This dissertation focuses on the understanding how the authoritarian aspects of the Northern Territory Intervention came to be understood as necessary by the politicians of both the Coalition and Labor parties. In this overview of the justifications provided by members of each of these parties, I show that the original justifications for the NTI, made by the Coalition Government, and the later justifications for the policy by the Labor government were very similar. I argue that the justifications for the Intervention
Human Rights Commission, "Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee in the Inquiry into the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Bill 2011 and Two Related Bills," (Sydney2012); Jenny Macklin, "Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Bill 2011 - Second Reading Speech,"
http://www.jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/speeches/2011/Pages/jm_s_strongerfutures_23 november2011.aspx; Australian Government, "Stronger Futures in the Northern
can be sorted into two broad types. The first type of justification is based on the development of a critique of Aboriginal individuals, communities and culture. This includes expressions of concern about the welfare of Aboriginal children,
condemnations of social conditions in Aboriginal communities and comments about the dysfunctional nature of Aboriginal culture. The second type of justification is based on a critique of past government which is understood as having failed Aboriginal people and contributed to their problems. This includes a critique of the Northern Territory
Government's failure to respond to the Little Children Are Sacred report as well as a broader critique of former Indigenous Affairs policy paradigms. Below I outline, first, the justifications for the NTI and, second, some of the support for the Government position in the broader community.
I will begin with the first type of justification for the Intervention, the justification based on the problematisation of Aboriginal communities. This has several elements
including, first, the concern for the safety of Aboriginal children. Child welfare was the primary and most frequently mentioned justification for the Intervention, particularly during its initial development by the Howard Coalition Government. Speeches by Prime Minister Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, during the early months of the Intervention, invariably mentioned these problems. For example a press release from Minister Brough's office on the 21st of June 2007 specifically linked the 'broad
ranging measures' of the Intervention to the issue of child protection. The release stated that 'All action at a national level is designed to ensure the protection of Aboriginal children from harm'.91 Similarly, Prime Minister Howard gave an address to the Sydney
Institute on the 15th of June condemning the violence, abuse and neglect in many remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and arguing that '…without urgent action to restore social order the nightmare will go on.92
91 Mal Brough, "Media Release. National Emergency Response to Protect Aboriginal Children in the NT. 21 June 2007," Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs,
http://www.formerministers.fahcsia.gov.au/malbrough/mediareleases/2007/Pages/emerg ency_21june07.aspx.
The second element of this justification was a critique of the generally dire social conditions of the communities in which Aboriginal children lived. This theme was prevalent not only in the speeches of Coalition parliamentarians—including Liberal backbenchers Barry Wakelin and Alex Somlyay—but also in the contributions of Labor members of parliament. Labor party members also referred to child safety and, indeed, made this issue the sole criterion on which it based its decision to support the policy.93
Senator Chris Evans, the leader of the Labor party in the Senate, outlined this approach in his contribution to the parliamentary debate. He explained that Labor had '…applied a simple test to the proposal put forward by the government: will it improve the safety and security of our children in a practical way? We have come to the conclusion that it will, and we will support it'.94 The protection of Aboriginal children was, therefore, the
primary reason given by both the Coalition and Labor parties for their support of the NTER bills.
Finally, this justification often took the form of statements in parliament, and elsewhere, about the dysfunctional character of Aboriginal communities and culture. Minister Brough's description of Aboriginal communities as 'failed societies' that needed to be 'stabilised and normalised' demonstrated a view of Aboriginal communities as abnormal and fundamentally different from other Australian communities.95 It also implied that
Aboriginal parents were uniquely irresponsible and in need of the more highly interventionist and authoritarian aspects of the NT Intervention including income management. Prime Minister Howard spoke of the 'level of extreme social breakdown' in Aboriginal communities and argued that the state of affairs in these communities demanded a 'highly prescriptive' approach.96 In 2009 Prime Minister Rudd echoed this
claim when he cited spoke of the 'failures' of Aboriginal individuals and communities and cited the need to stabilise the Northern Territory's most troubled communities as the chief reason for maintaining the NTI.97 The theme of Aboriginal community dysfunction
93 Parliament of Australia, "Parliamentary Debates, Hansard 7 August 2007," 75, 88. 94 Parliament of Australia, "Parliamentary Debates. Senate Official Hansard. No. 8, 2007. Wednesday, 8 August 2007," (Canberra2007), 37.
95 Parliament of Australia, "Parliamentary Debates, Hansard 7 August 2007," 7. 96 Howard, "Address to the Sydney Institute."
was therefore a prominent aspect of both the Coalition and Labor governments' justification for the NTI. I look at this justification for the Northern Territory Intervention in further detail in Chapter Three when I develop an analysis of settler colonial discourse in the NTI.
I turn now to the second type of justification, namely, those which developed from a critique of former approaches to government. This type of justification involves, first, a critique of the activities—or lack of activity—by the Northern Territory Government in response to the Little Children Are Sacred report. This justification partly arose out of the need to develop a case for commonwealth, as opposed to territory, intervention in Northern Territory communities. Some aspects of the Intervention such as community governance, licensing of community stores, policing and regulation of alcohol and pornography have typically been understood to be the responsibility of state and territory governments. Prime Minister Howard acknowledged that the Australian Government was taking on extended responsibilities when he stated that the
Intervention '…does push aside the role of the [Northern] Territory to some degree' and argued that the protection of Aboriginal children should take precedence over
'constitutional niceties'.98 Howard justified the expansion of the role of the Australian
Government by pointing to the failures of the Northern Territory government. He pronounced himself 'unhappy' with the response of the NT Government to the Little Children are Sacred report and claimed that the NT Government didn't regard the problems outlined in the report as a crisis or emergency.99 The inactivity of the NT
Government therefore joined the problem of child welfare as a justification for a nationally coordinated NT Intervention.
