Aboriginal children not protected by NSW government

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Joel Gibson, June 30, 2007

OUTBACK NSW is plagued by a shocking lack of resources to tackle indigenous child abuse which has led to a permanent queue of 40 cases needing investigation and another 30 waiting to be heard by the courts.
More than a year after a State Government report revealed Aboriginal children in NSW are four times more likely to be abused than non-indigenous children, a senior child sexual assault specialist has painted a devastating picture of dwindling funding and shortages of expert counsellors and investigators in NSW's west.
"Hold up your hand in front of your face and you have probably got more fingers than the [number of Health Department child sexual abuse counsellors] we have in western NSW," the official told the Herald.
In some communities, child sex had become so normalised that children as young as six had been observed performing oral sex on each other. "They say they're just playing, without having any sense that it's wrong."
There are only seven police officers assigned to investigate child sexual assault in the massive western area of NSW spanning from Dubbo to Broken Hill in the west, north to Bourke and south to Balranald, the Herald has learned. They handle a continual case load of "30 to 40" investigations, which does not include the 20 to 30 that are waiting to come before the court.
When the Federal Government announced its crackdown on indigenous child abuse last week - to be focused on the Northern Territory - it accused NSW of sitting on its own report, revealing a similar crisis, for nine months.
NSW's Breaking the Silence report interviewed more than 300 Aborigines in 29 communities and found that not one could name a family unaffected by the scourge of child sexual assault.
But the State Government gave no new funding despite a request for $20 million to $40 million from the former attorney-general, Bob Debus, to implement the report's 119 recommendations.
The official who spoke to the Herald asked not to be identified but works with the Joint Investigation Response Teams that consist of specialist police from the sex crimes unit, Department of Community Services workers and child sexual abuse counsellors from the Department of Health. The official joined a chorus of politicians and social and health workers angered by a lack of resources to stamp out sexual abuse in NSW.

At times, the lack of Health Department counsellors has forced the hiring of private counsellors to talk to children who have reported abuse. In other cases, the first counselling session could not be offered until many weeks after the original disclosure.
Herald inquiries have revealed:
- A shortage of doctors forced an alleged rape victim to travel 150 kilometres from Dubbo to Orange to be examined before she could take a shower;
- Advertised positions for DoCS and Health positions in remote towns have gone unfilled for more than two years; and
- Children are less likely to reveal abuse because of a shortage of full-time police and DoCS workers on the ground.
The official said the volatile blend of alcohol and drugs, poverty and social dysfunction described by Rex Wild's report into child abuse in the NT - which spurred the Howard Government into action - was also to blame for the problems in western NSW. "You're an Aboriginal child and mum and dad are drinking and don't give a f--- and there's a nice bloke who's got a PlayStation and a warm bed and he offers you food, you're not going to dob him in, are you?"
The federal Nationals MP for Parkes, John Cobb, said DoCS workers were at breaking point. "Without exception, the DoCs people in these places will tell you they haven't got a hope of getting around all the towns."
He called for a flying squad to be sent from Sydney and for safe houses in all big towns for children removed from danger.
Dawn Fardell, the independent MP for Dubbo, said at least $20 million was needed immediately from the NSW Government: "If the Treasurer's budget analysis has a $444 million surplus, then $20 million is nothing. It should be done immediately."
The office of the Minister for Community Services, Kevin Greene, said 750 new DoCS case worker positions had already been created as part of a $1.2 billion overhaul of the department. More than half of these were in rural and regional NSW. An extra 66 DoCS case workers were bound for the department's Western NSW region this year, but this stretches as far as Albury in the south and Lithgow in the east.
The head of the NSW Sex Crimes Unit, Helen Begg, said it was police policy not to disclose the number of officers working on child sexual assault in western NSW. But she said there were 22 teams throughout the state.
At Dubbo's Grace Cottage, an Aboriginal health and family support centre, co-ordinator Elsie Gordon and health worker Teena Bonham said there was only one full-time Aboriginal position in the area to support victims of child sexual assault. Ms Bonham, employed for 28 hours a week, said she had to close the centre for days at a time and was unable to adequately follow up reports of abuse when she visited remote communities. "Out in the communities, people are saying [all the attention on the issue] is 20 years too late," she said.

Ms Gordon said indigenous community leaders in remote towns should be trained to fill roles that lay open for years, such as a recent Health Department post in Broken Hill. And both said the court system needed to be more child-friendly and include whole-family counselling.
"Our legal system is based on tangible evidence, whereas child sexual assault isn't a lot of the time," Ms Bonham said. "I wouldn't ever use a child as a witness if I had my way. I'd cross-examine the counsellors that have worked with that child there are so many little technicalities that get these cases thrown out that need to be thrown out of the Crimes Act."
The MPs and child abuse experts agreed that the problem was not restricted to Aboriginal communities. Nor was it a problem in all Aboriginal communities, they said.
This week, the NSW report's author, Marcia Ella-Duncan, said Milton Orkopoulos, the former Aboriginal Affairs minister facing child sex charges, did not take the issue seriously.
The Herald's source said it was time to act. "If you could crack open the seal in some of the far western towns, you'd do a lot of good. It's just getting in there and doing it that's the problem, having the resources to do it."

Andrew Reiner: It is unacceptable for the PM to say that NSW isn't doing enough (evn though he is obviously right). What we want to know is why he, himself, has done nothing to ensure that the NSW government discharged its obligations. The Commonwealth is just as guilty as State and Territory governments for allowing this situation to take place. Mr Howard has had elven years to do something about this - He didn't need to wait until he's about to be defeated at the elections to act!

