Noongar Tent Embassy members and the Last of the River People have gathered this morning in numbers alongside many of Perth’s record Aboriginal homeless to protest the State’s neglect. Only hours ago scores have begun to gather to later on today protest at Heirrison Island (Matagarup), the site where Noongar Tent Embassy had stood last year till confronted by hundreds of police officers who came to eject them.

The protest has been organised by one of the Last of the River People, Elder Herbert Bropho who is exasperated by the State Government’s out of sight out of mind attitude towards rising Aboriginal homelessness. Half of Perth’s homelessness is Aboriginal, and Perth has the highest rate of homelessness of any capital city in Australia. Mr Bropho is one of the leaders of the Swan Valley Nyungah Community (SVNC) which had its communal residences in the north-western Perth suburb of Lockridge closed down in 2003 by the then Geoff Gallop led Government.

“They made our people homeless, evicted us without notice and many of us with nowhere else to go but to finish up on the streets – many to die on the streets,” said Mr Bropho.

Tragically, Mr Bropho has lost two sisters and a brother to the streets – they died homeless on Perth’s streets.

Because of an overreaction by the State Government at the time to allegations of sexual abuse against one person from the SVNC Lockridge community the whole facility of homes was shut down, without recourse to natural justice, and everyone was made homeless. It was indeed a knee-jerk but diabolical reaction.

“Would they have done this to a non-Aboriginal community?” asked Mr Bropho.

Perth’s Aboriginal homelessness rankles in an otherwise affluent city, which beats as the cosmopolitan pulse of the mining boom State – Western Australia is the nation’s wealthiest jurisdiction proportion to population in terms of Gross State Product and in terms of having the highest median average for income per capita. Western Australia is responsible for 46 per cent of Australia’s mining exports.

Mr Bropho said he walks among the many homeless to listen to them, to let them know that at least the SVNC has not forgotten them. “I have walked alongside the homeless people and we have had enough,” he said.

Mr Bropho has just lost his 43 year old brother, burying him only days ago, May 10. The 43 year old man was made homeless with the 2003 evictions, and became ill on the streets. His passing follows the death of two sisters who in the years since the eviction were found lying dead on the cold dank streets within the loneliness of two consecutive Perth winters.

“Our family just buried our brother who was homeless since the State Government closed down the Swan Valley Nyungah Community,” said Mr Bropho.

“I will not rest until we get our community back.”

He said the homeless he has spoken to have said they have no faith in any government coming to their aid, now or in the future.

Indeed the May 14 Federal Budget has not allocated any significant or additional funding to reduce or assist with homelessness. The WA State Budgets have always consistently failed the homeless.

Mr Bropho is angered that it is not enough that the homeless have it tough and are dying on the streets but that they are also targeted, as if they are an eyesore, by police.

“Move-on-notices are only being used against black people,” said Mr Bropho. He said that WA is the backwater of racism in this nation and Aboriginal people are targeted. Indeed, Western Australia incarcerates Aboriginal adults and juveniles at the nation’s highest rates. WA Aboriginal adult males are incarcerated at the world’s highest rate. Similarly with Aboriginal juveniles.

“The Government has been ignoring our concerns about the desecration of our sacred sites (at the desolate Lockridge community) and now they are planning to desecrate Matagarup (Heirisson Island).”

The State Government has launched redevelopment works at Heirisson Island which had been where Noongar Tent Embassy had held strong for several months last year. Additionally, the former homes of the SVNC community are to be bulldozed and the area turned into a park – Reconciliation Park, but nothing is to be done for all those made homeless.

“They are already digging in the sacred Swan River on the Yagan (a 19^th century Aboriginal freedom fighter) side and they are completely disregarding our right to religion, culture and laws.”

“It is time for (Premier) Colin Barnett to come down and face us.”

“It is time the Premier listened to us, the Traditional Owners.”

