Alice Springs chaos shows why Indigenous Voice to Parliament won’t work, says David Littleproud

Nationals leader David Littleproud has accused Anthony Albanese of sparking the law and order crisis in Alice Springs by failing to listen to the community who claim it shows why an Indigenous Voice in Parliament will fail.

Littleproud did not mince words when he said the Prime Minister and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney had not listened to the Alice Springs community of the Northern Territory about the ‘intended’ consequences of lifting bans on alcohol sales. indigenous.

“On June 9, community groups in Alice Springs warned the minister saying ‘don’t remove them, the community is not ready’,” Littleproud told Sky News on Sunday.

Does Anthony Albanese want a Voice? Well, he didn’t listen before. He took a meltdown to get on a plane and get out.

In response to the scenes of chaos that have erupted from Alice Springs, Albanese made an impromptu visit Tuesday.

Albanese blamed the previous coalition government, led by Scott Morrison, for allowing alcohol restrictions to expire.

The alcohol restriction legislation expired in July, two months after Albanese was prime minister, yet parliament had not yet met when it ended.

Since the end of the 10-year Stronger Futures program, which restricted access to alcohol in a bid to address social issues, the Alice Springs region has grappled with skyrocketing crime rates with looting of bottle shops and youth who they wield crazed machetes.

The outbreak of lawlessness in Alice Springs, as illustrated by this fight outside a supermarket, has become a national hot topic.

Littleproud said Albanese’s rushed trip, where he spent four hours speaking with community and government representatives, showed why Indigenous Voice to Parliament was the wrong approach.

“You don’t need a Voice, you need politicians to do their job and make the bureaucracy do what you tell them,” he said.

Littleproud also called on the Albanian government to reintroduce the cashless debit card, which restricts the purchase of alcohol with welfare money.

“The cashless debit card is the other failure of this government,” he said.

Mr. Albanese was forced to make a hasty trip to Alice Springs to address the growing chaos there.

“I think this takes courage and conviction to say that it hasn’t worked, just to re-implement what was there and was working to some degree.”

“It’s not a right to get taxpayer money, it’s a privilege.”

Unlike opposition leader Peter Dutton, who demanded to know more details about how the Indigenous Voice would work for Parliament, Littleproud said there were already enough details to know it would fail.

He predicted it would go the same way as ATSIC, which was a government body set up under the Hawke Labor government in 1990 to advise the Commonwealth on indigenous issues.

Littleproud said Indian Affairs Minister Linda Burney (pictured) was warned in June not to lift bans on alcohol.

Howard’s Liberal government dissolved ATSIC in 2004 after it was accused of corruption mainly revolving around its chairman Geoff Clarke, who was accused of embezzling ATSIC funds.

Littleproud said the proposed Indigenous Voice will make the same mistake of choosing a few representatives to represent hundreds of different indigenous communities with different circumstances and needs.

“We have sent indigenous Australians to Canberra before and it failed,” he said.

History repeats itself.

The former president of indigenous policy advisory body ATSIC, Geoff Clarke, has been embroiled in numerous criminal and corruption allegations.

Nationals leaders said Mr. Albanese needed to “hear more voices, not just one or two voices being sent to Canberra, but to sit in town halls and hear more voices.”

He stated that the Nationals had “lived experience” of Aboriginal disadvantage and had a “genuine intent” to “bridge the gap”, i.e. the Indigenous disadvantage compared to the rest of the community.

However, he argued that the federal government did not need an “additional layer of bureaucracy”, such as Voice, to do this.

“That can be done with existing mechanisms, the thousands of bodies that now provide advice to the government,” Littleproud said.

He argued that establishing the Indigenous Voice in Parliament, which will go to a referendum later this year to see it enshrined in the Constitution, is “an open-ended model that says we’re never going to close the gap.”

Littleproud argued for aiming for something more concrete, saying ideology was “getting in the way” of practical realities, which should include setting ambitious goals.

‘Why should there be a need to have a department of Indian Affairs by 2025 or 2030 because the gap is closed, we are all equal in this country and we have resolved the disadvantage in these remote communities?’ he said.