Wall St was down 94 overnight, its biggest fall in a month, while the local market is down 66.
After the NT intervention: violence up, malnutrition up, truancy up
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It is the nature of ‘national emergencies’ that if they drag on for too long the media and public lose interest in them and the state that has promulgated the moral panic to allow draconian interventions will quietly alter the discourse and hope that the issue dissipates and costs no votes. Given this standard scenario the posting of the latest government progress report on the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) Intervention on the FaHCSIA website on Thursday 22 October 2009 is truly remarkable. This is a report developed by a number of agencies, but it does not present the Intervention with the positive and sugary governmental spin to which the Australian public has become accustomed. The NTER Intervention is now called Closing the Gap Northern Territory so the discourse is being altered; and the report was posted very quietly, but this is hardly surprising because findings in it are damning of its effectiveness. The reporting is in two parts, the first overviewing measures, and the second providing statistical information on progress, measure-by-measure. It is the second report that is of greatest interest because for the first time ever some information is provided for 2006–07 (pre-Intervention) and for 2007–08 and 2008–09 (post-Intervention). This second report covers 83 pages and is detailed and not all measures are given multi-year comparative coverage. But for those that are, some of the findings are extremely disappointing. For example:
A number of observations can be made about these findings. First and foremost they are comparative pre- and post-Intervention in prescribed communities, they are not comparative with any other group in Australian society so it is hard to say how relatively bad outcomes are, all that is clear is that where time series information is provided almost without exception things have gotten worse. Second, the quality of the report is highly variable so in some key areas like land reform and especially welfare reform and employment there is the standard reporting of current outputs and no comparative analysis. And in the area of income quarantining there is still fraught methodology so it is store operators rather than customers that are surveyed, so while 68.2 per cent of store operators report more healthy food purchased, it is unclear if this ‘more’ is in dollar terms or quantity; and who is doing the purchasing? Interestingly, store operators report no change in tobacco purchase. It is notable that there has been no serious coverage of this report in The Australian newspaper, the unrelenting champion of the Intervention which raises serious questions about its journalistic integrity and/or editorial censorship. The rival Fairfax media has given the report some coverage, for the first time on 31 October 2009 over a week after its posting. The ministerial office response to questions about these poor outcomes has been that the negative comparisons reflect better state surveillance of Aboriginal subjects and their misdemeanours. This might explain the statistics, but surely not the deteriorating outcomes. The Rudd government must be commended for the efforts its bureaucracy, in partnership with the NT government, is investing in rigorously and transparently monitoring the effectiveness of Intervention measures. But there is far too little investment being made in analysing why things are not improving. Fruitful areas for policy investigation might include the following. First, can sustained race-based measures really deliver substantive equality as recently asked by Sarah Burnside. It might be time for the Rudd government to demonstrate some decisiveness on this issue, instead of look for tricky techno-legal avenues to make the Racial Discrimination Act’s tolerance of special measures comply with Intervention measures on which its own agencies are reporting poor or negative progress. Second, can top down statistical goals, even if endorsed by COAG, ensure outcomes if not negotiated with the purported subjects of the neoliberal state’s improvement project? The government’s own research advisory agency the Productivity Commission raised this question as COAG was signing off on the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (Closing the Gap). This locks in an approach agreed by the Commonwealth and States and Territories for the next decade, conveniently but unfortunately during an inter-regnum when there is no national Indigenous representative organisation with whom to negotiate. The Rudd Government should seriously consider the Productivity Commission’s advice on what works: partnerships, bottom up rather than top down approaches, good governance — including by governments — and sustained support on an equitable needs basis.
I am in agreement with the Productivity Commission. It is imperative to concentrate on what has, and continues, to work; to support success and develop and replicate its key features. It is essential to engage with the reality of Indigenous heterogeneity of both circumstances and aspirations and tailor state approaches to fit. There is too much searching for technical statistical solutions to deeply entrenched and very human problems of disadvantage. Such approaches will not accurately measure, let alone fix, what matters, the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians.
