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Dorothy Buckland-Fuller

Women of Australia,

We all know that in every community, black or white, or yellow, rich or poor, there are incidents like those in the N.T. We all know about the scandals with clergymen and teachers. It is all swept under the carper for a variety of reasons.

I am a researcher - a sociologist with background in psychology. I have done research on women, at schools and Baby Health Centres for years. I have heard "the story" again and again. Social workers know and Governments knew.

The psychological and sociological reasons are obvious and widely known. We also know, that the Howard Government knew too. They used this most sensitive area to gain political kudos.

The money spent on this terrible boo-boo that hurt more innocent victims, and caused more pain and dislocation, could have been spent, in "preventive"(preventative) measures as many writers have frequently suggested.

Some members of the Media and "our" Noel Pearson, the new Mesiah, are not blameless.

I hope that our new P.M. and the women in the Government will look under the BIG WORDS and bravados of the self promoting do-gooders.

Muriel Bamblett - It is time for national laws to place Australia's first children first

Online Opinion | 14 December 2007

Sadly it comes as no surprise that the Queensland Department of Child Safety was directly involved in the case of the 10-year-old girl so brutally abused at the hands of young people in her community of Aurukun. That the "justice" system then compounded the violation of this child by ignoring her right to expect that her abusers would be appropriately punished is also no surprise. We have seen this before and we will see it again unless, and until, we throw out the existing models of child protection and foster care and start again. Advertisement The reality is that in most rural and remote areas Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children cannot count on statutory child protection authorities to protect them or to respond effectively when abuse occurs. Child protection models have been built on two assumptions that often don't operate outside of large urban cities. First, that child protection staff can get to a family and respond to critical incidents quickly and second, that within a community there will be a "supply" of well-resourced high-functioning families with whom to place a child. Faced with this reality child protection staff make agonising decisions about when to remove a child from their family, and by implication their community, and place them in foster care a long way from home. Placing Indigenous children in non-Indigenous foster care far removed from their community, as happened in the Aurukun case, doesn't resolve all the case issues or provide the child with all that they need. Children, all children, whatever their race or culture, want to be with their family. The best evidence and research tells us that abused children want to go home, to see their mum and dad, their brothers and sisters, their friends and peers. The child now at the centre of this latest national debate about Aboriginal children wanted to go home. The model of foster care we operate in Australia is wrong. It is wrong for all children; it is wrong for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. It is based on a false dichotomy. That a child is either with, and raised by, their birth family or by a foster family. SNAICC, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, argues that children can and should be raised by both. There is a third way. Place children with a well supported, resourced and trained foster family to ensure children are not at risk of abuse or neglect. Set up a community visitors program and co-ordinate visits between the community and the child. Don't bounce kids around between foster care placements and home. Support foster families to raise children with the birth family - not for the birth family. Reinforce the message that families have to raise their children well. Train the magistrates to administer the law correctly. Provide community services to heal the victims. Insist at every level, family, community and within the justice system that abuse is intolerable and will be severely punished. On the night of the Federal election both the outgoing Prime Minister, John Howard, and the outgoing Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, in their concession speeches implored the incoming government to stick with the Northern Territory (NT) intervention. It is not insignificant that the NT intervention was singled out from everything that the government had done as the one thing that must be sustained by the new government. The newly elected Federal ALP Government has indicated that it will largely continue with the NT intervention whilst reviewing aspects including the policy to quarantine welfare payments. Now some are calling for the NT intervention to spread to Aurukun. Aspects of the NT intervention such as changes to the land permit system, land tenure and the appointment of administrators to manage Aboriginal communities have been criticised as not relevant to child protection. The Little Children Are Sacred report, upon which the intervention was premised, made no mention of taking over the running of communities and their assets as a precursor to protecting children from abuse. These changes make more sense, have a logic you can understand, if you happen to believe that the actual communities are dieing and cannot be sustained. Like a failed state they need someone to move in and take over the day-to-day running of everything. Not surprisingly some have described the NT intervention as an invasion and likened it to the invasion of Iraq. The Federal ALP Government must make clear its views and intentions regarding the future of remote Aboriginal communities. That's what the NT intervention has actually been about. It must do what the Howard government would not do - publicly commit to supporting the viability and sustainability of remote Aboriginal communities. It needs to make it clear that it has no hidden agenda to sit by and watch communities wither away. SNAICC knows who the first victims are when, through the insufferable burden of living without good quality education, housing, health, early childhood, policing, employment, transport and communication services, communities start to unravel. The first victims are the children. Children like the young girl raped and abused in Aurukun - a community living with an insufferable burden. Ultimately the future of remote Aboriginal communities such as Aurukun is everyone's responsibility. Any debate or discussion about the future of these communities, and the many distinct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures they represent, must not happen behind closed doors. It is grossly unjust not to provide the basic services and infrastructure that any community needs to function well and then blame families in those communities for the dysfunction that follows. This is all quarantining welfare payments does. Supporting communities through the provision of basic infrastructure does not promote welfare dependency, it promotes human rights. The right to protection from abuse is one such human right and the right to education is another. Calls for the new Federal Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, to extend the NT intervention to Queensland don't go far enough. SNAICC has for decades called for national legislation to create a framework that sets outs standards for child protection, children's rights and a common approach to preventing child abuse. Next week Jenny Macklin meets all her state and territory colleagues. She should tell them that national legislation for child protection is on its way.

See: Online Opinion

Mansell calls for less outside interference not more in Aboriginal communities

Michael Mansell has called for specific funding to assist Aboriginal communities offer the same services available in towns for domestic violence and sexual abuse victims.

Mr Mansell said, "The recent discussion about the Queensland sexual abuse of a child case highlights the problem: facilities to provide backup for victims are only available outside Aboriginal communities.

Womens shelters, child protection safe houses and social workers are funded in towns but not in Aboriginal communities. Consequently any victim of abuse in Aboriginal communities is faced with the dilemma of having to leave their people to seek help. Australians would not like it if they had to go to Indonesia for help so why should Aborigines have to leave their home? It is time governments began to better share the resources instead of forcing Aborigines into a hopeless situation.

Media portrayal that social upheaval in Aboriginal communities is completely out of hand and that better access to white society offers sanctuary for the mass of Aboriginal women and children wanting to "escape" offers an illusory safe haven. 40,000 child abuse cases are reported each year in Australia, not all of them get to court, and the Australian Government's Women's Safety Survey 1995 found 100,000 females had been sexually assaulted in the preceding year. An estimated 1.2 million women in Australia aged 18 and over had experienced sexual violence, according to the report".

Mr Mansell said "the call for stiffer penalties for Aborigines who break any law would be even more discriminatory than the legal system that currently gaols Aborigines at a rate 16 times higher than whites. Greater penalties in the particular case arising from Aurukun would make people feel something was being done but that offers no practical benefit to anyone. And don't forget that some of those involved in the statutory rape of the 10 year old girl were children themselves. Are we to now gaol Aboriginal children?

Intervening NT style in all Aboriginal communities would prove counterproductive. The domination of Aboriginal communities by white officials and do-gooders has existed for decades and the disadvantage and social breakdown in black communities is a direct product of that domination. More intervention will produce even worse results.

The social misbehaviour in some Aboriginal communities provides evidence of the failure of outside intervention being imposed on people. In the case of Aurukun, the people were dispossessed of their lands, removed to a mission, told to obey white laws and be good Queensland citizens. The consequence was foreseeable.

Aboriginal mayor of Aurukun Neville Pootchemunka makes the point that Aboriginal law should prevail in communities. That law is not simply "tribal punishment" but covers respect and responsibility for behaviour of Aboriginal residents from a young age. Instead we build more police stations, fund more police and build bigger gaols to deal with the after effects of imposing the political dictates of white Australia. Still the rapes and abuses go on.

Australia once appreciated the value of Aboriginal cultural differences but the climate of understanding and tolerance seems a thing of the past. The most pleasant news is the Prime Minister's statement that he will not further impose outside intervention on Aboriginal communities. This national government position provides hope for negotiations between Aboriginal people and the Rudd government to improve the quality of life for Aboriginal people."

Michael Mansell, Legal Director
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Inc

Letter to the Editor - The Australian

Dear Sir

I completely reject Marcia Langton's opinion that the 'invasion' of remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory should continue. ['Stay with Intervention', The Australian, 29 November 2007]

The intervention needs to be stopped and replaced by a program of development assistance to these communities. Problems in Aboriginal communities have to be addressed from within, not without.

The Aboriginal people are living on their lands and fighting for their cultural and physical survival but, because of who they are, they are denied the most basic levels of respect and services from government. The communities are the victims of bad governments and bad decisions. The people in them deserve respect and their dignity.

Community leadership, organizations and social structures need to be appreciated and given capacity to identify and implement development programs. There is no justification in the government terminating incomes and jobs; changing land tenures; removing permits or withholding housing and other services, especially as many communities functioned very capably before the Howard government 'intervention'.

It would be much more helpful and respectful of the new Government to sit down with Aboriginal leadership and communities and work out ways to improve Aboriginal health and living conditions.

Yours truly,
Lucy van Kessel

Karranjal John Hartley - No Quick Fix After 200 years of Neglect

That many Aboriginal communities are in need of urgent assistance in relation to transitional stresses leading to personal/family/community/cultural breakdown is beyond questioning. But it is questionable whether we need racist and discriminatory legislation to provide that support. To address dysfunction and breakdown in Aboriginal communities, recognition must be given to the continued dispossession of Aboriginal Peoples.

After decades of Aboriginal people loudly advocating for assistance to address the continuing legacies of colonisation are we comfortable that racist authoritarian legislation such as the NT Emergency Response is shamefully, all that Australian governments have to finally offer? We must ask in the very real need for assistance whether we are happy to repeat history and further compound the crisis that confronts our people daily?

If there is no other way to address the crippling and spiraling effects of colonisation than to enforce racist legislation - when racism lies at the root of the very things the laws purport to address - that speaks volumes about the capacity and sincerity of Australian governments to assist and work alongside Aboriginal people in naming and developing long-term fully-funded strategies which will begin the movement toward positive community empowerment and generational change sorely needed in many Aboriginal communities.

The fact is there is no quick fix to over 200years of continued neglect and oppression. And racist law, be it well intentioned or otherwise, will do nothing to either enhance relationships in this country or to address the fundamental root cause of cultural dispossession leading to family/community dysfunction.

