Scott McConnell opens up on Labor Party

Former Labor MLA Scott McConnell has opened up on the Labor Party, describing them as CLP Lite.

Former Labor MLA Scott McConnell has opened up on the Labor Party, describing them as CLP Lite.

The Member for Stuart expressed his disappointment with the direction taken by the Gunner Government, particularly in relation to remote indigenous communities.

“Rather than being a responsible government and leading the debate, that we need better outcomes for people that live (in remote communities), we’re immediately going back to CLP Lite. We’ll crow on about how we’ve got the hardest liquor laws in the country. Yes, and they’re not working. So what are you doing about social inclusion?” he told the Centralian Advocate in a lengthy interview.

The maverick MLA, who grew up in the bush, says he had thought long and hard before seeking preselection as a Labor candidate.

He looked at the platforms proposed by Labor and “saw a lot of things in it that I could really sink my teeth into that I thought were really important.

“I was looking forward to there being a stable government (after the infamous CLP tenure),” he said.

Mr McConnell said when he preselected for the Labor Party, he was told his values were aligned with that of the Party.

“Early on it became clear to me that there wasn’t going to be any fundamental change in the we did business,” he said. “I’m very committed to the fact that the Northern Territory needs to recognise it’s an indigenous place and be led by indigenous interests, that benefit us all … unless we can create better outcomes in remote communities we are going to suffer what people term anti-social problems in town. So I made all that very, very clear.”

He said, however he soon became concerned with the direction he saw being taken by the Party.

“It should have been a new Labor team,” he said. “A voice like mine should have been part of the make up of the communication going forward and clearly they had no intention of doing that from the first day that we knew we’d won.

“Up to the election, my ideas seemed to be opportunity. After the election, the same ideas seemed to be risk.

“It was back to the way they’d done things before.....yesterday’s ideas trying to solve tomorrow’s problems. It won’t work.

“On reflection, the way that I would describe that now is that we were actually entering into another term of the (former Labor) Henderson Government. So if you really look at the people who are advising this government, or that are senior in this government, they’re actually people who were in the Henderson Government. I would remind fellow Territorians what happened to the Henderson Government. They were led to a defeat.”

Mr McConnell said he quickly became concerned about the decisions being made on the Fifth Floor. “ … Concerned about the interests of rural and remote areas in the overall decision making.

“I’m worried about the future of my constituents … who’ve got their clinics being closed, their police stations being closed, their roads being neglected and, worse still, not getting the opportunity to participate in the economy.”

Unlike many in parliament, Mr McConnell intimately knows the bush and the issues faced by those who live off the bitumen.

Ex Labor MLA Scott McConnell pictured at Parlimenta. Picture: JUSTIN KENNEDY

“I’m interested in doing the hard work to have better outcomes for indigenous people that I grew up with,” he said. “But they are clearly not their (Labor) priority.

“We need to improve the lives of remote communities … so that people can stay (in the remote communities). What can we do to do it better? Those are things I brought some vision to and some knowledge of and some experience in working in that terrain. But my voice didn’t matter, because those decisions had already been made.

“They didn’t want to hear, they didn’t want my voice there at all. The Government has got the priorities wrong … In the remote communities that I represent, clinics are having their hours dramatically reduced, including not being open for days at a time, we have police stations in my electorate that have already been closed permanently, we have other major police stations that are dramatically under resourced and these things are happening all the time. We have other communities in my electorate where the water quality is such an issue where it is probably not safe to drink for long periods of time. Now these are things we need to be talking about, not underground carparks in Darwin.”