the betrayal of Papunya by Russell Skelton

The betrayal was the major lapse in oversight that occurred at Papunya - and a host of other communities - like a ghastly genetic flaw. Until the emergency intervention, self management, as Elliot McAdam has so pertinently noted, came down to leaving a bag of money at the front gate with the disclaimer attached: your community, your problem; you fix it
King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya

Sit down money (welfare) plus drugs plus the kinship system together is a recipe for disaster. This has been well documented by other authors: Noel Pearson: Up From the Mission, Peter Sutton: The Politics of Suffering

Russell Skelton's book does present a compelling case for the failure of the so called "self determination" policies initiated by Gough Whitlam.

If any young or old idealist was thinking of going remote to work in indigenous communities to "make a difference" then, after reading this book, they would think again. There is no point going there to make a difference if all the cards are stacked in such a way that you won't make a difference. If it's too hard to make a difference then most will decide not to take the first step. That is why a clear analysis of the problems developed into a comprehensive plan is important.

That is why Noel Pearson is so important. He has thought through all the issues comprehensively and has gone a long way to putting in place a range of policies which do have a fighting chance of making a difference.

Some reviewers regard this book as unbalanced. See this review by Dr Lawrence Bamblett. Yet no one is seriously challenging the amazing information within it. It's a matter of interpretation. Should we try to remain positive or optimistic rather than face some awful facts? Or the real question is: How do we remain positive and optimistic once we become aware of these awful facts? This is why you should read this book.

alison anderson: "the combination of noble intentions and utter ignorance"

More from Northern Territory Indigenous Advancement Minister Alison Anderson

ABORIGINAL PEOPLE MUST GROW UP

"I look at the men of Yirrkala and ask why they will not drive the 20km to Nhulunbuy to earn excellent money in the mine and the processing plant there."

"It is the kind of question the rest of Australia has been asking for years, as it tries to connect the dots, tries to understand why a long-running mining boom can exist literally next door to a culture of entitlement and welfare dependency."

She criticised those who expected the government to "do everything for them", saying the world was looking on and "wondering if we are children". Ms Anderson said that in her travels to remote communities she would be arguing "with adults who refuse to grow up".

"In the rest of Australia, people pick up the rubbish in their yards. They fix their own blocked toilets," Ms Anderson said.

"When they turn on their TVs and see remote communities covered in litter, and able-bodied men complaining about lack of maintenance of the houses they live in, they wonder why. They wonder why indigenous people in these communities won't do these things themselves."

THE MISSING ADULTS ARE DEAD

In Australia, 3 per cent of the population are indigenous. In the NT that rises to 30 per cent. It does not just rise; it explodes and creates a whole new society, one this nation is still coming to terms with. The state with the next highest proportion of indigenous people is Tasmania, with just 4.7 per cent.

We are different. What does it mean to be indigenous here? Many things, of course, but some of the raw averages are interesting. It means we are young. For every non-indigenous child in the Territory there are 4.5 non-indigenous adults aged 20 to 59. To put that another way, more than four adults to look after each child.

However, for an indigenous child there are only 1.5 indigenous adults. In other words, there are far fewer adults to care for our children, to protect and inspire them, to feed and look out for them. Where are the missing adults? There is no way to put this gently: they are dead.

This is like the reverse of the old story of the Pied Piper, where the children were taken away. Here it is the adults who have gone, in places such as Lajamanu where 29 per cent of people are younger than nine years old. Something has spirited away many of the parents, the uncles and the aunties.

REMOTE

We are also remote. In all Australia 24 per cent of indigenous people live in remote or very remote areas. In the Territory that proportion is 81 per cent.

When I speak of remoteness, I mean not just remote from Darwin or Alice Springs but remote from each other. There are 527 homelands and outstations funded by my department. In many ways, this is a wonderful thing, and this government is committed to homelands and outstations. However, the extent of our remoteness is unusual, not just at the national level but internationally.

In service delivery, remoteness makes everything harder. Take transport, with road cuts during the wet season and expensive public transport. A return trip from Katherine to Lajamanu costs $320 and runs just twice a week. There will never be enough money to change this, not here or anywhere else in the world.

That is something we ignore, but we ignore it at our peril. Again and again. I see programs that do not factor in the true cost of remoteness, the travelling time needed to reach communities and the cost of planes to access them during the wet.

NGOs

Ms Anderson also attacked the commonwealth's reliance on "bright and shiny and run like clockwork" NGOs that "fill in all the paperwork perfectly".

