The Oz carries this intriguing report about the upcoming Federal Budget which suggests the previous government did not have any funding allocated for the NT Intervention beyond 1 July this year.
Which reason do you think best explains why Howard and Brough didn’t organise any forward estimates from Treasury?
- Hubris - They assumed that a problem which took decades to develop could be sorted out by the boys in khaki in about 6 months.
- Incompetence - They just forgot.
- Laziness - Couldn’t be bothered. After all, it’s only public money.
- Rashness - Everything was arranged too hastily to make a proper plan (Eek! it’s been under our noses for years! Quick, no time to waste, it’s an emergency!)
- Cynicism -The plan was conceived after the Budget, so we’ll let Treasury doze and draw up some estimates once we’ve counted how many votes this brings in.
- Complacency - They assumed they’d win the election and could write it into this year’s Budget themselves?
- Disingenuousness - They assumed they’d lose the ‘07 election and left it as a Budget landmine for the incoming ALP? (Which it most certainly is - a $600 million landmine according to the report.)
So after all the posturing and bluster, after all the accusations from blowhards that anybody who questioned the Intervention is a supporter of child-rape, we learn that the “architects” of the “plan” didn’t set aside the provisions to actually carry it out.
What great economic managers. What great defenders of the little children. They fully deserved to lose their seats. As will Macklin and co. if they cock this one up.
Interesting, Mercurius.
Is this a Budget Sweep? I’d like the tickets marked *Incompetence, *Rashness, and *Laziness. I suspect there wasn’t a long-term plan. This would accord with the remarks by Sue back in January (?) that she was urgently requiring some firm direction from Minister Jenny Macklin on the Intervention’s IMMEDIATE future. On LP at that time, several posters wondered aloud whether the “plan” may have lacked target dates, milestones, schedule etc, right from its inception. It seemed strange that something that had only been up and running for a few months had already lost all momentum.
Oh, could I have the *Cynicism ticket too? The one about garnering votes….
I think you will find that the forward estimates for the NT emergency response were provided for in a contingency reserve fund, rather than allocated to specific programs or departments. Have a look at at MYEFO/PEFO.
Seems like Rudd and co have the chance to axe this on the grounds of the Razor Gang as well as the fact that it’s incredibly racist. The legislation was nothing more then a vote grab at the end of the life of a very negligent government. Ditch it.
Not that I disagree with Sam but…I think I saw somewhere Jenny Macklin saying something like “We are firmly committed to the NT intervention”
Sorry for the lack of precision maybe someone else can provide a link/quote.
Found it [via ShowsON at Poll Bludger].
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23558210-5013871,00.html
“Families and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has committed to continuing the intervention. “We’re strongly committed to the Northern Territory emergency response and this will be reflected in the budget,” she said.”
Oops its the same link as in the first sentence of the post, I should have checked that out first.
Jenny’s comment still applies.
Cynicism for sure; with inflation & the coming financial crisis as excuses for axing it in Budget 08 (by which time Mal Brough would have another portfolio and the next election was at least two & a half years away).
Isn’t questioning their economic management make you a poor economic manager? At least that’s the impression I got last year.
I imagine that Federal Labor’s approach is to keep the phrase “intervention” so as not to scare the conservative punters and then actually do something worthwhile that follows up the spirit of the apology.
Howard and Brough’s strategy was always a crock. A cycnical grab for land, control and votes as well as incompetently theorised and rolled out. As with so many other things, the previous government couldn’t organise a farting contest in a baked bean factory.
I’d still keep an eye on Federal Labor who may be tempted to keep the bits of the intervention which would eventually hand control of Aboriginal lands to the miners.
Mug Punter,
Some time ago I think Macklin said they were going to remove those parts of the intervention the Kooris really objected to. That includes the landgrab. And they’ll have added pressure on them because I think some Kooris have just gone o/s to complain to the UN about the removal of racial discrimination laws.
I recall lots of the usual suspects here sneering openly at anyone who questioned the motivation of the dishonourable Rodent and his crew in implementing this genius policy. I wonder if we’ll see the same level of vociferous defence of his motivations in the future?
I’d say yes to all those reasons, except for ‘hubris’.
SG will wait with bated breath and will relish them twisting and turning like twisty turny things as they try to defend their heroes’ incompetence, cynicism and plain carelessness.
This doesn’t surprise me. The intervention was totally unconsidered, unresearched, half-baked and almost all of it was abhorrent legislation.
To put it into historical context, at the time they were still 6 months or so away from an election and desperately needed an issue that the Coalition would ‘own’. The rhetoric from Brough from then, right through the election campaign and even now, made it clear they didn’t want a political debate about it; they manufactured another Tampa, but this time, it blew up in their faces. I’m probably being a bit cynical, there may have been some honesty in their motivation, but it’s hard not to conclude that their main goal was to depopulate valuable aboriginal land and move people to cities.
