By Greg Eatock
The Howard government's decision to create a blanket punitive approach to instances of child abuse in the Top End has been a disaster for Aboriginal communities throughout the Northern Territory.
Garnishing welfare payments, and returning to a system of ration cards has forced a tremendous upheaval and heartache. Not only is it degrading and humiliating for many Aboriginal people to be using the cards rather than controlling their own money, it is also forcing thousands to flee remote communities for urban settings, which were already over crowded and bereft of basic services.
Community stores; the only viable business in many remote communities, are losing customers, as the payment system forces people to use large chains like Woolworths and Coles, rather than their local stores.
The Community Development Employment Program, which funded the delivery of basic services in many communities, has been suspended, leaving hundreds of people without an income and communities without resources to fund services like rubbish collection and maintenance.
Moreover the suspension of the permit system, which enabled Aboriginal communities to control who entered their lands and under what terms, has left many powerless to prevent complete strangers from coming into their homes.
As English is often their third or forth language, many Aboriginal people in the NT simply don't understand what is happening, or why they are not able to use their local shops anymore, and are fleeing their homelands.
They are ending up in places like Bagot Town Camp on the outskirts of Darwin, where the population has doubled in the last couple of months. There are now 1200 people crammed into 57 dilapidated houses, sharing just a handful of fridges and faulty stoves between them.
Many more have moved into the "long grass" areas on the outskirts of Darwin, where they have been subject to police raids and violence. In Alice Springs recently 188 people were arrested in a single night, 121, for drinking in a proscribed area, while many youths were detained without charge.
In order to do all this the Government had to suspend the NT's Anti-Discrimination Act 1992, so they could target the policy specifically at Aboriginal people. No one's calling it apartheid, but if there's one lot of rules for whites and another for blacks, then apartheid is the only word for it.
Our children are sacred, and we want to protect them as much as any parents, but the NT Intervention is causing nothing but pain and suffering, and should be immediately suspended.
If Jenny Macklin is serious about protecting children she'll move to reintroduce the anti-discrimination act and roll back the intervention, and if Kevin Rudd was serious about the apology he'll come to the table to create a treaty settlement.
The only way we can make up for decades of neglect it to enable Aboriginal people to regain control of their lives, instead the government going back into the bad old days of control and segregation.
It didn't work last time, so why are we making all the same mistakes again?
Sydney-based Aboriginal activist Greg Eatock has spent decades fighting for the rights of Aboriginal people all over Australia. He is currently the spokesperson for the Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition. Photo republished courtesy of The Koori Mail.