Indigenous autonomy matters: what's wrong with the Australian government's ‘intervention’ in Aboriginal communities

Abstract

On 21 June 2007, the (then) Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, announced an ‘emergency intervention’ into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The intervention was justified as a crisis response to allegations of widespread child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities, allegations contained in the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle: ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report. The terms of the intervention were far-ranging, including the quarantining of welfare payments, new alcohol restrictions, compulsory health checks for children, and the acquisition of townships by the government through five-year leases. This article argues that the neo-paternalism of the federal intervention is a simplistic and wrongheaded response to the complex reality of Indigenous political culture. Australia's colonial history has created a range of dependencies in Aboriginal communities, against which Indigenous people have struggled in their quest for greater autonomy. Recent debates about the contribution made by ‘welfare dependency’ to the breakdown of social norms in many communities have paved the way for paternalistic policy that seeks to control Aboriginal people's behaviour through coercion and punishment. This article concludes that such policy is precisely the wrong response to problems in Aboriginal communities, as it will further entrench the dependencies that have caused social breakdown in the first place.

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