Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I think it is fair to say that we do not accept those criticisms. I understand that the commissioner you refer to was invited to all of the consultations. I am not sure that he got to many, but he was invited—as were the Human Rights Commission and a range of other people. We tried to be as open as possible and encouraged people with an interest to attend those consultations.

The key point to make is that, in any democratic process, people will want to discuss the adequacy or otherwise of the process. We have the same when we do Senate committee hearings—we get told that we have not been to enough places, we have not stayed long enough et cetera. There is always going to be that sort of debate. I make the broad point that this government has engaged in three rounds of consultations with Indigenous people in the Northern Territory on these issues as we have worked our way through the reform process. This last round was focused on these particular amendments to the legislation. We have had three rounds of consultation as we have developed policy over the last four years in government. There has been serious engagement with Indigenous communities on all these issues over an extended period. We cannot accept the Greens' amendments, because we think they confuse consultation with a much stronger concept of consent before being able to take any policy or regulatory action.

We think it is important that people consult, but in the end the government has to determine a policy and take actions in accordance with those policies. We think, as Senator Crossin said, that the Greens' amendments seek to place too much constraint on the capacity of the government to implement policies, but we are committed to the consultation process. As I say, there have been three rounds of consultations in the Northern Territory on matters relating to the intervention and the review of that. It is the case that not only did the minister engage but we also went to great lengths to ensure that any of the other interested parties, such as the human rights commissioner or the Northern Territory anti-discrimination commissioner, were invited to participate and to be present at those consultations.