iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[Peter Lister]

Great article, so succinct (which is hard to do) - thanks mate,

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Bita

[kellymon]

The Watson article was very well written, and very interesting indeed.
Guan, Peter, others, how does this mesh with your experiences?
robert

[ididjaustralia]

Hi Robert,

Good to see you here again

The outstation that Watson went to is Donydji and it is not the exception when looking at the health and well-being of outstations as a whole. Donydji is perhaps just a little different because of its extreme remoteness and its long-standing lack of support and services, Donydji being the responsibility of the resource centre at Lake Evella. So in effect, Donydji has been failed by both white and black bureaucracies and their service providers. If it wasn't for the tireless work of Neville White, my ex-supervisor at university, Donydji would be vacant and the people swallowed up by the larger communities where, as Watson says, substance abuse and all sorts of unwholesome things have been/are happening. But elders like Tom Bidingal are tough resilient people... they're about as traditionally-oriented as you would find anywhere in Australia. The last people who knew about the technology and mythology of stone and stone tools came from this remote Ritharrngu clan.

Guan

kellymon wrote:

The Watson article was very well written, and very interesting indeed. Guan, Peter, others, how does this mesh with your experiences? robert

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[Peter Lister]

OK, personal view - and based mainly around my experiences in Ramingining ('cos that's the place I've visited most and know better) - plse keep in mind I haven't been there for 3 years and some of the things mentioned below may have changed. I think all sorts of communities have their problems and a place like Ramo. is no different in many respects. The problems are always more complicated than they first seem and as these things have taken decades to disintegrate they can't be fixed as quickly as some seem to think. Especially when you have generations of people who are now born into a welfare system and know no other way of living. Some communities are more isolated than others which we'd consider a disadvantage but it can also be a blessing. Ramo. is like that - it's physically more distant from sources of greater problems, unlike say Yirrkala that has a pub handy.....and Watson makes mention of how the remoteness of a homeland can be a healthier lifestyle.

I think that some of the superficial and unsightly aspects of community life can be rectified if the deeper problems are treated first. There are things in the Watson article that ring true for me, like the lack of control people have over many aspects of their daily lives. Certainly the stories about infrastructure breaking down and not being repaired for months or unable to be repaired at all is common, and similarly there is no-one being trained within the community to effect repairs. Examples - I recall the shop buying in a whole lot of bicycles that were all sold very quickly and they all got flat tyres very quickly but there were no spare tyres or punture kits; or when mobile phones arrived in 2003 but no-one knew how expensive it was to use them and everyone bought them and suddenly had huge phone bills or the phone battery went flat and people didn't know you had to recharge them (I'm not sure if they came with chargers) and so they thought they were faulty and threw them out. Sometimes a problem may be as simple as a wire coming adrift in a storm but no-one realizing it, yet it takes weeks for some "technician" to arrive and "fix" it at great expense. (Everything is more expensive in a place like Ramo because it is very remote - especially during the Wet season.) Much of the work done in a place like Ramo is done by outsiders which means it's very expensive. Many are balanda who live and work for a few years in the area 'cos the pay and conditions are so good (very low rent, low electricity - was free until 2004? - free water, high rates of pay for working in a remote location). They build and repair the houses, do the plumbing and electrical work and many other tasks that could be done by yolngu community members. But the contractors are used for some reason - maybe it's all OH & S stuff, I'm not really sure, but we should be training yolngu and they can do this work themselves - actually keep their own communities running. Instead, most of them have nothing to do all day and they don't need to work 'cos the government gives them money. This may sound pretty good but after a while this takes it's toll on your self-esteem and there are some serious mental health issues in communities that are not being dealt with adequately. Beyond that yolngu could actually be running the community themselves - there is a town council comprising senior yolngu but it's the balanda clerks - the beauraucrats that run the place, that organize maintenance programmes and manage the way the dollars given to the community are spent (based upon Council's decisions ??) - they run the school, the shop, the banking facility, the communications and power and sewerage etc. - they are the senior decision makers. Yolngu often do not have the skills to manage their own finances - there have been some very successful programmes to rectify this (only small scale though) but from what I've seen in Ramo, most people do not manage their own money directly - someone else, usually a balanda in an office does it for them. I'd like to think now that some of this is being done over the internet. Now, don't get me wrong - there are some jobs in Ramo that yolngu do, some work in the shop or in the workshop as mechanics or are trainee teaching or clinic staff or clerics. Some work on the garbage run or maintain the power station generators. This is a small percentage though. I'd like to see yolngu running their own communities and I'd like to see government agencies putting money into expanding existing enterprises - eg; expand the mechanics workshop so more mechanics could be trained. People have skills and employment then and there'd be more cars running rather than lying about broken that could be used in hunting and fishing etc.....I know, something like this may seem like a small thing but I think it will make a real difference to how people feel about their role and make a difference to their self esteem. Give people responsibilities and they make different choices. Such things can be applied elsewhere in other communitiy activities and enterprises - but we have to give them the resources, knowledge and skills and consult with them about what they'd like to see happen and help them realize it unti they can run it themselves - just like we'd do with any enterprise of our own.

