Last night I appeared on the Alan Jones show to discuss juvenile crime in Townsville. During a recent visit I learnt about a great program called ‘One Community One Standard’.

It was created by Indigenous Elders and proactive members of the Townsville Community who want to put a line in the sand and want to contribute to the Community Action Plan.

I have much appreciation for Jeff Adams and the team at OCOS who want to help the Townsville youth http://www.onecommunityonestandard.com.au/

One Nation’s Law & Order 10 point plan https://www.qldonenation.org.au/law-and-order

Transcript

[Alan Jones]

Senator Malcolm Roberts is an outstanding, highly intelligent and very well credentialed one nation Senator from Queensland. He wrote to me recently about his visit to Townsville, interestingly, and I think this is a universal problem, he had met with a group of locals and the most significant topic discussed was the heartbreak around juvenile crime.

It’s a massive issue across Australia this. What leads to it? How do you address it? Senator Malcolm Roberts joins us from Queensland. Malcolm thank you for your time. So you met with locals, were they men and women or only men?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Men and women. Most of the committee is men, but they’ve got a woman who’s looking after them in terms of making sure their governance is correct and she’s an integral part of it.

[Alan Jones]

So this is…

[Malcolm Roberts]

But it’s also a black and white.

[Alan Jones]

Yeah, indigenous and non-indigenous. And you say they were passionately committed to finding a way for Townsville to take ownership of, and responsibility for their next generation of up and coming adults. So they understand the urgency of the situation for Townsville youth.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes, they certainly do. And you said it exactly correctly, Alan, because these people have seen failures in governance, they’re are tired of the governance.

The government itself up here the labor machine is suppressing people’s voices. I’m talking about public servants, prison officers, police, detention centre officers, and what they’ve suddenly realised that the people, on the ground in Townsville, the citizens of Townsville, that they have to do it themselves.

They cannot rely upon this labor machine ’cause labor and the machine up here wants to look good, not do good. And they’re just fluffing around the edges.

[Alan Jones]

Yeah, a hundred percent curriculum. What are the causes do they think of juvenile crime? I mean, I think of this. I think well have, we undermined the family. Many of these young people, products of parents who are basically unqualified to deal with the wellbeing of children.

There’s no training for parenthood and it’s surely a mistake to believe anyway that government can solve the problem but the government helps create it. So what do they say is the cause of this?

[Malcolm Roberts]

It’s multifaceted, Alan, you’re exactly correct. The Russ Butler, who is a very impressive Aboriginal in Townsville and an elder. He says that one of the key issues is the lack of parental guidance from a very young age.

They’re basically missing. The second thing is there’s a lot of unemployment up there because of, for example, electricity prices in Queensland are ridiculously high, and they’re driving manufacturing jobs, and even agricultural jobs, shutting things down.

[Alan Jones]

There are jobs in agriculture, Senator Malcolm, there are jobs. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts. There are jobs in agriculture do these people genuinely want to work or do they actually live by the culture of today, which is put my hand out and government will give me someone else’s money.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, it is patently that Alan, but it’s also the fact that there are safe houses and bail houses here in Townsville. And they’re supposed to be under a curfew, but the curfews are just completely disregarded. And the kids, the young men get on their mobile phones and organise from their bail houses and safe houses where they’re going to raid that night and the next day.

So what we need is discipline, but we also need them. And this is the beauty of this programme. It’s called one community, one standard, Jeff Adams and Russ Butler, and four other men. And as I said, that female in the staff, what the beauty of it is, they can look at this in a comprehensive way. They don’t just want to punish kids. Some will need that, but they want to bring them back…

[Alan Jones]

But you mentioned, you mentioned discipline. I mean, discipline, we’ve taken discipline out of the classroom. Do these people understand that there are community standards and that they’ve got to really live by those standards? That’s the first step. I mean, if education fails them, is employment training adequate?

[Malcolm Roberts]

You’re right on the track Alan. One of the things they’re talking about is one community, one standard. That’s the name of the entity that group they’ve formed.

And what they want to do is to get the elders involved, also the victims of the crimes and make sure there’s responsibility put on the actual perpetrators of the crimes, the criminals themselves, because then there’ll be greater, greater responsibility.

Maria Montessori showed these over many, many years. You know, the famed educator, I’m sure, she showed these basic principles work successfully, regardless of the culture, regardless of the society. They work worldwide with all humans. And these people are wanting to put this into practise.

They know it works because Russ Butler who’s an Aboriginal elder in the group has done it himself, taken people back country, on country. They call it, and they’ve sorted these kids out and they’ve been rehabilitated and they want to get previous people who’ve rehabilitated back to do the work with them, but they can’t get the funding.

They can’t get the proper governance because this Paluszczuk machine, the labour machine up here is just only interested in looking good, not doing good. They won’t address the hard issues, Alan, they’re just tired.

[Alan Jones]

Good on you. I mean, basically it’s called going back to the future. We’ve got to reinstate some of the values of the past that we’ve overturned. I think. Good to talk to you, Malcolm. There he is the one nation Senator. That’s a universal problem. Isn’t it? The one nation Senator from Queensland, Malcolm Roberts.