Labor to ramp up action in Territory
Patricia Karvelas; 19/6/08
The Rudd Government yesterday moved to reinforce its commitment to the Northern Territory indigenous intervention, handing down a 12-month report card that argues it has accelerated the rollout of key measures. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin told The Australian the Government was determined to strengthen rather than weaken the intervention in Aboriginal communities, releasing new figures to prove Labor’s commitment. Labor promised to review the intervention, launched in June last year by John Howard in aneffort to stamp out sexual abuse and violence against children, and improve living standards in communities, if it won government. Yesterday’s report card shows that while only 4630 children in 58 per cent of all communities had been visited and given free health checks at the time the government changed hands in November, that figure reached 11,000 this month.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23887166-5013871,00.html
Outstations crumbling without services
Natasha Robinson; 19/6/08
Despie improvements brought about by the federal intervention elsewhere in the Northern Territory, residents in hundreds of remote outstations continue to struggle without a ready supply of hot water, rubbish collection and other basic local government services. Public housing dwellings on many outstations are in a state of chronic disrepair, with dangerous and faulty electricity, often no plumbing, broken windows that no statutory authority accepts responsibility for, and doors that will not shut. When The Australian visited outstations surrounding Papunya, 240km west of Alice Springs, we found families heating water using old woodchip hot water systems - where a fire is lit under a converted gas bottle. The method dates back to the 1970s, with no upgrade to the hot water system since then.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23887158-5013404,00.html
Appeal to doctors’ sense of duty
Matthew Franklin; 19/6/08
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon has asked doctors to consider community service as one reason for working with the Rudd Government on its intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, amid continuing claims the program has been underfunded. Ms Roxon told The Australian yesterday that short-term deployments were of value to doctors, and that many who had worked in indigenous communities had enjoyed the experience. “Tackling the 17-year life expectancy gap is a big challenge, and requires the whole community to get on board,” she said. The Australian Medical Association decided earlier this week to cease recruiting doctors for the intervention program to fight child, alcohol and drug abuse in 73indigenous communities.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23887164-5013172,00.html
Five years ‘too short’ for NT intervention
Sarah Smiles; 19/6/08
The Northern Territory intervention must run well beyond five years to make a real impact in indigenous communities, says the intervention’s taskforce head Major-General David Chalmers. The federal intervention to tackle child abuse in remote communities was launched last July to run for five years. The first stage has involved increasing policing, quarantining welfare, alcohol restrictions and child health checks.While General Chalmers said there had been “positive signs” that the intervention was working, he said he had “underestimated” the challenge ahead. “This is going to require sustained commitment over a long period of time, clearly more than five years, by both levels of government and I’m confident that that commitment exists,” he said.
See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/five-years-too-short-for-nt-intervention-20080618-2sx1.html
Too inept to save children
Joel Gibson’ 19/6/08
The 18-month-old plan to tackle indigenous child sexual abuse in NSW is being hobbled by bureaucratic inertia and inadequate funding for programs, documents obtained under freedom of information laws show. One year into the five-year plan, there was still only one part-time Aboriginal child sexual assault counsellor in NSW and “most agencies” had not even responded to a list of draft performance measures, the documents from the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs show. The Breaking The Silence report, commissioned by then NSW attorney-general Bob Debus and completed in February 2006, found indigenous children were four times more likely to be victims of sexual assault, and that it was a cause of drug use, crime, prostitution and mental illness.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/too-inept-to-save-children/2008/06/18/1213770732783.html
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