I think you will be interested in a couple of Bob’s speeches to the Senate this week. Here are the links :

Speech 1

Speech 2

The Greens have long been working to promote the urgent need to address Aboriginal health and welfare issues. Bob identified the rights of indigenous Australians as a priority for the Greens in his first speech in 1996 and since that time has been a leading voice in the national parliament about indigenous affairs. Bob has led the way on two milestones on two indigenous affairs in particular – mandatory sentencing of children in the NT and WA, and petrol sniffing in the Central Desert region. By contrast, the Howard government’s recent announcement of a state of emergency after eleven years of inaction is a cynical exercise.

The Greens recognise that there are serious issues in some indigenous communities that require immediate action. What we want to see is an action plan developed in consultation with indigenous communities and relevant support services, and one that is comprehensive, culturally appropriate, and one that will work over the longer term. It is important to note that the Little Children are Sacred report listed consultation with the communities concerned as a primary recommendation. We don’t think Howard and Brough’s military-style approach is a plan that will succeed in these terms.

The Greens support the approach to these issues put forward by the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the NT, and call on the Coalition and the ALP to support the CAO too. For this report, please click here:

Link (Pdf)

I also include here a brief summary from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which helps to give some context to e.g. the level of service provision and educational opportunities within remote communities of the NT:

Link (Pdf)

The Greens remain concerned that the issue of child safety and social breakdown experienced by some aboriginal communities has been linked to an attempt to overturn community land title.

Bob made mention of the missed opportunity of another Budget surplus to bring real reform and adequate funding to Aboriginal health and housing across the nation – by contrast, the Green budget would prioritise reducing the 17 year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. An extract from Bob’s budget reply ( 15 May 2007) is included here :-

“…Aboriginal health and housing is grossly underfunded and misdirected in this year’s budget. It will not go anywhere near far enough to address the 17-year life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The focus of the government’s budget measures is on regional and remote communities—and no doubt they deserve much more funding. However, the majority of Aboriginal Australians live in urban communities where their life expectancy is just as bad as those in remote communities.

Health experts agree that $500 million per year is required to lift Aboriginal health standards to those of non-Aboriginal Australians. Taking this figure, Tom Calma, the social justice commissioner, has proposed a plan to address the gap in life expectancy within a generation. The Greens back him. It is appalling that rather than $500 million this budget allocates only about $30 million per annum to this nationally urgent responsibility.

A further $2.3 billion is needed to catch up on housing levels, but the Costello budget actually takes money away from Aboriginal housing in urban areas, focusing on remote and regional areas. Having taken the funding from urban Aboriginal housing, the government has done nothing to ease housing affordability, leaving the majority of Aboriginal Australians worse, not better, off. Despite recent international attention on Australia’s record as the worst in the developed world on Indigenous health and development, the government has yet again failed to deliver on meaningful reform….”

Rachel Siewert is the Greens Senator responsible for Indigenous affairs – please direct future correspondence in relation to indigenous matters directly to Rachel.

Her email is

For further information about The Greens’ response please go to Rachel’s website - www.rachelsiewert.org.au.

I also include the motion passed by the Australian Greens at the party’s most recent National Council (15 July 2007) and a recent acticle she wrote for Crikey.com below for your reference.

Additionally, I have provided links to two articles from The Age and ABC news which outline Labor’s and a group of Indigenous leaders oposing responses to the Intervention.

ABC

The Age

Thanks again for writing to us on this important matter.

Regards

Emma Belfield

Office of Senator Bob Brown

__________________

Australian Greens National Council, Melbourne, 15 July 2007

Motion on the Federal Government’s intervention in the Northern Territory

That the Australian Greens National Council: Upholds the right of all Australian children to be safe, secure and free from neglect and abuse.

Recognises that child protection and early childhood development are pressing issues nationally (not just for Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory) that demand greater attention and resources.

After many years of government neglect and funding cutbacks, welcomes the recent focus on the plight of Aboriginal communities as an opportunity to address the entrenched disadvantage and lack of essential and human services these communities continue to experience.

