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Dr Dianne Johnson

Dear Review Committee,

There are two issues as I see it:

A. There is the NT Intervention

B. There is the way that it has been constructed, by suspending the Anti-Discrimination Law.

As to whether the NT Intervention is working or not, I shall leave to it others who are in a better situation to judge such things.

Enough to say that it is embarrassing – how would any of you feel is you were subjected to the Intervention and its unwholesome consequences in the marketplace? I was in Alice Springs last week and a visit to Alice Springs K-Mart had me cringing when a small group of women, older than me, were told to put clothes back because their voucher was overspent.  We were all supposed to be equal in that K-Mart queue but I (and I suspect everyone else in it) knew who was of Aboriginal descent. My ethnicity was fortunately not signalled out as I had cash and credit cards rather than a voucher.

Howard's last minute heavy handedness in relation to the NT Intervention and Aboriginal people will increasingly be seen for what it was. It was not thought out; it was not properly funded; it was not finely tuned to target different communities with different issues; it was not properly supported by personnel and given our history with the stolen generations, the sending in of the men dressed in army uniforms to administer the Intervention in the first instance, was ignorant if not just plain stupid.

What I DO know is that suspending our Anti-discrimination laws in order to put the Intervention in place is problematic. For the reasons below, I strongly suggest you recommend that something is done urgently to rectify the situation.

  1. Suspension of anti-discrimination laws sends a very poor message to the rest of the world about Australia's understanding of and intentions regarding human rights.
  2. Suspension of our anti-discrimination laws sets a very bad precedent – what other groups are we prepared to suspend the laws for?
  3. History tells us very clearly that we have treated Aboriginal people in this country very poorly, very unfairly and despite good intentions sometimes, without compassion. Is this government going to continue this record? Even if the intervention is found to be working positively in some places, for some purposes, suspension of the Anti-Discrimination Act does not justify the outcome. The taking of children away from Aboriginal mothers may have worked out for some, it did not justify a very ill-conceived, unfair and harsh government policy. Don't let's keep the mistakes going. The 1967 referendum was significant because it turned our country in a kinder, fairer direction. Let's not go backwards. Suspending the Anti-Discrimination Law is a very ill-conceived, unfair and harsh government policy.
  4. Given the history of First Peoples (i.e. Indigenous people), surely we must recognise their integrity as a people and accord them, like any other ethnic group, equal rights and equal laws.
  5. Suspension of anti-discrimination laws towards some Aboriginal communities is patronising behaviour.  It is undignified and will have undignified consequences.
  6. Suspension of the Anti-Discrimination law runs against the intentions and tone of the formal Apology tendered by the current government. It turns the Apology into an empty symbolic gesture rather than a signal to definitively change the way Aboriginal people are perceived and treated in this country.
  7. Suspension of the Anti-Discrimination laws is racism in its worst form. Let's not go there!

I trust you will consider my submission seriously. The NT Intervention is a separate issue from the suspension of the Anti-Discrimination Law (even though the application of one is dependent on the other). Getting our Anti-discrimination laws back in place is crucial for all of us.

Yours sincerely

Dianne Johnson

Dr Dianne Johnson

(Anthropologist)