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They were armed with a box of bandaids in one hand, a sledgehammer in the other, and in the Prime Minister's case, precious little knowledge. The well stocked toolbox reccomended by the Little Children are Sacred report was left behind. |
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BIG READ: Charge of the Band-Aid Brigade
Thursday, 28 June 2007
There have been millions of words written in mainstream media in the past fortnight about the 316-page Little Children Are Sacred report into child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory.
Precious few have actually quoted from the report.
Even fewer have reported its core findings.
Astonishing as it may sound few of the people who are now - or soon will be - living under martial law in Aboriginal communities even know the report has been publicly released, let alone that it has triggered Prime Minister John Howard’s unilateral invasion of their land and their daily lives.
Make no mistake about this.
For the children and their parents living in those communities this is a foreign takeover by a Prime Minister elected 11 years ago who had pledged to govern for all Australians.
A Prime Minister who has circled the globe but has visited a mere one or two Aboriginal communities in the Territory which he now proposes to occupy.
A Prime Minister who has not only ignored a decades old crisis which was on his doorstep the day he assumed office but whose impractical policies, prescriptions and ignorance for the past 11 years has made matters worse.
His current unilateral action, he says, has been taken in response to a report he has either not read, or has not understood.
This, perhaps, explains why his one dimensional crisis intervention, and the way he has gone about seeking to impose it, is completely at odds with what the authors of the report, and their research team, set out to achieve.
Even before Prime Minister John Howard’s announcement of his extraordinary intervention, a key member of the team who spent a grim eight months assisting Pat Anderson and Rex Wild painstakingly research, consult, analyse and write the landmark report, was clearly worried that politicians and the media were about to hijack the agenda.
He sent a powerful and elegant plea by email to a long list of people he had “handpicked” as a person “passionate about improving the lives of Aboriginal people in this country”.
This newspaper received that email on Saturday, June 16 - five days before Howard’s announcement.
The author agreed to allow NIT to publish an edited version.
The email said:
“My concern is that the media and politicians already seem to be focusing on the sensational aspects of the report and seem to once again be using these things to push their own agendas.
“Politicians are again focusing on ‘mainstream’ punitive responses - jail, police, jail, police!
“It is a broken record.
“The first (The) Australian editorial on the report did not mention the importance of empowering Aboriginal people or healing but used the report to argue that journalists should have greater access to communities.
“If that is not blatant self interest I do not know what is.
“I am sending the full report to you in the hope that you will at least glance through it and that you will refer it onto your networks. The report goes far beyond the issue of child sexual abuse and most of it’s drawn from lengthy discussions with Aboriginal people at a grassroots level.
“For that reason it is a good summary of current issues concerning Aboriginal people generally and it is just not relevant to the Northern Territory.
“You will see when you read the report that the main emphasis is on establishing meaningful dialogue with Aboriginal people, working in partnerships, empowering Aboriginal people and utilising cultural strengths to solve current problems.
“The report calls for Aboriginal people to have more involvement in the services that affect them and in the criminal justice system and for Governments to consider modifying systems and processes to better reflect the Aboriginal world view.
“Alcohol is also a massive issue. As is the question of healing. And I don’t mean healing in a “new age’ kind of way. But rather in a meaningful recognition of the devastation that has been wreaked on Aboriginal communities and in a committed effort to redress this devastation both through symbolic and practical gestures.
“I am concerned that the messages of the report will become distorted and/or forgotten unless enough people actually read the report.
“A politician friend of mine once described politics as a ‘two card trick’.
“On any given issue both sides will pick one card each from the full deck and show that to voters.
“The other 50 cards remain hidden from the public view. The public vote on the two cards that they see.
“For that reason I send you the ‘full deck’ on this issue, being the full report.
“Please read it and make up your own mind what needs to be done....”
He expressed a hope that young Aboriginal and non Aboriginal leaders would read the report, run with it and make lasting positive change.
It was a plea from the head and the heart.
The author had participated in a consultation process which had included more than 260 meetings with stakeholders around the Northern Territory, and, in some cases, interstate.
These included meetings with service delivery organisations, Aboriginal communities, government and agency staff in the main regional centres of the Territory and regional and remote communities from the Top End to the Centre, with over 65 submission received by it.
The report records that many communities expressed appreciation for the manner in which the meetings were conducted, the fact that “senior people from Government” (the Inquiry co-chairs), and that the Inquiry “talked with, rather than to communities.”
Enter PM Howard and his Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough.
Six days after NIT received the email - on the final day of the current sitting of the Federal Parliament before the long winter recess - Howard and Brough called an extraordinary “shock and awe” news conference.
Politically, the timing was exquisite.
Half an hour before the final question time before a long recess months out from the next Federal election with the Prime Minister trailing miserably in the polls, unable to make a telling dent on the electoral fortunes of a much younger and forward thinking opponent, unable to seize the political agenda, and battling a growing perception, he was tired and out of ideas.