He said that it was time the State Government stopped negotiating backroom deals with the South West Land and Sea Council (SWALSC) which he said is not representative or in sync with Traditional Owners. “SWALSC and the Government are selling us out.”

The beleaguered family of the Brophos has had to deal with one tragedy after another since they were tossed out of their homes by the State Government’s 2003 closure of the Lockridge community homes.

Swan Valley Elders, who are also known as the Last of the River People, Herbert and Bella Bropho hurt deeply from the loss of their two sisters to the streets and now their brother. Just before his death, after nearly a decade on the streets the brother had tried to reclaim his home and returned to Lockridge – but he was moved-on by police. The next morning he was found unconscious on a Perth street. He was taken to hospital. Less than year later he would lose his battle with life.

He had liver and kidney failure, and his only tragic respite from the streets was prison.

“He was hounded in his last days of life for low level offences.” But Mr Bropho launched an inspiring campaign to have him released from prison into the care of his family.” In January. Mr Bropho chained himself to Government House till his brother was released – and indeed this transpired when a Perth Magistrate determined that Bail should be accommodated.

“We wanted him to die among family with dignity,” said Mr Bropho.

“We wanted him near us. We wanted to say goodbye to our loved one in culturally appropriate ways.”

Noongar woman and law student Marianne Mackay said that the Bropho family has “been persecuted” because of their father, who was convicted of sexual abuse offences. “The persecution of the Bropho family is unwarranted. It is about time everyone opened up their hearts to this family who have done no-one any wrong.”

“None of this would have happened, all the homelessness and the despair – Herbert’s and Bella’s brother and sisters dying on the streets and all the other poor souls who have spent a decade homeless and in broken lives – if the heartless and hysterical (Geoff) Gallop Labor Government had not overreacted and closed down a community because of allegations against one person,” said Ms Mackay.

The community has not given up on reclaiming a piece of Country and their homes. But time is running out for them as the Government will bulldoze the site for a park. –  ”Where one supposes the homeless can sleep on the benches,” said Ms Mackay.

The Stringer is aware of six deaths on the streets of people made homeless from the 2003 closure. The Stringer has also met up with many of the homeless.

Abraham Alone (Bropho), a former Lockridge resident has been homeless for a decade.

“I have been homeless for ten years because they kicked us out of our homes. This destroyed my marriage and made my children fatherless even though I love them dearly,” he said.

“We can’t win our right to any justice because those who make injustice are more than powerful, they don’t even think we exist, to them we are not human, we do no matter.”

Damien Kickett has also been homeless for a decade.

“We live off the kindness of charities. The Government doesn’t care if we live or die.”

“Everyone must remember that it was the Government that made us homeless.”

The State Government intends to name the park “Korndin Kulluch” (Reconciliation Park).

Elder Bella Bropho said she objects to the name. She said “Korndin Kulluch” literally means “a strong home.”

“We object to the words ‘Korndin Kulluch’. How can it be a ‘strong home’ if nobody lives there, if innocent women and children that the State said they wanted to protect from sexual abuse are deprived of their home?”

“How could this possibly be called ‘reconciliation’?”

“Warra Minditch is what it should be called. ‘Genocide Park’ would be a truthful name for it, in our language and in theirs,” said Ms Bropho.

The coming weeks and months will see Noongar Tent Embassy members and SVNC’s Last of the River People highlight the plight of Aboriginal homelessness at Heirisson Island (Matagarup). In these weeks and months we will see what the Government’s response will be – will it be the framing of terms of reference and policies to address the homelessness issues their predecessors have created and which they have allowed to languish or will they send in once again a militia-like police presence as occurred last year, with mounted police, dog squads, tactical response groups and helicopters? – 150 police officers marched on Noongar Tent Embassy.

- Footnote - Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett has done an about-face with his Government’s decision to effectively languish homelessness on many of the former SVNC community residents. His Government’s plan for the park flys in the face of what he said at the time in 2003 while in Opposition.

