| | Howard's NT land grab would fail in High Court - "dangerous police-state racism" |
CP KarenFriday, 10 August 2007 - Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has released senior legal opinion that the Howard government's proposed racist and dangerous takeover of Aboriginal communities land in the Northern Territory is not on 'just terms' as required by the Constitution... This week's tabling of almost 500 pages of legislation to authorise the unprecedented takeover of indigenous communities in the Northern Territory underscores the sweeping, autocratic character of the Australian government's military-police intervention - Continues... |
On the pretext of protecting Aboriginal children, the Howard government pushed five so-called Emergency Response Bills through the House of Representatives in about eight hours, and has demanded that the Senate approve them by next week. This makes an absolute mockery of parliamentary procedure. MPs will not even have time to read the far-reaching laws before rubber-stamping them.
The legislation is openly racist - it explicitly overrides the federal Racial Discrimination Act and the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Act to target Aboriginal people. At the same time, its provisions, including the seizure of land, the slashing of welfare entitlements and forced medical examinations, lay down a blueprint for use against broader sections of the working class.
Fundamental legal and political rights are being ripped up in order to impose free-market measures on Aboriginal townships, which will see “Government Business Managers” implement “emergency” powers and take sole control of local services, such as community stores, housing programs and municipal services. Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) will be abolished, in order to force indigenous workers into “real [i.e., cheap labour] jobs” or training.
Land and other property will be confiscated without compensation, in violation of the Australian Constitution. No appeals will be allowed to the Social Security Appeals Tribunal against decisions to “quarantine” half the welfare payments of parents alleged to be neglecting their children. Severe fines and jail terms will be imposed for alcohol use. In remote communities, housing, employment and other government programs will be cut off, forcing people to relocate to towns.
Mr Brian Walters SC concluded that, "all of the provisions in the legislation providing for acquisition of property other than on "just terms" would be struck down as void ab initio if they were enacted into law in their present form."
Mr Walters is of the opinion that the constitutional guarantee of 'just terms' is not upheld by the legislation. The government substitutes the words 'reasonable compensation' for 'just terms' in some clauses and Minister Mal Brough has indicated that government spending, including the provision of infrastructure, will be considered compensation.
"The legislation is a reversal to Terra Nullius - empty land - thinking," Senator Brown said. "It treats Indigenous communal land as if it has no more significance than the dollars a real estate speculator would see in remote and arid country. But it is the government, not the Aboriginal land, which is remote and arid in its thinking.
"This hasty and nasty, patronising legislation may be bulldozed through the Senate next week but it is far from being upheld as law. Even the Howard government is not entitled to override the Constitution," Senator Brown said.
Senator Brown said that more legal questions arose. For example, the extension of the extensive powers of the Australian Crime Commission, set up to snare crime syndicates involved in money laundering, international drug smuggling and white slavery, which this legislation applies to Indigenous communities to catch sex offenders.
"This is a dangerous police-state move which deserves much greater public debate - especially as most child sex offences in Australia do not occur in Aboriginal communities," Senator Brown said.
None of these measures has anything to do with preventing child sex abuse. They will only exacerbate the underlying social problems produced by two centuries of massacres, dispossession and forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Their purpose is to herd indigenous people into areas where their labour can be cheaply exploited.
Leaders representing 75 affected communities travelled to Canberra on Monday to oppose the legislation but were snubbed by Howard, Brough and Labor leader Kevin Rudd.
In a new report commissioned by Oxfam Australia on the government's radical takeover, Jon Altman, from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, says the measures will be detrimental to the development of Aboriginal communities. "I could find no evidence of the proposed measures being connected in any way to child sex abuse, and concluded that there may even be some risk of exacerbating the situation if the permit system is relaxed," Prof Altman said.
He said it was baffling that the government was not willing to subject any of its reforms to appropriate community consultation and parliamentary review.
He said the consequences of the legislation could be "disastrous" and could potentially lead to "five years of conflict" between blacks and whites in the communities. Prof Altman's report contends changes to the permit system are based on an ideological position rather than any factual basis, because there is no evidence that child abuse is more prevalent in areas where the system exists.
He said the reforms could also see people fleeing small outback communities for town centres.
This is not the first time the government has tried to replace Aboriginal land title with forms of private ownership. The Howard Government’s amendments to the 1992 Native Title Act opened the way for a massive land grab by miners and pastoralists.
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