PM's 'got it wrong' on abuse plan

From the SMH:

PM's 'got it wrong' on abuse plan, Brendan Nicholson, Tony Wright and Misha Schubert, June 28, 2007

JOHN Howard's radical plan to protect Aboriginal children from sex abuse has come under strong attack from the man whose report inspired him to act.
Days after the Prime Minister announced his unprecedented intervention, Rex Wild, QC, has accused the Government of adopting an excessively heavy-handed approach, sending people to descend on remote indigenous communities "like a plague of locusts".
Mr Wild, co-author of the landmark report Little Children are Sacred, said Canberra should have been trying to build up trust with indigenous people. "Now you'll find the problem is that people's backs are up," he told the ABC's Lateline Business.
Referring to his contact with communities before the publication of his report, Mr Wild said: "We didn't arrive with a battleship. We came gently … Now they are just having the gunships sent in."
He also said some "pretty good ideas" among his team's 97 recommendations appeared to have been ignored by the Government. Among them was a proposal to get all children from pre-school age into schools by January 2008.
By contrast, the contentious plan for comprehensive medical checks on indigenous children was not among the report's recommendations.
Asked who was advising the Federal Government now, Mr Wild said he didn't know. "Nobody phoned me from Canberra."
He said the Government, which had enormous resources and collected $6 billion a year in taxes on alcohol alone, should spend more to help fix problems in Aboriginal communities, such as the shortage of housing.
The comments came as the first federal survey teams moved into remote NT communities to begin planning the emergency measures, while Mr Howard staunchly defended his actions.
Rejecting claims that his intervention was driven by cynical politics, Mr Howard declared: "I believe in my heart it is absolutely right.
"We only have three years (in the electoral cycle), and if you cut out a year of that … because it's too political to take a decision, you end up paralysing government for a third of your term."
Olga Havnen, a prominent NT Aboriginal leader, said that while action was very welcome, the lightning pace of the intervention would overwhelm many people.
"If the expectation is that this is going to be an externally driven approach delivered at a rapid pace, I suspect you will find that people just will not be able to cope," she said.
Ms Havnen said she could not give Aboriginal parents a guarantee that the Government would not try to remove their children as part of the intervention. But Health Minister Tony Abbott, in Alice Springs, insisted the plan was "certainly not about taking kids away" and said it was not possible to do the child health checks proposed in the plan without parental consent.

Democrats senator Andrew Murray, who drove a Senate report into children in institutional care, urged the taskforce not to repeat the mistakes of the past. His inquiry found vulnerable children had been subjected to what amounted to "state-sanctioned rape" by medical examiners that haunted them for the rest of their lives.
Senator Murray urged the adoption of strict medical protocols to protect children.
Intervention taskforce member Bill Glasson, a former head of the Australian Medical Association, said sensitivity would be paramount, noting "we can't go in there with guns blazing".
A senior Federal Government adviser on indigenous substance abuse warned that banning alcohol in Aboriginal communities could cost lives.
Ted Wilkes, chairman of the Government's National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee, said a chronic shortage of treatment services in the NT meant people with alcohol addiction faced dangerous withdrawal without support.
He has held meetings with Canberra health and drug strategy advisers to warn against a blanket ban on alcohol in Aboriginal communities without investment in rehabilitation.
Meanwhile, three police are to be sent next week to the troubled Central Desert community of Mutitjulu, in the first deployment under the federal plan. They will take up their posts next Friday, after a seven-day training course at a police college in Darwin, and be accompanied by a Northern Territory police officer.
With AAP

Chronic shortage of staff in NSW welfare agency

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Abuse not just black problem, Joel Gibson and Stephanie Peatling, June 28, 2007

INDIGENOUS leaders in western NSW fear that child sexual abuse is being cast as a black-only issue following a local MP's claim that urgent intervention is needed to help children at risk.
The Assistant Environment Minister, John Cobb, whose Parkes electorate takes in much of western NSW, said a "chronic shortage" of Department of Community Services staff meant there was a backlog of child abuse cases in NSW towns such as Dubbo and Brewarrina.
"DoCS officers in far western communities are working flat out and are suffering from high burnout and stress levels," Mr Cobb said. "Couple this with the fact there is simply not enough of them to thoroughly investigate and follow up on all cases reported to them. We are experiencing a crisis."
Safe houses were also needed in many towns so children could escape abusive homes, he said.
But a Dubbo councillor and Aboriginal elder, Rod Towney, said he wanted to see more evidence before supporting draconian measures that could tar all Aboriginal men with the same brush. "I feel uncomfortable with it because these things are happening in the wider community," Mr Towney said. "It does seem to be rife, from what I read, so you just can't target one group of people without looking at the rest of them."
Other sources expressed a desire for another organisation to be created between indigenous people and DoCS, which is widely mistrusted by Aboriginal families.
Additional resources in many towns have not been allocated despite the now two-year-old "Breaking the Silence" report on child abuse in NSW.

Andrew Reiner: Mr Howard and Mr Brough say they are willing to spend whatever it takes to "fix" this problem. Yet not a word has been spoken about the increased funding to DoCS to enable it to do its job by employing more staff, including Aboriginal staff, or to provide them with training. The PM's strategy is not intended to solve this issue at all. It is intended to impress voters. Yet even in this story, which the Herald has had the wisdom to publish, there is not even a hint that the PM should be held to his word and asked to increase funding to the NSW State Government. These issues are simply not being raised. It is, I'm afraid to say, racism and ignorance that enables the media and the public to remain silent on this. The Commonwealth also needs to provide additional funding for police, since that has clearly been identified as an issue both in NSW and other States. The focus on the Northern Territory is misguided and counterproductive.