In Ramo. each house has a normal looking fusebox on the side of it where the power supply connects to the house. This is not a normal fusebox though because it's fitted with a device that accepts a card - a 'power card'. These are common in Aboriginal communities but nowhere else in this country. One must go to the council office during its' hours of opening and purchase a 'power card' (cash only - eftpos and card facilities were first introduced in about 2003). Power cards come in different values, $10, $20 and $50 for example and you put it into this device in the fusebox. When the card runs out the power turns off. If this happens on a Sunday say, then you've got no power until the office opens on Monday - unless of course you planned ahead and happen to have a spare card somewhere....now, most people I know just aren't that organized, and when it comes to yolngu friends that aren't in a regular routine of work and weekends it's easy to forget to get a power card before the weekend to avoid a blackout. People just seem to accept this system and when the power is off, it's off and they go to someone elses house if they want to watch tele or listen to music. (Usually there's no food in the fridge so no risk of losing that). I'm told this system exists because people can't be trusted to pay their power bills......

Guan, you may be able to enlighten me on something 'cos I've never been able to get a straight answer out of anyone. It seems yolngu don't own their houses - they pay rent on them now and it seems they have to get permission to do the smallest of things to them - like hang curtains or repaint the walls. If this is the case then there is little incentive for them to invest money and effort into their houses or gardens etc. or various community projects (although some of them do).

So, if you give people money and they have no jobs and they can do nothing but sit around and be bored all day then they will pass the time drinking kava and spending their money on cards. So often old people will tell you how good the old days were - the days of the missions - this is not just fond reminiscences for them it's reality. They were healthier, they had active lives and were employed as carpenters, road builders etc - they grew fresh veges, had cattle, they built the church but they also built the houses etc. - I know several who walked all the way to Darwin to see what it was like - hundreds of kilometres - now a few years back I wanted to walk just about 20 ks to a nearby community with some young guys (in their 20's) and they wouldn't have it - they wanted to drive !!

Anyhow, I'm typing too much -it's easy to do 'cos there are so many aspects to this - but basically, yes, this is how it is and if we gave people what they wanted - just as Watson says then things would be so much better - throwing bags of money at problems doesn't usually fix it 'cos once the money is spent the problem comes back - we need to consult with yolngu and help them set and achieve goals. Equip them with the tools to make decisions in this world - listen to what they aspire to and respect them.

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Bita

[ididjaustralia]

Peter Lister wrote:

Guan, you may be able to enlighten me on something 'cos I've never been able to get a straight answer out of anyone. It seems yolngu don't own their houses - they pay rent on them now and it seems they have to get permission to do the smallest of things to them - like hang curtains or repaint the walls. If this is the case then there is little incentive for them to invest money and effort into their houses or gardens etc. or various community projects (although some of them do).

