AUSTRALIA: Plan to Curb Aboriginal Child Abuse Sparks Debate

By Stephen de Tarczynski Reprint | | Print |

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Australia, Jun 27 2007 (IPS) - Australia’s federal government says its plan to protect Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory from abuse is altruistic and necessary, but a range of critics call it paternalistic, culturally insensitive and short-sighted.

The plan – details of which were released on Jun 21 – is the government’s response to the Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children From Sexual Abuse, dubbed the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report.

Released on Jun. 15, the report presents the board’s findings that the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is “serious, widespread and often unreported”. These are based on information it gathered from meetings at 45 Aboriginal communities and with more than 260 individuals, agencies and organisations across the territory.

The response from the government of Prime Minister John Howard has been swift. Mal Brough, minister for families, community services and indigenous affairs, announced emergency measures to combat the abuse.

These measures include the introduction of widespread alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land, linking welfare payments to child school attendance, and acquiring five-year leases of indigenous communities, some 60 of which are reported to have already come under federal control.

Compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children, to identify and treat any effects of abuse, were also part of the measures, but the government has now backed down, saying that health checks are no longer compulsory.

Prof. Mick Dodson, an Aboriginal activist and director of Reconciliation Australia, welcomed the government’s sense of urgency in tackling the problem and has publicly offered to work as part of the government task force implementing the plan.

In a statement advocating support for the plan, Reconciliation Australia also called on the government to consult with Aboriginal communities.

The initial phase of the plan has already begun, with survey teams commencing what the government calls “community engagement”. Officials, police and army personnel have been deployed, meeting with the community of Mutitjulu, traditional owners of central Australia’s most famous landmark, Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Prior to the deployment and meetings, there had been reports from Mutitjulu that locals feared the government’s intervention.

Some mothers, fearful that their children could betaken away – Australian authorities have a long history of doing this – have reportedly fled into the bush, while community leaders have threatened a campaign of civil disobedience, including a plan to ban tourists climbing Uluru.

There is also concern among civil society that the government’s plan will be inadequate.

“In their present form, the proposals miss the mark and are unlikely to be effective,” more than 100 indigenous and non-indigenous experts, including community welfare groups, said in an open letter to Brough. “There is an over-reliance on top-down and punitive measures, and insufficient indication that additional resources will be mobilised where they are urgently needed.”

These “top-down measures” have been described as “paternalistic” by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. One of the authors of the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report, Rex Wild, has described government officials entering indigenous communities as descending “like a plague of locusts”.

The Central Land Council, an elected body representing Aboriginal people in the southern part of the Northern Territory, says that while it agrees with the government’s assessment of the situation as an emergency, it is concerned about “hasty and ill-conceived reactions to complex issues”.

In a media statement, council director David Ross attacked the government’s unilateral response. “Some direct intervention is clearly needed, but Aboriginal leaders could have provided valuable advice about how to best target such a hard-hitting package of reforms,” says Ross.

He calls the government’s plan “a frightening example of centralised control”.

Ross also says that the government, “under the smokescreen of helping children. . .is taking the opportunity to impose its ideological agenda in relation to Aboriginal land.”

A council spokesman told IPS that the government’s “ideological agenda” was to undermine communal land ownership in favour of private tenure.

Wesley Aird from the National Indigenous Council (NIC), an appointed advisory body to the federal government, dismisses concerns over land ownership. “I think that in terms of comments about land grabs and whatever else, we’re not talking beach estates worth millions and millions of dollars,” he says.

While Aird supports the plan, he cautions that full details have yet to be worked out. “The devil is in the detail,” he says. “I’m hoping that it’s going to be done professionally and sensitively, and if it is then yes, I am behind it.”

Defending the government’s decision not to consult members of Aboriginal communities about the measures until after moving into the townships, Aird argues that indigenous communities have often failed to taken action on ongoing abuse.

“In some instances, some of the community leaders actually know what’s going on, or they haven’t acted in the past. Or in the worst cases, they would actually be aware of who the perpetrators are,” Aird told IPS.

He denies that the government’s plan is paternalistic, imploring the government to work with Aboriginal communities and organisations. “I reckon that if you come up with a concept and you embark on that concept, and as you go you work with communities and you make sure that you’re sensitive and that you’re doing things for the right reasons, then I think that it can actually deliver quite a lot of good,” says Aird.

“(But) if you head off and you think that you know all the answers and you’re just going to go in, boots and all, that’s going to be very, very tricky to convince anybody that the product is going to be worth it,” he says.

Teresa Scott, president of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, argues that the endemic and complex roots of child abuse must be addressed in any response to the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report.

Scott called for the non-government sector to work with indigenous communities to stop the current level of abuse, as well as to prevent future tragedies. “Government alone cannot solve this problem,” she says.