A life-saving Indigenous custody hotline has received a last-minute funding commitment from Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion, who also called for the service to be rolled out nationally.
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Senator Scullion committed $263,000, roughly half the Custody Notification Service's annual operating budget, on the day funding for the hotline, which operates in NSW and the ACT, was due to expire.
Speaking from Milingimbi in the Northern Territory, Senator Scullion praised the 24-hour service as invaluable and "bang for your buck".
"We need to show our first Australians that we are doing everything we can," he said.
However, the future of the CNS is far from assured. The NSW government is resisting the call to fund the other half of the $500,000 budget for this "vital service".
"The Commonwealth has historically funded the CNS and they are sidestepping their responsibility," NSW Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton said.
"The NSW government will continue to fight for a fair deal for NSW."
The federal government has previously disputed the hotline was being de-funded as the funding isn't guaranteed, and argued that the Aboriginal Legal Service, which operates the CNS, should find the money elsewhere in its budget. The hotline has been funded by dedicated, one-off grants since 2007.
There have been no Indigenous deaths in custody recorded in NSW and the ACT since the CNS was established in 2000. Whenever an Indigenous person is detained by police, the CNS has to be notified so it can provide legal advice and a welfare check for the person in custody.
It fields 15,000 calls a year and was established in response to the Hawke government's Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
"I've just got off the phone to [NSW Attorney-General] Gabrielle Upton. We have had a very positive conversation about the future of the CNS," Senator Scullion said.
"I'm going to continue to have discussions with the NSW government to get the funding in."
The Aboriginal Legal Service said in June that the CNS was "more than just a phone line, it's a lifeline".
"No other service provider could run this essential phone line as cheaply and effectively as we do," acting CEO Kane Ellis said.
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights have called it an "extremely successful program", the loss of which "would be an enormous step backwards".
An online petition to save it has attracted almost 50,000 signatures.
Senator Scullion also said the service should be rolled out in all states and territories, given the two deaths in custody in the Northern Territory in the past months.
"We should be rolling this out nationally ... this has been something that now has been demonstrated to work."