Hi Peter,

No, Yolngu in Ramo don't own their houses, not in the sense of having freehold title to them and not in the sense of having private ownership of the house they live in. Funding for housing is provided by the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program, so I guess what that means is that the government owns the houses despite the houses being built on Aboriginal land. Previously, Yolngu could do whatever they wanted to their houses... smash them up if they wanted to, or do up the house like repainting the walls etc. But the government is trying to re-define housing in remote Indigenous communities and to hold community members more responsible to the extent of making the suggestion that private ownership of houses might be a possibility.

Guan

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[ididjaustralia]

More news in today's newspapers:

Yunupingu returns to the fray...

A chance to right many historic wrongs

Rescue realities...

Guan

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[ididjaustralia]

And another:

Aboriginal groups fights Canberra's 'land grab'

Guan

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[Peter Lister]

There was a great show on ABC TV here in Oz last night - it was on '4 Corners' - titled 'Tracking the Intervention' it compared the effects thus far of the government's intervention into two very different communities in the NT. One, Maningrida in the top End (many of you will know of) and the other, Aputula in the desert. You can watch large sections of the programme and interviews with key people here;

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/

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Bita

[ididjaustralia]

Nice one Bita, thanks for that!

Guan

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[danielsaan]

ididjaustralia wrote:

Nice one Bita, thanks for that! Guan

Guan, Peter, anybody -

Is the work to be undertaken in the fact sheet (in your opinions) a Howard stunt for more votes in the general election? And does this remind anyone of the stolen generations - i.e. 'the blacks can't look after themselves, we'd better do it for them'? Or is this something a bit different?

Also, why has this happened suddenly now? And is Howard on a rampage through whiter areas of the country as well?


Dan

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Danyu

[mahoran]

Hi Peter,
That was a very nice ''article'' you wrote above. With very good, vivid examples on how they have lost control over their lives. Thanks for sharing your priceless experience with us.

mahir

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no matter how thin you chop, it has always two faces!!!

[Peter Lister]

"article" - oops, it was bit long-winded wasn't it, sorry.

I hope it posed questions though - I didn't want to be seen to be taking sides but presenting some of the attitudes I've also encountered from outside the community.

This is such a complex thing that varies from community to community and region to region so the current "quick-fix" attitude just doesn't seem to fit...

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Bita

[ididjaustralia]

Lots of interesting public commentary and debates at the moment, check out the following:

Quote:

Butt out, Yunupingu tells 'outsiders' Dewi Cooke February 27, 2008 THE Northern Territory's most influential Aboriginal leader has taken a swipe at prominent indigenous politician Warren Mundine, telling him and others to stay out of the affairs of NT communities. In a speech to a Melbourne conference, Galarrwuy Yunupingu said Mr Mundine, a former national president of the Australian Labor Party, and anti-intervention protesters such as NT leader Olga Havnen should not speak on behalf of communities over which they had no authority. "I ask people who do not own land or work closely with landowners to stop the endless commentary on these matters," he said. "And this includes not just the anti-intervention people like Olga Havnen … but also others outside the territory like Warren Mundine who has nothing to do with the territory. I ask them to stop commentating on what's good for the traditional landowners of the north. "Stop telling the world what you think is good for us without any authority from us." Mr Yunupingu was an outspoken opponent of the Howard government's intervention in the Northern Territory but changed his position after meeting then indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough. The Yolngu man brokered a 99-year lease agreement for his Gumatj clan directly with Mr Brough. The lease has yet to be signed off by the Rudd Government, but is likely to see government support flow into his clan's land in north-east Arnhem Land in exchange for land sublet through Aboriginal-controlled organisations to government and other users. At the time, Ms Havnen described his turnaround as "rather opportunistic". In his first public response to critics, Mr Yunupingu told The Age yesterday that some "so-called leaders" jumped to conclusions about his motivations. "All I was doing was talking about my own land and how it affected my family … of course, I wasn't ever talking about them," he said. "They couldn't see as far as their own noses," he said. "All people who make any comments about me and my leadership have badly missed the point and they can't blame anyone else but themselves for making mistakes." However, Mr Mundine, the chief executive of NSW Native Title Services, yesterday defended his right to speak out on indigenous issues. "I always find this argument totally ridiculous, quite frankly. If I see someone starving on the street and I don't come from that place, am I not to comment on that?" he said. "The basic issue of human rights is when you see people suffering and when you see people in poverty, you don't turn a blind eye to it." Mr Yunupingu said he wanted to open up his small community of Gunyangara to the outside world. The right to self-determination and native title was still paramount, he said, but he urged governments to provide consistent support to these remote communities to encourage economic and social development. "Aboriginal landowners are unable to develop land in a way that government can because we don't have the resources of government. And if government is willing to deliver those services any way possible, then the only thing to do is to open the door."

