Spit hoods to be reinstated, eight years after royal commission ban

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory government wants to reinstate the use of spit hoods in youth detention, eight years after a royal commission led to a ban. The proposed amendments will be debated in the territory's parliament today. Opposition Leader Selena Uibo says the government is backtracking.

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00:00What we've seen from the Northern Territory's Royal Commission nine years ago was recommendations.

00:07It was a $50 million Royal Commission into youth justice and detention here in the Northern

00:12Territory and the new CLP government here, just less than 12 months in power, is now

00:18going back to practices that were clearly ruled in that Royal Commission as being not

00:23fit for purpose.

00:25Always support our corrections officers and our youth justice officers being safe in their

00:29workplace, but working on some of those recommendations, we have not seen the new government in the

00:34nearly year of power look at those recommendations and speak about how they're going to continue

00:40to implement those recommendations.

00:42Our former Labor government had eight years of work around those recommendations and now

00:47we're seeing a disrespect from the CLP government in ignoring the evidence, ignoring the experts

00:54and ignoring the advice and input from those frontline workers directly.

00:58For the Northern Territory, it's clear that community safety is the number one priority

01:02for Territorians.

01:03We were punished at the Territory election because people felt here in the Territory that

01:08our former government did not listen to them.

01:10It's now time for the CLP government to show that they are listening, that they are going

01:14to choose a way forward for the Northern Territory, particularly when it comes to justice, to make

01:18our communities safer and so far most of the work that they've done to implement are knee-jerk

01:25reactions, are quick headline grabs and not actually the fulsome work that Territorians

01:30can't expect here in the NT.

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