A prerequisite to a return to wellness is acknowledging the crisis and the need to effectively address alcohol and other drug consumption appropriately, advocating personal/family and community sobriety. Change however, isolated from a monumental shift in dominant culture mindset we know is not and will not be easy in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The four consistent and most effective tools in addressing a return to wellness in Indigenous communities across the globe, from my observation, are: empowerment, choice, positive role modeling, and spiritual re-generation rooted in a core foundation of cultural values beliefs and practices. Community support infrastructures and long-term funding allocation must underpin, mirror and enhance these four fundamental elements and cultural foundation, as they are the very things from which many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been uprooted and alienated from.

The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991), Bringing Them Home report (1997) and Little Children Are Sacred report (2007) to name a few, are yet to be fully embraced and/or implemented. Racist law cannot and must not be allowed to stand in this country.

We can abolish the NT Emergency Response legislation and at the same time begin the process of a positive consensual return to wellness within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in a just and dignified way that empowers and brings effective and lasting community/cultural cohesion and harm to no one.

Essie Coffey on CDEP and Self-determination

The importance of the Community Development Employment Project in an Aboriginal community is argued by the late Essie Coffey in her 1993 film MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT (1993). Although the Howard government is in the process of phasing out the CDEP, Essie Coffey sees it as an important step to self-determination, as she tells us in this clip from the film.

In December, the newly available National Indigenous TV (nitv.org.au) is to screen MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT along with the ground-breaking classic MY SURVIVAL AS AN ABORIGINAL (1978), bringing alive the grassroots realities of living in an Aboriginal community in the far Northwest of NSW. Essie's first film deals with land, dispossession, identity and pride. An international award-winning and historically significant film, it was the first documentary directed by an Indigenous woman and one of the first independent documentaries to be broadcast by the ABC. Along with its teachers' guide, it is featured on the Australian Screen website (http://australianscreen.com.au).

MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT shows the contradictions of an Aboriginal society in transition. The legacies of colonization -- alcoholism, white adoption, and deaths in police custody -- are countered by community programs which offer reconciliation and self-determination. This film follows Essie through her involvement in police-community liaison, shire politics and the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP). The film was broadcast on both SBS and the ABC where it was introduced by the then Human Rights Commissioner Mick Dodson. Selected for the prestigious New York Margaret Mead Festival, it continues to offer insights into ongoing issues and attitudes from an Aboriginal point of view.

Essie Coffey was a Muruwari woman born near Goodooga, NSW. Essie was the co-founder of the Western Aboriginal Legal Service and an inaugural member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Essie Coffey's passion for her culture and her entertaining and outspoken defense of her people are tangible in her films. As a charismatic, dedicated woman, she invites the audience into her community. She never flinches from showing the devastating impact of colonisation, yet her films propose solutions and bubble over with cultural pride.

MY SURVIVAL AS AN ABORIGINAL screens Monday 3 DEC (10pm Eastern Time, 8:30pm in Central Australia and 8:00pm in the West). MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT screens Tuesday 11 December (11pm AEST, 9:30pm ACST, and 9:00pm AWST). NITV is currently available via Imparja Television's second channel across remote Australia, and from Nov 1, on AUSTAR and FOXTEL Channel 180. NITV program information is available on http://nitv.org.au.

Video: Essie Coffey talks about CDEP

For photos and further information, contact Martha Ansara - hotdox@iinet.net.au * Tel: 02 9573 1886

Helen Moran - Misrepresentation of Mutitjulu Community

Hello,

Just wanted to bring to your attention the continual misrepresentation of Mutitjulu Community by the coalition media that is being used to justify the Governments NT Intervention to influence the voters.

The Community is a dry camp, at the time of the invasion the community had less than 100 community members living there most of who are elderly and young.

The agreed leasing back of the 1325 square kilometres of land around Uluru resulted in the continued abuse of the Rock by tourists climbing on it and went against many in the Mutitjulu Community's wishes, plus the so called guaranteed annual income which was derived from millions of dollars accumulated through the $20 + for entry into the Park by Parks and Wildlife resulted in the community receiving a pittance in comparison.

The reported claim by Chairman of the NT Grants Commission, Bob Beadman (The Australian Weekend Magazine, October 27-28 2007, p 10) of the reason for the social destruction of the community does not acknowledge the degree of Federal and Territory Government neglect and the more recent government interference in a bid to deliberately cripple the Community to gain back control of the surrounding lands.

This includes the community being placed into administrator's control 2 years ago after the Community was given less 48 to respond to a series of allegations.

Interesting that the community was invaded under the intervention lie of rescuing children from child abuse, when this was clearly not the case at all.

This invasion occurring with in days of Mutitjulu winning back control to self administer.

Over the years like so many other NT communities, Mutitjulu has had numerous projects under funded and also had funding cut. A number of services were placed into administrator's hands. Affecting the already stretched services, the Medical Clinic, which was a Regional Clinic servicing communities, as far away as WA and SA and then there is the lack of providing skilled and professional service providers.

To claim that Howard's prediction was right and to claim that poverty is to blame when it is a result of both the Federal and Territory Governments sheer neglect, to claim alcoholism is to blame when it is a dry camp and to claim violence is to blame in a community where there are no arrests is a disgusting display of media propaganda that continues to be used to justify the theft of Aboriginal land and the violation of Aboriginal people's human rights.

Regards Helen Moran

Frances and Howard Morphy - Anthropologists and the Federal Action in the NT

Despite the diversity of views that have been presented in the anthropological arena recently - many of which we disagree with profoundly - our belief in anthropology and our fellow anthropologists remains unshaken. We do not on the whole think that anthropology is more riven with divisions than most other disciplines and think that on the whole we are able to discuss complex issues among ourselves in largely productive ways. We think that we do sometimes have difficulties in presenting clear positions in public debates because of our tendency to view things in their full complexity and because of a desire to avoid being mistaken for advocates. Our own belief is that our awareness of the complex nature of human societies is precisely one of the reasons why we should intervene and put our views forward in areas where we have a stronger knowledge base than most others.

In this case many anthropologists have acted quite rapidly to get their views across. Jon Altman, Melinda Hinkson and their fellow authors are to be congratulated in getting their edited book Coercive Reconciliation published in near record time. Many others have also been involved in giving advice and support and providing effective criticism in practical contexts and continuing to actively research the intervention and its outcomes so that we can be better informed about the consequences and better able to inform future policy formulations.

Our own position on the intervention in the Northern Territory is unequivocal - it is wrong and potentially a major negative factor in the future trajectory of Aboriginal communities. Our reasons are fairly predicable and numerous:

1) as a policy it does not take any account of the diversity of Aboriginal communities or pay attention to local conditions - the general nature of the intervention created an impression that the problems were similar and shared equally across all Aboriginal communities.

2) it denies agency to Aboriginal people and cuts across many local initiatives to address problems - for example the initiatives to control alcohol abuse in the Nhulunbuy region by restricting and controlling access to takeaway grog. This initiative has been carefully negotiated between the Yolngu regional population, representatives of the mining town community of Nhulunbuy and the local police. The local non-Indigenous population is as upset by the ineffectiveness of the government's alternative measures as are the Yolngu.

3) the policy interventions were only loosely connected to the ostensible reasons for the intervention - child abuse

4) the solutions to the 'problems' - e.g. the abolition of CDEP, the compulsory leasing of Aboriginal settlement land, and the sequestering of welfare payments - were in many cases likely to be hard to implement, to be disruptive to local economies and to cause problems rather than solve them.

6) the policies are based on race. This alone is reason enough to repudiate them.

We are not as depressed as we would otherwise be for a number of reasons:

1) Aboriginal people are in many cases able to resist very effectively policies with which they fundamentally disagree and have a history of having to defend their own rights. It is an unfortunate aspect of Australia's history that they continually have to do so.

2) the criticisms that have been made by many anthropologists and others of the intervention are sound and their soundness is gaining increasing recognition. Many of the policies have been reversed or modified and many others will soon be. The diversity of local conditions and the need for very different local policies is being recognised.

3) the intervention may signal the end of an appalling period of neglect of Aboriginal communities and gross under-funding in areas of housing, education, health and regional development. The increase in resources was vital across the board.

These factors do not mean that the intervention was justified nor does the fact that there were a number of communities and individuals in crisis justify the intervention in the way it has happened.

The present crisis strengthens our belief that the practical application of anthropology in such contexts is vital and that it is important to increase the number of anthropologists working to develop better policy and to help implement local solutions.

Erica Jolly - Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Sir,

So, now you have decided on a Referendum to recognise the significance of Australia's Aboriginal people and Torres Straits Islanders if the numbers support it in a Referendum once you are Prime Minister again.

You, who suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to ''quarantine' welfare payments. You who chose the bullying impact of the Northern Territory legislation which, as your Minister for Indigenous Affairs, said took away the permit system because 'we' - the non-Indigenous Australians - do not have it and why should they. You did this against the advice of the Northern Territory police. You have suspended the Native Title Act to push your private ownership agenda. You are so wedded to the individualism and market-driven approach that you have pushed on Australia, that your word is not to be trusted.

If you are honest in this apparent conversion, you will find a way to undo the damage you have done to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. You will find a way to put the money to pay white administrators into health services, housing, and the provision of infrastructure. It will take a major change and many of us do not believe you.

You have used children for your purpose before. In the legislation passed by your dominated Senate there is mention of five year leases to the Commonwealth, alcohol - with Brough and his mates taking alcohol to the Tiwi Islands and drinking it in a 'dry' area -, bail, buildings, business, permits, pornography, publicly-funded computers, stores, town campus and welfare. The very titles of aspects of this legislation show how little you care for the children. They were the opportunity for you to do what you intended to do from the minute you came to power with the Herron Review of ATSIC. You intended this when you withdrew funding from the Reconciliation Committee. You have shamed us by the Australian government's refusal to sign the United Nations Charter of the Human Rights of Indigenous People. Nothing you say now gives us any belief that you can be trusted.

So, we are expected to believe your promise to have such a referendum 100 days after your triumphant return to office!. The Americans go in for analysis of the progress of Presidents after their first 100 days. Is that where this idea came from?

