Let them pick up rubbish
A Howard government-appointed administrator of a NT indigenous community has found a solution to the abuse of children in indigenous communities - chain gangs of children picking up rubbish. Kids who skip school are to be forced into work gangs and made to pick up trash until visibly tired. This highly beneficial and creative activity will no doubt solve all problems. Just think - kids who are skipping school because they are traumatised by abuse at home can receive help from the healing power of forced labour.
It is not clear whether the Howard government intervention is geared to reducing child abuse or to reducing rubbish collection costs. I was initially prepared to give Howard the benefit of the doubt on the child abuse issue. The fact that the government did nothing to remedy the problem for 11 years and the fact that it cut funding to indigenous programs militated against believing that the belated action was a genuine attempt to address abuse, but the axiom "better late than never" would have still applied if there was evidence that the intervention was aimed at improving the lot of children (and others) in indigenous communities.
It is hard to give the benefit of the doubt to a government which engaged in a land grab under the guise of addressing child abuse, which adopted only three out of ninety seven recommendations in the Little Children are Sacred report, which held a one day "consultation" process on hastily drafted legislation. It is hard to trust a government that will rush through legislation which does not even mention the word "child", while cutting funding to women's shelters in the NT and underfunding services in indigenous communities. It is difficult to see how the government's focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation of the victims of its neglect will result in a long term improvement. Negative policies do not lead to positive changes - even if there will be less rubbish on the streets.
If forcing children to do manual labour is the best that the government can come up with, then its plan is revealed for what it is - a cynical and destructive usurpation of land and control for ulterior purposes.
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