The second element of this justification is a critique of past policy approaches. A common theme of discussions about the NTI was that a new policy paradigm was needed to replace unsuccessful Indigenous Affairs policy approaches. According to Minister Brough '…we have tried – all sides of government, all ministers have tried for http://pmrudd.archive.dpmc.gov.au/node/5287.
98 Howard and Brough, "Joint Press Conference with the Hon Mal Brough." 99 Ibid.
many years – to do something about it [the problems in the NT] in the traditional forms and normal ways that we attack these problems and it just has not worked'.100 Elsewhere,
Minister Brough had argued that the '[m]illions, billions of dollars' spend on night patrols, safe house and healing circles in Aboriginal communities had not been able to guarantee the safety, security and respect that must underpin a society.101 This critical
assessment of past policy approaches was central to the Coalition Government's justification for the NTI. It employed the idea that a self-determination or Indigenous rights approach to policy was inherently flawed and incompatible with effective policies for child safely.
This critique of past policy was useful for the Coalition Government because it made it possible to imply that any opposition to the NTI policy came from supporters of an earlier, failed policy regime. Calls for further consultation with Aboriginal people, for the reinstatement of the permit system, or the reinstatement of the RDA, could be dismissed as irrelevant objections. This attitude is demonstrated by the parliamentary debate where several politicians favoured immediate action over further rounds of consultation. Liberal senator Eric Abetz, for example, argued that the standard orders of the Senate allowed for rushing legislation through in times of crisis and that this was necessary because of the urgent needs of women and children. 'When you see women with multiple fractures time and time again, you do not say to them, 'Let's consult about these issues.' The time for action has come'.102 Some politicians saw the direct and
interventionist approach of the NTER as offering a prospect for making real changes in Aboriginal communities where more consultative strategies had failed.
The Intervention was described as a powerful and authoritative approach which had the potential to make a difference where earlier approaches to government had failed: 100 Parliament of Australia, "Parliamentary Debates, Hansard 7 August 2007," 25. 101 Mal Brough, "Speech to the National Press Club. Commonwealth's Intervention into Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory. 15 August 2007,"
http://www.formerministers.fahcsia.gov.au/malbrough/speeches/Pages/speech_nter_15a ug07.aspx.
102 Parliament of Australia, "Parliamentary Debates. Senate Official Hansard. No. 8, 2007. Wednesday, 8 August 2007," 12.
[I]t's time for us to take the power and the authority…and use the opportunity as we can…We can talk about land rights, we can talk about permit systems or we can actually deal with the difficult issues of children being raped, babies with gonorrhoea, children having their absolute hearts ripped out be people who are supposed to be people of authority, and we can say, no more.
The Coalition Government was, therefore, able to emphasise the value and promise of the NTI as a strategy for addressing long term problems by criticising past policy. By the time that the Labor Government came into office, the criticisms of both the Northern Territory Government and of prior policy regimes became less necessary. The Coalition Government's condemnation of the Northern Territory Government's response to the Little Children Are Sacred report featured much less prominently as a justification during Labor government. The precedent for a highly interventionist, national approach to child abuse and community dysfunction in Aboriginal communities had, after all, already been set by the previous government. Overall, the Labor Government's justifications for the NTER were quite similar to the original justifications of the Coalition Government. Labor Ministers were, as I mentioned above, inclined to focus on the safety and security of Aboriginal children as the chief justification for the continuation of the Intervention. The federal Labor Government, in the context of the increased authority of federal government over Indigenous Affairs administration in the Northern Territory, chose to engage more frequently with the Northern Territory
Government with that government positioned as a partner of the Labor Government in the COAG Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory policy.
In summary, the Coalition and Labor governments employed a number of justifications for the Northern Territory Intervention. The most important and prominent of these justifications focused on the urgency of the situation in Northern Territory communities and emphasised the dangers that many Aboriginal people, but particularly women and children, faced on a daily basis. The dire situation in Aboriginal communities was used to justify both the scale of the Intervention and the quick pace at which it was developed and pushed through parliament. Other justifications included the failures of the
Northern Territory Government to address the problems outlined in the Little Children are Sacred report and the likelihood that the NTI would finally give governments the power and authority to make real change after a policy history of failure and misdirected political effort.
Before outlining the main criticisms of the Intervention, I would like to acknowledge that the justifications for the NTI, while widely criticised, were not entirely without support in the broader public sphere. The inherent news-worthiness of the emergency response assured the Government of good media coverage. While the Australian media generally reported favourable and critical perspectives on the Intervention with equal gusto, some journalists were unabashedly in favour of the policy. For example, conservative columnist Miranda Devine characterised the Intervention as a welcome triumph over the 'utopian socialist fantasies of the 1970s'.103 A number of prominent
Aboriginal people were also supportive of the policy. The ideas of Noel Pearson, an outspoken lawyer and activist for welfare reform in Aboriginal communities, were described as the inspiration for the NTI.104 Former president of the Australian Labor
Party Warren Mundine encouraged critics of the NTI to 'stop nitpicking' and take advantage of the opportunity to make a real breakthrough on the issue of abuse.105
Outside of the major political parties, however, criticisms of the policy quickly outnumbered declarations of support.