Questions Day 1 - Tuesday 23 May 1995
Parliamentary Record 11
Questions for 7th Assembly 1994 - 1997; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 7th Assembly 1994 - 1997
1995-05-23
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
English
Questions
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
application/pdf
Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/282279
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/413079
QUESTIONS - Tuesday 23 May 1995 Mr MANZIE: You cannot remember what you said. I am sure that, in the press gallery now, there are media personnel who interviewed you. I have transcripts of your saying it. However, I have no transcript of your saying to the people of the Northern Territory that you are sorry that you misled them by telling a fib, because you were ignorant and did not find out the truth but instead just made something up, which is what you do usually. You did not say that, to enable people to get a true picture of where we are going with the police. The government strongly supports police recruitment. We have given a commitment, both in support of the McAulay/Bowe report and in dollar terms. An extra $2.5m has been allocated this financial year to allow for increased recruitment, and there will be an extra $2.7m next financial year to ensure our continued support of police in the Northern Territory. Living With Alcohol Program Dr LIM to MINISTER for HEALTH and COMMUNITY SERVICES Last week, members opposite criticised the governments antisocial behaviour strategy by claiming that more funds were required for alcohol treatment and care programs, as well as community education awareness initiatives. What steps are being taken to extend components of the Living With Alcohol program across the Territory? ANSWER Mr Speaker, I am pleased to provide the member for Greatorex with the information he has requested. As he indicated, last week, the Leader of the Opposition and other members opposite criticised a new initiative to deal with the difficulties that communities across the Northern Territory face as a result of antisocial behaviour. Those difficulties include littering and the injuries suffered by people who are caught in that cycle of antisocial behaviour, public drunkenness and binge drinking. I find it rather unfortunate that one has to provide this type of information to members opposite. They should be aware of it, and would be if they were in touch with what is happening in their electorates, but clearly they are not. They are not aware of the programs that are being funded, to the tune of $7m a year, under the Living With Alcohol program which this government introduced in 1992 to address a wide range of activities including community education grants and sponsorship, treatment and care programs, remote Aboriginal community programs, and research into and evaluation of those programs. The education component is very important. It is directed at influencing and modifying the behaviour of people experiencing difficulties from excessive alcohol abuse. As I indicated in my statement to this House last week, great advances have been made in the Northern Territory in relation to the increased consumption of light beer over heavy beer, a reduction in road accidents and deaths and a reduction in the number of arrests for exceeding 0.08%. We have some innovative programs in place which are working, and we shall continue to look at new programs, such as the initiative announced last week. In addition to last weeks statement, I approved more than $470 000 in funding for remote area Aboriginal organisations, community education grants and sponsorship packages. Those funding approvals included $19 000, in a one-off payment, and $4000 in recurrent funding for the Angurugu Community Government Council to operate a community-based 572