Outback ban on porn and alcohol for Aboriginals
Friday, 22 June 2007
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The Australian government has ignited a fierce debate about indigenous rights by banning alcohol and pornography in some Outback Aboriginal communities as a response to child abuse.
"This is another attack on Aboriginal people," said Charlie King, an adviser to the Northern Territory government on child welfare issues."This is the big stick approach."
John Howard, the Prime Minister, announced yesterday that his government plans to usurp some of the powers of the Northern Territory government in response to a report that found child abuse is rampant in indigenous communities on Australia's tropical northern frontier.
The abuse on Aboriginal-owned land in the Northern Territory is fuelled by alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and other factors causing a breakdown in civil society, the report found.
The report heard evidence of child prostitution in remote communities and of children trading sex for petrol to sniff.
Mr Howard said his approach to this "national emergency" - decades of child abuse and neglect - would succeed because "it's an entirely different order of magnitude than anything that has been tried in the past... We have been presented with the most compelling evidence of total failure in a society," he told ABC television. "And there is nothing worse than to see little children denied just a few years of childhood innocence and that essentially is what happens in these communities."
The sale, possession and transportation of alcohol would be banned for six months on the Aboriginal-owned land, he said.
The child abuse report said alcohol was a key contributor to the collapse of Aboriginal culture, also leading to the neglect of children and creating opportunities for paedophiles.
Hardcore pornography, which the report found was rife in Aboriginal communities and available to children, will also be banned.
Some Aboriginal leaders criticised the plan, saying they had not been consulted about it and that they objected to restrictions on how indigenous people spend their welfare benefits. But others applauded the plan's requirement that at least half of Aborigines' welfare checks be spent on food and other necessities.
Family welfare payments would also be linked to children's school attendance.
Some indigenous leaders and opposition lawmakers warned that such a system - applied only to Aborigines - could breach federal discrimination laws. "This is an outrageous, authoritarian crackdown," said Lyn Allison, the leader of the minor opposition Australian Democrats Party.
The council of indigenous advisers, a group hand-picked by Mr Howard, welcomed the government's response. "The nation cannot avert its eyes and close its ears to the abuse and violence being suffered every day by children, women and men in our communities," the National Indigenous Council said in a statement.
Mr Howard said he was only intervening in the Northern Territory because he did not have the constitutional powers to override in the other six states. He urged state leaders to apply similar tough rules.
About 60,000 of Australia's 400,000 Aborigines live in the Northern Territory. They suffer much higher poverty and addiction rates, high infant mortality and the highest incarceration rate of any ethnic group. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of other Australians.
