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NT abuse reporters 'betrayed' |
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Written by Administrator
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Aug 06, 2007 at 12:12 AM |
NT abuse reporters 'betrayed'
"The days of being passive recipients are over, absolutely over. That isn't going to work, that hasn't worked.''
August 05, 2007 06:18pm - Article from: AAP THE authors of the child abuse report that prompted the Federal Government's emergency intervention say they feel devastated and betrayed by the crackdown. Addressing a forum at the Garma festival deep in the heart of a stringybark forest in north-east Arnhem Land, Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson said they felt betrayed by the government. Aboriginal leaders react to Federal paternalism |
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Addressing a forum at the Garma festival deep in the heart of a stringybark forest in north-east Arnhem Land, Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson said they felt betrayed by the government.
"When we turned the TV on and saw the troops roll into the Northern Territory we were just sort of devastated to think that that could happen,'' said Ms Anderson, an Aborigine and an expert in indigenous health.
"So we feel sort of betrayed and disappointed, hurt and angry and pretty pissed off all at the same time.''
The crackdown has been supported by the federal opposition and by a number of prominent Aboriginal leaders.
But Ms Anderson distanced herself from Canberra's actions to date, in particular the legislation the government plans to ram through parliament next week to authorise the scrapping of the permit system and the seizure of 73 remote Aboriginal communities under a five-year lease scheme.
"Let me say there is not a single action that the commonwealth has taken so far that corresponds with a single recommendation,'' Ms Anderson said.
"There is no relationship between this emergency protection and what's in our report.''
The 'Little Children are Sacred' report, commissioned by the NT government in August last year following damning reports of horrific child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities, made 97 recommendations.
These included widespread community consultation, alcohol restrictions, improvements in family support services and education campaigns.
Referring to the arrival of the military, which escorted unannounced federal scoping parties to central Australian communities soon after the Prime Minister announced his intervention, Mr Wild pointed out the vastly different approach the inquiry had taken on its own fact finding mission.
"We arranged meetings, we told people about them, that we were coming and why we were coming,'' he said.
"We didn't arrive unannounced in helicopters, we didn't arrive in gunships, we didn't arrive in tanks or trucks. We arrived quietly with courtesy and politeness.''
He said he was also shocked by Canberra's decision to adopt in some cases the exact opposite policy approach, in particular its short-term game plan.
"We think that's wrong,'' he said.
But Ms Anderson conceded there was the need for urgent action and for commonwealth help.
"We needed the assistance of the federal government that had the bigger cheque book,'' she said.
"We did want to bring it to the government's attention but not in the way it has been responded to by the Federal Government.''
Ms Anderson said the report was deliberately written in such a reasonable way that the commonwealth would be unreasonable to ignore the recommendations.
"They behaved as though we all have done nothing and we don't know anything and we have all been sitting on our hands,'' she said.
Ms Anderson said there needed to be an appropriate way of returning power to people in Aboriginal communities.
"Aboriginal people are worried about their kids but they want to be part of the solution not merely to be passive recipients,'' she said.
"There has to be a whole new terms of engagement renegotiated with Aboriginal people.
"The days of being passive recipients are over, absolutely over. That isn't going to work, that hasn't worked.''
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