Getting positives from the negative

This must have some key elements. You must, for instance, ensure that the people know what is going on, preferably directly from someone in authority. It is both disrespectful and disastrous to achieving the desired outcomes not to engage very early with the people, the human beings, that you are about to shame.

And you need to be very clear that it is highly likely that you are shaming people by intervening and that it will hurt them. You therefore run a major risk of rallying support for the thugs, spivs and crooks - who are the reason for your intervention - if the people don’t know and understand what you are doing. Your targets may be scum but they are part of the group - and you are not.

Communication is at the heart of your engagement with any group of people, and particularly where you are trying to get them to change. Effective communication is not easy if the language and world view of those intervening is very different from that of the people who are the target.

In most of the roles I have carried over the last 20 years I have had to communicate with Aboriginal people. I don’t speak an Aboriginal language and certainly not all of the languages spoken in the Territory. There is no doubt that meetings where skilled interpreters are operating are dramatically different from those where we try to use English to get the message across. The establishment of an Aboriginal Interpreter Service in the Northern Territory was extremely difficult and done over strong objections, but it is now available.

Your message must be credible and honest. Your message cannot change or move. If you don’t know what you are doing then admit it up front. Then you have the chance to work with the people to identify the real problem and find solutions. If you know what you are doing, and why, then be honest, but also be aware that any insensitivity can seriously affect your outcomes. Don’t shame people unless there is a real value in it and unless you know and can live with the consequences.

I could go on but perhaps it is clear that, if you want to achieve a positive outcome, then you don’t make a shock announcement in Canberra - or Darwin for that matter - without prior advice to the people concerned. You don’t make announcements without having the message clear and the details of the long term plan mapped out. You make sure that all the elements of your plan make sense and can be explained in terms that people understand. And you ensure that, at the earliest opportunity, the people are able to take ownership of the issue and its solutions.

The product

The process is now moving into the hands of the bureaucrats, many of whom have the knowledge, understanding and experience to bring the process around and move to a more positive approach. But then you run into the problems with the “product”. What outcomes are actually being sought?

Minister Brough talks passionately of small children being saved from predators “tonight”. We can all appreciate the sentiment behind his statement but it is clear that he is not able to achieve safety for children being abused “tonight”. The statement is obviously made for impact and to demonstrate urgency.

How though will it play in remote communities? Is it a promise? It surely must be expected that this is why the police and troops are coming. Will they indiscriminately grab people and lock them up or take kids away? What exactly will the police do that they haven’t been doing all along?

Dealing with specific instances of sexual abuse of children is a specialised task. It requires an understanding of children, the nature of abuse, family relationships and wider interactions within a community along with knowledge of the law and of the ways that a child who has been abused can be helped to deal with the issues they face in the future.

Unfortunately I suppose that an announcement that squads of social workers would be formed to move into remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory would not have had the impact of troops and police who, with as much good will as they undoubtedly have, are unlikely to have the skills.

A ban on alcohol. Again it sounds good. That’s about it. Prohibition is a strategy that has not delivered in the past. Tight regulation of alcohol supply can reduce consumption by opportunistic drinkers but those dedicated to the cause will continue to drink until the desire is reduced or removed. And if they can’t get grog, then we know they will simply move on to another product.