to Darwin than most of the other remote communities in my electorate, the tyranny of distance should not be used as an excuse for failing to provide qualified psychiatrists. It is an area that has been neglected.
The member for Johnston pointed out the CLP’s inadequacy in this area. As I said, before I was elected to parliament, I worked in that system. It is a system that has been neglected for a long time. We can stand here and point the finger at each other all the time and say: ‘We are doing this and you did not do this but we are now doing it’, but at some stage, we have to get beyond that and look at the issue. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, funerals are commonplace when we go out to our communities. I could count two to three funerals that I am attending in my electorate if not weekly, fortnightly. Many of those funerals are for young men. Sometimes they are for women, but a lot of the time they are young men who have cut short their lives. That adds to a depression in itself. I suppose because Tiwi Islanders are my people, there is an urgent need to continue …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the member be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: I will not be long, Mr Acting Speaker. I could keep going on about suicide because it is a huge issue. We have to address the issues of substance abuse. I remember speaking out about mandatory treatment under the Liquor Act. Sometimes as public figure, sometimes your comments may be seen by people as coming out of left field or that is not in line with government policy, but sometimes you have to make these comments to generate wider debate in the community. At some stage with substance abuse, particularly alcohol, we need to bite the bullet and take real action.
On the issue of cannabis in remote communities, I support resources being given to the police and communities to tackle this problem. It is an issue I have confronted in the recent past. It is something I faced and am working toward overcoming, but it is something for which communities have to be resourced.
As well as psychiatrists on the ground, there have to be other mental health professionals on the ground, not just at the Tiwi Islands. We keep focussing on the Tiwi Islands, but there are many other communities in which if there are not fatalities in terms of people taking their own lives, there are many suicide attempts. Take another major community in my electorate: Maningrida. You could look at any remote community, even Darwin. I am not saying that remote communities are any different and the problem does not happen in Darwin, but it is not just the Tiwi Islands. There are problems in other remote areas.
We need to get these professionals out on a regular basis, and there needs to be diligent follow up in Darwin in relation to those individuals whose lifestyles involve moving between Darwin and their home community. It is not just in Darwin; Katherine is at the crossroads of many communities. The member for Barkly would say the same for Tennant Creek. A lot of our urban centres down the track are at the crossroads to these communities. A lot of our mob come from remote communities into the urban centres, so we have to look at addressing that as well.
Minister, it is a fantastic statement, as was the renal statement, which I applauded and welcomed. It is a brave statement. For a long time, people have not wanted to talk about the stigma of mental health. Hopefully, this will highlight the issue. Although we have National Mental Health Weeks and people have a look at the nice paintings on the wall, after those weeks go by, like with a lot of other things - breast cancer, you can have a week that highlights the issue of breast cancer amongst women, mental health you have this week - people soon forget. This is an area people should not forget because its impact on primary health care and the hospital system is great. I commend the minister’s statement to the House.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Mr Acting Speaker, it would be remiss of me not to declare that I do not have a health background. My professional background is law. As a solicitor, my field of enterprise is quite different from issues of importance in mental health.
However, as a politician, health has become an important field of my current professional interest. It is fair to say that people’s health rates as high as education, employment, the economy, law and order issues for people of all different backgrounds.
Debate will always rage about government spending, including the Commonwealth government, on health-related issues. I believe that the next Commonwealth election will not be fought on homeland security issues, but rather Commonwealth government spending on Medicare. I have therefore had a baptism of fire on health-related issues, as these issues have often been raised by constituents and the general public and has related to mental health and other health-related issues. Why? It is clear. I quote from the minister’s statement:
It is in our best interest as a community to ensure that mental health issues are addressed professionally and with a degree of care that cannot be questioned. Many members of the House, according to statistics, have suffered or do suffer mental health issues. I am one of the most positive thinking people I know. However, like many other members of this House, I have been the victim, on the odd occasion, of self-doubt. That self-doubt could be considered ‘the blues’.
I have always had the ability to repair myself through a positive attitude, without the need for clinical or pharmacological assistance, however it gives an individual brief insight into someone who suffers from major depression, which leads to an individual being unable to operate consistently as a healthy physical and mental human being. Let us just reflect on the statistic I quoted. Of the 25 individuals in this House, statistically someone in this House will be suffering from a mental illness. Since self-government, there would have been, on percentage, someone who has suffered a mental illness. That is something to be digested.
For the lay person, mental health is still considered an unknown and, at times, a taboo area. The minister states, and I quote:
In a previous life, I worked with clients who often ran into trouble with the law, and many of them had the common trait of substance abuse, whatever that substance might be, whichever illicit drug. Often they showed tendencies of suffering from some kind of psychosis. What concerns me, and I have spoken about speed and the effect that it is having on young people - black white, green or purple and adults – in this House before and on the use of hydroponic marijuana. I do not believe there has been enough scientific study on hydroponic marijuana and the effects that it is having on people’s mental health. I have certainly seen a change in my community from people who are long-term hydroponic marijuana smokers. I am concerned that the psychosis is a result of long-term use and abuse.
I would like to help professionals who might read these statements tonight to maybe focus on the effect hydroponics is having not only on urban areas like Darwin, Tenant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs, but also remote areas. I will quote some statistics on the increase of suicides in the Northern Territory, and it coincides with the introduction of hydroponics into the Northern Territory community in the early 1990s. I suspect it has had an effect for a very long time. In a document produced by the Northern Territory government Department of Community Health and Services, Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention on page 8, it says: ‘Indigenous suicide has significantly increased’. I suspect that in non-indigenous communities, this will also be the case.
Guess what? Marijuana hydroponics became very commonly used and easily accessed in the Northern Territory during the 1990s.
Mental health is a serious health and social issue. If you look at statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, AIHW, Internet site on statistics and data in relation to youth suicide, suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescent Australians, which not only shocks me, but also deeply saddens me.
In my life, I have known young men who have committed suicide. It is a very sad and disturbing emotional consequence for the individual’s families and friends. Suicide is so final there is no second chance for the victims, their families and friends. Often people will talk about their fond memories and what may have been.
The minister’s statement recognises that the complex issues of youth suicide need to be dealt with. The issues can be a result of mental health, drugs and alcohol, family, relatives, employment issues, ethnic and cultural issues, law and order issues including people being victims of serious crime against them. The member for Arafura spoke about cases of sexual assault that have occurred in some remote communities. What is too much of a coincidence in two communities that I know of - and I will not mention their names, to protect the people who live in those areas – is that one has the highest suicide rate in the Northern Territory and the other has the highest incarceration rate. In both of these places, people have been victims of people from outside who have committed horrendous sexual abuse on individuals in those communities. I have spoken to all members in regard to this, but I believe it will take a community debriefing about what this issue is, how it can be fixed and how people can move on from it, because I am concerned about the cyclical nature of sexual abuse.
People who know anything about sex offenders or do any research on sex offenders, which I happen to know, is that the danger is that victims will become involved in the cyclical nature and then perpetrate what has been done to them. This is a concern not for only this generation, but for generations. A debriefing with these communities needs to occur.
On top of all this, there are issues in relation to education and poverty, and people being disenfranchised by the mainstream community. It does not matter if you are black or white, individuals feel disenfranchised from the mainstream. They can be young teenagers in urban or remote areas who feel that the wider community has nothing to offer them or they have nothing to offer that community. This becomes such a huge feeling of depression that it leads to further mental illness problems, often with a horrible result.
How do I form this belief? I have spoken to many Territorians from different ethnic and economic backgrounds and they all raise the issue of youth suicide and mental illness. Therefore, it is of real importance for our government and the Commonwealth government to take action on this problem facing our community. That means the allocation of resources to deal with this important social issue.
The members for Johnston and Arafura touched on this, and there is shame on past CLP governments because suicide rates in the Northern Territory have been higher than the national rate for the past decade and continue to rise. Not only a total increase in suicide rates, but indigenous suicide rates have also increased significantly.
How do we address these concerns? This government, the minister and this member, has shown that we will not rest until we see this crisis pushed in a manner that leads to results. We have committed the funds to mental health. The government has acted on the Bansemer Review, a result of the government’s review on Health and Community Services. In the Bansemer Review, it was clearly stated that there were issues within the health system and that despite reports and studies that have been around for over a decade, past CLP governments had chosen, for whatever reasons, not to properly resource mental health, which was very poorly supported. It is again the case that the previous CLP Health ministers and governments poorly funded and failed to implement previous reports and studies over the past decade.
There is no single route to reduction in suicide rates. It is nationally and internationally recognised that effective suicide prevention needs to combine both population strategies with those aimed at high risk groups, prevention efforts need to minimise risk and enhance protective factors using a range of approaches taken in the whole population, specific groups and individuals at risk.
This government has taken its responsibilities seriously and has developed a strategic framework for the prevention of suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. So what have we done? This government has acted by developing a plan as stated by the minister, and I will quote:
at increased risks of suicide and self harm;
strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk;
food practice and providing education and training.
The strategic framework is consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and the National Mental Health Strategy, which all Australian Health ministers have unanimously endorsed.
The framework shows we are serious about addressing mental health issues, in direct contrast to previous governments. In 1999-2000 mental health spending in the Northern Territory had fallen so far below the national per capita average that we were ranked the second lowest jurisdiction in Australia. In effect, there have been minimal funding increases over the past five years despite increasing community demands for the service. Previous CLP governments should hold their heads in shame.
What has the Martin Labor government done? We have answered the call, and I quote from the Health minister’s statement:
In summary, mental health issues should be of deep concern for all members of this House. Again, I say that the statistics indicate someone in this House has or will suffer a mental health illness in their lifetime. If this can attack us, supposedly educated, intelligent and better-to-do human beings, what effect can it have on people that are so disenfranchised, so removed from the possibility of education, in poverty, far from access to proper health resources? If it can happen to this group of people, imagine what can happen to people in those situations, the disenfranchised.
Next week, I have constituents coming to see me who want to talk about mental health issues. I am proud to say that I will be able to point to this statement and this commitment that we have made to extra funding. The minister has my support and the government’s support and, it seems, qualified support from the opposition that funding should be spent on mental health.
By way of reflection, and picking up on what the member for Arafura said, I would like to tell a story. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the Tiwi Islands to watch the grand final. I took my wife over; she had never been to a Tiwi Islands grand final. We met friends and we prepared for the football match. For any first timer at the Tiwi Islands grand final, it is a great experience. We had a fantastic day. The message was out in the community that someone close to a football team that was playing had committed suicide the night before and the whole community was depressed and saddened by it. It should have been a wonderful event. The team that was least affected ran on, the Tiwi Islands being such a small and tight-knit community, down one end. We were at the end where the other team was, and this was the team with whom the deceased was closely associated. You could cut the air with a knife, such was the tension and pressure. As the team arrived at the banner, they stopped running and walked through. The pressure on this group and the support base was so significant it affected the way that they played.
This is of concern to everyone in this community. It can have such a powerful effect that it can change things that should be positive and wonderful to bring people down where they are saddened by the events that have happened. If we can prevent one suicide, we have been a success, and hopefully we will be able to prevent many others. Prevention is what we should be aiming for.
Therefore, I commend this statement to the House. I appreciate the efforts of the Minister for Health and Community Services, and I hope she continues to work tirelessly in the future.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Speaker, I am not quite sure what the minister meant by ‘mental health’, but reading through her statement, it appears to be more like she dedicated a few pages to depression or mental health – she is not quite sure what she is defining - and then, for the rest of her statement, suicides. If it was intended to be a statement on suicide, it should be statement on suicide.
Let me come from a medical perspective and provide a little information about psychiatry, psychology and depression to the House. Having worked in the psychiatric unit for many years, initially as an orderly during my medical school years, and later as a post-grad doctor in training, and having spent some portion of my training life in the psychiatric unit under supervision, let me give you a layman’s definition of ‘depression’ from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, edition 2002:
Depression can obviously lead to suicide. We have heard many members talk about the whole gamut of social events and processes that can make a person feel significant loss of self-worth, of personal identity and loss of meaning in life, and that can gradually lead to a person attempting and sometimes completing the act of suicide.
Depression has been around for a long time, from the days of Hippocrates when he called it ‘melancholia’. I will not go any further than that on the definition of depression. It is well known that depression is a very frequent, common illness that occurs in many young people in particular. The social pressures of growing up in the hurly burly of our society, comparing ourselves with others, versus those who have and those who do not have, puts a lot of pressure on our young people who sometimes do not have the wherewithal to deal with depression.
When I looked closely at the minister’s statement and the document she tabled tonight, the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention, I was quite perturbed by the graphs on pages 8 and 9 of the book. When I looked more closely at it, and I am surprised that our academic, the member for Johnston, did not pick it up, the graphs quoting ABS death registration data were based on the number of deaths per 100 000; rates of death per 100 000. The Northern Territory population is 200 000, rounded off, so these graphs unnaturally magnify the number of deaths that occur. One suicide is one too many, let me hasten to add, and this society should do everything it possibly can to prevent that, but to provide what potentially could be a very misleading graph is what I find very disturbing.
A ministerial statement should be something that instructs the House as to what is actually happening to Territorians. I obtained figures, also from the ABS, exactly the same source. In 1998, the Northern Territory had 16 indigenous deaths due to suicide. In the minister’s own document, it says: ‘15 indigenous people were recorded as having completed suicide in 1999’. If you have 16 in 1998 and 15 in 1999, how does the line go up? Something funny is going on there. I suggest the minister check the figures properly, and perhaps draw the graph in a way that does not create a misconception. That is both very unethical and misleading.
Suicide, over the last 20 years in Australia, has been significant. I quote figures from an article written by Dr James Harrison, through AIHW publications, who said: ‘41 000 Australians committed suicide between 1979 and 1998’. That is a heck of a lot. More males than females commit suicide for very many reasons that have been articulated by members tonight, and I do not need to go into that. However, when you start looking into indigenous deaths of recent years, many members have commented about the use of hallucinogenic substances that may have precipitated or attributed or be the catalyst for the act of suicide. Without a doubt, through my travels over the last 10 years around the Territory, more and more prominence has been given to abuse, particularly of marijuana. From days when the drug was used socially, it has now become a drug where binge use is the norm. That, to me, is the problem: binge use of a drug that has such a high potential of causing psychoses in people. Psychosis, for those who do not understand, means psychotic behaviour - madness in general terms; you absolutely go out of your brain and you do not know you are mad. Mad people do not know that they are mad.
Nobody has been able to definitely prove to us that hydroponically grown marijuana is stronger, but there are anecdotes that, in fact, the heads and leaves contain more hallucinogens than naturally grown marijuana had. When you smoke a cone, which normally would take quite some time to smoke, in one inhalation, that will produce significant catastrophic effects. We have heard from many health workers out bush who say they have had patients come to them who are completely out of their minds. Who knows how those patients are visualising themselves while they are under psychotic episodes, whether they are so terrified, scared by their hallucinations that they then choose to suicide to get away from whatever is terrifying them? I am not saying that we should not be dealing with these people, but dealing with them is very much a two-pronged thing: not only do you treat the patient as best you can and keep them in a safe environment for as long as you can until they detoxify naturally because there is no other way you can detoxify them; or you try to prevent them from getting to the intoxicated stage in the first place. If you can do that, obviously that is going to be a lot better.
Perhaps a lot of the processes that the government wants to put in place should be about dealing with substance abuse, access to marijuana, more so than the platitudes that the minister articulated in the 34 pages of her statement.
It is interesting that some members have observed that, prior to 1990, there were very few suicides among indigenous people and, since 1990, with the onset of the use of marijuana, things have become worse.
I am pleased to see that the government has committed some funding to mental health. Coming from a Central Australian perspective, there has been not much provided to the groups in Alice Springs to try to help support themselves. Those groups have lobbied me, in particular, over the last couple of years, saying they are not getting the services that they require. I remember the days when I was working in what was then called mental institutions, where patients were literally incarcerated; they were kept under lock and key. I remember when I was an orderly working in a mental hospital walking along with a key at least six inches long to unlock doors that were made of solid timber. Patients with psychiatric illnesses were kept under those circumstances.
Over the last 20 years, there has been huge societal change, a huge major medical rethink about how we should look after these patients, and many of the patients who were institutionalised for decades were then gradually released from those hospitals into the community without much community support. Therein lies the problem. There are many people in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, in Australia who have mental illness in one form or another and who are left to fend for themselves. These are the people who encounter great difficulties trying to live from day to day. When they go to places like Mental Health in Alice Springs or elsewhere, they find that the services that they need are not readily available, which is a tragedy, and they have nowhere to turn. They try to go to their GP. Some GPs are well equipped to deal with psychiatric illness and provide good continuing care within the community, others are not so inclined and so these poor patients have nowhere to go. Sometimes, through no fault of their own in a sense, they have been left to fend for themselves with minimal income because most of them are on welfare, on medication that nobody supervises, and they end up thinking suicide appears to be best option. If funding is provided with adequate staffing, I am sure we can ameliorate some of those problems.
There must be adequate training in our institutions, whether that be education or hospital institutions where our staff can have good exposure to the cases that are there, learn from them, be available 24 hours a day to provide after hours care because many a time, it is not the daylight hours that these people are in trouble. For some reason, daylight, sunlight, seems to bring a calmness to people; it is always the dark of night when things go wrong. It is important to have staff who are available 24 hours a day, on call, staff who are not going to be overworked when they are called in the middle of the night. Perhaps you need to have more than one person; you need to have several people there who are able to take turns in the evening to cater for the patients who are there.
I ask the minister that, when she considers the issue of mental health, she comes right back to looking at the issue of youth mental health. There was very little spoken about it. You might have spent seven pages talking about that, and the rest is all about suicide. If you do not have a bit more time talking about youth mental health and have more resources into that area, concentrate more on that area, suicide rates will be a lot lower. Remember, as I said, I quoted 16 suicides in 1998 and your book quotes 15. That is a very small number compared with the number of mental health patients that you would have at the other end of the spectrum. These are the ones who build the population of actual suicide committed.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank all honourable members for their contributions tonight. This is a very sobering topic. It is also a sobering fact that one in five Australians will suffer from a mental illness at some stage in their life. Given that we have 25 members in this Chamber, we are looking at around five of our members here experiencing some form of mental illness during their lifetime. This is something that is of importance to us as members and looking after our own electorates, but also for our own health and that of our families.
Contributions this evening have been, on the whole, very positive. I would like to make some brief comments on each member’s statement.
The member for Port Darwin’s comments were largely supportive of the statement. What I have said tonight is that we have inherited a system, we have looked at what is wrong with it through the Bansemer Review and a separate review of the mental health system. As a result of those, we have injected a significant amount of funding over the next three years: $7.2m.
In my statement, I broadly outlined the kinds of things we are looking at, plus we have launched today the Suicide Framework, which, of course, is part of mental health not, as the member for Greatorex implied, the whole of mental health, but is a significant part, and one which certainly affects the people of the Northern Territory in a particular and special way.
The member for Port Darwin stated that recommendation 6 of the Mental Health Review inferred that inpatient services may be reduced and there would be a reduction in the staff-patient ratio. Recommendations 6 and 22 both refer to the need for more detailed examination of the staffing and operation of the Top End Acute Mental Health Unit. I agree with the member for Port Darwin that the Territory presents unique health care challenges and that we need to tailor our services to suit the local environment, but acknowledge that in some instances, it is difficult to deliver some health services at a cost comparable to other jurisdictions. For this reason, the Top End Mental Health Service project has been established to conduct a detailed examination of the staffing and operations of both inpatient and community-based mental health services. The project is taking account of the inter-relatedness of pressure on inpatient and community-based services, and the need for a coordinated plan of action across both service components. The project is already progressing the development of options to address concerns that have been raised about bed occupancy and associated staffing provisions.
The project will also explore alternative models of care that enable people to be provided with varying levels of support, prevent admissions and provide more intensive follow up post-discharge. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of that project, which is being overseen by a steering committee that has representatives from the Northern Territory Community Advisory Group on Mental Health as well as government and non-government sectors.
Having said that, recommendation 22 of the Mental Health Review Report also acknowledges that there is a need to develop arrangements for less acute levels of care. These models of care are sometimes referred to as step-up and step-down services. As I indicated in the statement, the mental health service projects will progress planning for these types of services in the Territory. Some of the new funding in future years will be directed towards this area of need.
I am well aware of many links between mental health, substance abuse problems and suicide, and this is strongly acknowledged in the Suicide Prevention Framework, so it was disappointing that the member for Port Darwin implied that somehow, substance abuse was not mentioned either in the statement or in the strategic framework. It has certainly been acknowledged significantly as being involved in problems to do with both suicide and other mental health problems.
Training on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems has been provided in the Top End and Central Australia, and I am sure that the member for Greatorex will be pleased about that since he implied that there are very few services available in Central Australia.
In addition, the recently appointed Assistant Secretary, Community Services, the newly appointed Director of Alcohol and Other Drugs and Director of Mental Health have commenced the formulation of strategies on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems. A working group with broad stakeholder representation will meet in November.
The member for Port Darwin’s comments on the particular challenges confronting our mental health workforce are acknowledged, and these were also discussed by the members for Arafura and Johnston. That is why my government supports the priority being given to workforce development for mental health clinicians, Aboriginal mental health workers and other front line workers.
The member for Port Darwin asked what the funding was going into this year. First, two senior Aboriginal mental health worker positions, which will provide coordination, supervision, mentoring and support to Aboriginal mental health workers. These positions will also contribute to the Top End Division of General Practice partnership agreement that has been established for training and support for the network of Aboriginal mental health workers. A Territory-wide child psychiatrist, a child and youth mental health clinician in Central Australia - once again, I am sure the member for Greatorex will be interested in that - forensic mental health clinician in the Top End, and recurrent funding for two mental health clinicians previously funded through the Commonwealth incentives funding. In addition to these positions, $200 000 is being directed to consumer and carer support in the non-government sector.
In 2003-04, the Northern Territory government allocated $366 888 to the Life Promotion Program, which is a prevention/early intervention program; $176 456 has been allocated to the Top End Mental Health Services Life Promotion team; and $190 432 to the non-government Mental Health Association of Central Australia. The Life Promotion program delivers an integrated approach to life promotion through collaborative partnerships and community education.
A number of members spoke about remote mental health. Specialist mental health services employing mental health clinicians and Aboriginal mental health workers are located in Katherine, Darwin rural and Alice Springs remote areas. The Top End Division of General Practice Aboriginal Mental Health Coordinator has recently co-located with the Gove Mental Health Team. Visiting mental health services to Port Keats daily, Oenpelli and Maningrida, with an Aboriginal mental health worker, are also based in Maningrida. Yuendumu and Santa Teresa community councils are funded to employ Aboriginal mental health workers. There is a partnership with the Top End Division of General Practice, which has ensured that another eight communities have Aboriginal mental health worker coverage.
In addition, and I am sure the member for Arafura knows about this, the Katherine West Health Board buys back mental health services from the Katherine Mental Health Team, and the Department of Health and Community Services provides funding and in-kind support to an indigenous mental health research project, which aims to improve the management and wellbeing of indigenous people with chronic and relapsing mental illness in remote areas. The primary goal of this research is to establish best practice preventative and clinical care approaches for remote Aboriginal communities.
The member for Johnston, in his very erudite response to this statement on mental health, discussed many things, and I thank him very much for his contribution. I know that he has taken a particular interest in this; he has been a scientist of high standing in the community and I know that his interest is genuine. In particular, I thank him for his comments in relation to GROW and also thank Julie James. GROW and the GROWers, as their members are called, are very enthusiastic people who really have made a difference in our community. I congratulate them for their continued dedication and commitment to people with mental illnesses in the Northern Territory.
The member for Johnston also raised the issue, as did a number of other members, about cannabis and alcohol, the co-morbidity and co-occurrence of these. There is no question that cannabis and alcohol, together with mental illness, is a very dangerous combination. It is something on which we are focussing, both through this mental health work, but also through other areas that the government is looking at, including the Substance Abuse Committee, in which the member for Arafura has a particular interest.
In relation to the member for Arafura’s comments, she also discussed the co-morbidity/ co-occurring issues. I understand the member for Arafura has known many people who have suicided, and what a terrible thing it is that so many young people in the Northern Territory are suiciding, and particularly young boys. I am the mother of two teenage sons, and it is very sobering that young people - 13, 15, 17-year old boys - are finding life so difficult that, for them, the only option is to suicide. On a personal level, I sincerely hope that we are going to be able to start to turn that trend around. It is a very sobering fact and something that, as a government, we take very seriously.
I was interested in the comments made by the member for Arafura regarding traditional healers. I will follow up with her on that. There may be something that we can do, which is a bit different, but we can pick up on and more effectively use the skills of the people in our communities. We always look for the clinical or the medical response, yet there are people in our communities who can assist us with things and who, in over 50 000 years of being in the Northern Territory and who, unlike those of us who arrived more recently, have learnt how to deal with certain types of problems in a more effective way. I will be taking up those issues with the member for Arafura in the coming weeks.
I thank the member for Goyder for his support of the statement. He talked about the sobering statistics of one in five people being affected by mental illness. I thank him for his involvement with GROW in his electoral office, and I encourage other members to, if given the opportunity, offer their electorate offices to organisations like GROW, which can help people with mental illness and their families, and which need a little support from people like ourselves who are extremely privileged. I thank him for his support in that area. He also talked about youth suicide and particularly young white males. As I said, we are working very hard to try to prevent suicide.
I was not quite sure what the member for Goyder was talking about when he talked about flag-wavers for Aboriginal causes, but I felt as though I probably should be one of those people. I would be happy to say that I am a flag-waver for Aboriginal causes if that means we are trying to stop suicide and mental health problems in our communities. I would have thought all members would want to be flag-wavers for Aboriginal causes, particularly as one-third of our population is Aboriginal. I would be happy to pick up a flag and wave it when and if that is required. He might like to hand me a flag at some point, and I will be out there.
I thank the member for Millner for his comments, and for his support of myself and the government in our move to increase funding in this area. It is salutary that we have started from a position of being so poorly funded, but it is time to move on. What I am trying to say with this statement is: we are building up the system; we have had the two reviews; we are putting the money in; we are working to make it better. That is really the key message from this statement. I thank all members, once again, and I look forward to reporting on this matter again in the future.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I take this opportunity to talk about the many activities that Leanyer Primary School has undertaken in the last few weeks, or will be undertaking in the up and coming final weeks of the school year.
First of all, the opening of the new facilities at Leanyer School. It is absolutely fantastic to see that $1.24m upgrade finally complete. The staff and the students have settled into their new accommodation and i is absolutely magnificent. There is going to be an official opening of the new facilities on 20 October, next Monday, which I am really looking forward to, as are the staff, the students, and the parents of Leanyer School. The upgrade adds over 400m to the office administration and staff library, art, craft and information technology areas. It certainly has transformed the school; a school that had been crying out for this upgrade for many years. A significant number of demountables provided accommodation for pupils and staff, and to see this upgrade completed is absolutely fantastic.
To say that there were hiccups along the way is a bit of an understatement. I admire Henry Gray, the principal, greatly for his role and leadership at Leanyer School. He had stewardship of this project and saw it through and the outcome is magnificent. I will report back to the House on the opening next Monday during the next sittings.
In preparation for the opening, an extensive green up, clean up Australia program was undertaken at the school. The idea was the brainchild of Leanyer’s art/craft teacher, Mrs Margaret Ferguson. With the school’s student council and full support, a program was developed to revegetate and beautify 18 areas around the school. It was really great to see the staff and the kids get involved with this greening up of Leanyer School. On Thursday, 14 August, every student, every class and every teacher at the school was involved in preparing and replanting, and many parents supported that particular program. Darryl South offered support and advice. In one afternoon the grounds were further developed and upgraded, adding to the school’s pristine appearance. The school is very proud of its prominence in the heart of Leanyer suburb and the grounds and the appearance of the school really adds to our community.
The cost of the plants were covered by students who, before the program, raised over $5000 in sponsorship as part of their contribution to the green up, clean up national initiative and 25% of this money raised stayed with the school. This program was both a self-funded and self-help enterprise. To everybody who was involved in that, all of the school, it is absolutely magnificent and I know that every resident in Leanyer really does see Leanyer Primary School at the heart of the Leanyer community.
The combined Leanyer School Senior Band, including students from Leanyer, Alawa and Wanguri Schools, continues to develop and flourish. I was very pleased a few weeks ago to attend a school assembly and concert at which the band performed. It is really great to see primary school kids mastering musical instruments and playing in a very accomplished way. As adults, I think we all regret not being able to play a musical instrument. So to see the school focussed on music is fantastic. The fact that the band is now combined with Alawa and Wanguri - Wanguri is also in my electorate - is great to see. The three schools have pooled their senior and most consistent musicians. These talented musicians come together each fortnight to practice under the baton-ship of the NT Music School’s instructors, Miss Ilona Retallack and Mr Matthew Holt. Practices rotate from term to term, being held respectively at Alawa, Wanguri and Leanyer. This term is Leanyer’s term and on Friday, 21 November, the band will perform at the Eatery at Casuarina Shopping Square. I will be doing my best to get down there to cheer them on.
This group has developed into a fine group of musicians and it was the brainchild of Mr Daryl Trainor, one of Leanyer School’s assistant principals. It has been made possible by the three schools working together in the interests of music and the development of youth talent. Vocally, Leanyer’s school choir is out there with the best. When entered in the 2003 Eisteddfod, the choir did a great job. Its culmination as a group on 19 September 2003 was part of the BEAT performance held at the Darwin Entertainment Centre. The BEAT, titled Heartbeat, was held over two nights, 19 and 20 September. It involved students and schools from both Darwin and Palmerston. Leanyer’s choir of 42 children, both boys and girls, performed during the school’s opening on Monday. It is a group led by the Music School’s Mrs Judy Weepers - everybody knows Judy, she does an absolutely magnificent job - and Leanyer School’s other assistant principal, Mrs Jenny Robinson.
Leanyer School Choir has boys and girls. I was at Wanguri school the other day at an assembly. Their choir is up and running again with only one boy in the choir, so I urged the boys at the assembly to put their hand up and give music and the choir a go. Leanyer is unique in that both assistant principals contribute to the school’s music program. Mr Trainor is a leader in the area of instrumental development and Mrs Robinson in the school singing program. It is something of which the school is very proud, their commitment to music and developing musicians and talents in the school. It is a great tribute to both our assistant principals.
Leanyer School held two very important events during Health Week. The first was a joint effort between Neighbourhood Watch, Leanyer school and my electorate officer, Ryan Neave. I was unable to attend. All children with bikes were encouraged to get their bikes engraved free of charge during school on 25 September. I provided free drinks to all students who had their bikes engraved. Over 80 students had their bikes engraved, which is fantastic. To everyone at the school who organised that, and to Ryan, my electorate officer, well done.
The next day, the school held Jump Rope for Heart, where they endeavoured to get all the students and teachers to jump rope at the same time out on the oval. It was a fantastic scene seeing them all out there. We had a small earthquake in Leanyer on that day when everybody jumped at the same time. A lot of coordination was involved but the students did very well, and I congratulate them all. I made an absolutely pathetic attempt at skipping, but it gave the kids a great laugh. Health Week is a great initiative to keep kids active in school.
Leanyer School, through its staff and parent community, has developed a strong approach to teaching that is developed through understanding analysis and application of the Northern Territory’s curriculum framework. Two professional development days led by NT DEET specialists have assisted. All staff have committed many hours of extra time, energy and effort into honing their approaches towards the whys, whens and hows of teaching. The school has developed an excellent curriculum map, being a profile of both priorities and resources, shaped by and from their appreciation of the curriculum framework. This document was developed from collective input, shaped and written up by Mrs Natalie Ede, one of the school’s Year 6/7 teachers.
I extend my congratulations to the school, to all of the teachers. They really do take this seriously. I have been to many school council meetings during my political life over many years, going back to Nightcliff School Council meetings in 1992-93 when I was running for that seat. The school really is focussed on educational outcomes. The teachers, the principal, the school council, spend a lot of time talking about teachers’ capacity to improve all the time, and it really is a great testament to the school.
Staff, in conjunction with the school council’s Education Focus Group and the Student Representative Council, have almost finished the development of a revised reporting format. This will enable teachers to report twice yearly to parents on the curriculum framework, learning and development competencies their children have achieved. It will also indicate to parents the standards set for our children. Importantly, Leanyer’s approach to curriculum and curriculum development embraces a true partnership that exists between parents, teachers and children. Synergy, the product of collective energy being applied to meet developmental change needs, is a quality the school aims to bring to its development and to its direction setting process. That word really is there. It aptly defines the Leanyer approach, and that is partnership. There is a real sense of partnership at that school. Everybody knows the direction in which they are heading, and everybody is rowing in the same direction. Partnership is really the word that defines the school.
Leanyer School strongly supports the notion of a holistic education. It has worked to develop an approach that develops children academically, but also socially and in moral and spiritual terms. Education for the whole of life is the way forward at Leanyer. This approach links solidly to the school’s motto, Together As One, and supports the desire that the school has to build tradition.
My congratulations to Leanyer, wonderfully led by a great principal, Henry Gray, and fantastic staff and school council. I wish them all the best. I am really looking forward to Monday’s opening of the new facilities.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Mr Acting Speaker, I recently had the opportunity, and it was indeed a pleasure, to appear before a meeting of the Prison Officers Association of Australia, which included our Darwin lads and ladies and representatives from all the other prison officer groups across Australia. I gave them an address, really just talking from my gut feeling about their profession, and what the CLP thinks of the job they do, and what the community thinks about the job they do. What I was going to do was produce into Hansard the couple of pages of notes from that talk I gave. Hopefully, one day someone researching the topic might feel inspired by some of the things that were said. In any event, it was a meeting of the Australian Prison Officers Association.
As most of those members who were present knew, I am no longer the shadow minister for Corrections, but I assured them that I would stand with them in times of trouble, or if they are not getting a fair hearing for grievances or concerns, particularly if they relate to obstacles affecting their capacity to do their job while protecting our society from people sentenced to imprisonment by the courts.
Correctional Services goes back a long way. It has won public confidence. Men and women in the service have served with integrity, compassion, common sense and valour. Before my present job, I was a full-time practising solicitor and, as some of the prison officers knew, my old man was a copper. So you have the complete picture here: Dad was trying to get the baddies locked up, me trying to make sure everyone had a fair defence, and finally the prison officers dealing with the fallout. Because of my background, I was quite honoured that they invited me to appear before them to make these observations. I did not even think of giving advice on how prison officers should go about meeting their professional responsibilities. Their training and life experiences would obviously guide them to find solutions to the countless variations of problems and crises which continually confront them, and they do that in a fair and even-handed way.
To be on safe ground, I stuck to a few things that have helped me, and I would be pretty surprised if these general assessments were not shared by almost everyone in that room.
First, there are always going to be people who cold-bloodedly prey on others, who hurt and even kill for personal gain, or to satisfy some brutish motives. These mongrels are beneath contempt, and society must be protected from them at all costs. These predators have no remorse, and have no regard for decent, social values. Nevertheless, prison guards have to deal with them on a daily basis and treat them as human beings, even though they do not reciprocate.
Professionally, prison officers’ responsibilities include the management in prison of the first two groups on a daily basis, and all that the third group, which I talked about, can rest easy and go about our lives in safety. People take for granted that custodial services will operate like a well-oiled machine and rarely does anyone say, ‘Thanks, well done’. You will hear, however, loud complaints if at sometime the wheels fall off. It may be that an incident occurs; somebody breaks away from an escort, few have even managed to abscond, notwithstanding prison officers’ very best efforts to prevent this. No system is perfect and determined, single-minded prisoners intent on violence and mischief can and will engineer situations designed to discredit prison officers and the service.
Prison officers can only do their best and roll with the punches. Inmates and prisoners respect no rules, whereas prison officers are bound by policy and legislation. I guess it must feel sometimes like fighting with one arm tied behind your back. It takes guts and determination to carry on doing your duty, even when your families are insulted and abused. It is a credit to the training which prison officers undertake, and the commitment that they demonstrate, that they last the distance each shift.
As I said at the start, there is not a lot I can do whilst in opposition in parliament, other than to keep the government and the responsible minister on their toes and to publicly force them, when necessary, to meet their responsibilities to prison officers. I will not, however, stand idly by and see the prison service vilified or members penalised for incidents which are not preventable, and where members faithfully meet their responsibility for the safe custody of inmates. Mistakes will occur but, if they are honestly-made mistakes and lessons are learned from them, then there should be no unreasonable punishment imposed simply to satisfy other people’s demands for scapegoats. All of us need back-up and support and we all deserve to be valued for what we honestly and diligently work at.
The Prison Officers Association must always be given a fair and unbiased chance to represent their interests, be it paid conditions, safe working environments, resources and, particularly, access to the government of the day. Prison officers must be able to rely upon their mates, their bosses and the government. Prison officers are in a serious, dynamic and dangerous business. Prison officers must always demand to be taken seriously. My friends and family sleep easily at night because of the commitment of prison officers and also the police. Prison officers have my total and unconditional gratitude and thanks.
Mr VATSKALIS (Casuarina): Mr Acting Speaker, today I farewell with sadness my electorate officer, Margreet Sadlo, who is leaving at the end of the week to go down south; for very good reason as she is getting married in three months and she is following her husband-to-be, Ben, to go back to Canberra where they came from.
Margreet was posted to Darwin with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority last August. When her position finished, she did not want to go back to Canberra because she really liked Darwin, the hot weather, the environment – she liked the place. She applied for the job in my office when it was advertised and was the successful applicant. I have to say she was an excellent choice. Margreet has a fantastic personality, she has a very good attitude; she cares for people and is able to help - even during the weekends, Sunday, late at night, early in the morning. She is fantastic with young children and she is great with people even when they are distressed and disturbed. It can sometimes be very difficult, certainly with the senior Territorians.
When she actually got the job in my office, she rang her fianc and announced that she was not going down to Canberra; she was going to stay in Darwin. Being a guy, he did what every other guy in love would do - he got on a plane and came to Darwin. He is a computer expert and very quickly found a job with a local company in the IT section, and they have lived here for awhile. However, they decided it was about time to tie the knot, and Margreet announced with great sadness she was going to leave and go to Canberra.
I commiserate with her because, at the moment, if you read the news, Canberra is a very cold place to be. However, hopefully, things will heat up in the next few months. Margreet and Ben will tie the knot, I believe, in March. I hope they will live happily ever after; and certainly with our best wishes. I am sad to see her go, but there is no way we can stop somebody for a better future.
One thing I want to say about Margreet was that she was able to hold the office by herself, she did not need instructions; you only had to say one word and she would complete the task. She was prepared to learn other skills to apply to her jobs. For example, she organised to have the Taxation Office come to my office to train other electorate officers and herself in how to complete tax returns so that senior Territorians and people from my electorate who could not afford to do their tax return could come to her for help. She would sit down with them and help them out. Actually, she made me sit down and go through some of the processes so I could find out about the Taxation Department processes. It was an eye-opener to find out whether you are entitled or whether you are not entitled.
Good luck Margreet and Ben. I am pretty sure you will have a great life in Canberra. Certainly, we will miss you but would love to see you back in Darwin anytime, any day and I will offer you the traditional Territorian hospitality.
I want to speak now about a person who had a concert a few days ago with Darwin. I hosted a reception for, and attended a concert by the Mikis Theodorakis orchestra. Most people would know Mikis Theodorakis from watching the film Zorba the Greek, and listening to the music. One of my friends is the only person I know who can dance by numbers, because when he was in primary school the dancing teacher taught them how to dance Zorba the Greek by numbering the steps. However, Mikis Theodorakis is a very well known person especially in United States and in Europe, and he has a very colourful history.
Mikis Theodorakis was born in 1925 on the island of Chios. From a very early age he was involved somehow with politics since his father was a public servant. Unfortunately, he always used to belong to the wrong party and he was posted to different areas in Greece, north and south, east and west. As a result, Mikis Theodorakis moved from the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea to the mountain of Epirus in Yanena and later to Ceffalonia in the Ionian Sea.
In 1937, at the age of 12, he learned to play the violin and composed his first song. In 1942, he composed his first liturgical hymn, Casianee, and then wrote some music for a song by a famous Greek poet. This music and the poem was adopted by the resistance fighters in Greece and became their hymn during the time of the resistance. In 1943, Mikis Theodorakis at a very young age of 18 was arrested during a demonstration of the anniversary of the independence day in Greece by the Italians. He was imprisoned and tortured. By a twist of fate in 1943, the leader of the Italian police advised him that that the Italians were about to surrender, and they would surrender the town to the Germans. Mikis Theodorakis had to disappear very quickly because the Germans were not as gentle as the Italians. So he went to Athens where he became a member of the resistance.
Once again, he found out that when you demonstrate, especially under the difficult situation at the time, you find yourself in big trouble. In 1946, after the liberation of Greece from the Germans, Mikos Theodorakis participated in another demonstration. He was beaten at that demonstration and left on the road to die. He recalls in his autobiography that he woke up in the morgue among other bodies. The people thought he was dead so they just laid him on a marble table and left him there. In 1947, he was arrested with another 10 000 people and was exiled on the island of Ikaria in the Aegean Sea. Despite being exiled, despite the tortures, despite the imprisonment, he never stopped playing music, he never stopped composing music, sometimes composing music in his mind, but when he had free time, he could write the composition on paper. From 1947 to 1950, Mikis Theodorakis was exiled from one island to another.
In 1953, he wrote the first film score for a European film. He married the woman he had met 10 years previously when he was hiding during the occupation of Greece by the Germans; he married Myrto In 1954, he followed his dream and went to Paris where he received a scholarship; he stayed there until 1957 when he came back to Greece. In the same year, he received a gold medal in the Moscow Youth Festival, something that did not make him very popular with the Greek government of the time, which was extreme right wing.
In 1958, he wrote the first of his popular composition, The Epitaph, and the record became popular not only in Greece but internationally. In 1961, he received first prize for the Best Greek Song in the national song competition, and in 1964 he was elected to parliament. It was the same year he wrote Zorba the Greek.
In 1966, his music was banned in Greece. In 1967, when the dictatorship took over the place on 21 April, Mikis Theodorakis managed to escape and went underground. Very soon afterwards he was arrested by the security police and was put into prison without trial. A few months later, when the dictatorship announced an amnesty, 300 political prisoners were freed, but Mikis Theodorakis was kept in prison without trial because the dictator refused to release him.
In August 1968, he was exiled with his family in the Greek mountains in a village and later, he was transferred to a prison in Oropos where he became very sick with tuberculosis.
It is an extraordinary life. We go through dates and mention what happened on that date to that particular person, but most of his life was not peaceful. It was a life that not many people would be able to bear. He had a very strong will and despite the torture, despite the imprisonment, despite the injustice done to him, and the loss of his health - one of his lungs because of tuberculosis - he persisted. He continued to write music. The music became the songs of freedom for the Greeks who were suffering under the dictatorship.
In 1970, under the pressure of the European Council, Mikis Theodorakis was exiled from Greece, but the dictators kept his family as hostage. A few months later, his family, with a small boat, secretly escaped Greece, travelling by sea from the Peloponnese to Sicily and from there to Europe, where they joined him.
Mikis Theodorakis stayed in Europe in exile for four years until the collapse of the dictatorship. He returned to Greece in July 1974. He performed his first concert after seven years and, I have to tell you, I was there. It was an incredible concert in one of the biggest soccer stadiums in Athens, a stadium with a capacity of 60 000 people, and it was full of people enjoying his songs.
In 1983, Mikis Theodorakis was awarded the Lenin prize from the Soviet Union while, at the same time, he was elected to parliament with the socialists. He led a very colourful life and never hesitated to express his opinion. As a result, in 1990 he fell out with the socialists and was elected to parliament with a right wing party. There, he did not last very long. In 1992, he resigned from the government party and stayed as an Independent.
In 1996, he was appointed as an Officer of the Legion of Honour by the French Ambassador in Greece. He then found a new cause. He was very worried about the increased tension between Greece and Turkey and, with the famous Turkish poet, Livaneli, decided to get together and perform various concerts in Europe. He put his music to Livaneli’s words in order to promote peace between these two countries. It might be partly due to his contribution that Greece and Turkey never actually reached the stage of war. There were always tensions but until now, fortunately, there has never been war between the two countries.
In 1999, he was proclaimed an honorary citizen of the City of Limassol in Cyprus, and later honorary citizen of the occupied city of Famagusta, as he had dedicated one of his concerts to the island of Cyprus.
In 2002, Mikis Theodorakis composed the music, Canto Olympico, which was played at the opening of the Salt Lake City Olympics. However, because of his left ideology, he was never acknowledged by the Olympic Committee of the United States of America, nor by the organisers.
It was great to have his orchestra here in Darwin. Many people came to the reception and the member for Greatorex, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was there, and later the Greek community had an open house at the Cypriot Brotherhood and everybody was welcome. His orchestra performed a number of songs from various compositions. The orchestra was headed by his daughter, Margarita. The only complaint from the audience was that it lasted only two and a half hours. The funny thing was, the same complaint was expressed by the orchestra that the only time they could perform at the Darwin Entertainment Centre was for two and a half hours and they had to finish. It was a memorable night and I was very pleased that our government recognised the cultural value of Mikis Theodorakis and his contribution to world music. We organised a reception for his orchestra. It is something that the Darwin people, not only people from the Greek background, but also Australians and other people from different backgrounds came to the concert and enjoyed it very much.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I was absent from the Chamber this morning because I was in Alice Springs in the company of the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Minister and the member for Sanderson, attending Madam Speaker’s late husband’s funeral service. The funeral service was held at the John Flynn Memorial Church in Todd Mall and was conducted by Reverend Lindsay Faulkner. The Clerk was also there.
The church was jam-packed with people and, looking around, I saw many familiar faces of prominent people of Alice Springs attending the funeral service. Many members of the Braham family and the Mitchell family were there to say their last goodbyes to Graeme. The Braham children, Peter, Michelle, and grand daughter Samantha, made some personal comments during the service, and his good mate, Gerard, gave his eulogy.
A leaflet was handed out during the service, which was titled, ‘You are our hero, you are the wind beneath our wings’. It had a photograph of Graeme standing by his ultralight aircraft, which he built. On the back of that leaflet is a short description of who Graeme Braham was. I would like to read it in full. It says:
Who is Madam Speaker:
After the service, the family gathered at Madigans at the Alice Springs Desert Park, where they were joined by many friends who went there to share memories and convey their condolences.
I knew Graeme because he was a patient of mine, when I was working as a doctor in my other life. I will not go into any further details on that. During those consultations and other times we would talk about our common hobby, which was flying. I had my own aircraft, although mine was more to get me from point A to point B, whereas Graeme was more interested in getting up into the wide blue yonder enjoying himself just flying, and even enjoying the turbulence of the summer skies in Alice Springs.
You can understand why, for a man with such love for aviation, right throughout the ceremony the haunting song by Bette Midler, You are the Wind Beneath My Wings, was played through the PA system. The melody brought lots of people to tears when the lyrics were sung so mournfully by Bette Midler. Those of you who saw the movie would have understood the song in its context. The song was sung by Bette Midler about a friend who had passed away. In the same context here, we all felt that we had lost a good friend.