Source: The Age newspaper

Quote:

Bring back the missions plea from NT leader Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin March 27, 2008 REMOTE indigenous communIties in the Northern Territory need missionary-style dormitories to make sure children are fed, clothed and clean, according to the territory's most powerful Aboriginal leader. Galarrwuy Yunupingu says a return to mission-style days is needed because thousands of children are still going without breakfast nine months after the $1.5 billion federal indigenous intervention began in the territory. Community-run dormitories with cooking, showering and sleeping facilities should be built near schools, he told The Age. Mr Yunupingu, a former Australian of the Year, said the federal intervention taskforce should act urgently to build them. He said any criticism that dormitories would represent a return to the days last century when missionaries ran the communities was unwarranted. "The missionary days were good. The missionaries looked after the kids much better than the Government does today." Mr Yunupingu also said that teenagers as young as 12 were still vulnerable to sexual abuse and manipulation by men selling alcohol, drugs and pornography in the mining town of Nhulunbuy in north-eastern Arnhem land. More urgent efforts must be made to protect indigenous children who continued to live in poverty across the territory. "I see intervention people running around trying to fix doorknobs and broken windows," Mr Yunupingu said. "What has that got to do with the kids? It's not filling up their stomachs. "There are thousands of kids waking up to no breakfast in these communities … you can't turn a blind eye to it." Speaking in Darwin yesterday, Mr Yunupingu said that he would tell an economic and social outlook conference being held at Melbourne University today that 60 elders of his own people in Nhulunbuy had decided to take a stand against those who had been reportedly abusing the town's indigenous youth. The Northern Territory's Little Children are Sacred report, which prompted the federal intervention, referred to allegations of a rampant sex trade in an unnamed community where non-Aboriginal mining workers gave Aboriginal girls aged between 12 and 15 alcohol, cash and other goods in exchange for sex. The community was Nhulunbuy. Mr Yunupingu said he would not speak about individual cases, "but a 12 or 13-year-old girl is vulnerable in a community like Nhulunbuy, which is a mining town with lots of single men". "Young women are there … it's not only drunkenness, all this goes with sexual abuse, pornography, alcohol and drug abuse. My people have spoken loudly and clearly that the people behind these things are to be identified … we need to get rid of them. They are not to live in our community." Mr Yunupingu, a former head of the Northern Land Council, which represents most indigenous groups in northern Australia, has taken to walking the community's streets to speak with young people, whom he encourages to return to their homelands and families. He said other indigenous groups needed to act in the same way to save young people from lives of misery begging on the streets and living rough. Waiting for Canberra to save their children was a mistake, he said, because successive governments had not regarded Aboriginal communities as partners. Mr Yunupingu said the intervention taskforce, which he broadly supports, could not be in every community all the time. "Canberra might think something is a good idea, but it won't work unless Aboriginal people polish it to make it work. You just can't shove things down people's throats. "Over 35 years I've watched governments in Canberra do that, and when it doesn't work they blame the Aboriginal people and take their money away." Mr Yunupingu said he would also tell the Melbourne conference that other Aboriginal groups should agree to signing over their land to the Government in 99-year leases, as he has done with land at Ski Beach near Nhulunbuy. "This is about locking in the Government to provide the same services that it provides in other towns and suburbs," he said. "This is about ensuring communities get basic services like roads, houses, clinics, water, power and other things … I am stuck with a 99-year lease and I'm happy about it and other communities should be doing the same thing."

