On November 11, under instruction from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, federal police raided the Canberra offices of the National Indigenous Times to search for leaked government documents. NIT editor Chris Graham spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Louise Moran.
The NIT published excerpts on November 10 from a leaked cabinet-in-confidence document that was written on April 7 — five days after the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission lodged a High Court challenge to the federal government’s stripping of its powers. The document warned PM John Howard that the legal challenge made the total abolition of ATSIC “a matter of urgency”. It recommended that legislation be drafted “with a view to passage before 1 July”.
According to Graham, this “is not what they said publicly of course”. Rather, Aboriginal affairs minister Amanda Vanstone described the challenge as “a frivolous waste of taxpayers’ money” that wouldn’t win. “But what they were doing in the background of course, was panicking”, said Graham.
Two other documents obtained by the NIT reveal government proposals for a “new era” of Indigenous welfare policy that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission warns could breach race discrimination laws. The government plans to take a “shared responsibility” approach to Indigenous welfare, which involves a “contract” between the government and a particular region, community, or individuals receiving welfare.
One such contract may involve withdrawing housing renovations if a family doesn’t send its kids to school. “So they’re saying that if you don’t send your kids to school, we’re going to ensure that you live in a hovel”, explained Graham. “And bear in mind, Aboriginal people living in remote communities often have 20-30 people living in this hovel. They’re not just ensuring that the kid who they’re seeking to ‘assist’ lives in a hovel but [also] the entire extended family”.
Another proposal is “no school, no pool”, which forbids Aboriginal children from using the community pool unless their parents ensure that they attend school, even though non-attendance is often the result of chronic middle-ear infections.
One document describes an agreement between the government and Mulan, an Aboriginal community in the Kimberly. In this agreement, the community must ensure that children are showered and sent to school. Chronic eye and skin infections and worms in children are then addressed in return for the community covering one-third of the cost of installing fuel
bowsers. Graham points out that white communities do not have to agree to a set of sanctions in return for basic services.
Graham is critical of the government’s abrogation of responsibility for providing much-needed services to Indigenous people. “I’m saying we need to put more into housing for Aboriginal communities, which is what every government report for the last 20 years has said, but they’re talking about refusing to renovate existing housing”, says Graham.
One of the rewards for complying with a “shared responsibility” agreement is one new DVD player for the entire community. Graham’s response is: “Well great, but how about a dialysis machine? Or a doctor, or some sort of health-care facility?”
Graham argues that “These measures are not in any way about assisting Indigenous people but they’re about cutting costs and expediting the failure of their health statistics. The cheapest way they can do it is to threaten people with sanctions, and if those people don’t respond you can stand back and say, ‘Well we tried, but these people can’t be helped’.”
According to Graham, self-determination is the primary way to successfully address the disadvantages suffered by Indigenous people. “In Canada, study after study has shown that Aboriginal people must be in control of their destiny and that if they don’t have self-determination they will make no improvements; it will get worse.”
According to Vanstone, ATSIC is likely to be abolished by the end of the year. “ATSIC wasn’t perfect, it certainly had a failure of leadership”, said Graham, “but at least Aboriginal people had a say in the priorities that matter to them”.
Despite government attempts to deter dissent and censor the alternative media, “there will always be opposition”, said Graham. The raid on NIT has been condemned by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and Reporters Without Borders.
From Green Left Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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