Pedophiles active in Northern Territory jails

Pedophiles still active in Territory jails, Lindsay Murdoch in Darwin, June 28, 2007
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A RING of convicted Aboriginal pedophiles has been abusing young indigenous prisoners in an Alice Springs jail for years, say the Northern Territory Prison Officers Association and a reliable prison source.
It includes Harrison Green, 47, a man whose crimes against indigenous children as young as eight are so horrific he is serving an indefinite sentence.
Green is still sharing a cell and mingling each day with up to 60 other prisoners despite allegations that he and another man lured a 19-year-old facing burglary charges into a cell and forced him to have sex earlier this year.
People decided to tell the Herald about the ring because they are worried the Federal Government's radical crackdown on child sex abuse in the Territory's remote indigenous communities could lead to the jail being flooded with more sex offenders.
"It's disgusting. A hard core group of convicted sex offenders has been preying on young vulnerable inmates for years," the prison source said yesterday.
The president of the Northern Territory Prison Officers Association, Rick Drake, confirmed there was a serious problem with sex offenders mixing with other prisoners. Mr Drake, who now works at Darwin's Berrimah jail, said the abuse was happening at the Alice Springs jail as long ago as 2000 when he worked there.
The jail is believed to have about 44 sex offenders who are accommodated with about 350 other inmates. Eighty per cent of the jail's prisoners are Aborigines.
Mr Drake said prison officers would like to see sexual predators segregated from other prisoners. But while prisoners who feared for their safety could ask to be isolated there were not enough segregated facilities in either Alice Springs or Berrimah jails to separate sex offenders.
But it was difficult to isolate somebody like Green, who was moved into maximum security after the alleged sexual assault in February, Mr Drake said.
Territory police confirmed yesterday they investigated the alleged assault after it was reported to them several weeks later. They said Green and a 33-year-old inmate will be charged on summons with having sexual intercourse without consent.
Ken Middlebrook, the Correctional Service's director of operations, said last night the alleged perpetrators of the assault had been separated from the victim and the general prison population and were "strictly monitored". He said prisoners underwent security and classification assessments and "were housed according to that".
In 2001 the Northern Territory Supreme Court dismissed an application by Green to review his sentence, finding a "high degree of probability that the offender is still a serious danger to the community".
Green's history of criminal violence dates back 20 years. It includes the brutal rapes of two girls aged eight, and a 10-year-old boy.
Rex Wild, QC, who co-wrote the Territory's child sex inquiry that prompted the Government's crackdown, argued in court in December 2000 that Green should stay in jail indefinitely.
The prison source said many inmates in their teens facing non-sexual offences were often put in dormitories with sex offenders.

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Andrew Reiner: As I wrote before, State, Territory and Commonwealth governments need to be held accountable for their inability or unwillingness to controll this monstrous issue. it is not an Aboriginal issue at all. How is it possible for any of this to be taking place? If the PM is really serious whem he says he will spend as much as necessary then here is a good place to start: spend money on jails, including more jails and more staff. This is totally unacceptable. The PM's strategy is not going to solve the problem.
Going, going, gone: radical plan to rid city of troublemakers

Abuse of children widespread in Australia - not just amongst Aborigines

The following is from the Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June 2007:

Expert critical of plan for child abuse checks, Adele Horin, June 27, 2007

A LEADING authority on child abuse has condemned plans for compulsory checks for sexual abuse on thousands of indigenous children and believes doctors may refuse to carry them out.
Dorothy Scott, the director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, and an expert adviser to the Northern Territory inquiry that produced the explosive report on child abuse, said such checks involved examining a child's genitals and anus.
She said the prospect of such mandatory checks left her "lost for words" and demonstrated the "lack of child protection expertise" in the Government's response to the Little Children are Sacred report.
"I hope the Government will not be asking doctors to force this upon children," she said, adding that examinations for sex abuse should be conducted only when there were grounds to suspect a child had been sexually assaulted, and where the examination would lead to protection of the child.
Professor Scott said the inquiry made 97 recommendations but mandatory checks for sex abuse was not one of them.
She defended the Northern Territory Government's delayed response to the report, saying it was "proper" to carefully consider such a comprehensive set of recommendations, which were based on consultations with Aboriginal communities and expert advice.
"Now that the Federal Government has overridden the Northern Territory, it should respond to every one of the recommendations, including on housing, health, law enforcement and education," she said.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, said he would work with the Australian Medical Association over coming days to determine "exactly what the health checks will include".
The Prime Minister, John Howard, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough and Mr Abbott all said that "looking for signs of sexual abuse would be on the list," the spokeswoman said. "How that is done is to be nutted out."
Professor Scott joined other experts in calling for a federal response to the plight of all children at risk because of parental alcohol and drug abuse. "This is not just an 'Aboriginal problem' - one in 10 Australian children are in this situation," she said, "and what is needed is a ban on alcohol advertising and improved funding for treatment services."
Two leading child protection organisations yesterday released a 12-point plan urging the Federal Government to adopt to better protect all children.
Joe Tucci, chief executive of the Australian Childhood Foundation, said that with 266,000 annual reports of child abuse and neglect, 50,000 of which were substantiated, "child abuse is a national emergency, but not only for children in indigenous communities".
Professor Chris Goddard, of Monash University's National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse, said: "A national emergency requires truly national solutions sustained over time."
The suggested plan includes a national abuse prevention strategy similar to that developed for depression, a national nurse home visiting service, and a national inspectorate to audit the effectiveness of state-run child protection services.

Child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities in NSW

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Minister did not act on abuse - adviser, Jacqueline Maley, 27 June, 2007

