PORT AUGUSTA

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:43): I rise today to talk about a very concerning and important social issue. Things are not going well in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and, more importantly, I am concerned about the things that I think are important to protect the very important South Australian Upper Spencer Gulf city of Port Augusta. I draw the house's attention to an article written in The Weekend Australian by Nicolas Rothwell and published on 19 February this year. It is a powerful and disturbing article. I will read a couple of quotes from it:

You can see boys and girls as young as 10 years old marauding about at midnight, with their slightly older brothers and sisters, who are walking at speed, drinking from their hidden alcohol containers; you see cars laden with illegal grog stopping to pick up teenage girls and whisk them off; here's the madam, with her girls for sale, and that's one of the African gang cars, driving by and checking out the talent, and choosing the girls they like.

Here is another quote:

Alice Springs is a township fast spiralling out of control. All the elements for turmoil are present: deep, cold fury among the mainstream population, a reckless gloom among the young bush people loitering here, vast demand for marijuana and a limitless supply, bad, reactive politics, a lack of new ideas, a need for drastic measures and a refusal even to debate the reforms that might have a chance.

I do not refer to that article to imply anything with regard to the Northern Territory or Alice Springs, other than using it as an example and highlighting how important it is, in my opinion, that we protect Port Augusta. I call very genuinely and very, very seriously on all leaders: state and federal governments, elected members—local, state and federal—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, peer group leaders, teachers, coaches, you name it, anybody in Port Augusta who wants to consider themselves to be a leader, Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal or any other description a person prefers. We need to work extremely hard to make sure that the difficulties and challenges in Alice Springs do not spread south down the Stuart Highway to Port Augusta.

Port Augusta does have its own share of social problems and I do not back away from that at all. Lots and lots of people have been working very hard on that. We have our difficulties, and I urge people not to look at the difficulties we have that raise their head from time to time in Port Augusta and say, 'Oh well, aren't we so much better off than Alice Springs? Maybe we do not need to worry. Maybe everything is okay in Port Augusta.'

I urge community leaders to do the exact opposite and say that we need to fix and make better the challenges we face in Port Augusta, the things that we have to deal with and the things that we have to improve with regard to some of the difficult social problems in the city, rather than accept that other places are worse. We need to work very, very hard to do that. As I said before, I call on all community leaders, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, to show their solidarity, to show their leadership and work hard to protect and improve this important regional city.

I would like to just spend a moment on the categorisation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. It is an important thing. Clearly, by definition, it refers to race, but I would like to highlight the fact that it refers to race only. In Port Augusta, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are parents and grandparents, they are employees and employers, they have mortgages, they have car payments. Some people are well off, some people are not so well off. We need to all work together on this issue in Port Augusta.

This is an issue that, in Alice Springs, is particularly affecting Aboriginal youths. I think it is very unfair to then say that is an Aboriginal problem. I would like to highlight the fact that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, in all walks of life in Port Augusta, need to work on our problems and our issues together, to be sure that we can improve our community and make sure that we do not end up with the difficulties that are being faced in Alice Springs.

As the article highlights, there are issues that are beyond control and are now in the realm of reactive politics. I think that in Port Augusta, and in Stuart in South Australia, we need to make sure that we are better than that and we are proactive with regard to our policies affecting this issue.