Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now we know that well both of our political parties,
but the Labor Party making some massive announcements ahead of
going into caretaker mode tomorrow. So the Property Council held
their leaders debate a little earlier this morning and the
Chief Minister has announced that the Territory is going to
have a dedicated standalone housing department. That's a little different,
I think to what we've seen previously if re elected.
(00:23):
Now it was partly a proposal that we'd heard from
the Property councilor a couple of weeks ago. Ruth Palmer
had spoken to us and spoke about some of the
concerns with DIPPLE being like a behemoth, I guess, and
some changes that might be able to be made to
make things a bit more efficient or effective. So the
move will mean that the housing component component as I
(00:45):
understand it, including remote housing, it will remove it from
the Department of Territory, Families, Housing and Communities.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's going to be known as Territory Homes.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
This new department will also take the housing and planning
and private home approval responsibilities from the Department of Infrastructure,
Planning and Logistics. Now joining me on the line is
Kate Warden, she's a Minister for Prevention of Domestic and
Family Violence, but she is the former housing minister.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Good morning to you, Kate.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Good morning Katie. Thanks for having me on now.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Just quickly because I know it's obviously the Chief Minister
making this announcement this morning, but why has the Labor
Party decided to move ahead with this as an election commitment?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So you'd have seen a pressure nationally. We've got to
build more homes, Katie, and I know that in the
Northern Territory. You know, we have struck an amazing deal
with the federal government. It's historic, a four billion dollar
remote housing build. But we also know within our urban
centers we've got to build eleven thousand new homes across
the territory. We need that for our future workforce. We
(01:49):
need to make sure that there's housing available across social
housing but also across the private housing sector. So it
made a lot of sense. We've been chatting about this
for a little bit amongst ourselves around what would this
solution be. You know, we've obviously got some key advice
from people that are in construction sector and now so
this will give us an opportunity under territory homes to
(02:10):
really collaborate more with the construction sector to get those
homes built. And it's just a common sense approach to
it encourage more buildings and really retain the safeguards that
territory homeowners one as well, so there's two facets to it.
But it will continue to drive that private sector and
assist to get that going. And you've seen also that
we've made that commitment around six sixty thousand dollars for
(02:33):
new home builds as well for first home buyas territory.
You know people that live in the territory, so there's
a lot going on and we thought that this was
a really common sense approach to carving that out. So
you've got it all under one root.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Take.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Do we know how much it's going to cost?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, machinery of government business is the term that gets
often used and changes it will it will obviously come
with a cost because you've got to well have to
have a new CEO for that area. Great, but it
won't be the first time, and I would suggest it
won't be the only change that you know, an incoming
government would make. So I don't know that I haven't
(03:12):
got a cost in front of me. I'm obviously not
the Housing Minister, but there would be a cost associated
with that. But I think that by making sure, I
think that you know, those in the construction industry really
appreciates this. And as you said, you know, the Property
Council was cleaned to see some changes. So this is
a straightforward way to get that done.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
All right, let's move along to your portfolio. It's we
know that the announcement this morning is not the only
one being made by the Labor.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Party if re elected.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So re elected, Labor government's also committed to funding the
domestic Family and Violence Services for one hundred and eighty
million dollars over five years. That's based on the recommendations
of the Interagency Coordination and Reform Office. Now, this announcement
seemed to come a bit out of the blue. I
know you mentioned it at a rally last week. The
info then sort of started to flow through. Why weren't
(04:01):
you singing it from the rooftop through the pressure lace,
notifying everybody in the sector and victims that this was happening.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So Katie, we've you know, I think there's been a
bit of a misconception about this. We got that report.
I actually lobbied very hard to get that Interagency Coordination
Reform Office up and running. I went to Cabinet for that,
got some funding to put them together, and they had
a look across every government agency because as you can appreciate,
we need to do the early intervention and we need
the education area to do that. We need to make
(04:31):
sure that we've got behavior change in our prisons and
a whole heap of reform around the correction system. So
we need adg or attorney generals to be part of that.
