Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise relatively briefly. First of all I would like to commend the contributions from this side of the chamber, particularly that of Senator Bernardi, and I would like to acknowledge the huge workload that Senator Xenophon clearly has and to thank him for the access to his office in these matters. Interestingly, when we read the title of the bill, the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Emergency Response Consolidation) Bill 2008, the term ‘consolidation’ in regard to this bill and its impact on the intervention is a little like calling a tiger shark a goldfish. There are two fundamental aspects of this. One of them is, of course, that of the issue of pay TV into the communities. The other fundamental, from my perspective, is the effective reintroduction of the permit system. These were principle planks in the intervention.

I think that, when the intervention was supported, most Australians, including those on the other side, who supported the principles of the intervention at the time—and I have no reason to believe that the fundamentals of the intervention are being opposed by those on the other side—knew that this was a whole suite of initiatives that, to have real effect, had to be done across the board. You cannot suddenly come back and say, ‘This one is a little bit uncomfortable and this one is a little bit unpopular, so we’ll take them out,’ because the impact of the intervention will be significantly undermined.

The Little children are sacred report outlined very clearly the impact of pornography on these communities. I know we have spoken a lot about that. I have listened to many contributions from both sides on that. I think it is important that we look at the Little children are sacred report. It says:

It is apparent that children in Aboriginal communities are widely exposed to inappropriate sexual activity such as pornography, adult films and adults having sex within the child’s view. This exposure can produce a number of effects, particularly resulting in the “sexualisation” of childhood and the creation of normalcy around sexual activity that may be used to engage children in sexual activity.

The report then goes on to say:

It was subsequently confirmed at the regional meetings conducted by the Inquiry in February and March 2007, that pornography was a major factor in communities and that it should be stopped. The daily diet of sexually explicit material has had a major impact, presenting young and adolescent Aboriginals with a view of mainstream sexual practice and behaviour which is jaundiced. It encourages them to act out the fantasies they see on screen or in magazines. Exposure to pornography was also blamed for the sexualised behaviour evident in quite young children.

This comes not only from anecdotal evidence; it comes from a comprehensive inquiry. There have been a number of other inquiries at other times in other places that have indicated that pornography plays a very ugly and very large part in these matters.

One needs to understand the environment in which these communities often operate. There are quite large numbers of very young children who find themselves without supervision. I have seen them myself. In many communities you would see the parents out the back of the house having a barbecue while the children are huddled around Bambi or something like that. But in Indigenous communities, when there is no supervision, it can be something like ‘Bambi does Dallas’. In many of the circumstances in those communities it seems that children have had access to large amounts of pornography for an incredible period of time. That situation has become normalised because, for whatever reason, the communities have said, ‘It is okay to have our children sitting in front of that.’ They may not be aware. Hopefully, because of this report, the intervention and some of the very good education measures that have gone along with it, they will now be more aware of the impact on their children if they are not supervised. But we must assume that, if there is any pornography available in those communities, it will be watched by young children who are unsupervised—and that will lead to the further sexualisation of those children. So I think it is absolutely essential that we ensure that there is simply no pornography available. Fundamentally, the intervention did just that. It banned all normal access to pornography—outside of pay TV, which this bill deals with—from the community. We all agree with that, and that is a fine thing.

It is interesting to note that a document I have here, on the first 100 days of the Rudd government, says at point 9 that they have introduced legislation to ban R18+ content in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. This is seriously a Clayton’s ban. Anybody who did not actually understand the details of this bill would think that this simply bans all pornography—that it bans access to adult channels on pay TV. But it does nothing of the sort. It takes a very easy road. I have read it closely, and I commend the committee’s report on this bill. It is a complex and sometimes difficult matter to resolve the issues of who gets access to satellite TV. But we on this side of the chamber do not think that it is too hard, because the outcome is all about the most vulnerable of our first Australians. That is why it is so very important that we get this right.

The proposition is not that it will be banned but that, ‘We will get a bit technical about this.’ There are two principles. They say, ‘First of all, it will be banned only if it has over 35 per cent of adult content.’ Somehow there is the notion that anything under that percentage is okay. Yet we have established through empirical science and what we know ourselves from our observations of the communities that no percentage is okay.