Actions speak louder than words. Your actions, your focus has been negative, even to the point of the gradual removal of Indigenous Affairs from the Departmental titles - we've gone from DIMIA, to DIMA to DECS. You have been writing out the needs of Indigenous people in your process of assimilation for eleven years. The history of Australia, when it is written will document the facts, dates, times, results of your deliberate actions to undermine the traditional owners and custodians of this land.

Do not blame your early life. Others of us, older than you, had concern for human rights in our childhood. Even if we did not know then, we learned, gained compassion, understood the importance of social justice and recognised the importance of consultation. Your approach to so much has been based on bullying, of the misuse of our money to force compliance with your ideological position on education and other matters, as in this recent NT legislation. We want real reconciliation.

Yours sincerely,

Erica Jolly

Intervention 'Could Be Seen As Racist'

ABC News | October 9, 2007

A researcher from the Northern Territory says the Federal Government's intervention into Aboriginal affairs could be exacerbating health problems in Indigenous communities and has compared it to the assimilation era.

Dr Yin Paradies from the Menzies School of Health says the federal intervention could be inflaming racial tensions in Aboriginal communities and, as a result, influencing poor health.

He says strategies that impose solutions on communities create high levels of stress, which can then lead to a range of health problems.

"I think the techniques are very reminiscent of assimilation era approaches and given that we've had a policy of self-determination for some decades now it would require a lot more explanation and commitment to working with those communities if you wanted to change the whole approach," he said.

Dr Paradies says intervention workers should be better trained in cross-cultural awareness to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

"You have to understand the history of colonisation in Australia, why is it that Indigenous people have a health disadvantage?" he said.

"Why is it that perhaps child abuse is more prevalent in those communities and also what are some of those cultural differences that may hamper efforts and make them come unstuck."

Dr Paradies also says even though the intervention may be well-intended, the policies are being dictated to communities and don't involve enough consensus.

"It could easily be construed as racism in itself, to do it that way, even though, I'm sure the people who are involved don't see it that way and the intent is not that at all," he said.

"But unfortunately, in this area, frequently intentions are not the same as the actual effects."

See: ABC News

Read Rachel's Voice on our Community Voices page

Go Back. You Are Intruding On Our Lives And Our Safety

Rachel Willika, Sydney Morning Herald | October 2, 2007

Photo by Jo-Anna Robinson
from the Sunday Mail

I live at Eva Valley in the Northern Territory. It is one of the communities affected by the Federal Government's intervention. I am a single mother. I look after my family, and I support my family. I have six children, some grown up, but we still live together in the community.

I was living at Barunga when I first heard about the intervention. I was told by mobile phone. It was on the news. When we found out, everyone was worried. The girls wanted to go to hide in the bush. When we saw the army on TV, I felt frightened. Some people, not just children, but adults, too, thought they might come with guns.

I have been thinking about those words "Little children are sacred". Who are the little children? Are they talking about all the children? Black children and white children? That's what it says to me. We should be protecting all the children. Aren't white children sacred, too?

I work at the local school, tutoring. I love the children, and teaching them to write and how to sound the alphabet and how to read books. After school, I prepare for church. Our church is a little shed on a cement slab. No power, no water. We use an extension cord from a nearby house so we can have lights and play music. We pay for our electricity with power cards. We try to make sure that there is enough money on those cards so we have electricity all the time, but when it runs out we go outside and make a fire.

When I was a young woman I used to drink. I'm a Christian person now. Christianity helps people to fight bad things, like alcohol. My belief in God gives me courage.

Eva Valley is a dry community. Before the intervention the drinking people would sit at a community place, along the road to Barunga. All the drinking people sat there together, and it was a safe place. Now, they are drinking along the highway. The roads are dangerous and I'm worried there might be an accident.

We don't know what the Government is planning to do. At Eva Valley, we have got no email, no internet, no newspapers. Most people don't have a TV or a radio, so we can't keep track of what's going on. You need a big outside antenna to get TV reception. Only four or five houses have this. We don't have mobile coverage and we have to use a pay phone - but to use the pay phone we have to drive 100 kilometres into Katherine to buy a phone card. We haven't got a bus. Our bus is too old now, so we have no transport to go into town to get food. We all put in whatever money we've got to pay for a taxi. That costs $190, one way.

Photo by Jo-Anna Robinson
from the Sunday Mail

The permit system made me feel safe. People could only enter the community with the permission of the traditional owners, so we knew who was coming in. Anybody can come in now. We don't like to have strangers come in. They might bring in drugs and alcohol, and we don't want that.

This Government intervention is making life harder for Aboriginal people. I am worried we might lose our land, our rights. I feel like the Government is attacking our culture, and that it wants to change everything. The Government should be helping to make families strong, but what is happening now is hurting us.

These are really serious matters, and we need to deal with them seriously. We are talking about the future of Aboriginal children. Everything needs to come out in the open. We need to be honest if we are to make better lives for our children. I want to work with Aboriginal organisations, because I feel comfortable with them. The Federal Government has lost our trust.

I am writing this because I want to stand up and protect Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. We don't want to go back to the days when we got paid in rations, and every community had a white superintendent. We want to move ahead. We want to live and work on our own land. We're not going to let them come and run the show. We're going to stand up. We have rights.

See: Sydney Morning Herald

Read Rachel's Voice on our Community Voices page

Didac Roman - Lose Your Origins & You Lose Your Identity

Message to Australia's indigenous people from Dídac Roman i Monroig of the Catalonian Countries

At first glance, it may seem difficult to imagine that Catalans and indigenous Australians have anything in common, but there is one fact that binds us as sister nations, a fact that unites Australia, the true Australia, with many other nations of the world - we have suffered the attempted annihilation of our indigenous culture by a foreign state.

Characteristics of this cultural alienation may be different, but the Catalonian Countries and Australia were occupied by other nations in the same century, the XVIII century, and in both instances, in the name of a monarch, the Spaniard and the English respectively.

Occupation by Spain and England brought loss of indigenous culture.

An occupation of one nation by another nation usually has the same consequences - the attempted imposition of one culture (the occupier's) on another (the occupant's). One of our Catalonian sayings is "Lose your origins and you lose your identity". In other words, there is no better way to dominate another culture than by making their traditions and language disappear.

And this is where we see more similarities between how this occupation is affecting the people who lived (and still live) in our two nations.

Both occupiers moved to eliminate traditional laws and language.

When the Spaniards arrived in the Catalonian Countries, their first act was to eliminate our traditional code of laws (the furs), and to substitute their own. They forbade the use of our language, Catalan, in any official capacity and there were even laws forbidding public demonstrations in our own language - everything had to be done in Castilian.

Something similar happened in Australia.

New laws and a new religion - different from those ordering the life of indigenous people.

They attempted to make English the only language used to communicate.

Even the children were taken away to be educated away from their own culture, so they would forget their origins and adopt the foreign culture as their own.

Despite significant gains, Catalonians still fight on

But in spite of the wars, imposition and kidnappings, the Catalonian or Australian indigenous people, have tried to keep their culture alive, and today, there are people in both nations who are fighting to preserve our most valuable heritage: our culture.

This is not an easy fight, and is probably the point where the differences between my society and yours are greatest, since we have been able to achieve a certain acceptance of our language and part of our traditions.

Nevertheless, there is still much to achieve and many Catalonians are still fighting to achieve a free nation.

Tell the world and walk the talk

You also have to continue struggling in order to preserve or to restore what they wanted to take away from you.

Tell the world about your cause.

- The world has to know about the rights that have been forbidden to you.

- The world has to know that your children cannot study your culture, that your languages are disappearing and that any politician does something to change this.

However, this struggle starts with you all, as individuals - it will be difficult to defend your culture if you don't try to maintain your traditions at home and in your own communities.

Speak to your children in your own languages and teach them what your parents and grandparents taught you. The struggle starts with each of you, and if you keep your culture alive, it will never disappear.

You have to be proud of the language and traditions that differentiate you from the other cultures of the world. This is what we did.

My message to you is to continue your fight

From the Catalonian Countries I can only tell you: go ahead with your fight. This is the only way that you can restore your lands and have your culture accepted.

We know it is not easy, but your cause is so just that whatever you do will not seem to be enough.

Do not be deceived by the empty words of politicians, since they are only interested in your being quiet while your culture disappears, and they will promise you many things that they will never fulfil.

You have to speak out.

Make your voice heard in every corner of the world so that the people of other nations and international organisations become aware of what is happening in your lands.

I hope your struggle succeeds in restoring and preserving your culture.

Dídac Roman i Monroig

València (Països Catalans), 09 September 2007

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Peter Jensen - A Welcome Intervention If Done With Sensitivity

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David Dalrymple - NT agreement a victory for land rights

Opinion, The Age, 25 September, 2007

Last Thursday's signing of an memorandum of understanding between Mal Brough on behalf of the Commonwealth and Galarrwuy Yunupingu on behalf of his Gumatj Clan was indeed a watershed. In a bizarre twist - such is the spin-dominated poverty of political discourse in this country - the watershed was characterised as a victory for the current Government's policy agenda.

The reality is that it was a victory for the land rights architecture that has been in place in the Northern Territory for 30 years and a firm rejection of the bid to "mainstream" and "open up" communities on Aboriginal land.

With little media attention, there has been a tug of war going in the Territory between two land tenure models: strategic leasing on the one hand and the "government township" model on the other. Minister Brough had previously refused to go down the strategic leasing road. Many months before the Intervention he rejected a proposal by the Diminin traditional owners of Wadeye that was similar to the one he has now signed off on.

Strategic leasing refers to an arrangement whereby the traditional owners of a community (or "township") grant to government a block lease over public housing and other government-maintained buildings and infrastructure, but reserve to themselves full control over the rest of the land (including the power to negotiate discrete tenure arrangements for any relevant commercial activities).

Fundamental to the concept of strategic leasing is that traditional rights of use and occupation under section 71 of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act ("ALRA") and also the general right of any landowner to regulate the behaviour of outsiders is preserved in the hands of the traditional owners in relation to the community land not handed over to government.

The Gumatj agreement is framed is in broad terms. The wording - of which some is deliberately face-saving, such as the reference to a Government "lease" to describe a sub-leased area - doesn't fully specify the deal that has been done. That deal is a creative variant of the strategic leasing model. A 99-year "headlease" of land at Drimmie Head will be granted to a Gumatj corporation. The headlease land will include the small Ski Beach community.

