Indigenous researchers with expertise in Aboriginal child protection have warned that the intervention may do more harm than good, writes Melissa Sweet.
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Aboriginal kids as young as six are being asked to give environmental health assessments of their houses—and their interrogators are not housing experts, but the doctors and nurses carrying out the medical checks, writes Anna Lamboys.
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I would guess that there are few people who have even a moderate understanding of the breadth of the impact that the intervention is going to have on the East Arnhem population, writes John Greatorex of the Intervention Reform Coalition of Darwin.
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Non-Aboriginal contractors at the Territory’s largest Aboriginal town, Yuendumu, three weeks ago bulldozed a corrugated iron shelter, home to a couple and their seven month old daughter. The object of the exercise? To build a residence for one of the federally-funded outside employees. Anna Lamboys investigates.
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Documents obtained by Crikey indicate that the Child Health Check component of the National Emergency Response is largely incompetent, probably unethical, definitely underfunded and absolutely ignores the long term.
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For all their good intentions, the imported medicos working for the Commonwealth National Emergency Task Force are failing to do the job they have been given. They just don’t have the expertise in Aboriginal child health—and certainly have not been given enough training in such skills.
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The following leaked document reveals that Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough floated the idea of medical checks for children for signs of s-xual abuse over a year ago. And as the exchange of correspondence shows, his advisers dismissed it as a bad idea, writes Sophie Black.
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When John Howard and Mal Brough announced the "national emergency" over child sexual abuse it was seen by many people as an appropriate call to arms. It seemed logical – even necessary – that the army should be included in the strategy. So what has the result been so far?
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Maj Gen Chalmers' press release on the progress of the NT invervention included the claim that "over 700 children have had health checks so far." But a government insider told NIT this morning that the number of health checks performed was actually between 400 and 500. The difference in figures, he explained, was the result of "double-counting" and "confusion".
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When Pat Anderson and Rex Wild, QC, visited dozens of Aboriginal communities across the NT as part of their inquiry into child s-xual abuse, they were surprised that so many people were willing to share their stories.
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They came, they saw, they left. Hamish Townsend reports on the Federal Government's flying visit to Maningrida.
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The two key members of the government’s intervention into indigenous communities, Dr Sue Gordon and Major General Dave Chalmers, flew into the top end fulcrum of Maningrida yesterday to begin a two-day survey into what shape the intervention would take in the community. Maningrida resident Hamish Townsend reports.
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It’s timely, four weeks after the Government announced its "national emergency response" to sexual abuse of Aboriginal children, to ask: how will we know what difference the initiative has made? writes health journalist Melissa Sweet.
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In the remote township of Maningrida in central Arnhem land the lack of communication from the federal government over its national emergency plan has led to unnecessary instability and fear and may well ensure the plan’s intended positive results become unachievable, writes Bill Fogarty.
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In Alice Springs, the Federal Government’s taskforce has hit town and the troops in their camouflage fatigues are heading for Mutitjulu today. But there’s nothing to be concerned about ...
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Less than four days into Australia’s sterling effort to be the first member of the 'Coalition of the Willing' to invade itself, and it looks as if the initiative is failing before it has even started, writes Guy Rundle.
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Leaders of the Mutitjulu community, located near the base of Uluru, question the need for a military occupation of their small community.
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One of the most worrying aspects of the Government’s proposal is the plan to further amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) so as to scrap the permit system to enter Aboriginal land and to allow the Federal Government to acquire whichever Aboriginal townships it chooses under five-year leases, writes Sam de Silva.
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While we must all hope that any measures introduced will assist Aborigines achieve their rightful place within the Australian community, a place that recognises their own history and culture, we must at the same time ask how the Government has come to this point?
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My concern with the Federal Government’s proposal is that it doesn’t put in place the preventative measures that indigenous people need to stop the violence, and then prevent it from reoccurring, writes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma.
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Compared with the period 1991-96, the early Howard years of 1996-2001 indicated that, in relative terms, indigenous socioeconomic status, as measured by health, housing, education and employment indicators, was declining. Later this year, we will have 2006 census data that will provide evidence about how the Howard Government has fared in its later, perhaps last, years, writes Jon Altman.
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