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The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has been forced to cancel NAIDOC celebrations. 

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre says it’s been forced to cancel the annual event celebrating the culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders, because of a lack of funds.

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IT’S good that the Rudd Government has persisted with the Northern Territory intervention because, deep down, most Labor activists are far more inclined to send in the social workers than the police.

The Government is committed to the mechanics of the intervention but doesn’t always seem to have its heart in it.

Marion Scrymgour, since promoted to NT Deputy Chief Minister, spoke for many Labor activists when she called the intervention a "black kids’ Tampa".

The Government has restored the permit system that helped to bury ugly secrets, effectively dropped the pay-television porn ban and partially reinstated the old Community Development Employment Projects even though this could effectively stop welfare quarantine in the relevant towns.

To her credit, though, handling the intervention seems to have accelerated Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin’s evolution from knee-jerk leftie to responsible pragmatist.

The Government’s intervention review panel is not stacked with the indigenous policy old guard. Her support for the intervention is always about better services rather than empowering people to escape from the "living museums" that passive welfare has condemned them to, but that’s probably to keep the peace inside the Labor Party.

Macklin is an important convert because it’s uncertain whether the Government’s instinctive preference is for the "whitefellas are to blame" approach of Pat Dodson and Nugget Coombs or the "blackfellas have to take responsibility" approach of Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine.

Too few on the political Left appreciate, in former Keating government minister Gary Johns’s words, the ways in which "Aboriginal culture is inconsistent with success in a modern economy".

In her intervention anniversary parliamentary statement, Macklin said that the purpose of the intervention was to make remote indigenous communities "socially and economically viable" (my emphasis).

Even if dispossession is taken to mean that government has a higher responsibility to Aborigines than to other Australians, the production of beautiful art and connectedness to the land does not warrant the maintenance of a way of life also characterised by unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence. If people choose to live in difficult to service places, that’s their business.

Government’s job, though, is to try to ensure that people don’t have such poor command of English, limited education and unfamiliarity with working for a living that they can cope only in a welfare village.

For all its emphasis on service provision and consultation (which can so easily become an excuse for inaction), Macklin’s statement recognises that the intervention was to re-establish Australian cultural norms, not remote Aboriginal ones.

It would be unfair to judge the success of the intervention on changes to health indicators or even to school attendance after just 12 months. Changing welfare lifestyles and empowering people to live in unfamiliar surroundings is likely to take considerably longer than the five years the intervention is presently expected to last.

Still, the lack of hard data about life in remote townships needs to be addressed urgently if fair judgments are ever to be made about its success or failure.

Each school needs to keep detailed attendance records and the truancy rate needs to be published regularly. Similarly, job absenteeism records need to be kept and rates published. So does data on the number of arrests and trauma presentations at local clinics.

These statistics, at best patchy and often not published at present, are a good guide to the civic health of particular townships.

"Cultural sensitivities", it seems, are still exercising their corrosive influence; in this case preventing the demand for 100 per cent attendance (barring illness) with rollcalls throughout the day and the parents of delinquents facing automatic consequences.

It’s as if the apparently tough new policy has been engineered to make as little practical difference as possible because, deep down, policymakers still doubt their moral standing to make demands of Aborigines. The likely result is that remote Aboriginal children will continue to receive a substandard education and leave school ill-prepared for life except as welfare recipients.

So far, welfare quarantining seems to have been the intervention measure with the most impact. There is less drinking, smoking and gambling, and more nutritious food available to families because the quarantine has removed people’s choice.

This is a radical departure from previous social security practice, which regarded welfare benefits as recipients’ property to be spent at will. If it works for Aborigines, though, there’s no reason it shouldn’t also work for welfare-dependent families right across Australia.

The missionaries of old may have patronised Aboriginal culture but they regarded their work with Aborigines as a sacred trust.

The contemporary challenge is to engender a modern, secular version of that commitment. If remote Aborigines are to obtain the good education and work culture needed to close the gap in health and other indicators of disadvantage, they need long-term engagement from professionals who are very good at their jobs.

If the intervention is to work, it needs people who are prepared to see it through for years rather than months.

One way may be to increase salaries for people working in remote townships and to offer three or even five-year contracts.

A better way may be to establish a remote administrative service designed for the very best job applicants and pitched to become, through time, the public sector equivalent of the Special Air Service.

Every job in a remote indigenous township is more difficult than its equivalent in a middle-class suburb. The children are harder to teach; the illnesses harder to cure; the domestic rows less likely to settle; the logistic and co-ordination challenges much greater. It takes special people to do hard jobs well.

This should be accepted, recognised and rewarded. Having high-calibre people permanently on the spot should end the chronic inability to make decisions that turns remote township life into such a demoralising stop-start process.

Tony Abbott is the Opposition spokesman for indigenous affairs.

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A spokeswoman from the outstation of Ipolera near Hermannsburg in central Australia says the Federal Government’s intervention needs to bring its focus back to taking care of children.

Mavis Malbunka says child health checks did not happen at her outstation, despite the community wanting to be included

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 The Federal Opposition says the intervention in the Northern Territory might have to continue for the next 10 to 15 years if it is to achieve real outcomes for Aboriginal people.

A year on from the intervention, the Opposition’s Aboriginal affairs spokesman, Tony Abbott, says there is still a lack of data available about truancy rates and job absenteeism.

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Breaking the cycle of domestic violence is the aim of a week-long course being held in Lismore.

Thirty women are taking part in the course to help them better understand the problems that exist in Indigenous communities.