The latest, and arguably most comprehensive findings, on progress in Northern Territory prescribed communities are of great concern especially given the significant $ billion plus public investment. These findings resonate worryingly with American political scientist Murray Edelman’s sage observations decades ago about ‘words that succeed and policies that fail’. And this is just in the Northern Territory, what about the rest of Australia? |
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17 Comments
I believe domestic violence was the central reason for the original Intervention, wasn’t it?
If D.V. is up then the program is an abject failure, no matter whether any other incidental benefits have occurred.
Professor, you would know well that there are “Lies, Lies and damn statistics!”
The issue about the stats outlined in the 83 page report, is that they reflect the counting that has been enabled by having so many more people on the ground (whose only task is to collect statistics).
Regardless of these statistics, which lead you to the conclusion that “things have gotten worse,” the facts on the ground, as anyone on the ground will attest, is that in many many of these communities, “things” have actually improved markedly. If only Govts would get busy to build some housing for which the money ($672 million) has been long allocated, some really meaningful “things” might really start to happen.
The fact is that in the last 23 months, there has been a total lack of will to do anything, while even stopping doing a lot of things that used to just happen before the intervention. Repairs to housing and infrastructure used to be scheduled and ongoing, and even some new houses used to get built, but since November 2007, all that stopped - or at best slowed.
What happened in November 2007?? I wonder!! I wish I could forget.
JAMES MC. Hi James. I thought the main reason was the horrific sexual abuse, and lots of pedophiles abusing kids etc. Probably less than in the rest of the country. Can’t see the shock jocks sitting back while the Army invades the North Shore, or the West or perhaps the Illawarra. I can just see them coming down Mt Ousley in a convoy? In recent times there’s been priests, brothers and lay people charged with sexual abuse in a school(Bathurst?). I don’t recall them losing their home or having their incomes quarantined. It was unnecessary and racist. Women are spending heaps of money getting taxis to the big towns or cities like Darwin and Alice Springs to buy their food etc. What an absolute nonsense is that?
I watched Message Stick on the ABC yesterday. It was on the Intervention(or invasion) and was very informative. Worth watching it on the ‘net. The resentment towards it far outweighed any positive effects. One woman said the quarantining was positive for many, and I understood her reasons, but there are many in the broader community who are pretty hopeless with money, but nobody suggests that their incomes be quarantined? I recall hearing a discussion(perhaps on Background Briefing, Radio National - several yrs ago now) and the subject was a voluntary assistance program with budget planning, bill paying etc and was most effective. The women spoke in a very positive way about it - they wanted it to continue - they were involved in the whole decision process, not locked out of it like Howard and now Rudd are doing. Guess what, they stopped it after 3 months or so?? How dumb was that?
GRAEME - There’s an interview on the World Today(ABC Radio) of several months ago re aboriginal housing. There was a report that was written after several years of an investigation into aboriginal housing. It pointed to the shoddy workmanship in too many instances; eg, a light switch on an arcitrave, a light bulb in the middle of the room, but no wiring between them? No adequate facilities in the kitchen to prepare food. No locks on doors, poor sanitation etc and in many areas, garbage facilities are either poor or non-existent. I think, that in too many cases, ‘short cuts’ are made, and the contractors pocket the profits? Been going on for years.
I watched a documentary on ABC a few yrs ago re health in the Kimberly region. At times there’s up to 15 or more to a house. The houses were only 3 roomed, not three bedrooms - just 3 rooms. They were appalling! People sleeping in shifts. How can kids be OK to attend school under those circumstances, or with bad ears etc?
There’s only 500,000 aboriginal people in the whole country. What is their (govts)problem? There’s been 108 yrs since Federation, and we’re still discussing these aspects of need. Appalling!
@James McDonald I think the original justification was child sexual assault, with selective reference to the Little Children are Sacred Report and based, at least in part, on the From a Hand Out To Hand Up trial by the Cape York Institute.
