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Kevin Rudd apologises for past treatment of Aborignal people but ignores present problems. Image via Wikipedia

The Northern Territory intervention into Aboriginal communities has continued to provide few results. The program began under the Howard administration using bureaucrats and military personnel to control and subdue Aboriginal populations. High levels of sexual abuse, drug, and alcohol abuse were the premises for the massive intervention at the scale that has not been seen during the days of the “White Australia Policy” and the well known “stolen generation”.

Prime Minister Rudd has earlier apologised for past actions against the native peoples of Australia (something Howard refused to do) while continuing a process based on race and not the individual. The intervention program began in 2007 after a report titled The Little Children are Sacred inspired the Howard government to invade Aboriginal communities with approximately 600 Australian Defence Force personnel as well as police and bureaucrats. It quickly turned into an excuse to take control of Aboriginal communities and tightening restrictions already in place among the predominately poor Aboriginal communities that are reliant on welfare.

While Australia places many restrictions on its poorer citizens who receive welfare (including restricting where they may live) it has only been Aboriginal people who have had their payments “quarantined”. This has meant many indigenous Australian's unable to find work to support themselves or their family have their government payments managed to the point they can only buy what bureaucratic agencies deem necessary. These actions have shown what seems to be more about control over the Aboriginal population than helping them.

It would be surprising for people outside of Australia to learn what is really going on with its original inhabitants. Even a referendum to give Aboriginal people the right to vote in 1967 was more about placing them permanently under bureaucratic control than providing them a voice in the nations democratic systems. This has never been more evident than when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was disbanded in 2004-5 with no equivalent national organisation to replace it. Instead of Kevin Rudd building new opportunities for the native peoples of Australia he has paid a lip-service apology while ignoring what they may actually want.

We have in Australia fascinating and diverse native populations and cultures which are sadly becoming footnotes in our historical march. It is time to halt this controlling racist attitude in both political and cultural Australia. It is hoped that a permanent seat in parliament for indigenous people or their own house of representatives, a third section of Australian parliament that would act to represent native Australians as well as adding yet another safeguard against the increased unaccountability of Australian politicians and political parties.

It is certainly not a new idea to introduce (in the least) seats in Parliament reserved for Aboriginal representatives:

In its 1995 Social Justice submission the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation recommended that any constitutional consultation process explore the possibility of separate indigenous seats in both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. In April 1997 the NSW Parliament Standing Committee on Social Issues called for public submissions on Aboriginal representation in the NSW Parliament. Aboriginal people have sought dedicated representation since at least 1938, when a petition was presented to Prime Minister Lyons demanding representation in the national Parliament.(Georgina Gill, 1997, “Reserved Seats in Parliament for Indigenous Peoples-the Maori Example”).

It is time to cut the bureaucratic bonds that hold not only indigenous Australians, but also the entire nation, from becoming a truly reconciled land. Perhaps the massive amounts of money being made from mineral resources taken from the heart of Australia would help to fund a true political process for Australia's first but forgotten people.