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Traditional owners from the Gulf of Carpentaria – who are seeking access to sacred sites on land leased to the mining company Xstrata – say they are ready for more protest action.

A spokesman for the traditional owners, Anthony Chong, says negotiations are failing and their requests to speak to the managers of the McArthur River mine continue to be ignored.

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The Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku says the future of its remote Aboriginal communities is in doubt because the Commonwealth has not confirmed whether it will continue funding them.

With only three days until the end of the financial year, the Commonwealth has not confirmed funding to maintain the shire’s operations.

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The Mayor of Alice Springs says a $50 million lease deal between the Federal Government and Tangentyere Council could be a positive step towards a more cohesive community.

Damien Ryan says living conditions in town camps will be improved after the Government negotiated a 40 year lease to control services in some Alice Springs camps.

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Statement by
Quebec Native Women’s Association/Femmes Autochtones du Québec
 Government of Canada’s
Residential School Apology
 
 Quebec Native Women recognizes the Prime Minister’s official apology concerning the genocidal experience of Aboriginal people in the history of the Residential School system. 

While the apology to Aboriginal peoples is long overdue it is contradicted by the oppressive policies of the Indian Act. 
 
The heinous crimes committed against Aboriginal children who were victims and survivors of the Residential School experience must be dealt with beyond mere apologies and monetary compensation. 

 The damages to our languages, well-being, social and political structures, and sexuality caused by Residential School, demands attention. 

The policy of assimilation through the Residential Schools system constituted a war against an identifiable group of people. 
 
And while we commend the Canadian Government on the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission we cannot ignore the Auditor General’s recent report substantiating that budgets for child welfare agencies in Canada continue to focus the majority of their efforts on the placement of Aboriginal children outside their communities and Nations.  This type of practice is reminiscent of the Residential School policy.

Consequently, the Canadian Government must acknowledge that Residential School was an act of genocide; a crime against humanity.
Apologies may be recognized but they are not necessarily accompanied by forgiveness as no nation or groups have ever been forgiven for their acts of genocide.

In order for this apology to be considered genuine, more efforts must be undertaken to correct current oppressive measures under the Indian Act that prevent Indigenous peoples from prospering socially, culturally, politically and economically.

The actions of the Canadian Government in opposing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes the apology feel hollow. 

Their opposition to the UNDRIP perpetuates the insidious, archaic Indian Act that continues to discriminate and deny Aboriginal nations their rights.

The facts and arguments reflecting the manner in which the Canadian Government continues to undermine the rights of Indigenous peoples, can be found in Amnesty

International’s 2008 Annual Report.
 
We therefore urge the Government of Canada to adequately fund Indigenous languages in a manner that is equivalent to the support given to the French and English languages; to adequately consult Aboriginal peoples in good faith on legislation that addresses issues such as matrimonial real property, Bill C-21, Bill C-47; Bill C-30 and to eliminate the sexual discrimination that exists under Section 6 of the Indian Act.
 
In order for Aboriginal communities to emerge from the negative impacts of colonization they must have access to their lands and resources; they must have the opportunities to build strong and healthy nations by taking to task the social and economic problems whose roots are firmly based in colonization.

 Canada has established itself as a rich and prosperous country at the expense and blood of Aboriginal peoples.  And while we may recognize the Government’s admission of guilt, the fact remains that many obstacles must be removed in order to give meaning to the spirit and intent of their apology.
 
Ellen Gabriel
President
 

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SOME of central Australia’s most notorious indigenous camps will receive a $50million injection of new housing under a breakthrough agreement between the Rudd Government and an influential Aboriginal land council.

Fifteen months after the Tangentyere Council turned down a $60million offer by former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough, the council yesterday agreed to pursue a new housing agreement with his Labor successor, Jenny Macklin.

In a letter to Ms Macklin yesterday, Tangentyere Council executive director William Tilmouth said the council had unanimously agreed to negotiate improvements to the housing stock of the Alice Springs town camps.

In a letter dated June 17, the Indigenous Affairs Minister had offered a $50million injection to boost indigenous housing in the Alice Springs town camps, including the immediate funding of $5.3million to allow Tangentyere to continue with upgrades to the housing.

Among the town camps governed by Tangentyere is the notorious Hoppy’s Camp outside Alice Springs, where a recent visit by The Weekend Australian found squalid kitchens, broken floorboards and children sleeping without cots.

Around Alice Springs, about 20 camps accommodate a floating population of up to 2000 Aborigines.

About half the people living in the camps are under 25.

Under the deal accepted by the council, the Government will acquire 40-year sub-leases over the land on which the houses are built.

Under the deal offered by Mr Brough last year, the Government sought to acquire 99-year leases, but offered $60million. The length of leases was considered too great to allow an agreement to be reached.

Mr Brough said earlier this week that the failure to intervene in these camps had been one of his biggest disappointments, and he blamed the council for its intransigence.

The new housing will be built through a joint program by the federal and Northern Territory governments. Major construction companies will be engaged and economies of scale will be used in an effort to keep building costs to a minimum.

In her June 17 letter, Ms Macklin said the agreement would include substantial local employment clauses, including a provision to maximise the use of local businesses and indigenous organisations such as the Tangentyere Council.

"The contractual arrangement will impose strict requirements upon the strategic alliance providers to ensure employment and training opportunities for local indigenous people," shesaid.

Ms Macklin said Tangentyere Council would be required to ensure "the best possible delivery of services to town camp residents". |

Ms Macklin’s offer opens the way for Tangentyere Council to participate in the construction and management of other community housing projects in the Alice Springs area.

The deal is expected to be finalised in Alice Springs early next month.

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