Langton, a University of Melbourne academic, told ABC television on Thursday that Aboriginal health services and Alice Springs leaders wrote to politicians pleading for the alcohol restrictions, which expired in July, to be extended to allow them to come up with their own solutions.
“Nobody listened to them. This is why we need the Voice, and this is the case across Australia,” Langton said.
University of Canberra chancellor Professor Tom Calma, also a co-designer of the Voice and the 2023 Senior Australian of the Year, agreed with Langton.
“That’s where the community is working towards these decisions,” Calma said, offering the example of an Aboriginal community in Fitzroy Crossing creating its own plans to limit alcohol sales.
Dutton said he also raised the suggestion of a boarding school for primary school students “where kids could go and be safe, so they could go to school during the daytime”.
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Calma said the Red Dirt Curriculum report for remote education had already found communities were better off establishing localised curriculums that met the needs of that particular community “rather than a standardised curriculum that is better suited to an urban environment”.
“Education is a state responsibility,” he said.
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