The Debilitating Aftermath of 10 Years of NT Intervention

18 Land Rights News • Northern Edition July 2017 • www.nlc.org.au The debilitating aftermath of 10 years of NT Intervention Jon Altman* n the April issue of Land Rights News I This is of special concern to Indigenous I do this because the Intervention was Both communities were established by celebrated the 30th anniversary of the people in the Northern Territory if the heavily promoted as a major project of the Commonwealth in 1959 and 1957 progressive and supportive Blanchard Commonwealth’s constitutional territory improvement and modernisation. Who can respectively and were colloquially referred report Return to Country: the Aboriginal powers remain in place and if, as in 2007, forget Malcolm Brough’s heroic call to to as ‘the Jewel of the Centre’ and ‘the Homelands Movement in Australia. And racial discrimination laws can be suspended ‘Stabilise, Normalise and Exit’ remote NT Jewel of the North’: these were to be the I wondered what celebration or reproach at the whim of the government of the day. communities, the delivery of what can be two demonstration communities where the the 10th anniversary of the Northern thought of as a domestic ‘Marshall Plan’ to Welfare Branch was going to show to all Third are the views expressed by Territory National Emergency Response, demonstrate the developmental powers of how modernisation and development could Indigenous community leaders who are the Intervention that was militaristically the Australian government in a jurisdiction and should be delivered. also subjects of the Intervention, several launched with extraordinary media fanfare where owing to a quirk of the Australian whom I heard present views in two events In 1972 when policy shifted to self- on 21 June 2007 might elicit. Constitution it can intervene directly with held in Melbourne recently; others recorded determination there was overwhelming no checks and balances. The answers to this question are threefold. and transmitted from Alice Springs and political acceptance that the colonial Sydney; and those expressed to me directly In the 1950s and 1960s, the Commonwealth development project at these iconic First, the mainstream media provided in numerous visits I have made to the government deployed its colonial might in government settlements had failed. (But almost zero coverage of the 10th anniversary Northern Territory since the Intervention, a quest to deliver development to remote coincidentally both became important hubs or of the many events in the Northern most recently in April and July this year. Aboriginal communities on gazetted for Western Desert and bark painting artistic Territory and in southern capital cities reserved lands. movements.) where people demanded an immediate end There is a deep hurt and distress expressed to the discriminatory Stronger Futures in at the sheer brutality of the Intervention In the 21st century it looks to deploy From 2004 when ATSIC was abolished the NT laws that continue key aspects of the process that revived bitter memories for neoliberal might to deliver liberal democracy and Indigenous Australians lost political Intervention till 2022. older people of being treated as legal and the free market to remote communities voice, the self-determination that had minors by the colonial authorities during on Aboriginal-owned land, but with greatly dominated Indigenous affairs from 1972 This lack of attention is paradoxical because the assimilation era, a sense of deep enhanced and hugely expensive ministerial was proclaimed a failure by the Howard there was so much media attention focused hopelessness and disempowerment, and a and bureaucratic surveillance and control. government. It was to be replaced by neo- on the Intervention in its early days; and one sense of injustice that the belief that western colonial rule from Canberra, a new social stated government rationale for abolishing Just after the 10th anniversary of the norms are superior and need to be adopted experiment with frightening similarities to the permit system at prescribed communities Intervention, the Australian Bureau of by Indigenous people can prevail. the previous failed and highly destructive was to enhance transparency and scrutiny Statistics released the second tranche assimilation experiment also run from by the media. Once again remote Australia People recognise their vulnerability of data from the 2016 Census, the most Canberra. has become out of sight out of mind. to unilateral state intervention due to important source of information about the historical and deeply structural factors socioeconomic situation of Indigenous In Tables 1 and 2 I provide some publicly Second, the Indigenous leadership and including a high dependence on the state, people over time and compared to non- available census information on these two intelligentsia and powerful political, the fundamental change of welfare to Indigenous Australians. places and the outstations in their immediate bureaucratic and corporate actors have emphasise ‘mutual obligation’, and the fact hinterlands focusing on two things: moved on from reflecting on the outcomes Unfortunately for my analysis labour that they are black and so susceptible to people’s wellbeing as measured by income of the Intervention about which I will say market information will not be processed explicit or implicit personal vilification and and employment (bearing in mind 2016 more later, focusing instead on the issue of and available till late October this year. institutional racism. employment data are not yet available); and constitutional recognition. But we already know from a recent OECD people’s physical environment as measured These people are proud, not ashamed, of the Report Connecting People with Jobs (2017) This too is paradoxical and a little disturbing. by overcrowding. fact that they possess different and diverse that there is a gap of nearly 50% between An enduring memory for me from June cultural values from those of mainstream the overall employment rate of Indigenous These are two key areas where the 2007 was of conveys of vehicles as the Australians; but they are also aware that and non-Indigenous people in the NT, with Intervention set out to make a difference initial ‘national emergency’ militaristic such difference and diversity means that this divergence being even greater in remote through the provision of 1756 ‘real’ jobs frontline that rolled into Mutitjulu, the universalistic policies devised in Canberra communities. in government service delivery through Aboriginal community next to Uluru will inevitably be poorly designed for their the Northern Territory Jobs Package and While I have reservations about the utility seeking out alleged paedophile rings that circumstances. through the $2 billion National Partnership of such quantitative information to capture never materialised. Agreement for Remote Indigenous Housing The people I interact with are angry that many aspects of life that are meaningful to in the NT, 2008 to 2018. Uluru was also the site of the constitutional such difference and diversity cannot be remote living Aboriginal people, it is the recognition summit in May this year that recognised, acknowledged, accepted and main form of statistical picturing deployed The two tables tell a similar dismal story. delivered the ‘Statement from the Heart’ accommodated in the everyday workings of by the Australian state and its agents to First, Indigenous adults are in receipt of just that looks to eliminate possibility for any the Australian settler state. measure performance. over $200 a week in communities where future brutal episodes in Indigenous policy The people I talk to and the places I Since the release of census information on basic foods can cost 50% more than in making like the hastily and ill-conceived visit also demonstrate an absence of 27 June there has been much mainstream capital cities, they are living in deep poverty. national emergency intervention. any developmental progress since the media coverage of many aspects of But what is worse is that when adjustment is As I draft this piece the final report of the Intervention, indeed there is growing Australia’s general population; but almost made for inflation of 24% since 2006, over Referendum Council has just been publicly evidence that Indigenous people living none on what this information tells us about the past decade adult median income has released. Its main recommendation is for in remote communities in the NT have the Indigenous situation in general and in dropped significantly, people who survived the establishment of a representative First become more deeply impoverished since remote Aboriginal communities. with income under the poverty line in 2006 Nations body that will serve as a voice to the Intervention, a perverse and very tragic What I want to do here is focus on just are now deeper in poverty after 10 years of the Australian parliament. outcome that attracts little media attention; two communities Papunya in Central Intervention. and little acknowledgment or lament by The Intervention is only mentioned twice Australia and Maningrida in the Top End to those who have implemented Intervention This situation can in turn be explained by in this report in relation to the removal of demonstrate what sort of basic analysis is and Stronger Futures measures or those extremely high unemployment rates and ‘race’ powers in the Constitution and in possible to monitor key transformations in outspoken white and black advocates for this extremely low employment rates. an aspirational

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