Madam Speaker held up very well. She greeted all the people who attended the service, including the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Minister. I sought her permission to say something about Graeme tonight, because I am sure that she would have liked to see that happen.
With the few minutes left to me, I would like to comment on a response the minister for Transport made - I think it was this afternoon - about the Mandorah Ferry. This morning, he slammed into the public servants for writing a tender document that went out - on 25 September, mind you - which the minister would have signed off on. Then, following huge public outcry about the winding back of the Mandorah service, the tender document spoke about deletion of a few midnight runs on the weekends, plus also the use of lesser capacity boats to run the service. People were concerned more with that than anything else. With the Mandorah Ferry running with lesser capacity boats, obviously less people are going to be carried across the harbour when they come to work. I understand that each day, an average of 80 people travel between Cox Peninsula and Darwin, and then each night they go back home on the ferry.
The tender document requires that the boat has a carrying capacity of 70. Remember, when you talk about carry capacity, whether it be a boat or a bus, the seating capacity is always less than the carrying capacity. For a 70 carrying-capacity boat, it is not likely to get 55 seats in a 70-carrying-capacity boat. The current boat is, I believe, a 140 carrying-capacity boat and can easily seat over 90 people. That is the real issue: what will the government do with the other 20 to 30 people who will be standing at the jetty waiting to be carried across the harbour? If you have only a 50-seater or a 70 carrying-capacity boat, do the people stand in the rain in the Wet waiting for the boat to come back?
The government then says, ‘We will have two boats out there’. They will have two boats with outboard motors. If people have been out there in the harbour during a wild storm - and I have been out there paddling a dragon boat out on the harbour - the water gets very rough, and you cannot afford to have a boat with an outboard motor. When you look at the tender in detail, things start to fall apart.
The people at Mandorah have requested very loudly and strongly that the minister goes across there to meet with them in a public meeting. Last Friday, there was a public meeting held about 7.30 pm. The government sent a couple of public servants and they could not answer the questions they were asked at the meeting. Another meeting is going to be asked of the minister and I hope that this time, the minister gets there, meets the people, and explains to them what he has proposed and what he proposes to do to fix what obviously was a wrong tender. Until he does that, I am sure the people of Cox Peninsula are not going to be happy. If the minister has to backflip, he has to backflip. Accept it on the chin, the media was wrong, and do another backflip as he has done for the last two years. However, the people of the Cox Peninsula, the people of Mandorah, need to be looked after. They need a service that will provide them with regular transport between their homes and work in Darwin.
There are also businesses at Mandorah that need to be looked after. There is a hotel and other outlets that would like to have tourists coming to Mandorah to spend a day and stay there for as long as they possibly can. If you had to catch a boat back by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, that really cuts into any weekend that anybody can spend out there. The minister has to get out there, talk to the people and get it sorted out. If he has to backflip then do a backflip. He will get hit on the chin with it, but rather that than actually doing nothing about it.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I wanted to talk tonight about an answer to a question the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General provided in today’s Question Time. When asked by one of his colleagues, one of the local Top End members, about victims of crime and government assistance, the minister said:
I note he did not say fewer:
He went on to say:
as opposed to fewer:
He then went on with his usual government spin.
I would like to talk about some figures the justice minister did not and does not talk about. We obtained copies of some briefing papers for the minister in his preparation for the Estimates Committee and I am very happy to table these documents upon conclusion, but there are some alarming figures. It is probably not surprising that the minister has not referred to them because they do not help him or his government peddle the line that miraculously and suddenly, under a Labor government, crime in the Northern Territory has reduced.
I refer in particular to the first document. The question is, how many clients did the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions service in the 2002-03 year? The answer is: ‘The number of victim support unit clients for the 2002-03 financial year was 693 compared with 567 for the 2001-02 financial year. This represents an increase of 23%’. So, there is an increase as measured by documentation prepared in respect of the Director of Public Prosecutions, independent from government, that clearly shows that victims of crime has increased by 23%. Now, information obtained by or for the Director of Public Prosecutions does not appear, as I understand it, anywhere in the crime statistics. Those figures are obtained by police, corrections and a couple of other sources, but nowhere from my reading of the crime statistics is there a reference to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I know which figures I would trust. I would trust figures provided to and for and by the DPP, because the DPP, as some members of this Chamber would know, is independent from government. It is not overseen by CEOs whom some would say may, on occasion, want to ensure that they are seen to be doing the right thing by government. That is a view some people hold. I would trust figures from the DPP on any day of the week.
Let me go on. I looked at the Department of Justice web site and found all sorts of information about the Victim Support Unit. I note that there is a Victim Support Unit in Alice Springs and in Darwin. There is much information there. The most interesting bit is:
So that increase of 23% is only the people who took up the VSU’s very kind invitation to come in and have a chat, to accept the invitation for support, as a result of the crimes to which they have been victims. Who knows how many letters were sent out? Who knows how many victims of crime there were? But the evidence is clear: the Victim Support Units from the DPP clearly show an increase of 23%.
Let us go to another figure that the Minister for Justice does not tell people about. This is a document obtained from the minister’s briefing papers. The question is this:
Answer:
I will repeat that: 113%.
So, on any analysis, the DPP has provided information that shows not only have victims accessing the Victim Support Unit increased by 23%, but the workload of the DPP has increased by 113%. That figure is incredible.
Another document refers to another alarming figure, which we note with great interest the Minister for Justice has never referred to. This one is in relation to the question: increase in new matters. The answer provided for the minister’s benefit for the briefing is:
I think that is an increase in excess of 100%. In fact, it is in the vicinity of 113% as well. These are astonishing figures. This government is well known for the spin it puts on just about everything it touches. Again, I repeat that I would trust the figures provided for and by the DPP any day of the week, as opposed to the ones peddled by government.
This is the information to which the minister did not refer when he answered the question by the member for Karama about what government is doing to help victims of crime. For the minister to say that there are less – although he should have said ‘fewer’ – victims in the Northern Territory than there used to be, is just not right based on this documentation from the DPP for the minister’s briefing.
The minister has form. The minister – it was attributed to him and there was no subsequent corrections, so we assume the minister stands by this – was quoted in the NT News on 17 September as saying that the high rate of indigenous prisoners in our gaols, 82%, the highest it has been for many, many years – 62% under the CLP; 82% under Labor:
Yet, in parliament on 1 May, the minister said:
My question – and I would encourage members of the public to ask – is: minister, driving offenders are not the serial property offenders to which he constantly refers, nor are they are at the heart of the so-called crime prevention initiatives. I would have thought there must be some sort of concession that the initiatives have failed to achieve what was intended. If not, how can such a contrary view be put, given the high number of people gaoled for driving offences? But it gets worse.
The minister for Justice, again, in relation to the ABS figures for Corrective Services, in the material that he was putting about on radio, I think on press release but I cannot be sure, said that it was all about driving offences, nevertheless, the strategies, partnerships, committees and councils, that everything that the Labor government had done, was absolutely contributing to there being fewer victims of crime in the Northern Territory and reduction in crime rates.
It is a difficult argument for the minister to sustain, as he does, through thick and thin, contrary to other evidence, not the evidence that the minister elects to use, but other evidence, such as this obtained from the DPP. One has to ask the question: what other evidence is there? What else is the minister choosing not to tell Territorians when he goes on and on as he does, about how, miraculously, under Labor crime has reduced. They are serious questions to ask. The minister gets himself tied up, but pursues the mantra of ‘Everything is wonderful under Labor’. Here is an example of the minister getting himself tied up. He said, on 1 May:
A figure, no doubt, that many people accepted. On 28 May, the minister said:
My question would be, and I am sure the question on everyone’s lips is: minister, which statement is right and what are those figures based on? There is a perception in the community that the minister is using figures constantly in support of his case. This example - 13%, 49%, ‘Oh well, it was for this’, and then a couple of weeks later: ‘No, it was for that’. We say, Minister, at least get your story right. There are some ongoing serious issues in relation to the way the minister conducts himself publicly. This is a man who, it seems to me, prides himself on being honest, sincere, genuine and so on. Yet there is - I think it is probably best to say - an arrogance creeping in. In fact, I would say it has leapt in over the last few months, where the minister …
Mr Elferink: Trampolining.
Ms CARNEY: Trampolining! Thank you, member for Macdonnell. The minister is developing a reputation amongst some of being a bit slippery, a bit rubbery with the figures. His answer today in this parliament about how there are fewer victims in the Northern Territory than there used to be is clearly arrant nonsense based on these figures from the DPP. I repeat: I trust the figures prepared for and by the DPP any day of the week when compared with the figures used by the Minister for Justice. I will circulate these figures. I will tell all and sundry that this minister has lost the plot, he is going on at his own peril, it is clear ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker! There is a standing order against members using offensive words about other members, and trying to say the minister has lost the plot is completely out of order.
Ms CARNEY: What?
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. This minister really is losing the plot by, apparently, on the basis of his answer in this parliament today and, indeed, on other occasions, holding back information that he has, that has been prepared for him prior to the Estimates. I assume he has read them. If he has not, that is astonishing. But he knows this information, anyway. He comes into this parliament and makes statements that simply, based on these documents, bear no relationship to the facts. Well …
Dr Burns: The fact is crime is reducing!
Ms CARNEY: … Territorians should be very concerned and very alarmed.
What the member for Johnston knows about anything in particular is a mystery to me. There he was last week, ripping off Mick Palmer’s statement, and now he has the audacity to come in here and have a bit of a go. Well, you can have a go, as much as you like, Sunshine, but when you get these figures, you will see - even you, member for Johnston, a question will be raised in your mind. You might even think: ‘Oh dear, what has the minister done?’.
On that note, I will conclude, although I should say that I will circulate this information to as many Territorians as I can, so that they, too, as some are already doing, can start to question the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General and this government, and the spin and some of the rubbish that they continually pedal. I seek leave to table this.
Leave granted.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk about legislation, not necessarily what is in legislation because I do not think we are allowed to do that, but about legislation in general that is coming before this House.
In this sitting, we have passed three items of legislation in six days. We have had many statements, and they are all very well, but we have passed only three items of legislation. Yet, in the next sittings, which will be made up of three days, one of which is General Business Day, we will have four major bills and four other bills that have to be passed in two days. That is a poor way for us to debate very important legislation.
One of the bills will amend the Local Government Act. There are a huge number of proposed amendments. It is an act that is required to go back to most councils to have a look at. Anyone who knows how councils work knows that they have meetings twice a month. You have to have your committee meetings, so if they get this – well, they probably will not get it now. They would have a general meeting coming up at the end of this month, then they have their committee meeting where they normally discuss this, and it would have to go back to their general meeting for final approval. Local government councils need ample time to look at the changes proposed for the Local Government Act. Not only do they need plenty of time to look at those amendments, they need time to come back to their local members of parliament to put any concerns they have. So does LGANT, the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory.
It would be good to have a statement from government that said some of these bills are not going to go through in November. By rushing them through, after so long putting these reviews into a bill form - the Local Government Act was being reviewed when I was in local government, so that goes back two or three years - we have six weeks to look at proposed legislation that can have major effects on councils.
We have the parks and reserves bill. I am not making a comment on which way that bill should go. There is a lot of research required. There are many issues about native title, land rights, the status of these parks. There are a whole range of issues to be examined. To hit members with six weeks of lead time, then debating it in two days is not really the way we should be going. Some of these bills have so much ramification that they require a longer time before they are debated. We need time to go out and talk to the community about them. First of all, I have to get my head around these issues, then I would like to discuss it with some of my constituents to see what they think. This is not making a comment on whether I support it or not; I need to fully understand the legislation before us.
We have today’s legislation from the Attorney-General that changes the mandatory life sentence regime; very important legislation on which I certainly have an opinion. I am sure plenty of people have opinions about it, but it is legislation that we need to think through very carefully because it has major ramifications for our society and, naturally, for people who go to gaol for murder. This is the sort of legislation that I do not think we should say that in two days in November, when every body has just about had it from the year, that we are going to debate it.
We have the gay law reform bills. Again, regardless of what you think of it, those reforms go to the very heart of social change in our society. They are going to have some major effects. To say: ‘There you are. We have been considering these for …’ I do not know how long ‘… and we gave you six weeks to look at it, notwithstanding you also have to look at the parks and reserves bill, the mandatory life sentencing regime, the Local Government Act, and you have four other bills, albeit minor, all to be done in two days’.
Is that really fair to the people of the Northern Territory and fair to us as members who really need to carefully consider such important bills before we come and debate them in parliament? What I am saying tonight is that I ask the government to tell us whether these bills going to be debated and finalised in the next sittings, or will they hold them over to the February sittings so we can have ample time? It takes months, maybe years for some of these bills to come into this parliament. Why, therefore, should we rush the last few weeks of it? Name one of these bills that would suffer if it waited until February. I do not think any would. Just because we have a deadline of two days in the year when we should debate it, unless it is urgent and the sky will fall in, let’s just go easy and ensure we give this adequate consideration.
That leads me onto another matter, which also concerns me, and I was concerned with this bill from the day we were told were going to have it. That is the law reform gender, sexuality and de facto relationship package. I am not debating the content of it. When the minister issued a media release on this, he said a whole series of changes that were going to occur. I would have expected to be able to vote on those changes, but what this bill does is put a whole range of issues into one bill. I might only have one section of this bill that I do not agree with, but it might be fundamental to my beliefs or other people’s beliefs. Yet there might be good things in this bill that I support, but I cannot separate them. Why? Because they have put a whole range of major amendments to bills into the one act. It is shocking for a government to do that.
They knew this legislation was controversial. They know it is legislation that is not supported, in some cases, by members of this House and the community, yet I will not be able to debate this properly. I will have 20 minutes to debate this huge bill, which seeks to amend the Criminal Code, the Anti-Discrimination Act, the Criminal Records (Spent Convictions) Act, the De Facto Relationships Act, the Interpretation Act, the Status of Children Act, the Administrators Pensions Act, the Stamp Duty Act, the Supreme Court Act, amendments of other acts and subordinate legislation. Why couldn’t we have had this broken up into separate bills that we can fairly debate?
This is a smoke screen to get over the controversy, to make it difficult for those who have concerns about this legislation to adequately debate it. I sit in parliament and sometimes enjoy the debates we have. I am not trying to pre-empt the minister, but you have a statement tomorrow about heritage. I will enjoy debating that. But when it comes to the crunch in life, what is the most important thing as a politician to discuss? This one? The gay law reform legislation? Or heritage? Heritage is important. This one is about human beings. It is about our lives, what we think about families, about our children. This is the most important legislation I have seen since I have been here, yet I have 20 minutes to debate it. I asked the government not to have cognate bills; I thought that they were going to separate this. No, they separated the other act, the De Facto Relationships Act. That was a big deal. All the stuff that we really wanted to be broken up into sections is in this bill.
The government is pandering to a small group of people, applaud as they might in this parliament. They can applaud all they like. There are many other people in this place who think deeply about our future as a society, who feel that the family is under a lot of threat and are worried about, you might say, declining morality. We talked today, for instance, about mental health, and someone mentioned spirituality. It would be interesting to see a graph of belief in a god or belief in prayer and whether we see an increasing number of suicides and depression. We live in a society that has materialism as its primary god, not that I am against owning a car or a TV, but generally speaking, people are fairly godless in this society and do not have many beliefs.
As the Minister for Health and Community Services said, we can discuss the clinical methods of looking after mental health, but we always seem to shy away from things like our society has forgotten other things; it does not pray any more, it does not have beliefs any more. Does that have a lot to do with people not knowing why they exist? Those are very difficult questions that are never asked any more. I have stood here before and said: ‘Why do we not teach philosophy at school? We are not allowed to teach religion, but how about we teach kids how to think? Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, all the famous philosophers down through the ages. We do not teach kids that’. We do not teach kids how to think.
One of the problems I have with sex education in schools, especially secondary schools, is that it does not make a moral judgement because the government does not want to have moral judgements in school; it just wants to have a clinical discussion. There is not rights or wrongs. You cannot discuss that; it is not the government’s philosophy. Yet what do we leave our kids with? An empty vacuum. There is no: ‘Is what I am being taught right? Is what I am being taught wrong?’ No, we do not have that. Kids grow up with an attitude of: ‘If I make enough noise and do enough things, things like the bigger question will be blocked out of my mind’. When that goes, they are lost.
We as parliamentarians have a duty to try to promote higher ideals sometimes. I relate that back to this legislation. This is about ideals, whether you agree with them or not. We will decide that on the day, but this is most important legislation that this government has disgracefully put into one bill.
I will, as will everyone else, have 20 minutes to have a decent go at it. You can have the debate in the committee stage. That will not do you much good. That will just be getting rid of the disjunctive oar that the member for Goyder might have picked up; it will not exactly be a thrill, but on the real, hard issues, we will not be able to have a fair go. I should remind members that the Attorney-General, when he introduced this bill, took more than 45 minutes to do the second reading. How many 45 minute second readings have we had in this House? That is how important this bill is, yet I can only have 20 minutes to debate it.
I call on the government, if it has any guts about this legislation, to reintroduce it in a different format, to break it up either into the amendments so each amendment is a separate bill, or break it up into its divisions as separate bills to make it clear. Part 2 is amendments relating to gender. We know what that is all about; it is about the age of consent, etcetera. Pretty important stuff, pretty basic stuff for this government to discuss. It gets down to the basis of the Criminal Code. They are going to scrap a section of the Criminal Code which is ‘acts against morality’. Oh! I told you they did not want to talk about morality; they are going to scrap the whole section.
Then we have amendments relating to sexuality. Why is that not a whole section? We have amendments relating to de facto relationships. Some of those I might agree with, but now I cannot because if I do not agree with one section, I have to say no to the whole lot.
Mr Elferink: And branded soft on crime …
Mr WOOD: Oh, absolutely. I am saying it is a disgrace. I am going to tell people it is a disgrace, and when we get to debating important legislation, this is not good enough. This is weak, and this is the bit that I do not like about the Labor Party, the airy fairy, intellectual party that is not willing to sit down and discuss issues that it should. It used to be the party for the family; it used to be the party for the worker. Sadly, it seems to be the party for minority groups and intellectuals, and it has left the poor working family away, for itself. I am very disappointed, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, and I will leave it at that.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I wish to touch on a variety of issues. First, with regard to my Health portfolio, I have a couple of comments. I have had reports from nurses working in the new A&E department at Royal Darwin Hospital that the new section is going very well, and they are very grateful for the changes that the previous CLP government put into place and the current Labor government finally finished. They are also very happy that, recently, after a little bit of pressure from yours truly and others, the short stay beds located at the new A&E department have finally opened, and that has removed the pressure and distress caused by having to keep patients waiting for admission to the hospital on stretchers. So the short stay area has opened, and people are able to rest comfortably in proper beds in a more appropriate area while they wait to be admitted to the wards, which still, unfortunately, can take many hours and, in some cases, days.
However, on a less happy note, I have had representation from people concerned about the fact that the rehabilitation ward, which was located on the top floor of the hospital until Christmas time 2002, is still closed. The rehabilitation ward was a great CLP initiative, and I am proud to say my sister had a great deal to do with the establishment of it. The ward consisted of eight beds. It allowed people who, for example, had had strokes, to rehabilitate in a less clinical environment than a hospital ward. For example, when they woke up in the morning they had showers and what not, and then went into civilian clothes. A small bus then transported them from the main hospital block to the rehabilitation unit on the periphery of the hospital grounds where they underwent hours of rehabilitation work with occupational therapists and physiotherapists and the like.
So they had a day’s program at the rehab unit, after which they caught the bus back to the main block of the hospital and went back to the rehab ward. They had their own dining room where normal behaviours were encouraged. The staffing levels were such that there was an understanding of the time needed to help someone rehabilitate from something like having a stroke. People were not just placed into a wheelchair and taken to the toilets and the shower. They actually had the time, through staff motivation and staffing levels, to use a walking frame to get from their bed to the shower and have a shower because the aim was to normalise these people as soon as possible to allow them to be discharged back into their homes.
At around Christmas time, the minister announced that the rehabilitation ward would close temporarily, and the people who were in it would be moved to the fourth floor into the medical ward. That occurred. Unfortunately, 10 months later, the people who require that sort of rehabilitation work are still inappropriately located on the medical ward, and the rehab staff have to work in with the rest of the ward. That means, of course, there is significant pressure to hurry things along, to use wheelchairs. For instance, there is no dining room they can go to, so they have their meals at their bedside just like other patients. That is the loss of a really great unit that used to be located in Royal Darwin Hospital.
As I say, we were told when this happened that it was only to happen over the Christmas period and that after that time, the unit would reopen. There is no sign yet of the unit reopening. I know the staff and medical officers who are dedicated to rehabilitation work - and the minister will know the people I am talking about; people who have made an enormous contribution to this area of work and are very well respected in the community - are very distressed and concerned that what was a great little unit is still closed. I urge the minister to think seriously about finding the resources, and the staff who are specialised in this area still work in the hospital, to reopen the rehabilitation ward on the top floor at Royal Darwin Hospital.
On another matter, I have been approached by people who are currently studying nursing at Charles Darwin University. These are people studying to be Registered or Enrolled nurses, Level 1 and 2 Nurses, as they are now called. Unfortunately, the situation is that the Charles Darwin University is producing trained, educated, qualified nurses, but it is very difficult for these people to get jobs within our public health system and join what is known as a graduate program. As you know, nursing education has changed over the last few decades; it has moved from a hospital-based training program, the sort of program that I went through, to a university education program. No one decries the value of nurses being educated in universities. However, at the end of the process, it is necessary for those tertiary-trained nurses to have a proper introduction into the hospital environment. They will, of course, have done workshops and work site time during their university period, but this is not long enough. They need to go into a one-year program of the new grad program.
Unfortunately, the current situation is that many of these graduates cannot find positions in the public health system. The result for many of them, particularly the enrolled nurses, is that they have to return to nursing home work, which they do not want to do; they want to work in the acute hospital setting. At a time when we have a significant shortage of nurses in Australia and the Northern Territory in particular, a greater effort needs to be made to find the resources to allow these recently graduated nurses to be placed in our public hospital system. It is the case where, over the next few months, we are expecting the arrival of 40 nurses from the Philippines and, given the fact that we need to go to that almost desperate end for nursing staff, there is an opportunity here to start fast-tracking, as we are doing with police, our home-grown, Territory nurses.
These are people whose roots are in the Territory. We need to get them into our system here in significant numbers as quickly as possible. Australia is facing a massive shortage of nurses over the next five to 10 years. We have our own people graduating here, and they cannot get that final education experience of going into a graduate program in a hospital where, essentially, you have nurses working on the ward buddying these nurses through a 12-month program which usually sees them rotate from say, the Accident and Emergency Department to medical ward to surgical ward to paediatrics on these special programs.
I understand at the moment, for example, that next year we might see 20 of these new graduates go through the program at Royal Darwin Hospital. Frankly, 20 is nowhere near enough, and I certainly hope that the minister is able to increase the number of graduates that we can put through our public hospital system. Not just here in Darwin, of course, but through all of our five public hospitals.
I move now from the health area into other issues. First, I was very disappointed to learn in the last week that the leprosarium on Channel Island has apparently been demolished. There has been no public mention of this. I believe the member for Nelson may have said something about it recently …
Mr Wood: East Arm Leprosarium, I was talking about.
Ms CARTER: Oh, located on East Arm, thank you. When I was a student at Northern Territory University doing a Bachelor of Education in primary school education, one of the joys of doing that course was gaining a greater knowledge of Northern Territory history. I recall one day going out to the leprosarium. It was a fascinating area. I would be interested to hear from the minister concerned why this had to be demolished. It was a significant area of heritage. It is a shame that it was not listed. It should have been something that we hung onto.
Another matter that has been raised with me over the last few weeks is disappointment from people in the northern suburbs about their electricity supply. The comment has been made that not one extra street - I think Bougainvillea Street in Nightcliff had underground power there as a trial through the CLP when we were in government, but since then, over the last two years, despite the promises of the Labor government, but since then - in the northern suburbs has had underground electricity installed. Given the fact that the Labor government said that it is going to take up to 20 years to underground power in the northern suburbs, by golly, it looks like there is going to be a lot of work done in the last few years of that time frame. Given the number of streets and the size of Darwin, you would really want to be cranking on with this project. People are becoming somewhat disillusioned with that election promise. The cynic in me, of course, says that come 12 months from the next election, we will start to see the diggers operating at Nightcliff as the money starts to roll out. However, here we go with another Wet Season and not one street underground.
Speaking of spending money, or the lack of it, I received an e-mail today from a disgruntled constituent with regard to the boat ramp at the end of Gonzales Road at Tipperary Waters. I doubt whether many of you will recall this little incident but there was a lovely little media photo of the minister and a couple of northern suburbs Labor MLAs - the member for Karama was one them, a long way from my boat ramp in at the end of Gonzales Road. The point is hundreds of thousands of dollars were promised to fix that boat ramp, which is very popular. It needs widening, the car park needs development. Nothing has been done. I understand heaps of people from the northern suburbs come and use that boat ramp, so take note, MLAs located in the northern suburbs: nothing has been done on that boat ramp despite the media and the promises. The result is that it is starting to suffer dramatically from deterioration. I urge the Labor government to start spending some of the money and fulfilling some of their promises.
Another little promise that was made and has been a long time in the coming is noise regulations. I have been waiting three years for these noise regulations. Members would appreciate, as the local member for the CBD of Darwin, there are significant problems from time to time, particularly noise generated by licensed premises. There is a hope in the community that the environmental noise regulations, when they finally come out, might provide some sort of objective measure from which people can pursue complaints about noise. I am begging the government to come up with these noise regulations.
Finally, Mr Acting Speaker, the name of the Ghan, the Steve Irwin. You have to be joking. I urge this government to do all that it can to change that name. It is an abomination for Territorians to be given that name for the train when it finally comes here and I recommend that you think of something bit more creative, something that harks to our Aboriginal heritage. We can do much better than that, and at the very least it can be called the Top Ender or the Territorian.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, I wish to raise a couple of issues relating to education, the first being procurement policy. It was good to hear today of the decision made in August to remove significant powers from school councils had been revoked, but only, I must say, in part, and a significant part of the powers that were once held by school councils are retained by government.
This is an important issue, one that has not received a lot of publicity, and I do not like to excite these areas unless I have thoroughly checked with each of the school communities. I did make a point, when this procurement reform was announced, of writing to school councils and informing them so that they understood what had been said. Councils then began to communicate to me that they were surprised by the reform, and did not think it could possibly be. Ultimately, my letter sparked questions. My letter was to inform, and the next response was obviously to lobby the minister for Education and to inform him, respectfully, that the removal of such powers cuts deeply at the existence of councils, which are there to engage and support learning in school communities.
It was good to hear that part of it has been retracted. However, the matter of managing capital works in school communities will be remembered by proactive school communities. I cannot see why this decision would be made. When reforms are made, we look at them in a philosophical context: why would such a decision be made? Is it addressing a problem that has occurred in schools? No, I do not believe so. When we look at the number of schools that add significant value to the public funds allocated to them to build a new facility, and when the community has come together and taken charge of the process of implementation the approved project – and everything will be ticked off according to the structures and mechanisms for expenditure of public money – we find that the money goes much further when it is in the hands of the parents rather than the bureaucracy.
Really, it makes a lot of sense if we understand the issue because we are going to put responsibility in the hands of parents who have a vested interest in and complete responsibility for their children. The more we remember that, the more it will help us to look at educational issues and our decision making in relation to them. For example, the legislation we will consider at the next sittings. These are decisions that affect people and how they interact with each other. To remove the authority from school councils culturally affects the way many school communities have held together and have progressed.
There are schools such as Driver, Humpty Doo, Parap, Driver High, Girraween, to name some that have made great gains by adding immense value to capital works programs; they have taken public funds further by adding other aspects to them that would not normally have happened if it went through a bureaucratic process.
Not only that, I have seen school communities work together. Let us say you did put it into the hands of the department to build the class room or you put it in the hands of parents and allow their skills and abilities to come together and do something for that school community. Even if you end up with the same class room at the end of it, putting it in the hands of the parents, you are going to add something else; you are going to increase the value because you are going to see that community come together, work together and you build the community, the people. You empower and resource the people with something that is far more sustainable and some value is added that you just cannot buy. It is not just about the class room or the administration of public funds. It is about building community; it is about people. What has occurred is a very serious matter that obviously has been directed, engineered and put in place by the bureaucracy, by the departments. We are here to represent people; mums and dads who are doing their very best to try to raise their children and to walk us forward into a better future.
What has been in place for so many years has been tampered with by this government, which appears to have a centralist approach whereby they would much prefer the bureaucracy to govern us when our job is to empower people so that they can take responsibility for their own lives. That is when real value comes. That is real vision. That is when people have courage and walk forward into the future. When we have faceless people governing and structuring our decision-making, we end up with a very bland and colourless community. These things result in people getting up one morning and thinking: ‘Well, I am not so sure the Territory is such an exciting place any more’. I may be overstating it, but I know I am not. This is the flavour that seems to be permeating our community here, and it ain’t that exciting when you have departments running our affairs. It removes a vital element from our society.
We see this manifest in the way our school communities have been dealt with, our school councils. Every member here has been to school council meetings. They have seen the dramas; they thrash out these decisions. They have their children at heart, and children who are not yet at the school. Now they have had that taken away so that the parents can get involved in the real affairs of the school. Like what? Deciding what is going to be served at the tuck shop? Is that going to be the biggest decision that they are going to make now? Deciding which plumber might be able to fix up the pipe?
Mr Dunham: When to have the fete.
Mr MILLS: When to have the fete, that’s right, and decisions like that. So we drop it right down to a lower level and, as a result, we disempower and disconnect people, break up community. That is the very thing that we need to be doing here: empowering, building up the morale of the whole community. This is a seriously heavy blow to school communities.
I have great respect for all the school communities that were informed of this decision, respectfully, and it is something quite typical of the education system. They are not radical. They are quiet mums and dads who are very busy raising their children and doing their best to give a little bit extra to their schools by taking those evenings when they go and spend time sitting together and going through decisions. A lot of stuff they do they do not really understand, they try their very best. To have something of this nature taken away from them makes it even more abstract as to why they should actually be involved in a school council. Probably, we could take it right to the next stage and say: ‘Forget school councils. The department can run the whole show. They can run everything, and so the parents can just drop their children off at the school and pick them up, and that is all you really have to do. The department can run everything and we will end up ultimately with this Utopia where we do not really have to do anything’. The sad fact is that is not where power lies; that is not where the courage comes from to face the future.
Going now to our teachers, as a community, we are starting to recognise that we have a set of challenges in front of us that we really do have to take very seriously. We know that there are more teachers leaving their chosen profession. They might have gone through school, they have made their decisions, they have been asked a hundred times when they were in high school: ‘What are you going to do?’ A few of them decide that they want to become a teacher. A reason why someone would decide to become a teacher when they were in secondary school is often because they have been inspired by a teacher. There is a vocational aspect into going into education. So they go to teachers college, and there are some lecturers at teachers college who, once again, inspire you and give you that sense of purpose of why you would like to teach and get involved in education. They now go through the graduation ceremony, they walk out and meet their first class and find that the level of pressure that is involved in day-to-day running of the schools, with increasingly poor student behaviour, behaviour management structures that are not adequately resourced, there is confusion about, it is ever changing, nothing ever stays the same.
They cannot quite get their feet on the ground. They have to spend their own time writing their own curriculum, designing their own programs, and at the same time managing poorly behaved students. Then they find that their remuneration, their level of pay, does not quite match up with others who seem to be able to knock off at whatever time and go home and not carry any work with them.
The community does not understand how much work a seriously dedicated teacher has to carry with them. They have to take it home with them, after struggling through the psychological tension of the day, and then prepare for the next day often times interpreting curriculum and writing a program to suit the varying needs of that class room. Not surprisingly, after four months, only 60% of the teachers who graduated are still there. After four months of their first year in the profession, 40%, nationally, walk away from the profession. I recounted this to someone who is involved in education. They informed me that in the Northern Territory, of those who graduate from the Northern Territory University - and I cannot say that this is a fact; I am passing on a report - 35% continue on in the profession and 65% depart the profession. That is a local and anecdotal report. I do not attribute that as fact, and I will check it.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that there is incredible pressure on the profession. As a community, we are starting to understand this. What do we do? The level of remuneration is an issue that teachers are now getting some recognition for. The pressure on the profession is not matched by adequate remuneration. When they look around at their peers, they might go to a social function, they start to realise that it is not matched. More fundamental than that is the lack of respect and understanding from the wider community. That is becoming a real issue. We are attributing the pressures of our society, all that is around us, all the dysfunctional youth, to the school because, as a society, we are tending to offload responsibility onto someone else: ‘My child is very poorly behaved, my child cannot read, my child cannot attend at school, my child is bored’. Everything is lumped onto a teacher. They are finding that, because of the inability to solve problems instantly, there is a lack of real respect. The teacher ends up becoming a bit disillusioned and walks away from the profession as a result.
Worse than that, teachers say that the size of classes makes it difficult to manage. When teachers are asked, they say that student behaviour is becoming increasing difficult to manage. These issues are compounding and falling across our profession.
What do we do as a result? We can talk about the problems. The report commissioned by Dr Brendan Nelson that was released on Friday contains recommendations. I commend this report to anyone who has an interest in not just teaching, but in the future of our whole education system. We are all involved in education and, increasingly, education rises up on the list of issues that are of centre focus to this community. What do we do? One proposition we need to look at is to pay teachers for performance. We are concerned about the lack of participation in sport. There are many teachers who put in innumerable hours keeping after-school sports going. There is an opportunity to create the payment of incentives and bonuses for teachers who put in that extra and keep after-hours school sport programs operating. Mr Acting Speaker, I will continue this at a later stage.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I lend my support to the member for Nelson and many of his comments. I listened carefully to the member for Nelson. Sometimes it is a joy to walk into this House because a lot of what we hear in this House is just waffle and filling in space, unfortunately, but every so often a member comes in and speaks from the heart and you can tell that it is genuinely heart felt. All that the member for Nelson was talking about tonight was process, a process that this government was elected to change or to bring a new process to the way that business is done in the Northern Territory.
There was a perception that the former government had been in power too long, had become arrogant. That has been pretty well established over the course of the last couple of years and that is probably one of the reasons why the former government was thrown out, the perception of arrogance. The fear that I have for the current government is that they are reproducing it in spades. When you read the Good Governance document that they use to have and bandied around prior to the last election, the whole sentiment and flavour of that - without dragging it out again and waving it above my head, as I have in the past - was that they wanted to open up the system.
Tonight I heard the member for Nelson complain about process. These complaints, I am sure, I have heard before at another parliament. The process that he complained of was that of taking some of the most important items of legislation that this parliament is going to have to look at in terms of its impact on our society and how we choose to run our society and as well as ‘omnibusing’ that legislation into a single item of legislation. The process, of course, has been undermined in this instance quite deliberately. I will go one step further than the member for Nelson and simply accuse the government of what I know that they are doing. What they are doing is ‘omnibusing’ the legislation simply because they want to be able to go out there and say that if you do not support the whole bill, you obviously do not support tougher sentencing on child sex offences. The implication is that if you are soft on that sort of thing, then you really do not care about kids.
I agree with what the member for Nelson said because it is such packed-up legislation, it would impossible to debate the merits of all of the bits of that legislation in 20 minutes, which is something that we are all going to be stuck with - also the fact that they are trying to manipulate through the fear of members in this House of being branded something out there. I can put it on the record now that no matter how my colleagues and I choose to approach this issue, I will not be bullied by fear of being lambasted out there by a government who tries to pull this sort of stunt.
It undermines what they are trying to achieve with this legislation. They seem to be under the impression that this is something that they are going to have to jam through. They are making all sorts of assumptions about how the Territory public feel about this, how Independents in this House may feel about it and how the CLP members feel about it. As a consequence, they are trying to manipulate the system and that is a real shame because there are things that will be worth visiting and there will be debates that are well worth having. I do not sense any need or urgency to run into any of this and have it pushed through in any brief time.
I feel for the member for Nelson and understand where he is coming from. The sentiment of what he said is something that I certainly take to heart. I give him support in the sense that he is genuinely trying to address the process so that a full, frank, open and honest debate may be had in this place and, more importantly, may be had out there in the community so that we all may turn our attention to these important issues.
Process is an important issue. The structure of this parliament is built on process and how we go through process. It is something we guard quite passionately. Never a day goes by without a dozen or more points of order being called because of the process that we try to protect. The member for Nelson has every right to complain about process when it is abused in such a fashion.
I pick up on some of the member for Araluen’s points about having increased amounts of work going through the DPP, the courts and increased numbers of people in gaol, yet the Attorney-General constantly claims that crime is down, crime is down.
Mr Dunham: Fewer victims.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, there are fewer victims. It is a curious thing. I wonder how that can possibly happen. I am starting to see certain trends, and the first to which I alert members is that the crime reports coming out of the Department of Justice all have an increased number of crimes against the person. That seems to be a general trend. Crimes against people seem to be on the up and up.
We will also talk about property crime, which the Attorney-General claims is going down and down. Intriguingly, now that we have several quarters available to us to investigate, property crime across the board, the drop was notable in the first instance, but it seems that the trend line does not continue to drop. It seems that when the first Justice figures came out, crime rates dropped a certain percentile point. It seems to be across the board for the last quarters investigated.
That starts to hint at a change in methodology as much as a change in crime rates. It is worth continuing to examine this. I wrote a letter to the Attorney-General some time ago after I noticed that the non-reporting of crime was reported in the original crime statistics with the standard used being ABS standard for non-reporting in the Northern Territory. That was at 32%, curiously. The following set of stats to come out, they used the ABS non-reporting rate of the Australian standard, not the Northern Territory standard, of 22%. I wrote to the minister about that, and I received a message from the minister. Basically, the letter said that there is too much margin for error in Territory rates and we are not quite sure about it, so we have decided to go to the Australian standard. Curiously, he also said in the letter that those figures for the Northern Territory could be out by as much as 25% or more. Realistically speaking, the minister had no real idea inside the Northern Territory how much was not being reported.
The Palmerston Regional Business Association recently surveyed its membership. They received 73 replies. The first question their members were asked was:
to which 37% replied yes, they had. The second question was:
And 29% said they had.
to which 28% said they had. The final question in that section was:
to which 26% said that was indeed the case. Of the 37% who replied yes to the question above, the first question to those people was:
And 45% said that they had.
35% said that they had only reported some of them. Significantly, 20% said that they had reported none of them. Now, it is interesting to go on because it goes on to ask:
and 52% believed that to be the case.
to which 5% considered that was the case, which is encouraging.
10% felt it was time consuming. Finally:
to which 33% indicated that that was the reason that they did not bother to report.
It is a lengthy process from time to time to report matters to police. It is also a lengthy process for police to enter offences generally on the PROMIS system, which is their recording system. I asked the commissioner about this the other day during a briefing, specifically an entry in the O’Sullivan Report which reported that in the police station at Katherine, between 5% and 10% of all offences reported to police in Katherine did not find their way on to the PROMIS system because that system was too cumbersome to deal with.
The police commissioner said he did not believe that to be the case, but O’Sullivan did report it so there is a very real chance that that is the case. If that is the case in Katherine, we are using the same system throughout the Northern Territory, including remote stations. So you have non-reporting being under-reported by the Attorney-General, the police system of collecting the data has a question mark of 5% to 10% error mark hanging over the top of it, so there is another problem with the under-reporting of crime. The whole process has a question mark hanging over it, acknowledged by the Attorney-General himself, that it might be out in the Northern Territory by 25% or more in terms of the non-reporting of crime.
That will then take us to this particular point: when you compound these effects through the system, it may well be that there is an answer as to why the courts appear to be busier, the gaols appear to be busier, the DPP appears to be twice as busy, and yet crime statistics are trending down. The fact is that there is a question mark hanging over these crime statistics, how they are collected, how they are recorded, and how they are interpreted through the statistical processes.
I know the member for Araluen has been seeking a briefing in relation to this, as will I, because they are very important. They potentially have a profound effect on the integrity of the statistics that are coming through the system. If the Attorney-General was going to be fair, he would be very interested in these sorts of details, because I am certain, in the interests of fairness, exactness and correctness, these are the principles upon which he proudly announces these crime figures, he would want to find where these holes are and if they are being taken into account.
A margin of error in reporting of police stations on the PROMIS system of 5% to 10% is a matter of concern. I would certainly urge the Attorney-General to look into it so that we can get some relationship which bears reality between the number of people in prison, before of the courts, and the statistics that the Attorney-General produces.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Mr Acting Speaker, I know it is probably a tad self-indulgent, but I intend talking tonight about three people for whom I have great affection. In fact, I love all three of them, and I will start with my wife.
It is interesting that the member for Port Darwin talked about nursing, because that is what I would like to talk about. My wife has not only completed her nursing degree through the Northern Territory University at the ripe old age of 46, but she has now nearly completed her midwifery. This is a childhood dream for her. My wife did not complete Year 12, and it has been a very difficult thing for her to progress through university, and all the onus that puts on you to learn how to study, write reports, research and all that stuff. One becomes rusty about it if one has not done it for a long time.
Nonetheless, she is there at Darwin Private Hospital now, and was there today in delivery suite. I know she will make an excellent midwife because, throughout her life, she has worked with small children, including in the nurseries of Royal Darwin and Darwin Private Hospitals. It is a passion of hers and it is a career to which she is well suited. So, tonight, as self-indulgent as it is, I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate her for coming thus far.
The second person whom I love and would like to congratulate is also a nurse; and that is my daughter. She is just finished at Notre Dame University in Western Australia, probably the best university for turning out nurses in Australia given that it has a different learning paradigm and has worked very hard to make sure that there are high levels of practical experience for undergraduate nurses. That has translated to nurses who are very industry ready, and who are well sought after. My daughter has been successful in achieving a placement for her postgraduate year with Prince Edward and Princess Margaret Hospitals in Perth, one being a paediatric hospital and the other being maternity. She has those placements now and is about to embark on a very good career. She did apply to Royal Darwin Hospital and was very keen to come home, but the tardiness of the answer meant that she took the first offer which, unfortunately, sees her in Perth for yet another year. The family will miss her, but I know that she will return here as a fully-fledged practitioner in the very fine art of nursing.
The third person whom I love and would like to talk about is Slim Dusty. Slim Dusty has been known to me almost as a friend for decades and decades. I do not suspect he ever knew I existed, but I was somebody who went to many of his concerts because growing up in Katherine in the 1960s, Slim Dusty was as regular as you could get. He came through in the Dry Season every year and put on a great show. We all went and we all knew the songs …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: And Daly River.
Mr DUNHAM: Daly River, Peppimenarti. I know he was a personal acquaintance of the late Harry Wilson. I know he sent tapes to Harry that he had not laid down as tracks, for Harry to do a little critique and a taste test to see whether they came up to the high standards that Slim had set himself.
I also grew up in a pub and, if you grew up in a pub anywhere in Territory in the 1960s, you knew every Slim Dusty song - every Slim Dusty song. It might be a bit old-fashioned now to talk about Trumby being a ringer ‘as solid as a post; his skin was black but his heart was white, and that is what matters most’. There would be people now who would find those words somehow paternalistic and offensive, but it was a much-loved song. It crossed all strata of the Katherine society, although there were only two or three strata there in those days. Through this work as a lyricist and as somebody who travelled in the bush and thus knew a little of what he wrote about, and as somebody whose fine art came back to people who were truck drivers, train drivers, and men on the land working hard and their women folk, he will be sadly missed in Australia.
I do not think there would be an artist anywhere in the world who could stand in a country with the same stature as Slim Dusty.
I was interested that one of the Cabinet ministers put a memorial notice in the paper. That was entirely appropriate, and the member for Arnhem should be commended. Slim Dusty is well known to Territorians and his name should live on. He was a great Australian, but he was a Territorian, too. My colleague, the member for Port Darwin, talked about the train and it is incredible how many people say it should be called the Slim Dusty. It is not going to come to anyone as news that a man who has great respect for Slim Dusty and what he has done; he has many train driving songs, many travelling songs. I do not think you could go much better than to call the train after him.
If the government believes that it is out of their hands, not something they can do, let us find some other way of having his name attached to this great north-south railway; let us have a way of maybe naming the terminus or the rail station or something after him because he does deserve it. His songs had very simple messages and, picking up on another of the speakers tonight, there are people who do not have many guideposts for their lives. If the mere fact of doing what is best for your fellow man and doing right is what drives you, you cannot go too far wrong, and that came through Slim’s songs.
I have no shame standing in the parliament and lauding this man. I know it is seen as a bit old fashioned, but that is what I am: old fashioned.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Chief Minister and Member for Sanderson
Chief Minister and Member for Sanderson
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that leave of absence be granted to the Chief Minister and the member for Sanderson due to their attendance at the funeral in Alice Springs for Mr Graeme Braham.
Motion agreed to.
Leader of Opposition and Member for Greatorex
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that leave of absence be granted to the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition for today, as both are attending the funeral of Mr Graeme Braham in Alice Springs.
Motion agreed to.
VISITORS
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: I advise honourable members of the presence in the Gallery of Year 6 and 7 students from Casuarina Street Primary School in Katherine, accompanied by their teacher, Cheryl-Anne Courtney; and Adult Literacy Education students from Batchelor Institute accompanied by Tony Thorpe. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors.
Members: Hear, hear!
PETITION
Allocated Police in Casuarina District
Allocated Police in Casuarina District
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I present a petition from 1108 petitioners requesting that the number of police officers allocated to the Casuarina police district be increased. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read:
- To the honourable the Speaker and members of the Legislative Assembly,
We the undersigned people of the northern suburbs respectfully request that the number of police officers
allocated to the Casuarina police district be increased substantially to enable a greater ongoing police
presence in Karama, Malak, Anula and Wulagi.
Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly supports this plea by the residents
of the northern suburbs to increase the number of police officers allocated to the Casuarina police district.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Alcohol Framework Review
Alcohol Framework Review
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Mr Acting Speaker, this morning I brief the House on the government’s continued concerted action to deal with the number one social issue facing Territorians: the abuse of alcohol.
Of all the jurisdictions in Australia, the Northern Territory continues to have the highest per capita consumption of alcohol, and the latest estimates show the problem costs the Northern Territory around $477m per year. These figures reflect direct harms that arise from alcohol consumption, but the impact of less tangible problems such as antisocial behaviour, itinerancy, family breakdown and health problems cost the community a lot more. These are costs borne by the drinkers themselves, but also by the whole of the community.
Members will be aware that earlier this year I advised the Australian Hotels Association Conference the government would implement a five-point plan to address alcohol-related issues. That plan involves legislating against the practice of book-up for alcohol; maintaining current arrangements for take-away alcohol sales on Sunday pending the development of a comprehensive alcohol framework; considering a reduction in licensed outlets; conducting a major overhaul of the Liquor Act; and developing harm minimisation strategies to encourage responsible attitudes towards alcohol consumption.
