Sometime ago a Christian Indigenous leader in Melbourne alerted me to a bill being put forward by the Rudd government. It related to the Northern Territory intervention, the racial discrimination act and the welfare act. The racial discrimination act was suspended to allow the Howard government to ‘intervene’ in the Northern Territory. The Rudd government has continued with this intervention, despite mounting evidence as to its ineffectiveness and disempowerment of the communities affected. To an outside observer, the Northern Territory Intervention could appear to be a positive thing. The Government’s said aims of improving the quality of life for children and limiting drug and alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities, are outcomes that anyone would applaud. However the methods and their outcomes have been largely devastating for the Indigenous communities, and now the Rudd government wants to take things a step further.
There is a strong push to re-instate the Racial Discrimination Act. Should it be re-instated, it has significant implications on the intervention in the Northern Territory. In order for the intervention to continue, the Rudd government has also needed to propose reforms to the welfare bill. These have the potential to affect all Australians who are on Centrelink benefits. Now do I have your attention?
I wonder did your interest level go up, when white Australians came into the scenario? If that was the case for you, join the club with most Australians.
Have you ever asked yourself why indigenous issues are hard to get on the radar of most Australians? My view is that it goes back to Terra Nullius (land belonging to no one). The time when that awful, disgraceful lie was spoken over our country. That it was a land with no human inhabitants. That lie was spoken about the indigenous people of my country, your country. I believe in the minds of most Australians today, they continue to be non-people… ghosts.
Here perhaps we need to pause for a moment.
A mate of mine lamented that whenever we talk about indigenous people, it very quickly becomes political. Why can’t we love them as fellow created brothers and sisters? At one level when you are building a relationship with an individual, it is easier to stop and see God in the other. And with any of our interactions, with whomever, that is where we want to aim. However, when relating to a people group, especially an oppressed people group, things are bound to get political very quickly. In simplistic terms (which is about all I can understand) politics is about influence. Because the indigenous people of this land have had very little real influence, significant interactions are going to revolve around politics and ways to move forward. Thus the role of the advocate.
Back to the issues at hand. Since 2007 Aboriginies in the Northern Territory, Queensland and in Western Australia have suffered a new wave of massive injustice. They’ve had the army roll into their communities. Their men have been accused of being paedophiles and rapists. Their young people have been gaoled for minor offences, many dying in custody. An indigenous leader returning from a recent trip to the territory reported that the camps are in a shocking condition, saying they are like refugee camps. His pain was visible as he relayed the deadness in the eyes of the women and their lack of hope.
A further injustice has been indigenous peoples subjugation to blanket income management. For people under income management, 50% of their benefits have been paid onto a basics card, which enables them to pay rent, bills and buy staples from certain supermarkets.
At first this doesn’t sound so bad, but stop and think for a moment… put yourself in that situation. What would it be like to be told that you are not able to manage your money? Not to choose to do it as part of helping yourself move forward, but be told? What would it be like to go to the supermarket and only be allowed to buy certain things, and then have the embarrassment of not having enough on your income management card? (it is not simple to get a balance on this from the government) Or if you wanted to travel, not being able to put that money aside… I guess just not having the freedom, or the self-determination, to live how you choose.
With the Federal Government desiring to re-introduce the racial discrimination act, for this intervention to continue, there is the need to change the welfare act, enabling income management to be rolled out across the country.
Despite the government now needing to say the reforms are not racially driven, a response to the proposed changes to the welfare act by Dr Seth Purdie, points out that the areas they propose to roll out Income Management (IM), just happen to be high in indigenous population.
Other responses point to the ineffectiveness of the strategy;
The validity of Income Management as a helping strategy is being questioned by many welfare groups, including The Australian Council Of Social Services (ACOSS). The primary and proper role of the social security system is to reduce poverty by providing adequate payments and supporting people into work. Appropriate activity requirements to assist people into employment are consistent with this objective. Compulsory income management, which does not increase payment levels and removes individual autonomy does not further this objective. Rather, it locks people into long-term dependence on others to make financial decisions for them without enabling them to manage their finances independently.
Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010
The St Vincent de Paul Society, agrees;
Income Management is returning social policy in Australia to the depression era Sustenance Allowance, commonly referred to as the 'susso'. While recipients were obviously appreciative of the susso, the manner in which it was administered commonly stripped any remaining dignity from the recipient.
Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010
Another damning statement, which needs qualification, comes from Prof Jon Altman; he says that there is no real evidence coming from Government regarding the effectiveness or not of income management. He comments;
Worryingly, the evidence might change over time. For example, there is forthcoming research from the Menzies School of Health Research, currently under peer review, that outcomes from income management might, at best, be ineffective and, and at worst, perverse.
Prof Jon Altman, Committee Hansard, 26 February 2010, p. 36. 31
Many social services that either gave evidence at the inquiry or responded to the proposed changes were negative towards income management and the administration of it. They commented that at the very least it needed to be part of an overall strategy to empower the recipients. Major concerns include:
The lack of clarity around how someone would get off income management.
