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Divisions over NT intervention: opposition
Monday, 6 July 2009
8:51:31 AM
NATIONAL, July 6, 2009: The federal government has failed to take action on Indigenous issues because many MPs in its own ranks are opposed to the federal intervention, the opposition says.
The government has not delivered any of the houses it promised for remote Indigenous communities in 2007 as part of the Northern Territory intervention, initiated by the previous Howard government.
Layers of bureaucracy are stalling a $700 million plan to build hundreds of houses to address overcrowding, The Australian newspaper reports.
Opposition housing spokesman Scott Morrison said the government was "compromised by the plethora of intervention sceptics and deniers".
"The government is clogging up the process with unnecessary bureaucracy that is preventing these homes from being delivered on the ground," he said in a statement.
The housing report came two days after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared Indigenous disadvantage was worse than previously thought.
The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report, released on Thursday, shows when it comes to child abuse and imprisonment rates the situation is getting worse rather than better for Aboriginal Australians.
The revelation comes 17 months after Mr Rudd apologised to the stolen generation and committed to closing the gap in Indigenous disadvantage.
It has been more than two years since the Howard government announced its intervention into remote Northern Territory communities, which has been continued by the Rudd government. - AAP
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