Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mark Turner now sits as an independent and is the
incumbent member, and joins me on the line right now.
Good morning to you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Katie. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm very well. Now we've got seven minutes and a
series of questions. Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh? Fire away. The more difficult the better.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
All right, let's do it now. Why did you decide
to put your hand up to run again? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You think I ran last time because I was set
up and banging my head against the brick wall as
a policeman. Unfortunately, I've just found a different brick wall
to bang my head against. But we have managed to
get results over the last four years. The only problem
is without a whole of government response, we're just squeezing
the balloon and moving the problem elsewhere. This my community,
(00:49):
I live in it. I'm raising my children here, and
I'm not willing to let things keep on sliding in
the direction they're going in Now.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Based on your previous experience, and certainly based on the
experience that you've had as an office, so why do
you think that you're the best person for the job.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, because somebody needs to turn around and say stop,
we've got to put the brakes on and have a
look at why these problems are happening and why they're
getting worse. None of the glossy media releases have actually
fixed anything, and all of the promises that have been
made at repeated elections unfortunately seem to come to nothing.
(01:31):
You know, I had some propaganda dropped in the postbox
yesterday about boot camps. Again. It was the same thing
they were saying four years ago, but they just they
don't happen. The prison is full, the tension center is full,
and we've got the ridiculous situation where people are not
(01:52):
worried about going in there. There's no you know, regardless
of the lack of consequences, we're not dealing with the
problem before it happens. And it's not rocket science. You know.
You look at other jurisdictions in Australia and they are
proactively dealing with this and until we adopt a zero
tolerance approach. And you know, one of government's most important
(02:18):
responsibilities is keeping its people safe, and we're failing in
that massively at the moment. I've got constituents in Woodruff
that haven't slept for two weeks, and we've got the
legislation to deal with it, which is the most frustrating
thing as a politician. But the police just don't have
the resources to And I think that's at least one
(02:39):
of the things I bring to the table. I'm not
scared of saying what needs to be said, and because
I know the problems intimately from dealing with them for
the last twenty four years now, I can shine a
light on it that other people can't.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So what do you see as being the biggest issues
in the electros?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not law and order without shadow of doubt, you know.
I think we were looking at the figures of what
we've had come into the office and law and order,
anti social behavior and predominantly housing have been the biggest issues. Otherwise,
education then comes in, but most of the education issues
(03:21):
and the housing issues again all stem back to law
and order and is trying to get the different government
agencies to work together. I got called yesterday morning because
there was a scared old lady in Malden punch up
in the street again, called police, No police available to come,
(03:41):
call public housing safety, No public Housing safety available to come.
So I'd ended up dealing with it, calling Triple O
and not taking all the photos for the crime scene stuff,
and I'm still yet to get a response. And I
know that the General Duties Police at Armerston just as
(04:02):
frustrated as everyone else is. You talk to the rank
and file people a territory families or territory housing and
they're saying the same thing, which is why the whole
reason the Cabinet and the Subcommittee of Cabinets exist is
to deal with this issue, and they're just not now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Based on your previous experience, I guess you know, based
on what you've just spoken about there as being the
major issue in the electorate, why do you think that
you'd be the best person to deal with us.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I suppose it's because it's no fault of the politicians.
They don't have the background that I do. But I've
invited everybody, whether it's been in the Northern Territory or
when we've had federal members from down south up here
to come and walk around Moulden at one o'clock in
the morning with me, and unfortunately nobody's taken me out
from that. And I've had people from the COLP, you know,
(04:55):
say it's not fair. Not everybody is a six foot
nine x cop and not everybody can do what you do.
But I suppose that's the reason if your listeners who
were in our community, you want to keep me there.
That's what I bring to the table now.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
In terms of some of the other issues that are
being raised in the electric mold and oval is something
that's been raised with us quite a bit. The oval
there at the school. Is that something that has been
raised with you? And have you done any work in
this space or has it just sort of moved into
your electorate now with some of those boundary changes.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh, we've had people from Molden contacting us probably about
the last six months and that was definitely one of
the issues that was frustrating people. We wrote to the
Minister responsible all right, I think it was probably about
three months ago, and again it was the usual issue
in the territory of different agencies holding different responsibilities. We
(05:50):
were advised the oval actually belonged to the Department of
Education yep, so your Palmerston had responsibility for the ball.
So it was getting all of that fixed and then
the clas have come on board to get the maintenance done.
So hopefully that was one of the easier things that
we managed to fix.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So and so were you involved in the fixing of that,
because we've spoken, I mean we've spoken about it with
the Chief Minister and others, and it sounded as it
was something that the counselor had to work through with
the government.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's one of those things as a local member where
you can write, you can make noise, you can be annoying,
but ultimately it comes down to the departments to do
And it's one of the things I found that as
long as I put things in writing, they haven't got
the deniability. They can't ignore it anymore and let me
get the action on it or up.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Forty five seconds to go. Why should people vote for you?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, if you want politics done differently, if you want
people will that will talk up when they need to
talk up, and if you want somebody who's who's not
scared to have the difficult conversations and can't be leaned on,
I'm the person for you.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Well, Mark Turner, You've got about ten seconds to go.
Anything else you want to say.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Oh, mainly thank you to you and your listeners. If
it wasn't for you guys raising this and keeping the
pressure on government, it would just disappear off. So whatever
happens at the election, we need people to get involved,
join political parties and make democracy work for us. If
we just leave it to the powers to be, the
(07:26):
problems are going to keep on coming, so please everybody
get involved.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Mark Turner, thank you very much for your time this morning.
