Labor MP Marion Scrymgour on the Voice and the need for a new NT jobs program

With the Liberal Party formally opposing the Voice, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton last week kicked off his no campaign in Alice Springs. His claim that child sexual abuse is rife was quickly under attack from the government and others who accused him of politicking, using the issue as a political football.

Marion Scrymgour, a former deputy chief minister in the Northern Territory, is the federal Labor member for the seat of Lingiari, an electorate covering almost all the NT outside Darwin.

Scrymgour says Dutton is taking up the same theme as was heard in the Northern Territory intervention. “The same campaign that was done to justify the intervention is the same campaign that’s been happening with the Leader of the Opposition.

"I’m not saying that he doesn’t have a commitment to getting this issue dealt with,” she says. But she rejects the “excuse” by Dutton, his new shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Price and others that “he can’t put forward the names”.

“That’s a complete abrogation of their responsibility. Those stories and the names of people putting forward those stories could be done in a confidential way.”

Scrymgour has proposed a statutory Family Responsibility Commission, as operates in Queensland. “I think that the important part of the Family Responsibility Commission is that it’s Aboriginal community-controlled, that you get Aboriginal people, Aboriginal leaders that go through a vetting process.

"The families are brought before the commission: they look at school attendance, they look at all of the wellbeing of the child […] but also what are the supports that the family needs to be wrapped around.

"The family has to sign a family responsibility agreement and then those agreements get entered into by both the commissioner, who has legal standing, as well as the family”.

There has been a push lately, including from Senate crossbencher Jacqui Lambie, to reinstate a former employment program to bring jobs, skills and pride back the communities in the NT.

Scrymgour tells the podcast: “We need to get beyond talking about this […] and actually get this program rolled out. I agree with Jacqui Lambie.

"This is a program that was in the Northern Territory almost 15 years ago. Everyone in a lot of the communities were employed and communities were happy and healthy and we need to hurry up […] and we need to move on that.”

Scrymgour, who immediately before the podcast had been talking about the Voice in remote communities, admits there is a vast array of opinion on the ground, and more information and clarity is needed.

“Look, you’ve got people who’ve got different views in a lot of the communities and I’ve just come back from my own community on the on the Tiwi Islands, and there was some great discussion and support for the Voice. But before that support came, people needed to know about it.”

She does, however, believe the “vibe is good” on the ground and in the community.

“The vibe was really good. I found the vibe really, really interesting yesterday. It was good. There were people who weren’t convinced, but people who sort of didn’t understand it. And then when I talked about what was different about constitutional recognition and how that would apply, it generated the discussion about ATSIC [Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission], because a lot of communities still remember ATSIC, and often people talk about ATSIC and they say that they got rid of it and that was their voice. So it then generates another discussion about that. But this Voice won’t be able to be got rid of like that because it’ll be embedded in the Constitution.

"A lot of the Land Council men, you know, sort of stood up and said, Oh, well, we don’t agree with what you’re saying. We think that we’ve just got to talk about this. And, you know, this is a good thing. Let’s talk about how this could be something that we can all get behind.

"So I’m going to set another time where I can go back and sit down with my mob and go through it. But I’ll do that with all the communities.”