Action has already been taken on book-up, and I have introduced a bill banning book-up for alcohol sales during these sittings. The other four points will be addressed through an alcohol framework review, which I have recently initiated. The review has 13 key points which I will not enumerate in full this morning. The main issues are: identification of the issues of concern; reviewing existing strategies for dealing with those concerns and see whether they are working with what resources are needed; an overhaul of the Liquor Act; and examination of the Licensing Commission’s powers and role. To conduct this framework development, I have announced the appointment of two key community opinion leaders and have appointed to the staff of the Racing, Gaming and Licensing Commission a team to work the review through.
The two public heads of the framework are Daryl Manzie and Donna Ah Chee. Daryl is well known to members of this House, having served the parliament as a Minister of the Crown from 1983 to 2001. Donna Ah Chee is an active Central Australian who has played a leading role in alcohol issues over many years. The staff component is headed by Gordon Renouf. Gordon is very familiar with the Territory, having practiced as a lawyer here for a long time. I am pleased that all three have agreed to be part of this framework development.
Following a widespread review of the available information on the issue and some focus discussions in key communities, the team will provide me with an interim report in December. It will form the basis of the discussion with the community in the first half of next year, culminating in a final report in May 2004. Work is already under way in the information gathering exercise. Reports are being pulled together and analysed and discussions initiated with key groups such as the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Use and Abuse of Substances. It is a key plank in the government’s determination to overcome the problems associated with alcohol consumption in the Territory. I look forward to seeing their work.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank the minister for that update, a lot of which we have heard both in the House and in the media, particularly in relation to the five-point plan of which he spoke. This side of the House has some concerns with regard to consumption of alcohol. We have participated in the Substance Abuse committee.
I congratulate the minister for appointing the team to undertake the review, particularly the two leaders, Donna Ah Chee and Daryl Manzie. Both will do an eminent job. I do not envy them because it is going be very difficult.
Book-up of course is an issue and always has been. What is happening with book-up, to our way of thinking, is that, whilst the minister wants to embed it in legislation, the legality of book-up was always there. Conditions were always embedded in the licence, so that may not change things greatly.
Liquor restrictions throughout the Northern Territory have been trialled, some with some success and others with very little success. Perhaps it is time we looked at a new way of doing that. There is a restriction I would like the minister to comment on, and that is the Nhulunbuy restrictions. He was involved with those. It ended up with court cases and has left the Commission and trial participants in an onerous position because of actions taken by the ACCC that are ongoing. Perhaps the minister would like to comment on what government is doing about those issues.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): I thank the Member for Daly for his supportive comments. Traditionally, there has been bipartisan support if we go right back to the Use and Abuse of Alcohol Committee through the 1980s and 1990s. There was bipartisan support for the Living with Alcohol strategies put in place by Chief Minister Perron in his day. I would like to think that the bipartisan approach of this House and the concerns members have in relation to use and abuse of alcohol and substance abuse overall does continue.
In relation to the Nhulunbuy issue, which has been subject to proceedings by the ACCC, the member misleads the House if he suggests that I had any part of that.
Mr BALDWIN: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. He cannot infer that I am misleading the House.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Minister, if you are inferring that, I think you should withdraw it.
Mr STIRLING: I will withdraw ‘misleading the House’. Let me put in on the record that I had no part of any of those discussions despite being the local member at that time. When it was brought to my attention, I told the Arnhem Club committee, of which I was Vice-President, that they were sailing very close to the wind in terms of collusive price fixing and were vulnerable to action by the ACCC, which is in effect what happened. I resigned at that time from the Arnhem Club.
Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Mr Acting Speaker, I wish to bring to members’ attention serious matters relating to the Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex.
Cabinet has recently considered a comprehensive technical review of the physical assets of the complex. This report identified buildings and structures that are dangerous and ruinous, and others that do not appear to meet the requirements of the Building Act. The government has inherited this problem from its predecessor, and the former CLP government must take responsibility for the current state of the facilities at Hidden Valley and take full responsibility for any adverse consequences.
The CLP should be thankful that their lack of investigation into the state of the assets at the complex before simply acquiring them several years ago has to date not caused any accidents, although they have blatantly put public safety at risk. They should be ashamed of their lack of foresight, and be grateful that the Martin government has had the ability to identify the vast number of wide-ranging issues and put in place a plan to bring them up to an acceptable standard of safety.
This is a long-standing issue that we will not, unlike our predecessors, back away from. We will address the recommendations of this report and support motor sports participants to improve their facilities and increase both participant and public safety. The government will ensure that the Territory motor sports community has access to both safe and appropriate facilities that can support their sport into the future. I also emphasise that the government’s swift action means that the hosting of the V8 Supercar series at Hidden Valley next year is secure.
Members may be aware that the Hidden Valley complex is owned by government and managed on behalf of the government by the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, an organisation that was created in 2000 by the former government.
As Minister for Sport and Recreation, I currently represent the Northern Territory government as the sole shareholder of the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited and legal owner of the Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex. Upon taking up the portfolio, I became aware of serious issues in regard to the governance and viability of the management company, as well as concerns by user groups of the Hidden Valley complex regarding the role and effectiveness of the company.
Following meetings with the then directors of Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, my concerns were not allayed. I requested the resignation of the previous directors, which they agreed to do in December 2002. I immediately appointed an Interim Board consisting of three senior public sector officers. I instructed the Interim Board to immediately review and report back to me on the business and financial position of Territory Motor Sports Board Limited, and to make recommendations on the future direction of the board.
In March this year, the board reported that it could not, given the information available from the Territory Motor Sports Board Limited or government records, advise that the facilities were of sufficient standard and appropriately documented to be used for public sporting purposes.
I immediately sought the support of my Cabinet colleagues for a comprehensive technical review of the complex’s physical assets in order to gain a full understanding of the complex and what investment, if any, was required to bring each asset on site up to an acceptable standard.
That comprehensive review was carried out and Cabinet has considered the final report. The key findings bear out the serious concerns of the Interim Board. The report recommends the development of a master plan to address deficiencies in the assets at Hidden Valley and to take action to ensure that the complex can continue to operate.
The most dangerous structures have been immediately closed off from the public and, where necessary, demolished. Action has been taken to immediately commence the master plan, which will identify priorities for other remedial works. Cabinet has allocated resources for the completion of urgent occupational health and safety works, and to ensure that any minor works required in order to obtain temporary occupancy permits can be undertaken.
The Interim Board has advised the Director of Building Control of the action taken to date, of proposed actions, and will work closely with the director over the next few weeks. I emphasise that there has been consultation with the clubs operating at the site and other users, and everything has been done to limit the impact on those clubs and other hirers of the facilities.
How did this entirely unsatisfactory situation arise? When the then CLP government acquired the complex from individual user groups several years ago, it assumed direct responsibility for the land and facilities that comprised the complex. The failure of the previous government to undertake a due diligence study that adequately assessed the potential cost of taking over the assets is a crucial mistake in this whole process.
The government’s involvement in the complex is fundamentally different from other sporting facilities. Government can therefore expect to have limited success in transferring assets to users, or getting users to assume responsibility for the facilities.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Your time has expired, minister.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, what could well be a pro-active response in terms of getting on with the job of government strikes a tone that probably explains why there is a lack of confidence in the leadership capacity of this government.
Rather than simply respond to an issue which is your duty as government, you inflate your sense of purpose by trying to sleight on a former regime that was able to put into place the very facility.
You are simply getting on with the task of adequate repairs and maintenance, and getting on with the job of government. That is what you are required to do. You could well bring a report to this parliament precisely what you are doing, without bringing in this unnecessary tone of trying to shore up your own lack of confidence by looking over you shoulder and blaming someone else.
Get on with the job. I would ask, in the minister’s reply, that he confirm to the House and for Territorians that the V8 Supercar date does not conflict with the cricket. What is the date for V8 Supercars?
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Mr Acting Speaker, the shadow spokesperson said the former government ably put this facility in place.
History will show, and I will have a report to this House, and it will be interesting to debate you, on what actually happened, because when I talked to the Department of Sport and Recreation, this was a closed meeting. This was Minister Lugg at the time, who, with Cabinet’s approval, established this situation and developed it without any input from Sport and Recreation.
You were incapable of ensuring that there was diligence in this complex. It was a mad rush and it is another CLP initiative that we have inherited that they had had stuffed up once again. So you have a situation where we will fix this problem and we will work with the people. But, it is, once again, another CLP initiative that has proved to be a shemozzle.
Trade Delegation to Brunei, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore
Mr HENDERSON (Asian Relations and Trade): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise today to report on the outcomes of my recent visit to Brunei, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in relation to building the Territory’s trade and international relations within Asia.
Between 14 and 18 September 2003, I visited key ministerial counterparts and senior business leaders in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore to continue support by this government of trade and business development by Territory business. I also met with senior government leaders, and provided briefings to business groups in Singapore and Malaysia on the opportunities for trade and investment in the Territory. These business briefings also provided an opportunity to update our trading partners on major projects, including the AustralAsia Trade Route, the wharf precinct and gas coming on shore from Bayu-Undan.
In Brunei, I met with senior representatives from Royal Brunei Airlines, who continue to support Territory tourism and trade through regular twice-weekly services to Darwin. This relationship remains strong, and I am advised that in the near future, an additional weekly flight will be added to this service, thereby evidencing a strengthening of relations with this valuable friend of the Territory. As a further demonstration of our friendship with Royal Brunei, we have expressed strong support for Royal Brunei Airline’s efforts to secure landing rights in Sydney, which I believe they now have.
I also met with representatives of the Brunei government involved in the live animal trade, and discussions continue on improving supply chain efficiencies with a view to increasing livestock exports to Brunei. My department is also working with the Brunei government and with Territory business to see what interest there is among Territory business to participate in a major trade expo in Brunei in February next year. Another opportunity emerging in Brunei on which we are keeping a close watch on behalf Territory business is the potential for Alcan to build an aluminium smelter in Brunei. I believe Territory business can gain work from that massive project if it comes off.
In Sabah, I met with the Chief Minister, Datuk Haji Musa, as well as two of his deputy Chief Ministers, Datuk Tham Nyip Shan and Datuk Wences Angang. It was Datuk Wences Angang who led a strong Sabah delegation of some 23 members to our Expo in July this year. My delegation also conducted meetings with the Minister for Agriculture and several of his senior officials, as well as the operators of retail business operations who were interested in buying Territory fruit, vegetables and other produce. My department of DBIRD will disseminate details on these opportunities to Territory business and, also, the Chief Minister and I will lead a business delegation to Sabah’s regional Expo in September of next year.
In Kuala Lumpur, I met with the Chairman of Malaysia Airlines, Tan Sri Dato Aziz Zainul Abidin, and the company’s Managing Director, Datu Md Nor Yusof. The recent news that Malaysia Airlines has made the commercial decision to cancel their slot bookings at Darwin Airport was obviously disappointing, but the decision was in line with the company’s public statement over a month ago that they are not looking to expand their services at this time. There has been suggestion, in light of this commercial decision, that it was a waste of time for me to meet with the company, but nothing could be further from the truth. The company maintains an office in Darwin and still has a code-share arrangement with Garuda for Darwin-Bali flights. The government will continue to work with Malaysia Airlines to ensure that we can quickly capitalise on any changed circumstance. In fact, the troubled global tourism market makes it imperative for the government to continue to develop and build relationships with a number of airlines, including Malaysia and Royal Brunei, and to actively market the Northern Territory as a viable destination.
Major projects like the Darwin city waterfront, the AustralAsia Railway and Wickham Point LNG plant have opened up economic opportunities that were not available in the Northern Territory when Malaysia Airlines last flew to Darwin three years ago. It is these very opportunities that make it all the more important to get out there and promote the Territory and what it has to offer. My visit was warmly received, and both gentlemen gave freely of their valuable time. My visit to Malaysia Airlines follows and supports that made by the Chief Minister in March this year. Malaysia Airlines continue to review the possibility of resuming scheduled air services to Darwin.
At two briefings for the Malaysian business community, I made presentations to more than 40 representatives and government officials to update them on growth and developments in the Northern Territory. A number of trade and investment inquiries were made, and these will be distributed by my department to relevant Territory business.
In Singapore, I met with more than 50 business leaders and government officials through a reception supported by the Australian High Commissioner to Singapore, His Excellency Gary Quinlan, and a private business briefing, at which there was over 40 business people and potential investors in Territory major projects.
During discussions with Silk Air, the company advised that it is still considering options for introducing charter and/or scheduled services between Singapore and Darwin, and we are hopeful of a positive outcome there.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, I sincerely welcome the report. With the increased interest in our region as a result of the culmination of the railway and the revelation that there has been a lack of activity in ensuring that we have freight on that rail, now we do have certain amount of activity. However, the report comes at a time and in response to the clear need that we need to seriously, energetically and imaginatively engage the region.
I will be going through the report in Hansard, in detail, minister, and your chide that I need to seek a briefing, which I will seek after these sittings.
In a broader context, I am concerned by what I am hearing and what I understand about the operation of our engagement strategy. It seems to be a language that is contained in trade outcomes. Please indicate to the opposition precisely what trade outcomes would result from visits to X, Y or Z. We are in trouble when we start to look strictly at a trade outcome. You have to develop a relationship before you can trade; you have to build a bridge before you can carry anything across it. That is the point: we need to make sure that the relationship aspect of our engagement strategy is the forerunner. That is the way you commence this.
We have had a report on a series of meetings, and that is really good to hear. The ongoing strategy that does not immediately jump to the trade outcome, but to maintaining, strengthening and feeding that relationship, which is absolutely critical. With regards to the meeting in Bali, it is a great concern that you did not attend, Minister, because it would have provided you with the opportunity to represent the Northern Territory at the Bali Bombing Commemorations …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Member, your time has expired.
Mr HENDERSON (Asian Relations and Trade): Mr Acting Speaker, in responding to the shadow minister, yes, I am pleased that he will be seeking a briefing. We can put the record straight on exactly what the strategy is.
There is debate, and I accept there is debate going around the community, in terms of the Asian Relations and Trade strategy at the moment, but trade is the outcome that we want. We want economic growth in the Northern Territory and we have to be very strategic about where we focus our relationship effort so that it actually advances Territory trading opportunities and investment in the Territory. That is the strategy that we have embarked upon. It is different from the one on which the CLP embarked. We are putting $300 000 this year up for Territory exporters to access to improve Territory trade compared with $80 000 under the previous scheme. I have no hesitation in saying what we are doing is different, but we are focussed on outcomes. I will be pleased to give the shadow minister a briefing.
Members may be aware that I was in Bali earlier this year and laid a wreath at the site of the Bali bombings on behalf of the Northern Territory community.
Retail Travel Agents Familiarisation Program
Dr BURNS (Tourism): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to report on the successful promotion by the Northern Territory Tourist Commission of a Retail Travel Agents Familiarisation Program. The familiarisation program provides an opportunity for retail travel agents from our target markets to see the Territory in their own time during the shoulder and summer seasons.
It exposes these major agents to the unforgettable experiences that the Territory has to offer and will provide flow-on effects in greater sales to airlines, all NT wholesalers and tourism operators. The program has been available for travel taken by participants from 1 September 2003 to 31 March 2004, which is basically the off-peak time for domestic holiday travel in the NT.
I am very pleased to report that the response from national travel agents for the familiarisation program has been very positive. As of 13 October, 427 agents had made bookings and this number is expected to grow considerably. Further, with those 427 agents there will be 772 accompanying family members.
The familiarisation program provides both short- and long-term benefits to the Territory’s tourism industry. In the short term, with the current bookings, this program will provide around $0.75m of new business for Territory tourism operators spent while the participants and their families are visiting. As well as this immediate benefit to Territory tourism businesses over the traditional shoulder off-peak season, we will greatly benefit in the longer term by having more educated retail agents selling the Territory product to consumers interstate and in New Zealand.
The Northern Territory Tourism Strategic Plan identifies seasonality as a critical issue for the industry, and I quote from page 21 of that document:
- The seasonal nature of tourism visitation to the Northern Territory, particularly the low season trough,
impacts on business profitability, the long-term viability of the industry and the ability to attract investment.
Developing strategies and broadening visitation outside peak periods is a key focus. The large number of visitors
to the Territory in peak season also has the potential to impact negatively on visitor satisfaction and places an
unacceptable strain on the natural attractions that underpin the Northern Territory as a tourist destination.
This familiarisation program during the shoulder and summer season is an important strategy aimed at exposing travel agents to opportunities during the off peak season.
First, there has already been a series of hosted familiarisation by Territory Discovery sales staff from Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. These familiarisations were offered to some of our most significant interstate retailers and were conducted in both the Top End and Central Australia. The programming incorporated actual product featured in Territory Discoveries’ brochured programs.
The second round of familiarisation will be conducted by a broader retail travel trade, both domestically and from New Zealand. Territory Discoveries will offer full-time retail travel agents and their partners and up to two children reduced rate travel to either the Top End or Central Australia between 1 September 2003 and 31 March 2004.
Over 80 Territory tourism operators have provided industry rates as part of this program, which indicates the high level of support within the Northern Territory for this initiative. The familiarisation program demonstrates this government’s support for small tourism businesses in the Territory over the next six months and will assist in providing jobs for Territorians over this traditionally low travel period.
While the challenges of the last two years for tourism have been daunting, we, as a government, are working hard to ensure that as things now start to look up, the Territory is doing everything it can to market ourselves to our main strategic markets.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Thank you, minister, because you have indicated for the first time in a long time that your government is actually doing something.
I agree that seasonality – we both know it and I am sure other members of this parliament know it – is a problem. The shoulder season, particularly in the Top End, is a problem, and it needs to be addressed. It is an incredible challenge. It has always been a challenge and I suspect it will continue to be a challenge as to how the Territory, particularly the Top End, markets itself for the off-peak season.
It is terrific that travel agents are coming to the Territory. It is no wonder that the 80 operators to whom the minister referred are offering industry rates because they are very keen to get anyone, minister. If it means offering a mate’s rate to an agent from interstate, then it is no wonder at all that they would be willing and delighted, I would have thought, to offer those rates.
In terms of travel agents generally around the country, I received a telephone call the day before yesterday from a representative who was part of the Roadshow team with Tourism Top End and the Darwin City Council recently. They travelled broadly throughout Australia. I was advised that they had contact with 600 travel agents around the country, and the consistent message from those travel agents was that the Northern Territory needs to be in the face of Australians and the international market, and that we are being out-spent by other jurisdictions.
The minister is sick of me saying it, but when I get that information from a member of the Roadshow, it confirms the need for government to inject money. We will continue to say it for as long as the figures are not looking good. We know that they are not looking good. It does not matter what sort of spin government wants to put on it; they are not good.
Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome this initiative on the basis that it is something.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS
Take Two Bills Together
Take Two Bills Together
Mr STIRLING (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Acting Speaker, at the request of and on behalf of the Chief Minister, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent bills entitled AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Amendment Bill (Serial 185) and AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill (Serial 184):
- (a) being presented and read a first time together and one motion being put in regard to respectively
the second readings, the Committee’s report stage and the third readings of the bills together; and
- (b) the consideration of the bills separately in the Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to.
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 184)
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY
(THIRD PARTY ACCESS) BILL
(Serial 185)
(Serial 184)
AUSTRALASIA RAILWAY
(THIRD PARTY ACCESS) BILL
(Serial 185)
Bills presented and read a first time.
Mr STIRLING (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bills be now read a second time.
The purpose of the AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill is to amend the AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Act and to add further provisions to that act. The amendments relate principally to occupational crossings installed along the Alice Springs to Darwin railway to enable adjoining land-holders access across the railway for a range of activities, including stock movement.
The bill ensures that private land-holders with access, electricity and/or water easements created under section 14A use their easements in accordance with any protocols setting out procedures for rail safety declared under the act. The power to make protocols will be held jointly by the Minister for the AustralAsia Railway and the minister responsible for the administration of the Northern Territory Rail Safety Act.
The AustralAsia Railway (Special Provisions) Act recognises access, electricity and water easements in favour of private land-holders adjoining the corridor. In addition, the act requires the Registrar-General to amend the Land Register to recognise those easements. During construction, due to safety and construction requirements, the location of the access easements were varied. The bill creates a mechanism to amend the Land Register to reflect the variation of those easements.
The purpose of the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Amendment Bill is to update the AustralAsia Railway (Third Party Access) Act. The bill updates the name of the regulator of the access regime in accordance with amendments made by the South Australian parliament. I commend these bills to members.
Debate adjourned.
LAW REFORM (GENDER, SEXUALITY AND DE FACTO RELATIONSHIPS) BILL
(Serial 186)
(Serial 186)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill is to reform the law of the Territory to remove or modify illegal distinctions based on a person’s gender, sexuality or de facto relationship with another person. By doing this, the bill will provide greater protection and equality for all Territorians. The bill also includes a package of reforms developed to strengthen laws protecting children from sexual abuse.
I have said before in this parliament that the government is committed to equality for all Territorians. Last year, the Darwin Community Legal Centre released a paper, which contained a number of proposals for law reform, but with a common goal: equality for all Territorians, regardless of gender, sexuality or marital status. Their proposals included establishing a common age of consent, extending domestic violence laws to homosexual couples, reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act and access to de facto property settlements and other general property rights and benefits like superannuation.
The package of law reform I am now introducing has been developed after careful consideration of those proposals and the wider law. The aim, in developing this package, has been to ensure equality of treatment under the law. Many of the amendments are in areas of the law that affect only the individual, for example access to superannuation, pensions and other financial benefits. Reform to those areas will ensure that same-sex de facto couples and their children are no longer entitled to fewer benefits than others in our society.
Before going into the detail of the legislation I am introducing, I would like to make a comment about reforms to the age of consent. It has been argued that equalising the age of consent for males and females reduces the protection available to young men. The government does not accept this argument. Strong protection for children and young people from the predatory behaviour of adults of either gender is provided by our sexual assault and related laws, and we have taken this opportunity to significantly strengthen Northern Territory criminal law in that area.
The government is also persuaded that a higher age of consent for young men in fact led to higher health and suicide risks, with young men reluctant to seek help for fear of being reported for a breach of the law. The reforms we are introducing today achieve an appropriate balance. They address those serious concerns about the impacts of the current law and strengthen the laws that protect children and young people against predatory adults of any persuasion.
These reforms will ensure equality before the law for all Territorians, no matter what their sexuality, and will bring the Territory into line with the rest of Australia.
There are three main parts to this bill. The first part reforms the Criminal Code to provide equal outcomes for sexual offences, regardless of whether the victim is male or female, and to increase protection of young people against predatory adults. The second part removes and improves laws in the Territory that discriminate against Territorians on the basis of their sexuality. The third part, a range of amendments, will ensure people of same-sex relationships have the same rights and obligations under Territory law as married persons, providing equality to all people in de facto relationships, particularly Territorians in gay and lesbian relationships. For too long, gay and lesbian people have been denied access to the same legal rights and protections provided to heterosexual Territorians, and gay and lesbian people in other states and territories.
I will now move onto the specific amendments contained in the bill; first, those related to sexuality. These reforms principally involve amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act that will create more appropriate exemptions than operate effectively to protect children from paedophiles and sexual predators.
Section 37 of the Anti-Discrimination Act currently provides that a person may discriminate on the basis of sexuality in areas of work if the work involves the care and education of children, and the discrimination in necessary to protect the wellbeing of the children. This type of provision supports the erroneous myth that homosexual people have a predatory attitude to young people and are more likely to commit paedophilia. In addition, it fails to address the possibility of abuse by heterosexual people and, in this way, does not provide sufficient protection for children. Nobody can suggest that all paedophiles are homosexual. That is not only a discriminatory assumption, but a dangerous one. A more equitable and effective way of vetting employees and ensuring protection of vulnerable people is to replace the current section with one that will allow an employer to discriminate against a potential employee on the basis of his or her criminal record. Employers can already require a criminal history check of any potential employee, but this only includes records of any actual findings of guilt against the person that have not been spent. The proposed extension will cover what is known as ‘irrelevant criminal record’ and includes the criminal record of a person that would otherwise be spent, findings of not guilty, and circumstances where criminal charges were laid but not proceeded with.
It is not just children who must be protected from potential abuse from workers. There are other vulnerable people who should be protected in this way. New section 37 defines a vulnerable person as including children, aged persons, and persons with physical and intellectual disability. This new section will provide more effectively for the protection of a wider range of vulnerable people.
Consequential to this, amendments to the Criminal Records (Spent Convictions) Act are required so as to allow for the release of those irrelevant criminal records by police. Section 15(a) is to be inserted and is carefully drafted to ensure that the records can only be released specifically for the purposes of section 37 of the Anti-Discrimination Act; that is, in order to work principally with the care, instruction and supervision of vulnerable people. I would also like to stress that these records can only be released at the request of the person who is the subject of the record. A potential employer cannot access these records without the consent of the potential employee.
The other aspect of the sexuality amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act relates to the unnecessarily wide exemptions currently given to religious bodies. The amendments we are proposing are not intended to impact on any church’s freedom of religion; they are about balancing this freedom against the right of Territorians to protection from discrimination. This government recognises and strongly supports the right of religious institutions to practise their faith without restriction and according to their beliefs and tenets. However, the current exemption for religious bodies under section 51 of Anti-Discrimination Act is unnecessarily wide. It exempts all religious bodies from the operation of the act in every respect, from sexuality to race to pregnancy to age and more, in relation to ordination, training and so on of priests, ministers of religion and other people appointed to perform church functions. It also exempts religious bodies in relation to any act done in accordance with the doctrine of religion, necessary to avoid offending the religious sensitivities of members. The concern is that the scope of the current exemption is inappropriate and unnecessary, given that many religious bodies receive government funding to perform activities that are not strictly religious such as providing crisis accommodation.
There is no reason why religious organisations should be exempt from what would otherwise be unlawful discrimination in areas in which non-religious organisations providing the same non-religious services are liable for unlawful discrimination. As I stated earlier, there is no intention to affect the right of freedom of religion. Therefore, the proposed amendment to section 51 will make no changes in relation to appointment, training or ordination of persons to perform religious functions; it only modifies the exemption slightly to restrict it in relation to other acts by religious bodies to matters of religious observance only.
There was some fear expressed to me that these changes would affect the rights of religious schools to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or religious belief when employing teachers in religious schools. It is understood that in our community of religious schools, there is concern that teachers who have different religious beliefs or attitudes to sexuality from those taught by the religious school may impact negatively on the ability of the school to impart the teachings of the religion to its students. New section 37(a) will provide exemptions to religious schools to enable them to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or religious belief where employing persons to work in the institution. The discrimination must be in good faith and for the purposes of avoiding offence to the religious sensitivities of the people of that particular religion.
Before leaving this area, I would like to stress that these exemptions do not stop any religious school from employing teachers of a different religion, or homosexual teachers. Schools have the freedom to set their own policies in that regard.
I now turn to the amendments relating to de facto relationships. These are by far the majority of the reforms contained in the bill as they have required consequential amendments to all Territory laws that make provisions in relation to married or de facto persons. For the first time, these changes make the law consistent in its application to relationships across the Territory. For the main part, the biggest impact of the changes will be felt by the gay and lesbian community, however, there are various Territory laws that currently discriminate against all de facto relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual, which will also be addressed. This includes Aboriginal traditional marriages, which are currently catered for in some legislation but are conspicuously absent in others.
I am very proud to be introducing these reforms today to recognise gay and lesbian relationships. As a government, our job is to ensure equality for all Territorians and for too long, gay and lesbian people have been ignored in our statute books. Equality before the law is a fundamental right, but until now, gay and lesbian Territorians have not enjoyed the same rights as their fellow Territorians or as gay and lesbian men and women in other parts of the country. These amendments will allow gay and lesbian people to be full and equal participants in our society. By giving gay and lesbian relationships recognition under Territory law, it is not just people in same-sex relationships who will benefit from these reforms; it is society as a whole.
Children in same-sex families will benefit from greater protection as their non-biological parents’ rights and responsibilities towards their children would be recognised and enforceable. The same financial obligations and liabilities of married people will be imposed on people in de facto relationships in the same way as married people, and society will benefit from greater participation and greater tolerance. It is a step towards reducing the stigmatisation felt by young gay people, which research shows can lead to mental illness and suicide.
The main vehicle for effecting this change across the Territory is through changes to the De facto Relationships Act, particularly the definition of what constitutes a de facto relationship. The De facto Relationships Act currently provides for a legal mechanism for the recognition of the property rights of de facto partners and the division of property after the breakdown of a de facto relationship.
It also provides for de facto partners to make certain legal agreements relating to financial matters between the partners and ex-partners. Unlike the case of a marriage breakdown, de facto couples cannot seek legal redress through the Family Court in relation to division of joint property. At the moment, the definition of a de facto relationship under that act is quite narrow and applies only to relationships of two people living together as husband and wife on a bona fide domestic basis. The definition therefore excludes same-sex relationships and Aboriginal traditional marriages where the parties to the marriage do not live in the same household.
Arguably, it may also exclude people who still consider themselves to be in a committed monogamous relationship, but who, due to financial reasons or job opportunities, maintain separate households, for example where one of the partners works at a mine or in a remote community and the other lives in town.
We propose to insert a more flexible definition to section 3(a) of the De Facto Relationships Act that can be applied across the board to a wide range of personal relationships that exist in the Territory. The proposed definition is gender non-specific and provides that de facto relationship is a marriage-like relationship between two persons. Section 3(a)(2) then goes on to specify, when determining if a de facto relationship exists, all the circumstances of the relationship must be taken into account, including relevant matters that are specifically listed in the legislation. These include matters such as the duration of the relationship, whether a sexual relationship exists, the degree of financial dependence or inter-dependence and the public aspects of the relationship. Is not an automatic bar if one of the matters on the list is not present, but the presence of any matter will go towards establishing the existence of a de facto relationship. In case there is any doubt, it is also proposed to include 3(a)(3), which expressly states that it is not relevant when determining the existence of a relationship whether the persons are of the same or opposite sex, they are married to another person, or they are in another de facto relationship.
This definition to be applied in to the De Facto Relationships Act will, for the first time in the Territory, give gay and lesbian people a mechanism in the courts to resolve property disputes with their ex-partners. Until now, the non-financial contributions of a same-sex partner to a relationship cannot be recognised in the same way as marriage or heterosexual de facto relationships. This could lead in some cases to a non-working partner not being able to obtain an appropriate property settlement. Their contributions to the relationship, such as home improvements or domestic support to the other party while they work in a highly paid demanding job, is under-recognised and cannot be practically enforced in a property settlement.
Whilst there are other ways to settle disputes over property division, these are more complex and costly than the De Facto Relationships Act. Property reform for same-sex relationships is long overdue, but the reforms do not stop here. The new definition of de facto will apply across the board to all Northern Territory legislation. The Interpretation Act is being amended to provide that unless there is an express contrary intention, where the term ‘de facto’ or ‘de facto relationship’ is used in any act, or legislation under any act enacted by this parliament, the definition under the De Facto Relationships Act will apply. Wherever ‘de facto’ appears, it will include same-sex as well as heterosexual relationships.
To clarify the position in relationship to Aboriginal traditional marriages, the Interpretation Act will also provide that wherever there is a reference to terms such as marriage, spouse, husband and wife, they are to be read as including Aboriginal traditional marriages.
The De Facto Relationships Act was enacted in 1991. The act purported to give equal treatment under Territory law to heterosexual de facto relationships as were given to married relationships. The method of providing for that reform was that at the same time to include references to de facto where necessary throughout each relevant item of legislation. Consequently, a definition of de facto was also inserted into each relevant item of the legislation.
For these new reforms, that approach has been rejected. A separate definition in each act is cumbersome and unnecessary. It is much simpler to provide for one definition in the De Facto Relationships Act, and apply it across the board. Moreover, it will apply the term automatically to any future acts of the Territory. If another interpretation is intended, it will have to be very clearly expressed and specifically justified.
You will note the vast array of amendments to acts, regulations, rules and even community government schemes. These are essentially amendments needed to remove the old definition of de facto throughout the statute books and replace them with the new terminology.
As mentioned earlier, there are some existing laws which have failed to recognise any form of de facto relationship. In those cases, these reforms will ensure that the de facto partners and relationships are dealt with under Territory law in the same way as marriage. These reforms are not as wide-ranging as those related to same-sex de facto relationships, but are necessary if we are going to successfully implement our policy of providing equality of treatment for all personal relationships in the Territory.
For example, some of the amendments needed in this regard were to acts related to statutory pensions provided to judges and administrators on retirement. In addition, spouses of judges and administrators are entitled to a part of the pension if they are widowed. At the moment, the Administrators Pensions Act and the Supreme Court (Judges Pensions) Act restrict the payment of part pension only to spouses and widows of judges. As these terms are interpreted consistently with the legal definition of marriage, de facto spouses and same-sex partners would arguably not be entitled in the same way as legally married spouses to access the part pension on the death of their partner. As with other Territorians, judges and administrators are entitled to make the same choices as to the types of personal relationships they enter. Territory legislation needs to recognise and provide for this. The reforms therefore include amendments to these acts to allow for the part pension to be paid to the surviving de facto partner in the same way as it is paid to a widow.
An additional amendment has been included in these cases for the situations where there is both a surviving de facto partner and a wife and husband to whom the judge or administrator is still legally married. In these cases, the de facto who has been in an exclusive relationship with the judge or administrator for two years will be entitled to the part pension. In any other case, the wife or husband will be eligible.
The de facto reforms will also function to remove discriminatory effects on some children under Territory law. At the moment, the lack of recognition of gay and lesbian relationships in Northern Territory law not only discriminates against men and women in homosexual relationships, but it also discriminates on many levels against the interests of children raised by same-sex parents. A significant aspect of the reforms relates to the recognition of parentage of a lesbian partner in very limited circumstances. The proposed amendments to the Status of Children Act create a presumption of parentage in relation to IVF children in lesbian families. The consenting non-biological female parent in a lesbian family will be presumed to be the parent. However, I would like to stress that this will not affect the parental obligations or rights of a biological father in situations where the mother enters into a later lesbian relationship. If there is a father with an interest in the child, this will not be affected. The aim of this amendment is purely to give IVF children in lesbian families the benefits and protections of two parents, which would otherwise not be available. These children then will not be disadvantaged or discriminated against as a result of the person they perceive as their parent being denied legal recognition under Northern Territory law. It will provide such children with the same level of security, both financial and personal, as other children should either of their parents die.
Looking at Northern Territory legislation generally, it does not recognise the relationships between children raised in same-sex families and their non-biological parents. As a result, both the children of same-sex couples and same-sex parents are discriminated against in a number of other statutes such as the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which regulates compensation for injury arising from mental or nervous shock; the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act; the Police Administration Act; the Work Health Act; the Family Provision Act; and the Taxation Administration Act.
A child would normally have an expectation that they would be entitled to ongoing support from the parent that the child is dependent upon. As the law is currently drafted, a child raised by same-sex parents is not always entitled to rely on this support. While children in heterosexual families can look to their step-parents for support, children in same-sex families do not have the same level of protection. Under the current law, there are certain benefits and rights that children of heterosexual couples are entitled to access that are not fully accessible by children of same-sex parents. For example, a child being supported by same-sex parents will not be eligible to access compensation under the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act or the Crimes (Victims Assistance) Act in relation to an accident or offence suffered by their non-biological or non-adoptive parent.
Another area that currently discriminates against such children is in the area of succession and intestacy. The Family Provisions Act provides for family members of a deceased person to apply for adequate provisions under the deceased’s personal estate if they feel that they have been inadequately provided for. A stepchild of a person is entitled to apply to a court if they were maintained immediately prior to the person’s death. Without clarification of this term to include the same-sex step parents, this would be interpreted to mean a child from a married or heterosexual de facto relationship. In addition, neither the same-sex partner or the child of a same-sex partner is entitled to a portion of the estate of their stepchild or step parent under the Administration and Probate Act where they die intestate. This is the case even if the partner or child was being fully supported by the intestate person. This could result in an incongruous situation that a remote relative is entitled to the estate over the deceased person’s dependant child.
To address these situations, a new definition of ‘stepchild’ has been inserted into the Interpretation Act, which defines the term to include a child of the person’s de facto partner. Now that the term ‘de facto’ includes same-sex partners, stepchild will include the child of a person’s same-sex de facto partner. This definition will now apply across all Territory legislation, the effect of which is to provide that the non-biological parent in a same-sex relationship is essentially treated under the law in the same manner as any other step parent.
As you can see, the reforms are addressing a wide range of discriminatory treatment under Territory law. Other areas also being addressed in relation to same-sex relationships include the provision of equal access to financial benefits. These reforms relate to schemes that entitle a person to compensation as a result of accident or criminal offence. Under these schemes, such as the Compensation (Fatal Injuries) Act, a married spouse or heterosexual partner can be eligible to apply as a dependant of the injured or deceased person. However, same-sex partners are excluded. The Stamp Duty Act will also be reformed so that exemptions will also apply in relation to property settlements between separated same-sex de facto partners.
Reforms in the area of intestacy and inheritance are also being addressed. These relate the management of the estate of the deceased person and the distribution of property when the person dies intestate. These will have the effect of ensuring that the same-sex partners are recognised and have the same entitlements under the estate as a widow or widower.
Similarly, reforms are proposed in relation to the management of personal affairs such as under the Adult Guardianship Act and the Aged and Infirm Persons’ Property Act, providing mechanisms for the care of people who become unable to manage their own affairs and protect the property of a person suffering from a disability. Currently, same-sex partners are not expressly recognised as relatives, are not entitled to apply for a protection order, and are not entitled to apply for assistance as dependants.
The Territory legislation relating to issues of human dignity and medical treatment were also identified as requiring reform. The relevant acts deal with issues such as consent to medical treatment, organ donation, post mortems and autopsies, and applications for exhumations. Currently, same-sex partners do not have an automatic right to consent to their partner’s emergency operation or organ donation in the same way as other spouses.
With the granting of the new benefits and rights also come new liabilities and obligations that are imposed on married and de facto heterosexual couples. The granting of rights to homosexual persons in other areas should be dependent on the imposition of other liabilities and obligations that already fall on heterosexual persons. The exclusion of homosexual relationships from some legislation may allow members of same-sex partnerships to access preferential loans, grants and licences from which they would be otherwise ineligible; for example, where their partner has already accessed the first home owner’s grant. This position has, in the past, prevented relevant authorities from properly assessing the assets and suitability of applicants. There are also many acts that impose an obligation on applicants for certain licences to disclose any relevant interests of their spouse and de facto partner, which does not currently include same-sex partners.
There are also provisions for members of certain boards or organisations, such as the Board of the Territory Insurance Office, to disclose the financial and other interests held by them or their associates, which include married spouses and de facto partners but does not include same-sex partners. This real and potentially damaging lack of accountability in relation to same-sex couples will be addressed in the reforms.
Other rights that are currently denied to same-sex couples, which are now being granted, include the right under the Police Administration Act to be informed if their partner is being held in custody. It is currently only applicable to married and heterosexual partners. The Mining Act and the Aboriginal Land Act automatically give limited rights to married spouses and de facto heterosexual partners of licences and permit holders. These rights are not given to same-sex partners.
You will note in Division 7 of Part 4 of the bill a list of application provisions. These are required to apply the new definitions of de facto, spouse and stepchild. Generally, under section 31 of the bill the new definitions will apply to de facto relationships in existence at the time of the commencement of the reforms and to relationships that come into existence after that date. However, this general application provision is not appropriate for every act and so specific application provisions were required in some cases. For example, where the acts were dependent on the death of the person, such as the Administration and Probate Act or the Compensation (Fatal Injuries) Act, an application provision was required to clarify that the reforms only applied to a death that occurred after the commencement of the reforms.
This is just an overview of the legislation being amended in relation to de facto relationships. The bulk of the amendments dealing with the relationship reforms are contained in Schedules 1 and 2. These amendments are quite straightforward and repetitive. I will not go through each amendment individually as they are too numerous to mention in a second reading speech.
I now turn to Part 2 of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003, which makes amendments to Territory law relating to gender. The bulk of the changes are to the Criminal Code. These include equalising the age of consent for males and females and toughening up the offences relating to sexual intercourse and activity with children, otherwise known as carnal knowledge offences by increasing the penalties, creating some new offences and tightening up inappropriate defences. There were gaps that needed to be addressed as they failed to adequately protect boys from unlawful sexual intercourse. Currently, for some offences the Code applies different penalties, depending on the gender of the victim and/or offender. This is inappropriate and inequitable. Every child, regardless of their gender or the gender of the person committing an offence against them, is entitled to the same level of protection from the law.
Equalising the age of consent for both sexes will ensure equity between the sexes under the law for consensual sex and toughening our sexual assault laws will protect all young people from predatory adults and close the loopholes that fail to adequately protect boys from unlawful sexual intercourse. The age of consent and child sexual offences, or carnal knowledge offences, are contained in Division 2 of Part V of the Criminal Code. Subdivision 2 of this division, entitled Other Offences Against Morality, has been completely overhauled. Although there is currently no specific provision in the Northern Territory legislation expressly creating a respective age of consent for males and females, the cumulative effect of Criminal Code offences created by sections 127, 128 and 129, which deal with sexual intercourse with children, is that, while either gender can legally consent to engage in heterosexual sex, and for females lesbian sex, at 16 years, a male must be 18 years of age before they can consent to engage in male homosexual sex.
Currently, the effect of these provisions is not only to create a different age of consent, but fails to protect our male children. For example, section 128 assumes that a male child who has homosexual sex will do so consensually and is not a victim, while a female under 16 years who has sexual intercourse is a victim. This could see young boys who are the victim of sexual assault by another male also being criminally liable, an obviously unacceptable situation. There is an offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency involving females under 16, but no similar offence to protect males. The changes we are making will remove these anomalies.
The bill therefore proposes to repeal sections 127, 128 and 129 and replace them with one general offence of having sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16, regardless of the gender of the child or the perpetrator.
At the same time, the penalties have been increased, sending the message to potential offenders that the community will not tolerate sexual interference with our children. Currently, the maximum penalty for a general offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency with a child is seven years imprisonment where the child is over 14, and 14 years imprisonment where the child is under the age of 14. The maximum penalty for the general offence is being increased to 16 years imprisonment.
We are introducing new aggravated offences, which will attract an even higher level of penalty. In circumstances where the child is particularly vulnerable, the penalty will increase to 20 years imprisonment. These circumstances include where the offender is in the company of others, the child is under the authority of the offender, the child has a serious disability, or the child is affected by drugs or alcohol. Where the child is under the age of 10, the maximum penalty is 25 years. The lower age of the victim is regarded as a factor of aggravation in itself.
These penalties are amongst the toughest in the nation. This government is committed to protecting our children from abuse. This approach to increasing penalties generally has been applied consistently across all child sexual intercourse offences in Subdivision 2 of Division 2 of Part V. The penalties related to the section 130 offence of sexual intercourse or gross indecency by the provider of disability support services to the mentally ill or handicapped person have been revised to specifically provide for offences involving children.
Currently, if a carer had sexual relationships with a child in his or her care, he or she could be prosecuted under section 130 and would have been liable to receive a maximum penalty of only seven years, the same penalty that applies to an offence against an adult. There was no recognition of the greater level of seriousness if the offence was committed against a child. The bill addresses this deficiency by inserting higher penalties where the victim is a child and where the victim is under the age of 10 years. The penalties of 20 years and 25 years respectively reflect the penalties of aggravated carnal knowledge.
Section 131A creates the offence of maintaining a relationship of a sexual nature with a child. The penalties for this offence are graduated in the sense that if the relationship an actual sexual offence, it will attract a higher penalty, currently 14 years or life imprisonment, depending on the nature of the offence. These maximum penalties are being increased to 20 years and life. The types of offences that will attract life imprisonment if committed as part of an ongoing sexual relationship with a child include coerced sexual self-manipulation and attempted rape causing grievous bodily harm.
The penalties in the section 132 offence of ‘indecent dealing with a child under the age of 16 years’ are also being increased as they are considered to be inadequate and not reflective of the seriousness of the offences that section covers. Currently, the general maximum penalty is five years imprisonment, increasing to 10 years if the victim is under 12 years, a lineal descendant or under the offender’s care.
Section 132 is aimed at indecent dealings which are less than ‘gross indecency’ but still of a sexual nature. Such activities could include touching a child inappropriately, showing pornography to a child, taking indecent photographs of a child or talking in a sexual manner to a child. These are obviously very serious offences, but not as serious as sexual intercourse or gross indecency. The penalties are being increased to 10 years imprisonment for a general offence and 14 years imprisonment if the child is under 10 years of age.
This government is concerned that child sexual intercourse offences in the Criminal Code are not enough to completely protect our young people from predatory behaviour in some adults. Therefore, a new offence is being inserted in section 128 of the Code, which will apply to sexual intercourse or gross indecency involving a child over the age of 16 but who is under the offender’s special care. This offence is in addition to the ‘carnal knowledge’ offence as it applies to child victims who are of the age of consent but are still perceived as vulnerable because of their age and relationship to the offender.
Despite being legally able to engage in sexual relationships, young persons aged 16 and 17 can still be emotionally vulnerable and easily influenced. They still need to be protected from predatory behaviour by adults who could take advantage of their youth and inexperience, particularly from persons in authority who can easily exploit their position in order to take advantage of children.
The new offence will apply to offenders who are step parents or guardians, school teachers, custodial officers, health professionals and other personal instructors, such as sporting coaches. By creating an offence in respect of these relationships, the proposed offence appropriately recognises the power imbalances that can exist in these types of relationships and how adults can exploit them.
However, in recognition of the fact that these young persons are otherwise of the age of consent, the penalties are lower than for ‘carnal knowledge’. If the young person is 16 years of age, the maximum penalty is eight years imprisonment, and four years imprisonment if the young person is 17 years of age. As a young person who is 16 or 17 can legally marry with the consent of the court, a defence is provided where the victim and the offender are in a married or in a de facto relationship.
You will also note that other defences have been either amended or inserted throughout the subdivision, for example the defence in section 127(4) that the child was actually of or above the age of 14 years, and the accused believed, on reasonable ground, that the child was of or above the age of 16 years. Currently, there is a much wider defence available to perpetrators of child sex offences. The current defence is that the accused believed on reasonable grounds that the child was of or above the age of 16 in the case of a girl, or was an adult in the case of a boy. The current defence is too wide, because it will be pleaded by a perpetrator, regardless of the actual age of the child, and therefore it discourages potential offenders from making the proper inquiries. Where there is a doubt, the onus should be on the adult to make sure that the person is not under the age of consent. The tighter defences are being inserted into sections 127, 130, 131, 131A and 132, and will provide a higher level of protection for children.
It is also proposed to entirely remove another existing defence. This is the defence that the parties to the act are married. This defence currently operates through the requirement that child sex offences involve ‘unlawful’ sexual activity. For the purposes of subdivision 2 only, ‘unlawful’ means that the parties are not husband and wife. However, the Commonwealth Marriage Act does not permit marriage of a child under the age of 16. The defence appears to have been included in 1983, where it was still possible to get a court approval to marry under the age of 16 years. This has not been the case since 1991.
