Outstations

The NT Labor Govt has shot itself in the foot with its announcement of a new remote community policy. In fact it may be much more serious than just a flesh wound, with the policy playing a significant role in causing MLA Marion Scrymgour to resign from the Labor Party and become one of two balance of power independents in the NT Legislative Assembly.

This is the new policy that has been the cause of so much trouble.

What’s of particular note is that this is mostly a policy targeting remote communities in general, outstations being only one part of it, yet almost all the negativity that the policy has generated has come from the outstation component of the policy.

In a piece of spectacularly poor communication the government managed to create the predominate understanding in remote communities that outstations where no longer going to be supported. This isn’t quite the case, though that was the distinct impression that I had from listening to the news on the day the policy was announced.

The key components of the policy are,
- increase in services in the 20 ‘hub’ towns
- improved transport to ‘hub’ towns
- continued support for outstations not located near a ‘hub’
- outstations need to be occupied for at least 8 months a year to be funded.

I can’t say that I think it’s a particular good policy, not least from the perspective that it caused the former Deputy Chief Minister to defect from the government.

The episode is a good reminder that opinion in the Indigenous community is a very broad church. Here we have two prominent Indigenous MLA’s, Marion Scrymgour and Alison Anderson, who are quite at odds over this issue. Anderson, from the Centre is clearly in favour of it, and I suspect has been a significant driver of some aspects of it, with Scrymgour from the Top End, so opposed that she has endangered the very survival of the Labor Government. This is at least partly a cultural issue, with the outstations movement being a much more significant issue in the Top End, much of which is Scrymgour’s electorate. And it’s not the first time the two have clashed, with Scrymgour’s outspoken attack on the intervention in her 2007 Charles Perkins Oration, and Alison Anderson’s response.

Outstations emerged as the indigenous response to the missions and government settlements, where the close living quarters tended to create conflict. In a piece of particularly bad timing, the new policy effectively decrying outstations was preceded by only 2 days by a piece of research published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which found that people living on and caring for country (ie outstations) have significantly better health than those living in the larger communities, precisely those that are to be the expanded ‘hub’ towns. The research is no big surprise as this has been widely believed to be the case for quite some time. The CSIRO has come to similar conclusions regarding land management.

The NT Government now has quite a task ahead of it – it has created a political and policy dilemma for itself in appearing to back away from outstations at just the time that the medical and scientific evidence is pointing towards them as having significant health and ecological benefits.

Movement at the Station

I was out on the Tiwi Islands last week and there was a sight to behold – no, not the first brick being laid on the first new house under the SIHIP Program – but the first renovations.  The owners are out and the workers are in, gutting, replacing, etc.

Hopefully the first new homes aren’t too far behind, as the laborious process of putting together the consortiums that are doing the building was completed late last year and the housing surveys of what will be demolished and what renovated appears to have been finalised in a few places (eg Nguiu, Bathurst Is).

Though problems remain.  There is no schedule for new housing as yet at Milikapiti (Melville Is) as the Commonwealth has been unable to secure an agreement on the 99 year leases that it has been demanding.  Unfortunately the new Federal Govt has continued with the misguided approach of the previous one.  Several senior landholders in Milikapiti perceive (quite correctly) the no-lease, no-new-housing ultimatum as pure coercion.

The Review Report

It’s out.

I haven’t got anything to say, because I haven’t finished reading it yet.

The Review

The NTER Review Board  passed its report to the Federal Government on Tuesday.  Views were solicited rom all the communities affected by the intervention and an additional 218 submissions were received.  The full list is here and they will be made available over the next few weeks.  Here are a few samples,

Edmund rice Centre

NT Govt

Reconciliation Australia

SNAICC

Indigineous Doctors Association

CAEPR

Human Rights and Resource Law Centre

ACOSS

Tangentyere Council

There aren’t too many surprises in the submissions with a wealth of criticism over poor planning, poorly thought out goals and a focus on extraneous matters at the expense of widely acknowledged and crucial issues, such as housing.  What is less clear is what the Federal Govt’s response will be.

Watch this space.

0.8%

I was having chat with someone involved in the dental therapy aspect of the intervention.  I was quite impressed at the numbers of kids that they have managed to see – around 2000.  I remarked that they must have pulled a lot of teeth.  I shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this stage, but nevertheless I was by the response.  Very few teeth have been pulled, not because my take on dental therapy was quite crude, but because they weren’t offering treatment, but were doing follow-up checks on the referrals from the child health checks.  Of the 2000 children seen, only 16 received treatment at that point.

Of course, many of these were to be referred on (again) to hospital for their dental treatment, but the sheer stupidity in not resourcing this to provide treatment at that point, is astounding.

Having Their Say.

It’s not often we get more than anecdotes  about what Indigenous people think of the intervention, so here’s a refreshing change from the Central Land Council, which shows some interesting results.

The review of the intervention has begun.  Remote Community Councils (now Shires) have had questionnaires distributed to them so that they can put in their 5 cents.  I don’t think that the CLC survey will stand out from them.

Sexual Abuse

After the initial claims of an “epidemic” of child sex abuse, the reality has been somewhat less dramatic. There have been 3 convictions, and on the high profile claims about Mutijulu,

“The Northern Territory’s police commissioner has revealed that no evidence has been found to substantiate allegations of sexual abuse in the communities of Mutijulu or Nhulunbuy.”

