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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But joining us on the line right now is the
Member for Namajira, the COLP spokesperson for Treasury as well. Billy,
And good morning to you, Bill, Good.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Morning Katie, and good morning every one in the top end.
And congratulations to you on the result national Well.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Thanks mate, thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yes, she had a fantastic time and back to reality
this week. Hey, straight back into it. It's all happening now.
I want to ask you. First off, we have just
spoken to Brent Potter about a raft of different raft
of different things. But I want to ask you how
things going in Allie Springs with that curfew ending.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, well, look everyone's still worried at home. Of course,
we had that I suppose a little bit of respite
with a curfew in the CBD. We still had lots
of things happening out in the suburbs sadly, but I
just noticed over the weekend we're seeing more and more
people starting to migrate back into CBD. So look, it'll
be a time. We'll tell Katie. We had that surge

(01:00):
of Ady police which made a huge difference in town.
Of course, most of them have had to go back
to where they've come from. We've got an additional twenty five.
Now are they going to be able to cover And
I certainly hope that they can. But they're working so
hard to keep us safe at home, but we're seeing
some really horrendous incidents out in a suburb, some home

(01:21):
and some really serious and vicious home invasions which are
taking a toll on the community as well. People are
still really really scared about being at home. And you've
only got to look at what happened also in Darwin
last week with those four kids holding up that lady
in off Point trying to steal a car. We did
a little of lawlessness we haven't seen previously, and it

(01:44):
looks like it continues to escalate.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
And we did just talk about that as well. You know,
I asked some minister whether the age of criminal responsibility
needed to be raised again. He didn't feel that would
make a difference. He does feel as though the knife
crime strategy is working. He said that he as policemen
is all that he can do is get more police
out on the beat. They've got sixty eight police that
are going to be graduating, I believe in June. But

(02:07):
all of that sort of cold comfort at this point
in time when you have incidents like we saw last
week both in Alice Springs and up here in Darwin.
You know, it's cold comfort at this point, thinking to yourself, well,
that's great, we're going to have more police in June.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
But what do we do in the meantime.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, not more police is certainly a help, but got
to step it back in some ways, Cadie. You've got
to think how do we get here. Look, we've had
a level of lawlessness creeping into our communities now for
a number of years due to the soft on crime
approach from evil law or in a labor government. They've

(02:46):
been allowing this to creep in now for years and
years without consequences for actions for all these criminals, whether
they be adults of kids. And of course like it
empowers the criminals because they know they can get away
with this stuff. They do it and nothing really happens,
so we'll do it again, and then that behavior escalates,
and that's what we've seen creeping across the board. And

(03:08):
now it's like it's too little, too late. We need
more police to try and keep us safe. But it's
been allowed to get to this situation, and particularly in
our springs when you think about it. We had that
right weeks ago, and that was horrific to see some
of the worst stuff I've seen in our town. But again,
how do we get to this point where all of

(03:28):
sudden we've had to call a curfew, We've had to
surge eighty police into the community just to keep the
community safe. They're pretty drastic measures for a community of
twenty five thousand people in the modern world to have
to do that.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, look, and I think you'd be hard pressed to
find anybody that sort of disagrees at this point. We've
all had enough for the crime that we're experiencing and
that feeling of not being safe. But Bill, I want
to move along. I want to actually ask you about
this latest com sext State of the State's report. Now,
the Northern Territory economy has again placed a overall in
the latest quarterly concept State of the State Report. The report,

(04:04):
which the Northern Territory government dismisses as not being a
true reflection of the Northern Territory's economic performance, has rated
the Northern Territory economy last over all of the twenty twenties.
It's a pretty grim look at the economy. Bill, what
do you make of the latest report.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, well, it's interesting that whenever labor get bad news
about the economy will it's it's not our fault. It's
the way that the reports being number consector of change,
the way they actually do this reporting and measure. So yes,
they measure the longer term average, but they also measure
quarter on quarter and year on year. But some of
the numbers in this report should be raising red flags

