Bringing back 'Aunty'

Most Australians are acutely aware of a long history of whites "intervening" in Aboriginal family and community structures, justifying the removal of women and children on the grounds of violence against them. In fact, their real concern was that the white blood of "half-caste" children would be submerged in "primitive" tribal tradition if the children were not "absorbed", biologically and culturally, into the "white way of life".

We now know that these children, who were loved and cherished by their families, were placed in institutions and white homes where, in a truly shocking number of cases, they were subjected to physical and sexual violence, emotional neglect and the constant and debilitating undermining of their Indigenous identities.

While this very history gives us pause to intervene in communities where abuse is now rife, it could be used thoughtfully by the likes of Brough to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

The devastating fact of children being hurt and the clear priority for their safety and well-being threatens to overwhelm the lessons of history. The early suggestion to send in the army shows the hallmarks of understandable panic. It would hardly make children feel "safe". It would have turned their townships into militarised combat zones.

We know from history that removing children induces crises in identity, the consequences of which we arguably can see so tragically played out today in Aboriginal communities.

The argument to remove the perpetrators gains strength from collective memory of the suffering of removed children, but it also takes instruction from service providers in family violence across all communities.

Still missing however, in this excavating of histories that we know too well Howard would like to see dead and buried, is Aboriginal people. There have been many brave and extraordinary initiatives by elders, mostly women in remote communities, to halt the spread of petrol sniffing and substance abuse. These elders need to be brought to the table, empowered to act, promised the delivery of services and resources and a mix of their traditional authority and white law brought to bear on the perpetrators.

I may be naively invoking yet another colonial stereotype, but it seems to me the figure of the "Aunty" recurs in Aboriginal biography as playing a key role in the survival of Aboriginal families since white incursion.

Since white mistresses often demanded that Aboriginal domestic workers - who were often mothers - "live in" and since the pastoral work of Aboriginal fathers was often itinerant, Aboriginal life histories sometimes tell the tale of an "Aunty" home where kids were looked after and thrived among their extended families.

Perhaps each township should have some kind of "Aunty" safe home - government-funded, supported by health workers and community police, supporting mothers, linked to schools and subject to mandatory reporting so that perpetrators cannot access their victims.

If violence in Aboriginal communities has always been a part of white perception, this is surely cause not to shy away from it but to learn from the mistakes and ineptitude of the past. We need to empower the elders, particularly the women, who have despaired at the abuse and dislocation in their communities.

The remote communities need a police presence highly trained in the aftermath of colonialism on Indigenous communities, the structures of authority within those communities - where they are not being invoked to justify abuse - and in exactly how those women and children will experience "safety", given their connectedness to place and community.