While in Opposition in 2003, Mr Barnett was highly critical of the Government decision to take over the land where the community residences were located and to evict the residents. But now as Premier, he intends to do what he labelled back then as a “denial of natural justice for the Swan Valley community.”

According to Hansard, the official parliamentary record of what is said in Parliament, Mr Barnett launched into a scathing attack on the Gallop Government for their actions.

“Despite all the rhetoric of the speeches that carry on about reconciliation, not one member opposite has criticised this Bill. Where is the reconciliation in this legislation? It denies Aboriginal people the right of natural justice. Where does the Premier stand on reconciliation?” Mr Barnett told Parliament.

“Why raise the Aboriginal flag outside this parliament when the Premier brings in a Bill that specifically denies Aboriginal people any right of natural justice? It is absolute garbage for the Premier to talk about reconciliation when he denies one group any right of natural justice on the basis of its race.”

Mr  Barnett told Parliament “good people” did not support the State Government action.

“What offends me about this clause is the victims are denied their rights to natural justice. Why should they be denied those rights? Some of the victims are concerned about the land, about their homes and about that place.”

“Despite the horrors and the abuse that may have happened there, as I said before, it is their only home. Yet this Bill denies them any right to pursue the matter at law. That is an extraordinary thing for a Parliament to be asked to do. I do not agree with this clause.”

But Premier Barnett version 2013 is a whole different story.

http://thestringer.com.au/homeless-protest-at-matagarup-we-will-not-be-swept-away-2/#.UZWhTt8iPIU

Homeless people and the most vulnerable missed out once again in the Federal Budget – their numbers continue to rise but little is done about it. However some groups that work with our most vulnerable found some positives in the 2013 Budget.

Mission Australia characterised the Federal Government’s Budget as one of many missed opportunities “scattered among positive initiatives.”

Mission Australia’s CEO, Toby Hall, said the Government deserved praise on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and what little of the Gonski education reforms were upheld.

“This has really been a budget of swings and roundabouts,” said Mr Hall.

“For every welcome initiative there is another missed opportunity.”

“We welcome the Government’s decision to encourage more people into the workforce, particularly single parents, by increasing the amount people are able to earn before their income support payments are affected.”

But single parent groups have said this will not offset the hardship for tens of thousands of single parents who were pushed off Parenting Payments earlier in the year and onto Newstart. Finding work that could compensate them for the loss of Parenting Payment in the hours available to them while children are at school is not realistic.

But Mr Hall has welcomed the nevertheless general incentive to increase income thresholds for those Centrelink recipients who are introducing themselves back into the workforce.

“We welcome the government’s decision to encourage more people into the workforce, particularly single parents, by increasing the amount people are able to earn before their income support payments are affected.”

“But it will do little for the four out of five Newstart recipients who are out of work and living in poverty.”

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), Australia has the lowest payment of unemployment benefits of the world’s developed countries when standardised against the average earnings of a double income earning family.

Given Australia’s cost of living, Newstart recipients live below Australia’s poverty line – what is known as the Henderson Line.

The Australian Council of Social Service’s (ACOSS) 2012 Poverty in Australia report found that after housing costs were taken into account, that an estimated 2,265,000 or 13 per cent of all Australians, including 575,000 children – 17.5 per cent of all children – lived in households that are below the poverty line.

There is relative poverty and absolute poverty, with many Aboriginal peoples living in third world conditions in the world’s 12th largest economy.

Like just about everyone, Mr Hall did not expect a rise to the Newstart allowance.

“Given the financial constraints, I don’t think anyone expected the Government to deliver Newstart recipients with a $50 a week increase,” said Mr Hall.

“But we regret the Government has been unable to begin at least phasing in an increase to the dole over the next few years,” he said.

But an increase to Australia’s unemployment benefits by $50 a week would cost annually less than $2 billion per year. This is less than 0.5 per cent of the total Commonwealth Budget. It is easy to find but military hardware spending is forever prioritised.

