THE Northern Territory Government has split over the commonwealth's intervention in remote communities after an Aboriginal MP threw her support behind the reforms and criticised "urbanised saviours" in the indigenous community who had condemned the dramatic measures.
Alison Anderson, Northern Territory Labor MP for Macdonnell. Picture: Renee Nowytarger
Labor backbencher Alison Anderson, who represents the central Australian electorate of Macdonnell, told The Australian yesterday the intervention was targeted at indigenous people who were "desperately in need of help". The former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commissioner was responding to comments from her Labor colleague, Territory Community Services Minister Marion Scrymgour, who on Tuesday attacked the reforms as a "vicious new McCarthyism".
"It is a disgrace that people who know nothing about living amongst the poverty and abuse in remote communities have condemned the intervention," Ms Anderson said.
"My people need real protection, not motherhood statements from urbanised saviours. I live my law and culture and I will represent my people regardless of what's fashionable. My people need the help and want the help from this intervention."
Ms Anderson's comments place the respected central Australian leader in direct opposition to Ms Scrymgour, the nation's only female indigenous cabinet minister, and highlight strong support for the intervention by many Aboriginal people in the traditional communities where the intervention began.
"Sick people and dead people have no rights," Ms Anderson said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get things right and I think that let's put all our political ambitions aside and look at it in the spirit that it's put out there, to help children and help Aboriginal people."
Ms Scrymgour, MP for the Arnhem Land electorate of Arafura, used the 2007 Charles Perkins Oration at Sydney University on Tuesday night to condemn the Howard Government's intervention as the "black kids' Tampa".
"Aboriginal Territorians are being herded back to the primitivism of assimilation and the days of native welfare," she said.
"It has been a deliberate, savage attack on the sanctity of Aboriginal family life."
The dispute further inflames the divide between the nation's indigenous leaders over the reforms, with NT elder Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Cape York leader Noel Pearson and intervention taskforce chairwoman Sue Gordon in support of the measures but other leaders, including National Indigenous Television chief executive Pat Turner, former ATSIC chairwoman Lowitja O'Donoghue and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner Tom Calma expressing serious concerns.
Dr Gordon last night criticised Ms Scrymgour and other indigenous opponents of the intervention. "I get a vibe there are people who don't want traditional people to have some help," she said. "People are denying Aboriginal people in these communities basic human rights.
"What are they opposing? Some don't seem to know what they are actually opposing, and I'm disappointed in that."
Dr Gordon lashed out at Mr Calma, saying he had not helped Aboriginal children while he was commissioner.
"Tom Calma gets up and preaches about human rights but he doesn't mention the rights of the child, and when I mention it I get shot down in flames," she said. "I haven't been very happy with Tom's performance. He said a lot of words but where was he with Kalumburu (in Western Australia) exploding? He has been commissioner for three years."
But Ms O'Donoghue defended Ms Scrymgour, describing her as astrong politician and a community person.
"She knows her people and she knows what her people think, so she's reporting that. I thought she was strong and very good," she said. "All Aboriginal people don't think alike."
Ms O'Donoghue said it was not fair to describe the Northern Territory minister as an urban indigenous person who did not understand what it was like in remote communities.
"It's not fair to say she's always gone backwards and forwards to her community - she's a community person. She's a member of parliament, she's got to do her job - doesn't mean she's outside her community," Ms O'Donoghue said.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough has been trying to gather support from Aboriginal leaders for the intervention, and achieved a breakthrough last month when Mr Yunupingu backed the plan while moving to create a 99-year lease over his Arnhem Land community of Ski Beach. Mr Yunupingu said: "This is the opening we need to create a new era of empowerment for Aboriginal people."
Mr Yunupingu's support was secured with the help of Mr Pearson, who has been credited as the driving force behind the Howard Government's efforts to reform welfare and ensure Aboriginal people take individual responsibility. In June, Mr Pearson told the ABC's Lateline program he had been "taking the stick quite a bit to progressives in relation to Aboriginal policy".
"You know, there's something mad going on in the midst of many of our traditional supporters, because they're putting quibbling about politics and putting all kinds of objections in the road," he said.
Ms Scrymgour's speech sparked another war of words between Canberra and the Northern Territory Government, with Mr Brough calling on her to resign over her stand.
