Angry at Racist Intervention in Northern Territory

http://www.federalintervention.info/
Last year the Federal Governemtn brought in a very nasty, racist new 'emergency measures' law that in addition to creating havoc in the Northern Territory, had to suspend the RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT in order to operate.

Social Security payments are being 'quarrantined', half paid as cash, the other half as a store card that can ONLY BE USED IN CERTAIN STORES. The problem with this is that many remote communities live so far away from these big stores (wonder if the government gets a kickback from the increased business), that they either have to drive LONG distances (700 miles or more) to the shops they can spend their card-money in. In wet weather, the only way in or out is by plane.

Some of the harsh measures implemented in these remote communities are:
· Serious environmental, health and safety risks due to overcrowding, poor housing conditions and lack of maintenance of community spaces – the situation has worsened significantly since the abolition of CDEP under the Intervention.

· Severe shortage of services (i.e. policing, support programs especially for domestic violence victims, dry-out services, maintenance, internet access) due to lack of and withdrawal of Government funding

· Influx of people from remote communities “running away from income management” increases pressure on families in Bagot, exacerbating overcrowding and humbugging family members for (already scarce) food and money. People cannot refuse family members food/money when humbugged as must fulfil cultural kinship responsibilities.

· Bagot Community Store has been denied a license for store-card use under the Intervention because it does not stock fresh produce. As people are being forced to shop elsewhere, the community store may have to close down.

· Less than 1/5 people have a fridge and there are only 3 functioning stoves in the whole of Bagot (52 houses). This means that people are unable to store and cook fresh produce ensuing serious health and nutrition concerns.

· Older people are increasingly more vulnerable to violence/abuse and have a limited capacity to support themselves. Since the Intervention there is an increased pressure on older people to support children and extended family members.

www.federalintervention.info
www.aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com
The Emergency Response doesn't address child abuse
Nothing in the „Emergency Response°o legislation goes to the heart of addressing child abuse or child protection. The recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred Report, which it is claimed triggered the Howard Government's "Emergency Response", have been entirely ignored, although they are the product of months of consultation and sensitive inquiry. The Howard Government's response is based on no evidence and ignores the advice of experts.

Funding for welfare and bureaucrats, not for programs that address the communities needs
Too much of the funding for the Intervention is for bureaucrats and administration and not enough is for programs that will support child protection. $88m is for the administrative cost of quarantining welfare payments. $205.8m – nearly half the funding of the total package – is for welfare. The allocation for child and family services is pathetically small in comparison. There is no additional money this year for housing even though overcrowding (average 15-20 per house) is a critical issue. There is a $2.3 billion shortfall for NT remote community housing and infrastructure needs. Funds will be provided, however, for accommodation for government staff and appointed "business managers" who are located at the communities.

Racially discriminatory legislation
The legislation ignores the principle of non-discrimination and is exempted from the Racial Discrimination Act, even though it purports to be a "special measure". Aboriginal people in the NT are being singled out for "special treatment" on the basis of race, regardless of their personal circumstances or actions.

Compulsory acquisition of property rights and assets
The Government is forcing compulsory 5-year leases on all communities. "Just terms" compen-sation will only be paid "if warranted". It has been suggested compensation might be given in the form of services or infrastructure rather than proper compensation for Aboriginal landowners. The legislation also provides for the Common-wealth and NT Governments to have continuing ownership of buildings and infrastructure on Aboriginal land that are constructed or upgraded with government funding – in other words, to gradually strip communities of their assets.

Partial removal of permits to access Aboriginal land will not prevent child abuse
Aboriginal landowners and NT Police strongly support the continuation of the permit system. There is no evidence at all that the incidence of child abuse is greater where permits apply. Permits in no way inhibit the delivery of government services as has been claimed. Although it is claimed that only a small percentage of Aboriginal land will be affected, it will be impossible to police offences where permits do apply. Removal of permits will deny Aboriginal people their right to privacy and ability to protect sacred sites. The proposal to remove permits has been raised before and has been comprehensively rejected by Aboriginal people.

Welfare provisions
The legislation allows for "income management" of up to 100% of welfare payments. Income management will be "used as a tool to assist state and territory governments to meet their responsibilities" in relation to school enrolment and school attendance. There is no explanation of how the schools, desks, teachers and classrooms will be provided. [Note: Neither the Federal nor NT Govts have provided adequate funding to enable all NT Aboriginal children to attend school!] All individuals who receive welfare payments will be subject to income management, regardless of their ability to manage their affairs. Any people who move into a community will be subjected to income management and the new arrangements will follow any individual if they leave the community, to make sure they can't avoid it. 50% of the welfare payments of all individuals in "affected communities" will be income managed for the first 12 months.