Brough’s Original Press Release (still as close to a plan as has been publicly documented on the Intervention):
http://bit.ly/Y531S
Little Children are Sacred Report:
http://bit.ly/iYpZp
Cape York Institute Report:
http://bit.ly/36SBVO
And just how is attendance in Jenny Macklin’s pilot schools I wonder?
Maybe we could try something radical and treat aboriginal people like grown ups instead of the idiot cousin that has to be hidden in the back room.
The Insight report of the housing situation a few weeks ago was sickening but it was Jack Thompson in the Arnhem lands who seemed to be doing the best deal.
Working with people to build their own homes to suit the conditions for 30% of the cost of the brick veneerals we want to impose on people that are not fit for human habitation and never have been.
I said in June 2007 that this was a crap plan because it didn’t address the real problems and was racist.
No point telling a drunk not to drink without having a drunk tank to dry out in.
No point telling a battered wife to leave if their is no shelter - and Brough had them all closed down I believe.
No point telling a housewife and mother she is too useless to handle her own money because sure and hell she will become too useless.
Without a treaty and absolute recognition of equality we will continue to treat the indigenous people of this coutnry like fools and that is a disgrace.
I live in on a “Prescribed Area”. From my perspective all this talk and propaganda and counter propaganda misses a fundamental point. The Intervention, as it was so deftly put by Pat Turner at the beginning: “is the final nail in the coffin of Aboriginal self-determination”.
The dissempowerment of these remote communities and the stigmatisation of our societies by a multi pronged ethnocentric assimilationist attack is staggering.
All the talk about Closing the Gap etc. is like trying to fix the roof instead of fixing the foundations.
Jon Altman has been here, he knows what he is talking about. He certainly makes more sense to us than Minister Macklin.
I think Graeme has raised a central point which I’m disappointed the good Professor has glossed over with one sentence. Stats are meaningless without context. An increase in reported DV, sexual assault, drug use etc doesn’t mean the acts have increased, just the reporting. We don’t really know anything without a context.
When NSW introduced comprehensive DV legislation in the early 1990s, then followed it up a few years ago with sweeping changes to force police and DoCS to react to DV more aggressively, DV stats went up by almost a quarter. Does that mean there was a quarter more DV? No. It meant that DV was being detected and dealt with more.
While the Intervention has effectively lumbered to a halt and is now wallowing in its own filth, it would be incredibly lazy, especially for a Professor, to just rely on stats to paint the picture so many people want to paint. Remember, there was NO ONE in some of these places to even count the incidences of violence and neglect before 2007, so it’s hardly suprising that the stats have gone up.
Let’s leave reliance on bald stats to the Daily Telegraph and take a more nuanced view of the Intervention than that taken so far.
In my previous post I was right. Too much administration, too many commissions, reports, discussions,advisory agencies and the whole army of bureaucrats, for whom lucrative jobs were created in the first place, cannot come to basics. Indigenous people of Australia are as much human beings as the rest of Australian population. Their needs are just the same as the needs of any other humans. They need the same infrastructure as people living in townships and other urban areas.
Belting up young petrol sniffers will never solve the problem.
(That was one of those infamous ‘projects’)
The Aboriginal settlements need all the facilities available to the rest of our community.
Number 1. It should be unconditional access to EDUCATION for every member of the community. I do not support forcing children, or penalising their parents for truancy, to attend the classes. Teachers should be highly qualified not only in methodology but also in developmental psychology ( not based on Freud). Schools should be attractive enough to encourage people to come. With my considerable teaching experience both in Europe and in Australia, I dare say that something is very far from being perfect in Australian education system. Schools should have more prestige here. And the teachers should be better trained.
Number 2. Access to all other facilities: education institutions for adults, and community groups with ‘something to do’; transport, contact with the ‘outside worls’, shops.
