Subject:
Indigenous emergency
E&OE...
CONLAN:
Prime Minister, good afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good afternoon. Nice to talk to you and to your listeners.
CONLAN:
And thank you for joining us today Prime Minister on Territory Today. This program goes into many of those communities highlighted by yourself and Minister Mal Brough as part of this national response, or national emergency. And congratulations on making such a monumental decision on Friday, which hopefully will go a long way in addressing this very serious problem.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you for that. It is an emergency. There is no greater obligation any government has than to protect children. We are adopting a very interventionist strategy but the old approach has failed and before we can see any hope of providing a decent future for children and for these communities, we have to re-establish law and order and that has been the biggest single weakness. We have to give the women and children of these communities the offer of physical security and some hope that if they are abused or molested they can complain and they can complain in the confidence that their complaints will be investigated and while they are being investigated they will be protected from further abuse. Now these are things that in the rest of the country we take for granted. They can't be taken for granted in these communities and until those basic conditions of security and safety are established, we can't hope to address the other problems.
CONLAN:
I don't think it would be drawing too much of a long bow to say you've got the majority of support from those living out here in Central Australia, and particularly those who perhaps witness some of this behaviour going on or certainly see some of the results of it, but can you believe the knockers, the criticism, the groundswell of criticism from particularly the state Premiers and in particular the Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter who is being very ungracious in his support towards you and this plan?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it does puzzle me. The response of the Labor Party is very puzzling. Mr Rudd says he supports me, Mr Carpenter has attacked me and Mr Beattie and Mr Rann have half attacked me and half supported me. And Mr Bracks and Mr Iemma have agreed to supply some police. I think the time for arguing doctrines and philosophy is over. The time for doing something is with us. Now it's all very well to (inaudible) theory, but unless people feel safe in their communities, unless we can provide just a modicum of police presence and a modicum of basic safety and security in a community we're failing in the most fundamental way. And there is no doctrine about indigenous policy, there is no theory, there is no philosophy about indigenous policy that can possibly be more important than protecting the vulnerability of indigenous children. That takes priority over everything else and I can't understand why people would argue otherwise.
CONLAN:
Hence the immediacy of the announcement and the urgency of the measures being rolled out; interesting how you're being accused of a political ploy, six months out (inaudible) a Federal Election or whatever it might be. The irony in all this is that it would appear it's a political ploy by state Labor to discredit you personally and the Federal Liberal Party. If there's any politicking going on, it would appear that's coming from state Labor?
PRIME MINISTER:
(inaudible) I mean the reason that we have done it is that we have a report. We have that report.
CONLAN:
Exactly.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's right. It was commissioned (inaudible) Northern Territory Government and we are acting in response to that report. Now the idea that we could put that off for another six months until after the Federal Election so we're not accused of doing something under the shadow of an election is absurd. I mean that is just a ludicrous proposition for anybody to put forward. Is a Government supposed to be paralysed and do nothing a few months out from an election lest it be accused of doing something with an eye to the election? This is not being done with an eye to the election. It's being done because we have a responsibility to do something. The report has underlined the urgency, the report has underlined the failure of past approaches, the report has underlined the vulnerability of the children. In those circumstances, for us to sit on hands and look over our shoulders and say oh gee, we can't do this, somebody might accuse us of playing politics, would be just pathetic.
CONLAN:
And the Chief Minister Clare Martin was made aware of some abuse in the community of Mutitjulu just behind Yulara and Ayers Rock and the like; and that was back in 2004. Now if she had commissioned a report back then, we could be well 12 months, maybe 18 months into this program?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is no doubt about that. The response of the Northern Territory Government has not been strong enough, but I don't want to spend a lot of time going back over the failures of the past. There is nothing to be achieved by any of us wasting energy on finger pointing about the past. But it has to be said and said unconditionally that the old approach has broken down. We can do something in the Territory because we have the power to do so. In the states we are limited in what we can do because we don't have the power to intervene in the way we do in the Territory. But I hope what we do in the Territory is an example to state governments because some of the problems in the Territory exist in various locations in various states. State governments have reports, they need to look to them, they need to increase their policing, they need to enforce law and order, they need to provide greater protection. So I can't make them do that, I can only point out their responsibility which I'm doing, but I can do something in the Territory and that's what we're doing and it's a very simple proposition and for us to wait and dilly-dally and have further discussion and more meetings and more reports would just be an abject failure.
