John and Mal's excellent emergency

The NSW Council of Churches (here I need to disclose that I serve as the Council's Public Affairs Director) issued a statement on June 28 welcoming the federal initiatives in the Northern Territory, but noting that the problem was a national one, that non-Indigenous people were responsible for some of the violence and abuse documented in the Wild-Anderson Report, and that legislative and punitive measures alone could not be expected to deliver morality in accordance with acceptable community standards. The council also urged careful consultation with local communities and community leaders.

The Baptist Union of Australia, along with its mission agency Global Interaction, issued a statement lamenting the fact that "well-intentioned and well-funded programs by governments of different persuasions have done little to reverse the difficulties in the past", cautioning that "by their nature, government programs tend to be strongly bureaucratic and to provide formulated, one-size-fits-all services", and claiming "there is little evidence that child sexual abuse is worse in Indigenous communities than in other Australian communities".

Most recently, the Social Issues Executive of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney released a fine discussion paper outlining the main criticisms and arguments in support of the federal intervention, noting four process issues of concern (geographic specificity, means versus ends, use of state force, and lack of consultation), and offering a series of questions to be asked of the government and, importantly, its opponents.

The Anglican paper concludes: "Perhaps we should imagine the recent Federal Government intervention as a form of 'emergency field surgery' - a rapid response, with limited instruments, to save a patient. But it is a blunt instrument, and the ultimate solution will be complex and multi-faceted."

Clearly the Howard Government has a long way to go in progressing this initiative. I suspect a federal Labor government would have done much the same in similar circumstances. There is a great deal more of value still to be said on the new legislation, its implementation in the diverse communities affected, and the responses by those communities.

Careful attention also needs to be paid to the degree to which these policies actually resolve problems of child abuse and neglect; the ways in which alcohol and drug abuse, petrol sniffing and access to pornography increase the risk of abuse and neglect; and the extent to which the problems extend beyond remote indigenous communities into thousands of supposedly "safer" Australian suburbs, homes and families.

The churches and relevant parachurch agencies need to contribute more to the debate, and - where possible - to the solutions. And the people directly affected, all of them Australian citizens with their own hopes and fears and aspirations and perspectives, need our ongoing prayers and our genuine care. They too are our neighbours.