The Gumatj will sub-lease certain areas within Ski Beach to the Commonwealth - but not their beach, cemetery, ceremony ground, and other non-built-up areas accessed by members of the community but not yet open to the public generally. I say "not yet" because a provision in a piece of Commonwealth legislation has the effect of mandating public access to a long list of prescribed communities. Ski Beach (Gunyangara) is one of them.

See: The Age

Darren Modzelewsk, University of California Berkeley

The assimilationist tendency of the Australian Government ignores aboriginal sovereignty and threatens to repeat the genocidal horrors of 19th Century Australia and the United States. The Howard government is not providing support to aboriginal communities but promoting a pernicious racialist agenda. The government cannot be trusted to act morally and ethically, and Women for Wik needs to be supported to the fullest in their fight to stop the paternalistic and heavy handed top down tactics currently being used.

Prof. Paul S.C. Tacon - At What Cost?

School of Arts
Gold Coast Campus
Griffith University
Queensland 4222

After years of underfunding, Aboriginal health, education and housing are finally going to be given a badly needed boost across Australia's Northern Territory. But at what cost? Well, for starters:

Loss of land
Loss of rights and freedoms
Loss of community decision making
Loss of the permit access system
Loss of money for important jobs
Loss of independence
Loss of heritage and culture
Loss of outstations
Loss of border protection
Loss of biodiversity
Loss of self worth
Loss of indigenous authority
Loss of sustainability

More government interference
More racist legislation
More non-indigenous administrators
More unauthorised visits to and desecration of Aboriginal land, sacred sites and heritage locations
More outside control over people's daily lives
More perverts, scamsters, con artists, smugglers and dirty money makers from outside
More development and consequent land destruction
More pollution and environmental degradation
More suffering

Governments should work together with Aboriginal communities rather than imposing ill-conceived views and rushed plans. If the agenda really is to improve Aboriginal people's lives then big social problems should be tackled from mutually agreeable perspectives arrived at through meaningful consultation. No other group within Australia would tolerate the current government approach if it was imposed on them. This approach may have been sparked by indigenous matriarchs and other women crying out. But they wanted real help, not to have their authority stripped away and theirs lives made miserable in new ways. Child abuse has been used as an excuse to grab land. If the government was fair it would have taken over church properties, the residences of many so-called 'pillars of society' and private homes across the country to attack child abuse. We all would be banned from accessing pornography and alcohol. We all would live in a puritanical world designed by a few priviledged rich white men. There must be a better way ahead. Let's move forward together rather than return to a draconian past where Aboriginal people were treated like children at best . Let's finally treat Indigenous Australians as fellow human beings: real people like us with complex lives; real people like us who sometimes need help in a non-interfering way; real people like us who sometimes make mistakes.

Jennifer Clarke - The great federal land grab

13 August, 2007

I wouldn't be a Northern Territory traditional land owner for quids. This is not just because of the much-publicised drawbacks of remote "community" life. It's also because I'd probably lose as much as I'd gain from the Commonwealth's Northern Territory Emergency Response. However, I guess I'd be accustomed to taking one step forward and another unpredictable one back it's the rhythm of life in indigenous affairs.

As a Canberra resident, I enjoy a high level of government service delivery. I also own land admittedly not freehold, but title which I regard as secure. I don't expect government to deprive me of it any time soon, and I particularly don't expect this to happen so that someone else can live in my house.

Nor do I expect to be asked to surrender my property as a precondition for receiving other government services, like policing.

But under the emergency Bills introduced last week, in order to receive services which begin to approach those which I enjoy, NT traditional Aboriginal owners will lose control of their land for five years, and not on the usual terms.

Normally, when the Commonwealth takes property rights like the emergency five-year compulsory leases, it does so under the Land Acquisition Act, which applies Australia-wide and requires due process and "just terms" compensation.

The Hawke government was even prepared to extend this courtesy to John Clunies-Ross in its efforts to exclude him from the Cocos Island territory, where (according to the United Nations) he lived in a "feudal" relationship with the rest of the population.

The emergency Bills do require either rent or compensation or both, but they attempt to limit these payments in at least five other ways. Limited compensation was not what the Government promised traditional owners or the Australian public.

First, although rent (as determined by the Commonwealth Valuer-General) can be paid for these leases, this will only happen if the Commonwealth minister allows it. Unless this clause is amended to make the payment of rent compulsory, it is likely to go unpaid.

Second, the Bills displace the general statutory guarantee in the Northern Territory Self-Government Act of "just terms" compensation for acquisition of property. I couldn't imagine this guarantee (which has an ACT equivalent) being displaced if the property belonged to a resident of my suburb or the Darwin equivalent. Third, the Bills attempt to direct courts to reduce compensation if housing or other improvements on the land have been publicly funded. Imagine the uproar if governments took such an approach to compulsory acquisition of homes which had been subsidised by the first-home buyers' scheme or negative gearing. Fourth, the Bills provide "a reasonable amount of compensation" if the Constitution requires "just terms".

Even if these two terms mean the same thing, the Commonwealth appears to be gambling on compensation for this particular acquisition not being constitutionally required.

This is like putting up a sign saying, "If you want the money, you'll have to take us to the High Court", which is not what you'd expect in an emergency.

The Commonwealth appears to be betting on being able to overturn or distinguish a narrow 1997 High Court decision that gave Newcrest Mining just terms compensation under the constitution when land over which it held mining tenements was included in Stage 3 of Kakadu National Park.

Some of the majority judges' reasoning in this case depended on them treating the national parks legislation as operating nationally, whereas the emergency response will be limited to the NT, where historically (before Newcrest) compensation was not constitutionally guaranteed.

Fifth, the emergency response Bills contain several provisions which confer on government housing authorities rights which may avoid the technical constitutional definition of "acquisition of property", which triggers just terms.

For example, they allow these authorities to occupy and manage publicly funded housing on Aboriginal land apparently indefinitely.

These rights will only be conferred if traditional owners agree, but who will be able to resist a good housing package?

If the Commonwealth wants to occupy land long term, it should offer the land owners rent as it does for government offices in Canberra. A public housing authority wouldn't expect to be able to build dozens, perhaps hundreds, of houses on my land for free just because it provided me with one of them.

When it comes to governments depriving NT traditional land owners of rights which the rest of us take for granted, there have been two other worrying recent trends. One was associated with the amendment of the Commonwealth's Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act last year to allow voluntary head-leases of settlements on Aboriginal land to government authorities. There's nothing wrong with this idea except that the Commonwealth raided the Aboriginals Benefit Account to pay for it. This account created to offset the effects of comparatively large mining projects on Aboriginal people after Aboriginal reserves were opened to mining in the 1950s receives "mining royalty equivalent monies" which are then paid to traditional owners or used to run land councils on their behalf.

So raiding the account to pay rent on settlement leases meant that the landlords, not the tenants, were paying the rent not something you'd expect when there's so much talk about bringing these "communities" into the "real economy". There is a risk that the Commonwealth will be tempted to resort to this source of funds again, to pay the compensation for, or the rent on, its compulsory emergency five-year leases.

While such anomalous arrangements might be defensible in the context of voluntary arrangements, they cannot be defended where forced on traditional owners. It might be argued that "mining royalty equivalent monies" are themselves anomalous, because other Australians do not receive them. But similarly large mining projects are not normally visited on other Australians for simple political reasons. It's not like there are no mineral deposits under Australian cities. If the account is to be sequestered, it should be for genuinely beneficial purposes not just so that money can be moved around in indigenous affairs.

Finally, on the day when Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough announced their NT emergency plan, the High Court decided to grant special leave to appeal in a case which illustrates well how some people's property is more equal than others'. That case concerned native title rather than the special freehold available under the Land Rights Act, although the appellants in the case held both. They came from Timber Creek, where they have voluntarily leased their land rights land to a non-Aboriginal neighbour. But when their native-title claim to other land in which the neighbour was also interested appeared likely to succeed, the NT Government decided that voluntary arrangements weren't good enough any more, and set out to acquire the land compulsorily in order to regrant it to the neighbour. Although it is not well-known, the advent of native title transformed compulsory acquisition laws across Australia. Once, these laws were vehicles to facilitate road-building and other government works some were even called public works Acts. But post-Mabo, most allow not only the nightmare depicted in the movie The Castle acquisition of private land so that a private operator can deliver a public service but also acquisition of private land so that it can be granted to another private holder for private purposes.

Native title is commonly acquired in this way, but nobody seems to have told non-Aboriginal Australians that our property has become similarly vulnerable, at least legally. Perhaps we don't need to know. Even when the same laws apply to remote Aborigines as to those of us who live in "infront" Australia, they can't possibly make the same demands on us.

Jennifer Clarke is at the College of Law, Australian National University.

Gary Harper - Letter to Mal Brough

17 September, 2007

Dear Mr. Brough,

Can you please tell me how many sexually abused children your task force has uncovered so far during the national emergency (crisis) in the NT?

Given you have now had plenty of time to investigate the issue of child sexual abuse that has brought about a so called "national emergency" you surly must have uncovered thousands by now.

Can you please explain to me why the legislation rammed through parliament to support the governments action in the NT does not contain any reference to children or child abuse in its 500 pages?