CONLAN:
You've said recently in news reports over the last 24 hours or so that we should be humbled about the approach of what's happening here in the Territory.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I was referring the criticism everybody gave voice to at the time of the Katrina hurricane in New Orleans where we were very critical of the disaster that unfolded there and I said in a way what's happened in the Northern Territory with indigenous children is our Katrina and we should be rather humble in understanding that that kind of thing that we rather looked down on with lofty distain when it occurred in the United States in a different form and without the act of God element which was involved in the hurricane, in a different form it's happened in the Northern Territory. That's the point I was making and it has been a failure of the Government response and I just want the fundamental problem to be addressed. Now we can have plenty of time for plenty of debate about what theory and doctrine you apply but if people are in fear of their physical safety it's pretty basic that the most important thing you've got to do is provide them with protection and that's the first thing we're going to do. We're going to provide more effective policing, we're going to try and clean up these communities physically and once we've stabilised these communities and given them a breathing space we can then set about providing additional medical assistance and we can set about making sure the children go to school. If the children don't go to school and don't get educated they have no hope of having a decent life and that applies whether you're an Aboriginal child in the Northern Territory or another young Australian in the suburbs of Sydney.
CONLAN:
Prime Minister, there is a concern among urban residents of the Northern Territory, that is those living in towns such as Alice Springs and Tennant Creek and Katherine and even Darwin that once these measures are rolled out into Aboriginal communities through the NT then those seeking alcohol and pornography and such will be attracted to these larger towns and then operate under an umbrella of lawlessness if you will. Is this a concern of yours?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would expect that in the time that goes by after our intervention, I would expect that the Northern Territory Government would respond and ensure that that doesn't happen. I'm not sure that all of the people living in these communities are going to go to the larger centres. Some of them do and there may be good economic reasons, particularly if they can get work, that they should do so. This is one of these situations where if you want to sit down and think of all the worst possible scenarios you can do so and you can justify to yourself not doing anything and some people are already doing that instead of saying to themselves well maybe the Government's got a point; the past approach has failed, let's give the new approach a go, they're already saying oh well, you know, something might happen and this might happen and have you thought of something else and all the while that you debate those issues the abuse continues and children remain unprotected because it's something that's- happening every night, not something that happened a couple of months ago...
CONLAN:
It's happening right now...
PRIME MINISTER:
....it might happen again in a couple of months time and in those circumstances I just find it appalling if people want to have some national seminar about what we should do rather than recognise that providing basic protection and law and order is about the most fundamental thing that we can do for these communities at the present time. It's not the only thing and it's got to be done in a sensitive way and it's got to be done in a way that lays a ground work of confidence and cooperation, but to have another endless debate or have more meetings about whether we should do something which is really what my critics are saying, that's what they're really saying; let's have more meetings about whether you should have done it in the first place instead of saying let's have meetings about how we can implement the decision that you've taken because we have taken the decision. We are not going to back off it, we do have the authority to do it, we will make the resources, the money available that's required to make the thing work and we're quite committed to it and nobody should imagine for a moment that we're now going to negotiate whether or not the thing's going to happen. I'll be talking to the Chief Minister in Queensland later this week and I'll meet the members of the task group in Brisbane next Saturday so the plan is rolling out, it's happening, it's a fact and the talks and the discussions should be about implementing it.
CONLAN:
I'm in 100 per cent agreeance with the editorial today in the Australian newspaper and I'll quote one sentence from that for you Prime Minister. It says the very notion of seeking political opportunity by exploiting the tragic circumstances exposed by the Northern Territory Government's investigation into sexual abuse in indigenous communities is repugnant. Well it's a big strong word but it's an absolute blight on us as a community and a society if we continually persist that governments and political leaders would use such abhorrent circumstances to gain political mileage.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is and we are trying to do something to stamp it out and I can do no less. If people want to make political comments let them go ahead and do so. The public will make a judgement on the motive and the outcomes according to their own good sense and as always I will accept those judgements, but this is about discharging the most fundamental responsibility of the Government, it's not about scoring political points against the Labor Party.
CONLAN:
Well if anyone needed any more convincing about your passion, determination and commitment to this, well there it is. Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time today. I know how busy you must be particularly at this time of year and it's been a pleasure to speak to you today on Territory Today through radio 8HA broadcasting right across Central Australia and again I thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
My pleasure.
[Ends]