CLC Position Summary
| NTER PROCESS | The CLC recommends the process of governments working with community needs to be defined around principles of accountability, engagement, stability, and fairness. |
| LONG TERM DEVELOPMENT | The CLC recommends that governments commit to initiating long term development plans that is focus on improving outcomes of education, community safety, housing and health. |
| NTER FUNDING (see also Attachment B) | The CLC recommends that it remains necessary to evaluate all NTER first year spending on the basis of a detailed cost-benefit analysis of each NTER measure. |
| RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT | CLC supports removal of the RDA exclusions from the NTER legislation and negotiation of ‘special measures’ with communities where appropriate. |
| INCOME MANAGEMENT | The CLC recommends that the 12 month blanket adoption of income management
was ill conceived. A longer term plan for welfare reform needs to be developed.
The focus on improving welfare expenditure for children and food should
remain. This should be further developed through the provision of financial
literacy support. There should also be a focus towards reducing costs
of basic items (bread, fruit and vegetables, milk should all be comparable
to Darwin/Alice Springs prices) at community store level. THE CLC recommends the removal of the blanket welfare quarantining approach and instead adopt triggers, such as school enrolment and attendance and child neglect. |
| STORE LICENSING | The CLC recommends store licensing continue. Store licensing needs to include price caps and monitoring for basic goods. It remains vital to ensure that the store committees have a thorough understanding of licensing processes and are helped and resourced to obtain standards to meet the criteria for store licensing. |
| CDEP (see also Attachment C) | The CLC recommends that CDEP become project based rather than oriented towards service delivery. |
| POLICING | THE CLC recommends that the Australian and NT governments continue to increase police numbers and resources across all large communities in NT for the long term. Local police need to work with community residents and agencies to develop a local policing strategy. |
| ALCOHOL | The CLC supports the continued the focus on alcohol in communities to promote healthy behaviour. The CLC recommends that consideration be given to the introduction of volumetric tax and minimum price benchmarks. |
| PORNOGRAPHY | The CLC would like to see the results of computer checking compared to the cost of administering this system. |
| HOUSING (see Attachment D) | The CLC recommends that Australian Government adopt a remote housing plan which includes independent accountability of Territory Housing and pathways for alternative providers. The CLC believes that the current Community Clean-Up program has been insufficient in addressing housing deficiencies in remote communities and needs to be audited. |
| HEALTH CHECKS | The CLC recommends that community health clinics be sufficiently resourced (including additional staff) to undertake child health checks 6 monthly or annually. These health checks need to be complimented with access to services, referrals, provision of treatment options and development of appropriate public health programs. |
| 5 YEAR LEASE | The CLC recommends that the 5 year leases be scrapped. The principle of consent must engage landowners in a meaningful way to ensure any outcomes are properly negotiated. |
| STATUTORY RIGHTS TO BUILDINGS | The CLC recommends the abolition of statutory rights as it creates a new species of property right to deal with an objective that can already be met by existing s 19 leasing arrangements. |
| NATIVE TITLE | The CLC recommends the exclusion needs to be removed. It is unfair for the NTNER Act to override the Native Title Act and for native title to be suppressed indefinitely without any negotiation or agreement. |
| PERMITS | The CLC considers that the permit system is an effective and appropriate tool under the Land Rights Act for negotiating access to Aboriginal land. It complements responsibility for country under Aboriginal law and custom, and is consistent with the land title held under Australian law. |
| GOVERNMENT BUSINESS MANAGERS | The CLC believes GBMs can be an effective role but the position must be more accountable to the community. The role needs to focus on long term community development planning and co-ordinate government funding responses to these plans. There is also a need to streamline wage and entitlements so that it more closely aligns with community based wages and entitlements. |
| BUSINESS MANAGEMENT POWERS | The CLC considers the powers are harsh and inappropriate and should be scrapped. |