"They're good at lobbying and writing submissions. I don't mock that but I do suggest they're not so good at providing services, because they don't understand the communities ," she said. "Like so many non-indigenous advisers over the years . . . they're cursed by the combination of noble intentions and utter ignorance."

Sources:
My people must grow up: Alison Anderson
My dream: a real future of our own making

alcohol and aboriginal communities revisited

It's confusing when elected indigenous parliamentarians in the Northern Territory call for a relaxation of alcohol controls while at the same time claiming they understand the issues because many of their close family have died through alcohol abuse. In this case I think Russell Skelton and Noel Pearson have thought it through more clearly. The top down alcohol restrictions should stay in place.

THE MIXED MESSAGES
Indigenous MPs call for choice on grog by Amos Aikman

Traditional Tiwi man and the conservative Country Liberal Party member for Arafura, Francis Xavier Maralampuwi, said he was "saddened and embarrassed" by seeing Tiwi people drunk on the streets of Darwin.

"Tiwi people are telling me they should be able to drink full-strength beer in their own community, controlled by their own people," Mr Maralampuwi said.

"Tiwi people are sick and tired of being told what to do by Labor, and Tiwi people are telling me that Labor is treating them like second-rate citizens.

"If you talk about closing the gap, does that mean that whites can drink heavy and blacks cannot?" ...

High-profile aboriginal woman and the CLP's new member for Stuart, Bess Price, said Aboriginal people understood first-hand the problems alcohol could bring, and that existing measures had not worked.

"We are here today and we still have not done anything about the drinkers out there - and these drinkers are our families," Ms Price said.

"We bury people. My four brothers died in a town camp because they drank every day, day in, day out."

She said Aboriginal people had been "bashing our heads against the wall", talking to government experts who thought they knew better.

"They have been there for one day, and they think they know us and they can walk away with just one answer from a person might be visiting that community that day. That is what makes people think they have the answer," Ms Price said.

"No, you do not, because any Aboriginal person you pull up, wherever, will give you whatever answer you want to hear, so you can away, feeling you have been consulted." ...

Ms Anderson predicted that, given the choice, "about 99.9 per cent" of communities would say no to more grog.

"But on this side of the House, we are giving that choice to people," Ms Anderson said.

PUSH BACK
Junking of NT booze policies spells disaster by Russell Skelton

TRIUMPHALISM is the enemy of good government, especially a newly elected one driven by an irrational compulsion to replace all the policy furniture - even when it is new.

Take the Country Liberals government of Terry Mills. Within weeks of him assuming power in the Northern Territory, hubris appears to have got the better of the Chief Minister and his team, most of whom have never seen the inside of a cabinet room. Considered change is to be welcomed when it leads to significant improvements in public policy. When driven by impetuosity the results can be chaotic, ill-considered and potentially disastrous. Such is the decision to junk the banned drinkers register targeting 2300 problem drunks.

A related decision, framed in disingenuous human rights speak, to hold a plebiscite in Aboriginal communities to reconsider grog bans already voted for also makes little sense. Not surprisingly, both policies have come under intense criticism and in the case of lifting grog bans outright rejection.

The Mills government has been a shambles with ministers sending mixed policy signals over bilingual education, pursuing individual agendas and vendettas. Most revealing is the failure to come up with a coherent and credible policy on the most pressing public health issue: excessive drinking.

Blown by fickle winds of Aboriginal policy by Noel Pearson

How can we close the gap on indigenous disadvantage if successive governments just chop and change policies arbitrarily, without proper reference to evidence and history? Given that closing the gap is a generational challenge, we must maintain a commitment to the right social and development policies for a number of decades. The right policies must survive changes of government and, by this definition, must transcend the ideological whims of political parties...

Getting policies right is like hammering an anvil. Reform policy is the convergence of the right analysis, the right strategy and the right implementation. It is a constant work in progress, where the insights and gains are hard won.

During the recent months of debate over alcohol policies I have heard politicians talking how alcohol management plans have driven people out of communities into urban areas. But then I recall the controversy 20 years ago when the mayor of Cairns organised a bus to take itinerants back to their home communities in Cape York, 10 years before alcohol restrictions. Yes, there is an itinerants' problem but reopening the problems back in the communities is not the solution. I hear politicians talking about how alcohol restrictions have resulted in a breakout in the use of cannabis. But the cannabis epidemics in remote communities were well established for more than two decades, long preceding alcohol restrictions.

But this is what happens if you let folklore and anti-intellectual rejection of proper policy analysis drive policy

related: alcohol in aboriginal communities