E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION
SKY NEWSDAY/ APH CANBERRA
TUESDAY, 27 MARCH 2018
LAURA JAYES, PRESENTER SKY NEWS: Malarndirri McCarthy, she is a Senator for the Northern Territory and Shirleen Campbell she's the coordinator of the Tangentyere Women's Safety Group. Thanks so much for your time, both of you.
This is another shocking story and is something that we have to talk about, that's uncomfortable to talk about and it seems almost just disgusting Malarndirri McCarthy that we're talking about it so soon after the rape of a two-year-old in Tennant Creek.
SENATOR MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY, SENATOR FOR THE NORTHERN TERRITORY: It's absolutely concerning Laura and one of the things that has to happen immediately, of course, is working with the child in the families, but I also know that the Aboriginal health organisations, in particular, NACCHO and others are also working in this space and will be providing their own release in relation to it at some point. But importantly that the child is safe.
JAYES: Yeah it's important the child is safe now. Shirleen thanks so much for your time today, I know you're in Parliament House today for a special event but in your experience, I mean we were warned after the rape of that two year old that this would not be an isolated incident and it's not an isolated incident because we now have these other incidents just a couple of weeks down the track. I think everyone shocked by this, are you as shocked as the rest of us?
SHIRLEEN CAMPBELL, COORDINATOR OF THE TANGENTYERE WOMENS FAMILY SAFETY GROUP: Yes so I was pretty shocked but it's not my role to talk about it, I am here to talk about the work that we do.
JAYES: Yeah, sure, I totally appreciate that and as I mentioned you're the Coordinator of the womens safety group so let me ask you about that. What are the concerns for you in your community, what are the biggest concerns about women's safety and I think when we're talking about women's safety youre also would be talking about children as well?
CAMPBELL: Yeah really it's all about that visibility as Aboriginal women, you know we don't have their voices and we don't basically you know, not really loud enough having me as a young person the spokesperson and the co -coordinator for the Tangentyere Womens Family Safety Group, I have the knowledge and courage and I get my strength from my Elders and it's really a privilege to have that power because I know I can take that on and share it with others. Especially the young ones because the young ones are our future we need to teach them how to protect themselves and how to have a healthy home and have a healthy family life start.
JAYES: Shirleen are things getting better or worse do you think?
CAMPBELL: As a ripple effect it is getting better slowly. I have always told the women you know it's not going to happen overnight, all it takes is baby steps. Originally that's how we all grew up, baby steps.
JAYES: Absolutely. Malarndirri, can I ask you when you were a Child Protection Minister you ordered a board of Inquiry conducted by the former NT Children's Commissioner Howard Bath and Muriel Bamblett. The report found that there were a backlog of cases within child protection that were being written off without proper investigation. And then eight years later we're seeing a similar thing happen, two incidents in recent weeks, why do you think nothing has changed?
MCCARTHY: Look I think if we refer to the Board of Inquiry Report there were many recommendations which came out of that and certainly as we saw in subsequent years many of those recommendations are still needing to be meet, and I think that one of the pivotal things that is occurring at the moment is the involvement of the Children's Commissioner which is something that we did establish.
We have to look at this from two perspectives, one is from a systemic perspective in terms of departmental process and the Northern Territory Government just talked about its recent review into Tennant Creek and there were failures and that has been and is being looked into further. There's another perspective that hasn't been as clearly defined which Shirleen is very much a part of and that's the grassroots work of women and men and families on the ground and the work of these women from Tangentyere from the 16 town camps around Alice Springs is about empowering local people to look into and work with these issues and the mentoring program that these women do in relation to other women and young women there is also another area in working with men so that is to get an important component that Aboriginal community controlled health organisations have consistently asked for and the has to be the work with local people and local solutions with their families.
JAYES: Yeah absolutely and look this is point has been made in recent weeks in particular and I appreciate that but we have seen evidence in recent weeks and this is coming back to child protection issue, and sorry to you Shirleen Ill come back to you in a moment, that the Child Protection Department who are perhaps giving priority to culture over safety of children, now I don't know the circumstances of this four-year-old boy that we hear the news of today but how is it possible that we're seeing two-year-olds and four-year-olds being raped? Is there a failure of the system? What do you say to that evidence that we've seen in recent weeks and heard that evidence from whistle-blowers that sometimes culture is given a priority over safety?
MCCARTHY: Look I think we have to be really careful here Laura, this has been a misnomer and a perpetuated myth of culture it is wrong to put this as a reason for why things are occurring. Children are being hurt, they're being hurt, and I think we have to be really clear here that these conversations around Stolen Generations and the reiteration of that as an argument is wrong. I mean children are being hurt and I think that when we talk about the care and protection of children of course First Nations families want to know that their child is being looked after either in their family safely or in their kinship group safely. What the system and the Westminster system still struggles with is this collaboration with First Nations People and we're not doing it as an Australian democracy, we're not doing it in working directly with the First Nations People and families of this country.
JAYES: So when it comes to these reports, evidence and some whistle-blowers coming forward so that there is some evidence that priority is given to culture over safety do you think they are not happening? Do you think there are isolated incidents? What do you think happening there?
MCCARTHY: Look I think for those individuals who have particular examples and concerns they clearly need to be heard but there is a much bigger issue here and that is that First Nations organisations, Aboriginal community controlled health organisations, Aboriginal families and women's groups are not being supported, Laura and that is the fundamental key issue here if you're going to remove funding, if you're not going to give them five to ten years of support and believe that that is the way forward, you're going to consistently have this clash.
JAYES: Shirleen is that your experience?
CAMPBELL: Not so much my experience but maybe there's others that have that similar experience.
JAYES: So do you feel like you and the work you do being you're supported by the Government and within your own community though?
CAMPBELL: I'm really supported from my community specially my Arrernte women, my grandma, My Aunts they're all supportive they're also strong while we're here in Canberra, Im pretty privileged being here with the rest of my Tangentyere Family Safety Group women because we are the core governance group for our women and we are the voices.
JAYES: Shirleen, obviously you've got more work to do and I wish that you know you didn't have to head up a women's safety group but it's the reality, so what are you doing in Parliament House today, what I would do you calling on politicians like Malarndirri to do?
CAMPBELL: We want the Government to listen to us, stand with us and to support us. We're here in Canberra to lobby for the Tangentyere Women's Family Safety Group to expand our work and we want to go out to communities in other towns to share what we're doing or maybe teach other people to go out and share their work, like we shared our work too.
**Interview cut short because of the bells**
ENDS
Authorised by Noah Carroll ALP Canberra