"She's not just another politician, she is in fact a minister of the Northern Territory Government and she's wrong," Mr Brough told ABC radio. "It (Aboriginal culture) has been drowned in alcohol and it's been snuffed out with drugs, and I think it's time we all understood that and we dealt with it, and it's time Marion actually resigned if she can't actually support trying to save her own people."
Mr Brough also accused Mr Rudd of "political expediency" by pledging to reintroduce the permit system, which regulates non-indigenous access to communities, and the Aboriginal work-for-the-dole scheme, CDEP.
"That's not new leadership, that is no leadership," he said.
Backing Mr Brough, Mr Rudd said Ms Scrymgour was "wrong" because the Little Children Are Sacred report, released earlier this year, highlighted indigenous child abuse that exceeded any "acceptable national norm".
"That's why dramatic intervention was necessary," Mr Rudd said. "It certainly was controversial, I accept that, but we've got to give a new approach a go because that report was so dramatic in its findings on the abuse of children in those communities."
Ms Scrymgour called Mr Brough a "bully boy" and said he should resign. But she appeared to be left isolated by two senior colleagues yesterday, with acting Chief Minister Syd Stirling releasing a statement reinforcing the Territory Government's position.
"The Northern Territory Government has consistently supported the federal intervention where it helps to protect children," Mr Stirling said. "We have also consistently opposed measures which don't directly protect children, such as the abolition of CDEP and permits, compulsory land acquisition and the silly $100 takeaway alcohol laws."
Education Minister Paul Henderson also did not publicly endorse Ms Scrymgour's comments. "I just feel a bit disappointed that we're now into personal name-calling as opposed to really focusing in on the tragedy that was identified in the Little Children Are Sacred report, and all of us actually stepping up to the mark in terms of our responsibility as governments, as a broader community, a society, to make the lives better for those kids," Mr Henderson said.
However, indigenous Labor backbencher Karl Hampton, MP for the central Australian electorate of Stuart, said he "strongly supported" Ms Scrymgour.
"People in my electorate strongly feel that they have been disempowered by this approach by the Howard Government," Mr Hampton said. "People are feeling very disempowered and very upset by how the whole thing has been handled."
Territory Opposition Leader Jodeen Carney said Chief Minister Clare Martin should either support the intervention or Ms Scrymgour but not both.
"If Clare Martin still supports the federal intervention, and one of her ministers doesn't, then Ms Martin must take action and remove her minister from cabinet," Ms Carney said. "If, on the other hand, Clare Martin opposes the intervention, then she should have the courage to say so. Territorians deserve to know where she stands."
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Indigenous intervention an election ploy: Scrymgour
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Marion Scrymgour says the Federal Government is repeating the mistakes of the past. (File photo) (ABC file photo)
Northern Territory Family and Community Services Minister Marion Scrymgour has launched a scathing attack on the Government's intervention into Aboriginal affairs.
Ms Scrymgour delivered the speech during last night's Charles Perkins oration in Sydney, likening the new Indigenous policies to those used by the Commonwealth to remove Aboriginal children from their families.
She said the values and principles that led to the Stolen Generations were also behind the Commonwealth's latest response to Indigenous people nearly a century on.
Ms Scrymgour accused federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough of using scare tactics to gain compliance for the intervention.
"Mal Brough has launched attacks on anyone who has raised doubts and fears about this new world order for Aboriginal Territorians," she said.
Ms Scrymgour told the gathering the new Indigenous policies were brought in as part of an election ploy, describing them as "Howard's rabbit out of a hat - the black kids Tampa".
But she said she would not bow to pressure, slamming the new legislation for not addresing any of the 97 recommendations laid out in a child sex abuse report it was responding to.
"I'm condemning its motivation, I am condemning its operations and I am condemning its moral basis," she said.
She said the intervention had given the Commonwealth permission to herd Aboriginal people back into the primitivism of assimilation and the days of native welfare and described it as a deliberate and savage attack on the sanctity of Aboriginal family life.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says Ms Scrymgour should resign over the speech because she is out of touch with people on the ground.
"Marion needs to resign. She is part of a Territory Government that has signed up to this," he said.
"She is there blatantly saying it's wrong. She is one of a long list of Labor people including Jenny Macklin who have been out there who have said they will reinstitute the permit system and they'll reinstitute CDEP."
Ms Scrymgour has responded by calling for Mr Brough to resign.