Some good has come out of the intervention, I can’t deny that, but the vast majority of legislation has been detrimental.
To answer your question, I think it was a combination of hubris, cynicism, rashness, and an awful lot of incompetence.
Paul, “koori” refers to aboriginal people from the south east, specifically the Sydney region. There isn’t a commonly accepted term for all Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, nor even just Aborigines from the territory - well, apart from ‘blackfella’, but whitefellas tend to get their nose out of joint with that one.
Excellent Gil Scott-Heron reference, by the way.
“I’m probably being a bit cynical,..”
Sounds more like clarity than cynicism, Jangari.
According to this media release by the previous government before the last election campaign they had a long term commitment to the Intervention:
Government delivers long-term commitment to housing jobs, health and police as part of long term commitment to NT
But I take anything released by the Howard government in the leadup ot the last election with a grain of salt. And wasn’t it Downer who stated they were disappointed that the intervention didn’t give them a boost in the polls as was expected?
Somewhat reminiscent of the “Murray-Darling Plan” which also hadn’t been costed when first announced, let lone had scientists and farmers check it…
Merc -you omitted “Spin” as well as “Disdain” & “Contempt”.
Thanks, Jangari. They seem to use it in New England, too. Picked it up from my mate, Jim Miller. Will stick to Aborigine in future to avoid offence.
Indigenous peoples is a good phrase, Paul. Pluralises the nations in question, and includes Torres Strait Islanders who aren’t Aborigines.
I would vote for “Incompetence”. Maybe as an “Incompetent attempt to lazily exploit a rash decision to cynically use a long term issue for a perceived short term electoral benefit”.
Tyro,
Or maybe just “We don’t know how much it will cost, let’s leave it in the emergency / contingency bucket until we know how much it will be costing”. Putting a number in the forward estimates would have been politically damaging in the run up to an election. Advertising the cost of a policy normally gets people thinking about whether it is worth it or not.
Yeah, sure, but that just goes to confirm that the thing was electorally driven.
This was the mob that released a “charter of Budget honesty”?
Of course it was, Mark - this was a government that knew it was in trouble and was looking for a wedge issue. Wait until the Ruddster is in trouble and one of the state governments is Liberal. There can almost be guaranteed to be an intervention about 6 months out from the election - and just after the budget is published. There is enough evidence to justify an intervention a week all of the States. It is just the political imperitive that is lacking.
I should add that it was probably justified (although the long term view is the only way to be reasonably sure) but it was the politics that made sure it was done when it was.
Maybe so, Andrew, but that won’t occur for a long time, I suspect.
I don’t know what “justified” means. Certainly service delivery in the NT to remote communities is awful, and they have awful problems. And in the town camps. It does appear in retrospect that the claims of endemic child sexual abuse don’t stack up. That’s not to say that it wasn’t occurring, and it’s a horrible blight that needed addressing (though I think there were better ways of doing so). It is to say that the dimensions of the problem were almost certainly talked up beyond all reality.
I think we will have to respectfully disagree on this one.
Perhaps if you were going on the media’s reporting, i understand reality may seem different, but having worked in child protection, and domestic violence in communities, and having my ear close to those who still do, i wouldn’t dismiss it all that lightly.
sublime - a terrible problem, whether in suburbs of large cities, in country towns, or in NT communities. Many of us don’t dismiss it at all, we just wonder if the “Intervention” was the best means of reducing family violence and child-rape.
I’ve still not heard ANY explanation of how changes to LAND ownership were supposed to tackle family violence, poor health, child-rape, alcohol addiction, high mortality, etc.
Has anyone seen even an unconvincing attempt at explaining that “connection”?
sc, I’m not trying to dismiss it at all. I’m just suggesting the scale and scope don’t seem to be as large as Brough suggested. And I endorse Ambigulous’ view.
What about throwing out the current intervention, and the Government funding a new set of policies implementing all of, or as many as possible of, the recommendations of the Little children are Sacred report?
None of which were implemented in the Howard/Brough intervention.
Just the 2c of someone who isn’t very knowledgeable - but surely, the contributors to the LCAS report were?
Yes Helen: and just by the way, this might cost less too. (Then again, a serious effort on housing might cost more).
However they set the Budget, Labor will have to decide its own priorities for their 2008/2009 spending. Deleting pork barrels and winding up flim flam is just the beginning….
When the ‘intervention’ legislation was introduced I couldn’t help but wonder how Aussie’s in general would react if the govt of the day suggested that any family involved in child abuse would lose their land (home/business). Agree with Helen @30.
