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Thursday 28 June 2007, Media Release

FROM A BLINDFOLD TO A BANDAID

Prime Minister John Howard should outline a national plan for the rebuilding of housing and infrastructure in Aboriginal communities as part of a considered response to the Little Children Are Sacred report and all of those which have preceded it.

He should begin today when he meets Northern Territory Chief Minister, Clare Martin, in Brisbane by publicly announcing a “core” commitment to ending the atrocious backlog of unmet need in housing and infrastructure in the 60 communities he proposes to take over in the NT.

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has welcomed the Prime Minister’s sudden realisation after 11 years in power that there is widespread violence and abuse of women and children in Aboriginal communities.

This crisis, which is not confined to our communities, existed when he came into office and had been widely reported upon in a succession of official government reports.

It has grown worse on his watch.

Now that he has taken off his blindfold, he cannot replace it with a bandaid.

During his dramatic press conference in Canberra last week he said he expected the Commonwealth intervention in the Northern Territory would cost in the “tens of millions of dollars”. The Commonwealth would take control of the affected communities for five years.

The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University has estimated the true cost of rebuilding these communities at four to five billion dollars.

These are experts who have been working in the field throughout Mr. Howard’s term in office and have produced report after report of evidence-based research to underpin their calculations.

The Little Children Are Sacred Report, and many of the reports before it which have been produced during Mr Howard’s term of office, and before, have identified violence and substance abuse in our communities as a national problem.

Pat Anderson and Rex Wild, the authors of the report, identified the need for a sustained 15 year response.

Mr. Wild pointed out on national television last night that the Commonwealth currently receives about six billion dollars a year in taxes from the sale of alcohol and suggested the Commonwealth commit this money to the problem.

He also noted that no-one from the Commonwealth Government had contacted him before Prime Minister Howard announced his intervention which were now told was hastily put together in the preceding 72 hours.

Mr. Wild also noted that his report’s first recommendation called for Aboriginal child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory to be designated an issue of urgent national significance by both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments and both governments immediately establish a collaborative partnership with a Memorandum of Understanding to specifically address the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse.

The second part of that recommendation said it was critical that both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.

Mr. Howard’s hasty unilateral declaration of a national emergency on this issue without consultation with the NT Government or the Aboriginal community has caused the fear and anguish in Aboriginal communities in the NT.

Aboriginal leaders around this country have been willing to work with this Government ever since it was elected. It has chosen to ignore them and concocted claims that all previous policies and programmes have failed.

This is not true. The programmes and policies have never been properly resourced.

In summary, Mr Howard’s bandaid solution in the NT has been hastily manufactured, has a current shelf life of five years, and has a price tag, to use his own words, of “tens of millions”.

It’s time to get real, Prime Minister.

We need long term sustainable solutions. We need national leadership.

You have yet to deliver either.

Bev Manton
Chairperson
NSWALC

Further information: Paul Molloy 0419 690 926