“We think the Government’s decision to replace the Baby Bonus with a more targeted benefit through Family Tax Benefit A shows that it’s serious about tackling middle class welfare,” said Mr Hall.

“But what’s missing is a commitment to root and branch welfare reform – which is what we need.”

“For example, where are the measures to assist more Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients, those with the capacity to work, into the job market?”

“We have allowed hundreds of thousands of people on the DSP, who, with the right level of support, have the capacity to work, to waste away outside the workforce, with no engagement. It is bad for them, their families and the entire community.”

“Why aren’t we making a greater effort at engaging these people? It makes sense economically and socially.”

“Of course, full marks to the government for its commitment to the NDIS and the Gonski reforms.”

“The one year extension of the Youth Connections program to the end of 2014 is also very welcome.”

“But it is worth placing on the record that there was nothing in this year’s budget to improve the affordability of housing or childcare,” said Mr Hall.

http://thestringer.com.au/homeless-forever-forgotten-by-the-commonwealth/#.UZWZY98iPIU

The number of people living in abjectly acute crowded housing has skyrocketed by 31 per cent according to the most recent analyses of the Census data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last year. The ABS data reveals that 21,000 of the 41,370 people living in severely crowded homes are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – and the majority, 71 per cent, live in the remote regions of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. 57 per cent of them live in the Northern Territory, 18 per cent in Queensland and 14 per cent in Western Australia.

The average number of Aboriginal peoples to dwellings is twelve.

More than half of those deemed to be living in severely crowded housing are Aboriginal peoples – while they only make up less than 2.6 per cent of the total Australian population. This statistic makes a mockery of the Australian Governments claims, particularly of Minister Jenny Macklin, that housing issues in these regions are being addressed at speed. The Northern Territory only has a total Aboriginal population of 80,000 and similarly so does Western Australia.

Allegedly $5 billion has been spent by the Federal Government on Aboriginal housing. But the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in overcrowded conditions has barely changed in the ten years to 2011.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the Government had made inroads into reducing overcrowding but since the 2011 Census. Now we have to wait for 2017 for the 2016 to ascertain fact.

“The number of new houses completed has almost doubled to around 1600, and the number of refurbishments now completed is over 5,200.”

So where has the $5 billion gone?

It is not good enough for Minister Jenny Macklin to be claiming there have been numerous housing upgrades and refurbishments when indeed these are patchwork repairs. Adequate dwellings have not been built as suggested, and adequate living conditions have not been ensured.

Recently, the Commonwealth Government allocated $4 million to the Northern Territory community of Utopia. Homes in Utopia are deplorably dilapidated and various capital infrastructure still lacking. A few years ago Amnesty International Secretary-General Shalil Shetty slammed Utopia as third-world living. United Nations High Commissioner Navi Pillay described the Australian Government’s neglect of communities such as Utopia as racism. Utopia is a community of 1,200 people. The $4 million spend is far too little an investment.

18,000 of the 41,370 people in the severely crowded accommodation are people born overseas, most of them immigrants or visa holders.

Homelessness in Australia has risen from 89,728 according to the 2006 ABS Census to 105,237 people according to the most recent Census. The national homeless rate has increased to 49 per 100,000 from 45 per 100,000. Most of the increase in homelessness from the 2006 Census to the latest Census, which has been the period that Labor has been in Government, has been reflected in people living in severely crowded dwellings – from 31,531 in 2006 to 41,370 in 2011. More than half of them are Aboriginal peoples.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who were homeless went up by 3 per cent in that period to 26,744.

Many of our Asylum Seekers are finishing up in these overcrowded conditions. Most of the overseas born people who make up the 18,000 plus arrived to Australia during the last five years. Indians and New Zealanders account for nearly 20 per cent of the 18,000. Afghans, Vietnamese and Chinese make up most of the rest. Whereas Aboriginal peoples in overcrowded circumstances average 12 to a dwelling, those born overseas average eight to a dwelling.