Further, because the definition of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ in section 1 of the Code includes an Aboriginal marriage ‘according to tribal custom’, it has become clear that the otherwise defunct carnal knowledge defence available to a husband of a girl under 16 could be invoked in the case of customary marriage. It is significant that indigenous women’s organisations and child protection organisations have spoken out against traditional marriage being used to mitigate or excuse sexual offences committed against children. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission’s Social and Physical Wellbeing Committee supports the principle that in a conflict between customary law and criminal law, the interests of the child must come first, and that was in a media release on 16 May 2003. The availability of such a defence is also inconsistent with international human rights standards. These include Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that states must take all appropriate legislative measures to protect a child from all forms of physical and mental abuse. Additionally, Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women states that the betrothal and marriage of a child shall have no legal effect.
The defence is also arguably inconsistent with the Northern Territory Community Welfare Act, which provides for the protection of children from sexual abuse or exploitation. For these reasons, we have removed the defence altogether by repealing the definition of ‘unlawful’ in section 126, and are making amendments throughout subdivision 2 to omit all references to ‘unlawful’ or ‘unlawfully’. This government does not condone child sexual abuse in any circumstances.
The offences in sections 201 and 202 also needed to be addressed. The offence created by section 201 is the offence of taking or enticing away or detaining a child under the age of 16 with the intention that he or another shall have sexual intercourse with the child, or that that child shall be indecently dealt with or exposed to indecent behaviour. The offence contains the defence of being married to the child or having the consent of that child’s mother, father or other persons having a lawful care or charge of the child. Like the defence to carnal knowledge offences, this defence is offensive and inconsistent with the basis of human rights of the children to be protected from all kinds of physical and sexual abuse. It will be removed.
Similarly, the offence contained in section 202 of taking a child under 16 years, without consent, out of the custody or protection of that child’s mother, father or other person having the lawful care or charge contains a defence that the person was married to the child. This defence is also being removed.
The separate offences of incest contained in sections 134 and 135 are also being reformed. The current offences are both inequitable and inadequate. The maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment for incest committed by a male is far greater than the penalty for seven years committed by a female. The offences also contain offensive and inappropriate gender assumptions. That is, that a female offender is a submissive participant, while a male offender is the aggressor. Notably, there is also no specific provision for homosexual incest.
I will say it again: every child, regardless of the sex of the person who exploits them, is entitled to the same level of protection under criminal law. The bill, therefore, repeals both incest offences and replaces them with one offence applying equally to male and female victims and perpetrators. The general penalty is 14 years imprisonment. This applies to related adults engaging in sexual intercourse. If the act involves a child under 16 years, the same penalties apply as to other aggravated carnal knowledge offences, that is, 20 years imprisonment if the child is 10 years or over, and 25 years if the child is under 10 years. Section 377 of the Criminal Code, which is the evidentiary provision relating to the proof of the closed family relationship in an incest offence, is also replaced to be gender-inclusive.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the minister be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Acting Speaker, there are a range of other minor consequential amendments to the Criminal Code and Sentencing Act as a result of the changes we are making. These include changing cross-references throughout the Code where the offence numbers have been changed or omitted. There are also various amendments to the Code which include the new definition of ‘de facto’, which will apply across the board to all Territory legislation, and which I have already discussed.
Equality of treatment of gay and lesbian Territorians under the law provides self–respect, reduces stigmatisation, and promotes full participation in our community. We want to send a strong message that it is not acceptable to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their sexuality. Our statute books will not legitimise such discrimination. Our aim in government is to create a more tolerant and understanding society, and our role as government is to take that lead. The reforms that I have presented today reflect this government’s committed approach to promoting and ensuring a Territory that is free of discrimination and protects its citizens to the fullest extent. I am proud to be introducing two bills that give gay and lesbian people rights and protection denied to them for so long.
Before finishing, I acknowledge the work of the Darwin Community Legal Service in their submission entitled Equality Before the Law that was released in May 2002. Many of the reforms here today are based on recommendations contained in that submission. I thank the service for the wide consultation and work put into that submission. It was very helpful to us in developing our reforms. I am very proud of the reforms in this package of legislation that will toughen up laws protecting children from sexual abuse. Toughening up our sexual assault laws will protect all young people from predatory adults and close the loopholes that fail to adequately protect children from unlawful sexual intercourse.
Mr Acting Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
DE FACTO RELATIONSHIPS (NORTHERN TERRITORY REQUEST) BILL
(Serial 182)
(Serial 182)
- Bill presented and read a first time.
The purpose of the Commonwealth Powers (De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 is to request that the Commonwealth legislate for the Territory in relation to the division of property and other financial resources on the breakdown of a de facto relationship. It is proposed to request this in relation to both heterosexual and same-sex relationships.
This is intended to allow property disputes on the breakdown of defacto relationships to be dealt with under the Commonwealth Family Law Act in the same manner as property disputes resulting from a marriage breakdown. This bill reflects a decision made by state and territory Attorneys-General through the National Sanding Committee of Attorneys-General. The bill is based on a model bill approved in that forum. Similar bills have been introduced in New South Wales and Queensland, with the rest of the jurisdictions to follow shortly, other than Western Australia, which has its own state Family Court.
There are various advantages to the Commonwealth dealing with property settlements for de facto relationships. First, it will provide for all property settlements regarding a relationship breakdown to be dealt with consistently and efficiently. Second, there will no longer be a barrier to matters relating to children and property being dealt with in the same court. Third, the new provisions contained in the Family Law Act allowing for the court to split superannuation entitlements in order to arrive at a more equal property settlement can be accessed by persons in de facto relationships as well.
You may wonder why we are amending the Territory’s De Facto Relationships Act if de facto property settlements are going to be referred to the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, at this stage the Commonwealth has indicated that it is not prepared to accept referrals from the states and requests from the territories in relation to same-sex de facto relationships. The Commonwealth holds to the view that same-sex relationships do not deserve the same level of recognition as heterosexual relationships and that it is acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality in this case.
The Territory and the other Australian states and territories are not willing to endorse that position. Accordingly, the De Facto Relationships (Northern Territory Request) Bill 2003 includes a request in relation to same-sex de facto relationships despite the Commonwealth government’s refusal. The requests will remain there until a Commonwealth government that is willing to take the stand against discrimination agrees to legislate for same-sex persons. Until then, property settlements relating to gay and lesbian relationships will have to be dealt with under the Territory’s De Facto Relationships Act.
Mr Acting Speaker I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
ASSOCIATIONS BILL
(Serial 174)
(Serial 174)
- Continued from 20 August 2003.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Mr Acting Speaker, I can indicate that, having looked at this bill in some detail, there are parts of which we are supportive and other parts that we do no support.
It may be that during the committee stage, some things can be clarified. What I thought I would do, and this is essentially for the benefit of the minister and his advisors, is to touch upon some of the matters that we have difficulty with so that they can think about those things prior to committee, although we may well have the benefit of the luncheon adjournment.
In any event, having made that introduction I will make the following points. The Attorney-General said in his second reading speech on 20 August that there were approximately 1700 incorporated associations in the Northern Territory. At the same time, he said 200 copies of the draft act were distributed. I would like to know why only 200 copies were distributed when there are 1700 incorporated associations.
The Attorney-General noted that seminars were held around the Territory and that they were well received. We would like to know whether they were well attended, and how confident is the Attorney-General and government that all of the 1700 incorporated associations were advised and are aware of these changes.
I received advice late last week from one association in particular that a representative, as I understand it, from the Justice Department attended their meeting last Thursday. I am told that the representatives of that association did not know that changes were proposed to the Associations Act. In the alternative, they say if they were sent something, then they certainly did not know the extent of it and they felt that on the Thursday night the week before this would come up again in parliament, they did not think that was very satisfactory.
I raise that because it is one example of which I know. Presumably there are others, and it is a legitimate concern for me to raise.
I also noticed in the second reading speech that the Attorney-General said the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs would be conducting information and training sessions for members, office bearers, accountants and so on, advising of the requirements of the new legislation and provide education programs to enable them to meet their accountabilities. I would like to know whether additional resources have been put aside for that purpose, as presumably more will be required and, again, have the associations been advised of the possibility of the education campaigns?
Getting down to the parts of the bill specifically, in relation to Part 2, clause 5, we note that the commissioner may exempt the association or an officer from the association from an obligation to comply with a provision of the act. We are concerned that there is no criteria at all, simply that the commissioner can exempt an association or a person. We would submit that without any legislative guidance, that is extremely unwise and borders on the bizarre.
We note that in clause 10, the commissioner is obliged to give reasons for a refusal to issue a Certificate of Incorporation, but in light of clause 5, there being no criteria as to why the commissioner can exempt an association, we see that as somewhat being in conflict and in some respects just not making any sense. The only assistance provided in respect of clause 5 is that in the event that any subsequent legal proceedings arise, lawyers may well have the opportunity or may explore the inclination to look at the second reading speech, and they will note that the Attorney-General says:
- This may be particularly important for a number of indigenous organisations which have been formed for the
sole purpose of holding native title to land.
If that is the only situation government thinks there might be for an exemption, then we would submit that it should say so in the bill and should not leave it open, as there may well be troublesome consequences and, further, in the absence of any legislative guidance, there is a lot of power to be vested in the commissioner. Again, we think that may well have troublesome consequences.
In relation to clause 5(3), similarly there is no …
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I wonder if the member for Araluen could speak up a bit. I am finding it hard to hear. I am sure they are over there, too. Just bellow.
Ms CARNEY: Fair dinkum? Similarly, there is no guidance as to the circumstances in which the Commissioner may revoke or vary an extension or an exemption. I urge the Attorney-General to rethink that. It is not that it is opposed per se; it is just that it could be drafted better. There is an underlying theme. That is, in the absence of legislative guidance in some of these causes, it is left for others to ponder, and we do not think that that is good enough, given the Attorney-General’s personal commitment to overseeing some improved drafting in legislation in the Northern Territory.
Still in Part 2, clause 6, headed Secrecy, it provides what might be expected in terms of ensuring confidentiality of information obtained or provided to the commissioner or his or her delegates in the course of their employment. However, for reasons that were, interestingly, not outlined or touched upon in the second reading speech, an exception is provided in the case of court proceedings which, of course, is reasonable, but an exception is also provided so that the commissioner or delegates can – and I quote - ‘produce a document or divulge a communication’ to the minister, the Treasurer, the minister administering the Local Government Act, and the Commissioners of Police and Taxes, along with some others who might be deemed by the commissioner to be in the public interest. That is, associations have some form of security in the knowledge that the commissioner or his delegates treat their information confidentially. I have tried to undertake a search and I have not found any other legislation where this exists. That is, we will keep all of your information secret, however we will include a clause that says we can tell members of the government if we think it is in the public interest. That is very concerning. The question is: why is that necessary? Might it not create the impression that there could be some level of politicisation of associations?
In relation to Part 3, which covers clauses 8 to 26, it is the case that not all of the part is unreasonable. However, the opposition is concerned about the abolition of the need to advertise, and thereby await objections from members of the public. There are provisions that ensure that people who have been convicted of dishonesty offences and so on, as outlined in Part 4, given those, one would have thought that a notice in the local paper would in some way assist that objective. Although only one name usually appears in the ads that all of us see in the classifieds when organisations seek to incorporate, the advertising at least notifies the community of the fact that a person seeks to start up an association and now, under this proposed legislation, that process is a long way away from public gaze. We ask why was it deemed necessary to dispense with the requirement for incorporated associations to advertise their intention to commence?
We would argue that it is a good way for people to know what is happening in their community as they might want to join in an association that they think is of interest to them. Alternatively, there may be other associations with similar interests that might like to contact a new association that is being established, but in the absence of the public notice, these opportunities would no longer exist. Also, it takes away the right of Territorians to object if they so wish. I am not sure, minister, how many times it has happened, and I suspect very few, but even if it has never happened, that is, someone objects to an association’s formation, we ask: why is it that government apparently wants to take away that right? We will be asking in the committee stage what the rationale was for that.
Finally, dispensing with the need to advertise a newly-incorporated association seems inconsistent with clause 23(4)(a), which requires an association to give notice of an alteration to its constitution by, ironically, placing an advertisement in a newspaper. Further, it seems inconsistent with clause 44, which provides that, in the case of a tier 3 organisation, it must advertise that its audited accounts are available for inspection. Why was it deemed necessary when, at the same time, on the one hand, government seems to be removing a requirement to advertise an intention to start an association, and then some sections later in the act, there is this thing that pops up, which is a requirement to advertise certain things? It seems inconsistent and curious, although there may well be a sensible explanation.
In the second reading speech, the Attorney-General said, and I am not quoting, but as I understood what he was saying: some organisations could take two years to get their constitution right, that is to comply with the act, if it is a different constitution from the model to be included in the regulations. I have gone through the act, and I cannot find a specific reference to that. I would simply request the Attorney-General or his assistants to go back to the second reading speech. That appears at the bottom of, in my copy, page 2:
- If an association decides to have a different constitution, that constitution must make provision for the matters
set out in clause 21. An association will have two years in which to ensure its constitution complies with the act.
If it is in there, fine. I have looked at it a couple of times; I could not find it. If it is not there and it is not clear, perhaps it could be made clearer. In any event, I await advice on that.
Clause 23(6) is, I submit, very strange indeed. This is subsection of a proposed section to an act of parliament that commences with the word ‘also’. That is not good drafting. I can only assume that the instructions must have been to ask for that because I am not sure that that is an acceptable or common way to start a paragraph in legislation. I raise it on the basis that, again, the Attorney-General is committed to good drafting and coming up with good legislation in terms of its structure. It does not always happen, but when it does, it is great. I can indicate that I have checked with a couple of senior colleagues in the law, and I will not disclose exactly what they said, but it is very strange. Perhaps that can be amended from the floor.
In relation to Part 4, which covers clauses 27 to 40, we have some difficulty, minister, with clause 28. That provides that a fine of 20 penalty units, that is $2200, if a public officer does not provide within 14 days details of full name and address of the committee members or members of the association. It seems harsh. We would like to know what is the rationale behind that. I can also indicate that I have received letters and phone calls from several community organisations that are horrified, it is fair to say, about some of the very high penalties that are included in the bill. I appreciate where the government is coming from in respect of some of them, but there is great concern amongst community organisations that they might be fined anywhere between $2200 to $22 000 for oversights. We all know what committees and organisations are like; sometimes things can go wrong. I will be asking the minister to indicate why very high figures were chosen, and whether he had given any consideration to being a bit more flexible.
We are also concerned as, indeed, are the people to whom I have spoken that these very high penalties place a high onus on volunteers who, we all know, are very thin on the ground. If they think that the future of their association might be at risk because of very high fines imposed for some fairly routine oversights, then there is a concern that has been expressed to me that organisations may not be able to attract volunteers. I undertook to put that argument on the Parliamentary Record.
The same applies, minister, in relation to clause 38. That is that members must ensure that the minutes are signed and confirmed etcetera within, I think, 14 days. There is a penalty of 200 penalty units, that is $22 000. We say that is very harsh. What is the rationale? What was the consultation and what was the feedback? Again, I raise the issue of attracting volunteers to community organisations. We do know that there can be simple mistakes, slip ups and essentially, we are wanting to know whether there was any room to move. If not, why not?
In relation to clause 40, I will be asking in the committee stage how the minister envisages that clause actually working. Does it mean in a practical sense that someone has to come to the notice of the commissioner and, if so, how might that occur? There is a power to investigate associations within this bill and the original act. I know that Consumer Affairs is currently investigating a number of associations, but the question is: how does a disqualified person come to the notice of the commissioner? Might it be in the course of a normal investigation? Is it expected that a community member will ring the commissioner to say: ‘I think there is a disqualified person sitting on our committee’? There are number of possibilities, and we would be appreciative of some answers on that point but we are wanting explore it further.
In relation to the Commissioner of Police, I assume that it includes the commissioner and his or her delegate. If so, why is that not in the bill? In relation to clause 43, there is a fine of 100 penalty units, which I think is $11 000, if a number of things are not done, including if there is not a report signed by two members advising of the name of members of the committee, its principal activities and outlining its nett profit and loss. The fine seems, with respect, completely over the top. Again, it comes back to encouraging people to become involved in associations. If they are looking at fines that could potentially see the undoing or the unravelling of a community organisation, then very few people will become involved. That is not healthy for anyone in the Territory community. Again, I stress that these are concerns that have been put to me. I can foreshadow that the questions we will be asking will be: what was the basis for it? What was the consultation? What was the feedback?
It does appear that an unintended consequence could be that by an act of simple omission, an organisation could be looking at fines that could make an organisation unable to continue to operate. Similarly, in respect of clause 44, a committee must ensure that audited accounts are available for inspection 14 days prior to an annual general meeting. The penalty is 100 units. Again, that seems unreasonable for the reasons I have already outlined.
In relation to clause 45 that says an association must file with the commissioner various documents which are referred to in clause 43(1) within 28 days, there is a penalty of 100 penalty units. That seems excessive. I am wondering whether the minister has considered, or might consider, extending that 28 day period to perhaps 60 days. That has been suggested to me by two associations. They make that point because they say the nature of the material that must be filed is such that it might not always be possible to file those documents within 28 days knowing, as so many of us do, how some associations work. The right person might be away, they might be on holidays. This could have very serious and far reaching consequences. I should say that one of the people who contacted me said, and I quote:
- There are too many logistical things that can go wrong.
We are looking for some answers in respect of those concerns.
In relation to clause 46, Tier 1 Organisations, in the second reading speech, the Attorney-General indicated the indicated the monetary values of the three tiers, but also said that the dollar value would be set out in the regulations. I ask: does he still intend that the values he referred to in the second reading speech will be carried through to the regulations? I would expect a positive answer, but if there is any change, now is the time to tell us.
The Attorney-General also said in the second reading speech that:
- Tier 1 associations may be audited by any person who is not a person of the association.
That is not, on my reading of it at least, what clause 46 actually says, which is:
- A Tier 1 incorporated association must ensure its accounts are audited by a person who is not a member of the
association, not a partner, employer, employee of a member of the association, is not a partner of an employee
of a member of the association …
and so on, and there is a penalty of 100 penalty units. We are slightly confused, and it may just be a typo or an oversight, but there seem to be two stories here: one is that Tier 1 associations may be audited by any person who is not a member of the association, yet it specifically says ‘must ensure accounts are audited by a person who is not a member of the association’.
It seems confusing. I have spoken to someone who did attend a briefing. They got the impression that in respect of Tier 1 organisations, they could get a member to audit the books, yet from clause 46 it is clear that no, if you are a member of the association, you cannot audit the books. I will be asking the Attorney-General briefly could he just confirm that he is satisfied with clause 46.
In relation to the proposed income for a Tier 1 association, the second reading speech indicates that it was $25 000 per annum. I have had people contact me to say that they think it should be increased to $50 000. Some of those associations are particularly concerned that if a member of their association cannot audit the books, they will need to have them professionally audited. They could just ask someone who is not a member of the association, or not related to a member of the association, to audit the books, but I do not think that is a very reasonable ask because volunteers are so hard to find and, essentially, the tenor of clause 46 is if you know someone who is prepared to audit the books, they can. That is increasingly difficult for organisations.
What it means, I suspect, and there is concern about this, is that organisations that receive an income of $25 000 or less will be required to obtain the services of an auditor; they will need to employ and auditor. One association has told me that they did a ring around and their advice to me is that auditors can cost between $1500 and $2000. That is not a cost for Tier 2 and Tier 3 associations, but it is a considerable cost to associations with incomes of less than $25 000 per annum.
I would like to know, and I will ask in the Committee stage, what consultation there was on Tier 1 associations; whether the Attorney-General or his department obtained information or feedback from those people who attended briefings or who made submissions, what did they say in relation to a Tier 1 association having an income of $25 000 or less? I have not done an extensive survey, but the comments to me have been consistent in that there seems to be a desire for Tier 1 associations to be associations with an income of $50 000 or less. I will be seeking some information from the Attorney-General as to why it is that he seems to be sticking with a $25 000 income or less for a Tier 1 organisation, and whether the Attorney-General or his officers at any point did consider that a Tier 1 organisation might commence at $50 000 and, if so, what was the rationale for it coming back to $25 000?
A point that a person made to me in respect of the three-tiered associations is that there is presumably going to be a significant difference between the organisations that hold licences under the Gaming Machine Act and those that do not. Was it at any stage contemplated that there could have been four tiers of association? That is, the first one a minimum income of say $25 000 or $50 000. The next, a significantly higher level of income, but a tier would extend to an organisation without a licence under the Gaming Machine Act. Then a third tier relating to an organisation that did hold a licence under the Gaming Machine Act, and then the fourth tier, which is the existing third tier. I know it sounds confusing, but I am sure the minister knows what I mean. There is, I gather, some concern about some associations holding licences under the Gaming Machine Act. It has been expressed to me that that should have perhaps had an influence on the number of tiered associations or, alternatively, the amount of income that will be prescribed in the regulations.
I can indicate that we have no difficulty with Part 6, that is clauses 53 to55.
In relation to Part 7, we note that the Attorney-General said in his second reading speech that, under certain circumstances, the commissioner must take into account matters to be included in the regulations, and that is when considering what associations would become incorporated under the Corporations Act. When dealing with that point in the second reading speech, the Attorney-General said that there would be certain circumstances that the commissioner must take into account, and those circumstances would be included in the regulations. We ask: why could they not be included in the act? Some examples are outlined in the Attorney-General’s second reading speech, but I guess we would say that if you have a fair idea of what they are, why will you not outline them in the act?
In relation to Part 8, that is clauses 64 to 71, we have no difficulty with that part on the basis that it is mostly unchanged from the existing act.
Part 9, dealing with clauses 72 to 92, deals with the winding up area of the Corporations Act. We have no difficulty with that part.
In relation to Part 10, clauses 93 to 100, we do not have difficulty with the clauses. However, we do note that what was omitted from the second reading speech was the commissioner has power to investigate an association. We know that some associations are being investigated. Perhaps the minister could outline in reply why those organisations are being investigated and perhaps give an indication as to how many might be investigated per year and even outline, in general terms, because I appreciate it is sensitive, how some of those investigations are going.
This is what worries people in the community who are members of associations. I have some sympathy for their concerns, and I wonder whether the minister might at least like to give some reassuring words in his reply or, alternatively, perhaps assure us that in the education campaign that is commenced when this bill passes, as it will, that the fears of so many people can be allayed on the basis of various assurances that the Attorney-General will give, or that the Department of Justice can give. Could those assurances be in pamphlets and so on? The bottom line is: we all know how important associations are in the Northern Territory. Almost everyone in this Chamber has been or is a member of an association. We all know people who are on half a dozen committees, and most of those committees are associations. This raft of changes cannot be underestimated in their reach, and it is critically important for all of us in this Chamber to ensure that those who are going to be affected by it, and there are so many, are not concerned; that concerns that have been raised with me, and I can only assume have been raised with government as well, have been dealt with in a sensible and caring way.
Having outlined some of the concerns we have, that is probably helpful to everyone so that they can come back to us. This should not be overly contentious, but the issues we have raised have been raised in good faith, not only from our own reading of the materials, but from phone calls and letters that I have been receiving. I hope we can get through this in a sensible way later on, Mr Acting Speaker.
Debate suspended.
VISITORS
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Year 10 and 11 students from St John’s College, accompanied by their teacher, Stephen Meara. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to you.
Members: Hear, hear!
ASSOCIATIONS BILL
(Serial 174)
(Serial 174)
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I speak in relation to the Associations Bill in my capacity as the shadow minister for both Aboriginal Affairs and Local Government.
In this bill, there are a couple of issues I wish to bring to the attention of the minister particularly about how this bill is intended to operate, how the bill has been operating in the past and what it is intended to achieve.
This bill has a long history in its various forms - Incorporated Associations ordinances go back to the 1890s. The purpose of these Associations acts is to create legal life or standing, into bodies and collectives of people who wish to become more organised in the way that they approach the business of what they do. These organisations can be everything from the local pony club to bridge clubs and those sorts of things. An unincorporated association is not capable of receiving any form of bequest, having any trust property given to it or having contractual capacity. Therefore, when you have clubs you are required to bring a legal reality to those clubs. For that purpose, you need some structure and, for that purpose, the legislature has chosen to create an Associations Bill to give a design to that structure.
The fact is that the Associations Bill or act in the Northern Territory has changed somewhat over time in respect of who has been using. Particularly, it is being used by a lot of Aboriginal communities which have used it to give themselves legal entity. What is the purpose for these Aboriginal communities? It is so that they may receive grants, hold those grants in trust for the people who they serve, their constituency? To add complexity to this dilemma, you have a federal version of the same legislation. Most Aboriginal communities are under the federal version; however, many are still under the auspices of the Northern Territory legislation. That is part of what drives the desire to make amendments to this bill; in fact, introduce a whole new bill into the House.
I am starting to sense, reading through this bill, a tension between the pony club and then organisations which, at the end of the day, have the responsibility to hold and trust and care for millions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds. Where you are going to start seeing this tension play itself into reality is in some of the penalty schedules, which are targeted at those associations that deal with large amounts of money. Those penalty clauses are substantial.
The problem is that you now have a situation where you have a small volunteer group which seeks to create some sort of legal standing for itself for any number of reasons: it can receive bequests, raise money or, for that matter, so it can insure itself. Insurance for an unincorporated association, I believe, is impossible. If not, it is certainly much more difficult than insurance for an incorporated association. The consequence of this is that you have the same penalty and reporting regime hanging over the top of small clubs as well as multimillion dollar organisations. The act tries to address this tension between those two situations by creating tiers of auditing and such like, but the problem is that the act still has to try and cover, basically, from the local bridge club incorporated all the way to multimillion dollar organisations. It is a very broad brush stroke to paint, especially when the structure of the original legislation was never really intended to cover multimillion dollar organisations or Aboriginal governance and the like; it was intended to give legal breath to small associations that needed legal capacity.
Over time, there seems to have been an evolution of reliance on the act, and of course the act was going to struggle as time passed and bigger and bigger organisations came under the coverage of that act. The act would have to respond to that pressure by changing, which is essentially the reason the act is now before this House.
That brings me to one of the issues I wish to raise, and that is the issue in section 5, which gives the commissioner a very broad power. The quote from the minister when introducing the legislation was:
- Of note is the provision permitting the commissioner to exempt an association or an officer of the association
from compliance with a provision of the act or the regulations.
I am a little concerned that that is also a very broad power. The minister explained some of the reasons why the commissioner may choose to give an exemption. In fact, he gave the example of indigenous organisations formed for the sole purpose of holding title to land. I could well understand that there would be good reason for such exemptions to exist. What concerns me, however, is that the courts, should any of these issues ever end up in court, will only turn their attention to the minister’s second reading speech when there is an ambiguity in the legislation itself. Having read the legislation, although the wording seems a bit complex, it is quite straight forward in terms of what it …
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I ask that the member indicate the clause that he is talking about.
Mr Elferink: I am referring to section 5 of the legislation.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, but that is a whole section.
Mr Elferink: Specifically the whole section, but sections 1(a) and 1(b).
Dr TOYNE: You mean clause?
Mr Elferink: For the purposes of the minister, I will concentrate on section 1(b).
Dr TOYNE: Do you mean clause 5, or …
Mr Elferink: Exempt the association or an officer of the association from the obligation to comply …
Dr TOYNE:. I see. It is clause 5. Okay.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, the Attorney-General wants to know to which clause you are referring.
Mr ELFERINK: I am sorry. Clause 5 in the bill.
Dr Toyne: Clause 5, yes. The numbering applies to the clauses.
Mr ELFERINK: Part 2, Administration.
Dr Toyne: After the word ‘administration’.
Mr ELFERINK: Part 2 Administration. It then goes into a …
Dr Toyne: Yes, okay. It is clause 5. If you would refer to the numbers as clauses rather than section, we will know which part of the bill you are talking about.
Mr ELFERINK: I am referring to clause 5, for the sake of the minister …
Dr Toyne: Thank you.
Mr ELFERINK: … and I have now quite lost my thread. The subsection of the clause that allows the Commissioner to exempt an association or an officer of the association from the obligation to comply with a provision of this act or the regulations.
That is a very broad power and is quite unambiguous. I doubt that any court would have to read beyond the section to try to discover what the power is because the power is basically that the commissioner may, by the stroke of an pen, exempt any organisation from complying with the act or complying with its regulations. That may mean non compliance with any section, AGMs, the requirements of having certain structures inside the association. I am concerned that there does not appear, from what I can make out, any reporting system or system by which the public or parliament could scrutinise which organisations have received exemptions.
Bearing in mind that it is the thrust of open, honest and accountable government to have systems by which the processes of governance can be checked, I would be reassured if the minister would be able to tell me during his reply to this debate that there will be checks and balances in place that can come under the scrutiny of the parliament or some other body to make certain that these exemptions, when and if they are granted, are given for good and reasonable causes, which can be checked, most importantly, by the people themselves who become subject of this association’s choices.
In the instance of an indigenous organisation formed for the purpose of holding title, there may be good reason why people who fall within the management of that land may need to know what is happening in their association. There needs to be some process of public review as an addendum to this bill that allows people to check what exemptions are given to which associations, and there should be a public statement of reason.
The problem in the Northern Territory is that there are no processes, effectively, for administrative review. We do not have an Administrative Review Tribunal, nor do we have an administrative review act, so we are entirely on the common law rules of administrative review. As a sweeping generalisation, the common law provides only one major way to review the administrative process and that is the means by which an act can be declared by an administrative function to be ultra vires or beyond its power. With the wording of this clause, I have the impression that there would be very little that would be beyond the power in terms of the commissioner granting these exemptions, so the scope for appeal would be very limited indeed.
Having made those points, I hope that the minister will give us some indication that there will be some sort of reviewing process.
I add my concern in relation to clause 111 of the legislation, because it is a bug bear of mine, the regulatory offences provision. I know that it is a reproduction of what is in the existing act, but the penalties for regulatory offences are generally not considered to be onerous. Where you have 20 penalty units applied to some of these offences, that is $2200 under the current regime, they are fairly serious fines, especially when they are targeted at individuals who are attached to these organisations. Consequently, I ask the minister to reconsider that clause and its effects because it does not strike me as having the flavour of a regulatory offence when there is a $2200 fine attached to it. I hope the minister would allow, through the normal processes of justice, a proper defence to be mounted should a prosecution be pursued.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to support the minister. This bill is overdue and is very important legislation.
I will be concentrating on the Association Bill and its impact on incorporated associations, particularly those that receive funding from the Department of Health and Community Services. There are approximately 1700 associations in the Northern Territory that have been incorporated under the current Associations Incorporation Act. These associations reflect the richness and diversity of interests throughout the community, as well as the commitment of their members to enhance the quality of life within the Northern Territory. Many incorporated bodies offer the community the opportunity to pursue a wide range of sporting, cultural and other special interest activities. Other associations have been formed when a group of people develop and embrace a vision on how they can establish a service in response to the needs of the community.
Within my portfolio, there are now over 120 incorporated associations that receive funding to provide a wide range of health and community services. Each year, this number grows as this government supports further community-based service provision. The entire community benefits by having access to a different and more diverse range of services than those offered by government or commercial enterprises.
It is a big commitment for associations to take on the full responsibility of running a service. When the Associations Incorporation Act was enacted in 1963, it reflected the expectation that incorporated bodies would have a higher level of accountability than groups that met informally. Many of these incorporated associations receive substantial government funding. Incorporation serves as an indicator that the association is committed to meet a higher standard of accountability for the activities it plans to undertake.
Over recent years, a number of these incorporated associations have run into difficulties. I am aware that some of these difficulties are associated with poor governance; a lack of accountability to the membership; conflict of interest; the incursion of debts; and the possibility of insolvency. When an association collapses, I have seen the distress this causes to its members and the community at large. If the association has been providing services in the community, the service recipients also face uncertainty and disruption about future service provision.
I know that better outcomes are achieved if more efforts can focus on preventing the breakdown of an association, instead of making the concerted effort to overcome problems once they have occurred. Over the past few years, my department has made a concerted effort to support and monitor the performance of associations. In addition to this one-on-one assistance, my department has funded the Northern Territory Council of Social Services to implement training and support strategies that promote good governance and cooperate management practices throughout the non-government sector. Although these efforts play an important role in building the capacity of the community, they do not address the issue of outdated legislation that is deficient in dealing with the high level of accountability that we require in 2003. Prior to the introduction of the Associations Bill to parliament, a comprehensive review and consultation process highlighted the deficiencies of the current legislation. This thorough process has resulted in the drafting of new legislation that addresses the unique issues facing associations of the Northern Territory today.
After looking at the new legislation, I would like to comment on several aspects of the Associations Bill that I believe will promote effective governance and management practices right from the start, and groups start to think about what it means to an incorporated body. First, I would like to comment on the language used in the new legislation. The plain English wording of the Associations Bill is easy to read and will help associations to understand their responsibilities as an incorporated body. This will be particularly helpful for small associations, and associations whose members do not speak English as their first language.
In addition, the Associations Bill has simplified requirements for associations. For example, the incorporation process will allow associations to incorporate more quickly and will incur less expense. Features such as this support community development endeavours by allowing associations to concentrate their expertise and resources on their core business activities.
I also welcome the greater emphasis in the new legislation on the management of the internal affairs of the association. Good governance and management can only be enhanced through clearly setting out the responsibilities of the office bearers, detailing which persons are prohibited from holding office and requiring members to declare their pecuniary interests, and refraining from voting in matters where there is a conflict of interest.
In addition, the new legislation enhances the accounting and audit provisions that apply to incorporated associations. The new legislation requires more comprehensive and transparent disclosure of financial information. My department also welcomes the different tiers of incorporated associations for auditing purposes. The more stringent requirements for auditor qualifications with the increasing size and complexity of associations will ensure a more rigorous auditing process occurs as the size of the incorporated body increases. These more demanding accounting provisions will assist the association’s members, as well as funding bodies, to obtain a truer picture of the association’s financial status.
My department has noted that the current information provided as part of the association’s reporting requirements is not always sufficient to get a clear picture of its financial status, and to be alerted to possible financial difficulties. The changes outlined in the Associations Bill will allow a more comprehensive assessment of the association’s financial status. I believe that the legislation will play an important role in supporting the development of the community sector.
The legislation by itself cannot promise to rectify the well known difficulties that have been faced by many associations. However, the Associations Act provides further evidence of this government’s commitment to supporting community endeavours and assisting incorporated associations to become more accountable and better managed. In this way, we hope to pave the way for building a sustainable community sector and enhancing the long-term viability of incorporated bodies throughout the Northern Territory.
Mr Acting Speaker, I offer my department’s support to this legislation and other endeavours that will assist the development of strong and lasting incorporated bodies. This will allow my department, as well as other government departments, to enhance the collaborative working relationship with the community sector, and to be responsive to the needs of all Territorians. I commend the bill to honourable members.
Mr VATSKALIS (Ethnic Affairs): Mr Acting Speaker, I support the Associations Bill 2003, Serial 174, and wish to speak about the application of the bill to a special group of associations: those involving ethnic communities.
Ethnic communities have been in the Territory for a long time. Back in the 1950s, we saw a rise of a formal organisations whereby the first migrants came together in order to maintain the links, traditions, customs and the social structures back in their counties. While these associations evolved in the beginning as a group of friends, they are now very professional and official associations.
I was a member of such an organisation, the Greek Orthodox Community of Northern Australia. When I had a look at the original constitution that was drafted in the 1950s, I was astounded. It was a museum piece because it was written in the official Greek language that was used in the 1950s. It bears very little resemblance to modern Greek language. Despite the fact that the constitution was translated into English to be submitted to the relevant authorities, the official constitution still used by the Greek Orthodox Community of Northern Territory is the original Greek constitution. Actually, we cannot find the original; it has been photocopied and photocopied and photocopied. The way it is drafted creates quite a few problems, especially when there are disputes because there are not many people in the Greek community who can understand the official language of the time.
The new act, however, will provide the basis and assist the migrant and ethic community associations by clearly setting out the responsibilities of office bearers. As I said before, the Greek Association was created by a group of friends who got together. More or less, they knew what they were all about, but there was not a clear delineation of their areas of responsibilities, and how things were done. Probably in the 1960s, they tended to cut corners in order to achieve some things they wanted to achieve that, strictly speaking today, would not be considered appropriate or legal. Things have changed, as I mentioned before, and now we have associations, in some cases, that have considerable property that they have to manage.
It is a very important bill for the ethnic communities. We have about 80 ethnic organisations in the Northern Territory representing people from about 100 different countries and speaking 120 different languages. The plethora of these organisations represent the multicultural fabric of the society in the Northern Territory and I would not use the word ‘tolerance’, but also the acceptance by Northern Territory society in general of people from a different backgrounds and the acceptance by the Territory community of the different forms of associations they have formed today. You might have an official umbrella organisation that covers a number of people coming from the same country and, underneath, you might have other smaller organisations representing people who come from a special locality or people with special interests. You might have, for example, the Greek community on this occasion, then you have the Kalymnian Brotherhood, the Cypriot Brotherhood, and then you have the dancing groups and all the other associations.
The previous government supported ethnic organisations and, in some cases, generously, by providing land, grants, and facilities. In our organisation, we have a significant piece of real estate in the centre of Darwin. The Greek community has a piece of real estate where the Greek Church and the Greek Hall are, and the estimated value exceeds $1m. That was gifted for nothing by the previous government. In addition, it has the Greek School in Nightcliff that was sold to the Greek community by the then government for $1. I recall very well the previous minister, Mick Palmer, saying to the Greek President at one of our celebrations that he had not received the dollar and was still waiting. We now have an organisation that has to deal with property in excess of $1m.
We have organisations that have membership that exceeds 500 or 600 people. At the same time, we have organisations that are dealing only with 10, 20, 30 or 40 financial members. Coming from an ethnic organisation myself, I know sometimes things are not peaceful, there is no brotherly love among all the members and some of the hardest and bitter disputes are fought between members that come from the same country or ethnic group trying to find out who is going to be the president or vice-president of this organisation.
However, I have to say that the Association Bill provides the basis for a modern, fully accountable, fully responsible organisation and the information will provide the basis for this organisation to be run efficiently and appropriately. Bear in mind that ethnic organisations, and I am speaking now as the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, form a very narrow part of associations in the Northern Territory. They are already fully accountable because many of them apply for grants from the Office of Ethnic Affairs, which is very strict on assessment of the grant applications. No grant will be provided to an association if that association has not fully acquitted a previous grant. There are occasions when I refuse to sign off, on the advice of my Office of Ethnic Affairs, for the reason that the parent association has not provided acquittal of a grant. To their credit, I have to say that more than 95% of ethnic organisations realise that unless they fully acquit, they are responsible, they have their papers in order, fully audited and have done things according to the existing legislation, things are not going to progress.
In effect, this bill seeks to safeguard the interests of the Territory, because a lot of these organisations are funded by Territory taxpayers’ funds, and safeguards the interests of members. It is very important. Members who participate in organisations do so because they have a common purpose, but they quickly become disappointed if they see that nothing is happening properly and, at the same, time nobody cares. We have discovered that many organisations go from being very active and strong to a ghost organisation with five or six members that do not have greater membership because people walk away when they do not like what is happening, they had no avenue to address their problems and because they found out that nobody was prepared to sort out the mess.
Many people want to have an active, efficient and legal organisation in order to participate. I understand some of the concerns because, of course, it is going to place a lot of responsibilities on office bearers, and it is very difficult these days to find volunteers to put their hand up to be president, vice-president and all the other positions because it involves a lot of work and responsibility. You have to make decisions about things that will affect your whole group and very few people are keen to do that. That is why we often see the same person being president for 10 or 15 years. We are now putting the onus on the office bearers. They have to act in good faith, within the legal framework of the act, and they will be accountable not only to their members, but to the Northern Territory community.
We are not just abandoning these organisations. We are not just saying: ‘That’s it. This is the legislation; read it and run your organisation’ because the true story is even today there will be members of an organisation that will not have good English skills; English is their second language, and they will not be able to fully comprehend the legislation as presented unless it is explained to them. I doubt very much, especially in newly arrived ethnic groups, that there are many people with this ability. The last thing we need is an ethnic organisation run by mainstream Anglo-Saxon people because the ethnic people do not understand the legislation about how to operate the organisation. That is why this government is committed to provide assistance to people in different organisations. We will provide assistance to explain to them how this legislation is structured, and how it is going to be implemented. My Office of Ethnic Affairs is committed to provide either translated versions or assistance with translators and interpreters to explain how the legislation is structured.
It is very good legislation. Personally, I think is long overdue; it should have been up and running a long time ago. I have heard complaints about organisations, I have seen organisations split and completely dissolve because things were not run properly. This will strengthen organisations, and in the particular case of ethnic organisations, it will give confidence to Territorians that money provided to these organisations in the form of grants is money well allocated, well spent, well acquitted; it is not just money for a party, that disappears in a black hole and nobody knows anything about it.
It will be good for the members of ethnic organisations; it will be good for Territorians and it will be very good to see at last modern legislation applied to some of the organisations whose roots go back to the 1950s and, in some cases, have refused to come in to the 21st century. It is not as tough as I would like to have seen it; I would like to have seen tougher legislation, especially in provisions for modern constitutions, tougher provisions for the ways things are run. It has very good elements, but it is never too late; there is always the opportunity of amending it in the future.
Speaking as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, this is good legislation and it will benefit ethnic organisations. On the other hand, it will be very good for all organisations in the Territory. It will be good for all Territorians to have confidence that the money they are allocating through public coffers to these organisations go for a good purpose and are not disappearing down the drain, never to be seen again.
We pledge that this government will provide training and support. We will not just abandon people and, in particular, people who do not speak English as a first language. We will provide assistance; we are prepared to translate the legislation. If there is a summary of legislation, which I will discuss with my colleague, the Minister for Justice, the key points will be translated and provided in most languages used in the Territory today. It will be a small expense today to avoid problems that might appear tomorrow.
Mr Acting Speaker, this is good legislation. I commend my colleague, the Minister for Justice, for presenting it.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Speaker, since the Commonwealth Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act was enacted in 1976, Aboriginal community organisations and groups in the Territory have had a choice of two instruments of legislation under which they could incorporate themselves as an association: the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act, which I will refer to as ‘the Commonwealth act’, and the statute which, after self-government in 1978, became known as the Associations Incorporation Act, previously the Associations Incorporation Ordinance.
Community groups seek incorporation for obvious principal reasons of seeking the benefits and protection of corporate identity. It is simply not viable or sensible for organisations or groups that are receiving even a modest amount of income, or which own or possess any kind of valuable community asset, to present themselves to the world as a collection of individuals who can be made jointly and severally liable for actions taken in the name of the group.
The standard vehicle for incorporation in Australia is the proprietary limited company, and some Aboriginal organisations have utilised that corporate structure either on its own or in conjunction with an ancillary legal entity known as a trust. Alternatively, some have incorporated themselves as a company limited by guarantee. However, the cost of establishing such structures, together with the demands of complying with the applicable regulatory and reporting regimes, which, until now, have been more onerous than those imposed in respect of incorporated associations, have made incorporation as a company an undesirable option for the great majority of community organisations and groups.
Even large and apparently relatively sophisticated entities that have utilised company and trust structures have fallen into serious difficulties, a recent high profile example being the Tiwi Health Board. As well as being simpler to manage and run, organisations are conceptionally better suited to carrying out the aims and objectives of community organisations and groups. There is a significant difference between the notion of an association member and a company shareholder. The designation of ‘shareholder’ reflects a focus on the raising of capital, the generation of profit and the distribution of dividends. While those Aboriginal community organisations and groups that have an economic enterprise charter may be very keen to generate profit, the object in so doing is almost always to uplift conditions in the community generally rather than converting such profit as may be generated into occasional cash payments to be remitted to individual shareholders.
As is evident from the article by Nicholas Way, published in the latest issue of the Business Review Weekly, in very few cases would Northern Territory Aboriginal community organisations involved in economic enterprise activities be in a trading position that would enable them to distribute profits to individuals in any event. The role of being a member of an incorporated association is one that is familiar to most Aboriginal Territorians and involves participation in a democratic governance and management process, whether this be at general meetings or governing committee level. That is focussed on the achievement of aims and objectives framed with a view to benefiting the community as a whole, not just certain individuals within that community.
For the reasons outlined in the Attorney-General’s second reading speech, updating of the Associations Incorporation Act was long overdue, and I welcome the modernised and more user friendly regime that is to be put in place through the replacement statute, the Associations Bill. Ironically, many Aboriginal organisations and groups in the past opted for incorporation under the Associations Incorporation Act rather than the Commonwealth act because the regulatory and accountability provisions in the Commonwealth act were regarded as being dramatically more onerous. The regulatory and accountability provisions in the this bill are very similar to those in the Commonwealth act, so it will be interesting to see what legislation Aboriginal community organisations opt to use from now on.
There are two areas in respect of which this bill has retained key features of the current Associations Incorporation Act. In both areas, the Territory legislation continues to provide a point of clear distinction as opposed to the Commonwealth act. The first is in relation to eligibility for membership. Under the Commonwealth act, membership of an association is restricted to individuals, and in terms of those individuals, who must be Aboriginal or the spouse of an Aboriginal person. By contrast, the definition of ‘member’ in the Associations Bill reads as follows:
- ‘member’, in relation to an incorporated association, means a person who or body that, under the association’s
constitution, is a member of the association;
In other words, the organisation or body can be made up of members, which are themselves not individual Aboriginal community members, but rather other incorporated Aboriginal community organisations or groups. This point of distinction between the Territory and Commonwealth legislation is important for organisations like AMSANT and Tangentyere that act as representative peak bodies for a network of participating incorporated Aboriginal community entities.
The second point of distinction is that the Associations Bill, like the Associations Incorporation Act before it, includes important protective provisions in relation to government funded assets, which are referred to as ‘prescribed property.’ These provisions are particularly important in protecting the residents and occupants of remote Aboriginal communities situated on land held not under Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act title, but under Northern Territory title.
The nature and scale of the sort of problems that can arise can be absorbed by reading in the Hansard the speeches that accompanied amendments to the prescribed properties provision in the Associations Incorporation Act back in the late 1980s, amendments that were compelled by the need to address a disaster that had befallen the community of Yarralin. Ideally, of course, incorporated Aboriginal community associations holding title to significant parcels of Territory title land should not be entering into contractual transactions, especially not of a trading or a speculative kind. There should be separately incorporated bodies set up to pursue economic enterprise objectives.
Before I finish, I would like to reiterate that the changes in this bill are welcome. The bill has modernised legislation and will establish a more user friendly regime.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank all members for their constructive contribution to the debate. I welcome the spirit in which ideas and concerns have been raised.
This is important legislation and I say at the outset that the very strong intention of our government – and I am very happy to put this on Hansard – is to support and extend the work of volunteers working in associations around the Territory, not to make life harder or more threatening for them.