Abolition of CDEP / transfer of CDEP participants to welfare provisions
CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects), the primary source of employment and income for most Aboriginal people in remote communities, will be phased out to force individuals onto welfare so that their incomes become subject to income management. Many essential community services, community organisations, artists' cooperatives, night patrols, community stores etc. are staffed by CDEP workers. Abolition of CDEP is likely to have a shattering impact on remote communities and town camps.

Sydney, 17 February 2008 -- How would you feel having to drive 1,500 kilometres to buy your household supplies, limited to 60 dollars per person?

How would you feel about police and troops with guns swarming through your community, your house, your possessions totally accessible to them without any legal instrument?

How would you feel about not being able to spend your own or your dead husband’s war veterans pension after he served in Vietnam?

All of that and more is happening in the intervention in the Northern Territory, which is moving up community after community from the South Australian border to the coast, terrifying people.

And now the architect of it, former army man and minister for Aboriginal affairs under John Howard, Mal Brough, has been invited by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to be part of his “war cabinet” to tackle Aboriginal disadvantage.

“The people are screaming in horror at this,” says Aboriginal leader Michael Anderson, “in one fell swoop he has unwound all his good intentions in the sorry speech.”

“People are terrorised by the number of police around them, their limitless powers, soldiers with guns.”

Workshop with elders

The prime minister should hold his head in shame, says Anderson, who workshopped on Tuesday with key leaders from NT communities in Canberra before parliament opened. The workshop was held in the grounds of the Aboriginal Embassy, founded in 1972 by four black power activists, of whom Anderson, aged 56, is the sole survivor.

Those leaders described what was happening in the communities as the imposition of martial law and charged that the media and politicians are misrepresenting the whole situation.

“They told me of extreme police powers, with total access to communities, vehicles, homes – they need no legal instrument to do whatever they want, they can stop and search wherever and whoever they want,” Anderson told me.

Anyone found with an empty beer can in their car faces a fine of $1,000 the first time, $2,500 the second time, Anderson reports from the meeting. “At the third time they are classified as a supplier – without any definition of quantity – which carries a minimum fine of 75,000 dollars.”

No vehicles of white people, just those of Aborigines are searched, the elders told the workshop, which they ran to try to get public attention.

“The quarantining of war widows’ or veterans pensions is hurting in a big way, it’s the biggest hurt,” Anderson quotes the community leaders as saying.

Shopping 750 km away

Most of the people in the communities affected by the intervention have to shop at Centrelink-approved stores a long way from their homes in the bush, up to 750 kilometres in some cases. They’re all Coles, Woolworths and K-Mart stores. They are not allowed to shop in their own community stores.

“The leaders say this is forcing people off their land to come into the cities. They see it as a stealthy move to seize Aboriginal lands,” Anderson quotes from the workshop. “It’s a very well thought-out move.”

To shop and get their welfare benefits, people have to prove their identity to get ID cards, usually by birth certificate. “Most of the old people were never recorded, they don’t have a piece of paper on them. That even applies to some of the younger ones because they were born in the bush.”

“So, they get no card and get no money. How are they supposed to live? And on $60 dollars per person per week no-one can feed and clothe kids. How do they survive? This is worse than the original situation.”

“We don’t need to be treated like this, it’s gone back to the 50s, it’s more of John Howard.”

Anderson, a lawyer by training and the elected leader of the 16 Gumilaroi clans in northwest NSW and southwest Queensland, accused Rudd of “shallow dealing” with Aboriginal affairs.

Talks on the ground

“He has to open his eyes a little wider. He has to talk to the people in the communities, not some bureaucrats in Sydney or Canberra.

“This has to be fixed from the bottom up. He has to get out there and listen to them, community after community. He should just look at his own speech.

“One size does not fit all. There’s been much talk of the culturally appropriate approach. Well, in these communities, not by their choice, there are mixtures of clans and tribes who don’t get on.

“In past mistakes bureaucrats and pollies saw single, homogenous communities and policies have been very divisive.”

Elders told the workshop of a scheme that has run in Alice Springs for 20 years under which Aboriginal people voluntarily rationed their money.

For those interested in reading the actual laws, there are links on the left hand side of this page. http://www.federalintervention.info/ (you need Adobe Acrobat reader, which is available free all over the place online to read the documents which are in PDF format.

Simon

Not long to go !!