Yours sincerely,

Gary Harper

P.S. Still waiting for a reply

Heather Shearer - Letter to the Prime Minister

28 August, 2007

Dear Mr Prime Minister, I write these words down in an open letter to you of things I have always wanted to say and ask the Prime Minister of Australia ever since I was about 11 years old, if I ever got the chance. That the was time after I knew I was being raised in a family that I was not from, and while loved by my adopted parents, realized that I would never be accepted in the community as one of them, because I was Aboriginal. My adopted mum and dad knew I wanted to find my mother, and that one day I would go home. They knew me more than I knew myself way back when, and that is why I keep my adopted name to honor them, their love, their sacrifices and their support. Heather Shearer is my name, but when I was born I did have a name my birth mother gave me - she named me Tanya Fly. I went to primary school, high school, business college and straight into the work-force. I worked hard at being good at what I did - more so to prove other people wrong, we all know the categorizations. Anyway, after working in a Land Agent and Solicitor's office in Adelaide, I got a job as a Secretary for the newly formed Aboriginal Child Care Agency of SA in 1978. Since that time I have worked in Aboriginal Child Care Agencies in two states as a Secretary through to a Coordinator as well as holding an executive position with SNAICC for 3 years. During this time I started doing the work of Aboriginal Link-up. I began through the ACCA, then later during the National Inquiry, I moved into State Government. A few years after that, I returned to Alice Springs and continued my work with CASG&FAC, the Central Australian Stolen Generations & Families Aboriginal Corporation up until 2005. Throughout these 27 years, I took intermittent work breaks to de-brief myself or I might have given up my own search completely. When I first came back to Alice Springs in 1986, I sat with my Aunty May, and watched her paint while telling me where I fit into my family and our culture in her artwork. In 1991 I painted the story of myself being part of two families to help my Aboriginal family members understand me and a little bit about my life before I came home. I have since worked as an Artist, a State Government Indigenous Arts Development Officer and an Aboriginal Art Centre Coordinator at local, State/Territory, National and International levels. Since retiring from Link-up I have given time to myself to get to know my family, and my country, and now currently work as the Arts Coordinator at Tjuwanpa Outstation Resource Centre, just across the Finke River. For the past 2 and a half years, I have lived on my family outstation. I am a member of the Stolen Generations and this is the place in and around Ntaria, that I worked my whole life to get back to. In the past few weeks, I have sat back listening to some of the many politicians, media people, government workers, community workers and community members trying to bring some kind of understanding and grounding to all these changes that are coming down like a ton of bricks and seems to be pulling the rug out from under feet yet again. Your visit here today to try to reassure a community of Aboriginal people that everything about these changes is going to be fine, may be with good intention from your perspective, but I suggest you take a moment to think seriously about the repercussions for our people, many who are finding it hard to look to the future with any hope at all. You must be aware that you are walking with descendants of the world's oldest living culture, who came into the modern world not of their free will but a need to survive a severe drought not quite 120 years ago. Our ancestors didn't come to you, the Lutheran Missionaries came here to us, and once they got here, cared about the people. While they struggled to help sick people while bringing Christianity to their lives and structure while changing an ancient lifestyle, the Government came into the picture, and our people have continued to fight for survival ever since. Pride, dignity and community respect is very strong in all age-groups of our community. This is a strong community with good people who want to and do work for all of us. However, it seems the hard work that has been going on for years resulting in the progress that has been made is somewhat forgotten. Our older people know about the long hard struggle to get Aboriginal Services out here and in town - they were there, and in many of Central Australia's Aboriginal organisations, were the driving force in those developments. We have Community and Land Council's, School's, Child Care Services, Shops and Supermarkets, Community Art Centres, Legal Services, Media Services, Health Services including Drug & Alcohol treatment services and for the homeland movement, Tjuwanpa Outstation Resource Centre. As they grew, to meet our growing needs, many have been consistently under-funded. This growth also tried to combat the bad influences that came with the modern world which have become a destructive disease in our cultural way of life - alcohol, drugs, money and gambling. How do we balance such opposite forces when we are still fighting for survival while losing our young people to despair as they see we are not supported in ways we think we might be able to make a difference. Many of our people have given up. Their despair festers in a mix of frustration, anger, apathy, and introduced health ailments due to dietary change and substance abuse. People I talk to are afraid these changes that each tier of your Government System is bringing into the Northern Territory and our communities, are taking us back to ration days. They worry about the implications, side-effects and repercussions of these new changes, and ask themselves, "But what can you do when there are no real job opportunities for full-time employment? And training is seriously undermined by outside skilled people who do not even consider on-the-job training or apprenticeship placements for our young people?" This Intervention could have been prevented if honesty and accountability had been the foundation of a consultation process between Government and Aboriginal people through the last few successive Governments. Maybe if the National Aboriginal Conference was still around things might not have digressed so much so in the last 10 years. Mr Prime Minister, Australia is one of the last frontiers on this planet, and as such, I believe has an obligation to humanity to take stock of our current situation, give up on notions of paternalism - it doesn't work, and begin to live the ethic of reparation and reconciliation, so that we can have a future in this island home called Australia - but it must be a respectful one that welcomes and nurtures Aboriginal people into the modern world in a way that maintains our culture and all that goes with it. Finding out about your visit here today was an unexpected opportunity I could not ignore. I have written things to you that I have kept inside throughout my life, and they include questions I would have raised with your predecessors, and even the Kings and Queens of England since Cook's time, if I ever got the chance. Now these questions fall to you, as I believe you are the only person in Australia who has the responsibility and authority of Government to answer, and I hope you will be honest about your intentions.

"What was the real reason you didn't say sorry?" Because I think your excuse that your Government was not responsible for past Government actions is a contradiction. I say this because in this day and age, your Government has inherited all the wealth, status and power from each of your past Governments achievements, and they all belong to the one system of government, the Westminster System. It was wrong what your Government did, and I believe an apology should be forthcoming, if not from your Liberal Government, then from the next one. "What life-changing miracles are these new changes going to make for the future of our people?"

How do you give purpose back to a people, when everything they are, represent and strive for are ignored, misinterpreted and unwanted in this new Australia because it stops progress?

Whose future are these changes for?

How do you calculate reparations when those changes have and continue to force you to give up your land, your culture, your language or your children? Why hasn't the Whole of Government Policy worked in these current changes? No-one seems to know what each other is doing. I do believe consultation across Government Portfolio's can work, but only if they actually talk to each other.

And one that should have been first on the agenda when colonization occurred:

Where are the support services to help an ancient people adjust to the invasion of a modern world?

My life is the perfect example of your Government's attempts to assimilate us into history. But my being here proved it hasn't worked. Maybe if all the Stolen Generation people weren't stolen, we might have filled gaps in our families lives and made a difference. Like all the voices of our people in the past 219 years proudly proclaiming "We are still here", I personally feel my saying so is good enough reason never to be a faceless statistic in your archives ever again. In closing, I say to you that I sincerely hope your visit to Ntaria will prove to be a turning point in the right direction towards a positive outcome to these changes. This is the country of Albert Namatjira, and all of us who continue with our art practices in his shadow, hope that you will support our development into this world to tap into the $200 million dollars made each year, so we can build a business to work towards some kind of economic self-sufficiency in the future. Maybe if you recognized our art as a heritage product, we wouldn't be faced with all the rip-off merchants, and heritage legislation would protect our industry and provide tax benefits that could support its sustainability. Hope someone cares about Mr Namatjira's family when his copyright comes up for grabs in a few years, and resale royalties remain on the agenda as a hopeful future outcome to this sad state of exploitation. While I appreciate the fact that I may have put you on the spot, I look forward to a response to this, my open letter to you Mr Howard, the current Prime Minister of Australia. PS I have not mentioned my natural father because it has caused a lot of pain and anguish to many people in my journey. I say to him, whoever he may be: New Australians who came and still come today to this country for peace and a new lifestyle know the history of their own ancestral lands. Yet they largely ignore and refuse to share their experiences to support our survival. Has their families experiences of colonization in their own history hidden their conscience or is it their legacy? Or is it that they can't handle being the other part of Aboriginal in 'part-Aboriginal" children - that shamed them into silence. I did have one father, then another wh0 claimed me because he thought he was doing the right thing, thank you, you both will be forever in my heart. Thank Mr Prime Minister you for your time.

Heather Kamarra Shearer, Labrapuntja Outstation Via Ntaria Via Alice Springs. NT. 0872

Areyonga - Letter to the Editor - Karen Jackson

WRITTEN IN ALICE SPRINGS – JULY 8TH 2007.

I was visiting Areyonga last week, a peaceful, inviting Aboriginal community west of Alice Springs. This is a community which smiles. But on Wednesday 4th July, our Prime Minister’s ‘Taskforce’ rolled in. They came in a convoy of 4-wheel drive vehicles, the army, the police, and representatives from Federal government departments. The community wasn’t happy to see them; they sat in trepidation waiting to hear what was going to happen. Half of them had cleared out the day before, cleared out because they felt fear. I could feel the fear in Areyonga that day, and on this day when a another paternalism rolled in.

I was able to sit in on the community meeting that was held in Areyonga. I listened to government bureaucrats spew forth words of rhetoric which, as an Indigenous Australian, I know, and which communities have heard over and over and over again. ‘Collecting data, not compulsory, parent permission, safety, Centrelink benefits, education, work, services, and infrastructure, what you need’. The words made me angry, I wanted to yell out, you have that data, you know what the needs are, are you going to provide money for that, money that comes into the community, not just to pay for more bureaucrats, and what are the long-term outcomes of this!

When will the time come that any government sits down and really listens to Indigenous communities? Sits down for more than half a day as little Johnny’s Taskforce did? Sits down and forms relationships that are meaningful? Then sits down again and again to fully understand what is required by that community to meet their needs. As one of the community Elders in Areyonga said, ‘each community is different’. Aboriginal people know this, people who have proper relationships with Aboriginal communities know this, why doesn’t the government? At the end of the ‘Taskforce’ community meeting, members of the ‘Taskforce’ attempted to create a dialogue with the Areyonga people. They moved across the road in a tight pack towards the community – a group of power crashing towards a group of people who have English as a second language – a group of power wanting to split apart this community.

I left the community meeting area then, as it was not my place to stay and talk with these ‘other’ people. I walked back to the house we were living in for the week with my colleague. We found it hard to talk at first, and when we did, I fell into tears. I could not stop those tears from pouring down my face. My anger had turned to tears as I could not give my voice, I could not change what was happening to this quiet and peaceful community.

I could not get the rhetoric out of my head and I knew deep down that this federal government was not going to do anything for this community. And probably not for any Aboriginal community in which they were rolling into. There is no money set aside in the Howard budget for long-term infrastructure, program and service delivery to Aboriginal communities. There is no funding for specific training programs for Indigenous Australians that will give skills to develop their own places and create their own jobs.

I sat on the steps of that house in Areyonga and cried. Why Prime Minister could I not have sat on those steps and felt, ‘hurrah’? You could have made that happen if you were a government that is doing their negotiation and consultation the right way and forming real relationships with Aboriginal people. You could have gone about it the right way by ensuring your budget reflected the real monetary assistance that Aboriginal communities have been crying out for. You have not gone about this business in any right way; you have created fear, anger and sadness, with not a single reason for hope. Shame John Howard, Shame!

