In July of this year, a group of elders and traditional custodians from the remote Aboriginal community of Ampilatwatja in the Northern Territory, Australia, walked out of their township and into the bush to set up a protest camp. As yet, they have no bore for drinking water and little shelter, yet they thought the ability to live on their own land, on their own terms, was more important.

Ampilatwatja, along with 72 other communities in the Northern Territory, has been the subject of The Northern Territory National Emergency Response, commonly referred to as “the intervention”. The intervention began in 2007 and involved creating a ‘state of emergency’ in Aboriginal communities and then sending in the army to deal with it. It involved the quarantining of welfare payments and the forced acquisition of communities, effectively wiping out what little self-determination and respect remaining to the people.

They were introduced initially by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007, nominally to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, but the current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has continued to support the response.

In order to get the package passed the bill required exemption from the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). The Australian government has now officially sanctioned their own racism. Everyone from the United Nations to the Law Council of Australia has condemned this action, yet still the interventions continue.

So the rule of law has effectively looked the other way as 600 Australia soldiers invaded their own country. But this was not an invasion to flush out a terrorist cell, or dislodge and genocidal dictator, but rather an invasion attempting to modify the behavior of Aboriginal communities and instigate personal income management! New data now is coming to light revealing what the hairs on your neck have perhaps already told you… it was a bad idea. And guess what else, it isn’t working.

In a government report published recently, rates of domestic violence and personal harm incidents have increased, despite the fact that the number of refugees and shelters have been reduced. Drug and substance abuse rates have also risen and school attendance is marginally down. Apparently Aboriginal people are purchasing more healthy food, but the shop owners were surveyed rather than the customers themselves and so it’s unclear if this in dollar terms or quantity? 

We humans have a fickle sense of tolerance, and when we think back to things like segregated public water fountains it is impossible to understand how such practices became normalised. Well, here we are. Today an Aboriginal mother in Ampilatwatja will have her welfare payments quarantined whilst the non-Aboriginal citizen just a house away is exempt. That is why the people of this small community have walked out.

Credit: Brian Cohen and Tara Prowse

More info:

The $587 million (Aus dollars) Northern Territory National Emergency Response package contains the following nine measures:

1. Deployment of additional police to affected communities.

2. New restrictions on alcohol and kava

3. Pornography filters on publicly funded computers

4. Compulsory acquisition of townships currently held under the title provisions of the Native Title Act 1993 through five year leases with compensation on a basis other than just terms. (The number of settlements involved remains unclear.)

5. Commonwealth funding for provision of community services

6. Removal of customary law and cultural practice considerations from bail applications and sentencing within criminal proceedings

7. Suspension of the permit system

8. Quarantining of a proportion of welfare benefits to all recipients in the designated communities and of all benefits of those who neglect their children

9. The abolition of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP).

Photo: A road sign in the Northern territory of Australia warning against importing liquor and pornography.