DARWIN - 12 August 2021

KATIE WOOLF, HOST: Joining us on the line, who I believe is in Canberra at the moment, is the Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling. Good morning to you, Luke.

LUKE GOSLING, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: Good morning, Katie.

WOOLF: Now, Luke, I understand Parliament is sitting at the moment, so there's been quite a bit on the agenda for you, hasn't it?

GOSLING: There's been heaps on, there's about half of the parliamentarians here, obviously a lot of Victoria and New South Wales and Queensland MPs are just appearing by video conference. But it’s pretty good being able to represent Territorians in a number of ways. We had Close the Gap in this parliamentary sitting, so the report’s come out that says you're only really meeting about three out of 17 targets there. But we did have some great news, a big win for the NT in that the Government announced some funding, $370 million for those survivors of the Stolen Generations in both the Northern Territory and the ACT. So it's something we've been working on for a long time. And now, obviously, because those survivors are getting quite elderly now, we're trying to get Government to speed that process up to give them, you know, that closure that they've been fighting for for so long.

WOOLF: Yeah, we did have a really extensive discussion last week with both Eileen Cummings and also Maisie from the Stolen Generations group here in the Territory. And it was very insightful, obviously, to speak to them and hear that they really had not thought – well, certainly for Eileen, that she'd not thought that this was going to happen in her lifetime. So the fact that it had was a good thing. But like you said, if they can speed that process up to ensure that it happens sooner rather than later, that would be even better.

GOSLING: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Katie, and I spoke with Eileen last night before I spoke in the parliament, and she said, “yeah, you tell them, you've got to tell them that we’re getting old, we’re between 70 and 90 years old, so let's speed the process up’. She says, “I can give them the list”, so we've got all the lists. So great to have that outcome. We're still a long way behind a lot of the targets, but I think it's been some great news during the week with the Aboriginal Justice Agreement that the Northern Territory has entered into and some support from that, not only from the NT Government, but from the philanthropic sector.

And we all just hope that we can see some gains in that justice area.

WOOLF: Yeah. Now, Luke, I do want to ask you, I know that there's been a bit of discussion around the place about refugees here in the Territory at the moment in Darwin. I believe that they're sort of housed out near the airport there somewhere. What's the latest in this space?

GOSLING: We had a breakthrough this week in that one of the families have been moved out of that what's essentially a little prison at the back of the airport resort hotel. The problem is that these people are genuine refugees and they've been in detention on Nauru for eight years now, and they are genuine refugees. So what we're trying to do is just get them released into the community while they're waiting to be resettled in the US or Canada. But unfortunately, because we had 15 in there, we've been working on it consistently – and I take my hat off to all those people who have been turning up to the fence to be in solidarity with those people who had just been in that in that little facility there for so long. But there's one family left now, one family of four, and from the time I’ve been visiting them, it's really obvious, that deterioration. A lot of people had to do two weeks quarantine, but imagine being in that situation for basically eight years.

WOOLF: Yeah.

GOSLING: And certainly they've been at the Darwin airport for a year and a half. And I know the Darwin Airport want them gone, they don’t want people turning up and protesting at the airport because of the inhumane treatment of this last family. And there's going to be a big resort built there, and that's all really exciting. So let's just close down that detention facility, release this family into the community while they wait for their plane so they can resettle in the United States.

WOOLF: Yeah, look, it definitely needs to be sorted. There's no doubt about that. Where are they from?

GOSLING: These were the last remaining family from Iran. In fact, most of the families were from Iran. There was one family there was from Sri Lanka. And they were just so sick of it, they said, “look, send us back to Nauru”.

WOOLF: Wow.

GOSLING: It's really sad for Darwin, because we could have these people sort of without that mental stress of being confined like that for so long in the community while they waited to be resettled overseas, but that hasn't happened. One family just said “nup, I'd rather be back in Nauru than cooped up here”. So we really continue to say to the Minister Karen Andrews, let's just do the right thing by this last family and not cause any more mental anguish than we already have.

WOOLF: Well, I know some people listening will be thinking, well, how did they end up here? You know, how did they end up in this situation? But at the end of the day, we are talking about genuine refugees.

GOSLING: They’re genuine refugees, Katie. And I mean, it was a matter of where you were when you sought asylum in Australia. So people who had arrived a month before these people have been in our community, contribute to our community ever since. People after Kevin Rudd said in 2013 that anyone who comes to Australia by boat will never settle here. These are the people that are still in detention from that period on.

So it's eight years now. They are going to be settled in another country, in either Canada or the United States. We can afford to – and it's actually cheaper for the Federal Government just to support them in the community whilst they wait for their plane overseas.

WOOLF: Luke, we're running out of time. But very quickly, mate, I understand that you've got a visitor to the Territory tomorrow.

GOSLING: Yeah, we have Anthony Albanese, the federal Labor leader, is coming up to visit Darwin. We're flying back tonight. He's going to visit Howard Springs, but also get a brief on Bladin and the role it could continue to play. We're going to head out to some sports and some markets. We're going to head out to the Darwin Military Muster on Saturday at East Point. So it'll be great to have Albo out, he's a big supporter of the Northern Territory. And there's been a number of things that have happened down here in Canberra in these last two weeks where I'm really confident – and in fact, I'm having a conversation in an inquiry that I'm a member of very shortly, with Seafarms, that massive Seafarms prawn project. So it's an inquiry into aquaculture. And I brought that inquiry up to Darwin a couple of weeks ago. We're talking to Seafarms via video link in a short while. And we’re just keeping Territory issues on the agenda down here. And it's a bit easier when we've got the run of the place and there's so many that aren't physically here, but we just keep flying the flag and great to have Albo in town, if you see him around, say hello.

WOOLF: Well, I think he's going to come into the studio tomorrow morning. Luke Gosling, we will catch up with you again very soon. Thanks so much for your time today.

GOSLING: Good on you, Katie.

ENDS