Labor by-passing Northern Territory leaders on Indigenous affairs

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has moved to compel the NT government to prove its spending on family violence has been effective as she considers demands for extra money.

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has moved to compel the Northern Territory government to prove its spending on family violence has been effective as she considers demands for extra money.

The standoff comes as the federal government increasingly chooses to bypass the Fyles government on Indigenous policy by funding Aboriginal organisations directly.

On Tuesday, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney was in Darwin to announce $1.78m of commonwealth money for night patrols. Instead of providing the money to the Fyles government, the commonwealth has entered a contract with the community-controlled Larakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation to do the work. This is now a preferred way of delivering services under the Closing the Gap agreement signed in 2020.

Ms Rishworth has responded to the Territory government’s recent public demands for more funding to combat family and domestic violence by accusing the it of blame shifting. The Australian understands Ms Rishworth feels it would be premature to fund new family violence initiatives in the NT without understanding delays in spending money already provided and without knowing whether programs already delivered have been effective.

“Any suggestion the commonwealth is not responding to the situation in the NT does not ­acknowledge the commitments we have made and serves to play politics and indulge in blame-shifting, when all governments should be focused on working ­together,” Ms Rishworth said.

The calls for more commonwealth funding coincide with a coronial inquest into the violent deaths of four Aboriginal women in the NT. Coroner Elisabeth ­Armitage’s investigation so far have found that 83 women have died as a result of domestic violence in the NT since 2000. Of those, 93 per cent were Aboriginal and killed by their partners. Indigenous females living in the NT were 50 times as likely to be hospitalised due to assault compared with non-Indigenous females, ­according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The Albanese government funds family and domestic violence services in the NT above what the NT would otherwise ­receive on a per capita basis. It has committed $147m for family and domestic violence services in the NT over four years­.

“Not all of that goes to the Northern Territory government – a lot of it is direct funding to ­organisations on the ground. This is a significant investment,” Ms Rishworth said.

“We have also worked with Aboriginal leaders right across this country to develop our first Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander Action Plan, because we know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are seeing a higher rate of serious incidents which lead to injury. In the most recent budget we put $263m into that.”

Eva Lawler, the NT’s Acting Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, claimed the territory was not getting a big enough share of commonwealth funding. “Currently levels of federal investment, based on population size – not need – are just a drop in the ocean when it comes addressing domestic, family and sexual violence,” Ms Lawler said.

The Territory’s handling of commonwealth funds has been criticised for years, presenting a conundrum for successive federal governments that recognise the depth of the social crisis.

In October the Central Land Council called for an intervention in the Territory’s public education system after The Australian’s NT Schools in Crisis series revealed a bloated bureaucracy was short changing schools $214.8m a year.