By Sarah Burnside, First published in New Matilda

Jenny Macklin said she would reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act in the NT by the end of October — but that has been delayed as the Government tries to find a way around the law

On 21 June 2007 Australia became, in the words of Guy Rundle, "the first member of the Coalition of the Willing to invade itself". The Howard government's Northern Territory Emergency Response could only be implemented by suspending the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA).

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald

THE Government's intervention in the Northern Territory has stagnated with no more children going to school now than two years ago and reports of substance abuse soaring.

A six-month progress report on the intervention, quietly posted on the internet this week, showed school attendance rates remained virtually static in affected communities with only two out of three children going to school.

Opinion piece by Janet Hunt, President of ANTaR. First published in the Canberra Times, 29 October 2009

One year ago the Federal Government received the final report of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Panel. It concluded “the intervention diminished its own effectiveness through its failure to engage constructively with the Aboriginal people it intended to help”.