The Northern Territory Government says it hopes to make a submission to the inquiry into child protection today, almost a month after the deadline.

The inquiry was sparked following a number of incidents involving Territory children in care.

Child protection is run by the Health Department, but by close of business yesterday, the department hadn’t provided a submission to the inquiry it called.

The Health Minister Kon Vatskalis said the submission had been delayed because it contained a lot of detail.

He said the department would only present a written submission.

“The department decides to put a detailed submission together identifying a lot of the issues and also proposing a lot of solutions,” he said.

“It is much much better than giving an oral submission because the submission we will be providing will be showing the way forward to the inquiry and certainly we want the inquiry to be able to study in details our submission.”

Many groups have provided both to the inquiry, and during the hearings in Darwin last month the board described oral submissions as a useful forum to further interrogate issues.

Mr Vatskalis said when the department does make its submission, it will not make the document public.

He said the board of inquiry, including Howard Bath, Muriel Bamblett and Rob Rosebery, will decide if the submission should be made public.

“The inquiry, the panel will make a decision to put it them on the web page or not,” Mr Vatskalis said.

“And my understanding is that Dr Bath and the other members of the committee will make the decision themselves.”

Unlike most Federal inquiries, submissions to the Territory child protection inquiry are not being made publicly available.

The inquiry has been allowing all other groups to decide if they want their submissions made public.

The Opposition leader says the Territory health department’s involvement in a child protection inquiry is poor and inadequate.

Terry Mills says it is vital that the department gets physically questioned by the inquiry.

“It is necessary to take a bold step here considering the diminished trust the community has in the capacity of this agency and Government to protect children,” Mr Mills said.

“I would say go one step further, that is written submission plus to you must present.”