Paul and Mark,
Ideally we’d use the specific ethnicity of the referent/s, such as a Gamilaraay wo/man, a Dharug person or a Wagiman person, but unfortunately, the communicative channel doesn’t seem to exist through which white people could find out such information.
They use specific ethnic groups in North America, when they talk of the Sioux, the Mi’kmaq or the Inuktitut. Why can’t we do it here?
Jangari, How would one find this out? I know that locally (Ipswich), we have Murri(?)people.
Nyoongar gets used a lot in SW Australia, usually accurately, but the problem is too many tribal groups and the need for a term to refer to Aboriginal people per se when discussing something of national significance.
Ipswich has a couple of groups including the Jaggara and Turubul peoples amongst others. The city council can give you a fair bit of information is you ring, believe it or not.
I think Murri is a more generic term throughout Qld for all of the indigenous groupings(ie Murri Radio). I’ve met a lot of people who were happy to use Murri and a few who wanted more specific names used. For obvious reasons the specific names are more important when referring to the land where the groupings lived. I know you can cause a lot of problems by thanking the wrong grouping or leaving people out at the start of a function.
Kurnai (or Gurnai) people here in the Latrobe Valley, Gippsland; general term Koories used too.
In NZ (Aoteaoroa), whites (pakeha) say “Maori” rather than using “Iwi” [tribe] or sub-tribe names, I think: like “Tainui” etc. IMHO there’s a good deal more knowledge of indigenous culture in Aotearoa amongst pakeha than here in Australia. Smaller country, better settlement [Treaty of Waitangi, Wars in the 1870s, some lands reserved in 19th C, reserved seats in Parl’t, etc]
darin, I heard that even in Canberra, there was some contention over who should do the “welcome to country” ceremony for Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin and Wilson Tuckey (staring down from on high).
Thanks Darin. That would be my concern too. An overall name would be helpful.
If only blackfella wasn’t so socially unacceptable.
You can see a good estimate of the precolonial linguistic boundaries (not tribal boundaries, mind you) from here. But know that there are some issues with it, especially some geo-political disagreements. But it gives you a rough idea.
Here is another great resource, though it’s considerably earlier and there are huge geopolitical problems with it, mainly because a lot of these tribal groups have disappeared as an ethnic unit, and the land is now retrospectively “traditionally associated” with another tribal group. I hope what I mean is clear; an ethnic group that remains in an area after others are… removed, unconsciously comes to ‘take over’ all historical claim to that land. But hey, this is terribly controversial and I’ll say no more.
“If only blackfella wasn’t so socially unacceptable.”
Is it though? I’ve had conversations with aboriginal folks I didn’t know well, where white- and blackfella seemed to be their preferred words.
Is it the whiff of patronising pidgin-English spelling that does it. Somehow “blackfellows” seems too stuffy.
For a start, I don’t think ‘pidgin-English’ is necessarily patronising; Kriol is a very widely spoken language that is now almost universally regarded as being quite linguistically distinct from English. But yes, ‘blackfellow’ is a little too formal.
Also, I think you’re right to think that blackfellas have no issue with ‘blackfella’ at all; it’s really a paranoid Anglo assumption of some inherent racism, where racism is more about intent that specific words used. That is, it’s the use that’s racism or not, not the actual form of the word. This distinction also holds for ‘nigga’; it’s taken to be racist if and only if non-African-American people use it, which is a generalisation based on the typical intent behind it.
Without being too racism-denialist about it, ‘blackfella’ will never be acceptable in white society due to hypersensitivity about racism. I don’t mean to say racism doesn’t exist though.
By far, ‘blackfella’ and ‘whitefella’ are the labels of choice among indigenous people, at least those from the north. Also, ‘halfcaste’ is the label of choice for people of mixed genealogy. Again, there’s usually no derision involved; it’s just a matter-of-fact label.
Most of the Murris I know, Jangari, are happy with “blackfella” and “whitefella” and I picked up the habit accordingly.
Certainly been my experience in over 20 years of popping up to FNQ now and then to hang with locals of all colours.
Mark, could you delete the blockquotes for the second sentence above.
Thankee.
Nabakov @ 43 …
The trick is knowing which ones don’t like it before you use it. Some people take great offence to the term when used by non-indigenous people or, probably more specifically, non-indigenous people they don’t know and like.
Absolutely. Here I employ a cunning strategem which involves listening to and watching how people behave in a given social situation before playing myself into the conservation at the appropriate level. I’ve even come up with a clever name for this strategem - ‘etiquette’. Do you think it will catch on? Beyond the blogosphere obviously.
For “conservation” read “conversation”.
Like etiquette acquired at second hand, automated spellchecking can sometimes derail how and why you’re making your point.