The Commonwealth Government’s Asylum Seeker policies have contributed to this predicament. Without adequate Government support and a proper entitlement to various benefits that Australians enjoy, families released are being released from various prison-like detention centres into overcrowded community accommodation. Others are being released on bridging visas but with more than 4,000 without the right to work. This has led to various hardship and homelessness. It will not be known till 2017, when the ABS will complete its next Census how many Asylum Seekers have finished up homeless. It is certain to be a dramatic rise on the numbers from the 2012 Census.

According to the ABS, 25 in every 10,000 persons born overseas live in severely crowded conditions. This is a doubling of the numbers from the previous Census.

http://thestringer.com.au/12-to-a-house/#.UZWYUN8iPIU

The myriad hardships and ailments that Aboriginal peoples endure are not only standalone risk factors to their health but contribute, as stressors, to the bringing of dementia. Risk factors that may contribute to dementia include high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and diabetes. All these factors may damage the brain.

Aboriginal communities that participated in the study included La Perouse, Campbelltown, Kempsey, Coffs Harbour and Nambucca.

The 336 participants were above 60 years of age.

The study found that there was a high rate of head trauma induced dementia rather than for instance alcohol-related dementia which was found to be quite rare.

Tony Broe

Professor Tony Broe, senior research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia was the study’s team leader. His study corroborates an earlier study of the high rate of dementia among Aboriginal peoples in the Kimberley. The Kimberley has 15,000 Aborginal residents, many of them endure impoverishment. Seven per cent of the Kimberley’s residents are homeless and 90 per cent of that homelessness is Aboriginal.

Professor Broe noted that that the majority of Aboriginal people live in urban regions, 70 per cent, and the high rates of dementia among Aboriginal peoples were not confined to the remote but also to urban Aboriginal peoples.

He noted that the rise of dementia among Aboriginal Australians was also a sad phenomenon among the world’s Aboriginal peoples.

“Aboriginal people in urban areas have a high incidence of many of the risk factors that have been linked to dementia in studies around the world,” said Professor Broe.

“We feel that is sort of just an end result of what is happening to Aboriginal people.”

He said that poor nutrition was a problem for many impoverished Aboriginal families from the beginning of life, and smoking was a recreational deflection from the hardships of life with youth taking it up in their early teenage years.

“It is because what happened to them in early life.”

He argues that there are social determinants to anyone’s development.

The three year study, concluding in October 2012, suggests the onset of dementia in people over 60 years of age is 13 per cent higher in Aboriginal Australians.

It must not be forgotten that Aboriginal Australians die much younger on average than non-Aboriginal Australians. Professor Broe pointed to a startling finding – that the onset of the dementia in Aboriginal peoples arises earlier than in non-Aboriginal people.

“They are a young, old group,” he said.

More than 70 per cent of Aboriginal people with dementia are aged between 60 to 70 years whereas the majority of non-Aboriginal Australians with dementia are over 70 years of age.

“We found the rate is 21 per cent, which is three times the non-Indigenous rate,” said Professor Broe.

Most Aboriginal families choose to care for a family member with dementia at home rather than place them in care, that is if they can afford to. There is now the organisation Aboriginal Dementia Knowledge.

Glen Rees from Alzheimer’s Australia said that Professor Broe’s findings are important. She said these findings would assist in targeting support to affected Aboriginal families.

The earlier Kimberley study also by Neuroscience Research Australia found that the Kimberley’s Aboriginal peoples were three times more likely to suffer dementia.

Professor Broe said that even impoverished Aboriginal families can do some things to protect them from dementia. He said the fact that for instance some of the Kimberley’s Aboriginal peoples speak three to four languages before they learn English is an excellent example of improving brain function. This is a good argument for Governments to fund bi-lingual learning for Aboriginal students – in recent years there have been cuts in funding to this.

