Saturday’s Age revealed that hundreds of people living in remote Aboriginal communities in the
Northern Territory may have been exposed to potentially carcinogenic formaldehyde from the converted shipping containers which are used for accommodation in some of these locations.

 

Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, in an heroic display of understatement has apparently described the matter as “serious”. Yes it is Minister. But shouldn’t somebody have checked earlier?

 

This sorry saga is a metaphor for the indecent haste which has characterised the Northern Territory Emergency Response since day one. The federal intervention was a knee-jerk response to the Little Children are Sacred report by a panicked Howard Government already destined for electoral oblivion.

 

As part-time parliamentarian and radio-show host Alexander Downer observed, the Howard Government didn’t get the bounce in the polls they were hoping for from this exercise in grandstanding. But by then the government was in it up to its soon-to-be- wrenched neck, and there could be no turning back.

 

Former Minister, Mal Brough, brimful of righteous zeal, made much of banning alcohol from remote communities which had long ago voted themselves to outlaw the grog. Sadly, his government lacked the ticker to confront the all-powerful alcohol lobby which sells their pernicious products to the bush communities from
Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek. Instead, Aboriginal people would carry the can.

 

Punitive income management arrangements were imposed on all residents living in prescribed communities before bureaucrats and businesses had time to develop and implement necessary systems. The much-vaunted ‘storecards’ turned out to be generic vouchers, which are now routinely bartered for the goods they were intended to restrict.

 

As we head towards an expected review of the intervention in mid-year, little has been heard from the government about who will conduct the review, or what the terms of reference will look like. Minister Macklin must make clear statements about these matters in short order if the review is to be perceived as fair-dinkum.

 

The Prime Minister’s dream run in Indigenous affairs, characterised by the triumph of the apology to the Stolen Generations may be coming to an end. As Rudd rushes to embrace the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, one wonders whether he has told the folks in New York that his government denies many Indigenous Australians living in the
Northern Territory access to the Racial Discrimination Act.

 

It’s still not too late for the Rudd Government to ratchet down the heavy-handedness of their approach to Indigenous Australia, which they inherited from the previous government. They could still embrace Aboriginal people and consult them in the development of solutions community by community.

 

It won’t be swift or spectacular, but it just might work.