• 5 months ago
Imposing curfews is set to get easier with new powers expected to pass Parliament. Some groups have expressed concerns that the powers go too far.

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00:00 We're alarmed by these proposed new laws. We think they're totally out of step with
00:06 community expectations. At the heart of the proposed legislation is a suspension of the
00:13 Anti-Discrimination Act. We think this is a completely unnecessary and retrograde step
00:20 that harkens back to the intervention, and we think there is a complete failure by government
00:26 to consult with the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory, with legal experts
00:31 and with other experts such as the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner and the Children's Commissioner
00:36 so that this legislation could possibly be fit for purpose.
00:41 What impact would this change have on young people in Alice Springs?
00:46 What we know about the situation in Central Australia is that a lot of young people are
00:51 homeless, they don't have enough food to eat, they're coming from homes where they're not
00:56 safe, and that's what pushes young people into the streets. So we're really concerned
01:02 that this type of curfew that will be imposed, it can be imposed orally by the Police Commissioner.
01:09 It's very broad, so it doesn't have specific expectations and standards of what has to
01:14 be satisfied before a curfew is implemented, and young people will just be caught in the
01:18 middle and they'll be on the streets, they'll have contact with police, and what we sadly
01:22 know too often is that when that occurs, young people will come into conflict with police,
01:28 they'll be the subject of criminal charges, they'll be arrested and they'll be in custody.
01:32 So we're very concerned that rather than putting in place therapeutic supports for young people
01:37 who might be homeless, who might be hungry, this is going in completely the wrong direction.
01:43 The NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler has confirmed that youth services weren't consulted before
01:48 the proposed legislation was introduced, but she said she heard the feedback on the ground
01:53 loudly and clearly, she said, about the benefits of the curfew, and that came from a whole
01:58 group of people in her words. What's your response to that?
02:02 Yeah, I think there was definitely a sentiment expressed by people from Central Australia
02:06 that some kind of circuit breaker was needed, but that's a far cry from forming an evidence
02:12 base upon which you can then bring in legislation such as this. There's been no independent
02:18 evaluation of the curfew, there's been no data released, there's nothing to say that
02:23 it's been successful by any measurable standard. So there's a massive gulf of information before
02:30 the government has taken this very punitive step of giving the Police Commission this
02:35 incredibly wide ranging, and as we say, suspending the Anti-Discrimination Act is an incredibly
02:41 dangerous thing to do. It harkens back to the intervention for Aboriginal people in
02:46 the Northern Territory, and it's completely unwarranted. So whilst there may have been
02:51 some need for a circuit breaker at the time with the curfew that was imposed in Central
02:56 Australia, this legislation is quite another thing altogether, and we are incredibly concerned
03:02 about the failure to consult and for this to just be simply rammed through Parliament,
03:06 where a number of experts have raised significant concerns about this proposed legislation.
03:12 Jared, what are youth crime rates like in Alice Springs at the moment a month after
03:17 the curfew ended? From what we can see, there's been no noticeable
03:22 increase and what's really interesting, Ros, is when you look at the data, there's no increase
03:28 in youth crime in Central Australia that's detectable in the last few years. So what
03:34 we have seen is a lot of hysteria. We've seen a lot of reporting and coverage of youth crime
03:39 in Central Australia that sadly is not necessarily based on the facts. And what we think is desperately
03:46 needed in Central Australia is more investment in services, in early intervention programs,
03:51 working with families, empowering Aboriginal communities, empowering elders to take responsibility
03:58 for law and justice issues in their communities. And sadly, we're not seeing the focus on that.
04:03 We're seeing investment in policing and as I say, we have grave concerns about how measures
04:09 such as this will be rolled out to the detriment of Aboriginal people.
04:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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