Senator Scullion spoke with Richard Margetson on ABC Darwin radio breakfast on Mandatory Alcohol Treatment and seeing decision-making handed back to local people from land councils.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Of course the hot issue of the morning has been the one that has been the hot issue the last few days and that is the Northern Territory Government’s proposed Mandatory Alcohol Rehabilitation legislation.  That will be debated next month in the Parliament.  It is expected to become law.  Under the legislation problem drinkers could be put into rehab and then asked to pay for the service.  Critics have been pretty vocal, Cassandra Goldie from the Australian Council of Social Services spoke to us.  Yesterday to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda who was questioning the plan both on the likelihood of its success and on its legality.  Federal Opposition Indigenous Affairs spokesman of course is Senator Nigel Scullion from the Northern Territory, he joins me this morning.  Senator good morning.

NIGEL SCULLION:

Good morning.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Mick Gooda questioned sections of the scheme, in particular the ability for people to be held for 13 days without charge.  Do you have any of those concerns at all?

NIGEL SCULLION:   

Well look these are matters that I rely on people like the Solicitor-General.  Mick Gooda has also acknowledged that this doesn’t breach international rights (…inaudible words…) was provided by the evidence to the Senate Committee.  I look I have to say it’s good to have Mick having a look at these things around the periphery about to be sure that these things are lawful and don’t actually breach these Right’s basis, but I think that there are times that I know that I have spoken to Mick about these matters often as I have many of these the people from the Right’s base agenda if you like and they share all of our frustrations about – I am sure they don’t want the status quo to remain.  But look I am very confident as is the Northern Territory Government that this is the way to go and I have to remind everyone that we’re talking about recidivous defenders to the degree that they are arrested and taken into protective custody, so you are so drunk you need some level of protection.

You’re drunk in public which is unlawful in any event.  And you do that more or three than three times in an eight week period.  Now I think everybody would understand that this is starting to get the profile, the demographic of those people really, really, really in need of help.  Now those people are responsible and if you go and talk to anyone in the hospitals in Katherine and Alice Springs and Tennant Creek that are responsible for the weekly defence injuries and broken arms and bashed heads and if you look in the eyes of some of the children that live around these areas now you’ll see there’s just, they’re afraid, they’re afraid all the time.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

It’s interesting that we are speaking to you this morning because we have been trying to find Robyn Lambley for the last couple of days who’s the Minister who has been trying to explain this to us and you’ve just explained it probably more clearly than anybody in the NT Government have managed to explain in the last two days.

NIGEL SCULLION:     

Look that’s a matter for Robyn.  She’s a very, very competent individual.  I know she’s been absolutely flat out on a number of issues, but look again this is tough, this is also about leadership.  I think most Territorians will acknowledge that there has to be a point under which these people need help and people are talking about evidence based policies.  Look the best evidence in the world will tell you that alcoholics are not appropriate for alcoholics to be in gaol.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

However, it’s also about being charged, I mean perhaps then you look at the possibility of those, the people that you are talking about there who are caught in public drunkenness over a period of time, they would be charged and then they could be put into rehabilitation.  The problem seems to be that the implication is that if you are in that situation you would be in rehabilitation without charge, held without charge for 13 days?

NIGEL SCULLION:  

Look, as I said in terms of let’s have a look at this legislation in detail and as I said it isn’t my legislation.  I would normally able to quote you line and verse, but when I know the Solicitor-General of the Northern Territory has gone through this and found it’s lawful, then I have a great deal of confidence in the Solicitor-General for that to be the case.

But I think in a practical sense moving people from the justice system and I have to say all these people cycle in and out of the justice system.  They’ve just come out of the justice system and now they’re absolute alcoholics on the street so they need to be helped.  They need to be moved to the health system and for the first time, for the first time in the time I can remember someone has had the guts and the leadership to say, we will be moving these individuals into the health system so they can be treated and they can be in the very best chance in life to not only protect their communities and others, but also to ensure that they get better.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

This is what Mick Gooda has said though so far,

AUDIO FILE

GOODA:

This is a throwback to the fifties and sixties, kids were taken away and parents got hit with a bill for the upkeep of their kids.  What if people don’t have the capacity to pay?  Most of the people we’re talking about here would be on some sort of welfare benefits, are those welfare benefits still paid while people are held in these detention centres?

AUDIO FILE ENDS

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Is that something that you would be concerned about Nigel Scullion?

