Sue Gilbey
I am an ashamed white Australian, the mother and grandmother of Aboriginal children and I believe the N.T Intervention is racist legislation.
I am a member of numerous social justice groups here in Adelaide all with a focus on peace, human rights, reconciliation and climate change.
Last year I attended the U.S Social Forum in Atlanta Georgia; with the emphasis on A Better America is Possible (NECESSARY) and Indigenous rights.
I recently was invited to attend the World Peace Councils General Assembly in Caracas Venezuela as the only Australian delegate. where I presented a paper on the links between mining and the Intervention.
This is an adapted version of a talk I gave at a rally entitled; Stop the Intervention, Human Rights for All.
I do not have a problem with any privacy issues and would welcome the opportunity to give evidence.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this submission
Susan Gilbey (Sue)
Over a year ago Prime Minister John Howard and former Minister for Indigenous
Affairs Mal Brough called a press conference to announce the NT emergency
response intervention. They said the situation was so serious it had to be
declared a national emergency and they needed the army to administer it...
First in the 80s then later in the 90s such action had been proposed but it
was never quite the right time to do it. The Little Children Are Sacred
report gave them their time and their reason.
This had clearly been on their agenda for a long time.
Amidst debates around mining, about completely rerouting rivers for the convenience of mining companies about nuclear waste dumps and where they were going to be put, the government was in a position where they had to do something about the groundswell movement of Aboriginal people across the Territory and top end of S.A The answer
The Intervention.
Take away permits, collapse community councils and destroy and undermine local control and confidence and there is now a clean slate, with open access to communities and Aboriginal land and a national scrutiny like never before.
Journalists had been requesting access to communities and for the permit system to be abolished so they could get access to their good stories. The good stories they wanted in Aboriginal communities invariably means bad stories about Aboriginal people.
From the beginning we were told it was not race based legislation.
The suspension of the RDA was underplayed
Grog was made an issue
Theres nothing new about people wanting grog use limited, the grandmothers of Yuendemu marched for a dry community 30 years ago, most Aboriginal communities ARE dry at their communities councils request, the difference now is the government decides what is or isnt a prescribed community.
Could you imagine if the government decided that here in Adelaide, affluent suburban Burnside will from now on be dry? There is no rehabilitation for Burnside residents who may have alcohol addiction, just complete prohibition. There is no assessment of who in Burnside might have alcohol problems, if you live in Burnside and have never had a drink in your life, you are still prescribed.
So first they send in the AFP to take photos of every person including children living in that suburb. They search cars entering, they do random searches of houses within that suburb, at Christmas, on birthdays, a beer on Sundays none of it, no one is allowed to drink alcohol in a prescribed area in this case Burnside. In neighbouring Fullarton you can. But wait, if you are a tourist in Burnside you can as well!
If you are a tourist you see you are now allowed to drink anywhere, under the new intervention laws.
What sort of outcry would there be if the same discriminatory and arbitrary standards were imposed on Burnside residents.
Nobody denies providing better health services for Aboriginal children is
a good thing.
In South Australian suburban Burnside, Elizabeth, the Port everywhere we have
access to medical centres, hospitals and 24 hour care if we need it. So the
Intervention promised better health care.
"---We will bear the cost of [compulsory] medical examinations of all Indigenous children in the Northern Territory under the age of 16 and we'll provide the resources to do with any follow up medical treatment that will be needed." -- John Howard, press conference, June 21, 2007.
I'm really curious about why this statement was made like it was revolutionary, why hasnt the government been responsible for providing health checks before, why were they compulsory, what is so revolutionary about providing access to doctors for children.
Why werent they doing that anyway!
However this wasnt they meant.
And lets make it clear the intervention promised outcomes to white Australians, they didnt promise outcomes to Aboriginal Australians, this was never about the welfare or well being of Aboriginal Australia. White Australia benefited nicely though with a huge influx of jobs given to people who already had jobs and nice little incentive packages given to sweeten the package and make life in central Australia more bearable.
So far around 11,000 Aboriginal children have been checked.
The Rudd government claims to have reached around 64 percent of children in prescribed communities (it claims a total population under the age of 16 at around 17,000 children).
In reality, the number of children in the areas is closer to 21,000, which means the government has more likely reached just over 50 percent.
As recently reported by The Courier Mail, following the completion of 7,433 children, just 39 were found to be at risk of serious neglect or abuse.
So next comes welfare reform
"We're going to introduce a series of welfare reforms, designed to stem the flow of cash going towards... alcohol abuse... to ensure that the funds meant to be used for children's welfare are actually used for that purpose. The principal approach here will be to quarantine as from now, through Centrelink, to be supported by legislation, 50 percent of welfare payments to parents of children in the affected areas..." -- John Howard, press conference, June 21, 2007.
Thats what he said
This is what happened
Howards government legislated to control the welfare payments of ALL Aboriginal people in prescribed areas, regardless of whether or not they have children.
This is what is happening in the Territory, Australias heartland, right now and there are indications that it might roll out to other communities and states. We are in the middle of it, and we have lost the forest through the trees.
But outside people are seeing this clearly. Al Jazeera the biggest Arab speaking media conglomeration saw what was happening here in Australia as so drastic it made the print, television and web based media, this is amidst all the turmoil in the Middle East, the treatment of Australias first nation people was news to them.
I'm speaking here today because I was asked to attend the World Peace councils forum in Venezuela, I was the only person from Australia to attend and I quite frankly was shocked at how the reputation of our country has suffered.
I worked in South East Asia in the 90s mostly in Cambodia and then Australia was a much respected nation. We were perceived as very different from the U.S.
Now we are known as global bullies and best buddy to the biggest bully.
Worse still we are seen as interfering in other countries affairs while we cant even get things right at home. We are seen as a country that refuses to sign the International Declaration of Indigenous peoples along with Canada New Zealand and the U.S.
They however have a Treaty with their Indigenous people, we are the only country out of the four not to sign that does not have a treaty.
We had after years of hard fought battles Aboriginal control over Aboriginal lands, but now that has gone too.. The land rights battles, the marches; the pouring of the Sand from Gough Whitlams hand into Vincent Lingiaris is gone. For five years the permits have been removed with no guarantee of them ever returning.
While the world moves forward we move backwards.