Milton Orkopoulos, the former Aboriginal Affairs Minister facing child sex charges, did not take the issue of child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities seriously when he was minister, the author of a report to the NSW Government on the subject says. Marcia Ella-Duncan, who wrote "Breaking the Silence", which has been the subject of controversy over the Government's failure to fund actions on its recommendations, said: "Child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities was not given a high priority by the former minister." Ms Ella-Duncan was the deputy director of policy and land rights in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs until May 20 last year, when she was sacked "without notice or reason" by the Director-General of the department, Jody Broun.
She also chaired the Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce that wrote the report, which the Government took nine months to respond to. During one meeting with Mr Orkopoulos, a senior staff member for the minister had referred to pedophiles by a slang term, which Ms Ella-Duncan said was deeply inappropriate. "I found it offensive and it indicated to me that the level of seriousness with which the issue was taken was not high. It certainly didn't generate confidence." Ms Ella-Duncan said her sacking came just before the details of the report were made public last June, but she did not think the two events were linked. She believed she was sacked because Mr Orkopolous was dissatisfied with the policy advice she gave him and his office. "It would be fair to say that while I was working at the department we had a very challenging relationship with the minister's office," Ms Ella-Duncan said. "It was an extremely demanding environment. We had very limited resources. I don't think the minister's office was very concerned about the obvious limitations on the department." The report was commissioned by the Attorney-General, Bob Debus, in 2003 and was based on consultations with 29 communities across the state. The taskforce found the problem of sexual abuse was under-reported and made 119 recommendations on preventing it. Although the report was given to Mr Debus in early May, the Government sat on it for nearly nine months before responding to it in January this year. Since then there has been disagreement about what action has been taken on the report's findings. A spokesman for the Premier said last week that the state had undertaken about 15 "actions" to deal with the problem, but Ms Ella-Duncan said only one of the report's recommendations had been implemented. The Treasurer, Michael Costa last year refused a request by three ministers for $20 million to $40 million to fund the implementation of the report's recommendations. "I haven't seen any investment by the NSW Iemma Government in Aboriginal affairs," Ms Ella-Duncan said. "The extent of child sexual assault in Aboriginal communities in NSW is alarming, and the Government's inaction is unacceptable." Yesterday the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, told Parliament that instead of addressing the report, the Government had "tried to cover it up and sacked its author".
"I don't know how Morris Iemma could sleep at night after reading this report and then rejecting a plea for up to $40 million in funding to address its findings."

Andrew Reiner: Not much need for comment is there? The NSW government has a great deal to answer for here. So, too, does the Prime Minister, who needs to tell us what he did to ensure a proper response from the NSW Government. For that matter, what is he doing about NSW right now? Or Western Australia? Or Queensland? Or South Australia? And why are the media so silent about the fact that the Prime Minister's strategy leaves most of Australia out in the cold? Including NSW which has more Aborigines than the Northern Territory and in which the same issues were highlighted by this report, a report commissioned four years ago?

Aborigines respond to PM's draconian actions

From this morning's Sydney Morning Herald (Why the PM's plan is the wrong way to tackle the urgent problems):

Panic, fear at rescue plan, say leaders
Lindsay Murdoch and Helen Westermen, June 26, 2007

UP TO 60 Aboriginal and other community groups from all states and territories will today deliver an open letter to the Prime Minister, John Howard, protesting at his plan to crack down on child abuse in remote indigenous communities.
The letter will urge Mr Howard to drastically change the intervention, under which teams of police and troops will be sent to the Northern Territory within days.

It will ask him to start consulting indigenous people and develop a long-term plan that strengthens families and communities and addresses the underlying causes of the abuse, such as unemployment, overcrowding and poor education.

Representatives of the organisations are travelling to Canberra, where they intend to declare their opposition to key elements of the plan.
Olga Havnen, a prominent Aboriginal leader in the Northern Territory, told the Herald last night there was a widespread belief that the intervention could cause more harm than good.
"It's crazy stuff. I don't think people have thought through the unintentional consequences," said Ms Havnen, the deputy chief executive of the Northern Land Council.
Ms Havnen said she spoke yesterday to residents of Mutitjulu, the troubled community near Uluru, which the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, has said will be the first to be targeted.

"People there are scared stiff," she said. "They want to flee, to get out of there. That's the level of panic and fear that this has caused out in the communities."

Ms Havnen, who helped organise the protest, said the intervention was radical, dramatic and regressive.

She said many people regarded the plan for every child to have a compulsory health check with "shock and horror".

"It's pretty draconian and drastic, one would have thought," she said.
The organisations supporting the protest include peak bodies such as the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Victorian Council of Social Service and the welfare arms of the Anglican, Uniting and Catholic churches.

The letter acknowledges the need for immediate action.

One of the letter's signatories, Anglicare Australia's chief executive, Dr Ray Cleary, asked why it had taken so long for the Federal Government "to recognise something that the wisdom and experience of agencies like ours have been saying for 20 years.

"The challenge will be in the detail about how the issues to be addressed are going to be undertaken in consultation with indigenous leaders and groups without it being seen as heavy-handed and another form of paternalism by the white man."
But Mission Australia's chief executive, Toby Hall, said he had decided not to sign the letter.
"We are a member of ACOSS," he said. "We do not necessarily support everything that ACOSS has to say and I think, to be honest, there were two or three paragraphs in the letter that were unnecessary and I could not support."
Mr Hall said he did not agree that the Government's proposals "missed the mark".
"I think it is a little bit early to judge what has been put out there. Obviously, the Government has said there needs to be more work to get things in place but it is also saying it is making a long-term commitment to deal with some issues and I think that is positive."

John Howard answers his critics

Readers can judge for themselves if Mr Howard's response is compelling (From this morning's Sydney Morning Herald):

This is our Katrina disaster - Howard
Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent, June 26, 2007
THE crisis in Aboriginal communities is every bit as bad as the "human misery and lawlessness" that engulfed New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, John Howard says.
In a passionate speech in which he hit back at critics of his plan to wipe out widespread pedophilia in indigenous communities, the Prime Minister said there were children in this country "living out a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect".
He said many people, including himself, were no longer entitled to be aghast at the failure of the US Government to cope with the situation in New Orleans in 2005.
"We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina, here and now," he told the Sydney Institute. "That it has unfolded more slowly and absent the hand of God should make us humbler still."
Last week he announced the Commonwealth would push aside the Northern Territory Government and, with extra police, doctors and the military, take control of about 70 Aboriginal communities for at least five years.
But up to 60 Aboriginal and community groups from all states and territories will deliver an open letter to Mr Howard today protesting against his plan, asking him to begin consulting indigenous people and develop a long-term plan that strengthens families and communities and addresses the underlying causes of the abuse such as unemployment, overcrowding and poor education.
Under the federal plan, alcohol and pornography would be banned, every child under 16 would have a health check, and welfare payments would be withheld, all in an effort to stabilise the communities and stamp out the widespread child abuse detailed in the recent report Little Children are Sacred.
Mr Howard wants the states, whose powers cannot be so easily overridden, to adopt similar measures.
"It will bring law, order and protection. Then we will start rebuilding," he said.
Mr Howard also announced that the head of his department, Peter Shergold, would meet the Minerals Council of Australia next week, in recognition that some white mining employees in remote areas were contributing to the problem. "The alcohol, the drugs, the petrol and the pornography have flowed just as readily through white as well as black hands."
He challenged criticisms made in recent days that the action was paternal, racist, culturally insensitive, motivated by election-year politics and unworkable.