The reality in a lot of the associations and their operation around the Territory, as we speak, is that it is often quite difficult for volunteers who have given their time, efforts and talents for the good of community organisations. So it is important to say at the outset that we are trying to fix something that is broke. There are certainly some quite extensive problems with the operation of associations throughout the Territory at present.
In partial answer to the member for Araluen’s question about how many are being investigated and for what, at any given time there would be a number of associations that would have caught the attention of the Commissioner for Associations. They come and go because as they are repaired, or they fold on some rare occasions, obviously we move onto other problems. However, there is no doubt that the current provisions in our statutes are not sufficiently supportive of the operation of our associations, given the huge diversity that has been already commented on. We simply do not have the framework to allow the systematic support and accountability to be applied through the operation of these very important bodies.
The other point I would make in a general start to this response is that life is moving on. We are in a different world from when this legislation appeared on our statute books. Running associations today is a much more complicated matter than it used to be. There are stronger commercial elements in many of the activities that exist in our communities. I point to realities such as most sporting codes now have to provide an enormous focus on funding from sponsorship, fundraising and other activities than might have been the case when the legislation was first introduced. With that has come a greater capacity for things to go wrong, things to become dishonest, hence the need for these reforms.
I propose that I will deal with the more generic concerns that have been raised by speakers in the second reading debate, and will leave the clause- specific things to the committee stage.
First, the member for Araluen’s point about consultation, I have some notes prepared covering the issues you raised. I will read them. There have been extensive consultations on this bill. There was a wide advertising campaign in newspapers and media coverage of the discussion paper and draft bill that was circulated; it was on the Department of Justice web page. Seminars were held in every major centre at which the 200 hard copies were distributed that were referred to in the second reading speech. However, in addition to those 200 copies, countless other copies were distributed by mail and downloaded from the Internet in response to direct requests from clubs and associations.
The act will commence in 2004. Prior to that, there is to be an extensive communication plan implemented that includes advertising, printed materials and training sessions about the act throughout the Territory. As part of that campaign, each association will receive a copy of the new act and explanatory documents. There will also be an extensive capacity building training and education campaign made available to all associations throughout the Territory. This campaign will be a joint exercise with the Commonwealth, which has indicated that it will commit significant resources to that campaign. You will understand, of course, that many of the associations have been incorporated under the Commonwealth Associations Act, particularly indigenous organisations. This government will be committing significant resources to this package and I will be quite happy to make information available on that as soon as it has been finalised; we are still working on the detail.
In respect of penalties, in accordance with the Interpretation Act, a penalty in this legislation is the maximum penalty a court can impose. In accordance with the Sentencing Act, the court applies general principles in deciding what specific penalty will apply in a particular case. In a prosecution under this act, the court will take into account issues such as the nature of the association and whether the act or omission was deliberate or inadvertent. Of course, the defences available in Part 2 of the Criminal Code as regards criminal responsibility apply to a person accused of breaching this act. For example, mistake of fact, accident, emergency and so on.
The intent of the penalty in this bill is to find a maximum penalty that encourages compliance with the act and encourages prosecution by the commissioner in appropriate cases. We believe we have found a correct balance with these maximum penalties. It is not intended to prosecute simple oversights; the penalties are aimed at intentional breaches of the act.
The training and education package that accompanies this act will assist committee members to avoid conduct that amounts to an offence. The member for Araluen cited provisions, saying they are too onerous on volunteers, for example, the requirement to keep accurate minutes. There are many examples of associations that have failed to keep accurate minutes and as a result are unable years later to discover what exactly their constitution requires of them. This can result in serious problems for the association and for the community in some cases. It is fair to say that we have made obvious, both in the second reading speech and I hope on Hansard today, that we are not out there to prosecute or give a hard time to honest volunteers working in these associations. We will monitor very closely the impact of the legislation on associations that may attract some attention because of failure to adhere to some of the provisions. If the upshot of that is that we are making life harder for the volunteer workers or volunteer public office holders, we will certainly move to curtail that.
Given that there are strong defences within the act itself and within the Criminal Code, given that these are maximum penalties, given that we will be going out and helping associations, in a very direct way, to set up compliant arrangements and given, finally, that those compliant arrangements are probably going to reduce rather than increase the incidences of a public office holder in one these associations finding themselves tangled up with an ugly situation, either financially or legally, life will be in balance a lot better for the office bearers under the bill’s provisions than the current act.
Regarding investigations, I am quite happy to say that there are always some of these matters going through at any given time. I would be quite happy to offer the member for Araluen a briefing on the investigations that might be in train at the moment on the basis that it remains confidential. You will understand that there are sensitivities with this, and our major aim in investigating an organisation is not to close it down, but to rescue it and return it to an even keel. There is often a mix of financial dysfunction and potential illegality in these sorts of investigations. On the basis that it is a confidential briefing regarding the particulars of these organisations and the situation they might be in, I will make a general offer to any member with an interest in this. I know there are quite a number of these associations in everyone’s electorate. We will try to do it as a job lot. I do not think we would want to be doing this as a sequence for the next 12 months, but the offer is there.
You mentioned during your contribution that there was a transition provision giving associations two years to comply with the constitutions that will be required under the legislation. That is at section 127 in the Miscellaneous Provisions at the back, and that has been deliberately made a lengthy time period in that there are two AGMs in which to process changes that might be needed to the constitution of an organisation. We think that is fair, and we will be providing model or framework constitutions that can be simply contextualised to each association that is adopting the compliant constitution, so they will not need to be written from scratch or developed with legal support or anything like that. That will all be done, and it is a matter of adopting the appropriate version of it through an appropriate meeting or AGM.
The rest of your concerns were clause specific, so I will leave them to one side and we will pick them up in the Committee of the Whole.
I turn now to the member for Macdonnell’s comments. In respect of the discretion of the commissioner, we believe that in exercising discretion in terms of applying exemptions to groups, we are confident that the commissioner, a senior public servant, will apply his decisions according to the intent of the act. You will appreciate that there is a very wide spread of the context and the detail of what these associations involve, so there will be a need to make decisions on criteria that are specific to a particular association as to whether the act should apply and, if so, what sort of provisions under the act should apply in terms of their incorporation.
If someone from the general public wants to apprise themselves of a decision made by the commissioner regarding an association, there are two ways that that could potentially happen. One is in the annual report, and I would make an offer that the commissioner be asked to include in the annual report decisions of this nature that have been made during the reporting year; and second, there is the Information Act and any member of the public, given that this is a public servant making decisions, which I would not believe in most cases would contravene the privacy or other provisions of the act, could apply for the release the information under that legislation. So there are two ways you could do it.
In terms of the regulatory offences of clause 111, two things may have happened in your contribution, and I do not want you to get into strife for misinformation too many times in the one sittings. The regulatory offences, as distinct from offences generally, in the bill are in clauses 16, 17, 22, 23, 27, 34 and 71. You will find when you check that all the regulatory offences are 20 penalty units and 20 times 110 equals 2200, not 22 000. The maximum penalty for these regulatory offences is $2200, and that would be at the very low end of regulatory offences generally in our legislation. I will contrast that with, for example, to the Fisheries Act, where regulatory offences can carry everything up to a term of imprisonment. If I have not gone right to the heart of your concerns, you can raise those again in the committee stage.
With that, Mr Acting Speaker, I think we can probably move through to committee.
Ms CARNEY: Mr Acting Speaker, may I seek one point of clarification? We are trying to be constructive, and this question arises from something the Attorney-General said that does not, strictly speaking, fit within a part or a clause, and I wonder whether I could ask a question? I do not think it is an unreasonable one. It is straightforward.
Dr Toyne: I am sorry, I missed that.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. The minister has actually wrapped, so really there is no provision for …
Dr Toyne: Look, bring it up in committee. I will be pretty wide about what we talk about, okay?
Ms CARNEY: All right. So you are happy for me to do that in committee?
Dr Toyne: Yes.
Ms Lawrie: There is process behind ...
Ms CARNEY: Sit down, Delia! So, you are happy for me to do that in committee? Thank you.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker! The member for Araluen well knows that we refer to members by their constituency in the Chamber, and I have pointed out that she is in breach of standing orders by standing and speaking now.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Settle this down. We will continue.
Mr Kiely: There was a point of order!
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I am making a ruling. The Attorney-General has said he will deal with the matter in committee. Let us leave it at that. Let us go on.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 3, by leave, taken together:
Ms CARNEY: Madam Deputy Chair, it is the question I was going to ask before. In fact, there is probably a second one. In your reply, you referred to the fact that, as far as you were concerned, associations were fairly well advised of this draft bill and the amendments. What you did not answer – and it may have just been an omission – how many submissions were received back? A general guess would be all right.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, in answer to the question, 10 written submissions, roughly 100 e-mails and phone discussions, so fairly extensive.
Ms CARNEY: The other one you did not answer was: was it common for representatives from your department to attend meetings of various associations, such as the one that happened on Thursday night in Darwin?
Dr TOYNE: No, it was not the practice. Generally, it was either done through the seminars or through the individual contacts that I have referred to. Can I also say that the work on public consultation on this bill built on the earlier public consultations that were done in preparing a similar bill during the previous government in 1997-98. That bill was introduced, but lapsed when parliament was prorogued. However, we went back and made full use of the earlier consultations and the issues that people had raised.
Ms CARNEY: A final question since we are dealing with general things that naturally and logically follow from your reply, you mentioned prosecutions and how they would flow from the act, various penalty provisions and so on. Have you given any thought, or is it the case that if prosecuted, an association would need to obtain its own solicitors to represent the association in a prosecution? If yes, can you anticipate a situation arising where an association might put an application to government for a grant for legal assistance?
Dr TOYNE: I will say a couple of things about that. First of all, we have taken the attitude in all of the cases that have come through over the last couple of years since I have been in this role, of always looking to the public/community interest and how best to prevent any negative impact on that. So even if there is an individual involved in an organisation who had acted dishonestly or incompetently, we have tried to repair the situation within the association, preserve its value to the community and, generally, to divorce that from any of the prosecution of wrongdoing. That is the general approach we have taken to it in terms of what we are focussing on. Given that, you would quite rightly deduce that prosecutions would be an action of last resort against the organisation as a whole if it was doing a valuable job in the community, which almost all if not all of these organisations are.
Whether we would provide legal support to an organisation would depend entirely on the situation. For example, if an organisation itself needed to take action against one of its own members or defend itself as a co-defendant with someone who had been acting illegally, then we could well look at that. However, the over-arching thing is that we want to preserve or protect the public interest that is bound up in that organisation and its activities.
Ms CARNEY: Finally, if a prosecution is going to be a last resort outcome, do I take it from that that the commissioner would make a decision as to whether or not to proceed with a prosecution, and that it is possible at some point for government to step in to dissuade or further encourage the commissioner to pursue the prosecution?
Dr TOYNE: Our bottom line is that the law is the law and if there is outright wrongdoing, like fraud or some other wrongdoing, we would certainly would not be stepping in by way of preventing wrongdoing being punished. Equally, we would not be stepping in with the commissioner, who is an independent statutory person, and telling him or her what to do in a particular context. All I am saying is that, as a general policy, the approach to this is that we try to repair the organisation in every way available under the bill and under other provisions that might impact on the situation, depending on the activity in which the organisation is involved prior to using the action of prosecuting an association or a member of its public office.
Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.1
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.2
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.3. It is a bit unfair to the opposition, so I will give some explanation of what these amendments are doing.
Clause 78 of the bill provides for the appointment by the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs of an administrator to conduct the affairs of an incorporated association. To avoid potential confusion with an administrator appointed under the applied provisions of the Corporations Act 2001, a person appointed under section 78 is to be called a Statutory Manager rather than an administrator. Clause 4 of the bill provides for the definition of administrator and this definition is then omitted. The other amendments are applying that elsewhere in the bill. So we are on 56.3
Amendment agreed to.
Ms CARNEY: A point of clarification. We are still on clause 4, correct?
Dr TOYNE: Yes.
Ms CARNEY: And we have made amendments to various definitions?
Dr TOYNE: That is replacing that terminology, that is all.
Ms CARNEY: Can I suggest another one? I apologise, I meant to mention this when I stood up before lunch, but I omitted it. It relates to clause 17(2), but I think it should go back to clause 4, that is the definition section, and the point I make is this: You will see that in 17(2) there is reference to a ‘prescribed unauthorised name’. I looked through the definition section and could not find a definition of ‘prescribed unauthorised name’. I could only find a definition of ‘prescribed property’, so I wonder why - and there may well be a sensible explanation for it, but there may not - it is that ‘prescribed unauthorised name’ is not defined.
Dr TOYNE: The unauthorised names will be prescribed in the regulations which will accompany the act.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 5 to 77, by leave, taken together:
Dr TOYNE: I can give you response to your clause 5 query. How do you want to do it? You raised clause 5 in your second reading contribution. Do you want me to give you a response to that?
Ms CARNEY: Yes.
Dr TOYNE: You queried why in clause 5, which deals with the exemptions that are offered by the commissioner to organisations, there are no criteria for the commissioner to apply when considering exemptions. The commissioner is a senior government official, and the government is comfortable charging him with the responsibility, and confident that he will discharge it appropriately. It is not possible to consider every contingency that would come in to the decision of whether to grant an exemption, given the very wide diversity of our associations in the Northern Territory. It would be pretty near impossible to codify that.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you for that, but I feel compelled to ask one or two more questions. Given that the power to exempt exists and it is the commissioner who makes that decision, you will appreciate that the world at large does not know what the basis could be for seeking an exemption. Do you believe that there is consequently any benefit in providing legislative guidance for what might be considered in support of a request for an exemption? I do not think it would happen often, but it could happen so we want to know what the story is.
Dr TOYNE: We envisage that most organisations that might apply for exemption are the Aboriginal associations that simply hold title to land; they do not have any transactional activity at all. It is really hard to predict. It is specific to the organisations. They have 28 days to submit an audited report. During that period, an unknown number of them will say: ‘We don’t think this makes any sense to our situation’. They will go to the commissioner with an application. The commissioner will have to deal with it on its merits, on the details of how it is operating and what it is doing.
Ms CARNEY: Finally, I know that the member for Macdonnell would like to ask some questions on this point, I assume that your answer is pretty much the same in respect of clause 5(3), that is, the commissioner’s ability to revoke, vary or extend the exemption.
Dr TOYNE: Again, it is about flexibility to the situation. We felt that we do need to provide that flexibility. It may be, over time, that it codifies itself into something that can be better defined, but at the moment we are going into a new regime, and we want the commissioner to have the ability to deal with the particulars that he or she finds. I am saying ‘he’ because it is a he at the moment, but it can be a she.
Mr ELFERINK: Just on clause 5, it is a very broad power, and I am sure that the Attorney-General will accept that he is asking for a very broad power in this House for the commissioner. I am heartened to hear his comments in relation to the annual reporting process in terms of placing it in the annual report.
Just to drill down into a little bit of detail, the first question is: can you ensure that for the purposes of the annual report, if there are no such exemptions, a nil return goes in? Second, if exemptions are entered into the annual report, perhaps a paragraph or two as to the reasoning why the exemption was granted. As I say, it is a very sweeping power, and to give that sort of power to somebody who, although I do not doubt their integrity, you have to look into the future as to who may fill that position and how that position may be used. There has to be a check or a balance built into it somewhere. Annual reporting is good. I am not sure that FOI would extend to personal details of somebody inside an association if there was an exemption under FOI legislation in terms of personal details.
That is the only comment I wish to make, so if you could outline that there will be a couple of paragraphs on each exemption given, and the reasons for it, that would probably be acceptable.
The other thing I want to touch on very quickly is that if I said $22 000, I did not mean it.
Dr TOYNE: I thank the member for both his comments and his attitude. The Commissioner of Associations will, no doubt, pore over the whole of the Hansard to this debate, and I would expect he would. He will not only see there my commitment to that process, but he will also see your suggestions about it. Yes, I am sure he will be taking note of that.
I have a response to clause 6(3)(c). Why provide these exemptions from the secrecy provisions? Many associations receive government funding and/or the government is involved in some way in the administration of the association. Hence, access is provided to the minister and the Treasurer. The Minister for Local Government needs to be informed by associations incorporated under that act. The Commissioner for Police may need to be involved in offences. The Commissioner for Taxes needs access to information for taxation purposes; the Licensing Commissioner regarding licensed premises, many of which are incorporated associations; ATSIC funds many associations. An auditor needs to be free of secrecy requirements because of his obligation to report fraud. They are the reasons.
Ms CARNEY: Can you advise whether similar provisions exist in similar legislation in other jurisdictions?
Dr TOYNE: I am assured they do. We do not have the specifics with us at the moment. We could certainly hunt it up for you.
Ms CARNEY: Were associations advised of this provision or was any material provided to them, other than the draft bill, to alert them to what could be seen by some as a disturbing development, that their confidential information might be used for purposes that they did not intend or envisage?
Dr TOYNE: I can only say that there are many situations where the state of an association in terms of financial dysfunction or alleged illegality where this sort of information is sought as a matter of course. I do not think this is a new process. I am pretty sure that is already involved in investigations. The only change, I am apprised, is that the existing secrecy provisions, the ones that are in the current act, have been extended and clarified in some regards, but the basic process is still the same.
Ms CARNEY: But it was not the case under the existing act that the commissioner or his or her delegate can produce a document or divulge a communication to a minister, one of several, and others. The point which I asked first, and I will put it again because you replied with ‘those associations that are being investigated’. Fine, let us put them to one side because we know there is not terribly many out of the 1700 in the Northern Territory.
So my question is: of the 1700 that were advised of this significant change to the act, were they advised of this new development? That is, that the commissioner or his or her delegate could produce a document or divulge a communication to a government minister?
Dr TOYNE: Probably the best way to resolve this, hopefully to your satisfaction, would be that in the public campaign prior to when the act commences early next year, we will certainly ensure that is pointed out. I am not saying it has not been; I am just saying that, blow by blow, association by association, we will make sure that they are aware of those provisions.
Ms CARNEY: I will tell them beforehand. Thank you.
In relation to Part 3, clauses 8 to 26, I talked about abolishing the need to advertise. Would you like to deal with that, then I can ask some more questions?
Dr TOYNE: I can, yes. Why still require advertising? The objection process is very rarely used. There would be a cost burden on the association to advertise. If a new association wants to attract new members, it can advertise its incorporation if it chooses to do so. The removal of this requirement to advertise was welcomed during the consultations that were held.
We have worked out when advertising actually serves a useful purpose. One is clause 23(3)(a): advertising is required when an existing association proposes to change the liability of its members to contribute to debt. Advertising is necessary to protect the creditors and members of the association. Section 44(b): tier 3 associations must publish availability of audited statements of accounts in a newspaper. It is appropriate that larger organisations, which are the over $250 000 per annum category, should be more accountable to their members and the public generally.
We have picked out those areas where we feel that it is a justified cost, but the general reaction of the associations is that they are very happy not to be paying for the placements.
Ms CARNEY: I believe I know what you are going to say, minister, but for the sake of the Hansard I will ask the question.
Dr TOYNE: Try me.
Ms CARNEY: I take it, then, that you do not see it as in any way inconsistent that, on the one hand you are doing away with need to advertise and yet, in respect of clauses you mentioned, clause 23 and clause 44, there is a need to advertise?
Dr TOYNE: It is a cost-benefit judgment. There is a cost involved in these placements and, for a larger organisation, we feel that it is more justified to keep the public generally informed about its trading position. In a situation where there is a direct change to the liability of members, it is also seen as justified, but not as a general informative thing in the community. The point you were making earlier about the need to inform the community about what groups are getting going and whether they can cluster or join in, we do not have big communities here in the Northern Territory, and I would have thought that most people would be vaguely if not specifically aware of the broad range of organisations that are going on in our communities. You and I would probably be able to run off a fairly decent list for Alice Springs.
Ms CARNEY: Probably. I was not suggesting earlier that it was essential to advertise; I just saw it as a community benefit that was not an expensive one for associations, but I will not pursue it further. In relation to clause 23(6), minister, would you be prepared to amend that clause so that subclause (6) starts with the word ‘and’ and it follows on so we can delete the word ‘also’.
Dr TOYNE: I am assured that Parliamentary Counsel had a specific reason why they put ‘also’ there and it was to do with the general readability and style of the bill that they were producing. It was conscious rather than inadvertent. I am not a parliamentary drafter and nor are you, but they have a specific reason why they put it there. We queried them on it and they say that is what they want. They are the experts.
Ms CARNEY: I accept that. Why parliamentary draftsmen insist on this is something that perhaps only parliamentary draftsmen can understand, but for the record I will restate the difficulty I have as a lawyer starting a paragraph in legislation with the word ‘also’. I will not pursue it any further. No doubt lawyers, when they get a copy of this will smile when they see it. I do not mean any disrespect to parliamentary draftsmen; it is just that this is the first legislation I and some of my colleagues, whom I rang to check, have ever seen with the word ‘also’. I do not understand why there is this sudden development, but I will leave it at that, unless you wanted to comment further.
Dr TOYNE: Could I just make a comment here, and I feel bound to say this, that we have a long run up to preparing legislation, and I am sure the Parliamentary Counsel would be more than happy, prior to it coming into the House for debate, to either to talk that over with you, accept your arguments if they are persuaded.. I have absolutely no problem with you to discussing drafting issues with them. I just do not think that there is much point when neither of us have immediate access during this debate to Parliamentary Counsel to quiz them on the reason they have used particular words.
I have always felt that those details should be dealt with outside the debate. I know we have had a long history over the last couple of years of having these kind of discussions about hanging ors and all the other things that we find in legislation. I commend to you that when the bill is available, if you have those sort of problems, to access Parliamentary Counsel and see if we can work it out.
Ms CARNEY: By way of a reply, two things: one, it is not the case that it is keeping me awake at night, and you can be very sure about that; and, second, I do not want to speak to Parliamentary Counsel about it. I want to hear from you. You are the Territory’s first law officer; you are the one who introduced this legislation to the parliament; and I am quite entitled, in this democratic process, to ask the sponsor of the legislation why he has a particular word in a particular paragraph. I will continue to do so for as long as I see any benefit in it. That point does need to be made and, with respect, you need to understand it.
Moving on to clause 40, that was the part that dealt with a disqualified person. You will recall that I raised some issues prior to lunch, would you like to comment on those in a general sense before I ascertain whether I would like to ask you more questions about it?
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Deputy Chair, I would just like to point that this is very comprehensive legislation. It is very detailed legislation that ushers in the single most significant change to incorporated bodies that the parliament has seen for many years.
All of us as members of parliament, in our electorates, would belong to, be patrons of, work with any number incorporated bodies. I pick up on the member for Araluen’s comment: ‘You need to understand this’. Let me give a little bit of advice: what the member for Araluen needs to understand is that, as the shadow Attorney-General and the shadow minister, she should take her responsibilities seriously. It is absolutely beholden on the shadow minister, in terms of debating legislation, to seek access and to have a briefing from the departmental officers in regards to the bill, the structure of the bill, the reason why various clauses are in the bill …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Deputy Chair. A point of order. It is actually not a requirement that shadow ministers seek briefings.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: There is no point of order.
Ms CARNEY: It is desirable, but the shadow ministers can decide when they elect to take one or not.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Araluen, respect the Chair. I said there was no point of order. Leader of Government Business, continue your remarks.
Mr HENDERSON: I am trying to be helpful in terms of expediting the process. I was a shadow minister for two years and, in fact, there is a parliamentary handbook that we give to school kids here that identifies the responsibilities of ministers and shadow ministers. It is the responsibility of shadow ministers to understand the legislation that is to be debated. They have a responsibility for scrutiny and, in terms of understanding that legislation, to seek a briefing to clear these issues up prior to debate. If the honourable member had not been so lazy and had received a briefing, we could have curtailed this debate by a number of hours.
When she says: ‘You need to understand this’, I think the honourable member needs to understand what her responsibilities are as a shadow minister and seek a briefing, particularly on legislation that is as comprehensive and detailed as this.
Ms CARNEY: Madam Deputy Chair, the member for Wanguri, typically, obviously has not been listening to what I said before lunch, or, indeed, the points I have made since. I appreciate more than the member for Wanguri will ever appreciate how detailed this legislation is. I understand it better than the member for Wanguri will ever understand it. I do not need to be lectured by the member for Wanguri about what I do and do not do.
Who would have thought, Madam Deputy Chair, that the word ‘also’ would have created such a stir? In any event, it is very clear that both parties know where they are coming from. I do not heed any of the advice from the member for Wanguri. I can assure the Attorney-General that I would imagine that I will seek briefings on all sorts of things on a fairly regular basis. However, because I am a lawyer, there are some things I do not need a briefing on, and this bill was one of them.
I repeat what I said earlier, that as the Territory’s first law officer, he is in the very privileged position of introducing a raft of legislation into this parliament, and with that privilege comes the responsibility to answer questions about it. It is the role of the opposition to ask the Attorney-General questions as they see fit.
I think we can move off that topic and go on to clause 40, Attorney-General. Are you happy to do that?
Dr TOYNE: I think that would be an excellent idea, yes.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, but for the member for Wanguri.
Dr TOYNE: Also, Madam Deputy Chair, I have some words on clause 40. How does a person come to the notice of the commissioner and why is the Commissioner of Police personally required to issue a certificate? The Commissioner of Consumer Affairs is informed by the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner of Police is informed of the person’s unsuitability to be an office bearer through criminal intelligence processes. The Commissioner of Police is required to issue a certificate personally, as it is a serious step to be taken and should be exercised by the commissioner alone. The disqualified person can appeal to a court pursuant to clause 40(4).
Ms CARNEY: I am sorry, I missed the first sentence or two. My initial question was: how does a person come to the notice of the commissioner? Did you answer that in the first sentence or two?
Dr TOYNE: The process is that as individuals come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police due to criminal intelligence processes, he issues a certificate regarding that individual and apprises the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs of that individual’s presence in that listing, if you like, of the …
Ms CARNEY: By criminal intelligence, I assume you are referring to something other than the standard investigations that occur under the act. Is that right?
Dr TOYNE: It can be either. It is just an individual who has come to the attention of the Commissioner of Police because of some wrongdoing - the obvious one might be, say, a drug dealer - becoming involved with a trading association. It is that kind of process.
Ms CARNEY: How, then, and I am referring to Clause 40 (1)(b), which refers to somebody having taken part in the management of at least two bodies corporate that have ceased to exist by reason of financial mismanagement, that sort of person you would not have thought would have come to the attention of the police in, certainly the garden variety for the want of a better description, criminal intelligence. How do you envisage the police, or the commissioner, finding out who those people are?
Dr TOYNE: Clearly, the police will not be aware of someone’s activities unless they are either investigating it or they come across it in the course of their general intelligence gathering. There is no guarantee that a person in a particular association is acting illegally or will necessarily come to the attention of the police. It is simply that anyone who does, through to the Commissioner of Police, will be passed across to the commissioner.
Ms CARNEY: You will recall that I raised prior to lunch whether the definition of Commissioner of Police included the Commissioner of Police and his or her delegate. Can you confirm whether that …
Dr TOYNE: I have already answered that, Madam Deputy Chair. It is the Commissioner of Police alone, not delegated.
Ms CARNEY: Going to the concerns expressed in relation to the various penalties, and whether there was consideration given to extending the 28 days to the suggestion that I received, 60 days.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, clause 45, why 28 days? Why not 60 days, you raised. Twenty-eight days is four weeks. Just stating the bleeding obvious there.
Ms Carney: Even I know that one.
Dr TOYNE: This is considered an appropriate time for filing documents already presented to an AGM. Note that an extension of time is available pursuant to clause 5 if necessary. The commissioner has the discretion not to prosecute, and I would expect that the commissioner would make an inquiry of the circumstances before proceeding to prosecution in any particular case. I have already stated that we would certainly want to see, as a matter of policy, that prosecution will be used as the last resort.
Ms CARNEY: All right. For your benefit, I will not pursue the concerns I had in relation to fines, generally, because you addressed that earlier on. Can we move to tier 1?
Dr TOYNE: Clause 46?
Ms CARNEY: Yes.
Dr TOYNE: You flagged the possibility of having, first of all, the tier thresholds in the act rather than in the regulations, and whether tier 1 should be $50 000 instead of $25 000. The regulations will be used to have the three thresholds which have been indicated in the second reading speech. Tier 1, up to $25 000, represents 47% of all associations in the Territory; tier 2, $25 000 to $250 000, catches 42% of all associations in that category; and over $250 000, 11% of the associations, fall into tier 3.
There have been divergent opinions about how you cut the cake, if you like. However, all people who did give feedback – and we are talking about the written submissions, e-mails and so on that I referred to earlier - said these thresholds were acceptable. There might have been opinions about a bit up or down from where they were; but they were acceptable. The accounting profession supports this structure. At this stage, there is no need to really change the thresholds as they are currently planned, in our opinion. The thresholds for tiers will be in the regulations because it gives flexibility to change them relatively easily, rather than having to bring it back and amend it.
Ms CARNEY: Did you consider the other point I raised, and that was in your second reading speech, the bit about auditing?
Dr TOYNE: Yes, this is of tier 1 associations. My notes here say any person who is not a member of the association can audit a tier 1 association, yet the clause extends the restriction to persons who are not a partner, employee or employer of a member of the association and not a partner of the employee of a member of the association. The second reading speech was, on this occasion, just providing a general overview of the structure of the bill. It was not comprehensive to the actual provisions in the bill.
You can appreciate that with legislation of this sort of complexity, you cannot include every provision into a second reading speech. So the intended restrictions are the ones in the act and always have been.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you. I take your point that, comparing the two, there may have been that confusion. However, you have just confirmed that it was always the intention for tier 1 organisations to have an audit done by someone other than a member, yes?
Dr TOYNE: Or someone close to them, yes.
Ms CARNEY: Sure, but given the difficulties that creates, you would accept, I imagine, that for all intents and purposes, this means that tier 1 associations will need to retain the services of an auditor for the most part.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, the tier 1 arrangements are basically the status quo in the current legislation and to provide additional support to these smaller, less well resourced associations, we are intending to provide a standard kit, if you like, for the auditing of their affairs. They are generally very simple financial exercises and it should not disadvantage any association over and beyond how they are currently operating. In fact, I think they will probably have additional support in carrying out that annual exercise.
Ms CARNEY: Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand the present situation is that associations are not required to have their books audited by a professional auditor. Some clubs take up the option of, say, a retired accountant who provides the bit of paper that all of us have seen confirming that the books have been duly audited and so on. That is what is I assume the present situation would be. Unless you correct me and say no, that is not the case, then surely it does mean that under this arrangement, those associations can no longer do that if the retired accountant is a member of their association and that they must retain the services of an auditor.
Dr TOYNE: The current legislation would preclude an accountant or a retired accountant who was a member from doing the accounts or the audit of that association. It has to be someone external to their membership. Further to that, tier 1 organisations do not have to have their audit done by a professional accountant; they can have it done by a non-member, any non-member, of the association who can competently carry out the very simple financial audit according to a standard kit.
Ms CARNEY: So, again, just for clarification, do you envisage that the kit you will provide to 1700 associations will essentially be a pro forma audit?
Dr TOYNE: No, 47% of them. Tier 1 represents 47%.
Ms CARNEY: Yes, I am sorry. The 47% of the 1700 associations will receive a kit with a pro forma audit set up and they could then take their books to someone, not a member of the association, and say: ‘Follow it; join the dots’.
Dr TOYNE: Correct.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you. I have some people who will be very interested in that explanation. I think that completes all of the points that we raised earlier on, thank you, minister.
Clauses 5 to 77 agreed to.
Clause 78:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.4.
Clause 78, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 79:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.5. These are continuing to put that term throughout the bill.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.6.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.7.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 79, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 80:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.8.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.9.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.10.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.11.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.12.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.13.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 80, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 81:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.14.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.15.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.16.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.17.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 81, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 82:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.18.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.19.
Amendment agreed to
Clause 82, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 83 agreed to.
Clause 84:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.20.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.21.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 84, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 85:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.22.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 85, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 86:
Dr TOYNE: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 56.23.
Clause 86, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time. Before we put the motion, I would like to clear up a matter. It sounds like I have been naughty in encouraging a direct approach to Parliamentary Counsel. I am very sincere in my offer that we can sort out these drafting issues prior to us coming into the House. Please use my office and I will facilitate the process if you want to sort out the details of drafting. It just shows I am still learning.
This is a very important day. We are very aware as a government that we are taking on a responsibility to many people throughout the Territory in implementing this new legislation. We are very aware of how much community interest is hanging off those 1700 organisations, and we are going to be very diligent in making sure this legislation helps rather than hinders their operation and does not impact badly on the office bearers of these associations.
We will be out there. You can judge the efficacy of our campaign to bring all these organisations into this new legislative structure. Again, I say we are very sincere in trying to do this job properly with proper resources and through a proper process between now and early next year. With that, we can move to the third reading motion being put.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Mental Health
Mental Health
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I rise today to outline to the Assembly how this government is embracing the important challenge of addressing one of the most debilitating illnesses of the 21st century.
Mental illness is responsible for 11% of disease burden worldwide, and accounts for five of the 10 leading causes of disability. In fact, according to the World Health Organisation, by 2020, major depression will be the second leading cause of disease worldwide. Many of us may experience the blues occasionally, but one in five, or 18%, of Australians will experience a mental illness at some time in their lives. These statistics demonstrate the increasing need for a mental health service system with the capacity to deliver timely, accountable and culturally appropriate responses to Territorians with mental health problems.
This government acknowledges that there is no health without mental health. It is fundamental to the physical health, quality of life and productivity of our community. It is particularly important to children and young people, as good mental health through childhood and adolescence often underpins mental health and wellbeing throughout adult life.
Mental illness is a general term used to refer to a variety of mental health problems in the same way that heart disease is frequently used to describe a complex range of physical conditions. Some of the most common mental illnesses include depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and psychoses. It is estimated that three million Australians will experience a major depressive illness during their lifetime, and three in 100 Australians will experience a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia or drug-induced psychosis. These statistics represent an enormous personal, social and economic cost to individuals and the community. The impact on people’s quality of life, family and carer wellbeing, as well as lost productivity and employment opportunities, is massive and far-reaching. It is a challenge that needs to be tackled on many fronts, nationally and locally.
Last week was National Mental Health Week. This year’s theme was ‘Promoting and protecting the mental health of all children and young people’, which has had a particular significance here in the Territory. Children and adolescents are a priority group for this government. We all know that we have a very youthful population compared to other states and territories. A greater proportion of our young people are under 15 years of age. In fact, 41% of our population is under 25 years of age. This demographic profile is of particular concern if one considers figures published by the World Health Organisation that indicate up to 20% of children and adolescents experience mental illness.
Nationally, approximately 14% of children and adolescents experience mental health problems. Mental illnesses such as depression, first onset psychosis and anxiety disorders pose particular problems for young people and their families. Contemporary research suggests that up to 24% of adolescents experience depression by the time they are 18 years old. In the absence of early intervention and prevention initiatives, mental health problems in childhood can result in great suffering for young people and their families, and can impair their educational, emotional, psychological and social development. Even mild emotional or behavioural issues can lead children and young people to feel stressed, contribute to poor physical health, affect relationships with family and friends, create educational problems, and increase the risk of alcohol and drug abuse or involvement in other self-harming behaviours.
By investing in the emotional wellbeing of our young people and ensuring their mental health is promoted and protected, we can contribute positively to the future of our society. By reducing the risk factors associated with the development of mental health problems and promoting protective factors for emotional wellbeing, which enhance individual resilience, much can be done to reduce the incidence of mental health problems in our community. Some of the factors that influence and protect the mental health of children and young people include physical health and development, social and psychological development, family relationships, cultural influences, social advantage, and positive, rewarding school environments.
All members present would be aware that the tragedy of suicide affects many Australian families and communities each year. Suicide is, in fact, the third leading cause of death among adolescents. It is a complex issue that intersects with the range of other problems across society. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing documents the following contributing factors associated with suicide: socioeconomic disadvantage, including low education achievement and unemployment; legal problems, imprisonments or behaviour that brings the person into conflict with the law or society; sexual orientation with studies showing gay, lesbian and bisexual people, particularly adolescents and young adults, are at increased risk of suicidal behaviours and thinking; family adversity and child abuse and neglect; availability of means of suicide; stress, crises and losses, including loss of employment or physical health, relationship breakdown, death and other interpersonal loss; and cultural and social factors including in particular those related to grief, loss and trauma experienced by Aboriginal people and community.
Suicide is an issue of concern here in the Territory. Of course, we must interpret the evidence carefully, given the relatively small population of the Northern Territory. However, a few facts are clear. First, the data shows that while national suicide rates have remained relatively constant over the last decade, suicide deaths in the Northern Territory have increased, such that in 2000, the Northern Territory rate was approximately 45% to 50% higher than the national rate of 20 per 100 000 compared to 13 per 100 000.
It is also a major concern that indigenous suicide has significantly increased in this period. Until the early 1990s, reported suicide rates amongst indigenous people in the Territory were significantly lower than for non-indigenous Territorians. In fact, in 1990, no suicide deaths were recorded amongst indigenous people. Whilst the relatively small numbers overall make it difficult to identify significant trend changes, 15 indigenous people were recorded as having completed suicide in 1999, reflecting a substantial increase over a relatively short period of time. For some, but of course not all, Aboriginal communities, suicide or the threat of suicide has become the source of considerable fear and stress. Another cause of concern is that young men of whatever background also have high and increasing rates of suicide death. The suicide rate for Northern Territory indigenous males significantly increased in the 15 to 24 year age group from 0 per 100 000 in 1992 to approximately 120 per 100 000 in 1999. There has also been an increase in the suicide rate for non-indigenous males in the 15 to 24 year age group from 20 per 100 000 in 1992 to approximately 40 per 100 000 in 1999. Unfortunately, this is not just a problem for men in teenage years and early adulthood. Increasingly, men in the 25 to 44 year old age bracket are also at risk of suicide and the increasing rate for men in this age group in the Northern Territory is consistent with national trends.
Last, it appears that attempted suicide and deliberate self-harm is also a serious problem. Evidence from international studies suggests that the ratio of attempted suicide to suicide ranges from 4:1 to around 200:1 and that women are also thought to be more likely to attempt suicide than are men. Despite a number of difficulties with recording and interpreting these incidents, the available data indicates that the incidence of these behaviours presents a serious problem in the Northern Territory.
These are sobering facts. The challenge may seem all the greater because there is no single route to a reduction in suicide rates. It is nationally and internationally recognised that effective suicide prevention needs to combine both population strategies with those aimed at high-risk groups. Prevention efforts need to minimise risk and enhance protective factors using a range of approaches targeting the whole population, specific groups and individuals at risk. This means a whole-of-government and community approach is needed to respond to this tragedy. It means the cornerstone of suicide prevention lies in cooperative partnership approaches between government and non-government organisations and the broader community.
This government has taken its responsibility seriously and through this very process of partnerships, has developed the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. The development of the strategic framework involved the Suicide Prevention Interdepartmental Committee, which included representatives from the Departments of Health and Community Services; Employment, Education and Training; Chief Minister; Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs; Justice; Police, Fire and Emergency Services; and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. There were additional contributions from the Northern Territory Coroner’s Office and many local community groups and individuals through inter-sectoral and public forums.
Today, I officially launched the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. This is the first suicide prevention strategy to be endorsed by a Northern Territory government. The strategic framework acknowledges and builds on existing suicide prevention initiatives as well as confirming key directions and pathways for future activities. This framework provides a platform to guide future planning and development of programs with a focus on life promotion and prevention. It is based on a whole-of-government and community approach that supports action across all levels of government, covers the entire lifespan and includes a spectrum of interventions. The strategic framework identifies six areas for action. These include:
promoting wellbeing resilience and community capacity, which means enhancing protection against suicide
by strengthening wellbeing, optimism, connectedness, resilience, health and capacity across the entire
community, with a particular focus on young people and their families;
supporting initiatives that reduce risk factors and promote protective factors for suicide and self harm, giving
increasing attention to critical periods or transition points through the life course where interventions have the
potential to be most effective;
improving the ability of a wider range of service systems and support networks to meet the needs of groups at
an increased risk of suicide and self harm;
strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk;
providing culturally appropriate programs that support community responses to high rates of suicide in
indigenous communities; and, finally
ensuring that programs have the greatest chance of benefit by building the evidence base, sharing good practice
and providing education and training.
This strategic framework takes into account the unique circumstances in the Territory, as well being consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and National Mental Health Strategy. Some members will be aware that the National Mental Health Strategy has been the flagship for major reforms in mental health over the past 10 years. On 31 July this year at the Australian Health Ministers Conference held in Perth, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments renewed their commitment to the strategy by endorsing the National Mental Health Plan 2003-2008. This plan signposts key priority themes and directions for future activity in the mental health arena. The priority areas include improvement of population mental health, improving service responsiveness, access and continuity of care, strengthening safety and quality, fostering innovation and ensuring sustainability of services.
The Territory commenced the National Mental Health Strategy in 1993 with per capita funding spending 14% below the national average. Although there was some increased investment in the mental health system between 1993 and 1998, per capita expenditure decreased in the first two years of the second National Mental Health Plan. In fact, by 1999-2000, mental health spending in the Northern Territory had fallen so far below the national per capita average that we were ranked the second lowest jurisdiction in Australia. In effect, there have been only minimal funding increases over the past five years, despite increasing community demand for services, a fact that the Bansemer Review, commissioned by this government to review the Department of Health and Community Services, clearly recognised when it stated:
- This sector of the health system is, despite the production and subsequent non-implementation of a series of
reports and studies over the past decade, under-resourced, fragmented and poorly supported.
The Bansemer Review recommended bringing mental services in the Northern Territory to a parity level with other Australian jurisdictions. In addition, this government commissioned a separate specialist examination of mental health programs. The Mental Health Service System Development Strategy Report also highlighted the urgent need for action.
After reviewing the findings of these reports, this government has undertaken to implement some long overdue changes to the mental health system. In May this year, I announced that this government would inject an additional $7.2m into the mental health system over the next three years. This began with a $900 000 boost this financial year and will be followed by an additional $2.4m in 2004-05 and $3.9m in the 2005-06 financial year.
The new funding will enhance clinical care, provide increased support for consumers and carers, help reduce hospital admissions, and provide more intensive post-discharge follow up and rehabilitation services. It will also employ and train clinicians in the child, youth and adult mental health services and enhance partnership approaches to provide better care for Aboriginal people.
A number of national and Northern Territory publications have highlighted the need for strategy formulation on co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems. The evidence indicates that there are increasing numbers of people presenting at our health services with these types of problems. At the same time, the research suggests that they are associated with poor treatment outcomes, a more prolonged illness course and more frequent service use. This is an issue in the Northern Territory, particularly where rates of substance misuse are reportedly increasing amongst young people and in remote communities.
I would like to emphasise that considerable effort is already being made to boost the Territory’s capacity to respond to this issue in the Territory. A number of training events have been held for clinicians and front-line workers from non-government organisations. Accredited training workshops on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems, which were run in Alice Springs and Darwin last year, have been funded again in 2003-04. Training has also recently been provided to approximately 30 rural and remote community workers. Senior departmental officers are establishing a working group to progress strategy formulation and link with the national co-morbidity task force that is co-auspiced by the National Mental Health Working Group and Inter-governmental Committee on Drugs.
In 2002, this government spearheaded legislative reforms to the Criminal Code relating to mental impairment and unfitness to plead. Additional resources have been allocated this year to increase the capacity of the forensic mental health team in Darwin to respond to these provisions, which are aligned with model legislation. My department and the Department of Justice have developed draft protocols and engaged in joint service planning to ensure we are able to appropriately respond to the needs of individuals affected by this legislation.
In a context where there have been many competing pressures and demands on mental health services in the Northern Territory, quality and safety has been of central concern. In July 2003, senior departmental staff met with staff and union representatives to respond to concerns about the Top End Mental Health inpatients units, including increased admission rates. The Top End Mental Health Service Project, which has a broad stakeholder steering committee, is focussing on these issues, and others raised in the Bansemer and Mental Health reviews. A similar project will guide mental health service development in Central Australia. Critical elements of the project brief include an examination of existing resources as well as new service models, a detailed examination of the staffing and operation of inpatient and community-based mental health services is one of the first tasks being undertaken. This analysis will be linked to a consideration of alternative and sub-acute models of care that can help prevent admissions and provide more intensive follow up post-discharge. Other project tasks include a range of admission and discharge policies, and a proposal for trialling a different model for after hours coverage for mental health emergencies.
Assessments in the emergency departments of Royal Darwin and Alice Springs Hospitals will be better managed with the establishment of new mental health consultation liaison nurse positions. Affirming the central place of safety and quality in our health services, the Top End Mental Health Service has made a commitment to participate in an independent accreditation survey by the Australian Council on Health Care Standards in November 2003. External surveyors will assess the service’s compliance with the National Standards for Mental Health Services and make recommendations for action in clinical and management areas.
Mental health is not alone in being challenged by very considerable difficulties in attracting and retaining a skilled specialist workforce in the Territory. In fact, we know that there is a shortage of mental health nurses and psychiatrists in regional and remote areas around the country. A new mental health workforce position will take a lead role in shaping a more coherent and strategic approach to workforce development in mental health. The position will complement existing training and education initiatives supported by my department and professional associations.
The Mental Health and Related Services Act is also currently under review. Since the legislation commenced on 1 February 2000, a number of unanticipated problems with the day-to-day application of some provisions have been identified by a range of stakeholders, including mental health practitioners, the Mental Health Review Tribunal, non-government organisations and the legal profession. The government will soon release an issues paper and invite comment on options for amendment. Senior departmental officers are liaising with the Department of Justice to ensure mental health matters are appropriately considered in a more extensive review of legislation relating to substituted decision-making.
The small numbers, cultural diversity, and wide geographical dispersion of the Northern Territory population present unique challenges for the delivery of mental health services. Some 28% of the Northern Territory population is Aboriginal, and over 50% of indigenous Territorians are under 25 years of age. Although accurate prevalence rates for Aboriginal Territorians are not currently available, it is generally accepted that the incidence of mental health problems is high in Aboriginal communities. I am advised that 33% of all consumers assisted by the community-based mental health services are Aboriginal, and that Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory also have high admission rates to our inpatient facilities.
A fundamental challenge for the Northern Territory is to provide culturally effective mental health care in an area characterised by great diversity and, at times, an overwhelming clash of cultures. The use of non-Aboriginal approaches, which may be culturally inappropriate and fail to meet the needs of Aboriginal people, can contribute to greater ill health and social problems within the communities. One of the major challenges for the Mental Health Program is to build the capacity of Aboriginal communities, families, and individuals to effectively manage emotional and social wellbeing issues.
A working party endorsed by the Northern Territory Aboriginal Health Forum has developed a Draft Strategic Plan for Aboriginal Emotional and Social Wellbeing, with extensive community input. This work is aligned with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander National Strategic Framework for Mental Health and Emotional and Social Wellbeing, which is under development.
