Minister for Indigenous Australians
Subjects: Croker Island, food security for remote communities and the incarceration of First Nations people in the Northern Territory.
GREG JENNETT, HOST: The Minister for Indigenous Australians has made a reasonably significant announcement today in an ongoing effort to improve transport and storage of food into remote communities. We spoke to Malarndirri McCarthy about this and more when she joined us from Darwin.
Malarndirri McCarthy, it's so good to see you. Welcome back to the programme once again. Can we start with a quick one on some emerging news coming actually from your patch there in the north. Four men believed to be foreign nationals have arrived on Croker Island. It does appear, according to ABC reporting, that they may have paid to be brought to Australia. What do you understand of where they are now? Are they bound for Nauru?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY, MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS: Well, I understand that this is an issue for the Home Affairs Minister, Greg, but I can say this, certainly after reading the ABC's reports, that it is important that we certainly support our rangers across northern Australia. They are the eyes and ears and I was certainly very pleased recently to announce a further 1,000 rangers. So, I am aware that your reports through the ABC have identified rangers in that, but I'll leave the rest to the Home Affairs Minister.
GREG JENNETT: Sure, but just on the rangers, are they now intentionally a first line of interception when these boats make landfall?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Not intentionally, Greg. It is important to acknowledge that our rangers across the coastlines, they don't have the legal capability to be involved with any illegal activity that may be occurring on the waters. But it is important that they do have a line of communication to the local police, in this case the local Northern Territory Police or the Australian Federal Police or also Border Force. So, I am pleased that our government has committed to increasing the number of rangers across Australia.
GREG JENNETT: All right. It is apparent that they played a role. You're quite correct, Malarndirri, let's move on to food security. The inability to transport and to store food in remote communities is pretty well known and the costs that go with that are extraordinary. Today you've announced almost $10 million to strengthen power supply and other equipment in certain towns. Does seem a lot of money. What will it buy and in what towns?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Well, a lot of money was spent in the recent summer bushfires and the road closures and cyclones, Greg. So, there's no doubt a lot of money does get spent at the back end of a disaster. What I'm trying to do is actually prepare for any forthcoming disaster this summer. And one of the things that I certainly saw as I went to places like Yarralin, for example, in the far western parts of the Northern Territory, when they got flooded in, they didn't have the capability to hold onto food for much longer than the weeks they were required to do so. And this kind of support is about food security resilience, a package that hopefully will assist with exactly those things that you've mentioned, Greg.
GREG JENNETT: It builds on an industry meeting that you convened last week, it brought together food processors or food manufacturers, Sanitarium, San Remo, brand names we'd all be familiar with. What are you asking them to do in the context of food security for remote communities?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Sure. Well this is all connected to Closing the Gap as far as I'm concerned, Greg. I went out to my home community of Borroloola recently to announce renal dialysis chairs for that community and the fact that we have high rates of diabetes, incredibly sick people with high chronic kidney disease, but at the front end we're not preventing these diseases if we don't have healthy foods. So, I naturally convened, for the first time, manufacturers, producers, retailers, to say we have to do something. In Central Australia we have the highest rates of amputations, Greg, as a result of diseases like diabetes. And it comes back to good foods. So, I'm reaching out to manufacturers, to producers, to retailers, to work together with me so we can improve with healthy living, healthy foods, but at prices that are affordable to say in Darwin or Katherine or Alice. We're not asking for something different.
GREG JENNETT: I understand, they're going to make market choices, aren't they, in relation to the remote communities, the most remote, what are you proposing to do to make that an easier market choice for them? Would you subsidise?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Well, this also comes back to the food chain, or certainly the supply chain, in terms of good roads and access so that you don't have to pay so many dollars per tonne to get these foods out, Greg. Sometimes it can be just as simple as looking at the supply chain and what we can do differently, what we can do better, all of these things. So, by bringing all of those representatives to the roundtable last week, we were able to identify a few key issues, which I will now take away and see what we can do over the coming weeks to actually start to implement that.
GREG JENNETT: Well, I'd be really keen to track those through with you as you progress it further Malarndirri. Look on another area of your portfolio, the Northern Territory Government will soon start moving young prisoners to Darwin due to overcrowding down in Alice Springs. Obviously that's going to have an implication for visitors and for families. What's your attitude to this? Do you propose to intervene in any way?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Well, what I've called on the Northern Territory Government to do, and the Chief Minister in particular, is to make sure they're working with First Nations organisations. And what I'm hearing on the ground is that is not the case, Greg, and they need to do this, especially when we look at the Royal Commission recommendations into Aboriginal deaths in custody, when we look at the needs for prisoners to be closer to family, to have that access. Are there language interpreters? We have over 100 Aboriginal languages here. So, I am urging the Northern Territory Government to do that. This week Greg, we're also going to have all Indigenous Affairs Ministers meet in Perth with me. And also my co-chair, Pat Turner, of the Coalition of Peaks, and justice will very much be on the agenda.
GREG JENNETT: Are there alternatives that you as the Federal Minister could look to surge into a place like Alice Springs? I mean, standing up a temporary facility for overflow youth detainees so that they don't have to be taken so far north? Would you contemplate something like that?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Well, look, at the federal level, we do acknowledge that this is a state and territory matter, but we are certainly mindful, and I certainly am as Indigenous Australians Minister, that the high rates of incarceration of First Nations people does require us to have a very good look at what's going on in each jurisdiction. And I would again urge the new Northern Territory Government to make sure they are working with First Nations families and organisations across the Northern Territory.
GREG JENNETT: Temporary conversion of the Don Dale Detention Centre into a low security adult prison. How does that sit with you?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Well again, the same thing. We know that Don Dale was questionable. I had certainly written to the previous government asking for that to close down, knowing that those young people should not be housed in an adult prison. So, of course these are very, very important conversations that have to be had. But at the same time we do see young people who are in these detention centres reacting in certain ways. There is a new centre here in the Northern Territory now and I do understand that organisations like the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, which has had its own problems, Greg, that we at the federal level have tried to make sure that they're doing the right thing and representing the people that we expect them to represent.
GREG JENNETT: Yes, and that's been the subject of further headlines this week. Look, finally, Malarndirri, I might steer you back to something that I know we've discussed before between the two of us, it's about electoral reform. It seems to me now, fairly clear, that the government is set to proceed next week in the final sitting fortnight of the year. You've been a really big advocate for expanding territory representation with extra senators joining you. Not going to happen, is it Malarndirri?
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: I would certainly love to see more senators from the Northern Territory in the Australian Senate and certainly from the ACT. I make no bones about that, Greg, but we do require the support of Coalition. I do remember speaking with my shadow opposition in Senator Price about seeking her support for that. I never got a response to that. And I think it's really important that if this was to be pursued, that there was that bipartisan support for it.
GREG JENNETT: Well, that might well explain why the trail has gone cold. Anyway, there's always another parliament. You can revisit that at a future time. Malarndirri McCarthy, we wish you well and wrap it up there. Thanks so much.
MALARNDIRRI McCARTHY: Thank you.