He and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, would "take full responsibility for the success or failure of this plan".
"We are under no illusion that it will take time to show results and that it will have painful consequences for some people. We will make mistakes along the way."
The West Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, says the action is an election-year stunt, and he will not send the 10 police Mr Howard has asked each state for.
Mr Howard said: "If people want to interpret this as a political act, so be it. I'll cop those accusations if it galvanises all governments and responsible authorities into action." The Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, also refused to send police, saying he wanted a summit of federal and state leaders.
Mr Howard said "we don't need more meetings, we actually want something done". He bristled at comments by the ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, who called the plan racist.
"Yes, abuse occurs in mainstream society, but not on this scale and not in these appalling, virtually inescapable conditions," Mr Howard said. "This has nothing to do with race. No culture, and certainly no indigenous culture, believes child abuse is appropriate."
He called on the nation to become "a truly colour-blind society" because this was first and foremost an "exceptionally tragic situation" that needed redress. "It's an Australian problem that calls for national leadership."

THE crisis in Aboriginal communities is every bit as bad as the "human misery and lawlessness" that engulfed New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, John Howard says.
In a passionate speech in which he hit back at critics of his plan to wipe out widespread pedophilia in indigenous communities, the Prime Minister said there were children in this country "living out a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect".
He said many people, including himself, were no longer entitled to be aghast at the failure of the US Government to cope with the situation in New Orleans in 2005.
"We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina, here and now," he told the Sydney Institute. "That it has unfolded more slowly and absent the hand of God should make us humbler still."
Last week he announced the Commonwealth would push aside the Northern Territory Government and, with extra police, doctors and the military, take control of about 70 Aboriginal communities for at least five years.
But up to 60 Aboriginal and community groups from all states and territories will deliver an open letter to Mr Howard today protesting against his plan, asking him to begin consulting indigenous people and develop a long-term plan that strengthens families and communities and addresses the underlying causes of the abuse such as unemployment, overcrowding and poor education.
Under the federal plan, alcohol and pornography would be banned, every child under 16 would have a health check, and welfare payments would be withheld, all in an effort to stabilise the communities and stamp out the widespread child abuse detailed in the recent report Little Children are Sacred.
Mr Howard wants the states, whose powers cannot be so easily overridden, to adopt similar measures.
"It will bring law, order and protection. Then we will start rebuilding," he said.
Mr Howard also announced that the head of his department, Peter Shergold, would meet the Minerals Council of Australia next week, in recognition that some white mining employees in remote areas were contributing to the problem. "The alcohol, the drugs, the petrol and the pornography have flowed just as readily through white as well as black hands."
He challenged criticisms made in recent days that the action was paternal, racist, culturally insensitive, motivated by election-year politics and unworkable.

He and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, would "take full responsibility for the success or failure of this plan".
"We are under no illusion that it will take time to show results and that it will have painful consequences for some people. We will make mistakes along the way."
The West Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, says the action is an election-year stunt, and he will not send the 10 police Mr Howard has asked each state for.
Mr Howard said: "If people want to interpret this as a political act, so be it. I'll cop those accusations if it galvanises all governments and responsible authorities into action." The Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, also refused to send police, saying he wanted a summit of federal and state leaders.
Mr Howard said "we don't need more meetings, we actually want something done". He bristled at comments by the ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, who called the plan racist.
"Yes, abuse occurs in mainstream society, but not on this scale and not in these appalling, virtually inescapable conditions," Mr Howard said. "This has nothing to do with race. No culture, and certainly no indigenous culture, believes child abuse is appropriate."
He called on the nation to become "a truly colour-blind society" because this was first and foremost an "exceptionally tragic situation" that needed redress. "It's an Australian problem that calls for national leadership."

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Aborigines in Redfern tackle sexual assault and violence

From today's Sydney Morning Herald, while I am preparing a response of sorts to the Coalition Government's sudden conversion to the cause of saving Aborigines:

Joel GibsonJune 25, 2007
WHEN Redfern erupted in violence against police on the night of February 15, 2004, it might have been just a few days away from a solution to the drugs and antisocial behaviour that had plagued the Block.
In the days before the riot, a violent sexual assault by a known heroin dealer had prompted a group of Redfern's mothers and aunts to say "enough is enough". They organised an anti-violence rally at the Block for Thursday, February 19. The Sunday riot put paid to those plans. Later, a rescheduled rally drew 100 people who set about publicly shaming those responsible for the sexual assault. Within weeks, the alleged rapist had left the area, as had his brother and alleged partner in crime, said Rob Welsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council.
So began the Blackout Violence campaign, which won a NSW Violence Against Women Prevention Award in 2004 and has now received federal funding to employ a part-time officer.
Designed to inform assault victims of their rights and educate offenders, it was launched at the 2004 NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout, the state's biggest annual gathering of indigenous people, where all 85 teams wore purple armbands as an anti-violence gesture and about 2000 information kits were handed out.
The NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn said the campaign hit home. "I noticed it particularly with the women in the community. They became more willing to talk about it and confront domestic violence," said Ms Burn, who was the local area commander for Redfern until December last year.
Dixie Link-Gordon, one of the pioneers of the campaign and a survivor of violence, said it showed indigenous people were "taking care of business".
"No one's lying down, taking being beaten," said Ms Link-Gordon, mother of the South Sydney rugby league player Yileen "Buddy" Gordon and a co-ordinator at the Mudgin-Gal Aboriginal Women's Centre.
Mr Welsh used to play with the Redfern All Blacks rugby league club and now coaches the All Blacks boys teams.
Blackout Violence is one of 15 programs highlighted in Success Stories in Indigenous Health, a book launched last week by the Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, and the Opposition health spokeswoman, Nicola Roxon, and published by Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation.
Other programs featured in the book include one by Marie Stopes International, which gave red, black and yellow condoms to indigenous teenagers in regional Victoria and claims a 30 per cent reduction in unsafe sex practices.
Gary Highland, the national director of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, said the book showed the appalling state of indigenous health - evident in the 17-year life expectancy gap with non-indigenous Australians - could be fixed with "bottom-up" programs.
But these had been inadequate to cope with the scale of the problem, largely because of insufficient funding.
Mr Abbot said: "It's important that we don't just dwell on the bad news but acknowledge the improvements on indigenous health. We also need to celebrate the people who have made this happen."
Labor policy has drawn on programs in the book.

