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Rudd to face indigenous heads

By Ashleigh Wilson and Stephen Fitzpatrick

15 December 2007 - Kevin Rudd will come face to face with indigenous leaders this morning as he prepares to deal personally with the "challenges" confronting the commonwealth intervention in Northern Territory communities amid the growing outrage over the gang-rape of a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl on Cape York.

After a brief visit to East Timor, the Prime Minister flew into Darwin last night under pressure to reform the intervention program after the federal and Territory governments promised to "rebuild the trust and confidence" of indigenous people.

Mr Rudd and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin will meet Aboriginal leaders in Darwin this morning. Although insisting the meeting had been long planned, he admitted during his visit to East Timor that the intervention needed attention.

"In Opposition, we supported the intervention. We said it should continue," he said. "We understand some of the challenges it faces, and we would therefore want to, as we've indicated before, review its operation come the end of 2008."

Mr Rudd said the meeting would be with much of the Aboriginal leadership of the Northern Territory. "That has been long planned with Aboriginal leaders, and I look forward to that," he said.

Participants at the invitation-only "consultative meeting" will include representatives from the Northern and Central Land Councils, Aboriginal legal groups and indigenous health services.

The intervention, introduced by former prime minister John Howard in July, was designed to tackle child abuse and neglect in communities through measures such as compulsory health checks, the scrapping of the CDEP work-for-the-dole program, bans on alcohol and pornography and the quarantining of welfare payments to ensure the money is spent on essentials such as food and schooling rather than drink and drugs.

Labor has signalled it will modify parts of the intervention -- such as changing rather than scrapping CDEP and the permit system that regulates access to indigenous communities -- ahead of a full review of the program by next year.

In Darwin yesterday, new Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson and Indigenous Affairs Minister Marion Scrymgour met Ms Macklin and declared the start of a "new level of co-operation" over the intervention program in remote communities. But Mr Henderson appeared to give ground on his push to scrap the rules requiring anyone buying more than $100 worth of alcohol to show identification, saying the two governments would look at ways of strengthening alcohol restrictions in the Territory.

"Discussions centred around the previous government's intervention and how to rebuild the trust and confidence of indigenous Territorians," Mr Henderson said. "We all know the only way to achieve real change is for all levels of government to work as a team -- the Territory is proud to play its part."

After cancelling a scheduled briefing with The Weekend Australian yesterday morning, Ms Macklin later refused several requests for comment and made no public comments on her planned meetings with Aboriginal leaders.

Mr Rudd's return to Australia comes as community outrage builds over the gang-rape case at Aurukun in northern Queensland, where the girl's nine male attackers escaped jail sentences.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said he would fully support the Government should it choose to extend the intervention to far north Queensland, saying it was time for the nation to take action. And he said Aboriginal issues must be placed on the agenda at next week's Council of Australian Governments meeting.

"If this (the rape) happened in any other part of Australia, if it happened in any part of non-Aboriginal Australia, all of us quite rightly would be outraged," Dr Nelson said.

But Queensland Premier Anna Bligh rejected his call. "When you talk about a Northern Territory-style intervention, much of what is being done in the Northern Territory is already operational here in Queensland," Ms Bligh said.

West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter added his support to Ms Bligh's call to place indigenous issues on the agenda at nextweek's COAG meeting in Melbourne.

Mr Carpenter welcomed the push to raise indigenous child abuse at COAG, but said he would vigorously oppose any move for federal intervention inWest Australian Aboriginal communities.

Asked whether Aboriginal issues should be part of the COAG agenda, a spokesperson for Mr Henderson said he would discuss indigenous issues with thePrime Minister over the weekend.

National Indigenous Television chief executive Pat Turner yesterday confirmed she would attend this morning's meeting with a delegation from the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory.

"Obviously we will be very strong on the invasion," she said.

"We are not happy about it, we are not happy about the quarantining of people's payments, we're not happy with any of it."

The Northern Land Council, represented by its new chairman, Wali Wunungmurra, will attempt to balance the views presented by the Combined Aboriginal Organisations, one of the harshest critics of the intervention.

The NLC will raise whether the quarantining of welfare would be better applied on a case-by-case basis, rather than the blanket application in every Aboriginal community.

The council will also refer to concerns over a recent scandal at Numbulwar, a community in Arnhem Land, where a contractor working for the intervention built a pit toilet on a sacred site.

Former NLC chairman Galarrwuy Yunupingu will miss the meeting because of cultural commitments in central Australia.

But the veteran land rights campaigner met Ms Macklin in Melbourne shortly after the November 24 election, when he urged her to engage local indigenous people and the Northern Territory Government, and tocontinue the thrust of the intervention.

Stephanie Bell, director of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress health service, said she would tell both leaders that the focus on child health checks should continue.

But she remained opposed to measures relating to land tenure, such as the abolition of the permit system and compulsory acquisition of land.

Additional reporting: Tony Barrass

Source: The Australian

Further information: NT Intervention issues page - includes news index and external links