SENATE

Friday, 21 October 2016 Senate Page 47
Senator Scullion: It is not that sort of brief, Senator.
Senator McALLISTER: The minister would have had to request an actual substantive briefing, not just a
media briefing.
CHAIR: Senator Smith has the call.
Mr Matthews: I do not think there is anything there.
Senator SMITH: Senator McAllister, you are getting particularly excited about this, but I suspect for all the
wrong reasons. Mr Matthews?
Mr Matthews: I am just looking at the brief now. I do not believe it has a suggested course of action in the
background.
Senator SMITH: If the matters were serious enough, would you have put a course of action in or suggested a
course of action?
Senator Dodson: You must be joking, Senator. Seriously?
CHAIR: Senator Dodson, Senator Smith did not interrupt any anyone else's questions. Please allow him to ask
his questions.
Mr Tongue: I might dive in there. Question time briefs usually deal with media matters of the day. Sometimes
in a question time brief we might indicate to a minister a suggested course of action, under a heading that says,
'Subject to your decision, you may wish to'. It is in the nature, as the minister has outlined, that we were all faced
with a Northern Territory government that appeared to all of us to be addressing the matters in an appropriate
way.
Senator SMITH: So the department was of the view that the Northern Territory government was dealing with
the matters?
Mr Tongue: That was all the information we had to hand.
Mr Matthews: We were conscious of the reports, conscious of the contents of the reports, conscious that the
NT government had accepted the findings and has in place a body that is responding to the issues and has a body
oversighted with the Children's Commissioner, NAAJA, the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service and
the NT Legal Aid Commission. In that context—that there was an appropriate response from the jurisdiction into
it—we would note what is happening at that stage and keep a watching brief.
Senator SMITH: So you believed that there was an appropriate response being implemented by the Northern
Territory government?
Mr Matthews: That is what it would have appeared to us at the time.
Senator SMITH: The information that Senator McAllister is talking about, in the document—about a youth
justice advisory group, including peak Indigenous bodies—dated 24 September 2015, is part of the question time
brief. But I am curious to know why the critical information that reports about the progress that the Northern
Territory government was undertaking, had been undertaking, is buried at page 6. I have not been a minister so I
do not have much control over how I would like my question time briefs prepared, but I am just wondering why
that information is not brought more thoroughly to the second page of the brief, because it seems pretty critical,
because it was quite clear to yourselves and the department that the Northern Territory government had been
responding to issues around Don Dale and youth justice et cetera.
Mr Matthews: In the brief 15/794, it is on page 2, up the top:
The NT Government announced on 24 September 2014 that a Youth Justice Advisory Group, including Peak Indigenous
bodies, was set up to oversee recommendations made by the 'Vita Report' …
Senator SMITH: It does not say that, to date, 15 recommendations of the Vita report have been completed,
with three requiring—
Mr Matthews: The reason we—
Senator SMITH: Excuse me, Mr Matthews. With three requiring no further action and seven of the
completed recommendations now forming ongoing practice.
Mr Tongue: The idea of a question time brief is to convey as much of the relevant information in as brief a
space as possible. So—
Senator SMITH: So the progress that the Northern Territory jurisdiction was making was not relevant?
Mr Tongue: I am not saying that at all.
Senator SMITH: That is what it sounded like.
FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION LEGISLATION COMMITTEE