Misplaced compassion, institutional racism and the demonisation of Aboriginal people.

I don't have the time that it would require even to begin an introduction to the preface to an executive summary of an analysis of all that is wrong with the Federal Government's decision to "solve" this monstrous issue with its sudden announcement, after more than 2oo years of colonisation and of failed policy, that it intends to "take control of Aboriginal communities" in the Northern Territory, get rid of the "permit system", ban alcohol and pornography, institute compulsory medical examinations for Aboriginal babies and children below the age of 16, withhold welfare payments from parents who do not send their children to school or otherwise neglect them by, for example, not feeding them and to bring in additional police (ten from each state as well as Federal police) and even the army.

The above is in response to yet another report, one which details widespread sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in "Aboriginal communities" in the Northern Territory as well as a general breakdown of law and order in many "communities". The 316-page report, called "Little children are sacred", prepared by Pat Anderson and Rex Wild QC, made 97 recommendations to the Northern Territory Government which had commissioned the inquiry in response to credible allegations of widespread abuse of children in places like Mutitjulu, near Uluru. Justifiably losing faith in the ability and/or willingness of Clare Martin's Government to tackle this issue, the Prime Minister announced his decision to take charge of the situation in the Territory. Nobody who knows anything about what has been happening to Aboriginal people over the past several decades can doubt the need for decisive action - that is not at issue. Aboriginal people have been asking for decisive action for many decades, only to have governments of all political persuasion respond with words on paper. In choosing action over words, John Howard is right. The question is the kind of action, the timing of the announcement and the degree to which it forms part of an overall, long-term action plan.

Like most Australians, I have read only what has been published in the newspapers and heard only what has been broadcast on TV and radio. I have not seen or read the actual report itself, nor a similar report done, about a year ago, on the situation in NSW, about which I have some first hand experience from the 1980s and 1990s and, amidst all the publicity, no one has bothered to tell the public that before they weigh in with their ill-conceived comments, it might be worthwhile to obtain and read these reports, nor how we might do so if we are interested.

What follows is not a reasoned response and certainly not a detailed analysis, but some random thoughts. First, I know next to nothing about the situation of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, in spite of several years' employment in the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) in Canberra, several more as a Community Develpment Officer and advisor in rural New South Wales and several more as a consultant to an Aboriginal Land Council in Sydney (17 years in total). I'm guessing, therefore, that the hundreds - if not thousands - of people writing to newspapers and phoning radio stations throughout the country with their passionate opinions, are mostly in a similar position. We rely on what the media choose to print or televise, for the most part, supplemented by the opinions of pretty much everyone around us, since everyone seems to be an expert on this subject. We seem to know a great deal more about Aboriginal people than we do about ourselves, especially about their vices and shortcomings as human beings.

The Australian Government - that is, the Commonwealth (or Federal) Government - has had, in its various manifestations (Labour and Coalition), 40 years since the referendum to "solve" the so-called "Aboriginal problem". The State and Territory governments have had considerably longer. While the detailed descriptions of child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, are of relatively recent origin, that can certainly not be said to be the case for alcohol and drug abuse, petrol sniffing, violence (including domestic violence), despair, suicide or appalling health levels, including infant mortality. Mr Howard's sudden conversion, ten years after being elected and a few months before an election he is in danger of losing, has to be highly suspect, therefore, in spite of Mr Rudd's graciousness in supporting him. The coalition came to power ten years ago, when the situation of Aboriginal people throughout Australia, after 13 years of Labour mismanagement, was every bit as atrocious as it is now. By that time, dozens of reports had been written and countless attempts by all governments had failed miserably. I feel confident that Mr Howard and his Ministers were well-briefed on the subject. Ten years from now we will be saying much the same about this response, because it is as ill-conceived and as idelogically driven as all previous attempts (and as much done with one eye on the next election as most such decisions).

Ths first step, we are being told, is to send in the police and the army to restore order. Well, we already have laws protecting women and children from violence, sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse, so what have the police been doing for the last forty years? Not just in the Northern Territory, where the "permit system" is being blamed, but in all states, including NSW, where there is no permit system. That is to say, the first thing "wrong" with the PM's strategy is that he has failed to ask the question "Why?" much less to answer it. Yes, given that the police in the Northern Territory and the States have, for some inexplicable reason, failed to uphold the law and allowed entire communities, apparently, to degenerate into lawlessness and violence and have failed to protect women and defenceless and innocent children, restoring law and order is, indeed, a first priority - as it was ten years ago, when Mr Howard became Prime Minister. The public is not being told - and does not appear to be asking - why the present Government, previous governments (both Labour and Coalition) and State and Territory governments, have allowed Aboriginal women and children to be abused by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal men over a very lengthy period. Anyone who reads the transcript of the Lateline interview with Clare Martin last Friday evening will readily identify the Territory's irresponsibility on this isssue (See http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1954871.htm). It is not only the police in the Northern Territory and the States who have failed in their duty of care however. Each State and Territory has a "department of community services" or "family services" whose job it is to protect children from abuse and neglect. The reports make clear that they have failed to do so. I have seen nothing in any of our media to explain why they have failed so totally, nor have I seen any attempt to hold these government departments accountable for their dereliction of duty. Before the Prime Minister sends in the troops he should be able to tell us why these departments and their experienced officials have failed to protect children under their jurisdiction and what he has done during the past ten years to hold them accountable and/or to support them to do their job. I have seen no evidence that he has done any such thing.