(04:43):
for territories. The fact that our economy is contracted byzero
point five of percent when our closest neighbor, South Australia
has actually grown by over eleven percent. We're now sixty
six months of coming last in the country on nearly
every metric that they measure. House house builds a decline

(05:05):
by sixty percent, and then we've seen construction decline by
forty point one percent. And the big concern for residents
and people the territory is the fact that house price
is the only place in Australi where house prices have
actually gone backwards by zero point five percent. So that
hurts everybody. Everyone is buying a house or owns a house.

(05:27):
The value of your property is going backwards and this
is attributable to the labor government and the way that
they're managing the economy in the territory.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, and as you've touched on there, you know, your
house for a lot of people, that is your absolute
biggest asset, you know, So then when it's going down
in value, it's a concern, like it's a concern for everybody.
Bill what like what would the COLP do differently though
to get the economy moving.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well, there's a couple of things, I think, Katie, and look,
I hate to harp on about it, but one of
the first things we need to do is to do
with crime. Like the effects of crime has in our
economy can't be underestimated. They drive up our cost of living,
they drive up business prices, like business has got to
charge us extra to buy things because there's extra costs.

(06:14):
And then to deal with crime. So that is one
of the things that we first have to deal with.
Its probably one of our largest issues. But there's some
other things we can do to drive investment confidence in
the territory, and that's get our Territory Coordinator across the
board to drive and push investment in the territory and
push government and government departments to get things across the line.

(06:35):
And we've got a commitment to reduce red tape and
get approvals for business done fifty percent fast and what
they currently are. Because there's a lot of people want
to invest in their territory right here all the time.
There's people have got money, they want to do business
in the territory, but there is no confidence to do
it at the moment. And that sits. I suppose with

(06:55):
all a number of those that crime and anti social stuff,
when you see that on and on and over and over,
you've got to stop and think, well, where do I
want to invest my money?

Speaker 3 (07:05):
It does have a beginning of theory, or.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Do I want to go to South Australia, Western Australia
or somewhere else. We want that money coming to the
territory that we need to deal with the issues that
we see every day. And I think if we can
deal with those issues and start to turn our reputation around,
we'll start to see that investment flow back into the charity.
Of course, that will benefit all of us.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
And just a little interesting antecdote for you, I suppose
that Peter mallanaskus, obviously the labor Premier of South Australia,
he's been outspreaking the com SEXT State of the State
report because they've done so well. So I just find
it fascinating that in one state it is being used
as as an indicator of the economy.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
But here in the Northern Territory.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
I mean, we've had former Chief ministers and I will
say I have not asked the Chief Minister what she
makes of this latest report, but we've had former Chief
ministers basically say they put it in the bin.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yep, exactly that. And you've got to look at South Australia.
They will weigh down the rankings a little war while
ago and then they've done the work and they said
they've turned things around an SI and they said they're
probably our closest neighbor and the place we probably feel
the most affinity to those of us in Central Australia,
and they're booming down there and we're going backwards in

(08:16):
the territory and we've been going backwards for quite some time.
And the Chief Minister is also the Treasurer, so it's
got to turn around. A lot of this sits on
her shoulders as the Chief Minister and the Treasurer of
the two probably the two biggest jobs in the territory
and they're unable to turn this around. And they said,
everyday territory is now paying the price for it because

(08:37):
your cost of living is going up and your house
price is going down.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
So bill a couple of quick ones, a couple of
quick ones, because we are fast running out of time.
But what do you make of the announcements over the
last week or so by the Attorney General and Minister
for Corrections, Chancey Paig talking about, you know, the repurposing
of a couple of different facilities to be used by corrections.
One of those facilities don Dale once the youths move out.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
This is Labour's political gymnastics Katie Backlip. After Backlip, we
asked him in last Parliament straight up, are you going
to consider using don Dale, which is the old bear
in the prison when the kids move out, to give
some respites corrections for our prisons. And I categorically said no, no,
we're not going to do that. We're not going to
consider that. We're going to bulldoze that we don't want