Source: The Age newspaper

Quote:

Mission-type schools backward: activist Setting up missionary-style dormitories in remote communities to house and feed Aboriginal children would be "going backwards", says an indigenous activist. Barbara Shaw, from Tangentyere Town Council in Alice Springs, said such a policy had failed in the past. She opposes a call by former Australian of the Year Galarrwuy Yunupingu for government authorities to urgently build boarding accommodation for Aboriginal children. He said thousands of children were living without proper cooking, showering or sleeping facilities. "The missionary days were good. The missionaries looked after the kids much better than the government does today," Fairfax newspapers quoted him as saying. The prominent Aboriginal leader has called for the federal intervention taskforce, set up to combat child sexual abuse in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, to urgently build boarding accommodation. But Ms Shaw, who is also with the Intervention Rollback Working Group, said the mission model did not work well for people. "The government just said sorry to members of the Stolen Generation for taking their kids away from their families," she told AAP. "This is talking about taking the kids, moving them out of their home environment and away from their families. "It would be going backwards. If Galarrwuy is talking about missionary days, everybody knows that missionaries did not work well for people ... I wouldn't want them days to come back." Ms Shaw said a Catholic School in Alice Springs was already working on a more progressive model. "They (school buses) pick them up, they take them to school, they make the kids have a shower and put the school uniform on them and, at the end of the day, the kids put their own clothes on and go home," she said. "I support helping the mothers become more responsible ... not chuck the kids into homes again." Ms Shaw said Aboriginal people should be working together on educating parents and providing a safe environment for children. "They should be staffing the schools with mothers and parents, making jobs for them, and they can still feed their kids and be close to them," she said. "Aboriginal people need to work together and help their own people ... I would want to see my kids go to school at home and rather they stay in a family house than a dormitory." The former principal of Yirrkala School in Nhulunbuy, Leon White, agreed that a mission-type education disempowered parents. "Quick solutions like: `Let's move all the kids into a dormitory', are problematic and don't really show the investment in time and in resources that's actually needed to fix up the problems that people in communities face," he said.

Source: The Age newspaper

Guan

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[ididjaustralia]

One year on since the NT Intervention began...

Lots of news today, check out the following:

Quote:

One year on, child rescue mission's results are patchy and incomplete Russell Skelton June 21, 2008 ONE year ago to the day, then prime minister John Howard described the situation of children in remote Aboriginal communities as Australia's hurricane Katrina. It was a metaphor both apt and alarming: if one defining feature of Katrina was disaster, the other was an utterly failed rescue. After recognising and wading into Australia's most catastrophic social problem, the former and the current Federal Government can commemorate one year of an incomplete and patchy rescue mission. Last June, Mr Howard, with then indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough at his side, launched the emergency intervention to curb child abuse in Northern Territory indigenous communities. This week the results of the intervention emerged from an estimates committee of the territory's Legislative Assembly. Deputy Chief Minister Marion Scrymgour, once a fierce critic of the intervention, revealed under persistent questioning that the results of the intervention were yet to show that the war on abuse was being won with a massive mobilisation of federal resources. Ms Scrymgour, the highest-ranking indigenous politician in Australia, said that intervention health checks of 773 children in 73 prescribed communities had turned up 42 cases of suspected abuse and neglect. She said 14 cases had qualified as abuse notifications and five of the referrals were not proceeded with because of insufficient information. So far no charges have been laid. Ms Scrymgour confirmed, under questioning from the former Country Liberal Party leader Jodeen Carney, that the total number of referrals to child protection authorities had been no higher than any other year despite the intervention and a marginal increase in the number of child protection officers on the ground. As Ms Carney put it, an increase in notifications expected from the intervention had not materialised. Ms Scrymgour said her child services department had anticipated 3600 notifications, but received 2627. In other words, the year of the intervention was no different to any other. Ms Carney, a supporter of the intervention, managed to establish that the territory child protection agency remained woefully under-resourced and poorly deployed. In the sparse Barkly region around Tennant Creek there are only two officers covering an area the size of Tasmania. For conspiracy theorists, Ms Scrymgour's revelations will no doubt reinforce their belief that the intervention was long-planned, ideologically driven and cynically deployed by a prime minister who had done nothing about Aboriginal disadvantage for 10 years. Few doubt the intent of Mr Brough's passionate if pugnacious crusade against child abusers that created so much collateral damage, in particular the aspersions he cast on all Aboriginal men. According to those who worked with him, Mr Brough's attitudes to abuse hardened when, early in his term, he visited the remote Aboriginal communities of Kulumbaru in Western Australia. At Kulumbaru he learned from government employees that child sex abuse was rife and that a code of silence had been imposed across the Kimberley. When 13 out of Kulumbaru's male population of 90 were later charged (including senior men who had hosted Mr Brough's visit) with offences involving children as young as three and a 13-year-old girl, Mr Brough was convinced of the existence of pedophile rings. When the Little Children are Sacred report was tabled after weeks of needless delay by then NT chief minister Clare Martin, Mr Brough was poised to act. The report's authors, Pat Anderson and Rex Wild, had identified abuse in most communities they visited, and Mr Brough persuaded Mr Howard to allow him to completely change the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were governed in the territory. But the crash-through strategy, involving hundreds of pages of legislation and cobbled together in weeks, is yet to deliver significant outcomes despite a $1 billion budget and the deployment of hundreds of public servants, police and soldiers from North Force. Without proper benchmarking, the Labor Government's Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, is finding it hard to know what has worked and what has failed. Uncertainty and confusion surround aspects of the intervention, such as welfare quarantining and the abolition of community-based employment programs, known as CDEP. Ms Macklin said this week that the Government was committed to the long haul and would continue to make indigenous health, education and housing a priority. Its strategy was about alleviating the dreadful conditions in which people lived and providing them with a way out of crowded, ghetto-ised communities where children were at risk. The minister said that quarantining had "proved to be far more complex and costly than previously thought. There have been problems with the stores, getting them set up with the right equipment; informing people of the changes before they are introduced. Many people are mobile and it has been a job in itself to track them down. Ms Macklin has ordered a review of the intervention by a team of pro-intervention specialists headed by Peter Yu, a Yawuru man from Broome and chairman of the Halls Creek management committee. Mr Yu was one of the first indigenous leaders to endorse Mr Howard's intervention. Also on the team is Marcia Ella Duncan, the chairwoman of the NSW Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce. The review team will report back in September. Like the victims of Katrina, many Aborigines living in the 73 prescribed communities and town camps are yet to realise the full benefits of the most audacious and costly social intervention in Australian history. The Federal Government has committed an extra $600 million to improve housing and education (including 200 more teachers) in the communities in coming years. As the figures released by Ms Scrymgour confirm, the war on child abuse and domestic violence in remote communities has barely begun. The first phase of