Chronic Fatigue and Fibro are a nuisance

For the second time since the Testosterone put them into remission about 4 years ago , the CFS/Fibro is rearing it's ugly head. I think I've been awake about 4 hours in 24, and that was after sleeping for nearly 40 hours when I got back from Ballarat on Saturday. It is completely and totally annoying me. Last time it flared up, a couple of 'earlier than scheduled' T shots put it back into remission but it's not working this time.

I'm supposed to be studying, doing research (I even got to pick my own research topic),and I can barely stay awake long enough to do the weekly shopping and on the other days wake up long enough to eat, maybe on a good day have a second cup of coffee!
Grrr
This is annoying
Simon

Hyperlexia and teaching babies to read

I just read a post on hyperlexia, I had no idea that some people saw it as a bad thing (other than Mum when she wanted me to outside and play, do the dishes or whatever and had to drag my nose out of the book before I would hear or respond)

Back in 1963/4, New Idea (one of our longest running weekly magazines was selling a kit form of Glen Doman's "Teach Your Baby to Read",(I'm actually hoping it did make it up here). Glen Doman and Carl Delacato were two doctors working at the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential, and after finding out that one of their disabled preschoolers was reading (and at a much higher level that kids 5 years older), they took a good look. Ok, if these kids are in intensive programs to teach them physical skills, they are disabled kids, and they can do this, what are we doing wrong that's causing so many much older kids to have problems reading? "Teach Your Baby to Read (and other similarly themed books), information can be found at http://www.iahp.org/ . I first came across Glen Doman's work in my early teens ( think I was about 13 when he came over here to lecture and Dad took me to listen to him, as he knew I was as fascinated, if not more so, with medicine than he was).

I started reading almost 45 years ago, at the age of 4, and I have not really stopped since. I wasn't able to complete teaching my daughter as her Dad and I separated when she was 2 and I had just started, but I do hope to do it more with Josh (my adorable grandson). I have taught other preschoolers to read (being able to say the word is irrelevant, as long as they can choose by pointing)

I believe that teaching your child or children to read before they start school and get bored to death (it's also easier because their brains are still making the neural network for language). It's really no more difficult to teach a child 'that is a cat', and teach them that 'this says banana'(yes, that was amongst the earlier long words I learned, but also some slightly tricky ones (at least in english) such nose and toes (same sound, different spelling).

So called hyperlexia is, in my small opinion, merely an indication that parent's have bee a bit careless and accidentally given them some of the keys to unlock the 'word code'. Just look at the sharp increase in small kids who knew aphabet and numbers through watching Sesame Street? Kids usually want to learn (and of course to have your undivided attention while you're doing this), so it fulfills two needs at once. Of course if the child, because of hearing or motor skills problems is less likely to be able to speak, it also opens up a whole new word to them.
Anyone who wants to learn more, please feel free to IM me or drop me an email, or leave a message here.
Simon

Staff abuse? Then what is happening to the residents?

Thanks to another autism blogger for leading me to this one. I worked as a young person in a large (approx 900 resident) institution which is now closed down. Yes,some of the residents were abused, although I only knew about physical/emotional abuse, and tried to protect any resident from being left on their own with the staff member concerned. This same staff member and his mates sexually harrassed me IN FRONT OF THE NURSE IN CHARGE, who just smiled and said nothing. As an admittedly naive 26 year old Aspie, I didn't know I could complain, I didn't know who I could complain to (especially having heard the rumours about what the senior administrators did when they had their own units), in the end a combination of cfs/fibro exacerbated by stress made me retire.

What they need to do (the investigating police) is separately and privately interview the young, new staff, who may be able to tell them a lot if the police assure them that they aren't going to get abused for doing so).If anyone had ASKED me, or even shown any interest in the residents welfare, I would have told them.
Simon

Scalpel or Sword?: The Ultimate Threat!

Scalpel or Sword?: The Ultimate Threat!

New here

Ok, this is my first post, I'm just starting to try to get the hang of this place. I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem to allow for
-adding people as friends
-comunities
-finding other users
I may be wrong, and it may have these things and I'm just not aware of them yet. If I'm wrong, and you know how to find your way around this site better than I do, please comment so that I can get used to this place.

I'm joining the "Blogging for Autism Awareness", being organised as far as I know by someone on blogspot. . As an adult-diagnosed Aspie it horrifies me the way some parents talk about their kids as 'problems'(I actually gave one mother a reality check when she said something about it being difficult to 'cope' with her son, I told her she was lucky, she only had to 'cope' with one Aspie, we have to cope with being surrounded by NT's (neurotypicals)!). She hadn't thought of looking at it from our point of view.

Ok, I've started to at least get the hang of how to post in this thing, and which mode to use if I want to cut and paste, so hopefully my future posts will be a bit more interesting.
Simon