Opinion piece by Gary Highland, ANTaR's National Director

One of the golden rules of politics is that attack is often the best form of defence. It enables you to get your opponent on the back foot. It helps avoid scrutiny of your own conduct when your party is under pressure. It allows you to spin the debate away from your own vulnerabilities.

That golden rule explains New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa's extraordinary claim this week that he and his colleagues, Frank Sartor and Joe Tripodi are being targeted by the Opposition because of their "Italian sounding names."

However, even a cursory glance through newspaper clippings over the past couple of years would indicate that the attacks are based, not on race, but on the conduct of the three Ministers while in office. Unlike another Labor Minister with an Italian sounding name, the well regarded John Della Bosca, Costa, Sartor and Tripodi have found themselves too often on the front pages for all the wrong reasons.

The voters know this, hence the Opposition attacks.

There is no better example of why Michael Costa deserves to be attacked than the way he gutted the Government's program to overcome child abuse in Aboriginal communities just after Christmas.

The Government developed its program in response to Breaking the Silence, a 300 page report on child abuse in Aboriginal communities, commissioned by Attorney General, Bob Debus.

Written by a task force headed by Aboriginal leader, Marcia Ella-Duncan, Breaking the Silence found that child abuse in Aboriginal communities had reached "epidemic proportions," with child sexual assault up to four times the rate of the general population. According to Ms Ella-Duncan, the report paints a "stark picture of intergenerational abuse and social disadvantage."

Task force members showed enormous courage to speak out on such a painful subject. After a meeting with Premier Morris Iemma they were left with the impression that the Government had listened to them and was persuaded that preventing Indigenous children being abused was a top priority.

They believed the government was morally outraged enough to commit the resources needed to seriously tackle the problem. They were wrong.

Announced over the Christmas break, the Government's response to Breaking the Silence is a five year plan containing 88 sensible recommendations, but not a skerrick of additional funding to assist their implementation.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that three Ministers including Attorney General Debus argued for between $20 and $40 million per year to fund the package. However, they were blocked by Treasurer Costa, who at around the same time found $25 million to compensate the operators of the Lane Cove Tunnel for delaying potentially unpopular road closures until after the state election.

The Government announced its response at a time when the taskforce Chair was away and difficult to contact.

This may have been clever politics, but the Treasurer's refusal to adequately fund the package will undoubtedly cost some Aboriginal children their lives and destroy many more over the coming years.

According to one senior bureaucrat who contacted the Indigenous newspaper, Koori Mail, agencies are already stretched beyond capacity and will be unlikely to achieve the necessary changes with no additional resources.

A former senior bureaucrat herself, Ms Ella-Duncan agrees. She said the failure to allocate proper resources would just place more pressure on already ill-equipped departments, despite the undoubted good intentions of many within the government.

Treasurer Costa may justify his conduct along the lines that it was one of those tough decisions Governments have to make in order to balance the books.

But the truth is that there would be no other group of children in this state who would be treated in such a way. The package wasn't properly funded because these are Aboriginal children at risk and it was calculated that not enough voters will care.

Michael Costa's actions have made a decent Premier look feeble and a party of compassion appear to have none. His claims about being a victim of racism ring particularly hollow given his own recent track record. There are plenty of people in New South Wales who have to deal with racism every day of their lives. Michael Costa isn't one of them.

Gary Highland is National Director of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) and a former Federal Labor Government Ministerial adviser.