E&OE...
Well thank you very much Gerard, ladies and gentlemen. I thank the Sydney Institute for the opportunity of this platform to speak on the subject of the Government's response to the challenges facing the indigenous communities of the Northern Territory.
I do welcome the fact that the Sydney Institute continues to provide for people of all political persuasions a forum for significant thoughtful addresses and as a result make a very big contribution to public policy debate in our country.
Tonight, in our rich and beautiful country, there are children living out a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect.
Many are in remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. To recognise this is not racist. It is a simple, empirical fact.
If anything, our duty of care is greater because of who and where they are.
We can debate root causes until the proverbial cows come home. Governments and NGOs at all levels can consult and search for a cherished consensus on what to do and the order in which to do it. We could all declare with abject timidity that by 2020 indigenous and other Australians should all be equal.
Frankly, that would be the easiest thing in the world to do.
We can do all this in the sure knowledge that without urgent action to restore social order, the nightmare will go on - more grog, more violence, more pornography and more sexual abuse - as the generation we're supposed to save sinks further into the abyss. Even worse, believing that what is happening to them is quite normal.
There comes a point where the obligations of national governments take over. Action cannot be delayed by concerns that it's not