Further, he has to explain why it is that the Territory police, instead of being partners in the exercise, are being left out in the cold, without being either consulted or informed (See today's Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/now-comes-the-hard-part--action/2007/06/24/1182623748435.html?sssdmh=dm16.266057). Some commentators have attempted to rationalise the suddenness and the lack of consultation by comparing the situation with an emergency like a tsunami. I have never heard of a tsunami that has existed for decades. The analogy is absurd. All governments are aware that this emergency has been around since the country was first colonised and become progressively worse during the last two centuries. The lawlessness, violence, alcohol abuse, petrol sniffing and appalling levels of sickness, disease and mortality, including infant mortality, have been the subject of countless reports during the last 40 years. Mr Howard can not say he didn't have time to plan the strategy properly by including State and Territory officials and Aboriginal elders. His sincerity has to be called into question on this count alone.

My own experience on the NSW mid-north-coast is that Aboriginal people turn to the police for protection when necessary but that such calls for help are often unanswered. This was one of the key findings of a report I wrote in 1985-86, while working for the Department - and one of the key recommendations therefore was that the (Commonwealth) Minister for Aboriginal Affairs initiate discussions with his State counterpart to ensure that police act to uphold the law! My department and the Minister took the usual action in such situations - nothing. I would be interested in hearing whether this kind of thing has been happening in the Northern Territory and, if so, why the PM or his Minister failed to intervene for ten years before declaring a sort of "state of emergency".

An anecdote may help to illuminate the thinking in government departments where Aboriginal people are concerned. Someone whose word I trust once told me that, twenty years ago, while a student at an Australian university, she visited the department of community services in her state (a state with a significant Aboriginal population - not NSW or the Northern Territory) with a view to doing work experience in the department. She had a specific interest in Aboriginal women's issues and child abuse, in particular, sexual abuse. She was horrified by what she was told by an Aboriginal staff meber. Yes, she was told, abuse of children existed; sexual abuse took place; but when Aboriginal people reported such incidents, they were noted in the files but no action was taken. "They just don't care about us", she said. The student suspected institutional racism was being practised in the government service. As part of her studies, therefore, she approached her university and sought permission to conduct a research project to study the practices of the government agency. She was told by the university to stay clear of the topic, as it was "a very sensitive subject" and potentially a political "hot potato".

Yes, this is just an anecdote. The question we are forced to ask is (1) Is it true? and (2) If so, is it widespread? Before we go around sending in the army it would have been useful to ask such questions. I found a similar "laissez faire" attitude in the country town where I did my research in the eighties and made recommendations to tackle them, with predictable results (viz inaction). The solution may be to do something about the institutional racism in government departments suggested by the above anecdote, rather than large-scale, compulsory and potentially traumatic medical examinations of all Aboriginal children. Such an approach is both unwarranted and blatently racist. It is also a return to failed past policies. As for sending in the army, perhaps this is to remind Aboriginal people that their conquest is not yet complete? This is very dangerous stuff - decisive, certainly; but totally inappropriate in the circumstances, not to say oppressive to an extraordinary degree.

But what strikes me as the most fundamental question is another "Why?" Anyone who has had the rare privilege of knowing Aboriginal people first hand, as human beings, as opposed to "knowing" them through media reports or casual observation as they walked past them on the street, immediately recognises that what is being reported in the media (abuse of children) is fundamentally unAboriginal. Indeed, the family is the basic and fundamental unit in the Aboriginal world and nothing can be less Aboriginal than the abuse of children, especially the sorts of sexual abuse being described in graphic detail in the media. These things are simply abhorrent to Aboriginal people, as they are to non-Aboriginal people; they are incomprehensible to Aboriginal people, as they are to non-Aboriginal people. The sorts of abuse being highlighted in the media are both unAboriginal and inhuman. Although I haven't spoken to any Aboriginal people about it recently, my guess is that most Aboriginal people feel great shame about the way they are being depicted in the media. It may not be the intention (or it may) but the result of the Prime Minister's actions and the media attention has been the demonisation of an entire race of people. One reason for the demonisation is the failure of the media - or the Government spokespersons - to point out that the behaviour being described is considered abnormal and totally unacceptable by nearly all Aboriginal people in Australia and that it is Aboriginal people themselves who have been let down by the police and other authorities who have failed to protect them, even though they themselves have been crying out for support and protection for decades (See the anecdote above; see also "Kempsey: A study of conflict", a report written by me for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1986. As I said before, that was one of the key findings of my 1985-6 study in NSW and I feel reasonably confident that it is no different anywhere else).

But back to the question "Why?". The media love to refer to "Aboriginal communities", some sixty in the Northern Territory alone, apparently, where violence, lawlessness, alcohol and drug abuse, petrol sniffing and the sexual abuse of women and children are said to be rife. Last year we heard about one such "community" in the Northern Territory called Wadeye, a "community" of some 2500 people where, we were told, gangs of youths roamed the streets terrorising everyone. The media make no attempt to tell readers that such so-called "communities" are dysfunctional, artificial environments created, not by Aboriginal people but by racist governments and officials (institutional racism at its most draconian!) who thought they knew what was best for Aboriginal people and who were prepared to use the same jack-boot approach being planned by the present government to enforce their perception of what was best for them (to "protect" them, as it used to be stated). That is to say, neither the Prime Minister, nor his government - and certainly not the media - are telling the public that this problem has been created by non-Aboriginal people, by non-Aboriginal governments, by non-Aboriginal police and welfare officers, that is to say, by the very people who are now going to "fix it", preferably before the next election.

