A TOP United Nations official’s Australian visit to investigate the Federal Government’s Northern Territory Intervention has been welcomed by the head of a ministry to Aboriginal Catholics.
Sydney archdiocese’s Aboriginal Catholic Ministry executive officer Graeme Mundine said the visit by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was “a good thing” and he hoped representatives of other similar groups such as Amnesty International would do the same.
Mr Mundine said it was also time for the Gillard Labor Government to own the intervention which it had “maintained and even expanded” after inheriting the policy from the Howard Government.
Ms Pillay, a former High Court judge in South Africa, was visiting to assess whether Australia is complying with its international obligations.
Her six-day visit started on May 20 and she was due to reveal her views about the intervention at a press conference in Canberra on the final day, May 25.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was also expected to discuss the Government’s mandatory detention policy after visiting detention centres in the Northern Territory and northern Queensland.
On her arrival in Darwin, Ms Pillay was handed a petition signed by 6500 Australians calling for her support in restoring the rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.
Northern Territory Aboriginal leaders were also reported to have told Ms Pillay that things had worsened under the intervention imposed by the Government in 2007.
“First, they said there’s been an intervention and it started off badly without (indigenous people) being consulted, and secondly, there is insufficient respect for their land,” she was reported to have said.
Ms Pillay also said the Aborigines told her they were under pressure from the Govern-ment to sign 99-year leases over their land which they saw as “a land grab”.
Last year Mr Mundine, as then executive director of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC), was involved in a six-day fact-finding mission into the treatment of indigenous people in remote Northern Territory communities in September.
He was part of a team of local and international indigenous and non-indigenous “Living Letters” – small ecumenical teams listening, learning and sharing approaches and challenges in overcoming violence.
The visit followed an invitation from the National Council of Churches of Australia (NCCA) and NATSIEC to the World Council of Churches (WCC).
“The Living Letters team witnessed astronomical abuses – discrimination, oppression and racism – occurring in our own backyard,” he said. “The visitors were dismayed by the lack of consultation and negotiations from governments of all levels as they make and implement policies and programs with significant impacts on Aboriginal peoples.
“Things have definitely not got better but worse since then.”
Mr Mundine said the Labor Government had been in power long enough to “own” the intervention.
“It’s true the intervention was started by the Howard Government,” he said. “But this Government hasn’t changed it – if anything it’s expanded it. As always they are experimenting on the Aboriginal people.
“The fruits of this experimentation came out in the Budget with proposal to quarantine welfare money for Aborigines.
“This discriminatory law is likely to pass, as both sides of politics are pushing for it.”
Mr Mundine said the visit by Ms Pillay would serve to highlight the importance of respecting the culture of indigenous people and their right to advance into the modern world “on their own terms”.
“We don’t want to keep our people in the Stone Age,” he said. “However, the Aboriginal people don’t want to advance on the terms of outsiders only interested in financial outcomes.
“That’s not the Aboriginal way – as Christians it should certainly not be something we are accepting either.
“It’s such a simple, basic thing: it’s all about treating people with respect.
“The reality, as investigations are showing, is so different right across Australia.”
Mr Mundine warned against the current rush to change life for Aborigines.
“Culture is being destroyed – ceremonial knowledge and language are being lost forever,” he said. “The recent experiences of the Stolen Generation should have taught us something.
“The separation of these people from their culture led to all sorts of problems – alcoholism, mental illness and so on.”
The intervention or NTER (Northern Territory Emergency Response) is a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Federal Government in August, 2007, intended to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.
The enabling legislation for the intervention expires in June next year.