Letter to Mal Brough

Sophie Rudolph

The Hon Mal Brough, MP

mal.brough.mp@aph.gov.au

Dear Minister Brough,

I write in relation to your recently announced measures to secure the safety of Aboriginal children in remote communities within the Northern Territory.

I am glad that you are taking action on this matter as I believe all children should be able to live a life free from violence and abuse, however, I have a number of concerns about the course your actions seem to be taking.

Firstly it appears you are not acting according to valuable advice which has been developed through consultation with Indigenous communities in the form of the Anderson/Wild report 'Little Children are Sacred'. The report contains 97 recommendations which take into account the historical and social sensitivities of Indigenous communities with both the urgency of immediate action and the vital need for long term commitment guiding the advice. That the actions of the government do not take heed of the advice and in many cases do the opposite of what is recommended is of great concern.

The timing and scope of this action is also dubious. The Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) has been calling for a national action plan for the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Islander children since as early as 1995 without government response. It is also worrying that Northern Territory communities seem to be being targeted by these severe government measures even though the government has acknowledged that it is a 'national emergency'.

The fact that the Prime Minister has willingly acknowledged he is "taking away people's rights" ('Aboriginal abuse plan denounced as racist', The Guardian, 23/06/07) and the response indicates clear restrictions on personal freedoms and control over many aspects of personal and community life is deeply worrying.

I believe the government must urgently review their current action and establish alternative action based on the recommendations available to them. The advice of Gary Banks (Chairman of the Productivity Commission and Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision) in his speech to the OECD on 29th June 2007, should also be considered in a new response. He points out that every serious analysis of what works in Indigenous communities has four factors in common:

1. Cooperative approaches between Indigenous people, government and the private sector.

2. Community involvement in program design and decision making - a bottom up rather than top down approach.

3. Good governance, and

4. Ongoing government support - human as well as financial

The current government response has not taken these factors into consideration and therefore will potentially be limited in its effectiveness and possibly also damaging to already struggling communities.

Indigenous Australians are strong, dignified, intelligent human beings who have the capacity like any other human to establish robust, healthy, productive communities which serve their specific needs. The role of the government is to support their desires to do this and not to assert restrictions on movement, finances and rights or subject police and military control over freedoms.

I ask that the Australian Government make a serious commitment to Indigenous children and communities and develop a long term whole community national action plan to combat child abuse and neglect. I would be interested in your response to this proposal and await your reply.

Yours truly,
Sophie Rudolph

Family, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislative Amendments (NORTHERN TERRITORY NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2007

‘Those who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them for their blindness’ – Milton

If the Government was genuine about protecting children it would implement the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred report. The provisions outlined in the NORTHERN TERRITORY NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2007 are explicitly racist and will further disempower the poorest people in Australia.The Government has failed to rise to a minimal level of moral integrity in the achievement of human rights for Aboriginal people. International experience has shown unequivocally that empowerment is crucial to improving the well being of the poor. This empowerment must demonstrate two complementary aspects: control over resources (physical, human, financial and the self), and control over ideology (beliefs, values and attitudes). Aboriginal Territorians have been completely disempowered by this government’s intervention. They have no say over the way they are represented in government or the public arena, and now they have lost control over their land.

Subclause 132(2) of the NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE N.E.R act includes punitive welfare and military actions that are excluded from Part II of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Sending Australian troops in to Aboriginal communities is a farce inside a profound tragedy and one which diminishes us all. The ‘International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination’ requires Australia to ensure that people of all races are protected from discrimination and equally enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms. In the case of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, there are significant social and economic barriers impeding their access to health, development, education, property, social security and cultural futures. The emergency measures further remove their rights and freedoms. People are still living 15-20 people in a house for no other reason than the fact that there are still not enough houses. So what contribution has the N.E.R made to increase the well-being of N.T Aboriginal children so far?

The health and protection of children was a key justification for the intervention. No evaluative framework was proposed. Is there no intention of measuring the effectiveness of this intervention? Pat Anderson, one of the authors of the report, has stated publicly that none of the recommendations of the Children are Sacred report have been enacted. Those who have long term experience in Aboriginal child health say real outcomes in well being depend on structured, systematic and sustained ‘parental support’ interventions, and must not entail or resemble any form of coercion. Positive support requires an acknowledgment of structural transformations in Aboriginal families and communities within the context of the broader Australian society. Prevention is linked to child development, parenting practices, fostering, and ‘care giver’ facilities, school, peer bonding, housing, poverty, health, literacy and service provision as outlined in numerous previous reports from 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997 and 2002. If the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ inquiry’s recommendations are correct, then in the long run the Government’s response will result in more children being abused, more domestic violence, higher levels of substance abuse, lower levels of educational attainment, greater marginalisation of the Aboriginal people from broader Australia, worse health outcomes, higher suicide rates and worse employment participation rates.

Education is a key index of community well being that, in these times of ‘practical reconciliation’ it is a shared responsibility that the government should be rushing to provide NT remote area Aboriginal children. Schools across the NT are overflowing with students, some with up to 50children per class, with no chairs and no teachers. The dismantling of the CDEP has meant that all of the Aboriginal Education Workers have stopped work. The few (generally under equipped) teachers left are crying out for support, but it seems the Government has turned a deaf ear to their plight. In Port Keats they have 300 places and over 1000 school aged children. These kids weren’t born yesterday, this is not a ‘new crisis’, it is a long term issue the government has persistently failed to address. In fact, the government has further undermined Aboriginal education by taking away resources that have not been replaced. It was recently revealed that for every dollar spent on urban schools in the NT only 27 cents of corresponding funding went to bush schools. Respecting the right of indigenous Australians to be different is denied by structural coercion, while their right to a culturally appropriate education in their own communities has disappeared.

What are the employment prospects delivered by the intervention? In the wake of N.E.R and the associated dismantling of the CDEP, fifty percent of the NT workforce is unemployed, while in remote communities the number is 80%. Furthermore, the Government plan to absorb remote communities into shires has significant socio-demographic and service delivery implications. The plan, should it be successful, assumes that market forces will result in the redistribution of the displaced Aboriginal population around major towns, which means that Darwin will become the only town in the Northern Territory with a non indigenous majority. What evidence is there of forward planning for such a demographic shift? If shanty towns develop as a result of competition for housing that does not exist, and for jobs in the non existent labour markets of Alice springs and Katherine, what chance is there that Aboriginal people will share in the government’s promise for ‘a fair go for the Aboriginal children of tomorrow’? The Australian government has dispossessed and disempowered indigenous Australians and now it is using this as an excuse to punish them.

Bentley James is an Anthropologist and Linguist who has taught in Remote Aboriginal Schools in the Northern Territory for fifteen years.

Detour: Interventions and Ironies (Howard's Visit to Hermannsburg)

Alice Oppen

With many others, I have been startled at the recent legal moves by the Federal Government to take effective control of Aboriginal lands, and have worried that this could impinge on native title and the ability of Aborigines to perpetuate the best of their culture. 'Country' has a special meaning which governments should learn to share, rather than erode. Could the legislation have anything to do with access for uranium leases?

Surely children can better be protected by cooperatively supporting community efforts and actually releasing unspent funding allocations for health. Instead, the intervention will mean "company store" quarantining of funds, loss of community jobs (CDEP), closure of women's refuges (Alice Springs). Where is logic? Imagine how difficult it would be for the employees now being trained to withhold money with fairness and compassion. The real impacts will be complex, with the effects as little understood as was the removal of children from their families.

On a recent stay in Alice Springs I drove with family, including a grandfather, a baby and nursing mother, for 120 km to Hermannsburg to see Namatjira country and paintings, and have lunch. Surprise. The Prime MInister and Army were before us, and we watched from behind detour signs as he glad-armed Aboriginal elders and genially said that he hoped he had explained and that their misunderstandings had been cleared up. All Aborigines there were polite, though only the children sent to clamour around the PM were jubilant. The photo opportunity on TV that night showed the children and the great dignity of those whose community has been made a specimen for army and medical examination. There was no visible opposition, but I was tremendously saddened by this exploitation by publicity of fine people who know they will be adversely impacted by Government and Army intervention. Given the secrecy preceding the visit and the new legislation, the Prime Minister was protected from contrary views.

At the other end of town was a sign stopping us and other peeking tourists from going further into the Aboriginal community -- will the sign have to come down? And the only Cafe was taken over by the visitation, soldiers keeping the public the other side of the fence.

Isn't this policy even worse than the paternalistic and welfare eras of the last century? Again, Canberra politicians will restrict funding, but this time when they criticise the people with the problems, the politicians take more money away. They take governance away. I am deeply sorry for this backward step. Children need to respect elders, and elders need to be able to work in partnership with specialists in education, health and the hazards which commercial food and drink have brought.

Progress comes from real partnership and respect. In all Australian communities there are some people who are wise and some who are selfish, some who are visionary and some who are greedy. This is the only "us and them" divide that should matter in our struggle for equity. Thanks to all who have formed Women for Wik, a bridge of reason, human understanding and the determination of women.

I am in the middle of reading Alexis Wright's Carpentaria, the Miles Franklin prize winner this year; it is superb, in a floating prose which snakes with an indigenous sense of mystical land forces, intersected with resonances of Old and New Testament stories to give a full sense of reverberating meaning. Wright's voice ricochets from redneck white Uptown phrases, to mining company employees following orders, to communities of dispossessed fringe-dwelling 'blackfella' people, and the ancient spirits. The sense of creation in a vast living land is ringed with cultural ironies on all sides, and much more is understood from the Aboriginal perspective than establishment whites can imagine. It has compassionate and mischievous humour.

Former prime minister slams Indigenous plan

AM - Monday, 25 June , 2007 | Reporter: Tony Eastley

TONY EASTLEY: The Government's radical plan to combat child sex abuse in Indigenous communities has come in for some harsh criticism from former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

He says John Howard's strategy is a throwback to the paternalism which previously dominated Indigenous affairs. In a joint statement with the former ATSIC chairwoman, Lowitja O'Donoghue, Mr Fraser has criticised the Government for not consulting Indigenous elders.

Mr Fraser joins us live on the line now.

Now good morning, Mr Fraser. What's your problem overall with Mal Brough and John Howard's plan for Indigenous communities?