Howard and Brough were about to seize the political agenda for at least the foreseeable future.
They announced the occupation of 60 Aboriginal towns and communities in the Territory. It was soon apparent they were armed with a box of bandaids in one hand, a sledgehammer in the other, and in the Prime Minister’s case, precious little knowledge.
The well stocked toolbox recommended by the Little Children Are Sacred report was nowhere in sight.
Under the measures outlined by Howard and Brough grog would be forbidden for six months in their occupied territories, dotted around the grog-sodden Northern Territory, which has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the world.
There would be a ban on the sale, possession, transportation “and broader consumption of takeaway sales across the northern Territory”.
Health checks, for evidence of sexual abuse, would be compulsory for the 23,000 Aboriginal children under 16 in the NT.
Fifty per cent of welfare payments would be quarantined to ensure they were used for food and other essentials.
An extra 60 police and army troops would be sent in to restore “law and order,” work for the dole recipients marshalled to clean up communities, the permit system effectively abolished, and x-rated pornography banned and publicly-funded computers audited for “evidence of the storage of pornography”.
The Commonwealth Government would “take control” of the 60 towns and communities through five year leases to “ensure property and public housing can be improved”.
The elected community councils would be pushed aside and the Commonwealth “would appoint managers of all government business in all communities”.
This would be a return to the old Mission Superintendent days.
School attendance would be compulsory in communities despite the fact that facilities in many are non-existent or are unable to house the number of children living there.
Howard told the assembled media anybody who had read or examined the report prepared by Ms Anderson and Mr Wild “will be sickened and horrified by the level of abuse”.
“They will be deeply disturbed at the widespread nature of the abuse and they will be looking for the responsible assumption of authority by a government to deal with the problem.”
The Prime Minister said he and his Minister regarded the situation as “akin to a national emergency”.
“Mr Brough’s put it to me this way; that if this set of circumstances had been disclosed as taking place in the suburb of Dickson (in Canberra), can you imagine what the local response from police, from medical authorities and from the State Government would have been. It would have been horror and immediate action and a demand by the community that something be done.”
Dickson is a long way from Docker River, Dagaragu or Daly River.
The affected communities had demanded something be done.
It is not what the Prime Minister and Mr Brough have announced.
It soon became clear they had consulted no-one outside a small coterie of senior non-Indigenous bureaucrats in Canberra and their own party room and Cabinet.
We would urge all readers of the NIT to take the time to read the Little Children Are Sacred report.
It can be found on our website.
On page 204 you will find section 27.
It is entitled: Implementation of the Report.
It said this:
“Wherever the Inquiry has gone, its team has been well received by local people. In some rare cases, proper notice has not been distributed or sorry business or road and weather conditions have limited the response in terms of numbers. However, community members have welcomed the opportunity to discuss the issues. The notion of child sexual abuse is unpleasant and discussion of it is embarrassing and sensitive, nevertheless, women and men were willing to sit down with us. The entire world still regards children as sacred, and those children we spoke to were anxious that they be protected. So, to a large extent, the welcome we received was an acknowledgement that a problem existed that had to be confronted. The first step, therefore, was taken and the relief, or so it seemed to us, was palpable.
“Other points might be made about our visits:
• Although communities have recently become used to hordes descending upon them from the skies (on all kinds of issues), they have had no sense of participation in what was happening or control over these events. From their perspective, there was neither communication nor dialogue.
• The Inquiry set out - and it is perhaps for others to judge how well we succeeded - to have communication and dialogue, NOT monologue. We went there to listen as well as talk. We sat down with the people and shared information. We talked about sensitive and grim matters. We engaged with them.
• The Inquiry was told in many places that this had not happened before. That is, that no senior people had gone out to them and sought their views. We were thanked for coming.
• A rapport was developed between the Inquiry members and the communities. A certain expectation has been raised that this kind of dialogue will continue and that the leaders of the communities will be able to take their rightful positions as spokesmen and women and deal directly with senior mainstream people. (It follows that in our view the expectation of the people in this regard should not be disappointed).
• In many places, there was an initial scepticism about our visits and the sincerity with which the NT Government had embarked upon this exercise (mirroring, to some extent, what has appeared in the political arena and in the media) “What will happen to your report?” “What will happen after you have gone?” were questions frequently asked at gatherings (at all levels of meetings, incidentally) “Will you come back afterwards and, in effect, report to us your findings and what the government will do?”.
“The Inquiry, of course, could give no undertakings about the implementation of its report and its recommendations. We were not able to assure those to whom we spoke that it would be made public. We do recommend that it be made public in its entirety.
“The Inquiry believes that an extremely important aspect of the process which now takes place will include full access to our report by all stakeholders; in effect, every member of the Northern Territory population.
