REBEL MP Alison Anderson yesterday accused her Territory Government colleagues of “playing games” with Aboriginal people for political gain.She said the federal intervention in indigenous communities was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.“We have to be truthful to people in the communities and the Territory Government has to stop playing games with their lives,” she said.
The indigenous MLA said her parliamentary colleagues had “never encountered poverty”.
“I don’t think they have the right to talk on behalf of people who support the intervention,” she said.
Allison Anderson via the NT News.
When the intervention was first announced I was quite excited. As a Territorian I’ve gotten to see a few of the aboriginal communities in my time. They are like hell on earth. Poverty, grog, violence, dependency; two generations of it in fact. If you spun off land held under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act NT into a separate country, it’d be classified as being in the third-world.
To me the key issues here are that (1) the intervention will enforce the rule of law and (2) it will work at breaking welfare dependency.
I don’t know how effective it will be overall — there’s a lot of other ad hocery taking place in and around the policy. Its price tag continues to rise, but in a way that just reflects how messy things have become. The situation in the communities is the result of decades of meddling with the lives of aboriginals: in particular the operation of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act NT, which is an incredible deterrent to trade & commerce and the welfare dependency which has created poverty and all its ills.
The LDP does not have an official policy on the intervention, but mine is one of qualified support. As sometimes happens in politics, the mood of the electorate changed and political impossibilities became mandates.
Living in Sydney for a few years I came to despise symbolism politics: in 2000 the big word on everyone’s lips was “sorry”. The left were obsessed with this word. People walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge by their thousands (on a Red Shield Day, incidentally, nicely done) to demand John Howard say “sorry”.
And for what? The word itself is meaningless when set against the backdrop of the objective suffering of aboriginal people in the remote communities. John Howard could have said sorry. Indeed he could have busted out into a full stageshow with a few tear-jerker ballads called Sorry: The Musical. It would still have been a distraction, a hollow symbol. The combination of symbolist lefties and Howard stubbornness held up progress for aboriginal people. It did not help them at all. It prolonged their suffering.
Progress for all Australians is about dealing with reality, not symbols. About what works, not necessarily what feels good or what panders to this or that entrenched interest group. That’s why I’m standing for Parliament — and that is also why Allison Anderson is my hero today.
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