Central Land Council

Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) review board: CLC Response

The Central Land Council has welcomed the report of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) review board.

CLC Director David Ross said the report shared many of the CLC's own findings about the impact of the Emergency Response on Aboriginal people in Central Australia.

“In our region, people are feeling very demoralised. While there are some positive components of the Emergency Response, there are many punitive elements in it that people feel are unjust and unfair,” Mr Ross said.

Mr Ross said that he supported the report's call for a more integrated approach and a re-engagement between Government and Aboriginal people.

“As we have said, and the report reiterates, unless there is participation and engagement by the Aboriginal people it purports to help, then change will not occur. This is fundamental to community development and something the Minister herself articulated in a speech at the Press Club on 27 February this year,” Mr Ross said.

The report recommends continuing the Emergency Response, but changing some of the measures so that they are fairer and have more support. It says income management should become voluntary and only compulsory in the interests of child protection and school attendance. The CLC supports this recommendation or alternatively to make income quarantining a national measure.

“The Australian Government should take this on board very seriously. Pushing measures on people which they do not want is counter productive.

“There are a number of issues, besides the Emergency Response, which are being foisted on Aboriginal people at the minute – the shires by the NT Government, the whole-of-community leases by the Australian Government - and of course people are resisting,” he said.

“Aboriginal people are being delivered ultimatums – for instance sign a lease with Canberra before Christmas or forget about any further funding.

“During the process of the Northern Territory Government bringing in the shires, they lost many of their own community assets and governance arrangements. They are not given time to consider proposals or a given fair go in any of these processes.

“Every way they turn, Aboriginal people feel like they getting their rights removed.

“We strongly urge the Minister to take these recommendations on board and let's try again to have a new beginning,” Mr Ross said

The CLC is an Australian Government statutory authority representing about 25,000 Aboriginal people in the southern half of the Northern Territory

What we confront is a national challenge that demands a new approach building partnerships at all levels - between government, Indigenous leaders, local communities and business. We will engage Indigenous people in developing solutions. That's not code for some ideological agenda. What it means is that solutions can't be imposed on people. It just doesn't work. To work and to be sustainable, the solutions have to be developed on the ground and driven by the communities that own them. Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, 27 February 2008.

Contact Jane Hodson 0417877579 0889516217

14 October 2008

www.clc.org.au