The Northern Territory In(ter)vasion

Rudd appointed Jenny Macklin as his Minister for Indigenous Affairs and she claimed the administration of her portfolio would be based on evidenced-based research. She persevered with the NT Intervention in much the same manner as her Liberal predecessor who, incidentally, lost his seat at the 2007 election. After 12 months she appointed Peter Yu to head a review into the intervention (Gartrell, A. (2008) “Peter Yu to head NT intervention”, The Age, June 6).

The review recommended winding back the hard-line aspects of the intervention particularly ending the compulsory income management system and only quarantining welfare payments of those parents who actually neglected their children. It recommended the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act and the payment of compensation to those communities who had their land compulsorily acquired. (Karvelas, P. & Toohey, P. (2008) “Pressure on Government to soften the Northern Territory intervention”, October 14).

The Rudd government dug in its heels and said it intended persevering with the intervention in its existing form for at least another year. Macklin claimed that conversations she had had with store managers and some Central Australian women’s groups led her to believe that the intervention was working (Tomlinson, J. (2008) “Mad Macklin follows Mal Brough”, On Line Opinion). It seems to have escaped the Minister’s attention that such anecdotal recollections of conversations do not constitute evidence-based research in the realm of social science.

In August 2009 the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Professor James Anaya completed an 11-day tour of Indigenous communities. He found that the measures of the NT Intervention:

… overtly discriminate against Aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatise already stigmatised communities.

And that:

The emergency response is incompatible with Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights; treaties to which Australia is a party. (Hawley, S. (2009) ABC, PM program “UN Official slams NT intervention”, August 27).

National Indigenous Times reported on September 16 that no new houses have been built in the Northern Territory since the 2007 election despite expenditure of $45 million. Now that is what I consider is evidence-based research.

Running in parallel with the NT Intervention is the Queensland Government’s own version of a “welfare reform” experiment. The $48 million experiment (funded by Queensland and Federal governments) has been championed by Noel Pearson from the Cape York Institute. On April 2, 2008, doctoral student Philip Martin suggested that, “By focusing primarily on community dysfunctions and individuals' deficits …and imposing … behavioral obligations which tie Aboriginal people to services they already know to be … inappropriate, Pearson's Family Responsibilities Commissions (FRCs) threaten to add yet another complicating factor to the bizarre daily spectacle of law and order in communities.”

On September 30, 2009, Noel Pearson declared the welfare experiment to be a success because the Family Responsibilities Commissions’ review had found that:

… school attendance has increased in Aurukun, which had an average attendance rate of 37 per cent 12 months ago and now is achieving an average rate of 63 per cent, while Mossman Gorge rose from 60.9 per cent to 81.6 per cent.

Attendance at schools in Coen and Hope Vale have experienced a slight reduction, with Coen's attendance rate falling from 96.8 per cent to 93.6 per cent, and Hope Vale's attendance falling marginally from 87.6 per cent to 86.9 per cent. Those two communities have remarkably high rates of indigenous attendance compared with poor attendance rates in remote schools across the nation. (Robinson, N.& Elks, S. “Welfare tough love works as quarantining parent payments cuts indigenous truancy”, The Australian.)

Responding to exactly the same report Dr Chris Sarra, an Indigenous educator, who had substantially increased Indigenous children’s attendance when he was the Principal of Cherbourg Community School, questioned Pearson’s analysis of the review.