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She asked for the facts, then ignored them

By Graham Ring - posted Thursday, 30 October 2008


The fix is in. Last week the Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, hung Peter Yu and his colleagues on the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board, out to dry.

The recommendations of the Review Board's report, received by the Minister on October 13, were unambiguous and unequivocal in three key areas: The Racial Discrimination Act must be reinstated for Indigenous Territorians living in prescribed communities, blanket welfare quarantining must be abandoned, and the emasculated permit system must be reinstated.

But the Minister's response has made it clear that, for all intents and purposes, the most draconian aspects of the federal intervention into Indigenous affairs in the Northern Territory are set to continue for some time to come.

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In an act of political cunning, the Minister has framed her response in the context of the three "overarching recommendations" offered by the review team and, despite rejecting its key demands, has worded her statement in such a way as to imply basic agreement with the Review's findings. The Review's overarching recommendations were:

  1. That the Australian and Northern Territory Governments recognise as a matter of urgent national significance the continuing need to address the unacceptably high level of disadvantage and social dislocation experienced by remote communities throughout the NT.
  2. That Governments reset their relationship with Indigenous people based on genuine consultation, engagement and partnership.
  3. That Government actions affecting Aboriginal communities respect Australia's human rights obligations and conform with the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) 1975.

The first two of these recommendations are simply motherhood statements. The identification of a "continuing need to address the unacceptably high level of disadvantage" experienced by Aboriginal people is unremarkable. The contention lies in how this noble aim might be achieved.

Similarly, the proposal for Governments to "reset their relationship with Indigenous people based on genuine consultation, engagement and partnership", while a clarion call, is not a prescription for specific action. Once again, the devil must be in the detail. Governments all around the country routinely and happily ascribe language of this kind to their Indigenous affairs policies. But "genuine consultation" must be a process, not a mantra. We need to identify what it looks like: the necessary and sufficient criteria. There is no "Australian Standard" for this animal.

The final overarching recommendation - calling for the Government to conform with the requirements of the RDA - sets the Minister a much more difficult task as she attempts to duck and weave. Nevertheless, Macklin has commenced her response to this third recommendation with the same abruptly encouraging notation used in both earlier cases: "Agreed."

Hidden away in the body of the response is the news that "the current comprehensive income management system will be extended for at least 12 months". Further, the Minister advises of her intention to "design a compulsory income management policy which does not require the suspension of the RDA". This sounds suspiciously like an undertaking to find a way to work within the letter of the law, if not the spirit. In any case, it will not be until late next year that legislation to lift the RDA suspension will even be introduced into parliament.

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For its part, the Review Board's report leaves no room for such finessing. Peter Yu and his colleagues put it plainly "People who do not wish to participate should be free to leave the scheme. It should be available on a voluntary basis and imposed only as a precise part of child protection measures, or where specified by statute, subject to independent review."

Even before formally responding, the Minister had begun to distance herself from the report, and prepare the ground for the Government to diverge substantially from its findings, noting that it was only one of a "number of pieces of evidence".

The recommendations of the Report were further undermined by the decision of two members of the Board's "independent expert group" to break ranks and criticise the report's recommendations before the Minister herself had responded.

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First published in New Matilda on October 28, 2008.



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About the Author

Graham Ring is an award-winning writer and a fortnightly National Indigenous Times columnist. He is based in Alice Springs.

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