(09:29):
anybody in there. And then less than a month later,
here we are we have an announcement that I know, Okay,
that's probably not such a bad idea. We might put
some adults in there and look, at the end of day,
Corrections needs that respite CAD. They're bursting at the scenes
and absolutely overflowing, and they need they need that break,
they need those extra beats. And there's parts of the

(09:50):
old Bear in the prison which is currently don Dale,
which is suitable for adults. My understanding is going to
move males in there, but they're closing the alcohol treatment
facilly down in on the health one and moving the
female prisoners in there, and then they're going to have
to move of course that alcohol treatment out and they're
going to give it to the NGOs. That causes problems

(10:11):
longer term because some of those people who are coming
off alcohol addiction that need pharmacological intervention is going to
be difficult for the ngngos to be able to do
that in their facilities. So some of these people are
going to end up in our hospitals. Yeah, right, well,
which then puts further pressure onto our already under pressure
health systems. Robbing Peter to pay Paul here. And I

(10:34):
don't really see the sense in that.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I mean, I guess you know, to look at it
from another perspective though.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
It's a big saving.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Of money to actually use don Dale for adult prisoners
rather than build a whole new prison.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Oh absolutely, okay. But the thing is Labor have known
about this problem since twenty and sixteen, since they got
in the government. I was in Corrections and we told
them that you have a growing problem with rising prisoners numbers.
And they've sat on their hands now for eight years
and not done a damn thing about it. And all
of a sudden there are a crisis and critical juncture,
and now they're running around making decisions to try and

(11:10):
deal with the problem. We gave them solutions back in
twenty sixteen about additional work camps out in regional and
remote areas that creates wealth out, economic wealth and community
wealth out in those areas. Labor chose not to do that.
They said, they didn't do anything. They just let the
prisons grow and grow and grow, and of course programs

(11:33):
drop off because they weren't funded probably, And now they
find themselves in this position and they're scrambling trying to
fix the problem.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Bill a very very quick one.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
We know that these code yellows, I mean, you've sort
of just touched on it. Then with the health the
Department of Health under pressure and our hospitals under pressure.
These code yellows were obviously declared at Royal Dalwen Hospital
and Palveston Hospital as I understand it last week partly
due to an increase in influenza cases which is now
will influenza A, which is now the third. It's a

(12:04):
third Code yellow in this space in a month. Do
you know if any of that pressure on the system's
eased or if it's been lifted. Is the opposition being
told anything at this.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Point now we're not getting much from government on the
code yellows, and our health sector, particularly in the top
in it sits on a knife edge. It doesn't take
much to tip it from being able to cope to
not being able to cove, and we've seen that with
that influenza A outbreaking three code yellows in three weeks
is absolutely unheard of, Codd. I don't think there's any

(12:33):
other health sector anywhere in the country that has had
that issue. And even during COVID, I suppose when our
health sector was under its most pressure, we didn't see
anything like that. So it speaks volumes for the pressure
and the level of work that our health sector are
doing at the trying to look after the people in

(12:54):
the top end, and they need some help. Yeah, they
need that pressure to be eased. There's measures, particularly if
we look at that mental health facility. The federal government
go the commitment years ago for the money for that
and labor have taken so long to deliver it. They're
only building it now and it won't be able to
quite some time. This could have been done a lot

(13:16):
more expediently and we could have seen some of that
pressure lifted for our health sector. But again is getting
nurses too. That's going to be the key for us
longer term.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, Look, it is going to be a juggle. There
is no other way to put us. Bill Yan, the
opposition spokesperson for various portfolios including Treasury, really appreciate your
time this morning. Thanks so much for having your.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Chat with us.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Thanks Catie, you have a great day you too.
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