Gunboat lip-gloss

And:

I feel just, disgusted. There's nothing for me there. What can I say? It's going to destroy our people. That's not working together [my transcription].

Two other reports have been quietly ignored in the gunfire. Either report should have seen the responsible Governments (Federal and State) walk the plank. The first casualty was the Social Justice Commissioner's report which said that the administration of Indigenous affairs generally is stuffed (my opinion here). It includes long-term recommendations for addressing family violence. And the other was the 2007 report card on Indigenous Health (PDF 1.69MB) from the Australian Medical Association, which said the administration of Indigenous health is stuffed, although, "The bottom line, of course, remains criminal [my emphasis] underfunding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health".

So, what money are the Feds putting into it? Ken Parish at Club Troppo points out that a month later we STILL don't know.

Three to four billion dollars over five years is what Jon Altman (Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University) estimated that it would cost to do it properly. Immediately he was jumped on by the Federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin accusing him of double counting and saying: "The Prime Minister's right to say this current initiative will be in the tens of millions of dollars."

The NT Chief Minister, Clare Martin, estimated $1.5 billion was needed for housing in the NT. She was jumped on by Mal Brough saying that was political opportunism. What he was considering was "an existing $1.4 billion package for remote Indigenous housing across Australia”, insisting it not be spent "on the same system that has failed before”.

What's this all mean? Maybe that, while appalling overcrowding of houses is a major cause of health problems and perhaps of sexual abuse, the states haven't spent the money the Commonwealth gave them for improving houses because "the same system" is code for "Aboriginal land rights" and the Commonwealth wants "land rights reform" a.k.a. land rights abolition, before they'll hand the money over (at least, that's South Australia's position).

The Australian Medical Association asked the Feds for an extra $460 million a year, ($1.8 billion over four years), for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care. Dead, dead silence.

So what's the Something Big been?

The most obvious thing is that no one knows what's going on. Least of all the people the operation is supposed to help. As Andrew Bartlett points out, the Wild-Anderson report hasn't been translated into Indigenous languages yet (which was one of the reports' recommendations). Not that that matters, since the Government is ignoring the report's recommendations anyway. But lack of information breeds anxiety. Pat Dodson was told this, the Opposition spokesperson on Indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, was told this. The Taskforce was told this too, but their head blames other people. "Some people are really causing mischief". You don't need mischief-makers, when you don't tell people what they can expect - as the volunteer doctor's comment at the start of this post shows.

Today we learned what the Government has achieved so far - and Rex Wild's concern about the intervention being just a visiting swarm of locusts seems alarmingly accurate:

• 15 policemen have been stationed at a few communities. Probably a good thing - but are they just temporary - are the Feds going to keep paying for them? Apparently the NT - like WA - has found it hard to recruit and keep police officers;
   
• one permanent doctor is in place at Mutitjulu. Good! But no plans for attracting and keeping doctors in communities generally. Which everyone knows is hard;
   
• standardised health checks have begun in five communities (no longer mandatory, probably no longer all Indigenous kids, and no more direct searching for sexual abuse since they learned that's beyond the training of most volunteer GPs).
  
  And what have they found out so far? Yup, among other things, anaemia. Which Max Kamien found 37 years ago among the Aboriginal children living in Bourke. A disease of poverty which, seven years ago, the National Health and Medical Research Council. expressed concern about (Nutrition in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: An Information Paper (PDF 2.36MB)). And today we learn that the NT Government probably doesn't have the money to pay for the follow-up health care needed. Kids have been referred to an ear/nose/throat specialist when Alice Springs doesn't have one;
   
• six Government business managers and three community brokers are in place. They may know what they're doing - but it seems that the locals don't - Kerry Moir, President of the NT’s Local Government Association (LGANT) is reported in Crikey as being concerned that “there appears to be no effective co-ordination between the NT Government’s Local Government Reform program and the elements of the Commonwealth intervention that will affect local community administrations”. Track back to the Social Justice Commissioner's report ...
   
• "Drafting of legislation is well advanced to allow legislative measures to be put in place as quickly as possible." It was supposed to have been in Parliament next week. But maybe they're having trouble drafting it, since ... lots of people have pointed out there's no link between land-tenure and permits and child abuse. Every lawyer, every bush lawyer and their dog have protested this theft of property rights. AND, surely the killer argument: the NT Police Association says that abolishing permits will mean open slather for grog-runners and drug-smugglers to go into communities;
   
• Oh, and Mal Brough says that "NORFORCE personnel have been a hit with communities, particularly the children." Pretty expensive footy games, and Tonstant Weader is fwowin' up again.

And the other thing that has completely disappeared from the news is what is happening in those communities where CDEP jobs and income stopped on July 1. Salacious stories of sexual abuse are so much more marketable than the way the Government has let successful CDEP programs die, or the consequences of the loss of aged care workers, meals-on-wheels and women's centres in communities. Or the fact that the Fed made NO arrangement for the transition. It's all been quite haphazard. Cape York gets CDEP places changed to real jobs. At Umbakumba 112 people now go back on the dole.

As the decision to let the only air service in the Western Desert go broke suggested, the Feds do have a long-term solution. They said so last year - audit the remote communities, decide they're unviable, close them down, and force people into hot demountables on the fringes of cities. Completely ignoring the evidence that people often live in remote communities because the rivers of alcohol flow much faster through the fringe camps, and the diseases of poverty flourish there, without the compensation of living on one's own land. No wonder Dr Gondarra sounds betrayed.