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The
race is on by Lindsay Murdoch (pictured)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/The-race-is-on/2005/06/16/1118869048130.html
ALBERT "Charro" Morrison tried to hide the maggots eating his feet by wrapping them in plastic. "He was a proud man, a respected elder of the Warlpiri [Tennant Creek] mob," said Mick Lambe, his friend. When Morrison died a few weeks ago, aged 50, members of the Kumbutjil Association, which he chaired, ignored the Aboriginal custom of not referring publicly to the dead. Instead, they posted a photograph of Morrison's rotting feet on their website and sent a copy to the Northern Territory's Chief Minister, Clare Martin. "Charro symbolises our fight," said Lambe, who works for the association as a project officer. "He died because of years of neglect and policy failures. Look around you. This is Third World squalor in the middle of whitefella territory." Morrison was once a teacher and trusted adviser in his community. But when his life ended he was a homeless "long-grasser" or habitual drunk, who was allowed out of hospital even though he was suffering life-threatening illnesses. If you believe the propaganda of the two main political parties campaigning throughout the Northern Territory for election tomorrow, Aboriginal people like him represent a threat to the territory's so-called "unique" way of life, which some critics say is code for pampered. The campaign has seen some long-held allegiances and political persuasions turned on their head, particularly by Labor's Martin, a Sydney-born former ABC journalist who led her party into government for the first time at the last election in 2001. Observers have given the Country Liberal Party, led by recycled leader Denis Burke, little chance of winning tomorrow. The only poll of voters conducted during the campaign found Martin's Labor leading the CLP by 14 percentage points, with 57 percentage points support on a two party-preferred basis. The poll found by contrast that the CLP was receiving just 43 per cent voter support, down from 51.5 per cent in 2001. Labor this time will have the advantage of incumbency, a big plus in the Northern Territory electorates, which have an average enrolment of just 4478 voters. With so few constituents, sitting MPs are well placed to introduce themselves to new arrivals while opposition candidates appointed closer to the election find it hard to compete. Despite this advantage, Martin has run an aggressive campaign dominated by law and order. As the campaign began two weeks ago she announced a crackdown on what she called antisocial behaviour that included jailing habitual drunks if they refused treatment and rehabilitation. The package was seen as shamelessly pandering to the rednecks in Darwin's northern suburbs where all seven seats swung to Labor four years ago, ousting the CLP after 27 continuous years in power. But public drunkenness is a problem in the territory, and Martin's administration decided to head off the CLP's tough "zero tolerance" stand against street and other crime. More than 42,000 drunks have been processed in the Territory in the past 27 months. Most were Aborigines and many were repeat offenders. John Ah Kit, an indigenous minister retiring at this election, has strongly defended Martin's crackdown on Aboriginal drunks even though he has been a fierce critic of race-driven politics. "When I see people - my people - begging, swearing, accusing, sleeping on the concrete, defecating here and there, I feel ashamed," he said. "It's racist if we don't do anything about it." One Mile Dam, where Morrison lived, operates as a refuge for homeless Aboriginal people, many of whom are regarded as "habitual drunks". At times as many as 150 people have lived at the debris-strewn camp only half a kilometre from Darwin's central business district where tourists dine in trendy cafes. For years community leaders there have agitated for government funds to build houses and a refuge centre on the land. A senior territory bureaucrat has told the community that funds for houses will be available next year but its leaders remain sceptical. David Timber, one of the community's leaders, told the Herald this week that most of the territory's politicians "don't give a stuff about Aboriginal people". "Both sides of politics are playing the race card," he said. "If they didn't they probably wouldn't be elected." Labor's stand has angered many indigenous leaders and prompted the CLP to accuse it of chasing the "redneck vote". During debates and speeches Martin has shrugged off criticisms that she has played the race card the same way as her conservative opponents were accused of doing for years. "My opponents have derided our plans to get habitual drunks into rehabilitation, saying it is too extreme for the people themselves. I do not agree," she said this week. "My Government will tackle the problem of hard-core drunks head-on over the next four years." Although a quarter of the territory's voters are Aboriginal none of the major parties has campaigned on the shocking state of remote indigenous communities, where most