Mission & Justice

Andrew Trounson; 12/5/08

Shirley Godwin knows all about Aboriginal mistrust of the medical system. It was in a West Australian hospital shortly after her birth 41years ago that she was separated from her indigenous mother and placed with foster parents in Victoria. But now Ms Godwin is one of the shockingly small band of just over 100 indigenous medical students whose ambition is to help overcome that historic mistrust of health professionals. Like the majority of her indigenous colleagues, she wants to use her skills to tackle the massive health disadvantages in Aboriginal communities.

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Paige Taylor; 9/5/08

The WA state Government’s three-year overhaul of child protectionservices yesterday topped $500million and will include $112million over four years for more case workers in needy areas such as Aboriginal communities in the remote Kimberley. Within 12 months, an additional 210 child protection workers, service delivery workers and support staff will be deployed to the areas of greatest need.  At a cost of $5 million, remote community workers will be sent to Warmun and Oombulgarri in the East Kimberley.  “Following last year’s review of the former Department for Community Development, we made structural changes and invested significant further funding into protecting our children,” Treasurer Eric Ripper said. The budget allocation comes three months after West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope described the plight of Aboriginal children as “especially pathetic”.

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Natasha Robinson; 1/5/08

The Community Development Employment Project is a failed experiment that has masked social dysfunction and chronic unemployment among Aborigines in remote communities. Aboriginal leader Tracker Tilmouth said yesterday the Aboriginal work-for-the-dole scheme, which was supposed to offer a transition from welfare to work, had been a panacea for governments intent on massaging statistics to hide the real state of social breakdown in Aboriginal communities. The CDEP had also stymied economic development in remote Northern Territory communities, said the former Central Land Council director who is now an adviser to Territory miner Compass Resources.

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David Uren; 21/4/08

The coalition has rejected claims by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner that it failed to provide for funding for the intervention in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to continue beyond this year. Opposition finance spokesman Peter Dutton said the cost of the intervention was not in the forward estimates, but it was included in the budget’s reserve for contingencies. “This is a continuation of Labor’s ridiculous strategy to try to discredit what was the most successful period of economic and budget management in this country’s history,” Mr Dutton said yesterday. Mr Dutton was commenting on claims by Mr Tanner that the Northern Territory intervention was one of several examples of programs that were obviously intended to last beyond a year, but for which no budget was provided.

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Patricia Karvelas; 17/4/08

The forced quarantining of welfare in the Northern Territory should be relaxed in the next phase of the commonwealth takeover so indigenous people who spend their money responsibly can control their payments, according to Intervention Taskforce head Sue Gordon. Under the current rules, 50 per cent of welfare income is quarantined by the Government and can be spent only on items such as food, clothing, rent and other essential items. But Dr Gordon, the taskforce chairwoman who has long advocated that a tough approach be taken, says that after 12 months the “one size fits all” approach needs adjustment. She told The Australian she still believed quarantining should be kept, but not for all people.

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