“They write these great reports: the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Social Justice Reports, and the Bringing them Home report on the stolen generations, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Strategy. What do they do with them? Jack up their bed, put them on the cupboard so that it looks ok! These things have to be implemented and until they do it’s no good talking to us Aboriginals about another plan because they haven’t actually implemented all these things along the way, and we’re talking about “It’s time for our conscience to get another prick again - we better go and do another report” - and that’s the sad part about it (Puggy Hunter 1999 cited in Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy 2006).
“We have sought to demonstrate our view that partnership with Aboriginal people is essential to success. It is necessary to ensure awareness of what the Inquiry has been told and to ensure the channels of communication are opened and maintained.
“It is not always clear how best to take the message to communities and we, therefore, make recommendations that advice be sought. We were exposed to the Yolgnu radio network operating in Arnhem Land and were impressed with its capacity to educate, entertain and interest its listening public (and, of course, in language!)
“We need to keep before the public eye and on its conscience, the tragedies and traumas experienced by child victims of sexual abuse and the need to protect them. It is everybody’s business.
“To that end, the Inquiry has made a number of recommendations regarding the need for child sexual abuse community education strategies. As part of this, the government should work to better educate the whole community about the trauma and impact experienced by the victims of sexual assault, particularly child victims, and their families.
“Such a campaign should include information on the means of identifying such cases and the necessity to report such cases. The Inquiry recognises that a greater focus on this issue is likely to increase the reporting of abuse and impact on FACS, Police and sexual assault services. Such a campaign should, therefore, be complemented with additional resourcing of FACS and other services to enable them to cope with demand.
“We have previously recommended that the Children’s Commissioner, envisaged in draft legislation presently being considered by government, be responsible for monitoring and promoting the implementation of this report’s recommendations. In the event that this appointment is delayed, we recommend - to ensure the matters continue to be accorded proper significance - that this responsibility be given to the Deputy Chief Executive of the Department of the Chief Minister.”
The first recommendation from that section called on the Chief Minister to “release forthwith for public scrutiny and consideration this report in its entirety, subject only to the time taken for its printing and publication, and that the Overview section be translated into the nine main Aboriginal languages in the Northern Territory, published in an appropriate format and distributed to communities throughout the Territory.”
This has not happened.
It means the Federal Government shock troops and police and an army of federal bureaucrats have begun descending on the proposed occupied territories before the residents even know the report has been published, let alone what it has found, and of the unilateral intervention which has been invoked in its name.
NIT has been informed that preparations for the translation of the overview of the report into the nine main Aboriginal languages by the NT Government are well advanced, along with a communications strategy to implement the report’s recommendations.
The overview will be translated into Yolgnu Matha, Anindilyakwa, Kunwingku, Tiwi, Kriol, Murrinpatha, Warlpiri, Pitjanjatrjara and Arrente.
This is expected to be completed within two weeks. A team of specialists will take the translated overview out to communities who will no doubt be struggling to figure out what is going on.
Meanwhile the rest of Australia is still absorbing an avalanche of sensational mainstream media headlines which talk not of an assistance package but of a crackdown.
Many of the reports and the comments around them reinforce many of the myths which have built up around this issue for decades.
This is a matter covered in some detail by the report in a chapter entitled: The nature of child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.
It says this:
“As noted previously, it is not possible to accurately estimate the extent of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal communities (see The Extent of Child Sexual Abuse, Part II).
“However, the Inquiry has found clear evidence that child sexual abuse is a significant problem across the Territory. This view mirrors that of most of the individuals and organisations with whom the Inquiry has had contact and from whom submissions were received.
“Giving consideration to the wider context within which sexual abuse has occurred (i.e. other child maltreatment and family violence and the general dysfunction of Aboriginal communities), the Inquiry’s perception is that there has been a breakdown of peace, good order and traditional customs and laws.
“Although the Inquiry’s task was to examine the incidence of child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities and identify ways and means of coping with that problem, it is apparent that little will be achieved by short-term measures aimed at responding after abuse has occurred (crisis intervention). Clearly, a greater investment in prevention of abuse and the structural forces or factors that impact on the health and wellbeing of a community (e.g. education, substance abuse, housing, attitudes to abuse and violence and building on cultural and other community strengths) are required. This theme runs throughout the report.
SEE ALSO: Part Two of this feature.
SEE ALSO: Editorial Opinion: Communities prepare for the next invasion.
SEE ALSO: NIT FORUMS: Time for some soul searching by Dr Naomi Mayers.
Related Links
http://www.nit.com.au/news/story.aspx?id=11798
http://www.nit.com.au/opinion/story.aspx?id=11807
http://www.nit.com.au/opinion/story.aspx?id=11808
* A NOTE TO OUR ONLINE
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