Central Land Council

TIME TO BE ACCOUNTABLE
(A statement from the Central Land Council director David Ross)

Although it’s only early days of the Northern Territory election campaign it’s been noticeable so far that neither of the major parties has had much interest in making Aboriginal health, education or housing key election issues.

This is remarkable given the enormous upheaval Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory have faced in the past 12 months and the huge disadvantage they’ve had to endure over decades.

The former prime minister labelled conditions in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities a national emergency. The current Territory Labor government supported the intervention that followed, but neither of the major parties has paid the issues much attention.

Allegations of child abuse, income quarantining, closing the gap, whether a permit should be required to access Aboriginal communities or not, they’re all issues that have been hotly debated over the past 12 months. There’s been huge changes made in some of those areas and it’s Aboriginal people who’ve borne the brunt of the reforms.

You’d think with such a revolution in indigenous affairs it’d rate a mention in the first hours let alone the first days of a Northern Territory election campaign. But no specifics have been forthcoming.

It’s time for both the major parties and any other candidates tempted to stand in the upcoming Territory election to be held accountable for their actions in the past and their promises for the future.

In this election campaign, parties should spell out in detail constructive policies and funding that they’ll implement to give Aboriginal people in remote areas equal access to education, health services and housing infrastructure.

Taxpayers must be able to hold the makers of the new promises accountable and so previous commitments must also be scrutinised.

To this end I repeat my call for a Royal Commission to investigate how previous CLP governments and the current ALP government have spent federal funding allocated for Aboriginal affairs and whether that money has been diverted for other purposes.

The Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin says her government is already reviewing how states and territories spend their funding for Aboriginal affairs but that doesn’t go far enough.

It doesn’t look at the past spending practises of governments and it doesn’t have the judicial powers of a Royal Commission compelling the presentation of relevant evidence.

A Royal Commission would provide clarity to how Territory governments distribute the Commonwealth funding meant for Aboriginal advancement and a benchmark by which aspiring governments could be judged in future election campaigns.

24 July 2008
Contact: Murray Silby, Central Land Council media officer, (08) 8951 6216; 0488 984 885.