Another enlightening snippet that makes me wonder about the naivety of some people. We have the NT Police Commissioner wondering how 13 and 14 yr olds know about sex,

“But predominantly I’m talking around 12, 13, 14 years of age. Now they’ve learned that somehow. That seems to be a lot of the work of the child abuse task force and we probably see more of that than we see of adult-child sex abuse.”

And,

“We know of instances where sexualised behaviour has occurred in young kids, under the age of 10 years,” he said.”

Here’s a hint – overcrowded living conditions, where a family to a bedroom is fairly common. The worst case I know of is 40+ people living in one Wadeye (Pt Keats) house. Anyway, when it’s a family to a bedroom, children at a very young age are exposed to sexual activity- that of their parents.

Safe Houses

In theory a fine idea and one of the many that sprang forth from the NTER. There are now 12 remote communities with safe houses that are to serve as either a shelter for women or a “cooling off” space for men. This ABC News report makes clear the kind of uncertainty surrounding what appears to be a fairly straight-forward plan,

Malcolm Wall, the chief executive of the Yuendumu community, says he does not think men will choose to go to the safe house voluntarily.

“I think that’s probably where there’s going to be an issue because night patrol isn’t going to be able to grab these people and restrain them, maybe police will be able to use these facilities, I really don’t know,” he said.

Not that the idea is anything new. And if past lessons were learned, a good deal more thought may have gone into it, than just throwing down a bunch of shipping containers.

Once upon a time, in a remote community of Arnhem Land there was a domestic violence problem (and still is). Surely a ‘safe house’ would be just the trick, just like they have down south? Safe House was made. Safe House was very safe – no one ever went in it.

Some bright spark thought that they should talk to the locals and find out why, despite a real domestic violence problem, no one ever used the safe house. What they found, was that people viewed their social and family contacts, supports and networks as an indicator of competence in daily life. If you had a problem, it was these networks that you leant on, making use of the obligations that others owe you. The only reason that someone would go to the safe house would be if they lacked these networks of ties and obligations. In would be an admission of social and familial destitution.

More Housing

The planned bipartisan Indigenous Housing Policy Commission is bipartisan no more. Federal Opposition leader Brendan Nelson has declined to be the co-chair of the Commission after one (only one) of his nominees for the Commission - Mal Brough – was rejected. The reason given was that the Govt. didn’t want politicians appointed to the Commission.

I’ve an even better reason for finding Brough entirely unsuitable – his conflict of interest. It’s wasn’t enough for him to walk out of his Indigenous Ministerial role straight into one of private business man looking to earn in a quid in indigenous housing projects, he now wants to simultaneously serve on what will be the pre-eminent policy making body for indigenous housing!

Clue meter reading – zero.

Update

The Intervention hasn’t been front page news for some time (besides the odd hiccup), but things have been quietly ticking over behind the natural disasters and scandals of the headlines.

The Intervention is in 3 phases, and we are currently in all three. Phase 1, the child health checks, are still going on, for reasons which remain unclear to me. Phase 2, the health ‘blitzes’, particularly for ENT surgery, are happening, and the planning for Phase 3, the permanent enhancement of health services, is underway.

Permits
The abolition of permits to enter Aboriginal Land has itself been abolished.

Welfare Quarantining
Has hit it’s first, very much expected, hurdle, and is being revised. Having found that the store cards were being traded for cash, the Govt has announced that it will phase out the store cards and introduce debit cards.

Housing
Slow but steady progress in being made. As pat of the intervention, house ‘surveys’ are currently being conducted. The surveys are identifying urgent work that is needed to be done to ensure that houses are safe to live in.
The NT and Federal Govt’s have come to some basic understandings on funding and objectives for housing. There is a new program, the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) which has a $647 m budget for the next 3 years. He plan is to build 750 new homes, demolish and replace 250 and refurbish a further 2500. The stated aim is to reduce the average occupancy rate to 2 people per bedroom. Not 2 per house, 2 per bedroom. It’s currently a bit higher than that. This isn’t enough funding to achieve the stated aim, so one objective of the program is to achieve significant reductions in building costs. Other than through economies of scale it doesn’t say how it will achieve this. By my reckoning, the cost savings will need to be in the region of 50%, which is highly unlikely.

Health Services
Phase 2, providing the follow-up services identified as required in Phase 1, is facing workforce problems. Dentists are hard to come by. In one central Arnhem Land community where Phase 2 services are meant to begin in a few weeks, the doctor shortage is such that the doctors from the Clinic have been approached to help out. Kind of defeats the purpose.
Looking to Phase 3, the boosting of Primary Health Care services across the NT, the Federal Govt has just called for tenders to establish the Remote Health Corps Agency. This will be the organisation/group charged with the weighty responsibility of finding all the extra health staff required to expand services. The unwise idea of looking for short-term appointees (fancy a holiday in the desert?) still seems to be a core strategy. $100 million has been allocated for these services over the next 2 years and the NT Govt, DoHA and AMSANT are working on basic criteria to ensure a conssitent and workable approach to distributing these services across the NT.

The Intervention has certainly changed significantly since June last year. Some of the pointless aspects have been jettisoned though a combination of common sense and a change of government, while some significant funding commitments, that were originally excluded, are now coming front and centre.