So they did all of that work and they came
back together with that costing. That was in twenty twenty
two that we've got that report, and since then we've
put an extra fifty million dollars into the budget. What
(04:51):
Why had come out and said is, if we're re
elected and it is an election commitment, we will make
sure that over the next three years. Because that's the
fifty million dollars we've done over two years, we will
put an additional one hundred and thirty million dollars over
the next couple of years. Now, yesterday I was asked,
and it's a very important question and it's not one
that I shy away from. Why didn't you just sort
(05:12):
of throw this money at it when we first got
the report. We need to walk hand and have The
sector has really big workforce limitations, as does nationally. So
this is a problem nationally, and we saw the federal
government give out some money to get more frontline workers,
as it should. But what we need to do is
make sure we work with the sector because if we
suddenly gave them one hundred million dollars, for example, in
(05:34):
one year, we know we wouldn't be able to spend that, Cadie.
So what we're saying is we've incrementally gone. We've got
in the first tear we had ten million, and then
we've gone and we've got another it's fifty million all
up over the two years, sorry, over three years. So
we've already got another twenty coming next year. But we
know that we're going to have to put on more
money on top of that as well. So I just
(05:57):
wanted to make it clear to the sector that re
elects did we will get that target and we will
work with them through our action plan. So the big difference,
so cleen up in the coop, to be honest, Katie,
is that we've got a ten year framework, and we've
worked with a sector to implement Action Plan one, which
was the real bedding down the new structures and what
we need to do. Action Plan two we're delivering now
(06:19):
and you'll see this. We've doubled our investment in men's
behavior change. As an example, we've done the co responder
model with police. We've kicked that off and we're going
to work with them on Action Plan three.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I mean, I would say, though, you guys have been
in power for the last eight years, so I would
hope that you have got a ten year framework and
I would hope that that work was already happening, because
that's actually the job of government. That's not something that
needs to just come forward as an election commitment. But
I know that there's going to be people listening this
morning who will be saying, well, why are you only
(06:51):
announcing it now when the government has been in power
for the last eight years and those domestic violence rates
continue to rise at a totally unacceptable level.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Absolutely, but what you expect that when you start raising
awareness as we have done in the Northern Territory, very
very loudly, raising awareness is not good enough, you'll see
more and more people reporting so sadly what we're seeing
in our figures now is possibly what was happening before.
It's now just being reported. So we know that there's
also a silent figure in that. Katie, that it is
(07:21):
absolutely a huge, critical problem in the Northern Territory. I'm
never bucking away from it, but we absolutely I wanted
to say to everybody and the sector and make this
public and I'm really grateful that you've got me on
here this morning to talk about this. We will continue
the work we've started. I started that ECLO office.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
That We've only got a few minutes, so I'm just
going to have to move us along a little bit
because we have only got a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But I just want to ask you do you reckon?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So do you think that the reality potentially is here
when you look at the domestic violence rates that we
are seeing in the Northern Territory the moment that you
know that it's it's potentially those rates aren't increasing, it's
more that people are reporting those incidents.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Absolutely, we know that that's the experience. And I think
you know even this whole chatter at the moment about
the comments that the CLP have been making online some
of their senior members.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'll get to those in a minute.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You're becoming acutely aware, Katie, that these are issues and
this misogynistic view, particularly from men, and you know we
have to change this. We do actually part of the
solution and that's what we're driving that forward.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Well look, some might look, I get I'll get to
those comments by the CLP in a moment, but some
might sort of question as well whether Labor is really
serious about that, given the fact that you know, the
Labor Party themselves, you have had a minister in the
past that has made previous misogynistics may view as misogynistic
(08:55):
comments online in the police minister Brent Potter, and he made.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
A full explanation of that at the time. And to
be honest, we've had very very robust conversations about those things,
and I have to tell you Potter does not hold
those views. So he told it at the time. He
shared something without really thinking about it, and you know,
we've worked really, really hard and he's part of our
key reform. Can he walks side by side of this,
(09:21):
all right, Katie, we saw this with Steve Eddington.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well let me get to let me get to what
our listeners actually, so that they know what we're talking
about here first, Kate, I think you're putting.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
The cart before the horse at the moment.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
The CLP obviously are forced to distance themselves at the
moment from comments that have been made by a former
vice president. In a report by Liam Mendez in the
Australian newspaper today, the CLP campaign manager for Helen Secretary,
Steve Dougherty, has been asked to resign from the party
after blaming domestic violence victims for remaining in violent relationships.
