Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
conventions in the same year, which resulted in two statements: the Kalkarindji
Statement of August and the Batchelor Statement of December. The message from
both statements was clear: there would be no discussion about statehood unless
Aboriginal Territorians were consulted and included in negotiations. 35
Meanwhile, a referendum on statehood was held on 3 October 1998 and
narrowly lost, with a 51.31 per cent ‘no’ vote. Aboriginal people voted in a solid
bloc against the proposition. Three questions had been recommended by the
constitutional convention, but Chief Minister Shane Stone rolled them into this
single question, as Smith describes:
Now that a constitution for a state of the NT has been recommended by the
statehoodconventionandendorsedbytheNTparliament,doyouagreethatwe
shouldbecomeastate?
The ‘constitution’ referred to in the referendum question provided for the
Premier to sack the Governor, which would render a Governor little more than
a public servant and would potentially establish the state of the NT as a benign
dictatorship. 36
The ALP resurrected the idea in 2003, after its election in 2001, with bipartisan
support. Despite considerable expense and an extraordinary amount of work, the
matter lapsed in 2016 after political wrangling about the timing of an election for
a fresh constitutional convention. Chief Minister Adam Giles raised the issue at
the Council of Australian Governments in 2016, when the idea was supported in
principle and the onus returned to the NT to formulate a proposal. The matter has
not seriously resurfaced since.
Conclusions
The NT enjoys a peculiar position in the Australian federation, but essentially
functions as a state to the extent that the Self-Government Act allows. Friction
arises – usually resulting in debates about ‘states rights’ – when the Commonwealth
intervenes in NT matters, as was the case with the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997 and
the Intervention.
The NT is characterised by intergenerational Aboriginal disadvantage, giving
rise to complex social problems requiring considered and enduring policy responses,
which, in turn, require significant funding. Principal among these are
generations of Territorians suffering from foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Commonwealth funding arrangements, particularly in the area of Aboriginal
disadvantage, have been contentious since the advent of self-government. Similarly,
35 Smith 2008, 265.
36 Smith 2008, 264. See also Smith 2013, 27.
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