The Northern Territory In(ter)vasion

He said: “If you focus on Aurukun, there are serious questions there about whether the improvement in attendance is the result of the welfare reforms or whether it’s the result of the injection or the investment in quality leadership and quality teaching”, which was part of the stronger, smarter educational program Dr Sarra is helping to implement at Aurukun and some other communities in Queensland.

The “stronger, smarter way is about developing exciting school cultures that embrace the positive sense of Aboriginal student identity, it’s about working cooperatively and respectfully with communities, it’s about high expectations of … teacher-student relations. (Guest, A. 2009 “Dispute over improved school attendance”, The World Today, ABC, September 30)

Such diametrically opposed interpretations of social welfare experiments are not uncommon and this is all the more reason why the public should be very wary when ideologically driven Ministers claim to be making policy decisions based on “evidence”. They are often simply choosing the most politically convenient interpretation of the statistics. To pretend that Macklin’s interpretation of the intervention is based on evidenced-based research is simply a nonsense.

On October 1, Natasha Robinson revealed that “Not one parent who chronically fails to send their child to school has had their welfare payment suspended under a federal government trial aimed at lifting woeful school attendance” at six schools in the Northern Territory. This trial has been proceeding all this year. (“No welfare cuts for parental slackers”, The Australian). It would seem that the public servants are smarter than Minister Macklin who announced the intended punitive action against truancy in January.

The intervention has resulted in thousands of Indigenous Territorians having half their welfare payments “income managed” despite the fact that they properly care for their children and ensure they go to school. Governments can only apply such policies in Aboriginal communities because they have suspended the Racial Discrimination Act.

The great pity is that no one in authority in the Rudd government has bothered to investigate a very different welfare trial being conducted by the Lutheran Church in co-operation with other national Namibian non government agencies. They selected the small township of Otjivero-Omitara largely populated by displaced farm workers where alcoholism, petty crime, poverty and low school attendance was rife. In this trial “All residents below the age of 60 years receive a Basic Income Grant of Namibian $100 per person per month, without any conditions attached (p. 2).” (Haarmann, C., Haarmann, D., Jauch, H., Shindondola-Mote, H., Nattrass, N., van Niekerk, I. & Samson, M. (2009) Making the Difference! The BIG in Namibia. Basic Income Grant Coalition, Windhoek.) People over 60 get a government aged pension.

After the first year “food poverty” in the community fell from 76 per cent of residents to 37 per cent, the rate of those engaged in income-generating activities rose from 44 per cent to 55 per cent and underweight children declined from 42 per cent to 17 per cent. Before the payment of the Basic Income grant almost half the children did not attend school now the parents of 90 per cent of children have paid their school fees, substantially more residents visit the local health clinic than before, average household debt has fallen from N$1215 to N$ 772 and crime rates fell by 42 per cent. The criticism that the Basic Income Grant is leading to increased alcoholism is not supported by the empirical evidence (ibid pp. 13-15). These remarkable results were obtained without any form of compulsion.

The leading social scientists conducting this evidence-based research in Namibia would, no doubt, feel that we have a long way to go in Australia while our welfare Ministers are tied to concepts of reciprocal obligation deriving from a 19th century poor law mentality.

The saga of the Intervention will continue until Prime Minister Rudd appoints a competent Minister for Indigenous Affairs who can relate to Aborigines in a way which respects their dignity, listens to what it is they have to say, and upholds their rights to have the same protection against racial discrimination as other Australians. Such a Minister might even try to act in ways which are compatible with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.