Nor is the public being told that there exists in the Northern Territory a very different kind of "community", examples of which abound, called by non-Aboriginal people "outstations" or "homeland centres" and that, unlike the artificial communities created by governments, these represent a genuine "return to country" by Aboriginal families attempting to live an authentically Aboriginal way of life (which means, amongst other things, living in small extended family groups of some 20 or so people in which elders are still respected and their wisdom still carries authority). The movement of Aboriginal people back to their homelands (beginning in the 1960s) was a genuinely Aboriginal movement (it was also referred to as a "decentralisation" movement) and it took enormous amounts of time and energy (and considerable struggle) to elicit any kind of support from governments, especially conservative governments, who did everything in their power to support the large artificial communities and to undermine the outstation movement. Although Labour has tended to support the outstation movement and the Liberals and National Party to oppose it, it has been consistently opposed by unelected government officials (ie bureaucrats) in both Commonwealth and State and Territory departments, irrespective of which party was in power at any given time. Nor is the public being told of the dozens of success stories in these small family groups ("outstations"), in which petrol sniffing, alcohol abuse and anti-social behaviour has often been eliminated and health restored, even though the whole phenomenon was described in a Parliamentary report in 1985 (or 1986?) called, appropriately, "Return to country". At around the same time another report was tabled in the Federal Parliament concerning petrol sniffing and it referred specifically to the success of the outstation movement and to the necessity of involving Aboriginal parents and other family members if any attempt to eliminate such social ills was to be successful. All this has been forgotten. We need to know if the horrible tales of abuse being reported in the media are restricted to the large artificial communities. If they also exist in genuine outstations or homeland centres then, again, the question "Why?" needs to be asked. You can't successfully treat a problem if you do not know the cause. Nor can you successfully solve a complex social problem without involving the participants - Surely this needs no demonstration? But perhaps in John Howard's Australia the lessons of the past can be safely ignored, since nobody remembers them anyway?

I did say these would be random thoughts rather than a reasoned analysis and I have probably said enough to give some idea of why the PM's startegy is ill-conceived and can not succeed, even though there may well be some short term benefit in time for the election. Perhaps that is all we can hope for in this country, however and if even a small number of children are temporarily protected perhaps we should all be grateful. Unfortunately, however, such short-term strategies can not solve problems with a 200-year history [Rex Wild QC, co-author of the report: "“This is a problem that has developed over 200 years and it has gotten worse and worse”]. We have yet to come to terms with our origins as a nation or with the nature of the modern society we have created. As an Aboriginal woman said to me in 1985: "DAA (the Department of Aboriginal Affairs) thinks there is an Aboriginal problem. Whereas we think you're the problem". Until we as a nation - and our representatives in government - acknowledge what the real problem and its causes are, no solution can possibly work in the longer term. We will continue to do as we have always done - treat the symptoms of the national disease whose origins lie in the colonisation of this country and the disposession and oppression of its indigenous people, rather than the sickness itself. Our ignorance (and implicit racism) is the single most important impediment to such a solution. The widespread media censorship that has become progressively worse over the last two decades simply ensures that the public debate continues to be conducted without access to anything resembling the truth (See tonight's "7.30 Report on ABC TV; See also Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison, "Silencing dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate", Allen and Unwin, 2007).

Related: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/we-dont-need-military-occupation/2007/06/25/1182623792259.html?sssdmh=dm16.266222

Note: In spite of what it says below, this post was only completed at 10.45 pm on 25 June 2007.

Added 26 June 2007: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/panic-fear-at-rescue-plan-say-leaders/2007/06/25/1182623820449.html?sssdmh=dm16.266285

Compensation or recognition

I have received the following, from the City of Sydney Council, written by the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore:

STOLEN GENERATIONS LEGISLATION

I have asked the NSW Premier to introduce an Act similar to
Tasmania's Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Children Act 2006,
described by the Tasmanian Premier as a "vital step towards
reconciliation". The legislation has received strong support from the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
The Tasmanian Act provides compensation for Aborigines who were
removed from their families between 1935 and 1975, and remained in
state institutional care for more than a year. A NSW Act should also
provide for children placed in foster care.
The Tasmanian Government set up a $5 million Stolen Generations Fund,
most of which will be distributed equally among living members of the
stolen generations, who have six months to apply for compensation.
Payments of up to $5,000 (capped at $20,000 a family) are open to
children of deceased people who would otherwise have been eligible.
The Tasmanian Government has committed to streamlining claims,
including waiving charges for access to archives, child protection,
adoption, births, deaths and marriage records. The Act removes this
barrier to records access, and provides for counselling services.
The small payments are not as important as the greater recognition of
the tragedy that the official Assimilation policy caused to
individuals removed and kept away from their land and their people.

Andrew Reiner's comment: There are so many things wrong with this well-intentioned approach to the vexed issue of compensation or reparation for the gross and grotesque violations of Aboriginal people's rights since 1788, that it is difficult to know where to begin. I will write a longer comment in future. For now I will limit myself to thos one. While no amount of money could possibly make up for the injustices of the past (or the present) the amount mentioned above ($5000 per child of a deceased person, with a maximum of $20,000 per family) is almost as big an injustice as the original crime. People living in poverty may well be tempted to accept such an insult and noone can or has a right to blame them. Compare this with the compensation being paid to the consortium who built the tunnel under the city and you get some idea of our society's priorities. Recognition of the injustices, including the forced removal of children - which was one of the more horrendous things that were done (but by no means the only crime committed in our name) - is absolutely essential. If such recognition is to be followed by monetary compensation then it needs to be commensurate with the crime. Since this cannot be done (how much for a life?) then the amount on offer needs, at least, not to be insulting [To be continued]