ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) today urged the Australian and Northern Territory governments to urgently reconsider their remote Indigenous community strategy in the wake of criticisms by NT Labor MLA, Marion Scrymgour.

“When a senior member of the NT Government holds such serious concerns for her party’s policies, it’s time to go back to the drawing board”, ANTaR spokesperson, David Cooper, said.

“The NT Government’s “Working Futures” response to its review of outstations (homelands) policy, formalises the status quo of chronic under-resourcing of services to homelands, envisaging the slow death by neglect of these unique and under-valued communities.

“Families should not be forced to move away from established communities on their traditional lands in order to access basic services.

“The government is ignoring evidence that homelands deliver better and healthier lives for their residents. Studies in both Central Australia and the Top End show improved health outcomes in relation to lifestyle-related chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease and renal failure. Homelands can also deliver better social outcomes associated with reduced levels of stress, conflict and violence.

“Homelands provide nationally-significant benefits and employment in remote environmental management. They have an as yet not fully realised potential for sustainable remote economies based on Aboriginal cultural and environmental knowledge.

“The demise of these benefits of homelands will be hastened by the abandonment of CDEP jobs in remote areas, which will see thousands transferred from work to welfare and the collapse of many Indigenous organisations and enterprises. This means real people being thrown out of work, loss of purpose and self-esteem and reduced family incomes.

“The focus on so-called ‘growth towns’ is appropriate if it is not at the expense of resourcing smaller communities. However, the strategy appears to be trying to make a virtue out of clearly inadequate government funding for Indigenous services and infrastructure, and the skewed priorities associated with the NT intervention.

“For example, only $20 million per year is being provided by the Australian Government for NT homelands, yet $180 million has been spent in the past 2 years on compulsory income management that has provided little discernable benefit and zero prospects for creating positive long-term change.

“A proper cost-benefit analysis of homelands would expose the lack of evidence and short-sightedness that underpins the current remote communities strategy.

“Shoehorning Aboriginal lives into mainstream futures that currently do not exist, while overlooking the broader impacts on, and needs of, all Indigenous communities, will not contribute to closing the gap. It will simply increase dependency and disempowerment.

“The current policy is profoundly disempowering, discriminatory and assimilationist”, David Cooper concluded.

Media comment: David Cooper 0418 486 310