I
have just realised after looking over some of my previous posts I haven't
actually mentioned the Northern Territory Intervention which is probably one of
the most significant things to happen over here in the last 10 years.
Most
of us in New Zealand
may remember hearing about the child sexual abuse in Aboriginal Communities
back in 2006 as it made the News quite a bit in NZ and people were horrified by
the research that came out at the time. Basically in 2006, after
investigative journalists reported on ABCTV Lateline Program that sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in NT communities
was widespread, the Northern Territory Federal Government commissioned research here
into the problem. That research report was known as the 'Little Children are Sacred' report and you can read the full report by clicking
on it.
Within
two weeks after the report was released in 2007 the Federal Government staged a
massive intervention in the Northern
Territory called the 'Northern Territory Emergence
Response (NTER)' or 'The Intervention' as it's known by the locals. The
legislation Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 was passed
by both major parties (Labour and Liberal) and the $587 million package
included:
*
Subjecting Aboriginal children to mandatory
health checks. It saw doctors and the army rolled into all Communities in the first few weeks after the Law was introduced. A GP gives his enlightening account two years later, here.
* Deployment
of additional police to affected communities.
* New
restrictions on the sale & consumption of alcohol and kava
* Pornography filters on publicly funded computers. Pornography ban throughout the NT.
* Removal
of customary law and cultural practice considerations from bail applications
and sentencing within criminal proceedings (outlawing of 'payback' and other practices. NT now has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world).
* Quarantining
of a proportion of welfare benefits to all recipients in the designated
Communities and of all benefits of those who neglect their children. 50% of
payments go on a 'Basics Card' for food, (can not buy alcohol/cigarettes). This was initially just for Aboriginal people on welfare but after much protest it was extended to all those on welfare payments in the NT.
* The
abolition of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP)
* Expected
Aboriginal people to lease property to
the government in return for basic services
* Aboriginal children to go to school for at
least 4 hours a day (in order to learn English in Western schools)
* Commonwealth
funding for provision of community services
 |
| These signs feature on the main highways and outside communities around the NT |
 |
| Used to buy groceries with - works like an eftpos card |
The Law was introduced in such a hurry and with no consultation with Aboriginal
Communities, to address something which is not a new issue (as
the research points out) in a Federal election year. Not only is it a
'race-based' Law, that basically says all Aboriginal people are guilty and need
fixing, it also seems to take away more
from them than it gives them. The
Australian Human Rights Commission has also opposed the Law,
particularly the removal of The Racial Discrimination Act which it introduced. It ended up being reinstated in the NT in 2010 as a result.
There
also is still a lot of debate as to whether the Law has made any real difference
over the last past 5 years for the purpose of which it was created for, that being to
deal with the abuse of children in Aboriginal
Communities.
6 months after the
intervention began:
- no new charges had been laid
in connection with child sexual abuse,
- no new community-based services to
ensure the safety of children had been established,
- $88 million had been spent on
bureaucrats to control Aboriginal welfare payments.
One year after
the intervention began:
- convictions
for child sex abuse were just a few cases higher than before the intervention,
- school attendance remained static,
- sales of junk food and tobacco had
rebounded strongly and returned to historic levels.
As intervention
measures last, people find alternative ways to access prohibited items.
Now, after 5
years since the intervention:
Prior to the
intervention the suicide rate was "significantly lower" and in 1980
it was zero.
Intervention
creep comes at a price—Darwin
City Council is able to
confiscate and destroy their belongings and fine them. In Alice
Springs, Aboriginal locals blame people escaping the intervention
for a significant increase of lawlessness, drunkenness and violence, and
putting more stress on the already overcrowded town camps.
http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/northern-territory-intervention.html
So it's unclear if the 'Intervention' has achieved
much in the way of any meaningful change and opinion around here is mixed.
Most of the Health Professionals and the Police I have spoken to seem to think that its made no real difference and they still see high numbers of violence, child abuse and drunkenness, despite the Government often reporting otherwise. Most of those kids subjected to mandatory health checks when the intervention first begun are still waiting 5 years later for the hearing or dental treatment that GP's referred them for. Evidenced by the fact, 90-95% of Aboriginal inmates at Darwin Correctional Centre have hearing loss. Also as I have already blogged previously, with the Mandatory Reporting of under-aged sex now required by health professionals, it has also created other issues of untreated STI's, teenage pregnancies with no pre-natal care and increased levels of fetal alcohol syndrome babies being born. Despite all this, there is even talk about extending the Intervention even further (probably evidence in itself
that it's not working in its current form), though it's hard to know if all the
talk is not just because we are again in a Federal election year.
One
thing is clear, the government here don't seem to consult Aboriginal People in
rushing these Laws through. Also clear,
NZ is light years ahead with our indigenous grievances, indigenous
education, indigenous health, and other legislation, despite us trying to manage
our own on-going child abuse shame.