Much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Cheers, Katie, thank you,
Mark Turner now sits as an independent and is the
incumbent member, and joins me on the line right now.
Good morning to you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Katie. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm very well. Now we've got seven minutes and a
series of questions. Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh? Fire away. The more difficult the better.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
All right, let's do it now. Why did you decide
to put your hand up to run again? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You think I ran last time because I was set
up and banging my head against the brick wall as
a policeman. Unfortunately, I've just found a different brick wall
to bang my head against. But we have managed to
get results over the last four years. The only problem
is without a whole of government response, we're just squeezing
the balloon and moving the problem elsewhere. This my community,
(00:49):
I live in it. I'm raising my children here, and
I'm not willing to let things keep on sliding in
the direction they're going in Now.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Based on your previous experience, and certainly based on the
experience that you've had as an office, so why do
you think that you're the best person for the job.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, because somebody needs to turn around and say stop,
we've got to put the brakes on and have a
look at why these problems are happening and why they're
getting worse. None of the glossy media releases have actually
fixed anything, and all of the promises that have been
made at repeated elections unfortunately seem to come to nothing.
(01:31):
You know, I had some propaganda dropped in the postbox
yesterday about boot camps. Again. It was the same thing
they were saying four years ago, but they just they
don't happen. The prison is full, the tension center is full,
and we've got the ridiculous situation where people are not
(01:52):
worried about going in there. There's no you know, regardless
of the lack of consequences, we're not dealing with the
problem before it happens. And it's not rocket science. You know.
You look at other jurisdictions in Australia and they are
proactively dealing with this and until we adopt a zero
tolerance approach. And you know, one of government's most important
(02:18):
responsibilities is keeping its people safe, and we're failing in
that massively at the moment. I've got constituents in Woodruff
that haven't slept for two weeks, and we've got the
legislation to deal with it, which is the most frustrating
thing as a politician. But the police just don't have
the resources to And I think that's at least one
(02:39):
of the things I bring to the table. I'm not
scared of saying what needs to be said, and because
I know the problems intimately from dealing with them for
the last twenty four years now, I can shine a
light on it that other people can't.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So what do you see as being the biggest issues
in the electros?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not law and order without shadow of doubt, you know.
I think we were looking at the figures of what
we've had come into the office and law and order,
anti social behavior and predominantly housing have been the biggest issues. Otherwise,
education then comes in, but most of the education issues
(03:21):
and the housing issues again all stem back to law
and order and is trying to get the different government
agencies to work together. I got called yesterday morning because
there was a scared old lady in Malden punch up
in the street again, called police, No police available to come,
(03:41):
call public housing safety, No public Housing safety available to come.
So I'd ended up dealing with it, calling Triple O
and not taking all the photos for the crime scene stuff,
and I'm still yet to get a response. And I
know that the General Duties Police at Armerston just as
(04:02):
frustrated as everyone else is. You talk to the rank
and file people a territory families or territory housing and
they're saying the same thing, which is why the whole
reason the Cabinet and the Subcommittee of Cabinets exist is
to deal with this issue, and they're just not now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Based on your previous experience, I guess you know, based
on what you've just spoken about there as being the
major issue in the electorate, why do you think that
you'd be the best person to deal with us.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I suppose it's because it's no fault of the politicians.
They don't have the background that I do. But I've
invited everybody, whether it's been in the Northern Territory or
when we've had federal members from down south up here
to come and walk around Moulden at one o'clock in
the morning with me, and unfortunately nobody's taken me out
from that. And I've had people from the COLP, you know,
(04:55):
say it's not fair. Not everybody is a six foot
nine x cop and not everybody can do what you do.
But I suppose that's the reason if your listeners who
were in our community, you want to keep me there.
That's what I bring to the table now.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
In terms of some of the other issues that are
being raised in the electric mold and oval is something
that's been raised with us quite a bit. The oval
there at the school. Is that something that has been
raised with you? And have you done any work in
this space or has it just sort of moved into
your electorate now with some of those boundary changes.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh, we've had people from Molden contacting us probably about
the last six months and that was definitely one of
the issues that was frustrating people. We wrote to the
Minister responsible all right, I think it was probably about
three months ago, and again it was the usual issue
in the territory of different agencies holding different responsibilities. We
(05:50):
were advised the oval actually belonged to the Department of
Education yep, so your Palmerston had responsibility for the ball.
So it was getting all of that fixed and then
the clas have come on board to get the maintenance done.
So hopefully that was one of the easier things that
we managed to fix.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So and so were you involved in the fixing of that,
because we've spoken, I mean we've spoken about it with
the Chief Minister and others, and it sounded as it
was something that the counselor had to work through with
the government.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's one of those things as a local member where
you can write, you can make noise, you can be annoying,
but ultimately it comes down to the departments to do
And it's one of the things I found that as
long as I put things in writing, they haven't got
the deniability. They can't ignore it anymore and let me
get the action on it or up.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Forty five seconds to go. Why should people vote for you?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, if you want politics done differently, if you want
people will that will talk up when they need to
talk up, and if you want somebody who's who's not
scared to have the difficult conversations and can't be leaned on,
I'm the person for you.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Well, Mark Turner, You've got about ten seconds to go.
Anything else you want to say.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Oh, mainly thank you to you and your listeners. If
it wasn't for you guys raising this and keeping the
pressure on government, it would just disappear off. So whatever
happens at the election, we need people to get involved,
join political parties and make democracy work for us. If
we just leave it to the powers to be, the
(07:26):
problems are going to keep on coming, so please everybody
get involved.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Mark Turner, thank you very much for your time this morning.
Much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Cheers, Katie, thank you,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.