The government has also not provided a sunset clause to the program.
Northern Territory Council Of Social Services says that perhaps Income Management (IM) can be used as a consequence for chronic drinkers. Other Northern Territory based organisations are mixed in their response to IM. Some are supportive of it in its current form, others say the system should allow for exemptions from IM or provide a clear pathway out of it. Some agree with the Government that it should go broader, so as not to be discriminatory.
One group that seems to be in favour of IM is the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council (NPY Women’s Council). They believe IM has helped to protect women and children, and that within the communities there has been an increase in the amount of money spent on essential items;
The elected Directors believe that, along with other NTER measures such as an increased policing and child health checks, IM has increased the funds available to welfare recipients for the necessities of life, and served to reduce the amount of money available for grog, illicit drugs and gambling, and thus the level of demand sharing by those who spend their funds largely on substance abuse.
Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010
Whilst successful even here, the NPY Women’s council admit that it is not IM alone that is making a difference. In their communities coupling IM with an increased police presence and child health checks has seen an overall rise in the wellbeing of the community. They are also concerned that removing IM from people receiving aged or disability pensions will increase demand sharing or humbugging. That they will be a target for those who are still on IM.1
It is difficult to reconcile these positives with the negative and heart-wrenching situation that a local indigenous leader experienced during his recent trip to the indigenous camps around Alice Springs. He was reflecting on the impact of the whole NT intervention and not income management alone. His views are picked up by Ms Jane Weepers of the Central Land Council, talking on the affect of the BasicsCard, to Parliament in February;
While there might not be rigorous academic reports on the issue, I can assure you—and you will have a lot of people before you today on this— that anyone who lives in Alice Springs can tell you racism is alive and well and discriminatory practices are alive and well. Certainly the introduction of the BasicsCard and its implementation have assisted to highlight just how different the arrangements are in this town for people who are black and people who are white...I can certainly tell you, from our council meetings and others, that there have been hours and hours of discussions around just how humiliating the administrative arrangements of the BasicsCard are for people. Ms Jayne Weepers, Central Land Council, Committee Hansard, 17 February 2010, p. 4.
A further concern around the proposed changes to the intervention, (outside of income management – which has the potential to go nation wide) comes from the Australian Human Rights Commission. The government is wanting to see the changes as a special measure, allowing basic human rights to be suspended. Any special measure that would repeal a people group’s human rights needs to fulfill certain criteria:
It must demonstrate a standard of consultation, and the consent of the people group.
It needs to be for their sole benefit.
It must also show sufficient, current and credible evidence that the measure will be effective.
It needs to also determine if there are effective alternate means, which do not limit human rights.
It must also show mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the measure, to ensure its objective is met.
According to the AHRC the government has failed to adequately meet any of these points.
So where do we go with all of this? On a political front, and bureaucracy will always struggle with this, more individualized responses are needed. It is obvious that what might be working in Pitjantjatjara country is not working in the camps around Alice Springs. Senator Rachel Siewert believes;
The best thing for the government to do at this point would be to drop this approach (IM), continue on with reforming the negative aspects of the Northern Territory Emergency Response and shift to a more consultative community development approach to addressing the underlying causes of disadvantage and social exclusion in Aboriginal communities.
If this approach includes looking at each community and developing that community in deep and authentic consultation and partnership with the Indigenous people of that community… then I whole-heartedly agree.
Broader to the Government hopes to reform welfare, by extending the possibility of income management nationally, Ms Kasy Chambers of Anglicare Australia says;
It was looking at communities that were quite discrete, that understand themselves as communities and where there are hugely strong kinship obligations. I do not believe we see those in Cannington or the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. We do not have that same understanding of a set of people as a community. So, whether or not the blanket approach worked in the Northern Territory— and we have a view about that—we do not feel there has been enough evidence or looking at the stuff that did go on to take it in this form to every other single community in Australia.
Ms Kasy Chambers, Anglicare Australia, Committee Hansard, 26 February 2010, p. 7.46
And perhaps we’ll give ACOSS the final word when it comes to Income Management;
The use of the social security system to achieve wider behavioural change not tied to this objective is inappropriate and inefficient unless individuals or communities have sought this approach. This is because the social security system and Centrelink are poorly adapted to providing the kind of intensive case management that is required, which is rightly provided by specialist local community organisations. Income management can be a useful tool for those services and communities, but it must be a tool in their hands, not an instrument applied by government.
As well as taking a stand politically, which I believe we must do, I want to call us to stand with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. To share in their pain for what is happening to their people. To recognise that when one part of the body hurts the whole body hurts. We also need to pray!! Only God can mend the hurt that stems from the past and seems to have no end. Only God can work in the hearts and minds of the policy and decision makers, and cause them to see beyond ‘easy’ fixes and adopt a response that sees and deeply values those affected by their decisions.
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