A fundamental shared tenet of the approaches supported in these documents and Mental Health Services in the Territory is the strong belief in the central role that Aboriginal mental health workers have in fostering culturally sensitive interventions with Aboriginal people. We are all keenly aware of the complex health and wellbeing problems faced by Aboriginal people, particularly in remote communities. Aboriginal mental health workers deal with a broad range of concerns including substance misuse, family relationship problems and other emotional and social wellbeing issues. Their work is complex. They often have to deal with high work loads and be available for after-hours consultation. They also must consider issues arising from their remoteness and their own family responsibilities.
A priority of the Mental Health Program in the Territory is to enhance Aboriginal mental health workforce numbers and capacity. A proportion of the new funding has been allocated to additional senior Aboriginal mental health positions in the Top End and Central Australia. These positions will play a critical coordinating and mentoring role for Aboriginal mental health workers. They will also contribute to a partnership agreement, which I launched last year, between the Top End Mental Health Service, the Top End Division of General Practice, Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education. This agreement provides a platform to support the Top End Division of General Practice’s Aboriginal Mental Health Worker Program. The program is funded by the division, the Alcohol and Education Rehabilitation Foundation and beyondblue.
Many of you will be aware that in 2002, the Northern Territory government became a fully voting member of the National Depression Initiative, beyondblue. Professor Veronica Arbon, Director of the Batchelor of Indigenous Tertiary Education, represents the views and interests of Territorians on the beyondblue Board, and has a strong commitment to supporting the partnership agreement.
The principal aim of the agreement is to ensure that the Aboriginal mental health workers have access to ongoing coordinated training and support, as well as strong links with general practitioners and specialist mental health services. The partners to this agreement believe that services in remote indigenous communities should be delivered in the context of learning both ways. This means that all parties recognise the essential knowledge held by Aboriginal mental health workers around cultural, family and traditional ways of working in mental health. Partners work together in an environment of cross-cultural learning.
I am very pleased to announce today that this innovative Territory-conceived partnership received an achievement award for service partnership at the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Services Conference recently held in Canberra.
This government has recognised that mental health is one of the most important health challenges of the 21st century. The government has reviewed our current system and found it to be an area that has been seriously neglected and underfunded in the past. We have given a firm commitment to progressing long overdue change in mental health services in the Northern Territory.
Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of this statement.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement.
It is a sad fact that mental health problems are escalating both in Australia and internationally. Of course, as the minister said, mental health is vitally important. Health is probably the most important aspect in anybody’s life, for unless you have good health, you are of little use to anybody. It is incredibly important that people have good health, and when I use the term ‘health’, I encapsulate the concept of mental health.
I was expecting and looking forward to the statement, given the May budget. I felt that, at some time, the minister would give us some details as to how that money was going to be spent. Also, in February of this year, a document entitled Mental Health Service System: Development Strategy Project of the Northern Territory was published. It is quite a detailed review of mental health services in the Territory.
I was looking to see how the minister would interpret this strategy document and the budget commitment that was made in May. I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed with the lack of real substance in the statement with regard to detail. The statement, for example, provides a basic description of mental health problems internationally, nationally and locally and gives five pages to that activity. It then lists contributing factors to suicide. It was interesting that substance abuse was not included in any of the dot points provided, yet we all know that Coroner Greg Cavanagh, in his findings on Bathurst Island with regard to the high rates of suicide and the problems there, listed substance abuse as a cause of suicide. It was interesting that in the minister’s statement, substance abuse was not listed as a cause of suicide.
The statement touched on the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention, which I understand was launched today. If I turn to page 15, with regard to the strategic framework and as an illustration of the lack of real detail in this statement, lack of things that we can actually have a hook to hang a hat on, something that we can evaluate things by, the minister’s statement said:
- The strategic framework will be involved in promoting wellbeing, resilience and community capacity, which means
enhancing protection against suicide by strengthening wellbeing, optimism, connectedness, resilience, health and
capacity across the entire community, with a particular focus on young people and their families.
It goes on in those very general terms, rather than providing anything that is really measurable and something that the community can come back to in perhaps 12 months or so and be able to measure whether any actual activity has occurred in response to what appears to be a strategy.
In her statement, the minister also touched on the budget commitment of an extra $900 000 a year but, once again, there was no detail as to how this money would be spent. She comments:
- The new funding will enhance clinical care, provide increased support for consumers and carers, help
reduce hospital admissions and provide more intensive post-discharge follow up and rehabilitation services.
Yet there is no real detail as to exactly how that will be done - no mention, for example, of new positions or something like that in any particular location.
Given what happened in the last financial year, 2002-03, with regard to the spending of $500 000 that was promised to the Royal Darwin Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department for specialist positions, when we were going through the Estimates process and subsequently when I was permitted to discuss this issue with the CEO of the Department of Health and Community Services, I asked about this issue of how this $500 000 was spent. How many extra staff did we see in the Accident and Emergency Department? Who were those staff? What positions did they hold? The CEO was able to cite a couple of positions, but then said that, really, with regard to money like that, nowadays the view is not so much that you can point at a specific staff member, but it is related to payment of salaries and things like that. So his view was that the money went into the area, but it probably paid for overtime and things like that. My concern is with the $900 000 that has been promised with regard to this year’s spending on mental health, we have not been told exactly where a significant proportion of that money will go. It would be great to get that detail now as we are getting pretty close to half-way through the financial year without that information.
In her statement, the minister advised that the Top End Mental Health Service project will look at staffing and service models for services. I have some concerns with this view of looking at service models and staffing. The reason I have a concern is that on page 56 of the strategy, it goes into the area called Distribution of Resources and provides some information about the issue of the distribution of resources across the Northern Territory with regard to the funding of mental health services. At the end of almost a page of information, it provides from the strategy, recommendation 6, and I quote:
- It is recommended that the level of funding provided to inpatient services in Darwin be brought into closer
alignment with the national average bed day cost of $455 a day. This strategy will require a detailed review
of current operations and staffing levels, which presently appear to be consistent with a psychiatric intensive
care unit for all patients. Funds released as a result of this process should be directed to the pool of additional
resources
The inference is that funding for inpatient services may well be reduced, and that concerns me. It could result, for example, in a reduction of the staff-patient ratio. We have had some problems in the unit, and I speak specifically about Cowdy Ward at Royal Darwin Hospital. There was an article in this weekend’s paper headed: ‘Nurse wants more staff; Coroner queries Cowdy Ward tragedy’. My concern is that based on recommendation 6, which appears to be implying the need to reduce the costs incurred by inpatient services, and we all know that staffing is always the greatest cost with provision of health services, there is an inference that there will be a reduction in staff-patient ratios.
The newspaper raised two cases in Cowdy Ward: one was about the death of a woman; and another a man who hanged himself shortly after discharge. The woman was found dead, having committed suicide in Cowdy Ward last year. Mr Cavenagh made the comment that he wanted to know basically how the department resourced the psychiatric unit. The unit, a week after the woman’s death, had been described by an independent expert as ‘dysfunctional’. One of the nurses who was quizzed at the inquest said she had never been refused increased resources, but there was a need for more full-time staff. The nurse appears to have been quoted in the paper as saying:
- I do not think people on call from a nursing agency make up for permanent staff.
Still from the article:
- Agency staff asked to work overtime were the same ones as on a regular shift, resulting in long hours and stress.
So the newspaper article raised the issue of staffing on the unit, the fact that staff are working overtime and extra shifts, and the concern that some of the staff from the agency were not the normal staff on the unit, which meant that they probably did not understand how it operated.
That article was of concern, and I know members will be aware there have been a number of instances over the last few years that have appeared in the paper with regards to mental health services. In today’s NT News on page 9, there is an article headed ‘Mental Health System Alarm’, which also deals with problems in the service.
When you take a report like this, which certainly appears to be advocating a reduction in spending on inpatient services, we have to take care. I suspect the authors are from interstate. Although it is interesting to compare Territory costs to those interstate, we are different from interstate jurisdictions. For example, we often lack the family support in the Territory that people have interstate. We also have a significant proportion of our community who are disadvantaged people, who come from families that have significant disruptions in them. I also wonder how recommendation 6 has been calculated with regard to the staff-patient ratios because I have been advised over the last six to eight weeks that there is significant overcrowding in Cowdy Ward so that could affect how these statistics came about.
Quite frankly, I do not believe that we have to be like jurisdictions interstate because they are not doing very well, either. Two weeks ago, on 1 October 2003, The Bulletin headline was: ‘A National scandal’ with regards to mental health services. Quite a lengthy article appeared in this issue of The Bulletin. I will quote some of the passages in it, given that this mental health strategy that was done in the Territory in February seems to be inferring we should reduce our services in Cowdy Ward to be like the services provided interstate. I quote from The Bulletin article, which was written by Hall Greenland:
- About 400 mentally ill patients throughout Australia - most of them aged in their 20s and 30s - will commit
suicide this year because the places that once treated them have now been closed and diminished.
Mr Acting Speaker, you will be aware that approximately 15 to 20 years ago, there was a move in Australia, which replicated a move across the board in many western countries, to de-institutionalise mental health facilities, and this essentially meant the closing of large inpatient services. When I did my training as a student nurse on the Gold Coast, we did not have a psychiatric inpatient unit. People from the Gold Coast with mental health problems had to go to a place called Wolston Park in Brisbane. I remember, as a student nurse, spending a day at Wolston Park and, quite frankly, being pretty spooked by it all. I do not think those institutions that existed 20 or 30 years ago, certainly the one that I saw, were perfect and we could certainly do a lot better, but there was, to a degree, a knee-jerk reaction across this country in the closure of those sorts of institutions. The result has been that many beds were lost in the mental health areas, clients go into mental health services and are given prescriptions for drugs, and are essentially discharged pretty quickly, and this article certainly argues that case. The result is, and this article argues points to it, that a lot of people go on to commit suicide, have other problems, or even commit murder.
The other thing that all of us see in our electorates is people who quite obviously have mental health problems roaming around. My electorate is the inner city of Darwin. I am sure any of you who have spent some time in this electorate would certainly recognise some of the people on the streets who quite obviously have mental health problems. Most of them seem to survive quite well, and get on with their life and their business in a way. I have seen them and known them for many years and they are obviously surviving quite well, and obviously have a support system in their lives that is working well. On the other hand, you will see people, from time to time, who are struggling with their mental health problems, as they live in our community, who do not appear to have linked in well with support or family services. Because our accommodation services are so stretched, these people often find themselves still on the street and struggling to survive.
I will read another quote from The Bulletin article with regard to the problems that are occurring Australia-wide:
- … the Salaried Medical Officers Federation, told last year’s NSW Upper House inquiry into mental health services:
‘It is often the case that patients are discharged from hospital in a state of health which, 10 years ago, would have
resulted in their admission to hospital’.
That reflects what I just said; that we have a significant number of people with mental health problems who, 10 years, ago would have been admitted to hospital or an institution and, at the moment, they are classified as being quite okay to be released. There are some real issues with regard to the type of service that we are providing as a community.
Another point, and the minister makes this point in her statement, is that it is hard to get qualified staff in this area to work and stay in the Territory. It is very important that we provide a system that not only caters for the clients, but is one that staff will want to work in, so we are not driving them away. From page 28 in the same Bulletin article, I will read a comment where the National Association of Practicing Psychiatrists’ President, Rachel Falk, said:
The working conditions are so poor – the staff dissatisfaction, burnout, incapacity to actually do what they want
to do with patients, help them, treat them adequately – people don't want to go into the system.
that being the mental health system. That reflects a national problem with regard to the staffing in mental health areas. I stress to the minister to do all she can to ensure that she is providing a workplace environment that will keep our staff here.
I know that things are not great out there for staff. I am going to be careful what I say now, because I do not want to allude to the identity of an area that is having some problems, but it is in mental health. I received a phone call yesterday from a staff member in a particular location. She does not work in mental health but, in her area, meaning her township, there is a community Mental Health Unit in which there are a number of staff. One of the staff members recently was very stressed out, so she and the person who spoke to me decided that she should call in sick. The cause of the stress was the work situation. When she rang in sick, nobody answered the phone and so, after a couple of hours she went into the office, and the other staff members were all off sick, too. That is the current situation that we have in Territory, with significant workloads for our mental health services staff. I will argue significant stress for some of them, and we need to do all we can to ensure we keep the staff that we have and, ideally, attract more to our area.
Since I became a member of parliament, I have had the great honour and privilege to be able to travel throughout the Territory, going to all sorts of communities in my various roles. At the moment, those include being the shadow Health minister. When I go to communities, I take particular note of and interest in health services in the area. One of the things that has come up from time to time has been the role of Aboriginal mental health workers. It strikes me that we do not have enough of them. Something I encourage the minister to do is to recruit and train more Aboriginal mental health workers and create more positions for them. In communities such as Bathurst Island, we all acknowledge that there has been and continues to be an ongoing, incredibly serious problem with mental health issues.
I believe that Aboriginal mental health workers would and could have a major influence on what is happening in that community. I am not sure how many Aboriginal mental health workers we even have here in the Territory and at some point, I would be interested if the minister could advise the House, because they are not very common. It is certainly rare for me to meet one, yet they have a real role to play, and I know the minister drew attention to that in her statement.
I welcome this statement from the minister but, as I said before, it is a bit frustrating because it does lack detail as to what will actually be occurring. All I can say is: ‘Well, the government says that by November, we will employ 10 extra Aboriginal mental health workers in the Top End and they will be located here, here and here’, or however the money might be spent. It is going to be quite difficult for someone such as myself to be able to assess how the program is going, and that is one of the frustrations of this statement.
I certainly hope that services do improve over the next few years. I believe there has been a fair bit of talk with regard to mental health services over the years. This year, for example, we had the Bansemer Review, which was published in January/February, and which certainly dealt with mental health issues. We had the Mental Health Services System Development Strategy, which was published in February this year. We had the Territory budget, which included mental health services, in May. We now have the minister’s statement today, October. The Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention was launched today and that has more talk in it. From the minister’s statement, we learnt that the Top End Mental Health Services Project is now under way and the Central Australian Mental Health Services Project is going to commence. There is a lot of talk; it will be great to see some action.
Next Tuesday, I will be going to visit Cowdy Ward. I thank the minister and her unit for allowing me to do that and arranging for that to happen. I will be very interested to look at the ward and speak to the staff. I know the staff will not be able to provide me with certain information, but hopefully by touching base they will know that I am somebody that they can come to if they ever feel they need to let someone know how things are going there. In my role as the shadow health minister, it is my job to do what I can to lobby to improve services. I take that role very seriously and will do all I can on that issue if people feel that it is necessary.
Let us get the review and talk over as soon as possible and the action started, changes made and spending under way to benefit those in our community who really do need help.
Dr BURNS (Tourism): Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement on this very important topic. As the minister has pointed out, mental health services were identified as a priority area within the Bansemer Review published earlier this year. Indeed, to quote from page 112 of the Bansemer Review, significantly paragraph 666:
This sector of the health system is, despite the production and subsequent non-implementation of a series of
reports and studies over the past decade, under-resourced, fragmented and poorly supported.
Further evidence of the way in which the previous government inadequately resourced and failed to support this important health area is the fact alluded to by the Health minister in her statement that by 1999-2000, per capita expenditure on mental health in the Territory was the second lowest in Australia. Whilst the member for Port Darwin can say: ‘Let’s get the talk over; there are all these reports’, there is a bit of history there as well. The challenge is for this government, as the member for Port Darwin pointed out, to take the information that we have been given, the reports, the directions, the strategic framework, and move forward. The minister’s statement, the significant sums that he has talked about and the strategic framework and planning all point to the fact that this government is serious about this issue.
The CLP failed in its duty of care to Territorians in this area but, more importantly, this government has demonstrated a real and substantial commitment to supporting and developing mental health services in the Northern Territory. We have done this in three major and substantial ways: first, a substantial funding increase; second, setting out clearly defined processes for the implementation of the Bansemer Review and other relevant reviews such as the Mental Health Review; and third, this statement, which gives the House the opportunity to debate and review this important area of health services.
In relation to the new funding, the Health minister has already stated that this government has allocated an extra $7.2m to the Northern Territory mental health system over the next three years. That is, $900 000 in 2003-04, $2.4m in 2004-05, and $3.9m in 2005-06.
The Health minister has comprehensively outlined the extent and impact of mental illness in our community. Unfortunately, the prevalence of mental illness may be increasing and, I have to be honest here, I am basing this on my own perceptions. I know in the Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention and other documents, there seems to be a fairly static rate of mental illness, but it has been my experience over the past 50 or so years that it seems to be increasing. As a pharmacist, I worked for some time in mental institutions dispensing drugs in those very sad places, so it is an area that I have had an interest and contact with.
In addition, the minister has comprehensively outlined the extent and impact of mental illness in our community, as I said before, but it is not clear if this is a reflection of increased rates of mental illness, earlier identification of conditions, increased community awareness of and preparedness to access available services and support, or simply due to more data collection systems or a combination of all of the above, which I suspect is probably the answer.
There seems to be an increase in mental illness and, maybe as the member for Port Darwin said, there was a push a number of years ago to close down large mental institutions and basically force some people out on the streets, so it has become more visible. These are things with which we as a society need to come to grips.
Whilst government has a definite role in addressing this issue, and I will go through some of those roles soon, I never cease to admire the work of community groups such as GROW. I am very fortunate to have in my electorate Julie James, who is a real stayer and very energetic person who supports GROW in the Northern Territory. GROW is a community mental health organisation. I am reading from their pamphlet, which tells a little bit about their organisation. It is a community mental health organisation that began in Sydney in 1957 and has now gone international, so there is something that was developed in Australia and has gone international. It is a support group for those with mental illness or simply interested in personal growth.
The membership has broadened over the years, and they have weekly meetings in particular areas, so it is mutual help, and they are able to share common experiences in a friendly, caring and confidential atmosphere. This really does a lot for people’s self-esteem. It does a lot for people, knowing that there are others out in the community with the same problem, and those who have been through the problems of mental illness are able to give support to others who are going through the same problems. The groups may vary in size from three to 15. They have a lot of sayings within GROW, and one of them is: ‘Mostly, when things go wrong, they are meant to go wrong, so we can outgrow what we have to outgrow’.
Here is a group that meets the challenges of life. They do not keep saying: ‘Why does this have to happen to me?’. That is something we all say to each other every now and again: ‘Why has this happened to me, why have I been dealt this particular hand?’. They say: ‘No, this is something that has happened to me through life and I am determined to meet that challenge and to grow thereby’.
Julie supplied some statistics to me from the GROW centre from January 2003 to June 2003: visitors to the centre – 643; phone inquiries – 57; personal inquiries – 84; and support – 61. That is very important. She reports that 448 have attended the groups over this year. These groups are held on Monday nights at Coolalinga and Casuarina, Wednesday morning at the GROW centre in Casuarina, and Friday morning at Palmerston. They are a very active group. They are trying to help all people in the community. I commend them.
Government is trying to do as much as it can. We have allocated significant extra funding, but we need the work with groups like GROW. There was an issue that Julie raised in relation to the extended hours service, and there were some problems in one particular case of accessing it. I made inquiries in the Health minister’s office and I am sure that those issue have been addressed. Julie James is someone who works tirelessly for those with mental illness and, as her local member, if she brings concerns to me, I certainly carry them on. They are an important part of mental health system in the Northern Territory.
In relation to the issue that Julie raised, the Health minister mentioned new mental health nurse positions. I am informed that some of those will be placed in the emergency department, and the issues that Julie raised will be satisfactorily addressed. People have had issues but, as a government, we are trying to address those issues in a realistic and effective way.
I particularly welcome the initiatives flagged within the minister’s statement in relation to suicide prevention. Sadly, suicide, particularly youth suicide, appears to have become an increasingly common phenomenon within Australian society. I must add that, once again, this is my perception over five decades of life. Perhaps suicide was something that was covered up in past decades, I do not know. There was a lot of shame associated with suicide in the past, and it was something previous generations have covered up. Most people in our community are very concerned about the increasing rate of suicide.
While national suicide rates have remained relatively constant over recent years, and I suppose I am talking about the past 10 years, suicide rates in the Northern Territory have increased. In 2000, the NT rate was approximately 45% to 50% higher than the national rate. Furthermore, the incidence of Aboriginal suicide is a fairly recent occurrence in the Northern Territory. It was almost unheard of when I came to the Territory some 25 years ago. It was very rare. I never heard of it, and Aboriginal youth suicide was very, very rare, something that I did not hear about, but it is something that I have been hearing a lot about within the last four to five years. That is very unfortunate. So, although the effects of suicide and attempted suicide are profound, the causes of suicide and attempted suicide are complex and, I believe, often obscure. Along with the increase in suicide rates, in time over the wider Australian society, and I am talking about a longer timeframe for the apparent increase, the increase in Aboriginal suicide rate for males aged 15 to 24 is cause for great concern and may involve a range of additional factors or exacerbation of factors in common with wider Australian society. These factors may include loss of self-esteem; perceptions of hopelessness and alienation, or a lack of what many people call ‘connectedness’ to your community, your family, and to your peers.
I commend the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. I heard what the member for Port Darwin was saying: ‘Oh, well, you have not really flagged up the role of substance abuse in suicide’. It is very plain on page 11 of this framework: ‘Mental health problems’, and right at the top there is: ‘Harmful Drug Use’. That is the risk pathway for suicide and suicide attempts. There has been no attempt to bury this issue; it is an important issue and I am going to deal with it in some detail. Page 12 deals with the research that Rob Parker has done in the Top End, and the significant alcohol abuse prior to suicide.
Coming back to the wider factors related to suicide, these are addressed to a large degree in the Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. I would like to specifically deal with inter-related issues affecting substance abuse, mental health and suicide. This is because I believe that these issues are interlinked, and provide significant challenges to the Northern Territory in general.
There have been concerns expressed by psychiatrists working in this area, such as Hunter and Parker. Of course, Rob Parker is a local psychiatrist, someone who enjoys a lot of respect. As most people would know, he is married to a Tiwi lady and he has spent a lot of time in the company of Tiwi people. I particularly respect Rob Parker, his experience and what he might have to say about this issue. These psychiatrists hypothesise that a generation of Aboriginal people have been made more susceptible to suicide through witnessing alcohol-related violence and abuse by their parents and extended family, and within their community. Although seemingly calm on the exterior, various factors may precipitate unfortunate consequences and impulsive behaviour such as suicide.
One of the main things that is often raised is the issue of the relationship of heavy cannabis use, psychoses and suicide. There is a body of literature on cannabis and psychoses, and the possible link between cannabis and mental illness including schizophrenia. Wayne Hall and others in NDARC, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, in Sydney have done a lot of research in this area as well as overseas people. It seems that they are moving towards the conclusion that, with all other factors including pre-existing mental illnesses catered for, heavy cannabis use can contribute to mental illness. It certainly causes psychoses and that, in itself, is a mental illness. That is very important to remember. Cannabis is not a safe drug. A lot of people say it is a harmless drug; it is a recreational drug. For a certain percentage of people in our community, it is a very dangerous drug and can have very dangerous consequences. We should never underestimate the harm that cannabis can do within our community and to individuals’ lives.
There are further concerns about the combined effects of alcohol and cannabis in relation to suicide, and I quote from an interview given by Alan Clough, at the Menzies School of Health Research on ABC Radio’s PM on 22 August 2003:
- There seems to be an association between increased levels of cannabis use and the occurrence of dependency,
anxiety and mood disorders. There’s also a possibility of an association with psychosis, but that hasn’t emerged
yet in our data.
He went on to say:
There is good evidence to suggest that heavy cannabis use combined with alcohol use is an important disinhibiting
factor for those who seek to hurt themselves or to commit suicide.
So heavy cannabis use combined with alcohol use and the setting in which many young Aboriginal people find themselves, often hopelessness and despair, wondering what does it all mean, where is it all going, settings of depression, cannabis and alcohol exacerbate that situation. I am pleased to say that the minister’s statement addressed the issue of cannabis and alcohol use, and I will come to that.
In view of the above factors, importantly, the minister’s statement details this government’s Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. The framework is consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and the National Mental Health Strategy, endorsed by all Australian jurisdictions. As described by the Health minister, there are six areas for action in the strategic framework. These include: promoting wellbeing, resilience and community capacity; supporting initiatives that reduce risk factors; improving the ability of a wider range of service systems and support networks to meet the needs of groups at increased risk of suicide and self-harm; strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk; providing culturally appropriate programs; and ensuring that our programs and services are backed by a strong evidence base to ensure good practice.
In relation to the issues that I have raised, I was pleased to learn, particularly in relation to drugs and their possible link with suicide – there is a lot of research to be done yet, but on the face of it, there are very strong links - I was pleased to hear in the minister’s statement that:
- The Illicit Drugs Task Force and the Bansemer Review both identified the need for senior officials in Mental
Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs to work together to improve identification, prevention, and treatment
of co-occurring conditions such as drug-induced psychoses.
Within the minister’s statement, she certainly flagged the important issue of drug abuse, mental health and suicide. We really need to work on those things to ensure that they are properly addressed within the framework.
I now move onto unfit to plead, that is an important part of the minister’s statement.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that that the minister be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Dr BURNS: I will be brief, Mr Acting Speaker. I am talking about unfitness to plead. It is evident from a number of recent court cases that the scourge of petrol sniffing has caused substantial brain damage in a number of young Aboriginal men. In some cases, the courts have determined that this impairment has been a substantial contributor to sometimes violent crimes, often rendering them unfit to plead. Furthermore, there have been other celebrated unfit to plead cases in the Northern Territory not necessarily related to petrol sniffing or substance abuse. Being unfit to plead is a problem.
As members would be aware, this government passed mental impairment and unfitness to plead provisions of the Criminal Code, which commenced in June 2002. Additional resources have been allocated this year to increase the capacity of the Forensic Mental Health team in Darwin to respond to the requirements of this legislation. That is a positive aspect.
The member for Port Darwin mentioned Aboriginal mental health workers, and that is a very important issue. I remember when I first came to the Territory there were Aboriginal people I knew with mental illness, but within the framework of Aboriginal community and traditional life, these people were catered for, they were supported. They were not ostracised; they were part of the whole and they were accommodated. It was a big lesson to me, coming from a society that locked people up, as the member for Port Darwin said, in all sorts of terrible institutions, that Aboriginal people, in their way of accommodating those with mental illness, were very generous and supportive.
Over the years at Maningrida, I got to know Mr Albert Mileran who has had a long-term commitment to mental health, illness and well-being. Albert, over many years, has been knocked down a few times because he has not really had the support that he should have for the important work that he has done also in the drug and alcohol area. I have a hell of a lot of admiration for Albert Mileran. He is committed. He has gone away and had training, and has the respect of his community. If there is one thing that we can do through these mental health initiatives, it is support people like Albert Mileran who will do a power of good. I know he already has done a power of good with very few resources. We need to support Aboriginal mental health workers, and Albert Mileran would have a lot to teach some of the younger ones who want to enter into this very important field.
Finally, the minister’s statement has recognised the challenges of delivering suitable and adequate mental health services in the Northern Territory. Unlike the opposition, we have risen to the challenge and have allocated funding and developed a specific and strategic framework to reach the goal outlined in the Bansemer Review:
- One of the objects should be to bring mental health services in the Northern Territory to a parity level with
other Australian jurisdictions.
We want to move it from the second lowest in Australia to at least parity and, given the talented nature and commitment of people we have within the department, people like Julie James out in the community, we can not only reach parity, I think we have a lot to show the rest of Australia. In conclusion, Mr Acting Speaker, I commend the minister’s statement to the House.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Mr Acting Speaker, there is absolutely no doubt that this is a very important subject. Mental health is just as important as physical health. In our modern western societies, researchers are becoming more and more aware of some of the causes and issues that affect the mental health of our wider population.
May I say at the outset that the hard work of the men and women employed by the Department of Health and Community Services who deal with this topic should be appreciated and acknowledged. They should be congratulated for the amount of effort they put in. Also, of course, the unpaid people, the volunteers. The honourable member for Johnston talked about community groups like GROW. GROW uses my electorate office at Coolalinga to hold regular meetings, and my door remains open. In fact, I encourage them to use the conference room and the facilities that are available in my office to further their cause.
Mental illness takes many forms and I have absolutely no reason to doubt the minister’s statement in terms of the fairly compelling statistics contained in it. Somewhere in the document, on the first couple of pages, the minister referred to one in five people being affected or will experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives. That in itself is a compelling static. It is something which, invariably through the course of our lives, we will know someone who is affected by mental illness if not one in five of us being the subject of that particular illness.
If this ministerial statement is to do anything, at least it will raise the issue in the public arena. I hope it will raise public awareness of the issue, and give the House and members an opportunity to further publicise and increase awareness of mental health in our broader community.
The catchphrase that appears in the statement ‘There is no health without mental health’ is absolutely true. It is a great philosophy for the mental health community to champion. Everyone knows that last week was National Mental Health Week. I did my best to get involved in promoting it and raising public awareness of the issues. I am sure many other members attended the art exhibition which was in the Main Hall of Parliament House. There were a number of other media events that went along the path of raising the issue. Well done to those people, community groups and Department of Health employees who were involved and helped put together the exhibition and other activities for National Mental Health Week.
A large portion of the statement dealt with suicide. Indeed, there was the launch of the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention. I am not a pharmacist, nor am I qualified in this area, but I can, from my own life experiences, make some observations about the subject matter. The first and most obvious one is that the high rates of suicide that exist in the Northern Territory are a real concern to the general community. Obviously, there is a significant link between people with mental illness and their propensity to commit an act of self-harm. In my view, governments of all ilks cannot do enough to really investigate and implement initiatives to address the issue.
From my reading of it, the statement does state a number of self-evident norms that I have heard bandied about in my decade or so of being both a prosecutor and defence lawyer. There are a couple of points I want to touch upon. For a number of reasons, it seems that youth suicide is more prevalent in some Aboriginal communities. That is a real concern. I suppose it begs the question: why is that so? Why is it prevalent in one particular remote community and not another? There are a number of reasons cited in the statement, and there is probably no single root cause.
There is one other matter that needs to be amplified and is not contained in detail in the statement, and that is that, if you look at it logically, you cannot have a community of 200, 500 or 1000 people living somewhere where there is effectively no worthwhile employment. You cannot have a group of people living in a state where there is not a work ethic. You cannot have a group of people living somewhere where mum and dad do not work, where the dignity that comes with having a job and a pride in the things you buy and the things you do does not exist. That will create problems. If there is no land tenure or work ethic, then this inevitable damage will occur to a person’s dignity, the family structure. Then coupled with - and I suppose these are systemic factors and not the root cause - alcohol abuse and excessive use of cannabis flow from these things. Unfortunately, we witness it, and those of us who have friends who have lived on remote communities who are affected will know that these symptoms go on to cause a number of tragedies, one of which can be mental illness, and sometimes people commit acts of self-harm.
I was surprised by some comments by the member for Johnston. I was not going to politicise the issue at all, but I was surprised to hear him try to put a spin on it that the previous government had not done anything to try and deal with the issue. From a very narrow academic perspective, he was saying the previous government spent less money on this therefore they were not taking it seriously, or that seemed to be the implication. The bottom line is this, fairly obviously: you deal with a problem as complicated as mental illness in a number of ways.
An accolade bestowed upon this person who, as Australian of the Year, a professor from Western Australia, a medical practitioner. What is her name?
Ms Carney: Professor Fiona Stanley.
Mr MALEY: That is right.
Mrs Aagaard: What was her name?
Mr MALEY: The member for Arafura said her name. Perhaps she could remind the minister.
Ms Scrymgour: It was the member for Araluen.
Mr MALEY: Anyway, this person was one of those absolutely committed flag wavers; a bit mixed up in the Aboriginal cause of things, but at the end of the day, she was saying this: it is not about a race, it is not about having more programs for alcohol abuse or consumption of cannabis or building schools or another 10 police stations; it is about intervention. She was saying that it is about governments being serious about the problem and the intervention at stages as early as this: if you have mothers who are alcoholics who have babies who are affected by alcohol, it will lead to problems through life and the propensity for mental illness increases.
The thrust of her argument, and it is a very good one, is that if you are serious about the issue, you can talk about it and have all the committee meetings that say: ‘This is a symptom and here is a bandaid’, but you have to really grab the bull by the horns and intervene at a very early stage to deal with these systemic failures that are occurring in a community.
The fact that you have raised it in parliament today, after last week’s Mental Health Awareness Week, is a credit to the minister; the public awareness aspect of it. As a community, we need to continue to move forward and deal with the issue. The broad framework announced today in the ministerial statement is welcome. There is little doubt that the minister has the best of intention in dealing with the issue.
Another aspect that received some attention - and I am relying upon the information contained in the statement – is that it seems that men are one of the high risk groups. It is good to see that this group will be targeted. Often men’s health and education, particularly white men, seem to be ignored. It is good to see that things are beginning to change and there is an emphasis on dealing with the issues affecting this group in our community.
This is a good statement on a topic that demands our support and all the attention that we can give to it.
There is a I have, and it is nothing really to do with the statement, but with what happens next. Honourable members will all be aware that at the Economic Development Summit in November 2001, in this very building, in this very room, a number of recommendations were made. There was real engagement by the community, and there were a number of important recommendations made.
Of course, those recommendations were duly posted on the government Internet site and, like most verbal initiatives from the Martin Labor government, it then languished before it slipped away into the ether. That was a tragedy. There is no denying that one of the key recommendations in that report was to fast track the wharf precinct development. Well, it took nearly two years for this government to even announce that they were going to make a decision about the construction of something. Those recommendations were ignored; that wonderful framework was ignored. I just hope that this ministerial statement and the initiatives it announces are not also ignored and suffer the inevitable fate that most, indeed all, of the Martin Labor government initiatives have seem to have suffered over the past two years. With that small rider, I support the matters raised in the statement.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it is so tempting to digress from what I want to say and touch on what the member for Goyder said because what he just did was totally denigrate an area that is very important, not just amongst indigenous people but the whole of the community. It is an issue that people need to take quite seriously because whilst we look at hospitals and clinics and talk about primary health care, very little attention is paid to, and people rarely talk about, the issues of mental health or wellbeing. He was saying some good things, but there were some things said out of total ignorance and not having worked in that area or having any understanding of it. But rather than being tempted to slide down to the level to which the member for Goyder went, I will go to what I wanted to say.
We heard a statement from the Minister for Health and Community Services that is extensive and comprehensive. I thank the minister for providing us with a status report that covers a range of discrete but interrelated issues relevant to the complex social problems that we refer to by the shorthand title ‘mental health’. I am only going to touch on a number of them, with a view to suggesting ways that existing or developing policy might be adapted or finetuned for the benefit of people living in remote area electorates like my own.
I welcome the minister’s candid acknowledgment that the nature of the bundle of issues comprising mental health in the Territory is such as requires ongoing consultation with and feedback from various individuals and agencies. I note that in addition to there being under way or in progress various reviews in respect of discrete issues or processes, the Mental Health and Related Services Act is itself currently under review. The coming months are obviously a timely window of opportunity to address matters of concern, including those that have been raised and outlined in the minister’s statement.
Before I mention matters of particular concern to me, it would be useful to provide some background context in terms of the shift. The member for Port Darwin stole a bit of my thunder. Had we all read the article cited by the member for Port Darwin from The Bulletin magazine, we would agree with the banner headline of ‘A National Scandal’. The special investigation report published inside the magazine commenced with the following three paragraphs, and I will go back over them. I know she read extracts, but I am going cite parts that I feel are relevant not only throughout Australia, and I know she was speaking from a national perspective, but if you look at mental health nationally, it is irrelevant to when we look at the Northern Territory, although there are issues that have happened nationally that are relevant to us.
I quote from The Bulletin of October 1:
- Reform of the mental health system in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s hit all the hot buttons. ‘human rights’,
‘community care’, ‘end of the stigma’, ‘self reliance’, ‘more normal lives’. There were to be no more men in white
coats to whisk away the family embarrassment in the middle of the night. No more lingering, living deaths behind
high walls. No more padded cells. No more people strapped to benches and convulsed with electricity. You could
throw away the straitjackets; the nightmare of mental illness was over. Ken Kesey’s Nurse Ratched was out of a job.
People with mental illness were to walk free.
They walked all right, many of them to premature deaths. During that short march to the promised psychiatric
paradise, the annual number of fatalities has doubled. In the larger states, in may have quadrupled.
About 400 mentally ill patients throughout Australia - most of them aged in their 20s and 30s - will commit suicide
this year because the places that once treated them have been closed or diminished. They have been turned away
and sent to their deaths.
The bottom line conclusion of The Bulletin report is that the pendulum has swung too far away from the interventionist, hands-on treatment that characterised mental health care prior to the 1980s.
I agree with that conclusion and analysis, but qualify my comments by explaining that I am in no way advocating a return to the kind of institutionalisation portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - I am sure all of us have seen that movie - but rather, the investigation and implementation of compromise arrangements that enable any individual seeking to integrate into the mainstream community, either directly or by way of residence in half-way houses or hostels, to feel secure in the knowledge that appropriate institutional care and support is readily available as a safety net and back up.
I am encouraged by the minister’s words that better care for those with co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems is also a particular concern for this government. The subject matter of that concern is necessarily of importance to the Substance Abuse Committee, and I am keen to set up meetings between the committee, the minister and relevant key departmental staff with a view to both identifying and dealing with the negative impact of drugs and alcohol on those underlying mental health problems.
The dilemma is, of course, not unique to the Territory. The Bulletin report I mentioned earlier had this to say this about it:
- Observers can and do argue over this phenomenon - some blaming the drugs (especially marijuana) for
causing or exacerbating illness. Others, more controversially, see self-medication as a means of increasing
the level of serotonin in the brain in much the same way as modern anti-depressants and anti-psychotic
drugs do. (Low levels of serotonin are associated with acute mental illness; therefore, upping the level is
viewed as a way of alleviating systems and increasing periods of normality and pleasure).
However, people in hospital emergency or psychiatric wards see only one side of the story: a wave of drug
abusers and disturbed people coming through their doors. And after they have gone back out the doors,
it’s the coroners’ turn to see the same people with dual-diagnosis problems or, by that stage, ‘co-morbidity
factors’.
It’s not just a question of increased numbers. There are also the problems of diagnosis. When a mentally disturbed
person turns up at a hospital under the influence of drugs such as alcohol and marijuana, the psychiatrist or nurse
has to decide if their condition is drug-induced or if there is an underlying mental illness that has been
exacerbated by drugs.
While the layperson may think it does not matter much - the person is still, surely, a suitable case for treatment -
the ‘reforms’ of the 1980s separated mental health and drug-addiction services. The first is only interested in
cases of underlying sickness and the second in drug-induced problems. As it is often unclear what the correct
diagnosis is, those in need can be shunted back and forth until they fall between two stools - sometimes to their
death.
When it comes to the co-occurrence of mental health and substance misuse problems in remote communities, what we need to be working towards is a situation where both Aboriginal mental health workers and fully qualified psychiatrists are available on the ground to catch early deterioration of those individuals who have significant and potentially fatal underlying mental health problems.
One of the things that we have to get away from is the urban myth that mental health problems did not exist in Aboriginal communities until of late. Many of us who grew up in and worked with communities know that the old people used to say when someone did not quite fit into the community or was sick, that person was either cursed, or was sung. That was their way of coming to terms with the fact that the person had mental health problems. Because of the lack of health resources, and in those days people did not particularly think of that, it was probably convenient for a number of players to accept that as the most plausible explanation, that they were sung or cursed.
Furthermore, the integration of mental health and substance abuse services is something that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Some progress is being made with placement of Aboriginal mental health workers on the ground in communities, and I welcome that. However, when it comes to diagnosis by qualified mental medical staff out bush, the task almost falls to the GP for the local clinic, and bush visits from qualified psychiatrists are few and far between. While there are difficulties, even for Darwin and Alice Springs-based patients in arranging to quickly see a departmental psychiatrist, an appointment can be made, usually within a matter of days. Bush people are substantially deprived of this access. I hope that access disparity will be addressed and overcome in the very near future.
The minister has informed us that the government is meeting the increased demands in forensic mental health care associated with legislative reforms to the Criminal Code. She was referring to the new mental impairment and unfitness to plead provisions in the Code. Of course, it is imperative that human and other resources be made available to enable the new reforms to be implemented. However, I hope that additional resources can be allocated to enable court requested mental health assessments to be carried out by psychiatrists in relation to cases where the defendant is regarded as being fit to plead, but nevertheless appears to suffer from a mental health problem which may have critical links with the offending behaviour for which he or she is to be sentenced. When I spoke on this bill, one of the areas that was identified was petrol sniffers, where there are huge gap and often those petrol sniffers do fall between those gaps.
However, when such an offender is to be sentenced by a circuit court magistrate at a remote community far from Darwin, and when the offender has been granted bail pending the completion of reports requested by the magistrate, the response to the court for mental health services tends to be that, due to a lack of staff and resources, the requested assessment could only be carried out in Darwin. If the offender has been remanded in custody and is, therefore, sent in to the remand section of the prison at Berrimah, the problem solves itself. However, in many cases the circumstances do not justify the revoking of the offender’s bail; and that, of course, should not be taken simply in order to facilitate the obtaining of a court requested mental health assessment.
The minister has pointed out that a fundamental challenge for the Northern Territory is to provide culturally effective mental health care in an area characterised by great diversity and, at times, an overwhelming clash of cultures. The allocation of funding and resources to enhance Aboriginal mental health workforce numbers and capacity is an extremely positive and important initiative. However, considerable thought, consultation and planning needs to go into the implementation of the proposed enhancement program. Aboriginal mental health workers should not simply be slotted into remote community health centres to be used exclusively in clinical and crisis management work. The prioritisation of longer range primary health care strategies would see their optimum role being one of working together with visiting mental health professionals, including fully qualified psychiatrists, amongst the community generally. This would involve the casual and non-invasive identification and treatment of individuals with latent or dormant mental health problems that may not yet have fully manifested themselves, and the promotion of lifestyle and family harmony choices that tend to prevent mental health conditions from escalating.
In many of our remote Aboriginal communities where traditional lifestyles and practices are still intact, the one area the health system has found hard to grapple with or to try to integrate is the use of traditional healers, particularly in a lot of our communities where traditions, cultures and practices are still quite strong, and where people’s beliefs are more with traditional healers rather than the western concept of Aboriginal health workers. Certainly, running the Katherine West Health Board in Katherine, I was fortunate to see very positive outcomes in integrating traditional healers in a primary health care setting where, rather than being a burden on that system, those people can be complementary. Many communities recognise the benefits these healers can play. That is something that, at some stage, the system needs to recognise.
The issue of suicide has been raised in this House during this debate. I suppose when we talk about the rate of suicide, particularly amongst young indigenous men, the one community that springs to the minds of many people is the Tiwi Islands. Suicide among those young males is horrific and unacceptable. The member for Port Darwin raised the issue of the Coroner’s report, and in that report, substance abuse was a major factor and played a major role in the suicides of those young men. However, one of the things that is not discussed in a lot of our communities - and having known a number of those young men who have committed suicide, it is like a sleeping giant, pushed under the carpet and not talked about or faced, is the issue of sexual assault. Nearly every single one of those five suicides that the Coroner was dealing with are boys who were left with the legacy of horrible sexual assault. That needs to be put in context of why those young men grew up and had spent a short part of their lives abusing both alcohol and cannabis.
Misuse of cannabis and alcohol are contributing agents, but so are social and economic factors such as inadequate education, lack of meaningful or any employment, family dysfunction, and associated low self-esteem. It is crucial that during the period in which the department will essentially be taking over the functions previously undertaken by the Tiwi Health Board, it focusses sharply on trying to implement a suicide minimisation strategy. Minister, I have seen this strategy and it will be a good thing, but we need to ensure that the strategy combines the allocation of appropriate mental health resources with inter-agency initiatives aimed at the other contributing factors I have highlighted. Because the Tiwi Islands are closer to Darwin than most of the other remote communities in my electorate, the tyranny of distance should not be used as an excuse for failing to provide qualified psychiatrists. It is an area that has been neglected.
The member for Johnston pointed out the CLP’s inadequacy in this area. As I said, before I was elected to parliament, I worked in that system. It is a system that has been neglected for a long time. We can stand here and point the finger at each other all the time and say: ‘We are doing this and you did not do this but we are now doing it’, but at some stage, we have to get beyond that and look at the issue. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, funerals are commonplace when we go out to our communities. I could count two to three funerals that I am attending in my electorate if not weekly, fortnightly. Many of those funerals are for young men. Sometimes they are for women, but a lot of the time they are young men who have cut short their lives. That adds to a depression in itself. I suppose because Tiwi Islanders are my people, there is an urgent need to continue …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the member be granted an extension of time, pursuant to standing orders.
Motion agreed to.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: I will not be long, Mr Acting Speaker. I could keep going on about suicide because it is a huge issue. We have to address the issues of substance abuse. I remember speaking out about mandatory treatment under the Liquor Act. Sometimes as public figure, sometimes your comments may be seen by people as coming out of left field or that is not in line with government policy, but sometimes you have to make these comments to generate wider debate in the community. At some stage with substance abuse, particularly alcohol, we need to bite the bullet and take real action.
On the issue of cannabis in remote communities, I support resources being given to the police and communities to tackle this problem. It is an issue I have confronted in the recent past. It is something I faced and am working toward overcoming, but it is something for which communities have to be resourced.
As well as psychiatrists on the ground, there have to be other mental health professionals on the ground, not just at the Tiwi Islands. We keep focussing on the Tiwi Islands, but there are many other communities in which if there are not fatalities in terms of people taking their own lives, there are many suicide attempts. Take another major community in my electorate: Maningrida. You could look at any remote community, even Darwin. I am not saying that remote communities are any different and the problem does not happen in Darwin, but it is not just the Tiwi Islands. There are problems in other remote areas.
We need to get these professionals out on a regular basis, and there needs to be diligent follow up in Darwin in relation to those individuals whose lifestyles involve moving between Darwin and their home community. It is not just in Darwin; Katherine is at the crossroads of many communities. The member for Barkly would say the same for Tennant Creek. A lot of our urban centres down the track are at the crossroads to these communities. A lot of our mob come from remote communities into the urban centres, so we have to look at addressing that as well.
Minister, it is a fantastic statement, as was the renal statement, which I applauded and welcomed. It is a brave statement. For a long time, people have not wanted to talk about the stigma of mental health. Hopefully, this will highlight the issue. Although we have National Mental Health Weeks and people have a look at the nice paintings on the wall, after those weeks go by, like with a lot of other things - breast cancer, you can have a week that highlights the issue of breast cancer amongst women, mental health you have this week - people soon forget. This is an area people should not forget because its impact on primary health care and the hospital system is great. I commend the minister’s statement to the House.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Mr Acting Speaker, it would be remiss of me not to declare that I do not have a health background. My professional background is law. As a solicitor, my field of enterprise is quite different from issues of importance in mental health.
However, as a politician, health has become an important field of my current professional interest. It is fair to say that people’s health rates as high as education, employment, the economy, law and order issues for people of all different backgrounds.
