Palmerston Senior College, Northern Territory
This transcript contains excerpts from the Community Cabinet meeting held in Palmerston on Wednesday 29 June 2011. A complete transcript of the Public Forum detailing all questions and answers can be found via the Community Cabinet links on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet homepage http://www.dpmc.gov.au/community_cabinet
Narrator: On Wednesday 29th of June the Federal Cabinet met in Palmerston, Northern Territory. Over 40 individual meetings between Ministers and the local community took place followed by a Community Reception and Public Forum in the school hall.
Footage of the school, Prime Minister and Ministers arriving greeting students, Community Reception, members of the public mingling, music and entertainment.
Student: Today is a Community Cabinet which is where the public can come and ask questions of the Prime Minister and her Parliamentarians.
Kevin Quoll: (speaks in local Aboriginal language to deliver the Welcome to Country) ending with “I hope you people enjoy your discussions tonight”
Senator Trish Crossin: The average age in Palmerston is 28, it's a very young and emerging area of the Northern Territory. So this seemed to me to be the perfect place in the Northern Territory to have my parliamentary colleagues come. It's my pleasure to introduce then to you, our Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Prime Minister: Can I start by saying to you that this is my 5thvisit to the NT since I became Prime Minister and every time I've come here I have been absolutely struck by the spirit of opportunity in the Northern Territory.
Narrator: At Community Cabinet the Prime Minister spoke about an important land rights agreement announced that day.
Prime Minister: The Federal Government has entered into a heads of agreement with the Northern Territory Government and with the Larrakia Development Corporation to settle the Kenbi Land Claim after 30 yrs.
Applause
Prime Minister: This means that there will be a new suburb, more housing. So that's good news for Darwin and it also means that there will be a strong economic future for the Larrakia people.
And now over to you, we will start taking questions.
Community Member 1: What are you doing to remedy the terrible situation the Minister for Primary Production has put the cattle producers in, in the Northern Territory at the moment?
Prime Minister: The Government put the suspension in place because we saw shocking evidence of animal cruelty in Indonesia.
Community Member 2: Minister what is stopping you from issuing an export permit to those exporters who can apply those approved standards?
Minister Ludwig: What we recognise is that we need to put in place a model which requires regulatory underpinning to ensure that we do provide both the transparency that I spoke about but most importantly the safeguards for animal welfare outcomes.
Prime Minister: Thank you to everyone who has made tonight possible from this wonderful school - we very much enjoyed being here, thank you.
Footage of interviews with community members
Community Member 3: I'm glad we had the opportunity of going tonight and actually talking to the Ministers.
Community Member 4: You get people on board you're half way there.
Student:It gives our people a voice, one that we generally wouldn't have because of our isolation.
Community Member 5: Because we don't see our federal government all the time.
Community Member 6: It's at a level that people feel quite comfortable.
Community Member 7: The Ministers making decisions are real people, hats off to them for doing it.
Community Member 8: People really appreciate the fact that an effort has been made.
Student: It's definitely a good opportunity.
Ends with musical interlude
Footage concludes (3 minutes)