the intervention, to make communities safe, still has some way to go. There has been a much-welcomed addition of 51 extra police, but comprehensive programs for violent offenders and victims are few. A senior adviser to a government agency involved in the intervention said this week that it had been an "overwhelmingly positive move, but nobody, not Howard, not Brough, not Rudd or Macklin, has been able to connect the dots. Too much is being done in isolation and not properly thought through." Brough's strategy was bold but implemented on the run. Significant parts of the agenda that Ms Macklin inherited from the previous government have been partially abandoned, as is the case with permits, or hit administrative snags. The reasons are, as always, complex. Documents reveal that: â– Welfare quarantining has been introduced in less than 60% of the prescribed communities, or to 10,000 of 19,000 recipients. While anecdotal evidence confirms it has been welcomed in the Central Desert, there have been complaints about bureaucratic bungling, and unfair targeting of functional families and the elderly. â– The partial phasing out of CDEP before the federal election last November has eradicated 1900 jobs and replaced them with 1147 real jobs. On paper at least, 753 people appear to be worse off, although significant numbers of people who were paid by the government on the cheap now have full-time, fully entitled positions. Confusion persists over Ms Macklin's plans to reintroduce CDEP in a more disciplined form to make people work ready. â– School attendance remains patchy at best. Some schools, where quarantining has been introduced, show higher attendance, while others have registered steep falls as families move to Alice Springs in search of work, medical services and to avoid more stringent alcohol bans. At Ampilatwatja, attendance has fallen from 110 to 68. At Canteen Creek it has jumped from 83 to 111. â– A number of communities with bad histories of violence and unlawful behaviour remain vulnerable without police. They include Docker River, a community west of Alice Springs near the WA border that has been pleading for a police presence since 1990. â– About 65% of children have been examined by doctors under the voluntary health checks that replaced forensic medical examinations, which were found to be intrusive and possibly illegal. The checks confirmed the prevalence of ear, nose and throat infections, but doctors such as Alex Brown, from the Baker Institute in Alice Springs, believes money should be spent on preventive programs and not on what is already known. He thinks there should be more programs aimed at Aboriginal men. "The only effective rehabilitation system we have for Aboriginal men is prison because that is where they get fed, are given some education and forced to give up alcohol. That is not the answer," Dr Brown says. But not all the news is negative. As a result of the health checks children are undergoing surgery to correct hearing and dental problems. Ear, nose and throat specialist services have been extended to 669 children, according to information released by Ms Macklin's office. Sue Gordon, retiring chairwoman of the NT Emergency Response Taskforce, says the intervention still has a long way to go, but steady progress has been made with 18 communities provided with a police presence. "Women and children in these communities feel much safer now," she says. "I have also received positive feedback about the impact of quarantining. There is less grog being consumed and more food on tables." Ms Gordon says that combating abuse, which she believes is prevalent throughout the territory, requires a long-term approach and community confidence building. She points out that the Wild-Anderson report did not produce hard evidence of abuse that could lead to prosecutions. They went into 45 communities and reported what they had been told. Ms Gordon, an experienced magistrate in Perth and author of a 2002 landmark report on indigenous abuse in WA, believes that where there is smoke there is often fire, but making a case stand up in court is another matter. "We have a code of silence, a culture of denial that makes these cases difficult," she says. "It is extremely hard to get clear evidence that will not be shot down in flames." Ms Gordon, who had a close working relationship with Mr Brough, has pointedly declined to endorse some significant changes made to the intervention by the Rudd Government. She opposes the reinstatement of the permit system and CDEP, which she believes was an excuse for the Territory Government to hire people, such as council workers and medical and teacher aids, on the cheap. There are concerns that the return of CDEP could dilute gains made from quarantining welfare. Ms Macklin said this week that it was legally impossible to quarantine CDEP payments, and that much thought was being given to what new form CDEP might take. For constitutional reasons Mr Howard limited the emergency intervention to the territory, home to less than 60,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. But many more than 120,000 indigenous Australians live in remote communities in other states. The challenge for Labor is not just maintaining the intervention, with additional housing, schools, health services and police, but extending it to regions outside the territory where conditions are just as bad and where child abuse also thrives. To complicate matters the indigenous population in many remote and rural communities is doubling every five years. The funding implications for infrastructure will be enormous and severely test the Government's resolve. For all governments the emergency intervention has become the new reality. Ridding communities of abuse involves rescuing a generation of children from wretched conditions that are unlikely to improve soon.

Source: The Age

Plenty of other online articles available, check them out here

And a video to bring it all into perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGzoGhfM24A

Guan

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