Debate will always rage about government spending, including the Commonwealth government, on health-related issues. I believe that the next Commonwealth election will not be fought on homeland security issues, but rather Commonwealth government spending on Medicare. I have therefore had a baptism of fire on health-related issues, as these issues have often been raised by constituents and the general public and has related to mental health and other health-related issues. Why? It is clear. I quote from the minister’s statement:
- Mental illness is responsible for 11% of disease burden worldwide and accounts for five of the 10 leading causes
of disability. In fact, according to the World Health Organisation, by 2020 major depression will be the second
leading cause of disease worldwide.
It is in our best interest as a community to ensure that mental health issues are addressed professionally and with a degree of care that cannot be questioned. Many members of the House, according to statistics, have suffered or do suffer mental health issues. I am one of the most positive thinking people I know. However, like many other members of this House, I have been the victim, on the odd occasion, of self-doubt. That self-doubt could be considered ‘the blues’.
I have always had the ability to repair myself through a positive attitude, without the need for clinical or pharmacological assistance, however it gives an individual brief insight into someone who suffers from major depression, which leads to an individual being unable to operate consistently as a healthy physical and mental human being. Let us just reflect on the statistic I quoted. Of the 25 individuals in this House, statistically someone in this House will be suffering from a mental illness. Since self-government, there would have been, on percentage, someone who has suffered a mental illness. That is something to be digested.
For the lay person, mental health is still considered an unknown and, at times, a taboo area. The minister states, and I quote:
- The term ‘mental illness’ is used to explain many different mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. What they have in common is that they are all conditions that significantly interfere
with peoples thoughts, feelings and quality of life. It is estimated that three million Australians will experience
a major depressive illness during their lifetime. Three in 100 Australians will experience a psychotic illness
such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or drug-induced psychoses.
In a previous life, I worked with clients who often ran into trouble with the law, and many of them had the common trait of substance abuse, whatever that substance might be, whichever illicit drug. Often they showed tendencies of suffering from some kind of psychosis. What concerns me, and I have spoken about speed and the effect that it is having on young people - black white, green or purple and adults – in this House before and on the use of hydroponic marijuana. I do not believe there has been enough scientific study on hydroponic marijuana and the effects that it is having on people’s mental health. I have certainly seen a change in my community from people who are long-term hydroponic marijuana smokers. I am concerned that the psychosis is a result of long-term use and abuse.
I would like to help professionals who might read these statements tonight to maybe focus on the effect hydroponics is having not only on urban areas like Darwin, Tenant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs, but also remote areas. I will quote some statistics on the increase of suicides in the Northern Territory, and it coincides with the introduction of hydroponics into the Northern Territory community in the early 1990s. I suspect it has had an effect for a very long time. In a document produced by the Northern Territory government Department of Community Health and Services, Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention on page 8, it says: ‘Indigenous suicide has significantly increased’. I suspect that in non-indigenous communities, this will also be the case.
- Until the early 1990s, reported suicide rates amongst indigenous people in the Territory was significantly lower
than for non-indigenous Territorians. In 1990, no suicide deaths were recorded amongst indigenous people.
Whilst the relatively small numbers overall make it difficult to identify significant trend changes, 15 indigenous
people were recorded as having completed suicide in 1995, reflecting a substantial increase over a relatively
short period of time.
Indigenous men have increasing rates of suicide.
NT indigenous males had much lower suicide death rates in the early 1990s, but have experienced a significant
increase over the last 10 years. The suicide death rate amongst indigenous men in the Territory has rapidly
increased since 1997 to a point where, in 1999, it was substantially higher than both the NT non-indigenous
male rate and overall national rate.
Guess what? Marijuana hydroponics became very commonly used and easily accessed in the Northern Territory during the 1990s.
Mental health is a serious health and social issue. If you look at statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, AIHW, Internet site on statistics and data in relation to youth suicide, suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescent Australians, which not only shocks me, but also deeply saddens me.
In my life, I have known young men who have committed suicide. It is a very sad and disturbing emotional consequence for the individual’s families and friends. Suicide is so final there is no second chance for the victims, their families and friends. Often people will talk about their fond memories and what may have been.
The minister’s statement recognises that the complex issues of youth suicide need to be dealt with. The issues can be a result of mental health, drugs and alcohol, family, relatives, employment issues, ethnic and cultural issues, law and order issues including people being victims of serious crime against them. The member for Arafura spoke about cases of sexual assault that have occurred in some remote communities. What is too much of a coincidence in two communities that I know of - and I will not mention their names, to protect the people who live in those areas – is that one has the highest suicide rate in the Northern Territory and the other has the highest incarceration rate. In both of these places, people have been victims of people from outside who have committed horrendous sexual abuse on individuals in those communities. I have spoken to all members in regard to this, but I believe it will take a community debriefing about what this issue is, how it can be fixed and how people can move on from it, because I am concerned about the cyclical nature of sexual abuse.
People who know anything about sex offenders or do any research on sex offenders, which I happen to know, is that the danger is that victims will become involved in the cyclical nature and then perpetrate what has been done to them. This is a concern not for only this generation, but for generations. A debriefing with these communities needs to occur.
On top of all this, there are issues in relation to education and poverty, and people being disenfranchised by the mainstream community. It does not matter if you are black or white, individuals feel disenfranchised from the mainstream. They can be young teenagers in urban or remote areas who feel that the wider community has nothing to offer them or they have nothing to offer that community. This becomes such a huge feeling of depression that it leads to further mental illness problems, often with a horrible result.
How do I form this belief? I have spoken to many Territorians from different ethnic and economic backgrounds and they all raise the issue of youth suicide and mental illness. Therefore, it is of real importance for our government and the Commonwealth government to take action on this problem facing our community. That means the allocation of resources to deal with this important social issue.
The members for Johnston and Arafura touched on this, and there is shame on past CLP governments because suicide rates in the Northern Territory have been higher than the national rate for the past decade and continue to rise. Not only a total increase in suicide rates, but indigenous suicide rates have also increased significantly.
How do we address these concerns? This government, the minister and this member, has shown that we will not rest until we see this crisis pushed in a manner that leads to results. We have committed the funds to mental health. The government has acted on the Bansemer Review, a result of the government’s review on Health and Community Services. In the Bansemer Review, it was clearly stated that there were issues within the health system and that despite reports and studies that have been around for over a decade, past CLP governments had chosen, for whatever reasons, not to properly resource mental health, which was very poorly supported. It is again the case that the previous CLP Health ministers and governments poorly funded and failed to implement previous reports and studies over the past decade.
There is no single route to reduction in suicide rates. It is nationally and internationally recognised that effective suicide prevention needs to combine both population strategies with those aimed at high risk groups, prevention efforts need to minimise risk and enhance protective factors using a range of approaches taken in the whole population, specific groups and individuals at risk.
This government has taken its responsibilities seriously and has developed a strategic framework for the prevention of suicide and self-harm in the Northern Territory. So what have we done? This government has acted by developing a plan as stated by the minister, and I will quote:
… the strategic framework relates to six vitally important areas. These include:
at increased risks of suicide and self harm;
strengthening effective responses to individuals at particular risk;
food practice and providing education and training.
The strategic framework is consistent with the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and the National Mental Health Strategy, which all Australian Health ministers have unanimously endorsed.
The framework shows we are serious about addressing mental health issues, in direct contrast to previous governments. In 1999-2000 mental health spending in the Northern Territory had fallen so far below the national per capita average that we were ranked the second lowest jurisdiction in Australia. In effect, there have been minimal funding increases over the past five years despite increasing community demands for the service. Previous CLP governments should hold their heads in shame.
What has the Martin Labor government done? We have answered the call, and I quote from the Health minister’s statement:
- In May this year, I announced that this government would inject an additional $7.2m into the mental health system
over the next three years.
This began with a $900 000 boost this financial year and will be followed by an additional $2.4m in 2004-05 and
$3.9m in the 2005-06 financial year.
The new funding will enhance clinical care, provide increased support for consumers and carers, help reduce
hospital admissions and provide more intensive post-discharge follow up and rehabilitation services.
It will also employ trained clinicians in the child, youth and adult mental health services and enhance partnership
approaches to provide better care for by Aboriginal people.
In summary, mental health issues should be of deep concern for all members of this House. Again, I say that the statistics indicate someone in this House has or will suffer a mental health illness in their lifetime. If this can attack us, supposedly educated, intelligent and better-to-do human beings, what effect can it have on people that are so disenfranchised, so removed from the possibility of education, in poverty, far from access to proper health resources? If it can happen to this group of people, imagine what can happen to people in those situations, the disenfranchised.
Next week, I have constituents coming to see me who want to talk about mental health issues. I am proud to say that I will be able to point to this statement and this commitment that we have made to extra funding. The minister has my support and the government’s support and, it seems, qualified support from the opposition that funding should be spent on mental health.
By way of reflection, and picking up on what the member for Arafura said, I would like to tell a story. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the Tiwi Islands to watch the grand final. I took my wife over; she had never been to a Tiwi Islands grand final. We met friends and we prepared for the football match. For any first timer at the Tiwi Islands grand final, it is a great experience. We had a fantastic day. The message was out in the community that someone close to a football team that was playing had committed suicide the night before and the whole community was depressed and saddened by it. It should have been a wonderful event. The team that was least affected ran on, the Tiwi Islands being such a small and tight-knit community, down one end. We were at the end where the other team was, and this was the team with whom the deceased was closely associated. You could cut the air with a knife, such was the tension and pressure. As the team arrived at the banner, they stopped running and walked through. The pressure on this group and the support base was so significant it affected the way that they played.
This is of concern to everyone in this community. It can have such a powerful effect that it can change things that should be positive and wonderful to bring people down where they are saddened by the events that have happened. If we can prevent one suicide, we have been a success, and hopefully we will be able to prevent many others. Prevention is what we should be aiming for.
Therefore, I commend this statement to the House. I appreciate the efforts of the Minister for Health and Community Services, and I hope she continues to work tirelessly in the future.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Speaker, I am not quite sure what the minister meant by ‘mental health’, but reading through her statement, it appears to be more like she dedicated a few pages to depression or mental health – she is not quite sure what she is defining - and then, for the rest of her statement, suicides. If it was intended to be a statement on suicide, it should be statement on suicide.
Let me come from a medical perspective and provide a little information about psychiatry, psychology and depression to the House. Having worked in the psychiatric unit for many years, initially as an orderly during my medical school years, and later as a post-grad doctor in training, and having spent some portion of my training life in the psychiatric unit under supervision, let me give you a layman’s definition of ‘depression’ from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, edition 2002:
- Depression in psychology, a mood or emotional state that is marked by sadness, inactivity, and a reduced ability
to enjoy life. Depression differs from simple grief, bereavement, or mourning, which are appropriate emotional
responses to the loss of loved persons or objects.
Depression can obviously lead to suicide. We have heard many members talk about the whole gamut of social events and processes that can make a person feel significant loss of self-worth, of personal identity and loss of meaning in life, and that can gradually lead to a person attempting and sometimes completing the act of suicide.
Depression has been around for a long time, from the days of Hippocrates when he called it ‘melancholia’. I will not go any further than that on the definition of depression. It is well known that depression is a very frequent, common illness that occurs in many young people in particular. The social pressures of growing up in the hurly burly of our society, comparing ourselves with others, versus those who have and those who do not have, puts a lot of pressure on our young people who sometimes do not have the wherewithal to deal with depression.
When I looked closely at the minister’s statement and the document she tabled tonight, the Northern Territory Strategic Framework for Suicide Prevention, I was quite perturbed by the graphs on pages 8 and 9 of the book. When I looked more closely at it, and I am surprised that our academic, the member for Johnston, did not pick it up, the graphs quoting ABS death registration data were based on the number of deaths per 100 000; rates of death per 100 000. The Northern Territory population is 200 000, rounded off, so these graphs unnaturally magnify the number of deaths that occur. One suicide is one too many, let me hasten to add, and this society should do everything it possibly can to prevent that, but to provide what potentially could be a very misleading graph is what I find very disturbing.
A ministerial statement should be something that instructs the House as to what is actually happening to Territorians. I obtained figures, also from the ABS, exactly the same source. In 1998, the Northern Territory had 16 indigenous deaths due to suicide. In the minister’s own document, it says: ‘15 indigenous people were recorded as having completed suicide in 1999’. If you have 16 in 1998 and 15 in 1999, how does the line go up? Something funny is going on there. I suggest the minister check the figures properly, and perhaps draw the graph in a way that does not create a misconception. That is both very unethical and misleading.
Suicide, over the last 20 years in Australia, has been significant. I quote figures from an article written by Dr James Harrison, through AIHW publications, who said: ‘41 000 Australians committed suicide between 1979 and 1998’. That is a heck of a lot. More males than females commit suicide for very many reasons that have been articulated by members tonight, and I do not need to go into that. However, when you start looking into indigenous deaths of recent years, many members have commented about the use of hallucinogenic substances that may have precipitated or attributed or be the catalyst for the act of suicide. Without a doubt, through my travels over the last 10 years around the Territory, more and more prominence has been given to abuse, particularly of marijuana. From days when the drug was used socially, it has now become a drug where binge use is the norm. That, to me, is the problem: binge use of a drug that has such a high potential of causing psychoses in people. Psychosis, for those who do not understand, means psychotic behaviour - madness in general terms; you absolutely go out of your brain and you do not know you are mad. Mad people do not know that they are mad.
Nobody has been able to definitely prove to us that hydroponically grown marijuana is stronger, but there are anecdotes that, in fact, the heads and leaves contain more hallucinogens than naturally grown marijuana had. When you smoke a cone, which normally would take quite some time to smoke, in one inhalation, that will produce significant catastrophic effects. We have heard from many health workers out bush who say they have had patients come to them who are completely out of their minds. Who knows how those patients are visualising themselves while they are under psychotic episodes, whether they are so terrified, scared by their hallucinations that they then choose to suicide to get away from whatever is terrifying them? I am not saying that we should not be dealing with these people, but dealing with them is very much a two-pronged thing: not only do you treat the patient as best you can and keep them in a safe environment for as long as you can until they detoxify naturally because there is no other way you can detoxify them; or you try to prevent them from getting to the intoxicated stage in the first place. If you can do that, obviously that is going to be a lot better.
Perhaps a lot of the processes that the government wants to put in place should be about dealing with substance abuse, access to marijuana, more so than the platitudes that the minister articulated in the 34 pages of her statement.
It is interesting that some members have observed that, prior to 1990, there were very few suicides among indigenous people and, since 1990, with the onset of the use of marijuana, things have become worse.
I am pleased to see that the government has committed some funding to mental health. Coming from a Central Australian perspective, there has been not much provided to the groups in Alice Springs to try to help support themselves. Those groups have lobbied me, in particular, over the last couple of years, saying they are not getting the services that they require. I remember the days when I was working in what was then called mental institutions, where patients were literally incarcerated; they were kept under lock and key. I remember when I was an orderly working in a mental hospital walking along with a key at least six inches long to unlock doors that were made of solid timber. Patients with psychiatric illnesses were kept under those circumstances.
Over the last 20 years, there has been huge societal change, a huge major medical rethink about how we should look after these patients, and many of the patients who were institutionalised for decades were then gradually released from those hospitals into the community without much community support. Therein lies the problem. There are many people in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, in Australia who have mental illness in one form or another and who are left to fend for themselves. These are the people who encounter great difficulties trying to live from day to day. When they go to places like Mental Health in Alice Springs or elsewhere, they find that the services that they need are not readily available, which is a tragedy, and they have nowhere to turn. They try to go to their GP. Some GPs are well equipped to deal with psychiatric illness and provide good continuing care within the community, others are not so inclined and so these poor patients have nowhere to go. Sometimes, through no fault of their own in a sense, they have been left to fend for themselves with minimal income because most of them are on welfare, on medication that nobody supervises, and they end up thinking suicide appears to be best option. If funding is provided with adequate staffing, I am sure we can ameliorate some of those problems.
There must be adequate training in our institutions, whether that be education or hospital institutions where our staff can have good exposure to the cases that are there, learn from them, be available 24 hours a day to provide after hours care because many a time, it is not the daylight hours that these people are in trouble. For some reason, daylight, sunlight, seems to bring a calmness to people; it is always the dark of night when things go wrong. It is important to have staff who are available 24 hours a day, on call, staff who are not going to be overworked when they are called in the middle of the night. Perhaps you need to have more than one person; you need to have several people there who are able to take turns in the evening to cater for the patients who are there.
I ask the minister that, when she considers the issue of mental health, she comes right back to looking at the issue of youth mental health. There was very little spoken about it. You might have spent seven pages talking about that, and the rest is all about suicide. If you do not have a bit more time talking about youth mental health and have more resources into that area, concentrate more on that area, suicide rates will be a lot lower. Remember, as I said, I quoted 16 suicides in 1998 and your book quotes 15. That is a very small number compared with the number of mental health patients that you would have at the other end of the spectrum. These are the ones who build the population of actual suicide committed.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Mr Acting Speaker, I thank all honourable members for their contributions tonight. This is a very sobering topic. It is also a sobering fact that one in five Australians will suffer from a mental illness at some stage in their life. Given that we have 25 members in this Chamber, we are looking at around five of our members here experiencing some form of mental illness during their lifetime. This is something that is of importance to us as members and looking after our own electorates, but also for our own health and that of our families.
Contributions this evening have been, on the whole, very positive. I would like to make some brief comments on each member’s statement.
The member for Port Darwin’s comments were largely supportive of the statement. What I have said tonight is that we have inherited a system, we have looked at what is wrong with it through the Bansemer Review and a separate review of the mental health system. As a result of those, we have injected a significant amount of funding over the next three years: $7.2m.
In my statement, I broadly outlined the kinds of things we are looking at, plus we have launched today the Suicide Framework, which, of course, is part of mental health not, as the member for Greatorex implied, the whole of mental health, but is a significant part, and one which certainly affects the people of the Northern Territory in a particular and special way.
The member for Port Darwin stated that recommendation 6 of the Mental Health Review inferred that inpatient services may be reduced and there would be a reduction in the staff-patient ratio. Recommendations 6 and 22 both refer to the need for more detailed examination of the staffing and operation of the Top End Acute Mental Health Unit. I agree with the member for Port Darwin that the Territory presents unique health care challenges and that we need to tailor our services to suit the local environment, but acknowledge that in some instances, it is difficult to deliver some health services at a cost comparable to other jurisdictions. For this reason, the Top End Mental Health Service project has been established to conduct a detailed examination of the staffing and operations of both inpatient and community-based mental health services. The project is taking account of the inter-relatedness of pressure on inpatient and community-based services, and the need for a coordinated plan of action across both service components. The project is already progressing the development of options to address concerns that have been raised about bed occupancy and associated staffing provisions.
The project will also explore alternative models of care that enable people to be provided with varying levels of support, prevent admissions and provide more intensive follow up post-discharge. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of that project, which is being overseen by a steering committee that has representatives from the Northern Territory Community Advisory Group on Mental Health as well as government and non-government sectors.
Having said that, recommendation 22 of the Mental Health Review Report also acknowledges that there is a need to develop arrangements for less acute levels of care. These models of care are sometimes referred to as step-up and step-down services. As I indicated in the statement, the mental health service projects will progress planning for these types of services in the Territory. Some of the new funding in future years will be directed towards this area of need.
I am well aware of many links between mental health, substance abuse problems and suicide, and this is strongly acknowledged in the Suicide Prevention Framework, so it was disappointing that the member for Port Darwin implied that somehow, substance abuse was not mentioned either in the statement or in the strategic framework. It has certainly been acknowledged significantly as being involved in problems to do with both suicide and other mental health problems.
Training on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems has been provided in the Top End and Central Australia, and I am sure that the member for Greatorex will be pleased about that since he implied that there are very few services available in Central Australia.
In addition, the recently appointed Assistant Secretary, Community Services, the newly appointed Director of Alcohol and Other Drugs and Director of Mental Health have commenced the formulation of strategies on co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems. A working group with broad stakeholder representation will meet in November.
The member for Port Darwin’s comments on the particular challenges confronting our mental health workforce are acknowledged, and these were also discussed by the members for Arafura and Johnston. That is why my government supports the priority being given to workforce development for mental health clinicians, Aboriginal mental health workers and other front line workers.
The member for Port Darwin asked what the funding was going into this year. First, two senior Aboriginal mental health worker positions, which will provide coordination, supervision, mentoring and support to Aboriginal mental health workers. These positions will also contribute to the Top End Division of General Practice partnership agreement that has been established for training and support for the network of Aboriginal mental health workers. A Territory-wide child psychiatrist, a child and youth mental health clinician in Central Australia - once again, I am sure the member for Greatorex will be interested in that - forensic mental health clinician in the Top End, and recurrent funding for two mental health clinicians previously funded through the Commonwealth incentives funding. In addition to these positions, $200 000 is being directed to consumer and carer support in the non-government sector.
In 2003-04, the Northern Territory government allocated $366 888 to the Life Promotion Program, which is a prevention/early intervention program; $176 456 has been allocated to the Top End Mental Health Services Life Promotion team; and $190 432 to the non-government Mental Health Association of Central Australia. The Life Promotion program delivers an integrated approach to life promotion through collaborative partnerships and community education.
A number of members spoke about remote mental health. Specialist mental health services employing mental health clinicians and Aboriginal mental health workers are located in Katherine, Darwin rural and Alice Springs remote areas. The Top End Division of General Practice Aboriginal Mental Health Coordinator has recently co-located with the Gove Mental Health Team. Visiting mental health services to Port Keats daily, Oenpelli and Maningrida, with an Aboriginal mental health worker, are also based in Maningrida. Yuendumu and Santa Teresa community councils are funded to employ Aboriginal mental health workers. There is a partnership with the Top End Division of General Practice, which has ensured that another eight communities have Aboriginal mental health worker coverage.
In addition, and I am sure the member for Arafura knows about this, the Katherine West Health Board buys back mental health services from the Katherine Mental Health Team, and the Department of Health and Community Services provides funding and in-kind support to an indigenous mental health research project, which aims to improve the management and wellbeing of indigenous people with chronic and relapsing mental illness in remote areas. The primary goal of this research is to establish best practice preventative and clinical care approaches for remote Aboriginal communities.
The member for Johnston, in his very erudite response to this statement on mental health, discussed many things, and I thank him very much for his contribution. I know that he has taken a particular interest in this; he has been a scientist of high standing in the community and I know that his interest is genuine. In particular, I thank him for his comments in relation to GROW and also thank Julie James. GROW and the GROWers, as their members are called, are very enthusiastic people who really have made a difference in our community. I congratulate them for their continued dedication and commitment to people with mental illnesses in the Northern Territory.
The member for Johnston also raised the issue, as did a number of other members, about cannabis and alcohol, the co-morbidity and co-occurrence of these. There is no question that cannabis and alcohol, together with mental illness, is a very dangerous combination. It is something on which we are focussing, both through this mental health work, but also through other areas that the government is looking at, including the Substance Abuse Committee, in which the member for Arafura has a particular interest.
In relation to the member for Arafura’s comments, she also discussed the co-morbidity/ co-occurring issues. I understand the member for Arafura has known many people who have suicided, and what a terrible thing it is that so many young people in the Northern Territory are suiciding, and particularly young boys. I am the mother of two teenage sons, and it is very sobering that young people - 13, 15, 17-year old boys - are finding life so difficult that, for them, the only option is to suicide. On a personal level, I sincerely hope that we are going to be able to start to turn that trend around. It is a very sobering fact and something that, as a government, we take very seriously.
I was interested in the comments made by the member for Arafura regarding traditional healers. I will follow up with her on that. There may be something that we can do, which is a bit different, but we can pick up on and more effectively use the skills of the people in our communities. We always look for the clinical or the medical response, yet there are people in our communities who can assist us with things and who, in over 50 000 years of being in the Northern Territory and who, unlike those of us who arrived more recently, have learnt how to deal with certain types of problems in a more effective way. I will be taking up those issues with the member for Arafura in the coming weeks.
I thank the member for Goyder for his support of the statement. He talked about the sobering statistics of one in five people being affected by mental illness. I thank him for his involvement with GROW in his electoral office, and I encourage other members to, if given the opportunity, offer their electorate offices to organisations like GROW, which can help people with mental illness and their families, and which need a little support from people like ourselves who are extremely privileged. I thank him for his support in that area. He also talked about youth suicide and particularly young white males. As I said, we are working very hard to try to prevent suicide.
I was not quite sure what the member for Goyder was talking about when he talked about flag-wavers for Aboriginal causes, but I felt as though I probably should be one of those people. I would be happy to say that I am a flag-waver for Aboriginal causes if that means we are trying to stop suicide and mental health problems in our communities. I would have thought all members would want to be flag-wavers for Aboriginal causes, particularly as one-third of our population is Aboriginal. I would be happy to pick up a flag and wave it when and if that is required. He might like to hand me a flag at some point, and I will be out there.
I thank the member for Millner for his comments, and for his support of myself and the government in our move to increase funding in this area. It is salutary that we have started from a position of being so poorly funded, but it is time to move on. What I am trying to say with this statement is: we are building up the system; we have had the two reviews; we are putting the money in; we are working to make it better. That is really the key message from this statement. I thank all members, once again, and I look forward to reporting on this matter again in the future.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Acting Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I take this opportunity to talk about the many activities that Leanyer Primary School has undertaken in the last few weeks, or will be undertaking in the up and coming final weeks of the school year.
First of all, the opening of the new facilities at Leanyer School. It is absolutely fantastic to see that $1.24m upgrade finally complete. The staff and the students have settled into their new accommodation and i is absolutely magnificent. There is going to be an official opening of the new facilities on 20 October, next Monday, which I am really looking forward to, as are the staff, the students, and the parents of Leanyer School. The upgrade adds over 400m to the office administration and staff library, art, craft and information technology areas. It certainly has transformed the school; a school that had been crying out for this upgrade for many years. A significant number of demountables provided accommodation for pupils and staff, and to see this upgrade completed is absolutely fantastic.
To say that there were hiccups along the way is a bit of an understatement. I admire Henry Gray, the principal, greatly for his role and leadership at Leanyer School. He had stewardship of this project and saw it through and the outcome is magnificent. I will report back to the House on the opening next Monday during the next sittings.
In preparation for the opening, an extensive green up, clean up Australia program was undertaken at the school. The idea was the brainchild of Leanyer’s art/craft teacher, Mrs Margaret Ferguson. With the school’s student council and full support, a program was developed to revegetate and beautify 18 areas around the school. It was really great to see the staff and the kids get involved with this greening up of Leanyer School. On Thursday, 14 August, every student, every class and every teacher at the school was involved in preparing and replanting, and many parents supported that particular program. Darryl South offered support and advice. In one afternoon the grounds were further developed and upgraded, adding to the school’s pristine appearance. The school is very proud of its prominence in the heart of Leanyer suburb and the grounds and the appearance of the school really adds to our community.
The cost of the plants were covered by students who, before the program, raised over $5000 in sponsorship as part of their contribution to the green up, clean up national initiative and 25% of this money raised stayed with the school. This program was both a self-funded and self-help enterprise. To everybody who was involved in that, all of the school, it is absolutely magnificent and I know that every resident in Leanyer really does see Leanyer Primary School at the heart of the Leanyer community.
The combined Leanyer School Senior Band, including students from Leanyer, Alawa and Wanguri Schools, continues to develop and flourish. I was very pleased a few weeks ago to attend a school assembly and concert at which the band performed. It is really great to see primary school kids mastering musical instruments and playing in a very accomplished way. As adults, I think we all regret not being able to play a musical instrument. So to see the school focussed on music is fantastic. The fact that the band is now combined with Alawa and Wanguri - Wanguri is also in my electorate - is great to see. The three schools have pooled their senior and most consistent musicians. These talented musicians come together each fortnight to practice under the baton-ship of the NT Music School’s instructors, Miss Ilona Retallack and Mr Matthew Holt. Practices rotate from term to term, being held respectively at Alawa, Wanguri and Leanyer. This term is Leanyer’s term and on Friday, 21 November, the band will perform at the Eatery at Casuarina Shopping Square. I will be doing my best to get down there to cheer them on.
This group has developed into a fine group of musicians and it was the brainchild of Mr Daryl Trainor, one of Leanyer School’s assistant principals. It has been made possible by the three schools working together in the interests of music and the development of youth talent. Vocally, Leanyer’s school choir is out there with the best. When entered in the 2003 Eisteddfod, the choir did a great job. Its culmination as a group on 19 September 2003 was part of the BEAT performance held at the Darwin Entertainment Centre. The BEAT, titled Heartbeat, was held over two nights, 19 and 20 September. It involved students and schools from both Darwin and Palmerston. Leanyer’s choir of 42 children, both boys and girls, performed during the school’s opening on Monday. It is a group led by the Music School’s Mrs Judy Weepers - everybody knows Judy, she does an absolutely magnificent job - and Leanyer School’s other assistant principal, Mrs Jenny Robinson.
Leanyer School Choir has boys and girls. I was at Wanguri school the other day at an assembly. Their choir is up and running again with only one boy in the choir, so I urged the boys at the assembly to put their hand up and give music and the choir a go. Leanyer is unique in that both assistant principals contribute to the school’s music program. Mr Trainor is a leader in the area of instrumental development and Mrs Robinson in the school singing program. It is something of which the school is very proud, their commitment to music and developing musicians and talents in the school. It is a great tribute to both our assistant principals.
Leanyer School held two very important events during Health Week. The first was a joint effort between Neighbourhood Watch, Leanyer school and my electorate officer, Ryan Neave. I was unable to attend. All children with bikes were encouraged to get their bikes engraved free of charge during school on 25 September. I provided free drinks to all students who had their bikes engraved. Over 80 students had their bikes engraved, which is fantastic. To everyone at the school who organised that, and to Ryan, my electorate officer, well done.
The next day, the school held Jump Rope for Heart, where they endeavoured to get all the students and teachers to jump rope at the same time out on the oval. It was a fantastic scene seeing them all out there. We had a small earthquake in Leanyer on that day when everybody jumped at the same time. A lot of coordination was involved but the students did very well, and I congratulate them all. I made an absolutely pathetic attempt at skipping, but it gave the kids a great laugh. Health Week is a great initiative to keep kids active in school.
Leanyer School, through its staff and parent community, has developed a strong approach to teaching that is developed through understanding analysis and application of the Northern Territory’s curriculum framework. Two professional development days led by NT DEET specialists have assisted. All staff have committed many hours of extra time, energy and effort into honing their approaches towards the whys, whens and hows of teaching. The school has developed an excellent curriculum map, being a profile of both priorities and resources, shaped by and from their appreciation of the curriculum framework. This document was developed from collective input, shaped and written up by Mrs Natalie Ede, one of the school’s Year 6/7 teachers.
I extend my congratulations to the school, to all of the teachers. They really do take this seriously. I have been to many school council meetings during my political life over many years, going back to Nightcliff School Council meetings in 1992-93 when I was running for that seat. The school really is focussed on educational outcomes. The teachers, the principal, the school council, spend a lot of time talking about teachers’ capacity to improve all the time, and it really is a great testament to the school.
Staff, in conjunction with the school council’s Education Focus Group and the Student Representative Council, have almost finished the development of a revised reporting format. This will enable teachers to report twice yearly to parents on the curriculum framework, learning and development competencies their children have achieved. It will also indicate to parents the standards set for our children. Importantly, Leanyer’s approach to curriculum and curriculum development embraces a true partnership that exists between parents, teachers and children. Synergy, the product of collective energy being applied to meet developmental change needs, is a quality the school aims to bring to its development and to its direction setting process. That word really is there. It aptly defines the Leanyer approach, and that is partnership. There is a real sense of partnership at that school. Everybody knows the direction in which they are heading, and everybody is rowing in the same direction. Partnership is really the word that defines the school.
Leanyer School strongly supports the notion of a holistic education. It has worked to develop an approach that develops children academically, but also socially and in moral and spiritual terms. Education for the whole of life is the way forward at Leanyer. This approach links solidly to the school’s motto, Together As One, and supports the desire that the school has to build tradition.
My congratulations to Leanyer, wonderfully led by a great principal, Henry Gray, and fantastic staff and school council. I wish them all the best. I am really looking forward to Monday’s opening of the new facilities.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Mr Acting Speaker, I recently had the opportunity, and it was indeed a pleasure, to appear before a meeting of the Prison Officers Association of Australia, which included our Darwin lads and ladies and representatives from all the other prison officer groups across Australia. I gave them an address, really just talking from my gut feeling about their profession, and what the CLP thinks of the job they do, and what the community thinks about the job they do. What I was going to do was produce into Hansard the couple of pages of notes from that talk I gave. Hopefully, one day someone researching the topic might feel inspired by some of the things that were said. In any event, it was a meeting of the Australian Prison Officers Association.
As most of those members who were present knew, I am no longer the shadow minister for Corrections, but I assured them that I would stand with them in times of trouble, or if they are not getting a fair hearing for grievances or concerns, particularly if they relate to obstacles affecting their capacity to do their job while protecting our society from people sentenced to imprisonment by the courts.
Correctional Services goes back a long way. It has won public confidence. Men and women in the service have served with integrity, compassion, common sense and valour. Before my present job, I was a full-time practising solicitor and, as some of the prison officers knew, my old man was a copper. So you have the complete picture here: Dad was trying to get the baddies locked up, me trying to make sure everyone had a fair defence, and finally the prison officers dealing with the fallout. Because of my background, I was quite honoured that they invited me to appear before them to make these observations. I did not even think of giving advice on how prison officers should go about meeting their professional responsibilities. Their training and life experiences would obviously guide them to find solutions to the countless variations of problems and crises which continually confront them, and they do that in a fair and even-handed way.
To be on safe ground, I stuck to a few things that have helped me, and I would be pretty surprised if these general assessments were not shared by almost everyone in that room.
First, there are always going to be people who cold-bloodedly prey on others, who hurt and even kill for personal gain, or to satisfy some brutish motives. These mongrels are beneath contempt, and society must be protected from them at all costs. These predators have no remorse, and have no regard for decent, social values. Nevertheless, prison guards have to deal with them on a daily basis and treat them as human beings, even though they do not reciprocate.
Professionally, prison officers’ responsibilities include the management in prison of the first two groups on a daily basis, and all that the third group, which I talked about, can rest easy and go about our lives in safety. People take for granted that custodial services will operate like a well-oiled machine and rarely does anyone say, ‘Thanks, well done’. You will hear, however, loud complaints if at sometime the wheels fall off. It may be that an incident occurs; somebody breaks away from an escort, few have even managed to abscond, notwithstanding prison officers’ very best efforts to prevent this. No system is perfect and determined, single-minded prisoners intent on violence and mischief can and will engineer situations designed to discredit prison officers and the service.
Prison officers can only do their best and roll with the punches. Inmates and prisoners respect no rules, whereas prison officers are bound by policy and legislation. I guess it must feel sometimes like fighting with one arm tied behind your back. It takes guts and determination to carry on doing your duty, even when your families are insulted and abused. It is a credit to the training which prison officers undertake, and the commitment that they demonstrate, that they last the distance each shift.
As I said at the start, there is not a lot I can do whilst in opposition in parliament, other than to keep the government and the responsible minister on their toes and to publicly force them, when necessary, to meet their responsibilities to prison officers. I will not, however, stand idly by and see the prison service vilified or members penalised for incidents which are not preventable, and where members faithfully meet their responsibility for the safe custody of inmates. Mistakes will occur but, if they are honestly-made mistakes and lessons are learned from them, then there should be no unreasonable punishment imposed simply to satisfy other people’s demands for scapegoats. All of us need back-up and support and we all deserve to be valued for what we honestly and diligently work at.
The Prison Officers Association must always be given a fair and unbiased chance to represent their interests, be it paid conditions, safe working environments, resources and, particularly, access to the government of the day. Prison officers must be able to rely upon their mates, their bosses and the government. Prison officers are in a serious, dynamic and dangerous business. Prison officers must always demand to be taken seriously. My friends and family sleep easily at night because of the commitment of prison officers and also the police. Prison officers have my total and unconditional gratitude and thanks.
Mr VATSKALIS (Casuarina): Mr Acting Speaker, today I farewell with sadness my electorate officer, Margreet Sadlo, who is leaving at the end of the week to go down south; for very good reason as she is getting married in three months and she is following her husband-to-be, Ben, to go back to Canberra where they came from.
Margreet was posted to Darwin with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority last August. When her position finished, she did not want to go back to Canberra because she really liked Darwin, the hot weather, the environment – she liked the place. She applied for the job in my office when it was advertised and was the successful applicant. I have to say she was an excellent choice. Margreet has a fantastic personality, she has a very good attitude; she cares for people and is able to help - even during the weekends, Sunday, late at night, early in the morning. She is fantastic with young children and she is great with people even when they are distressed and disturbed. It can sometimes be very difficult, certainly with the senior Territorians.
When she actually got the job in my office, she rang her fianc and announced that she was not going down to Canberra; she was going to stay in Darwin. Being a guy, he did what every other guy in love would do - he got on a plane and came to Darwin. He is a computer expert and very quickly found a job with a local company in the IT section, and they have lived here for awhile. However, they decided it was about time to tie the knot, and Margreet announced with great sadness she was going to leave and go to Canberra.
I commiserate with her because, at the moment, if you read the news, Canberra is a very cold place to be. However, hopefully, things will heat up in the next few months. Margreet and Ben will tie the knot, I believe, in March. I hope they will live happily ever after; and certainly with our best wishes. I am sad to see her go, but there is no way we can stop somebody for a better future.
One thing I want to say about Margreet was that she was able to hold the office by herself, she did not need instructions; you only had to say one word and she would complete the task. She was prepared to learn other skills to apply to her jobs. For example, she organised to have the Taxation Office come to my office to train other electorate officers and herself in how to complete tax returns so that senior Territorians and people from my electorate who could not afford to do their tax return could come to her for help. She would sit down with them and help them out. Actually, she made me sit down and go through some of the processes so I could find out about the Taxation Department processes. It was an eye-opener to find out whether you are entitled or whether you are not entitled.
Good luck Margreet and Ben. I am pretty sure you will have a great life in Canberra. Certainly, we will miss you but would love to see you back in Darwin anytime, any day and I will offer you the traditional Territorian hospitality.
I want to speak now about a person who had a concert a few days ago with Darwin. I hosted a reception for, and attended a concert by the Mikis Theodorakis orchestra. Most people would know Mikis Theodorakis from watching the film Zorba the Greek, and listening to the music. One of my friends is the only person I know who can dance by numbers, because when he was in primary school the dancing teacher taught them how to dance Zorba the Greek by numbering the steps. However, Mikis Theodorakis is a very well known person especially in United States and in Europe, and he has a very colourful history.
Mikis Theodorakis was born in 1925 on the island of Chios. From a very early age he was involved somehow with politics since his father was a public servant. Unfortunately, he always used to belong to the wrong party and he was posted to different areas in Greece, north and south, east and west. As a result, Mikis Theodorakis moved from the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea to the mountain of Epirus in Yanena and later to Ceffalonia in the Ionian Sea.
In 1937, at the age of 12, he learned to play the violin and composed his first song. In 1942, he composed his first liturgical hymn, Casianee, and then wrote some music for a song by a famous Greek poet. This music and the poem was adopted by the resistance fighters in Greece and became their hymn during the time of the resistance. In 1943, Mikis Theodorakis at a very young age of 18 was arrested during a demonstration of the anniversary of the independence day in Greece by the Italians. He was imprisoned and tortured. By a twist of fate in 1943, the leader of the Italian police advised him that that the Italians were about to surrender, and they would surrender the town to the Germans. Mikis Theodorakis had to disappear very quickly because the Germans were not as gentle as the Italians. So he went to Athens where he became a member of the resistance.
Once again, he found out that when you demonstrate, especially under the difficult situation at the time, you find yourself in big trouble. In 1946, after the liberation of Greece from the Germans, Mikos Theodorakis participated in another demonstration. He was beaten at that demonstration and left on the road to die. He recalls in his autobiography that he woke up in the morgue among other bodies. The people thought he was dead so they just laid him on a marble table and left him there. In 1947, he was arrested with another 10 000 people and was exiled on the island of Ikaria in the Aegean Sea. Despite being exiled, despite the tortures, despite the imprisonment, he never stopped playing music, he never stopped composing music, sometimes composing music in his mind, but when he had free time, he could write the composition on paper. From 1947 to 1950, Mikis Theodorakis was exiled from one island to another.
In 1953, he wrote the first film score for a European film. He married the woman he had met 10 years previously when he was hiding during the occupation of Greece by the Germans; he married Myrto In 1954, he followed his dream and went to Paris where he received a scholarship; he stayed there until 1957 when he came back to Greece. In the same year, he received a gold medal in the Moscow Youth Festival, something that did not make him very popular with the Greek government of the time, which was extreme right wing.
In 1958, he wrote the first of his popular composition, The Epitaph, and the record became popular not only in Greece but internationally. In 1961, he received first prize for the Best Greek Song in the national song competition, and in 1964 he was elected to parliament. It was the same year he wrote Zorba the Greek.
In 1966, his music was banned in Greece. In 1967, when the dictatorship took over the place on 21 April, Mikis Theodorakis managed to escape and went underground. Very soon afterwards he was arrested by the security police and was put into prison without trial. A few months later, when the dictatorship announced an amnesty, 300 political prisoners were freed, but Mikis Theodorakis was kept in prison without trial because the dictator refused to release him.
In August 1968, he was exiled with his family in the Greek mountains in a village and later, he was transferred to a prison in Oropos where he became very sick with tuberculosis.
It is an extraordinary life. We go through dates and mention what happened on that date to that particular person, but most of his life was not peaceful. It was a life that not many people would be able to bear. He had a very strong will and despite the torture, despite the imprisonment, despite the injustice done to him, and the loss of his health - one of his lungs because of tuberculosis - he persisted. He continued to write music. The music became the songs of freedom for the Greeks who were suffering under the dictatorship.
In 1970, under the pressure of the European Council, Mikis Theodorakis was exiled from Greece, but the dictators kept his family as hostage. A few months later, his family, with a small boat, secretly escaped Greece, travelling by sea from the Peloponnese to Sicily and from there to Europe, where they joined him.
Mikis Theodorakis stayed in Europe in exile for four years until the collapse of the dictatorship. He returned to Greece in July 1974. He performed his first concert after seven years and, I have to tell you, I was there. It was an incredible concert in one of the biggest soccer stadiums in Athens, a stadium with a capacity of 60 000 people, and it was full of people enjoying his songs.
In 1983, Mikis Theodorakis was awarded the Lenin prize from the Soviet Union while, at the same time, he was elected to parliament with the socialists. He led a very colourful life and never hesitated to express his opinion. As a result, in 1990 he fell out with the socialists and was elected to parliament with a right wing party. There, he did not last very long. In 1992, he resigned from the government party and stayed as an Independent.
In 1996, he was appointed as an Officer of the Legion of Honour by the French Ambassador in Greece. He then found a new cause. He was very worried about the increased tension between Greece and Turkey and, with the famous Turkish poet, Livaneli, decided to get together and perform various concerts in Europe. He put his music to Livaneli’s words in order to promote peace between these two countries. It might be partly due to his contribution that Greece and Turkey never actually reached the stage of war. There were always tensions but until now, fortunately, there has never been war between the two countries.
In 1999, he was proclaimed an honorary citizen of the City of Limassol in Cyprus, and later honorary citizen of the occupied city of Famagusta, as he had dedicated one of his concerts to the island of Cyprus.
In 2002, Mikis Theodorakis composed the music, Canto Olympico, which was played at the opening of the Salt Lake City Olympics. However, because of his left ideology, he was never acknowledged by the Olympic Committee of the United States of America, nor by the organisers.
It was great to have his orchestra here in Darwin. Many people came to the reception and the member for Greatorex, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was there, and later the Greek community had an open house at the Cypriot Brotherhood and everybody was welcome. His orchestra performed a number of songs from various compositions. The orchestra was headed by his daughter, Margarita. The only complaint from the audience was that it lasted only two and a half hours. The funny thing was, the same complaint was expressed by the orchestra that the only time they could perform at the Darwin Entertainment Centre was for two and a half hours and they had to finish. It was a memorable night and I was very pleased that our government recognised the cultural value of Mikis Theodorakis and his contribution to world music. We organised a reception for his orchestra. It is something that the Darwin people, not only people from the Greek background, but also Australians and other people from different backgrounds came to the concert and enjoyed it very much.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I was absent from the Chamber this morning because I was in Alice Springs in the company of the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Minister and the member for Sanderson, attending Madam Speaker’s late husband’s funeral service. The funeral service was held at the John Flynn Memorial Church in Todd Mall and was conducted by Reverend Lindsay Faulkner. The Clerk was also there.
The church was jam-packed with people and, looking around, I saw many familiar faces of prominent people of Alice Springs attending the funeral service. Many members of the Braham family and the Mitchell family were there to say their last goodbyes to Graeme. The Braham children, Peter, Michelle, and grand daughter Samantha, made some personal comments during the service, and his good mate, Gerard, gave his eulogy.
A leaflet was handed out during the service, which was titled, ‘You are our hero, you are the wind beneath our wings’. It had a photograph of Graeme standing by his ultralight aircraft, which he built. On the back of that leaflet is a short description of who Graeme Braham was. I would like to read it in full. It says:
- Graeme Geoffrey Russell Braham.
Graeme Geoffrey Russell Braham was born in Kerang, Victoria, the only child of Frank and Lucy Braham
(nee Ware). He spent his childhood in Quarry Hill in Bendigo and went to Bendigo Technical School.
His love of flying began when he joined the Air Force in March 1956 and trained as an engine fitter.
Those of you who knew his technical ability will not be surprised to know that, on his discharge certificate,
his skill proficiency was listed as ’Superior’.
Loraine and Graeme were married in 1960 and, when he completed his service in 1962, they left Melbourne
to go opal mining at Andamooka and then on to Alice Springs, which became their home.
He obtained a job as a driver for Magellan Exploration, and then with the Commonwealth Department of
Construction, where he quickly made many friends in the bush. He transferred to the Northern Territory
Department of Transport and Works and was involved in many projects as Senior Technical Officer.
In 1978, the family bought a caravan park at Tully Heads and left Alice Springs for a short time, but Graeme
was always a desert man and returned to the Centre.
Graeme commenced a contracting business, MECS, with his friend Ian Wilson in 1980. He will be remembered
for the many variations he was always able to find in contracts!
He retired from business at the age of 55 to continue his many interests. He loved to go fishing at Borroloola
or Streaky Bay, prospecting, camping but, most of all, to build planes and fly.
He was a founding member of the Alice Springs ultralight club and, often making many parts himself, built
a number of aircraft, including Chinooks, Lightwing, Gyrocopter, and his very special home-built Pietenpol.
Graeme is survived by his wife, Loraine …
Who is Madam Speaker:
- … his two children, Peter and Michelle, and grandchildren Samantha, Leah and Kasey.
After the service, the family gathered at Madigans at the Alice Springs Desert Park, where they were joined by many friends who went there to share memories and convey their condolences.