(09:57):
I mean, what do you make what do you make
of these complains?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
It's just disgusting, it's vile. We know women, We know
many many women stay in those relationships, not just because
they're fearful of their own lives, because they're being threatened
on a daily basis. If you leave, this is going
to happen. I know people that that's happened to you personally, Katie.
I've been in that situation. It's you know, you don't
stay because you're there and you know you're part of it,
(10:25):
you want to be there. You leave you if you've
got an avenue to leave, And I tell you, and
I said this publicly I left because my dad stepped in.
Like if you just cannot blame women for returning to
a relationship. Women are often less completely homeless, but they're
also fearful for the lives of their children and their families.
I agree with you, hey, you know, particularly he's the
(10:47):
campaign manager for Helen's secretary. We know there's a renowned
story there with Helen, like a repeated abuse, and you
just think to yourself, how can you just voice that
sort of thing publicly? But also you know, the member
for Barkley, Ceve Edgington, he knew that he had a
repeat DV offender working for him who had gone to
jail for DV offenses. He continued to allow him to
(11:09):
work in his office and he was very much carving
him around town in the spaces where the women that
he had offended against were.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Look. I think the comments, I don't agree with the
comments in any way, and you know, like, yeah, I agree,
it has to end.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The comments are completely unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
But what I do want to point out is, I
mean the Labor Party is always really quick to call
out these kinds of comments, as you should be from
the COLP. Yet you know, some listening this morning will think, well,
why isn't there any expectation that you know, convicted domestic
violence offenders aren't sacked from boards which receive funding from
(11:47):
the Northern Territory government.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I have called out publicly that I believe that those
people that are on board you should not get a
reward in life for being a convicted DV offender. Should
not There should not be a reward for you, and
if and sitting on a board, regardless of whether you're changed,
If you've changed, go out and do community service, go
out and talk to other men about it. But you
(12:10):
do not get you the privilege of leading an organization
with that on your record. But there has to be
some sort of penalty in life for being a DV official.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Shouldn't there be some kind of.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Get involved in a community.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Shouldn't there be some kind of rules and regulations associated
with any organization receiving government funding that realistically, if it
is an organization which is delivering services which are aimed
as well at at you know, preventing and reducing this
kind of behavior, should there be some kind of of
(12:46):
guidelines here or rules in place that you don't receive funding.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Katie, that's a good point. So that in the case
of NARGER, we may well talk specifics because I'm not
going to back away from it. In terms of NARGER,
I have said that the gentlemen on their board should
not be on their board. I've said it very clearly
and publicly. But we don't fund Larger. They're funded by
the federal government. But in terms of our own contract, yes,
when those contracts come up, we should have things in
(13:12):
our contracts, and that's something that's a piece of work
that needs to be done into the future. But any
organization with a good conscience shouldn't take government. Let's be
fair here, they should not take government to step in
and say, hey, we're not going to give you, we're
not going to fund you. I mean, now you put
this in a precarious position because I can tell you
(13:33):
in the case of Tanager Council, and that's obviously the
second one that we're talking about, they deliver some amazing
behave men's behavior change. In fact, we've modeled off the
work that Marie Corbo and her team do. They do
a lot of really, really really good work, Katie, and
I'm not going to step away from that because they
do and they're passionate about it and they change lives.
(13:54):
That board needs to take a good look at itself
and they should do it themselves. Could be no reward
in life if you are a convicted DV perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Kate, I want to ask you about something very different quickly,
because we're getting some messages about it the sandersm Middle School.
I know that from my understanding, there's been some further
damage to those ovals in the last few days, more
circle work from cars. What where are these bollards at?
Have they been approved?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I've just literally got a message to myself this morning, Katie,
to say that happened. Yes, they have been approved. I've
got that inviting So I need to follow up today
because my understanding is that they were in the process
of marking out where they were going to go. But
I haven't seen anything movement on that that shows me
the urgency and the need. We already know the need.
(14:47):
But yes, absolutely, yes, and I'll be following that up today.
I literally have you only received that ten minutes ago
while we were sitting here talking about.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Well, if you're able to just keep us in the
loop as well, once you know, Kate, that'd be awesome.
Thank you so very much for your time this morning.
We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you anytime, Katie,
thanks so much, thank you,