Number 3. Promoting indigenious languages, culture and many useful traditions Aboriginal communities should be proud of; it is not only painting and dream time- many elders keep wonderful secrets in herbal medicine, tracking or animal husbandry, even weather forecast. We could help them being useful not only to their own community.
As long as we treat the indigenous people as if they were nasty kids, to say the least, and we are not prepared to educate them and at the same time help them to preserve their identity,
no State or Federal money will ever help to solve the problem.
At the moment we are trying a band aid solution to treat the effects of centuries neglect rather than cure the illness at its core.
We will also have to check the definition of ‘preventive measures’ - preferably civilised ones.
Nadia
I do like how you do that. You are so right.
Bob D
I forgot to add:
If you think education is too costly- try ignorance.
Thanks for the correction. Sexual assaults slightly down (including, we hope child sexual assaults). Significant overlap with DV but point taken.
Page 32 of the report:
“The number of convictions for child sexual assaults committed in the NTER communities in the two years since the introduction of the NTER measures is 22. This compares to 14 convictions in the two years prior to the NTER. In 2005-06 and 2006-07 none of the convictions involved non Indigenous people. However, in the last two years (2007-08 and 2008-09) four non Indigenous people have been convicted for child sexual assault committed in the NTER communities.
Issues of child welfare go well beyond sexual abuse, indeed, sexual abuse is a subset of behaviours that can have a lasting negative effect on children’s’ future. There is evidence that child neglect is a more common issue than sexual assault in the NTER communities. This is confirmed by NT police data.
The total number of confirmed incidences of child abuse in the NTER communities rose, from 66 in 2006-07 to 227 in 2008-09. The 18 Themis communities accounted for around 39% of the increase in the number of child abuse reports made to police from 2006-07 to 2008-09.
We could even ask their advice on weather, particularly, how to prevent horrific bushfires. It would be a positive thing to do when their knowledge is obviously more experienced than ours. The intention of removing aboriginal language from the reading program has been criticized by experienced professionals, but the govt is ploughing on. Damned stupid! Another way of destroying culture!
BOB DURNAN - The people at Mutijulu were very critical of the Intervention. They were the first people interviewed on Message Stick. Their reality is much different to your assertions when you ‘dressed me down’ the other day on another post. I think I’ll take notice of those people living there, thanks. Like Bob Randall - a senior citizen!
I still believe that the real reason for the invasion has to do with mining leases and a permanent nuclear waste dump? Are there two or three possible sites to date? With all the uranium we’re selling to date, and even more to come, it would be a good ‘selling point’ wouldn’t it?Otherwise, why move people in such an officious way, when communication would be more positive - it’s not as though work has commenced?
If Howard etc were so concerned for the kids, why didn’t they act on the at least 10 reports prior to Little Children Are Sacred Report, that was initiated by the NT govt anyway. I recall the photo shoots etc with Howard in Canberra and around NT swimming pools, and after all the froth and bubble, we wouldn’t hear any more about it. Also, too many in his govt used to treat the women with scathing disregard when they’d plead for funds re domestic violence programs etc. Sexual abuse is rife in non-indigenous areas, but there’s no panic or concern for those kids - or women either for that matter! How’s the $44 million Rudd pledged re domestic violence going to be spent?
This whole saga is just a grab for land and to wind back the clock re land rights etc!Not one house has been built, or even one repaired to date - after 2 1/2 years?
And Nadia David’s point about reporting bias is fair enough. But the phrase “emergency response” implies a short term thing, doesn’t it? Even if it has been a success.
With the name change to “Closing the Gap” there should have been an end of one chapter and the beginning of another, not a slight tweaking. Some creative thought on how to promote self-determination.
“Teach a man to fish,” the old saying goes. A people needs to have control of their own food supply in some way, that’s where the difference between “money” and “wealth” begins. Or else they’ll always be made to feel like beggars.
