Northern Territory intervention: an on-the-spot report Rudd Labor deepens Howard's assault on Aboriginal communities

It is now 12 months since the former Howard government launched its Northern Territory intervention, claiming it was necessary to protect Aboriginal children from sexual abuse and other criminal behaviours caused by endemic parental neglect and alcoholism in Aboriginal communities.

The problem was so severe, according to Prime Minister John Howard and Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough, that emergency measures involving the military, federal police and a raft of anti-democratic laws, including suspension of racial discrimination legislation, were required to save the children.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd immediately concurred and a few weeks later federal Labor MPs unanimously voted for the intervention legislation.

The Northern Territory intervention, however, had nothing to do with overcoming child abuse, alcoholism and other social horrors, nor was it designed to. In fact, the abject poverty and associated social problems afflicting Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory had been documented in countless reports from peak health bodies and various human rights organisations, but studiously ignored by Australian governmentsLiberal or Labor alike for decades.