MALCOLM FRASER: We're told there is an emergency. Quite clearly the response has been put together day by day as we go. There is an emergency, but people have known of it for 10 years, for every year of the life of the current government.

And one can ask, "why now?" but the important thing is to try and use the Government's acceptance of the emergency as a peg to do all the things that are necessary, not just saddling more police, because the condition of these communities is a symptom of many other things.

Health care needs to be there, not six monthly checks but on a continuous basis for communities. There needs to be better access to education which will give a prospect for real jobs, and there also needs to be respect. And it's in relation to that that I said it was a throwback to past paternalism because it's clearly, this plan has been put in place, announced, without any consultation with the communities.

TONY EASTLEY: Well of course Mr Brough and Mr Howard both say, look, there's been too much talking in the past and whether the plan is fully worked out or not, now is the time for action.

MALCOLM FRASER: Alright now is the time for action, but they could have been talking with communities about what they want to do, what needs to be done, for 10 years. They don't talk about it. There are a lot of reports, a lot of reports saying what really needs to be done, and now we have great emphasis on putting together a police effort.

Now that is necessary, but without adequate continuous health care, better education, without jobs, above all, without showing people respect, it's not going to work. We have a great deal to learn if we sent the people implementing this to Canada, to see what they've done with their Indigenous people. They are now light years ahead of Australia.

TONY EASTLEY: Are you drawing a linkage in your earlier remarks that this may be somehow connected to the federal poll later this year?

MALCOLM FRASER: Other people can draw that if they want to, I just want to use this as a peg, if possible, to try and get the necessary follow-up so that there will be broad-based programs, whether implemented by Northern Territory or Commonwealth is not the most important issue. But people must be treated with respect and in relation to this, to this point, they've not been.

TONY EASTLEY: Mr Brough mentioned in his interview with Peta Donald that there would be an initial six-month deployment for the extra police in the Northern Territory. How long do you think those police may have to be deployed to the Northern Territory to carry through this plan?

MALCOLM FRASER: I can't make an estimate of that because it would depend on continuing health care, education, access to jobs, giving people some hope for the future.

Look, it's only two or three months since the Government said if people want to live in remote communities, they're not going to provide services. Now, governments, including Federal Government, help provide services for white people in very, very small communities, just one particular cattle station perhaps. So why shouldn't they do the same thing for Indigenous people?

What's happened so suddenly? You know, six months ago starve them out. Now, an emergency which requires this kind of, almost military-like, action. But clearly the plan is being put together step-by-step.

TONY EASTLEY: Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, thanks for joining us this morning on AM.

Dear Mr Rudd,

It is with extreme alarm that I heard you express support for Prime
Minister Howard's proposals to take over Indigenous communities in NT,
in his averred concern over Indigenous child sexual abuse.

First, the issue has been around for decades; and people such as I
warned about it at least 20 years ago. At the time when I stated it
at a public meeting in Sydney, I was vilified by the media and
politicians as alarmist, and being hyperbolic; others were simply
ignored.

For Howard to now characterise this issue as a "national emergency" is
nothing more than a political stunt, just at the time when he is
facing an uncomfortable election. He needs to divert attention from
some of the problems that are raising their very ugly heads within the
Liberal Party, not to mention his poverty of thinking on any social
issue whatsoever.

But apart from that, the real test of his concerns about Indigenous
(or any other) kids being subject to abuse at all and any levels can
be more accurately assessed by his previous political stunts, the
"Tampa" affair, Children Overboard, the deportation of children born
of Refugees in Australian Detention Centres. The man is not only a
hypocrite, he is evil (by their deeds shall we know them - as you
would know, Mr Rudd, from your Bible).

I would have expected that you'd note it was Howard, who shortly
after assuming the office of PM, embarked on a protracted vicious
propaganda progam of demonising Indigenous Australians, which enabled
him to put a fire bomb through Indigenous programs, pretty much with
impunity, and cut $400M from Indigenous Health - never to be restored
(by him, at least). This is the PM who is responsible for the virtual
demolition of programs which were designed to overcome the very
problems which breed child sexual abuse, which cannot be crudely
reduced to a law-and-order issue.

I would also have expected you to note Howard's agenda to push the
development of the nuclear industry to which uranium is fundamental.
And guess what? Uranium just happens to be present throughout the NT,
and especially in Aboriginal Lands - just waiting for Howard's mates
to exploit it, as soon as he gets rid of the permit system, takes
control of the communities, and cuts more moneys from them - thus
ensuring their inability to mount any sort of resistance to any
nefarious activities he might wish to get up in their homelands.

Far from Howard attempting to institute measures to ensure that
Indigenous Australians will indeed get to share a place in the sun
with the likes of Howard's wealthy, privileged, mates, he, like so
many of his ultra-conservative think-alikes, is once again engaging in
the blame game. And he's about to fix it, jack-boot fashion by cutting
services in savagely punitive fashion, and metaphorically sending
these wrongdoers (Indigenous parents) to ... well ... Hell, really
- compounding the present sufferings of the little children, along
with all other members of their communities.

Anyone who ever thought that we'd build a Civil Society in this
country must surely have had the blinkers blasted off their faces by
this week's pronouncements by this vicious overlord.

That you, Mr Rudd, would put your name to Howard's proposals is a
serious indictment of your leadership, not to mention that it
signifies an alarming lack of judgement.

While it is expected that you would agree that Indigenous child sex
abuse is shocking (by the way, is it any worse than child sex abuse
which is endemic in Western society?), it is quite another thing for
you to agree to Howard's raft of proposals for dealing with the issue
in NT Indigenous Communities, which are punitive, destructive, and
frankly racist.

In order to distinguish yourself as a true alternative Leader of the
people of Australia (that is, including Indigenous Australians) you
need to clarify issues for action, such as:

- Differentiating between Howard's land grab of Indigenous communities
and the issue of child abuse;

- Making a distinction between Howard's political & economic agenda, and
the real crisis of child abuse in communities;

- Removal of permits and the Commonwealth's control of the territory
would enable Howard to place control of the mineral resources on
Aboriginal lands into private hands;

- That solutions to the crisis of child abuse have been highlighted in a
raft of domestic and international texts which do not promote
deployment of police and the military as the frontline response: it
requires a health, education, human services and housing response;

- That the Commonwealth has had the ability for decades to address this
issue and has not had the political will. Let us be clear that Howard
and Brough (not to mention Noel Pearson and Sue Gordon) are not the
"Great White Hopes" for Aboriginal Communities;

Mr Rudd, you can have access to any number of people within the
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities who would be more than
willing to assist you in establishing a distinguishing platform with
the aim of building a Civil Society, which would include happy,
healthy Indigenous communities.

There are professional Aboriginal women who have dedicated themselves
to this field for some 40 years. It is not the moral outrage of one
Aboriginal male such as Noel Pearson. I refer you to Naomi Mayers at
the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service, Gracelyn Smallwood from
Queensland who has worked with the World Health Organisation and has
been vocal on this a issue for years, and Boni Robertson. These women
are your reference points. In fact you have within the Labor party, Ms
Linda Burney who can clarify for you what and who needs to be
considered in your response, so that your leadership position reflects
integrity.

I look forward to hearing you outline a more considered policy
response to the NT situation, and particularly to John Howard's
promotion of further violence and disempowerment in Indigenous
communities, and his continuing demonisation of the people.

Pat O'Shane, AM, LLM

Let's fight these laws together

ONE of the most telling facts about the rushed Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill becomes clear when you look for how many times the word "children" or "child" appears. You would think that any legislation that is supposedly part of an emergency response to the issues raised by the Little Children Are Sacred report on child abuse in indigenous communities would have children mentioned throughout its scores of pages. Our legislators had these pages in front of them for only a day or so before they were passed by the House of Representatives with the support of both main parties.

Guess how many times the words "children" or "child" appear in the bill? One hundred? Twenty? Five? Wrong - the answer is zero.

There is no mention of children in the main bill, which supposedly addresses the emergency of child abuse. That is why the majority of indigenous leaders, academics and practitioners in social work and child protection are continuing to say that this bill has nothing to do with children. That is why the actual authors and advisers who delivered the report have condemned the Government for failing to pay due regard to their considered recommendations.

But it has everything to do with a government seeking re-election by blowing the dog whistle of racism in the guise of caring for indigenous children. It has everything to do with a Labor Party too fearful of another Tampa to act with principle and courage. It has everything to do with the assessment of the main parties that the Australian public are too racist and too uncaring of indigenous children to actually support governments doing something principled and evidence-based to tackle both the causes and the symptoms of disadvantage that lead to child abuse.

You should feel insulted. Insulted that you are seen as racist and uncaring. Insulted by the low regard in which your political leaders hold you. Insulted that the assessment of the politicians in the major parties is that you are too lazy to see past policy forming from media releases and political bluster.

But this is the way it seems always to have been for indigenous people.

The federal ALP government in 1995 commissioned the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care to prepare a National Plan for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect in Aboriginal Communities. The Keating Government sat on the plan for months, only for the Howard Government to shelve it soon after its 1996 election victory.

Guess how many times the words "children" or "child" appear in the bill? One hundred? Twenty? Five? Wrong - the answer is zero.

But this is the way it seems always to have been for indigenous people.

At the 2003 Prime Minister's Indigenous Family Violence and Child Abuse Summit, the secretariat again developed comprehensive proposals for a national indigenous children's wellbeing and development taskforce that was to include representation from all governments, the secretariat and other indigenous organisations, report directly to the Council of Australian Governments and develop measures to address child abuse and the lack of services in prevention, early childhood support, health and education. And now we can add Little Children Are Sacred to the ignored reports.

This legislation does nothing for children, nothing for indigenous disadvantage, nothing to actually stop child abuse. So what does it do? It takes control away from indigenous communities. It allows government bureaucrats to force themselves into our boardrooms. It takes over our land. It takes away our ability to have a say on who can come onto our freehold title land. It places bureaucrats in charge of our lives. And it exempts these and other actions from the Racial Discrimination Act, which means it acknowledges that some of its measures may be racially discriminatory.

This legislation is an attack on our people. How would you feel if you had to allow a bureaucrat from Canberra into your community meetings, netball committee meetings and business meetings? How would you feel if there was a law which made it OK for you to be discriminated against, just because of your race?