NIGEL SCULLION:      

Look I would have to say any gripe out of Mick, I spoke to Mick last week about a number of things.  Look that’s a quote from Mick, I don’t agree.  Yes that’s sort of says this is back, it is not a throwback to the sixties, this is a challenge.  We didn’t have this problem in the sixties, we didn’t have this problem.  This is with recidivist alcoholics who hurt Aboriginal people by and large.  I, like most Territorians believe that they need another level of protection and those people who are perpetrating these acts of violence and drunkenness on others need assistance, not continually locked up.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

One of the questions has come in from a listener and we’ll take it for red that you believe in the Mandatory Rehabilitation legislation, asking would you move to get that legislation national-wide if on September 14 you became the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.  Is this something that you would move for nation-wide implications, implementation.

NIGEL SCULLION:      

Well it’s interesting that I think there are a number of jurisdictions watching this very closely, watching this very closely.  This is State and Territory legislation and no the Commonwealth can’t move in these matters, but I have to say look all these jurisdictions are watching this very closely and this will be I guess a new area because people say well it should be voluntary, should be voluntary.  Well it is voluntary at the moment and there are rehabilitation centres at the moment and nothing is changing so we need to do something else.  I think it’s fantastic that we’re doing that and I think a lot of other jurisdictions will be considering to see how this goes and I am sure that they will considering similar legislation.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Country Liberal Senator Nigel Scullion with us today.  He’s the Federal Opposition Indigenous Affairs spokesman.  One of the things that you have indicated would change on September 14 should you get into government Nigel Scullion is changes to the Land Councils, saying that the Land Councils have too much power.  I am interested in this because I am wondering what originally, you say it was due to complaints, I am wondering what the complaints were principally.  Are we talking about complaints with access for recreational fishing or access for mining or are we talking about other complaints that have been made against Land Councils.

NIGEL SCULLION:    

Well first of all it was others who interpreted my words to say that I think that they have got too much power, it’s not something that I have said, but what I have said is that the complaints that come to me are from Aboriginal people who are represented by the Land Council.  For example Aljawa who said to me look we haven’t, they won’t respond to our letters to the Northern Land Council.  Six months they haven’t responded to a letter, significant issues about running business and getting leases to run businesses and so I went down the road of having an entire Land Council, I’ve come to the conclusion that the movement of an entire Land Council is not appropriate.  80% of the issues that Land Council’s deal with are dealt with administratively and dealt with by and large fairly well but it’s the areas, the key areas which the leasing of land under Section 19, Section 19a Township Leasing and some of the mining provisions of the act, things like the granting of the exploration licences are things, it’s not only about the complaint, it’s also that number of communities are, believe that they have got to a point now in their capacity to make their own decisions, on their land.  They have real Land Rights and so they’ve said to me that how would that happen so this doesn’t even require a change to the act.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

I think you spent time with the NLC yesterday and talked to them about the policy.  What was the reaction when you brought up the, whatever the details of the proposal are?

NIGEL SCULLION:  

Well there was two responses, one from the traditional owners which was quite an excited one, they understood.  I was subject to questions of around about two hours of questions and they were quite excited by the prospects.  They weren’t threatened at all by it.  The administration I have to say were less enthusiastic about that, but that’s sometimes the case with organisations, but the traditional owners I think by and large came and saw me and they were pretty happy and they know that they can continue to come and talk to me about it.  This doesn’t require changes to the act, it’s all contemplated in the act.  I know Warren Snowden said I don’t understand the act but I was actually in the Senate in 2006 when the changes took place.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Nigel Scullion is the move to help mining exploration in the Northern Territory or is it…

NIGEL SCULLION:  

No, no, no, not at all, not at all.  These are simply, those people, those organisations or communities who say listen I’d like to make my own decisions, I don’t want the entire Land Council but I would like to make my own decisions for example in Section 19 so I can, we can decide about township leasing, we can decide about a lease for this, we can decide about some other agreement and we can do that particularly so they apply to the Northern Land Council, if the Land Council, which has contemplated now, they then, they say yes you can do it, or no they can’t, if they say no you can’t and they have to provide reasons and the Minister can provide, look at those reasons.  If they don’t think the reasons are good enough, the Minister can intervene and provide that to, but there are plenty of checks and balances, they have to be an Aboriginal Corporation, they have to be incorporated under the act and that act, the Aboriginal Corporations make sure that traditional owners are at the very centre of all these decisions.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

Nigel Scullion we have to leave it there, we thank you very much for your time this morning.

NIGEL SCULLION:

Great to talk to you this morning.

RICHARD MARGETSON:

He’s the Country Liberal Senator for the Northern Territory, he’s also the Indigenous Affairs Spokesperson for the Opposition and there’s some changes afoot should the Coalition come into power in September 14, some plans to make changes to the Northern Land Council, the Central Land Council as well, had discussions with them in the last few days, Nigel Scullion.