Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I would also like to speak to the motion to take note of the ministerial statement on the Northern Territory intervention. However, this is a very serious issue, and I am disappointed that only a short amount of time has been made available to debate it.

Further to Senator Bartlett’s comments on this matter, I note that the intervention was put in place in a way that was completely contrary to what the research and evidence show us. The approach that should be taken to address serious issues of disadvantage in a community is one that looks at an overall framework and engages with the community on how best to solve these issues. This is what the NT intervention should have been about instead of using issues of child abuse, which I agree are very serious. All the thinking and evidence show us that by engaging a community in addressing areas of disadvantage we actually empower them in the decision-making process. The approach that was taken in the NT intervention was disempowering. Taking away a community’s ability to make decisions is the quickest way to disempower people. This gives them no say over their future. This is what income quarantining has done. This is what taking people’s land has done. This is what is done when you do not go into communities to discuss people’s problems. And this is what supporting some projects and not others has done.

I welcome the review. I was disappointed to see in estimates that the government at that stage was not able to tell us about the framework that will be used for evaluation. I sincerely hope that that framework has been put in place. A panel has been appointed, but it can only do its job with good terms of reference and a good evaluation framework so that we can get proper data and evidence to base future directions.

One of the key things the minister did not address in this statement is the exclusion on the exemption of the Racial Discrimination Act on the NT intervention. I beg the government to address this issue as a matter of urgency. We do not need the review outcomes to deal with that. This law is racist until it complies with the RDA. The government needs to take that on now. As I said: do not wait for the review, please. Take it on board and fix it. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.