In addition to the tobacco smoking, alcohol, and long term poor nutrition there are also the effects on many from the trauma of the Stolen Generations. Additionally, the high incidence of removing children from their parents affects many parents, and the children who grow older with the anxieties and eventual stress disorders from having been removed.

“The children taken from their parents, causing social disruption in the family and depriving them of love, of consistency in their upbringing (affects) the frontal development,” said Professor Broe.

He said that a number of studies show “that early brain development in the form of education is linked to later onset of dementia.”

Professor Broe found that the predominant type of dementia in Aboriginal peoples is Alzheimer’s disease followed by vascular dementia which is due to little strokes. He said the high incidence of head injuries among Aboriginal people was also causal to dementia, about 12 per cent of the dementia in Aboriginal people.

But alcohol-related dementia was rare shattering the myth of rampant alcoholism among Aboriginal peoples. Nearly 80 per cent of Aboriginal people, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, do not consume alcohol.

http://thestringer.com.au/dementia-in-aboriginal-peoples/#.UZWYAN8iPIU

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Last July, compulsory income management was expanded into Playford in South Australia, five years after being introduced to the Northern Territory. Compulsory income management involves welfare recipients deemed “at-risk” by Centrelink or referred by Families SA having 50-70 percent of their payments quarantined, or “managed”. This is usually through the BasicsCard, which can only be used at government-approved stores.

At a recent public forum hosted by SIMPla (Stop Income Management in Playford), guest speaker Barbara Shaw addressed over 60 attendees at the National Tertiary Education Union in Adelaide where she discussed the lack of solid evidence that compulsory income management improves financial literacy, health outcomes, or protects children. Analysing how this expensive, heavy-handed, lazy policy, humiliates already struggling people, and wastes resources that could fund more beneficial, culturally appropriate programs.

Barbara Shaw is an Aboriginal rights activist from the NT who has been on compulsory income management for over five years and lives in a town camps in the central Australian town of Alice Springs. Housing mostly Aboriginal people, often in poor conditions Barbara Shaw introduces herself as a “proud fourth generation town camper”.

Ms Shaw describes her childhood as being marred by racist incidents and constant harassment. When she was small, Ms Shaw recalls “child after child made fun of me because of where I lived in the town camp.” Her father and uncle were both assaulted and her uncle had white paint poured over him.

Today, Ms Shaw says that her children tell stories of discrimination on public transport to and from school. The bigger children say to them, “This is a whites’ only bus.” Aboriginal people are being targeted, she says and the police focus on cars being driven by Aboriginals. The gaols are full of Aboriginal people.

The previous Australian Federal Government announced a series of extraordinary measures. The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was formulated in response to what was described as “a national emergency” with the Government acting on a report which had detailed widespread child abuse in Aboriginal communities.

Ms Shaw is one of the most vocal members of an Australian group campaigning to put an end to the NTER in Aboriginal communities and for Ms Shaw, what has happened is “wrong and unjust”.

“There was no proper consultation before the Intervention and there is still no proper consultation with Aboriginal people today,” she says.

She believes the measures are “paternalistic” and give the Government far too much power.

“All Aboriginal people,” she says “are being stereotyped and demonised” and wonders how the Government can expand this system when it has ruined so many lives in the NT?

“Income management is a disgusting waste of funds when our communities are in such desperate need. The Intervention was supposed to stop the social problems like substance abuse. But I live with these problems every day and they are just getting worse and worse as our people are disempowered and made unemployed.” Said Ms Shaw.

“Many people are being forced to work for the dole and income management. How is this getting people off the welfare system? We need jobs and social services, not income management”, said Ms Shaw.

But in spite of the degradation many Aboriginal people continue to face we are uniting to fight back with supporter’s right around the country continuing the demand for an end to the Interventions.

