NT: Sex abuse prosecutions from NT intverention limited: NLC

AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-2009
NT: Sex abuse prosecutions from NT intverention limited: NLC
GARMA NLC (PIX AVAILABLE)

EAST ARNHEM LAND, NT, Aug 8 AAP - The number of sexual abuse prosecutions since the
Northern Territory intervention has been less than expected and many involve people outside
communities under government control, the Northern Land Council (NLC) says.

NLC director Kim Hill has dismissed some of the effects of the intervention and branded
it a political stunt by the previous Howard government.

He made the off-hand statements when asked at the last-minute to deliver a keynote
address at this year's Garma Festival of Traditional Culture at Gulkula in East Arnhem
Land.

Australian of the Year Mick Dodson was originally scheduled to speak but has fallen
ill and may make an appearance before the festival concludes on Tuesday.

The five-day event has attracted more than 2,000 Yolngu people of the region and visitors
from around Australia and the world.

The former Howard government implemented the intervention in 2007 following reports
of rampant child sexual abuse, alcoholism and drug abuse in remote Aboriginal communities
in the Northern Territory.

The Rudd government has continued the NT intervention plan.

Measures taken included quarantining government payments to individuals, and a crackdown
on a number of illegal behaviours.

Mr Hill said a number of commentators who speak on the intervention do not have first-hand
experience.

"With the intervention, there are a number of Aboriginal speakers throughout this country
who tend to speak on behalf of those living in the Northern Territory who don't necessarily
live by the intervention in the sense of being income-managed or being branded as an indigenous
male who sexually abuses their children," Mr Hill told the audience.

He also said that numbers to date cannot confirm the effectiveness of the intervention
in relation to sex abuse or the origins of the problem.

"My understanding is that ... there's only been 26 prosecutions in regards to sexual-related
matters in the Northern Territory and not all of those 26, since the intervention (has)
been here, are actually Aboriginal people," he said.

"A lot of them aren't being caught or found to be residing in our communities, under
the proscribed communities as demonstrated in the Northern Territory emergency response."

Since the intervention, it is becoming clearer that the Howard government's plan was
aimed more at protecting its own interests, Mr Hill said.

"I think, no doubt, after two-and-a-half years, a number of facts are surfacing that
the whole intervention was really a political stunt for the Howard government to get a
bounce in the polls," Mr Hill said.

AAP vpm/mmr/cdh

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