No Rubber Stamp

Send an urgent message to your Senators today to tell them we demand better.

The Legislation
John Howard declared that his government would address the child abuse highlighted by the report as a matter of “national emergency”. Howard announced a seven point plan to address the problem. This included:

- Restrictions on welfare so parents spend their money on food and other necessities and not alcohol.
- A six month ban on the sale of alcohol in most of the concerned Indigenous communities.
- A ban on the sale and possession of hardcore pornography, which was seen as “rife in Aboriginal communities”.
- Medical checks for sexual abuse for Indigenous children younger than 16. Around 11,000 children by the end of 2007.
- A permit system restricting non-Aboriginal access to Indigenous land would be scrapped. Howard said made the permit system made it easier for abuse to go undiscovered.
- Proposing legislation to enable the government to acquire five year leases for over 64 Indigenous communities in return for compensation.
- Extra police provided by the federal and state governments will investigate sexual abuse in the communities.

Kevin Rudd has pledged Labor’s support for the legislation, with a few relatively minor changes (including keeping the Indigenous land permit system). The Greens and Democrats oppose the legislation.

There are five main problems with the legislation
1. A lack of consultation: Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett said the plan would “take control of Aboriginal lives without consultation”. Peter Beattie said Indigenous parents should be involved in any plans to improve social conditions in communities. \"Let\'s not become savages in this; we need to involve the community.\"

2. The time allocated to debate the law: The government has allocated just one day (seven and a half hours!) to discuss over 500 pages of legislation and consult with NT land councils, Emergency Task Force leaders, Commonwealth Departments, and Indigenous leaders. The NT Law Society described it as “an affront to our democratic processes”.

3. The legislation is very different to the recommendations of Little Children Are Sacred: The authors of the Little Children are Sacred report (Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson) stated that the measures put forward by the government were significantly different to the 97 recommendations they made. Anderson said, “there is no relationship between the Federal response and our recommendations”. For example, the legislation seems to ignore the findings of the report that non-Aboriginal men were also responsible for the abuse of Aboriginal children.

4. The timing: Anglicare Australia questioned why it had taken so long for the government to recognise an issue that community organisations had advocated for 20 years. WA Premier Alan Carpenter described Howard’s sudden interest in the issue as “another Tampa\". \"If he thinks it\'s an emergency, one could ask the question: why hasn\'t he done anything about it in the last 11 years? This is designed to create an issue for Mr Howard to run on\".

5. The Consequences:
- By taking away the permit system Indigenous communities will lose their veto over who enters their traditional lands, potentially putting them at even greater risk from unwanted external forces.
- The compulsory acquisition of land by the Federal Government unilaterally takes away the land tenure of the rightful owners. It is also unrelated to child abuse.
- The management of communities will transfer from traditional owners to so called \'business managers\' who are unlikely to have a connection with land or community.
- The Racial Discrimination Act will be excluded from the legislation allowing the Federal Government to discriminate on the basis of race.
- The end of the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) (whilst not a perfect system) will take away the current livelihoods of thousands of Indigenous people and risk community programs, security night watch schemes and community stores.

The Role of the Senate
Regardless of who’s in power, the Senate’s job is to keep an eye on the Government, consider all new legislation, investigate abuses of power and promote cross-party debate and cooperation. But since one party got control of the Senate for the first time in a generation, real debate and accountability have vanished. Drastic new laws such as the NT intervention plan have appeared out of nowhere. Working hours for senators to their jobs have been slashed. Taxpayer-funded reports and important inquiries are sitting on the shelves gathering dust, while one side calls all the shots.

In just two years, the Senate’s passed 600 out of 600 Coalition-introduced amendments, but only 15 out of 389 amendments introduced by other parties. A Parliament run by ‘yes men’ is a real disaster for democracy.

The 500 pages of this legislation has only been made available for Senators to read for less than a week, underwent only a single-day hearing (which people only had less than 24 hours notice of), and debate in the Senate will not even amount to two whole days. Given the controversial nature of these laws, and the level of disquiet in the community, the proper role of the Senate in this instance would be to thoroughly examine the laws and their impact before voting on them.

Send an urgent message to your Senators today to tell them we demand better.

Want to find out more?
\"No opposition, no debate, no contest.\"
\"Desert Sweep\"
Oxfam - \"Land Rights Act changes detrimental and will not reduce child sex abuse\"
ACOSS - \"Legislation misses mark to effectively protect children\"
ANTaR
Northern Land Council
Central Land Council