I don’t know about ettiquetta, Nabakov, but I think sarcasm and irony are doing just fine
Hey Mark @ #26 What parts do you think were talked up beyond reality? I dont think the reports and studies that have been out for a long time over represent much at all. In fact if anything part of the the prob is under reporting and underrepresentation of child abuse rather than the other way round.
I’m happy to argue the merits of the response, but as for the parameters of the prob..( i have no strong comment of the land issues particularly) i’m not sure why any one s thinking its not as big as suggested.
Having worked in child protection in an aboriginal community (albeit quite a few years back), and in DV across the state more recently, i’m not just reading about this in the australian.
I’ve said this on here before, but when you’re in your early 20’s and had aboriginal grandmothers imploring you to remove their grandchildren from their community to save them - (and i mean crying and tugging at yr arm begging you not to drive away with out them) - it sticks with you. Its awful. Almost as awful as driving back out, discussing it with your superiors who shake their heads and tell you you can’t do anything cause drunken neglect is so entrenched it’d mean removing half the kids in the place, politically it wont wash, cause like, where are we going to put them all?
http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/bib/aboriginal.htmlAs Helen said, sc, I think the extent of what was going on was documented in the Little Children are Sacred report. But, at least as I understood what he was saying, Mal Brough seemed to be tarring all Indigenous people as potential or actual child abusers.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear!
And at the end of the day, the existence of the problem is not the debate anymore. The more realistic, needed and yet under-publicised debate over the past 10 months has been the potential effect of the legislation.
Alcohol restrictions will encourage drinkers away from communities, which might seem like a good thing, but certainly the best solution would see them stay with their communities. Many towns in the NT have had alcohol programs operating for years, with varying degrees of success, with little, or most often, no federal support.
Housing, one of the key issues, in my humble opinion, has been neglected for decades, yet this intervention had no such commitment to addressing housing shortfalls in the NT.
Health is, as we should all know by now, probably the most pressing issue, or at least, the issue with the most serious negative consequences. Yet (in an attempt to drag this thread back to its basis) longer-term health provisions were very much not in the government’s plans.
Then there are the most odious aspects of the intervention, such as the abolition of CDEP, which usually worked, despite being characterised lately as being essentially sit-down money. These programs are essential to te survival of the community; not just for their employment applications but also for the services that are provided to the community from community members.
Moreover, there was the forced leasing of public infrastructure and land, which the government wrote into the legislation to reclaim lands, provided that they recompensed the former owners in ‘just terms’. The problem with this is that there is no causal link, not even a correlative link, between land tenure or ownership and child abuse, child neglect or any other indigenous health yardsticks. With this in mind, this particular aspect of the intervention legislation can accurately be described as a ‘land grab’.
Of course there’s a social problem, but the punitive measures employed by Howard, Brough et al. were ill-though out, and were destined not to work. In fact, they were likely designed with ulterior motives in mind. This ulterior motive, as I’ve said before, was to discourage aboriginal people from living on resource-rich, and potentially very taxable land, and move them into cities, where facilities and services are more easily funded due to the economics of scale.
I don’t need to labour this point again; I’ve been saying it for almost a year now, ever since Brough attempted to bribe Tangentyere Town Council with a 99-year lease over their land, that the primary motive has never been the best interests of aboriginal people in the Territory.
I’ve only ever gotten in trouble from honkies for using it, and have no truck at all with white guilt subverting our loverly langwidge, so thanks for the heads-up. I will be more circumspect in future, and observe Nabs’ radical doctrine.
Word.
That’s a bit far-fetched for mine. The intervention was a rush job in the shadow of an election. It was done for electoral reasons.
Methinks the ulterior motive existed long before the intervention was mooted, wbb. The intervention was merely a ramping up of the pre-existing glacially-progressing approach to eventual alienation of land title in remote communities.
Yes, Tigtog. The government had had their sights set on abolishing land rights years before the intervention. Probably the imperative wasn’t high enough for them to do something so politically sour.
That is, until such time as the release of the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle report, which coincided with the Coalition facing an election half a year away while being seriously down in the polls. So you’re not wrong, wbb, that it was done for electoral reasons, but there was more to it than that; the issue goes back years.
“Housing, one of the key issues, in my humble opinion, has been neglected for decades, yet this intervention had no such commitment to addressing housing shortfalls in the NT.”
Jangari, i agree. Are there any communities, that you know of, that have appropriate housing developments? While, one size does not fit all, clever architectural designs might be up and running, quick time, if there was the will.
Incidentally, i noticed that the temp “container”, drop-off housing, for some intervention staff may have breached basic work and safety rules due to previous high toxicity levels.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/11/2214356.htm
“Let’s treat everybody like crap”..old government mantra.