Are the major parties right? Or will you stand with us and fight this abuse of our people and let your local MPs and senators know what you really think?

Muriel Bamblett is chairwoman of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care.

People for a Nuclear Free Australia PNFA, support Women for Wik.

The real agenda for the Northern Territory land grab is to prepare Australia for its nuclear future.

1 There are large quantities of uranium on NT Aboriginal lands

2. The number of exploration licences for uranium in the Northern Territory has doubled on last year, with nearly 80 companies either actively exploring or having applied to explore.

3. The Howard government has appropriated Muckaty Station at Tennant Creek for radioactive waste storage by paying two Aboriginal elders $12 million for the use of their land. Tennant Creek recently experienced a 2.5 Richter earthquake and the land is laced with underground aquifers.

4. A subsidiary of Halliburton - Kellog, Brown and Root helped construct the railway line between Adelaide and Darwin, which runs adjacent to Olympic Dam, the worlds largest uranium mine and also adjacent to Tennant Creek.

5. Serco Asia Pacific, a company deeply involved in the management of British nuclear waste is now in charge of the rail passenger service on that line

6. Dr John White, a close advisor to Howard has mooted the possibility of Australia importing radioactive waste from the US they have 45,000 tonnes with nowhere to store it. InJune2007theFederal Council of the Liberal Party endorsed a foreign nuclear waste repository in Australia.

7. Prime Minister Howard and President Bush are close to signing the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership agreement GNEP, which would commit Australia to mine and enrich its uranium, export it to other countries, then re-import the resultant radioactive waste to be stored for ever more in the Australian desert.

In summary the land grab of Aboriginal tribal land in the Northern Territory has nothing to do with child sexual abuse but all to do with open slather uranium mining and converting the Northern Territory into a global nuclear waste dump.

As the radioactive elements leak and leech into the underground water systems, the water and food will become contaminated for hundreds of thousands of years, thus inducing epidemics of cancer, particularly in children, and genetic diseases for the rest of time.

This is child abuse.

For further information please visit www.nuclearfree.com.au.

Helen Caldicott, physician and author

Before entering politics in 2001 I was the founding Director of an organisation called the Katherine West Health Board. During my period at KWHB there was a transfer of responsibility for health services in the Katherine West region (stretching from the Stuart Highway town of Katherine to the W.A. border) from the Northern Territory Government to KWHB. The population of the Katherine West region was and is predominantly Aboriginal, but in contrast to some other areas in the Northern Territory (e.g Arnhem Land or Central Australia) the main form of land tenure is not inalienable freehold title under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act ("ALRA") (although there are some sizeable Aboriginal land areas), but pastoral leases. The sad fate of the Aboriginal tribes who suffered the onslaught of the pastoral invasion in the Katherine West region is set out in Deborah Bird Rose's book Hidden Histories.

It was because of the limited availability of unalienated freehold land for claim under ALRA that the Aboriginal people of the main NT pastoral areas (the Barkly and the Katherine West region) were called "the people land rights forgot". Until the Wik case the most that any of them could aspire to in terms of recovering some of their traditional land was a "matchbox" size "excision" living area.

It is easy for us to forget now the sudden gust of joy and optimism that the Wik decision in the High Court blew throughout Northern Australia. Up until that time, most people had assumed that the continuing native title interests recognised in Mabo could not survive the grant of a pastoral lease and had therefore been extinguished. The reasoning of the High Court majority in Wik was a triumph both of legal clear thinking but also of practical reconciliation. The message was that pastoralists and the traditional owners of pastoral land could share the use and ownership of the land.

The subsequent 10 Point Plan amendments introduced into the Native Title Act by John Howard substantially scuppered that initial atmosphere of goodwill, to this nation's enduring shame and belittlement.

It is timely for us to all remind ourselves of the work that is still left to do to achieve land justice and harmony for Aboriginal Australians living in the pastoral areas like the Katherine West region.

Charles Perkins Oration 2007

Ms Marion Scrymgour MLA, NT Minister for Child Protection

Dear Editor,

Rural health is never far from political controversy. Often an issue makes the headlines and there are feverish announcements and great promises about taking definitive action. Then a little time passes and the politicians involved come to the realisation that there is no 'quick fix' or 'single fix' for what are complex issues, and the will to maintain the passion for the issue fades as the story disappears from the front page of the newspapers. Recently, we have all witnessed an extraordinary response to the Little Children are Sacred1 report that documents the appalling conditions in which many Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are growing up. The report suggested an urgent but multifaceted long-term response to a very complex problem.

There is no issue in health care that is as emotionally charged as child abuse and neglect. In many ways there are parallels between the way the community recoils in horror at the magnitude of the problem of child abuse in this country, just as they do when the issues surrounding the inequalities in health care and outcomes that confront many Indigenous communities in Australia are publicised. One major parallel between child abuse and its sequelae, and Indigenous health issues, is that both these enormous problems in our society are, in the main, hidden away from mainstream society as not relevant in the day-to-day life of all Australians.

Child abuse has only been recently recognised as a problem, with the first reports of physical abuse of children appearing in the literature in the 1960s 2. There may be those who claim that the problem of child abuse is only recent but I somehow doubt it. One could draw a parallel with Indigenous Australians only being granted the right to vote some 40 years ago 3. This is an important time marker as to when the relative disadvantage of Indigenous Australians in our society became public knowledge. Over the last 40 years there has at least been some progress in documenting the size and impact of these two problems, but there is still much to be done about preventing both Indigenous inequalities and child abuse from continuing to be major issues for our society.

As a paediatrician I deal with the sequelae of child abuse and neglect every week. When you are training you learn only about the clinical signs that allow you to detect a suspected case of child abuse and neglect. Initially, I was under the misconception that this work was all about trying to prove who was guilty, and somehow feeling it was my role to be 'getting even' on the child's behalf - in this way making our society a more just place. It is now 18 years since I commenced work as a paediatric resident at the Royal Alexandria Hospital for Children, Sydney, when it was still located at Camperdown, and I saw my first baby with a fractured femur. I remember the feelings of anger that welled up within me as I tried to come to terms with a badly injured infant crying in severe pain that had been inflicted by inexperienced, financially disadvantaged, frightened and yet remorseful young parents.

A response fuelled by anger does no good in cases such as these. I have learnt that child protection work is not about 'getting even'. It is about trying to put back together the shattered pieces of a family that has reached the crisis point of an abused child finally being recognised as 'at risk'. This is an ongoing process, for these children and their families need to be supported and their needs met for years after the episode of abuse has been identified 4. Recent research has shown that the majority of children who have been in and out of home care have significant mental health, developmental and learning difficulties 5,6. These families need strategies put in place to prevent further children from being abused. And those who have been abused need access to treatment and remedial education to allow them to reach their potential.

In 90% of cases of substantiated child abuse the child remains within its family of origin. A 'police state' approach to child abuse does not improve the lot for children who grow up being abused. Health policy leaders in child abuse are now looking at ways of building and developing resilience in the critical early years of an abused child's development. This should be done by supporting children identified as being at risk and their families. Initiatives like 'Families First' that include home visiting programs for new mothers are now in place and will hopefully make an impact on the incidence of child abuse and neglect in the future 7. This is a long-term investment strategy that eventually is massively more economical than investing in more police and more jails as a deterrent for child abuse. It does, however, require a far-sighted politician to invest $1 now to save $20 in two decades spent on the criminal justice system if we do not look after disadvantaged children today.

It is now some 2 months since the Little Children are Sacred Report was released with a great deal of surrounding political hype, calling for the need for an emergency government response. It is clear to all that this is a complex problem and that there is no 'quick fix' solution to the crisis. The focus of the response to date appears to have been a 'police state' approach. It doesn't appear to have focused on how to improve outcomes for child victims of abuse, nor on how to strengthen those families where child abuse has occurred, in order to prevent further cases of abuse.

It has been reported that 85% of notifications for suspected child abuse occur in non-Indigenous children in Australia8 . The lessons that will be learned in trying to address the problems confronted by Indigenous abused children in the Northern Territory need to be applied to the rest of the 256 000 suspected episodes of child abuse that are notified nationally each year, and the 23 000 children who currently live in foster and out-of-home care in Australia. Certainly Indigenous children are over-represented in this group; however, it would be a great mistake to consider that the problems identified in the Little Children are Sacred report are specifically Indigenous, or rural - they are, sadly, a national problem that requires a sustained national response.

The Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory with all their associated problems, like the children in Australia who have been abused, need to be considered on the asset side of Australia's ledger of wealth. As a society we cannot be allowed to see these two groups as liabilities to be simply eradicated or hidden. We need to strengthen the weakest and most vulnerable links in Australian Society. If we simply remove them, shortly afterwards a new weakest link will be identified as suitable for removal.

The essence of our society's humanity is in how we care for one another, particularly those in need. As health professionals, teachers and academics we need to ensure that we continue to advocate for disadvantaged groups, such as the children referred to in the Little Children are Sacred report, so that the government response is more targeted towards improving, rather than removing, the problem.

Peter Dominic Jones
Director
University Department of Rural Health & Rural Clinical School
Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle
New South Wales
Australia
References

1. Northern Territory Government of Australia. Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse: Little Children are Sacred . (Online) 2007. Available: www.nt.gov.au/dcm/inquirysaac/ (Accessed 28 August 2007).
2. Kempe CH, Silverman F, Stelle BF, Droegemueller W, Silver HK. The battered-child syndrome. JAMA 1962; 181: 17-24.
3. Attwood B, Markus A. The 1967 referendum: race, power and the Australian Constitution, 2nd edn. Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007.
4. Barber JG, Delfabro PH, Copper LL. The predictors of unsuccessful transition to foster care. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 2001; 42: 785-790.
5. Tarren-Sweeney M, Hazell P. Mental health of children in foster and kinship care in New South Wales, Australia. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 2006; 42: 89-97.
6. Jones PD, Psychiatric diagnoses in children in foster care in rural NSW. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 2005; 41: S9-10.
7. New South Wales Government. Families first. (Online) no date. Available: http://www.familiesfirst.nsw.gov.au/ (Accessed 30 August 2007).
8. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Child protection in Australia 2004-2005. AIHW cat no 26; Child Welfare Series no 38. Canberra, ACT: AIHW, 2006.