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Soldier's sympathy intervenes

Paul Toohey

22 November 2008 - MAJOR-GENERAL Dave Chalmers is leaving the Northern Territory a profoundly changed man. For the past 18 months he has headed the NT emergency response, mindful of the potent symbolism-- attracting the scorn of some -- of being a senior soldier storming through the Aboriginal north.

Chalmers has never abused that position. Instead, as he heads back to Defence headquarters in Canberra, he finds himself believing that the most important thing Aborigines can do to find their future is to maintain their culture.

"Over time, we as a society have undervalued indigenous culture and in many places it's been lost," he says. "And where it's been lost, people have lost their compass, they've lost their framework of life. It's not being replaced by a mainstream Australian framework, and people are in limbo. We need to be paying a lot more attention to traditional healers and traditional lawmakers, the role they played, and play, in people's lives."

Most of all, Chalmers says, governments need to offer hope. "There's nothing worse than going to a community where the level of apathy is profound, (where) people see no point in engaging with government because government continually changes its mind, government is confusing and, anyway, I've got no job and I've got no prospects.

"Giving people a sense of purpose and hope is important. None of it is simple, but that doesn't mean that it's not something we shouldn't attempt."

Chalmers was not seconded from the military to talk policy. He's been the Government's policy enforcer. But enforcer seems too strong a word for him. "I wouldn't be human if I hadn't been profoundly affected by the experience," says the fit-looking 50-year-old.

He engages in unerring eye contact and has total confidence that the intervention is doing the right thing by Aborigines.

The stories of Aboriginal fleeing for the sandhills to escape his soldiers were untrue.

But there was fear and worry, even though the army detained not one Aboriginal person. The Australian Defence Force's role was logistics, but there can be no denying the intervention was shock and awe. Chalmers thinks it has roused white city folks from a deep sleep.

"The most significant thing that has happened out of the emergency response is that the national conscience has been pricked," he says. "I look at the (news) stories over the last 20 years. Nothing's changed, because mainstream Australia has been able to turn a blind eye to the problems that exist.

"They, for the most part, have not wanted to confront the fact that we have Australians living in Third World conditions in a First World country. The first thing that's been achieved is a much greater willingness among the general Australian population to do something about the problem."

Asked if he could have envisaged that when former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough appointed him last year, Chalmers says: "I think I have a much deeper understanding of the problems that confront indigenous Australians than I did 18 months ago.

"My past work has mainly involved working in culturally sensitive situations, in Aceh (where he was one of the first Australians on the ground) and Timor, which left me with tremendous sympathy and great respect for the way they go about their lives."

He says he has developed the same level of respect for Aborigines.

"Absolutely. Personally, I've come on a journey. My understanding was superficial and -- I have to say it -- my lack of respect for them was (the same as that of) many Australians."

Chalmers is not leaving with a sense of disgust for slum towns of the north, or for their troubled residents. His strong view is that the atrocious conditions represent the failures of successive governments. While distressed by encountering Aboriginal women with busted eyebrows and lips, and hearing stories of rape and killing, he has avoided settling on a one-dimensional view of Aborigines.

Asked if things had improved in the 73 territory communities seized under the intervention, he says: "I think the evidence says yes, but it's a conditional yes. While we've made tremendous progress in many areas, some of that has just highlighted how deep the social dysfunction, the lack of services, the problems people face are, and how far we have to go to overcome them."

Talking of the classic old bearded Aboriginal bush men, of whom he has photos on his office wall in Darwin, Chalmers says: "They have rich life experience but somehow they're bewildered by what happened. How did the respect they were held in evaporate? I have by no means a thorough understanding of Aboriginal culture, just glimmerings.

"We as Australians should value it."

We did not quite expect this of Chalmers.

"Possibly not," he agrees. "There's a stereotype around the military, and people use that to evoke a response around the stereotype.

"I'm just like anyone else. You go out to communities and you can't help but be moved by the circumstances people confront in their day-to-day life. To go to a community and see children who exhibit all the symptoms of neglect, whose noses are running, whose hair is discoloured through deficiency, who are undernourished ... To see kids who have no spark. To walk into some communities where the sense of despair is almost palpable."

It's not all bad. Last week Chalmers was in Wallace Rockhole, in central Australia, where he saw bright children, enthusiastic school attendance, concerned parents and functioning government services. It was uplifting.

For the present generation of illiterate and alcoholic parents, he has no answers. No one really does. "There are things we can do, but their lives are a salutary lesson of what happens when we lose culture and the cultural framework that provides meaning to people's lives. And at the same time we don't provide the services that other Australians expect. We've got to offer the next generation hope."

Chalmers thinks the intervention has delivered much. There is income management and he has connected government departments that previously acted "completely independently, with no visibility of what others are doing".

His task was to usher in the intervention, but what he never expected to find -- which soon became one of his priorities -- was community stores with poor food. He talks of the importance of food security.

All stores have been independently assessed on their quality of food and governance. Corrective measures have been applied and there are now 72 licensed stores, which does not mean they sell alcohol but that they offer, typically, 900 product lines compared with at most 100 before. Now they are considered good enough to accept the swipe cards provided under the income management regime.

Chalmers thinks Queensland indigenous educator Chris Sarra may have overstated his position in this newspaper last week about the "white trash" occupying Aboriginal communities, and points diplomatically to hard-working teachers, police and nurses.
But he clearly shares some of Sarra's concerns.

"There are also people who have found their way into communities and become self-appointed spokesmen, gatekeepers, often the opinion shapers for communities, and those are the people I find to be extremely frustrating," he says. "They're running the community store or the art centre for their own personal benefit, living off the disadvantage of the community for their own benefit, so they'll work hard to prevent the community from advancing or changing or becoming empowered."

On the subject of child sex abuse, Chalmers is non-sensationalist. "I would say the rate of child sex abuse is higher in indigenous communities than it is in mainstream Australia. I'm not in a position to say how much higher it is.

"The emergency response is a holistic attempt to address these problems. Looking at housing, health education and employment, taken together, if we can make progress in building sufficient, quality housing, we will have gone a long way."

Chalmers is going back to Canberra to a new job: commander, joint capability management division. He leaves believing governments are genuine in their desire to effect change.

"I think the evidence is on the public record of real, genuine commitment to doing something about the circumstances indigenous people find themselves in."

Asked if Aborigines have responded adequately to these changes, Chalmers chooses compassion over blame.

"That's a difficult question and the simplistic answer is no. One of the things we need to work with Aboriginal people on is individual and community responsibility.
Why doesn't that sense of responsibility exist now? You could easily get into blaming them for the circumstances they now find themselves in.

"The truth is, people find themselves in those circumstances for reasons that 200 years of history have created, and for reasons of failed government policy of years and years."

Source: The Australian

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