Peter Dutton tours Northeast Arnhem Land for Voice to Parliament
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says ‘the right voice from the right people’ could positively influence opportunities for every Aboriginal child in Australia.
Indigenous Affairs
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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says every Aboriginal child in the country should have the same opportunities as those enjoyed in Northeast Arnhem Land.
Mr Dutton travelled to the Gove Peninsula where he met representatives from 13 local clans, the heads of land councils and other Indigenous leaders.
He also toured business enterprises run by the Gumatj Corporation including their timber mill and the Arnhem Space Base at Gulkula.
Mr Dutton said he was “heartened” by what he had seen on the Gove Peninsula, particularly at the Dhupuma-Barker school at Gunyangara, which achieved a 100 per cent attendance rate.
Asked if the school – opened two years ago because the local Yolngu people wanted greater control over education – was an example of how a Voice to Parliament might have a positive impact, Mr Dutton said:
“The right voice from the right people can be a positive influence.
“At the last election we took the policy on local and regional voices to the election because that was one of the key recommendations out of the Calma-Langton review.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week accused Mr Dutton of deliberately trying to create confusion around the Voice to Parliament.
But Mr Dutton said Mr Albanese has failed to provide enough detail for the proposal to pass at a referendum, expected to be held later this year.
“Anybody who looks objectively at this sees the prime minister thrashing about day after day,” he said.
“They’re building this plane mid-flight and that’s the problem.
“The work hasn’t been put in and the prime minister’s not across the detail.”
The Opposition Leader said he was impressed by the opportunities the local leadership in Gunyangara had provided for Yolngu children.
“I want that for every Indigenous child, yet in Alice Springs you have kids who are causing all sorts of problems of a night-time because they don’t feel safe going home to sleep during the hours of darkness,” he said.
Mr Dutton repeated his call for a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the Northern Territory, first made after he visited Alice Springs with Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Price last October.
“There are a lot of people I can tell you who I think would give different advice in camera in a Royal Commission than they would at a public meeting even,” he said.
“Some of the people who pull you aside afterwards and say ‘this is how it really is’ it’s quite remarkable, and if we could have those brave souls standing up then we’d give ourselves a chance of addressing it.”
Mr Albanese visited Alice Springs last month where he met service providers and representatives from the Northern Territory government and Alice Springs Town Council.
But Mr Dutton said he should return to the town.
“I think the Prime Minister would do himself a great service by going – forget the media and the cars and the rest of it – go and listen to the practical advice, not the sanitised version you get in meetings with public servants, with all due respect to them,” he said.
Matt Cunningham is the Sky News Northern Australia Correspondent
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