Then there is this ridiculous notion that we can rely on these communities. We know the circumstances in these communities. We know some of the standover tactics used by members of those communities. I know that it is very unlikely that people in those communities are going to stand up for a lot of things—and that has been part of the problem—particularly for the smaller people in the community, which invariably are the women and the children. How is it then that we are saying to the communities, ‘If you want this stopped, if you do not want pornography beamed into your community, can you put your hand up and we will have a bit of an inquiry and a bit of a look at everything and talk about pornography in Indigenous communities.’ I submit that there is no community that will put their hand up under those circumstances to say, ‘No, we do not want it.’ If the other side had put to us that it was a default position, we might have been part of the discussion, but to have the default position that you can have pornography beggars belief. I think that the amendments that have, quite rightly, been put by the coalition will resolve that matter.

The other completely fundamental part of the intervention is the reintroduction of the permit system. I have to say I was nothing short of disappointed—possibly in myself because, being a senator of the Northern Territory, one would have thought I would have known this—and surprised the other day to learn that permits have always been required. There was no hiatus. I know a lot more people would have been surprised, particularly people in communities who thought for a period of time after 18 February that it was all part of the intervention legislation that you could go in and out of communities on a prescribed road.

But, unfortunately, the minister has of course interpreted very narrowly but quite lawfully the old terms ‘may’ and ‘must’. It is a fundamental part of our legislation, and we always have discussions in this place about ‘may’ and ‘must’. In hindsight, I think we should have put ‘must’ in there because the minister in her wisdom, and quite lawfully, has decided to choose the process of ‘may’. She then put a media statement out on the 17th, I think it was, indicating that people would still require a permit.

There has been a number of quite confusing issues associated with this. I notice that a couple of the senators sitting opposite have in fact attended meetings—I believe the group that attended the parliament was the Alliance Against the Intervention, or some such name. But, by and large, I went and listened carefully to their complaints about that. In regard to the permit system, it was amazing that all of them talked about ‘people driving all over our sacred sites, wandering willy-nilly through the land—up hill and down dale—not knowing where they were going and what they were stepping on’.

I am not sure who did the consultations, but the facts of the matter are that that cannot possibly have been the case. In fact, it was so difficult to try to allay the fears of these individuals because whoever was doing the consultation must have been talking about a completely different proposal than that which was given in the previous legislation. Fully 99.8 per cent of Aboriginal land will still require a permit. Why: because it is private land. No-one is going to ask anybody to storm into your house, as people have indicated. It is just absolute rubbish. And I will say once again that it is rubbish and it is evil, because whoever is perpetrating these lies to the communities for some short-term political gain is, in my mind, in not too nice a category. Of that I can assure you.

So the Northern Land Council and the Central Land Council have gone down the road of consulting, we have heard, with those opposite about what an outrage it was for the previous minister to have said that there were people outside of that process who were complaining and talking to you and were not really game to speak up. It has been my experience that the people are afraid, but they are afraid because they have got the wrong information. It is time that we cleared those basics up.

What about the permit system? What about all these wonderful arguments of the people who say, ‘No, we cannot possibly live without the permit system.’ And of course there is the matter of the police. On the subject of Vince Kelly, I have no doubt that the Police Federation, or in fact Vince Kelly himself, has a very strict view about the value of the permit system. I have spoken independently to police and, in fact, I spoke yesterday to a young police officer who has spent the last 19 months in a remote community. He said it is absolutely unnecessary. The police used to want more power because it is a useful tool, but because of the grog-running legislation they can pull over any vehicle at any time. So there are plenty of powers for them to do just about anything in these matters.

Drug runners, child abusers and, generally, thieves and bad people would check off their lists: grog, check, I have got that in the back of the car; puncture kit, check; oh, and a permit—I have got to be lawful, of course, so I had better go knock down and get a permit. The whole point is that criminals doing their checklists would say, ‘I might as well be lawful and go and get a permit.’ And getting a permit: what does that do? Are we saying that the Central Land Council or the Northern Land Council actually go and do a security check on the people? Well, they do not. So the whole notion that this sometimes helps things out is absolutely ridiculous.

I have to say again that on the subject of the amount of alcohol that is going into these places, the seizures have just been fantastic! In fact, the Alice Springs News on 7 August reported that they had caught:

... 14 cartons of VB beer, four bottles of sweet liqueur, one bottle each of vodka and whiskey, four bottles of rum and assorted alcopops.