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Direct talk and honest dealing

1 August 2009 - Galarrwuy Yunupingu - IT'S a system designed to profit non-Aborigines. THIS week the Northern Territory and commonwealth governments confessed the key program in the Closing the Gap strategy was out of control and that, yet again, money was being diverted from the needy into the pockets of government treasuries and non-Aboriginal companies.

Thankfully two responsible ministers in the Territory, Alison Anderson and Karl Hampton, who represent Aboriginal electorates, blew the whistle, refusing to sit by and let another scam be run against the interests of Aborigines.

What was occurring under the banner of the Territory intervention was just business as usual as government departments, big non-Aboriginal companies, consultants, employees, ex-politicians and advisers got their hands on Aboriginal money. And not just a few million but hundreds of millions of dollars set aside by Kevin Rudd and the commonwealth to tackle decades of neglect in Aboriginal housing.

This is the very thing the Prime Minister highlighted in his apology speech last year.

I keep hearing that, two years on, not one house has been built and I see it, too. Not one house. I keep getting the complaint that all the companies are doing is consulting and consulting, getting their daily fees and disappearing again. And still, even after the issues are highlighted in the national media, the argument is over how much is being or can or cannot be skimmed off the top.

Not one dollar should go on government administration or training or consulting, or profiteering. This Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program system is so familiar to Aborigines.

It's a system designed to profit non-Aborigines while nothing gets done. When it fails, the same people will ask the commonwealth for more money to do the job that didn't get done in the first place.

I thought the Howard government-initiated Aboriginal intervention in the Territory was to cut through these layers of bureaucracy but, as I have been saying, it's just business as usual.

So the challenge now faces the commonwealth government. Who will take responsibility and fix this situation? Putting two more bureaucrats in charge, which is the immediate response, is just letting two more sharks into the shallows.

And what of all the other promises? In the Territory we have been promised boarding schools. These, too, have disappeared from view. Education in the Territory remains a scandal where the same skimming is taking place to the benefit of the Northern Territory government.

What of the road upgrades? Seventy-five million dollars is being spent on one road alone in Darwin while the roads of the remote regions get worse and worse from neglect. What of economic development? What of the urgent task of building a future for children by giving them the benefits of the Australian nation? All of this is put aside, again, while we debate how much money the Territory government and the consultants and companies are entitled to skim off the top.

At the moment it is an effort to control my anger and my sense of outrage.

The Garma Festival starts in a week from now and Aboriginal leaders from across the country are travelling to Gulkula to meet. Already the message sticks are travelling far and wide. What have we to talk about two years after a so-called intervention was announced? Who will sit and treat with us, cutting through the layers of bureaucrats, advisers and consultants? When will the commonwealth government see that the only way through is by a direct relationship with Aborigines on the ground?

Let's get the job done by direct talk and honest dealings, and save millions of dollars in the process. Let the challenge be to get rid of the middle men, immediately.

When Aboriginal leaders like myself accepted the challenge of the intervention and took steps to engage and to debate the future, we trusted the commonwealth to deliver on its promises, such was the obvious determination of the main political parties. So far these promises are looking very thin and it has taken two responsible ministers from the Territory to tell us all just how bad it is. I know Rudd and his ministers have a financial crisis on their hands, but their attention must now be redirected to our efforts in Aboriginal affairs.

Galarrwuy Yunupingu is a former long-serving chairman of the Northern Land Council.

Source: The Australian

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