Expresses concern that the current ‘crisis’ intervention in the Northern Territory is inappropriate, is contrary to evidence based child protection intervention, and does not build upon existing knowledge and experience or on successful programs in this area.

Notes that this intervention has taken place without consultation with the communities concerned, despite this being the primary recommendation of the Little Children are Sacred report.

Rejects the punitive and racially-based approach to welfare reform now supported by the Coalition and Labor as lacking in positive solutions that address the underlying causes of disadvantage.

Recognises that overturning land tenure and scrapping the permit system is not an appropriate response to child abuse and will be counter productive.

Calls for a greater investment in early childhood development programs, community centres, adult education programs, safe houses, schools, multifunction community learning centres, teachers, family workers, and community police

Wholeheartedly supports the Emergency response and development plan to protect Aboriginal children put forward by the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory and indicates our ongoing commitment to work with Aboriginal and Islander communities and organisations to advance the recognition of their rights

Calls on the Coalition and Labor to adopt the Emergency response and development plan to protect Aboriginal children and enter into a partnership with Aboriginal communities to deliver a comprehensive long-term strategy that tackles the underlying causes of Indigenous disadvantage.

Brough's bills: a racist dog-whistle

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert writes in Crikey:

The fact that the Howard Government's new legislation is racist - that is, it breaches the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) - is beyond doubt.

If the comments of former federal court judge Murray Wilcox (who described the legislation as "constitutionally valid but extremely discriminatory") are not enough, then the fact that all three Bills take the extraordinary step of explicitly over-riding the RDA should be all the confirmation you need that the Bills are discriminating on the basis of race.

The real question isn't whether the provisions are racist, it's whether they represent an acceptable form of positive discrimination.

The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination recognises that there are situations where governments need to legislate for a racial group to specifically address existing substantive injustices - like the huge disparity in health and living standards faced by our Indigenous population in the NT and across the country in urban, rural and remote areas. This is what is referred to as "special measures" in section 8 of the RDA and represent a kind of affirmative action.

All three Bills have sections which state that their provisions are to be considered "special measures" - however simply declaring that the Bills are "special measures" is not enough, they also need to match up to the criteria for special measures set out in the RDA.

That is, they have to provide a clear benefit to the group, have the sole purpose of securing the advancement of that group, they have to be necessary to achieve this benefit, and they have to stop when they have achieved this goal.

There are a host of questions on all of these points that have already been raised by Crikey over the last few weeks - including whether taking control of land and scrapping the permit system were necessary to tackle child abuse or to address problems with health, education and housing.

Mal Brough has yet to even attempt to present a coherent argument linking the two, and with Pat Anderson (one of the authors of the Little Children are Sacred Report) declaring yesterday that they felt 'used and betrayed' by the government and that the measures had nothing to do with addressing child protection issues, it appears that the government is on very shaky ground.

The same holds for the move to exempt Aboriginal people in the NT from having access to the Social Security Appeals Tribunal if they are not happy with the way that 50 percent of their welfare payments are quarantined or the balance of what Centrelink decides they should be spending it on.

Ultimately, from a legal point of view, the government doesn't actually need to bother with seeking to over-ride the RDA in these Bills. The Commonwealth already has the power to make laws which are inconsistent with the RDA (as clearly demonstrated in the Hindmarsh Bridge affair) and the rules of statutory interpretation means that when there is an inconsistency between laws the newer law automatically over-rides any earlier law. (The RDA does not operate like a bill of rights.)

So the decision to declare these bills as 'special measures' and to explicitly over-ride the RDA is a political one. The real question is whether the government thinks it can win the PR battle and convince the public that its heavy-handed paternalistic approach is really "for their own good".

The Greens are hopeful that the dog-whistle politics that clearly underlie the whole of this election year 'crisis' intervention will fall flat. Certainly there have been clear signs that this whole escapade hasn't produced the desired bounce in the polls and that the racist undercurrent hasn't been enough to turn the heads of the Aussie battlers who continue to desert Howard.