Scullion, Sen Nigel

Senator SCULLION (Northern Territory—Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) (14:22): I thank the senator for the question. The levels of incarceration of our First Australians is a disgrace. I do not think there would be any argument from any Australian about that. There is broad agreement that we should move in every way to try to deal with that matter. I am aware of the Change the Record program, calling for a justice target. I also know that the Leader of the Opposition also calls for a justice target. The challenge with both the report and the submission from the Leader of the Opposition is that the calling of a target is all very good; in fact, we could probably all agree now—it would probably take us about a minute or so. The circumstances of people going into incarceration will not change a bit and, frankly, just having a justice target without a passage to get there is a bit lazy and a bit trite. And, Senator, I am not accusing you of that. But we know the circumstance is— Senator Siewert: Mr President, I rise on a point of order. I think the minister is in fact pre-empting another question that I might ask. I actually asked about a whole-of-government approach, which is a very different question to justice targets. Could you ask the minister to address the issue of a whole-of-government approach? The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Siewert. I will remind the minister of the question. Senator SCULLION: Thank you for getting me back on track. Of course, there is a whole-of-government approach. We have said across the board that we need to ameliorate the challenges that poverty provides. You have two choices—you go to school, you have a chance of an education; or you do not go to school, you go to jail—and the Indigenous statistics are exactly that. So we are encouraging kids to go to school. We know that for the demographic who have a purpose, who have a job and who are engaged have a much lower likelihood of getting engaged in the justice system. That is why we are introducing new mechanisms and we are working with all parts of parliament to ensure that people get into work so they have a purpose in life. Right across government, we have ensured that we need to lift the number of people who are employed. So we have actually employed and engaged 50 people a day—that is right, 33,000 people since I have had this job. That is ensuring that we are not only providing leadership but providing a purpose in life for those Australians. (Time expired)