Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, has slammed the Northern Territory intervention, saying that it is making the problems facing Aboriginal Australians worse, AAP reported on October 7.
He said the government’s “top-down externally driven” efforts to close the gap on Aboriginal socio-economic disadvantage were instead having the opposite effect”. Amnesty was appalled that current policies had in effect caused “forced evictions from their traditional homelands”.
Shetty said there was strong evidence that Indigenous people had “better health and a better state of mind” when they lived on their own lands.
He conterposed New Zealand’s treatment of Maori with Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people, saying: “Aboriginal people need to be empowered to make their own choices.”
An Amnesty report released in August profiled Utopia, 260 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs, and claimed Aborigines were being driven off their homelands and herded into “hub towns”. This was achieved by funding resources and services in these “hub towns” while starving the homelands of funds.
“They’re stripping funds for essential services from these communities, effectively driving people away,” Shetty told AAP.
He said part of the problem was mainstream Australia’s lack of understanding about the extent of the disadvantage gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Australia was one of the richest countries and should be able to find solutions “unless deep down we’re dealing with a lot of prejudice and discrimination”.
The government should be looking at the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred Report and its obligations under the United Nations declaration for Indigenous people when planning its next move, he said.
In Geneva two reports — Listen to Children and Children of the Intervention — were tabled at the United Nations’ Pre-Sessional Meeting on the Rights of the Child on October 11.
Two NT Aboriginal women Djapirri Mununggirritj and Kathy Guthadjaka travelled to Geneva to present the report. Indymedia.org.au reported that they said: “We fear for their future, for their ability to learn to walk in two worlds,to obtain an education and a job.
“We fear for their health and their general wellbeing. But most of all, we fear that these recent changes [to the intervention legislation] will lead to the loss of our land, our culture and our language.”
The federal government’s Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory, Monitoring Report, July-December 2010, says that between 2008 and 2009, children’s skin infections increased by 8.8%, upper respiratory infections by 25%, otitis media by 124% and malnutrition and nutritional anaemia by 66%.
Children of the Intervention describes the exorbitant cost of food in remote communities. A basket of food that costs $42 in Melbourne costs more than $68 in Beswick/Wugularr.
The Red Cross has recently referred to Aboriginal children under the age of five in some remote areas of the Northern Territory as “suffering malnutrition at rates similar to children in countries like Ethiopia”.
Guthadjaka, a schoolteacher, said: “Bilingual learning programs recognise the importance of gaining competence in the child’s first language, before introducing a second language.”
The reports also criticise the decision by government to bring the Community Development Employment Project (CDEP) to a close. This project, introduced in 1975, has provided much needed part-time employment for many Aboriginal people in remote areas.
Also mentioned are unrealistic penalties for minor offences, which are keeping jails full to overflowing. The high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal people across Australia are higher than those of South Africa towards the end Apartheid. Since the beginning of the intervention in 2007, Aboriginal incarceration in the Northern Territory has gone up by 30%.
The intervention includes restrictions on the use or possession of alcohol in prescribed communities. The fines that accompanied these restrictions are particularly harsh. Possession of a bottle of beer can result in a fine of $1100 for a first offence. These restrictions did not take into account many communities’ existing self-imposed alcohol restrictions.
Children of the Intervention concludes that most Aboriginal children in 2011 cannot be provided with secure accommodation, nor are they guaranteed the basic requirements for optimal health or access to a standard education.