people do not work, where petrol sniffing, alcohol abuse and domestic violence are rife, and there is a critical shortage of housing and other infrastructure. Dale Seaniger, the deputy town clerk of Wadeye who is standing as an independent in the vast Daly electorate, said he has been disgusted the dire situation in the remote communities has been largely ignored during the campaign. "It's impossible to get the message across about anything other than issues that concern the territory's 15,000 public servants," Seaniger said. "And they are the people who live a nice life that is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer in Darwin's northern suburbs, where the election will be won or lost. Where's the fairness in that?" Labor has pushed a catchy "Don't go back to Burke" advertising blitz in an attempt to discredit the CLP leader whom Martin deposed in 2001's upset victory. Burke, a former army colonel, has attacked Martin's administration for failing to deliver gas to the Top End's domestic market even though some of the world's richest known gas fields have been discovered just off shore. A huge liquefied natural gas processing plant near Darwin is almost finished, but all of the gas that will be piped from the Bayu-Undan field has been sold to Japanese utilities for 17 years, while the Top End's gas supplies in central Australia will run out in 2011. Burke's key campaign promise was to build a power line across the top of Australia to connect with the national power grid in Queensland. Some experts criticised it as a backward step it did focus the campaigning, but for a while at least, on energy, the most important issue confronting the Territory. Martin said this week: "It is not a matter of if but when and on what terms more gas comes ashore. Gas is our competitive advantage. It is our future." It would be a disaster if the territory had to go back to burning diesel to provide power as it once had to do at huge cost. Martin called the election having secured a $1 billion redevelopment of Darwin wharf precinct that will revitalise the city and create hundreds of jobs. Under her leadership the territory has the highest economic growth in Australia at 7.2 per cent, the lowest small business taxes, record population growth, the highest building approval rates, surging house prices and record levels of home ownership. Property crime has been almost halved, while Martin has delivered 100 extra teachers, 100 extra nurses and 120 extra police, with 80 more to come. The Top End has a new railway connected to an international port. The Defence Department continues to send more personnel to live in Darwin. Martin opened a debate on the ABC's Stateline program last week by saying the campaign was about the future of a place "that we love, that's Territory". Charro Morrison would probably disagree, although voters across the territory appear set to give Martin her second term.
In 2001 Labor won all seven seats in Darwin's northern suburbs. It had never before held more than two Darwin seats at a time. The election will be won or lost in these suburbs. In 2001 Labor picked up a swing of 5.8 per cent and took power with a bare majority of 13 out of 25 seats.
Paul Mossman, the CLP candidate for Millner, says on a website a 13-year-old girl denied an abortion should have "kept her legs closed in the first place". He later says on ABC radio he regrets the comment. A visually impaired man knocks down a CLP stalwart after a political row at the party's campaign launch. A Labor minister, Chris Burns, keeps a low profile after calling a parliamentary rival a "poofter" earlier in the year.
Upset many voters when she oversaw the introduction of a zealous policing of pool fencing laws and had to scrap them. .Forced to sack the under-performing health minister Jane Aagaard in 2003. .Repealed the CLP government's controversial mandatory sentencing laws. .Alienated many indigenous voters by announcing a crackdown on what she calls "habitual drunks". Most of them are Aboriginal. .Oversaw the final stages of construction of the railway linking Darwin to Adelaide. .Pushed through approval for a $1 billion development of Darwin's wharf precinct. .Oversaw the Bayu-Undan offshore gas project, including a 500-kilometre pipeline to Darwin. .Yet to negotiate a deal to get gas into the Top End's domestic market. .Is presiding over the highest economic growth of any state or territory (7.2 per cent).
CLARE MARTIN is seeking re-election after leading Labor into power in the Northern Territory for the first time at the election in 2001. A former ABC journalist who holds a bachelor of arts from Sydney University in 1975, Martin entered politics in 1995 before taking charge of the Northern Territory Labor Party in 1999. DENIS BURKE is contesting the election after becoming the first Country Liberal Party chief minister to be defeated in 27 years since the Territory won self-government. A blunt-talking former army colonel, Burke was toppled as in 2003 after a short stint as Opposition leader but was re-elected after the resignation of Terry Mills early this year. |
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