I knew Graeme because he was a patient of mine, when I was working as a doctor in my other life. I will not go into any further details on that. During those consultations and other times we would talk about our common hobby, which was flying. I had my own aircraft, although mine was more to get me from point A to point B, whereas Graeme was more interested in getting up into the wide blue yonder enjoying himself just flying, and even enjoying the turbulence of the summer skies in Alice Springs.
You can understand why, for a man with such love for aviation, right throughout the ceremony the haunting song by Bette Midler, You are the Wind Beneath My Wings, was played through the PA system. The melody brought lots of people to tears when the lyrics were sung so mournfully by Bette Midler. Those of you who saw the movie would have understood the song in its context. The song was sung by Bette Midler about a friend who had passed away. In the same context here, we all felt that we had lost a good friend.
Madam Speaker held up very well. She greeted all the people who attended the service, including the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Minister. I sought her permission to say something about Graeme tonight, because I am sure that she would have liked to see that happen.
With the few minutes left to me, I would like to comment on a response the minister for Transport made - I think it was this afternoon - about the Mandorah Ferry. This morning, he slammed into the public servants for writing a tender document that went out - on 25 September, mind you - which the minister would have signed off on. Then, following huge public outcry about the winding back of the Mandorah service, the tender document spoke about deletion of a few midnight runs on the weekends, plus also the use of lesser capacity boats to run the service. People were concerned more with that than anything else. With the Mandorah Ferry running with lesser capacity boats, obviously less people are going to be carried across the harbour when they come to work. I understand that each day, an average of 80 people travel between Cox Peninsula and Darwin, and then each night they go back home on the ferry.
The tender document requires that the boat has a carrying capacity of 70. Remember, when you talk about carry capacity, whether it be a boat or a bus, the seating capacity is always less than the carrying capacity. For a 70 carrying-capacity boat, it is not likely to get 55 seats in a 70-carrying-capacity boat. The current boat is, I believe, a 140 carrying-capacity boat and can easily seat over 90 people. That is the real issue: what will the government do with the other 20 to 30 people who will be standing at the jetty waiting to be carried across the harbour? If you have only a 50-seater or a 70 carrying-capacity boat, do the people stand in the rain in the Wet waiting for the boat to come back?
The government then says, ‘We will have two boats out there’. They will have two boats with outboard motors. If people have been out there in the harbour during a wild storm - and I have been out there paddling a dragon boat out on the harbour - the water gets very rough, and you cannot afford to have a boat with an outboard motor. When you look at the tender in detail, things start to fall apart.
The people at Mandorah have requested very loudly and strongly that the minister goes across there to meet with them in a public meeting. Last Friday, there was a public meeting held about 7.30 pm. The government sent a couple of public servants and they could not answer the questions they were asked at the meeting. Another meeting is going to be asked of the minister and I hope that this time, the minister gets there, meets the people, and explains to them what he has proposed and what he proposes to do to fix what obviously was a wrong tender. Until he does that, I am sure the people of Cox Peninsula are not going to be happy. If the minister has to backflip, he has to backflip. Accept it on the chin, the media was wrong, and do another backflip as he has done for the last two years. However, the people of the Cox Peninsula, the people of Mandorah, need to be looked after. They need a service that will provide them with regular transport between their homes and work in Darwin.
There are also businesses at Mandorah that need to be looked after. There is a hotel and other outlets that would like to have tourists coming to Mandorah to spend a day and stay there for as long as they possibly can. If you had to catch a boat back by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, that really cuts into any weekend that anybody can spend out there. The minister has to get out there, talk to the people and get it sorted out. If he has to backflip then do a backflip. He will get hit on the chin with it, but rather that than actually doing nothing about it.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I wanted to talk tonight about an answer to a question the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General provided in today’s Question Time. When asked by one of his colleagues, one of the local Top End members, about victims of crime and government assistance, the minister said:
- It is fair to say our government is helping victims in two very important ways. First of all, we are making sure
there are less of them …
I note he did not say fewer:
- … less of them through crime reduction strategies that have been carried out since we came to power …
He went on to say:
- It is now becoming increasingly apparent in the crime statistics that come out here every three months that there
are less …
as opposed to fewer:
- … less victims in the Northern Territory than there used to be.
He then went on with his usual government spin.
I would like to talk about some figures the justice minister did not and does not talk about. We obtained copies of some briefing papers for the minister in his preparation for the Estimates Committee and I am very happy to table these documents upon conclusion, but there are some alarming figures. It is probably not surprising that the minister has not referred to them because they do not help him or his government peddle the line that miraculously and suddenly, under a Labor government, crime in the Northern Territory has reduced.
I refer in particular to the first document. The question is, how many clients did the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions service in the 2002-03 year? The answer is: ‘The number of victim support unit clients for the 2002-03 financial year was 693 compared with 567 for the 2001-02 financial year. This represents an increase of 23%’. So, there is an increase as measured by documentation prepared in respect of the Director of Public Prosecutions, independent from government, that clearly shows that victims of crime has increased by 23%. Now, information obtained by or for the Director of Public Prosecutions does not appear, as I understand it, anywhere in the crime statistics. Those figures are obtained by police, corrections and a couple of other sources, but nowhere from my reading of the crime statistics is there a reference to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I know which figures I would trust. I would trust figures provided to and for and by the DPP, because the DPP, as some members of this Chamber would know, is independent from government. It is not overseen by CEOs whom some would say may, on occasion, want to ensure that they are seen to be doing the right thing by government. That is a view some people hold. I would trust figures from the DPP on any day of the week.
Let me go on. I looked at the Department of Justice web site and found all sorts of information about the Victim Support Unit. I note that there is a Victim Support Unit in Alice Springs and in Darwin. There is much information there. The most interesting bit is:
- The VSU notifies victims of crime in writing about the service and invites them to make contact.
So that increase of 23% is only the people who took up the VSU’s very kind invitation to come in and have a chat, to accept the invitation for support, as a result of the crimes to which they have been victims. Who knows how many letters were sent out? Who knows how many victims of crime there were? But the evidence is clear: the Victim Support Units from the DPP clearly show an increase of 23%.
Let us go to another figure that the Minister for Justice does not tell people about. This is a document obtained from the minister’s briefing papers. The question is this:
- Why has the ODPP exceeded its allocated budget?
Answer:
- In the financial year 2002-03, the workload of the office has increased by 113%.
I will repeat that: 113%.
- This figure is based on the number of new matters …
So, on any analysis, the DPP has provided information that shows not only have victims accessing the Victim Support Unit increased by 23%, but the workload of the DPP has increased by 113%. That figure is incredible.
Another document refers to another alarming figure, which we note with great interest the Minister for Justice has never referred to. This one is in relation to the question: increase in new matters. The answer provided for the minister’s benefit for the briefing is:
- It is anticipated that based on these figures, the number of new matters for 2002-03 will be 914. In 2001-02, the
number of new matters was 421.
I think that is an increase in excess of 100%. In fact, it is in the vicinity of 113% as well. These are astonishing figures. This government is well known for the spin it puts on just about everything it touches. Again, I repeat that I would trust the figures provided for and by the DPP any day of the week, as opposed to the ones peddled by government.
This is the information to which the minister did not refer when he answered the question by the member for Karama about what government is doing to help victims of crime. For the minister to say that there are less – although he should have said ‘fewer’ – victims in the Northern Territory than there used to be, is just not right based on this documentation from the DPP for the minister’s briefing.
The minister has form. The minister – it was attributed to him and there was no subsequent corrections, so we assume the minister stands by this – was quoted in the NT News on 17 September as saying that the high rate of indigenous prisoners in our gaols, 82%, the highest it has been for many, many years – 62% under the CLP; 82% under Labor:
- The minister said this highlighted the high number in gaol on driving-related offences.
Yet, in parliament on 1 May, the minister said:
- The people we are putting gaol at the moment are the serial property offenders.
My question – and I would encourage members of the public to ask – is: minister, driving offenders are not the serial property offenders to which he constantly refers, nor are they are at the heart of the so-called crime prevention initiatives. I would have thought there must be some sort of concession that the initiatives have failed to achieve what was intended. If not, how can such a contrary view be put, given the high number of people gaoled for driving offences? But it gets worse.
The minister for Justice, again, in relation to the ABS figures for Corrective Services, in the material that he was putting about on radio, I think on press release but I cannot be sure, said that it was all about driving offences, nevertheless, the strategies, partnerships, committees and councils, that everything that the Labor government had done, was absolutely contributing to there being fewer victims of crime in the Northern Territory and reduction in crime rates.
It is a difficult argument for the minister to sustain, as he does, through thick and thin, contrary to other evidence, not the evidence that the minister elects to use, but other evidence, such as this obtained from the DPP. One has to ask the question: what other evidence is there? What else is the minister choosing not to tell Territorians when he goes on and on as he does, about how, miraculously, under Labor crime has reduced. They are serious questions to ask. The minister gets himself tied up, but pursues the mantra of ‘Everything is wonderful under Labor’. Here is an example of the minister getting himself tied up. He said, on 1 May:
- Sentences are 13% longer for property crimes and 49% longer for house break-ins.
A figure, no doubt, that many people accepted. On 28 May, the minister said:
- The first 12 months of Labor shows a 13% increase in the average sentence lengths for all sentences, and a
huge 49% jump in the average sentence length for property offenders.
My question would be, and I am sure the question on everyone’s lips is: minister, which statement is right and what are those figures based on? There is a perception in the community that the minister is using figures constantly in support of his case. This example - 13%, 49%, ‘Oh well, it was for this’, and then a couple of weeks later: ‘No, it was for that’. We say, Minister, at least get your story right. There are some ongoing serious issues in relation to the way the minister conducts himself publicly. This is a man who, it seems to me, prides himself on being honest, sincere, genuine and so on. Yet there is - I think it is probably best to say - an arrogance creeping in. In fact, I would say it has leapt in over the last few months, where the minister …
Mr Elferink: Trampolining.
Ms CARNEY: Trampolining! Thank you, member for Macdonnell. The minister is developing a reputation amongst some of being a bit slippery, a bit rubbery with the figures. His answer today in this parliament about how there are fewer victims in the Northern Territory than there used to be is clearly arrant nonsense based on these figures from the DPP. I repeat: I trust the figures prepared for and by the DPP any day of the week when compared with the figures used by the Minister for Justice. I will circulate these figures. I will tell all and sundry that this minister has lost the plot, he is going on at his own peril, it is clear ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Acting Speaker! There is a standing order against members using offensive words about other members, and trying to say the minister has lost the plot is completely out of order.
Ms CARNEY: What?
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. This minister really is losing the plot by, apparently, on the basis of his answer in this parliament today and, indeed, on other occasions, holding back information that he has, that has been prepared for him prior to the Estimates. I assume he has read them. If he has not, that is astonishing. But he knows this information, anyway. He comes into this parliament and makes statements that simply, based on these documents, bear no relationship to the facts. Well …
Dr Burns: The fact is crime is reducing!
Ms CARNEY: … Territorians should be very concerned and very alarmed.
What the member for Johnston knows about anything in particular is a mystery to me. There he was last week, ripping off Mick Palmer’s statement, and now he has the audacity to come in here and have a bit of a go. Well, you can have a go, as much as you like, Sunshine, but when you get these figures, you will see - even you, member for Johnston, a question will be raised in your mind. You might even think: ‘Oh dear, what has the minister done?’.
On that note, I will conclude, although I should say that I will circulate this information to as many Territorians as I can, so that they, too, as some are already doing, can start to question the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General and this government, and the spin and some of the rubbish that they continually pedal. I seek leave to table this.
Leave granted.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk about legislation, not necessarily what is in legislation because I do not think we are allowed to do that, but about legislation in general that is coming before this House.
In this sitting, we have passed three items of legislation in six days. We have had many statements, and they are all very well, but we have passed only three items of legislation. Yet, in the next sittings, which will be made up of three days, one of which is General Business Day, we will have four major bills and four other bills that have to be passed in two days. That is a poor way for us to debate very important legislation.
One of the bills will amend the Local Government Act. There are a huge number of proposed amendments. It is an act that is required to go back to most councils to have a look at. Anyone who knows how councils work knows that they have meetings twice a month. You have to have your committee meetings, so if they get this – well, they probably will not get it now. They would have a general meeting coming up at the end of this month, then they have their committee meeting where they normally discuss this, and it would have to go back to their general meeting for final approval. Local government councils need ample time to look at the changes proposed for the Local Government Act. Not only do they need plenty of time to look at those amendments, they need time to come back to their local members of parliament to put any concerns they have. So does LGANT, the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory.
It would be good to have a statement from government that said some of these bills are not going to go through in November. By rushing them through, after so long putting these reviews into a bill form - the Local Government Act was being reviewed when I was in local government, so that goes back two or three years - we have six weeks to look at proposed legislation that can have major effects on councils.
We have the parks and reserves bill. I am not making a comment on which way that bill should go. There is a lot of research required. There are many issues about native title, land rights, the status of these parks. There are a whole range of issues to be examined. To hit members with six weeks of lead time, then debating it in two days is not really the way we should be going. Some of these bills have so much ramification that they require a longer time before they are debated. We need time to go out and talk to the community about them. First of all, I have to get my head around these issues, then I would like to discuss it with some of my constituents to see what they think. This is not making a comment on whether I support it or not; I need to fully understand the legislation before us.
We have today’s legislation from the Attorney-General that changes the mandatory life sentence regime; very important legislation on which I certainly have an opinion. I am sure plenty of people have opinions about it, but it is legislation that we need to think through very carefully because it has major ramifications for our society and, naturally, for people who go to gaol for murder. This is the sort of legislation that I do not think we should say that in two days in November, when every body has just about had it from the year, that we are going to debate it.
We have the gay law reform bills. Again, regardless of what you think of it, those reforms go to the very heart of social change in our society. They are going to have some major effects. To say: ‘There you are. We have been considering these for …’ I do not know how long ‘… and we gave you six weeks to look at it, notwithstanding you also have to look at the parks and reserves bill, the mandatory life sentencing regime, the Local Government Act, and you have four other bills, albeit minor, all to be done in two days’.
Is that really fair to the people of the Northern Territory and fair to us as members who really need to carefully consider such important bills before we come and debate them in parliament? What I am saying tonight is that I ask the government to tell us whether these bills going to be debated and finalised in the next sittings, or will they hold them over to the February sittings so we can have ample time? It takes months, maybe years for some of these bills to come into this parliament. Why, therefore, should we rush the last few weeks of it? Name one of these bills that would suffer if it waited until February. I do not think any would. Just because we have a deadline of two days in the year when we should debate it, unless it is urgent and the sky will fall in, let’s just go easy and ensure we give this adequate consideration.
That leads me onto another matter, which also concerns me, and I was concerned with this bill from the day we were told were going to have it. That is the law reform gender, sexuality and de facto relationship package. I am not debating the content of it. When the minister issued a media release on this, he said a whole series of changes that were going to occur. I would have expected to be able to vote on those changes, but what this bill does is put a whole range of issues into one bill. I might only have one section of this bill that I do not agree with, but it might be fundamental to my beliefs or other people’s beliefs. Yet there might be good things in this bill that I support, but I cannot separate them. Why? Because they have put a whole range of major amendments to bills into the one act. It is shocking for a government to do that.
They knew this legislation was controversial. They know it is legislation that is not supported, in some cases, by members of this House and the community, yet I will not be able to debate this properly. I will have 20 minutes to debate this huge bill, which seeks to amend the Criminal Code, the Anti-Discrimination Act, the Criminal Records (Spent Convictions) Act, the De Facto Relationships Act, the Interpretation Act, the Status of Children Act, the Administrators Pensions Act, the Stamp Duty Act, the Supreme Court Act, amendments of other acts and subordinate legislation. Why couldn’t we have had this broken up into separate bills that we can fairly debate?
This is a smoke screen to get over the controversy, to make it difficult for those who have concerns about this legislation to adequately debate it. I sit in parliament and sometimes enjoy the debates we have. I am not trying to pre-empt the minister, but you have a statement tomorrow about heritage. I will enjoy debating that. But when it comes to the crunch in life, what is the most important thing as a politician to discuss? This one? The gay law reform legislation? Or heritage? Heritage is important. This one is about human beings. It is about our lives, what we think about families, about our children. This is the most important legislation I have seen since I have been here, yet I have 20 minutes to debate it. I asked the government not to have cognate bills; I thought that they were going to separate this. No, they separated the other act, the De Facto Relationships Act. That was a big deal. All the stuff that we really wanted to be broken up into sections is in this bill.
The government is pandering to a small group of people, applaud as they might in this parliament. They can applaud all they like. There are many other people in this place who think deeply about our future as a society, who feel that the family is under a lot of threat and are worried about, you might say, declining morality. We talked today, for instance, about mental health, and someone mentioned spirituality. It would be interesting to see a graph of belief in a god or belief in prayer and whether we see an increasing number of suicides and depression. We live in a society that has materialism as its primary god, not that I am against owning a car or a TV, but generally speaking, people are fairly godless in this society and do not have many beliefs.
As the Minister for Health and Community Services said, we can discuss the clinical methods of looking after mental health, but we always seem to shy away from things like our society has forgotten other things; it does not pray any more, it does not have beliefs any more. Does that have a lot to do with people not knowing why they exist? Those are very difficult questions that are never asked any more. I have stood here before and said: ‘Why do we not teach philosophy at school? We are not allowed to teach religion, but how about we teach kids how to think? Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, all the famous philosophers down through the ages. We do not teach kids that’. We do not teach kids how to think.
One of the problems I have with sex education in schools, especially secondary schools, is that it does not make a moral judgement because the government does not want to have moral judgements in school; it just wants to have a clinical discussion. There is not rights or wrongs. You cannot discuss that; it is not the government’s philosophy. Yet what do we leave our kids with? An empty vacuum. There is no: ‘Is what I am being taught right? Is what I am being taught wrong?’ No, we do not have that. Kids grow up with an attitude of: ‘If I make enough noise and do enough things, things like the bigger question will be blocked out of my mind’. When that goes, they are lost.
We as parliamentarians have a duty to try to promote higher ideals sometimes. I relate that back to this legislation. This is about ideals, whether you agree with them or not. We will decide that on the day, but this is most important legislation that this government has disgracefully put into one bill.
I will, as will everyone else, have 20 minutes to have a decent go at it. You can have the debate in the committee stage. That will not do you much good. That will just be getting rid of the disjunctive oar that the member for Goyder might have picked up; it will not exactly be a thrill, but on the real, hard issues, we will not be able to have a fair go. I should remind members that the Attorney-General, when he introduced this bill, took more than 45 minutes to do the second reading. How many 45 minute second readings have we had in this House? That is how important this bill is, yet I can only have 20 minutes to debate it.
I call on the government, if it has any guts about this legislation, to reintroduce it in a different format, to break it up either into the amendments so each amendment is a separate bill, or break it up into its divisions as separate bills to make it clear. Part 2 is amendments relating to gender. We know what that is all about; it is about the age of consent, etcetera. Pretty important stuff, pretty basic stuff for this government to discuss. It gets down to the basis of the Criminal Code. They are going to scrap a section of the Criminal Code which is ‘acts against morality’. Oh! I told you they did not want to talk about morality; they are going to scrap the whole section.
Then we have amendments relating to sexuality. Why is that not a whole section? We have amendments relating to de facto relationships. Some of those I might agree with, but now I cannot because if I do not agree with one section, I have to say no to the whole lot.
Mr Elferink: And branded soft on crime …
Mr WOOD: Oh, absolutely. I am saying it is a disgrace. I am going to tell people it is a disgrace, and when we get to debating important legislation, this is not good enough. This is weak, and this is the bit that I do not like about the Labor Party, the airy fairy, intellectual party that is not willing to sit down and discuss issues that it should. It used to be the party for the family; it used to be the party for the worker. Sadly, it seems to be the party for minority groups and intellectuals, and it has left the poor working family away, for itself. I am very disappointed, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, and I will leave it at that.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I wish to touch on a variety of issues. First, with regard to my Health portfolio, I have a couple of comments. I have had reports from nurses working in the new A&E department at Royal Darwin Hospital that the new section is going very well, and they are very grateful for the changes that the previous CLP government put into place and the current Labor government finally finished. They are also very happy that, recently, after a little bit of pressure from yours truly and others, the short stay beds located at the new A&E department have finally opened, and that has removed the pressure and distress caused by having to keep patients waiting for admission to the hospital on stretchers. So the short stay area has opened, and people are able to rest comfortably in proper beds in a more appropriate area while they wait to be admitted to the wards, which still, unfortunately, can take many hours and, in some cases, days.
However, on a less happy note, I have had representation from people concerned about the fact that the rehabilitation ward, which was located on the top floor of the hospital until Christmas time 2002, is still closed. The rehabilitation ward was a great CLP initiative, and I am proud to say my sister had a great deal to do with the establishment of it. The ward consisted of eight beds. It allowed people who, for example, had had strokes, to rehabilitate in a less clinical environment than a hospital ward. For example, when they woke up in the morning they had showers and what not, and then went into civilian clothes. A small bus then transported them from the main hospital block to the rehabilitation unit on the periphery of the hospital grounds where they underwent hours of rehabilitation work with occupational therapists and physiotherapists and the like.
So they had a day’s program at the rehab unit, after which they caught the bus back to the main block of the hospital and went back to the rehab ward. They had their own dining room where normal behaviours were encouraged. The staffing levels were such that there was an understanding of the time needed to help someone rehabilitate from something like having a stroke. People were not just placed into a wheelchair and taken to the toilets and the shower. They actually had the time, through staff motivation and staffing levels, to use a walking frame to get from their bed to the shower and have a shower because the aim was to normalise these people as soon as possible to allow them to be discharged back into their homes.
At around Christmas time, the minister announced that the rehabilitation ward would close temporarily, and the people who were in it would be moved to the fourth floor into the medical ward. That occurred. Unfortunately, 10 months later, the people who require that sort of rehabilitation work are still inappropriately located on the medical ward, and the rehab staff have to work in with the rest of the ward. That means, of course, there is significant pressure to hurry things along, to use wheelchairs. For instance, there is no dining room they can go to, so they have their meals at their bedside just like other patients. That is the loss of a really great unit that used to be located in Royal Darwin Hospital.
As I say, we were told when this happened that it was only to happen over the Christmas period and that after that time, the unit would reopen. There is no sign yet of the unit reopening. I know the staff and medical officers who are dedicated to rehabilitation work - and the minister will know the people I am talking about; people who have made an enormous contribution to this area of work and are very well respected in the community - are very distressed and concerned that what was a great little unit is still closed. I urge the minister to think seriously about finding the resources, and the staff who are specialised in this area still work in the hospital, to reopen the rehabilitation ward on the top floor at Royal Darwin Hospital.
On another matter, I have been approached by people who are currently studying nursing at Charles Darwin University. These are people studying to be Registered or Enrolled nurses, Level 1 and 2 Nurses, as they are now called. Unfortunately, the situation is that the Charles Darwin University is producing trained, educated, qualified nurses, but it is very difficult for these people to get jobs within our public health system and join what is known as a graduate program. As you know, nursing education has changed over the last few decades; it has moved from a hospital-based training program, the sort of program that I went through, to a university education program. No one decries the value of nurses being educated in universities. However, at the end of the process, it is necessary for those tertiary-trained nurses to have a proper introduction into the hospital environment. They will, of course, have done workshops and work site time during their university period, but this is not long enough. They need to go into a one-year program of the new grad program.
Unfortunately, the current situation is that many of these graduates cannot find positions in the public health system. The result for many of them, particularly the enrolled nurses, is that they have to return to nursing home work, which they do not want to do; they want to work in the acute hospital setting. At a time when we have a significant shortage of nurses in Australia and the Northern Territory in particular, a greater effort needs to be made to find the resources to allow these recently graduated nurses to be placed in our public hospital system. It is the case where, over the next few months, we are expecting the arrival of 40 nurses from the Philippines and, given the fact that we need to go to that almost desperate end for nursing staff, there is an opportunity here to start fast-tracking, as we are doing with police, our home-grown, Territory nurses.
These are people whose roots are in the Territory. We need to get them into our system here in significant numbers as quickly as possible. Australia is facing a massive shortage of nurses over the next five to 10 years. We have our own people graduating here, and they cannot get that final education experience of going into a graduate program in a hospital where, essentially, you have nurses working on the ward buddying these nurses through a 12-month program which usually sees them rotate from say, the Accident and Emergency Department to medical ward to surgical ward to paediatrics on these special programs.
I understand at the moment, for example, that next year we might see 20 of these new graduates go through the program at Royal Darwin Hospital. Frankly, 20 is nowhere near enough, and I certainly hope that the minister is able to increase the number of graduates that we can put through our public hospital system. Not just here in Darwin, of course, but through all of our five public hospitals.
I move now from the health area into other issues. First, I was very disappointed to learn in the last week that the leprosarium on Channel Island has apparently been demolished. There has been no public mention of this. I believe the member for Nelson may have said something about it recently …
Mr Wood: East Arm Leprosarium, I was talking about.
Ms CARTER: Oh, located on East Arm, thank you. When I was a student at Northern Territory University doing a Bachelor of Education in primary school education, one of the joys of doing that course was gaining a greater knowledge of Northern Territory history. I recall one day going out to the leprosarium. It was a fascinating area. I would be interested to hear from the minister concerned why this had to be demolished. It was a significant area of heritage. It is a shame that it was not listed. It should have been something that we hung onto.
Another matter that has been raised with me over the last few weeks is disappointment from people in the northern suburbs about their electricity supply. The comment has been made that not one extra street - I think Bougainvillea Street in Nightcliff had underground power there as a trial through the CLP when we were in government, but since then, over the last two years, despite the promises of the Labor government, but since then - in the northern suburbs has had underground electricity installed. Given the fact that the Labor government said that it is going to take up to 20 years to underground power in the northern suburbs, by golly, it looks like there is going to be a lot of work done in the last few years of that time frame. Given the number of streets and the size of Darwin, you would really want to be cranking on with this project. People are becoming somewhat disillusioned with that election promise. The cynic in me, of course, says that come 12 months from the next election, we will start to see the diggers operating at Nightcliff as the money starts to roll out. However, here we go with another Wet Season and not one street underground.
Speaking of spending money, or the lack of it, I received an e-mail today from a disgruntled constituent with regard to the boat ramp at the end of Gonzales Road at Tipperary Waters. I doubt whether many of you will recall this little incident but there was a lovely little media photo of the minister and a couple of northern suburbs Labor MLAs - the member for Karama was one them, a long way from my boat ramp in at the end of Gonzales Road. The point is hundreds of thousands of dollars were promised to fix that boat ramp, which is very popular. It needs widening, the car park needs development. Nothing has been done. I understand heaps of people from the northern suburbs come and use that boat ramp, so take note, MLAs located in the northern suburbs: nothing has been done on that boat ramp despite the media and the promises. The result is that it is starting to suffer dramatically from deterioration. I urge the Labor government to start spending some of the money and fulfilling some of their promises.
Another little promise that was made and has been a long time in the coming is noise regulations. I have been waiting three years for these noise regulations. Members would appreciate, as the local member for the CBD of Darwin, there are significant problems from time to time, particularly noise generated by licensed premises. There is a hope in the community that the environmental noise regulations, when they finally come out, might provide some sort of objective measure from which people can pursue complaints about noise. I am begging the government to come up with these noise regulations.
Finally, Mr Acting Speaker, the name of the Ghan, the Steve Irwin. You have to be joking. I urge this government to do all that it can to change that name. It is an abomination for Territorians to be given that name for the train when it finally comes here and I recommend that you think of something bit more creative, something that harks to our Aboriginal heritage. We can do much better than that, and at the very least it can be called the Top Ender or the Territorian.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Acting Speaker, I wish to raise a couple of issues relating to education, the first being procurement policy. It was good to hear today of the decision made in August to remove significant powers from school councils had been revoked, but only, I must say, in part, and a significant part of the powers that were once held by school councils are retained by government.
This is an important issue, one that has not received a lot of publicity, and I do not like to excite these areas unless I have thoroughly checked with each of the school communities. I did make a point, when this procurement reform was announced, of writing to school councils and informing them so that they understood what had been said. Councils then began to communicate to me that they were surprised by the reform, and did not think it could possibly be. Ultimately, my letter sparked questions. My letter was to inform, and the next response was obviously to lobby the minister for Education and to inform him, respectfully, that the removal of such powers cuts deeply at the existence of councils, which are there to engage and support learning in school communities.
It was good to hear that part of it has been retracted. However, the matter of managing capital works in school communities will be remembered by proactive school communities. I cannot see why this decision would be made. When reforms are made, we look at them in a philosophical context: why would such a decision be made? Is it addressing a problem that has occurred in schools? No, I do not believe so. When we look at the number of schools that add significant value to the public funds allocated to them to build a new facility, and when the community has come together and taken charge of the process of implementation the approved project – and everything will be ticked off according to the structures and mechanisms for expenditure of public money – we find that the money goes much further when it is in the hands of the parents rather than the bureaucracy.
Really, it makes a lot of sense if we understand the issue because we are going to put responsibility in the hands of parents who have a vested interest in and complete responsibility for their children. The more we remember that, the more it will help us to look at educational issues and our decision making in relation to them. For example, the legislation we will consider at the next sittings. These are decisions that affect people and how they interact with each other. To remove the authority from school councils culturally affects the way many school communities have held together and have progressed.
There are schools such as Driver, Humpty Doo, Parap, Driver High, Girraween, to name some that have made great gains by adding immense value to capital works programs; they have taken public funds further by adding other aspects to them that would not normally have happened if it went through a bureaucratic process.
Not only that, I have seen school communities work together. Let us say you did put it into the hands of the department to build the class room or you put it in the hands of parents and allow their skills and abilities to come together and do something for that school community. Even if you end up with the same class room at the end of it, putting it in the hands of the parents, you are going to add something else; you are going to increase the value because you are going to see that community come together, work together and you build the community, the people. You empower and resource the people with something that is far more sustainable and some value is added that you just cannot buy. It is not just about the class room or the administration of public funds. It is about building community; it is about people. What has occurred is a very serious matter that obviously has been directed, engineered and put in place by the bureaucracy, by the departments. We are here to represent people; mums and dads who are doing their very best to try to raise their children and to walk us forward into a better future.
What has been in place for so many years has been tampered with by this government, which appears to have a centralist approach whereby they would much prefer the bureaucracy to govern us when our job is to empower people so that they can take responsibility for their own lives. That is when real value comes. That is real vision. That is when people have courage and walk forward into the future. When we have faceless people governing and structuring our decision-making, we end up with a very bland and colourless community. These things result in people getting up one morning and thinking: ‘Well, I am not so sure the Territory is such an exciting place any more’. I may be overstating it, but I know I am not. This is the flavour that seems to be permeating our community here, and it ain’t that exciting when you have departments running our affairs. It removes a vital element from our society.
We see this manifest in the way our school communities have been dealt with, our school councils. Every member here has been to school council meetings. They have seen the dramas; they thrash out these decisions. They have their children at heart, and children who are not yet at the school. Now they have had that taken away so that the parents can get involved in the real affairs of the school. Like what? Deciding what is going to be served at the tuck shop? Is that going to be the biggest decision that they are going to make now? Deciding which plumber might be able to fix up the pipe?
Mr Dunham: When to have the fete.
Mr MILLS: When to have the fete, that’s right, and decisions like that. So we drop it right down to a lower level and, as a result, we disempower and disconnect people, break up community. That is the very thing that we need to be doing here: empowering, building up the morale of the whole community. This is a seriously heavy blow to school communities.
I have great respect for all the school communities that were informed of this decision, respectfully, and it is something quite typical of the education system. They are not radical. They are quiet mums and dads who are very busy raising their children and doing their best to give a little bit extra to their schools by taking those evenings when they go and spend time sitting together and going through decisions. A lot of stuff they do they do not really understand, they try their very best. To have something of this nature taken away from them makes it even more abstract as to why they should actually be involved in a school council. Probably, we could take it right to the next stage and say: ‘Forget school councils. The department can run the whole show. They can run everything, and so the parents can just drop their children off at the school and pick them up, and that is all you really have to do. The department can run everything and we will end up ultimately with this Utopia where we do not really have to do anything’. The sad fact is that is not where power lies; that is not where the courage comes from to face the future.
Going now to our teachers, as a community, we are starting to recognise that we have a set of challenges in front of us that we really do have to take very seriously. We know that there are more teachers leaving their chosen profession. They might have gone through school, they have made their decisions, they have been asked a hundred times when they were in high school: ‘What are you going to do?’ A few of them decide that they want to become a teacher. A reason why someone would decide to become a teacher when they were in secondary school is often because they have been inspired by a teacher. There is a vocational aspect into going into education. So they go to teachers college, and there are some lecturers at teachers college who, once again, inspire you and give you that sense of purpose of why you would like to teach and get involved in education. They now go through the graduation ceremony, they walk out and meet their first class and find that the level of pressure that is involved in day-to-day running of the schools, with increasingly poor student behaviour, behaviour management structures that are not adequately resourced, there is confusion about, it is ever changing, nothing ever stays the same.
They cannot quite get their feet on the ground. They have to spend their own time writing their own curriculum, designing their own programs, and at the same time managing poorly behaved students. Then they find that their remuneration, their level of pay, does not quite match up with others who seem to be able to knock off at whatever time and go home and not carry any work with them.
The community does not understand how much work a seriously dedicated teacher has to carry with them. They have to take it home with them, after struggling through the psychological tension of the day, and then prepare for the next day often times interpreting curriculum and writing a program to suit the varying needs of that class room. Not surprisingly, after four months, only 60% of the teachers who graduated are still there. After four months of their first year in the profession, 40%, nationally, walk away from the profession. I recounted this to someone who is involved in education. They informed me that in the Northern Territory, of those who graduate from the Northern Territory University - and I cannot say that this is a fact; I am passing on a report - 35% continue on in the profession and 65% depart the profession. That is a local and anecdotal report. I do not attribute that as fact, and I will check it.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that there is incredible pressure on the profession. As a community, we are starting to understand this. What do we do? The level of remuneration is an issue that teachers are now getting some recognition for. The pressure on the profession is not matched by adequate remuneration. When they look around at their peers, they might go to a social function, they start to realise that it is not matched. More fundamental than that is the lack of respect and understanding from the wider community. That is becoming a real issue. We are attributing the pressures of our society, all that is around us, all the dysfunctional youth, to the school because, as a society, we are tending to offload responsibility onto someone else: ‘My child is very poorly behaved, my child cannot read, my child cannot attend at school, my child is bored’. Everything is lumped onto a teacher. They are finding that, because of the inability to solve problems instantly, there is a lack of real respect. The teacher ends up becoming a bit disillusioned and walks away from the profession as a result.
Worse than that, teachers say that the size of classes makes it difficult to manage. When teachers are asked, they say that student behaviour is becoming increasing difficult to manage. These issues are compounding and falling across our profession.
What do we do as a result? We can talk about the problems. The report commissioned by Dr Brendan Nelson that was released on Friday contains recommendations. I commend this report to anyone who has an interest in not just teaching, but in the future of our whole education system. We are all involved in education and, increasingly, education rises up on the list of issues that are of centre focus to this community. What do we do? One proposition we need to look at is to pay teachers for performance. We are concerned about the lack of participation in sport. There are many teachers who put in innumerable hours keeping after-school sports going. There is an opportunity to create the payment of incentives and bonuses for teachers who put in that extra and keep after-hours school sport programs operating. Mr Acting Speaker, I will continue this at a later stage.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Speaker, I lend my support to the member for Nelson and many of his comments. I listened carefully to the member for Nelson. Sometimes it is a joy to walk into this House because a lot of what we hear in this House is just waffle and filling in space, unfortunately, but every so often a member comes in and speaks from the heart and you can tell that it is genuinely heart felt. All that the member for Nelson was talking about tonight was process, a process that this government was elected to change or to bring a new process to the way that business is done in the Northern Territory.
There was a perception that the former government had been in power too long, had become arrogant. That has been pretty well established over the course of the last couple of years and that is probably one of the reasons why the former government was thrown out, the perception of arrogance. The fear that I have for the current government is that they are reproducing it in spades. When you read the Good Governance document that they use to have and bandied around prior to the last election, the whole sentiment and flavour of that - without dragging it out again and waving it above my head, as I have in the past - was that they wanted to open up the system.
Tonight I heard the member for Nelson complain about process. These complaints, I am sure, I have heard before at another parliament. The process that he complained of was that of taking some of the most important items of legislation that this parliament is going to have to look at in terms of its impact on our society and how we choose to run our society and as well as ‘omnibusing’ that legislation into a single item of legislation. The process, of course, has been undermined in this instance quite deliberately. I will go one step further than the member for Nelson and simply accuse the government of what I know that they are doing. What they are doing is ‘omnibusing’ the legislation simply because they want to be able to go out there and say that if you do not support the whole bill, you obviously do not support tougher sentencing on child sex offences. The implication is that if you are soft on that sort of thing, then you really do not care about kids.
I agree with what the member for Nelson said because it is such packed-up legislation, it would impossible to debate the merits of all of the bits of that legislation in 20 minutes, which is something that we are all going to be stuck with - also the fact that they are trying to manipulate through the fear of members in this House of being branded something out there. I can put it on the record now that no matter how my colleagues and I choose to approach this issue, I will not be bullied by fear of being lambasted out there by a government who tries to pull this sort of stunt.
It undermines what they are trying to achieve with this legislation. They seem to be under the impression that this is something that they are going to have to jam through. They are making all sorts of assumptions about how the Territory public feel about this, how Independents in this House may feel about it and how the CLP members feel about it. As a consequence, they are trying to manipulate the system and that is a real shame because there are things that will be worth visiting and there will be debates that are well worth having. I do not sense any need or urgency to run into any of this and have it pushed through in any brief time.
I feel for the member for Nelson and understand where he is coming from. The sentiment of what he said is something that I certainly take to heart. I give him support in the sense that he is genuinely trying to address the process so that a full, frank, open and honest debate may be had in this place and, more importantly, may be had out there in the community so that we all may turn our attention to these important issues.
Process is an important issue. The structure of this parliament is built on process and how we go through process. It is something we guard quite passionately. Never a day goes by without a dozen or more points of order being called because of the process that we try to protect. The member for Nelson has every right to complain about process when it is abused in such a fashion.
I pick up on some of the member for Araluen’s points about having increased amounts of work going through the DPP, the courts and increased numbers of people in gaol, yet the Attorney-General constantly claims that crime is down, crime is down.
Mr Dunham: Fewer victims.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, there are fewer victims. It is a curious thing. I wonder how that can possibly happen. I am starting to see certain trends, and the first to which I alert members is that the crime reports coming out of the Department of Justice all have an increased number of crimes against the person. That seems to be a general trend. Crimes against people seem to be on the up and up.
We will also talk about property crime, which the Attorney-General claims is going down and down. Intriguingly, now that we have several quarters available to us to investigate, property crime across the board, the drop was notable in the first instance, but it seems that the trend line does not continue to drop. It seems that when the first Justice figures came out, crime rates dropped a certain percentile point. It seems to be across the board for the last quarters investigated.
That starts to hint at a change in methodology as much as a change in crime rates. It is worth continuing to examine this. I wrote a letter to the Attorney-General some time ago after I noticed that the non-reporting of crime was reported in the original crime statistics with the standard used being ABS standard for non-reporting in the Northern Territory. That was at 32%, curiously. The following set of stats to come out, they used the ABS non-reporting rate of the Australian standard, not the Northern Territory standard, of 22%. I wrote to the minister about that, and I received a message from the minister. Basically, the letter said that there is too much margin for error in Territory rates and we are not quite sure about it, so we have decided to go to the Australian standard. Curiously, he also said in the letter that those figures for the Northern Territory could be out by as much as 25% or more. Realistically speaking, the minister had no real idea inside the Northern Territory how much was not being reported.
The Palmerston Regional Business Association recently surveyed its membership. They received 73 replies. The first question their members were asked was:
- In the last 12 months, has your business suffered any form or break or enter or property theft?
to which 37% replied yes, they had. The second question was:
- In the last 12 months, has your business suffered any vandalism?
And 29% said they had.
- In the last 12 months, during the course of business, have you or your staff been assaulted?
Include verbal abuse, threats, etc.
to which 28% said they had. The final question in that section was:
- Do you have a problem with itinerants and juveniles hanging about your business premises and
harassing or otherwise deterring your customers?
to which 26% said that was indeed the case. Of the 37% who replied yes to the question above, the first question to those people was:
- If you encountered any of the above, did you report all of them to police?
And 45% said that they had.
- Some of them to police?
35% said that they had only reported some of them. Significantly, 20% said that they had reported none of them. Now, it is interesting to go on because it goes on to ask:
- If you did not report any incidents to the police, was it because you considered the crime too minor?
and 52% believed that to be the case.
- You did not believe the police would respond?
to which 5% considered that was the case, which is encouraging.
- Do you consider reporting to the police to be too time consuming?
10% felt it was time consuming. Finally:
- The courts provide no real deterrent to these sorts of crime?
to which 33% indicated that that was the reason that they did not bother to report.
It is a lengthy process from time to time to report matters to police. It is also a lengthy process for police to enter offences generally on the PROMIS system, which is their recording system. I asked the commissioner about this the other day during a briefing, specifically an entry in the O’Sullivan Report which reported that in the police station at Katherine, between 5% and 10% of all offences reported to police in Katherine did not find their way on to the PROMIS system because that system was too cumbersome to deal with.
The police commissioner said he did not believe that to be the case, but O’Sullivan did report it so there is a very real chance that that is the case. If that is the case in Katherine, we are using the same system throughout the Northern Territory, including remote stations. So you have non-reporting being under-reported by the Attorney-General, the police system of collecting the data has a question mark of 5% to 10% error mark hanging over the top of it, so there is another problem with the under-reporting of crime. The whole process has a question mark hanging over it, acknowledged by the Attorney-General himself, that it might be out in the Northern Territory by 25% or more in terms of the non-reporting of crime.
That will then take us to this particular point: when you compound these effects through the system, it may well be that there is an answer as to why the courts appear to be busier, the gaols appear to be busier, the DPP appears to be twice as busy, and yet crime statistics are trending down. The fact is that there is a question mark hanging over these crime statistics, how they are collected, how they are recorded, and how they are interpreted through the statistical processes.
I know the member for Araluen has been seeking a briefing in relation to this, as will I, because they are very important. They potentially have a profound effect on the integrity of the statistics that are coming through the system. If the Attorney-General was going to be fair, he would be very interested in these sorts of details, because I am certain, in the interests of fairness, exactness and correctness, these are the principles upon which he proudly announces these crime figures, he would want to find where these holes are and if they are being taken into account.
A margin of error in reporting of police stations on the PROMIS system of 5% to 10% is a matter of concern. I would certainly urge the Attorney-General to look into it so that we can get some relationship which bears reality between the number of people in prison, before of the courts, and the statistics that the Attorney-General produces.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Mr Acting Speaker, I know it is probably a tad self-indulgent, but I intend talking tonight about three people for whom I have great affection. In fact, I love all three of them, and I will start with my wife.
It is interesting that the member for Port Darwin talked about nursing, because that is what I would like to talk about. My wife has not only completed her nursing degree through the Northern Territory University at the ripe old age of 46, but she has now nearly completed her midwifery. This is a childhood dream for her. My wife did not complete Year 12, and it has been a very difficult thing for her to progress through university, and all the onus that puts on you to learn how to study, write reports, research and all that stuff. One becomes rusty about it if one has not done it for a long time.
Nonetheless, she is there at Darwin Private Hospital now, and was there today in delivery suite. I know she will make an excellent midwife because, throughout her life, she has worked with small children, including in the nurseries of Royal Darwin and Darwin Private Hospitals. It is a passion of hers and it is a career to which she is well suited. So, tonight, as self-indulgent as it is, I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate her for coming thus far.
The second person whom I love and would like to congratulate is also a nurse; and that is my daughter. She is just finished at Notre Dame University in Western Australia, probably the best university for turning out nurses in Australia given that it has a different learning paradigm and has worked very hard to make sure that there are high levels of practical experience for undergraduate nurses. That has translated to nurses who are very industry ready, and who are well sought after. My daughter has been successful in achieving a placement for her postgraduate year with Prince Edward and Princess Margaret Hospitals in Perth, one being a paediatric hospital and the other being maternity. She has those placements now and is about to embark on a very good career. She did apply to Royal Darwin Hospital and was very keen to come home, but the tardiness of the answer meant that she took the first offer which, unfortunately, sees her in Perth for yet another year. The family will miss her, but I know that she will return here as a fully-fledged practitioner in the very fine art of nursing.
The third person whom I love and would like to talk about is Slim Dusty. Slim Dusty has been known to me almost as a friend for decades and decades. I do not suspect he ever knew I existed, but I was somebody who went to many of his concerts because growing up in Katherine in the 1960s, Slim Dusty was as regular as you could get. He came through in the Dry Season every year and put on a great show. We all went and we all knew the songs …
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: And Daly River.
Mr DUNHAM: Daly River, Peppimenarti. I know he was a personal acquaintance of the late Harry Wilson. I know he sent tapes to Harry that he had not laid down as tracks, for Harry to do a little critique and a taste test to see whether they came up to the high standards that Slim had set himself.
I also grew up in a pub and, if you grew up in a pub anywhere in Territory in the 1960s, you knew every Slim Dusty song - every Slim Dusty song. It might be a bit old-fashioned now to talk about Trumby being a ringer ‘as solid as a post; his skin was black but his heart was white, and that is what matters most’. There would be people now who would find those words somehow paternalistic and offensive, but it was a much-loved song. It crossed all strata of the Katherine society, although there were only two or three strata there in those days. Through this work as a lyricist and as somebody who travelled in the bush and thus knew a little of what he wrote about, and as somebody whose fine art came back to people who were truck drivers, train drivers, and men on the land working hard and their women folk, he will be sadly missed in Australia.
I do not think there would be an artist anywhere in the world who could stand in a country with the same stature as Slim Dusty.
I was interested that one of the Cabinet ministers put a memorial notice in the paper. That was entirely appropriate, and the member for Arnhem should be commended. Slim Dusty is well known to Territorians and his name should live on. He was a great Australian, but he was a Territorian, too. My colleague, the member for Port Darwin, talked about the train and it is incredible how many people say it should be called the Slim Dusty. It is not going to come to anyone as news that a man who has great respect for Slim Dusty and what he has done; he has many train driving songs, many travelling songs. I do not think you could go much better than to call the train after him.
If the government believes that it is out of their hands, not something they can do, let us find some other way of having his name attached to this great north-south railway; let us have a way of maybe naming the terminus or the rail station or something after him because he does deserve it. His songs had very simple messages and, picking up on another of the speakers tonight, there are people who do not have many guideposts for their lives. If the mere fact of doing what is best for your fellow man and doing right is what drives you, you cannot go too far wrong, and that came through Slim’s songs.
I have no shame standing in the parliament and lauding this man. I know it is seen as a bit old fashioned, but that is what I am: old fashioned.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016