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NT intervention "crude, racist" policy: Dodson

13 November 2008 - The winner of this year's Sydney Peace Prize, Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, has labelled the commonwealth intervention in the Northern Territory a "crude, racist and poorly considered policy".

Delivering his peace prize lecture at the Sydney Opera House last Wednesday night, Mr Dodson said legislation introduced into federal parliament to allow the intervention was "some of the worst ever passed".

"The failure by the government to enter into a dialogue and negotiation over the nature of the engagement with the Aboriginal society of the Northern Territory will be seen by Australians in the future as a model for worst-practice imposition of public policy," he said.

The former priest and founding chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, now disbanded, said it was important for Indigenous people to play a role in determining solutions for their problems "and be resourced to do so".

He acknowledged that illicit drugs and abuse of alcohol had led to greater intergenerational health problems in Aboriginal communities, including schizophrenia, diabetes, coronary and renal disease.

"They are primarily outcomes of the exclusion of many Aboriginal people from access to services and resources related to health, education and substance abuse programs over many years and several generations," he said.

He called on young Aboriginal people to participate in government strategies aimed at bringing more Indigenous people into the nation's workforce.

"The opportunity is there for you to enter the workforce, but you should look to the possibilities in other fields apart from the traditional industries and aim to become creators as well as wealth consumers," he said.

He called on all Australians to stop presenting one face to Asia and the Pacific as "tolerant and accepting", while treating Aboriginal people "only as social welfare mendicants".

Mr Dodson said he believed the Rudd government's national apology to the Stolen Generations in February had given Indigenous Australians "a wonderful opportunity to begin to make justice possible, not only for the Aboriginal people but for all the people of this nation".

The Sydney Peace Prize is the only international peace prize awarded in Australia.

Mr Dodson received the 2008 award at a gala ceremony in the Great Hall of Sydney University.

Previous award recipients include former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Swedish diplomat and nuclear disarmament advocate Dr Hans Blix. - AAP

Source: The National Indigenous Times

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