I don’t want to think about the legislation the Government rammed through yesterday– Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007, No. 2007(Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) A Bill for an Act to respond to the Northern Territory’s national emergency, and for related purposes. I don’t want to think about the Opposition supporting this bill.
Many Indigenous people have sought asylum in the remote communities – freedom from alcohol, racism and demeaning treatment. But now the government is taking control of Aboriginal communities, and taking away the right of Aboriginal people on those communities to determine what they eat, who comes into their community, how they spend their money, who runs their stores, who manages their community, what buildings are built on their land. And a Government rep can attend any meeting held by an Aboriginal organisation. Rather like a mental hospital really, except that there’s no independent overseer of the Government-imposed managers. From asylum to asylum.
No government should have such power over its citizens.
You can find the bill through the Parliament House website. And the Parliamentary Library has provided a digest [.pdf].
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This legislation is horrific and should send a shiver up the spine of all Australians but it won’t because the ALP’s too spineless for words.
You can read the detail of what’s in the bills here. Click on each bill and then read the ‘explanatory memoranda’. They make for singularly depressing reading.
The law enforcement section of “Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act” is positively scary. It authorises the Australian Crimes Commission to investigate child abuse (children are defined as under 18) and something called “Aboriginal Violence” – a new kind of crime? – with all the coercive powers of that organisation. These powers to compel witness etc. are created to enable the investigation of organised crimes crossing state boundaries. But my reading of the amendments suggest that they will give the ACC the power to investigate any crime(listed in Section 4 of the ACC Act 1992) whether or not it crosses the state boundary or impinges on the commonwealth laws. This has broader implications than the Kristallnacht being visited on the N.T.’s Indigenous inhabitants.
I’d love to hear someone with a background in child abuse prosecution ask Howard or Brough how they think these powers will facilitate the investigation of unorganised (i.e. the majority of) child abuse cases!