MSWPG7213 Northern Territory Intervention - Assessment Task 1

Northern Territory Intervention 

Throughout history, minorities have played a significant role. We saw it in America with the Native Americans and African Americans. We saw it in South Africa in the apartheid era and more recently in Australia under the Northern Territory emergency response (NTER), or more commonly known as ‘The intervention’. This act was initiated in 2007, under John Howard’s government and announced by Mal Brough, then Minister of Families, Community service and Indigenous Affairs (O’ Mara, 2010). The Prime Minister was found stating at the time of intervention that, "It is a disgrace that a section of the Australian population, that little children should be the subject of serious sexual abuse." This intervention took place in less than a fortnight after the publication of the report ‘Little Children are sacred’, by the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry (Korff, 2015). The NTER was an intervention into 73 Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Northern territory under the basis of addressing the problem of ‘intra racial child sexual abuse’ mentioned in the ‘Little children are Sacred’ Report in the Aboriginal communities (O’ Mara, 2010).

   This paper aims to discuss the key government policies and actions (the Anti-Discrimination Act, the National Territory Intervention and the National Apology) that illustrate how Aboriginals in Australia were and are and continued to be exploited in and secluded from Australia. The paper also discusses how the international community, especially the commissions of human rights in the United Nations and United Nations Rights for Indigenous People (UNDRIP), has intervened.  The paper further proceeds to talk about the impact of the National Territory Intervention in the Aboriginal communities and how it is similar to other humanitarian issues like the apartheid in South Africa I mentioned earlier and the case of Native Americans (Red-Indians) in America. 

    ‘The little children are Sacred’ Report was an eight months in-depth research and investigation of the aboriginal community. The core objective of this report was to focus on sexual abuse, especially of children in the Northern Territory of this Aboriginal communities. The compelling facts, striking imagery and a passionate plea for action enclosed in this report quickly gained political and media traction. (Gray, 2015).   The anti-Aboriginal-right wing was extremely vocal and made a damning and loud cry for the suffering of Aboriginal communities. The media largely covered claims of ‘pedophile rings’ and front lined that in Aboriginal communities there is a culture of protecting and accepting child abusers (Brown and Brown, 2007). Just two months after this report the Howard administration declared it as a ‘national emergency’ and deployed army troops and without consultation with the Aboriginal communities (Gray, 2015).   

   The National Territory Intervention stated removal of permit system for acquiring of aboriginal land. It all withdrew half of the welfare payments, it forced Aboriginal children to learn a language they had never learned before in school for the first four hours. Furthermore, it stated that Aboriginal people had to lease their property to the government in exchange of provision of basic necessities and forced children to do mandatory health checks without parents’ consultation (Korff, 2015). The Intervention put prohibition on alcohol and pornography. It also triggered a large increase in budget of law enforcement, child protection and health services. Mal Brough justified the intervention by mentioning ‘pedophile rings’ in these indigenous communities. Which was later disproved in 2009 after a long and exhaustive investigation by the Australian Crime Commission.  Despite the Commonwealth providing approximately two billion dollars for the intervention and associated policies from 2007, a lot of the societal problems in the Aboriginal communities have gotten quite worse (Gibson, 2017).