Rena’s Number 1… Education
Rena’s Number 3… indigenous languages, culture…
“In Australia, our ways have mostly produced disaster for the Aboriginal people. I suspect that only when their right to be distinctive is accepted, will policy become creative”… Kim Beazley Sr.
and,
“Above all, let us permit native children to keep their own languages, -those beautiful and expressive tongues, rich in true Australian imagery, charged with poetry and with love for all that is great, ancient and eternal in the continent. There is no need to fear that their own languages will interfere with the learning of English as the common medium of expression for all Australians. In most areas of Australia the natives have been bilingual, probably from time immemorial. Today white Australians are among the few remaining civilized people who still think
that knowledge of one language is the normal limit of linguistic achievement.”
- T.G.H Strelow,1958.
I know, I’ve used these before, but in all my time living in a remote Warlpiri community I’m yet to find more relevant quotes.
Good quote from Strehlow, Frank. We need to work quickly to ensure that the new Australian order, whatever it turns out to be, can find and properly support greater resources for multi-lingualism, especially Aboriginal multi-lingualism.
The challenge this time will be to persuade the education authorities to develop and employ more of the Wendy Bs and Jeannie Es (and Christine Ns and Lee Cs & Norbert Ps) who are able to bring the expertise to the classrooms that is required for bi-lingual education to produce the excellent results which are needed and of which it is certainly capable.
Nadia David - I think you’ll find, that the incidence of DV has increased over recent years, not just the reporting of same, but incidents. One problem that occurs every time there’s media attention(usually precipitated by some catastropic event, like murder) the incidents of women seeking advice etc is raised, but sadly, due to inadequate places for refuge, the numbers of abused and bashed women rise - they speak out, and are ‘rewarded’ for it by their abusive partners. This only pushes these women and their kids into a more volatile environment than they may have been in. In my area (2 cities that merge) the number of beds etc for abused women and their kids hasn’t grown for almost 20 yrs? 1 in 3 women will be abused over their life time - the single most preventable cause of injury and death to women from 15-44? The stats for indigenous women are higher, which correlates the link between disadvantage, discrimination and all forms of abuse.
“A domestic violence shelter in Alice Springs told ABC radio’s AM on May 1, that between Jan 1 and mid-April this year, it provided accommodation for 157 children and 149 women. However, due to lack of funding, it turned away a further 159 women and 100 children seeking support” In other words, for each woman it provided shelter to, one was turned away. Where did she go? In all likelihood, she ended up back with her abusive partner.”
“A 2009 United Nations report also noted a rise in the number of women remaining in abusive relationships because of a lack of affordable alternative accommodation, an inability to sell property and decreased support services”.(Jess Moore/ Women Bear Brunt of Crisis - GreenLeft Oct 28 ‘09) (I’d suggest it’s even worse when you have no property to sell, and support services go from bad to worse??
“In Queenslad, in the first quarter of 2005, 6874 new cases of domestic violence were reported. In the first quarter of 2009, it rose to 9739 new cases - a 42% rise”.
There is a strong link between financial stress and domestic violence. However, before the more recent financial stresses, DV was already increasing. “A series of reports in the SMH in November 2008 revealed that, in NSW, the number of deaths of women and children as a result of DV had risen to a 10 year high”
“Figures released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show that, for the period (1997 & 2002)the recorded instance of DV rose by 40% in the Sydney area, and 50% across the rest of NSW.” Government funding for women’s services is considerably less than it was a decade ago, despite the marked rise in demand.”
It’s been too easy for successive govts to blame DV on individual family breakdown and unhealthy relationships, rather than recognising the social basis of violence against women. When conservative politicians turn back funding for women’s services, denigrate the role of women in the society and enforce policies that compound poverty, unemployment, insecurity, disadvantage and womens’ financial dependence on male partners, the horrific impact on all women, but particularly indigenous women will result in more life threatening assaults on them and their kids. I’m not surprised that violence towards aboriginal women is so high, up to 40% I believe, as opposed to 25% for non-indigenous women.
In short, the intervention(invasion) is only compounding an existing pattern of abuse towards women and kids.
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