When the Country Liberal Party (CLP) took office in August 2024, ending eight years of sometimes shambolic Labor rule, there was vocal concern among many First Nations groups about what was to come.
But it would be the act of an ultimate pessimist to have predicted the damage a government— barely halfway through its first parliamentary term— could do to the relationship between themselves and Aboriginal Territorians within two years.
Lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 and toughening bail laws has seen an explosion in prison numbers, with nearly half of prisoners now held on remand. Children can now have spit hoods — described by critics as torture — placed over their heads in custody.
Then, this year, despite nearly everyone opposing changes to child protection laws — "people can write letters until the cows come home," Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro exclaimed — the government forged ahead.
When experts have spoken out, they have been labelled ideological, uncaring towards children and jumping on the "bandwagon of other political advocates".
"Every time the CLP rams through racist, draconian laws and ignores warnings, it locks in damage that will be felt for decades to come," Justine Davis, the independent member for Johnston, wrote in The Saturday Paper over the weekend.
However, the government's latest move — a barely concealed attack on an Aboriginal-run homeless shelter, the largest in Darwin — seems particularly egregious.
The future of the YiSSA Short-Stay Accommodation site on Batten Road was thrown into limbo in July after the government gave Yilli Rreung Housing Aboriginal Corporation 90 days to vacate the facility following a failure to agree on a price for the property.
Despite the Commonwealth coming forward and agreeing to pay half the cost of the demountable buildings (while the site sits on Crown land, the buildings are owned by Ausco), the NT Government argued it would be a "waste" of taxpayers' money.
Ms Finocchiaro even claimed the federal government's priorities were "topsy turvy".
Those priorities, evidently, seem to include supporting the 233 people at the facility, including 85 children. Or perhaps caring for the further 300 people — including almost 90 children — reportedly on the waitlist in Australia's worst jurisdiction for homelessness, where rates are almost 12 times the national average.
Organisations, many of them working on the ground, are clear about the reality of YiSSA's closure.
"Some people may have no choice but to stay in situations that are unsafe for them and their children," they say. "Others may suffer worsening of health conditions through having no safe place to stay."
Despite saying in July that a transition plan was coming, the government still hasn't released one — just a month before the site is due to close.
It's coming any day now, we hear.
Children and Families Minister Robyn Cahill — who earlier this year claimed that too much rain during the NT's wet season could impact the "axis of the Earth" — has questioned whether YiSSA is an appropriate facility for its current residents.
Many of the people staying at the site "would be better placed in other facilities," she told the NT News. "People with health problems for example — who should be in a medical centre, or others who have been there quite long term".
If that was the case, it is odd that the government initially tried to buy the facility, only to baulk at Ausco's supposed — and now disputed — price.
Let there be no doubt: homelessness is a government problem; a government failure. Every government.
That the most vulnerable people in the Territory — many of them from remote communities — are being treated like an inconvenience says all you need to know.
But perhaps the elephant in the room is the fact that YiSSA is Indigenous-run.
Several people have expressed concern to this masthead that the government simply doesn't see it as a priority to keep the shelter in the hands of an Aboriginal-controlled service.
After all, if you are happy to say land acknowledgements are "divisive" and "tokenistic", and to put offside almost every organisation — from land councils, which accused the CLP last year of "treating them like children", to legal groups — then it is not much of a leap to wonder whether the government is similarly dismissive of Indigenous-run homelessness services.
Worse still, the CLP just seems to shrug its shoulders.
It has used terms like "talk-fests" and "identity politics" when people point out First Nations groups aren't being consulted on justice issues. It uses gaslighting terms like "hysteria" when experts warn new legislation will make things worse for children.
When she was questioned about the lack of consultation on the child protection laws this year, Ms Finocchiaro said the quiet part out loud.
"I mean, for goodness sake, I don't have to justify this," she told ABC radio. "This has been done with the best interest of a child at heart — the CLP is putting the safety of a child first."
The complete breakdown in relationships between nearly every Indigenous group in the NT and the government is profound.
NT Labor leader Selena Uibo didn't hold back last week, arguing — more forcefully than any federal Labor MP has done — that the CLP "doesn't care about Aboriginal Territorians".
"A third of Territorians are Aboriginal ... and we're seeing the CLP completely dismiss any type of working relationship, consultation or partnerships," she told ABC Radio.
Last month, Yiŋiya Mark Guyula, a Yolŋu man of the Djambarrpuyŋu clan, quit as an independent member of the NT Parliament. A proud man who represented his people for a decade in Darwin, he said he could no longer "sit opposite a government who are not willing to listen or form partnerships".
When he spoke at Garma last month, he didn't hold back.
"They [the CLP] have significantly failed Aboriginal people and their ongoing actions are contributing to the breakdown of our culture and people, in what is now becoming a slow genocide."
That is the reality in the NT.
YiSSA is just another example of a government increasingly comfortable making decisions about Aboriginal Territorians without listening to them.