The Federal Government argues that compulsory income management assists ‘at-risk’ families and individuals: by ensuring payments are spent on ‘essentials’, improving health outcomes for clients and their children; and by encouraging better financial and money-management skills.

However, there is no solid evidence that this policy achieves its goals. The expansion of compulsory income management beyond the Northern Territory, where it has operated since 2007, comes despite the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library’s 2012 paper on the topic concluding that there is “an absence of evidence adequate data relating to the effectiveness or otherwise of income management”.

The Menzies School of Health’s 2010 study into compulsory income management and spending patterns identified no significant changes regarding the consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, and soft drink, nor to fresh fruit and vegetables. Instead, it is feared that this heavy-handed intervention will humiliate already-stressed clients and further entrench dependency.

The Playford compulsory income management scheme, at an estimated cost of $4,600 per recipient (or $4.6 million overall) annually, wastes precious resources that could fund more anti-addiction programs, family and personal therapy, financial counselling, nutrition education, and other programs that build the capacity of disadvantaged families and individuals.

In 2011, 5 years on from the forced NT Intervention, the statistics show a very sad state of affairs:

Child welfare: 69% increase in children getting taken into out of home care since 2007. Most are cases of “neglect”, which is occurring at a rate far higher than other jurisdictions (Closing the Gap monitoring report part 2), and can in many cases be attributed to extreme poverty.

The NT has lowest rate of “out of home care” placement with Aboriginal families in Australia, less than 20% (Productivity Commission annual report on government services).

There is no evidence of substantial improvements in the welfare of children in the NT. Indeed, the Closing the Gap monitoring report part 2 details some worrying statistics which indicate a break with long-term trends towards improvement that have been evident since 2000, including:

Children admitted to hospital for malnutrition 10.9 per 1000 in 2006-07 11.1 per 1000 in 2009-10

Children under 5 who are underweight 7.1 per 100 in 2007 8.2 per per 100 in 2010

Children under 5 who are wasting 4.4 per 100 in 2007 4.8 per 100 in 2010

Attempted Suicide and self-harm: Reported incidents have increased by almost 500%. In 2007 there were 57 incidents. In 2010 there were 183. In 2011 there were 261 (Closing the Gap monitoring report part 2).

School attendance: Rates are down in preschool, primary and secondary schools. Overall, attendance rates have dropped from 62.3% just before the Intervention (NTER monitoring report 2009) to 57.5% in 2011 (Closing the Gap monitoring report part 2).

Incarceration: As of March 2011 there had been a 40% increase in Indigenous incarceration since the Intervention (NT Justice Department quarterly report). Recent news reports suggest this number is now greater than 50% – with particularly large increases in the last 12 months.

The NT prison officers association says prisoners are currently being held in 3rd world prison conditions, 12-14 in a cell in Alice Springs – mattresses on the floor and one hand basin and toilet between inmates.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-23/nt-prisons-described-as-third-world/3967114

See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-05/nt-prisoners-held-at-police-stations/3936132

Aboriginal people are one of the most incarcerated on the planet. If the NT was a country, it would have the second highest rate of incarceration after the USA.

Unemployment: There has been a consistent increase in Aboriginal people receiving unemployment benefits (NewStart allowance) since 2007, including a 14% increase from 2009 – 2011.

New positions created through the Intervention are far below levels of waged employment that existed under CDEP.

In 2007 there were more than 7500 waged CDEP positions. In April 2012 this number was only 1,667. These positions are disappearing fast, with the government refusing to employ new people on the waged scheme if existing workers break their relationship with their employer.

The government claims 2,241 positions were created to replace lost CDEP positions under the NT Jobs Package. Also that 865 Aboriginal people are employed through NTER programs (Closing the Gap Monitoring Report part 2) – though there is overlap between a number of these positions such as Night Patrol.

Housing: Before the Intervention the rate of overcrowding was 9.4 people per home. The government’s ‘target’ following SIHIP works is 9.3 (NTER evaluation 2011).

Domestic Violence: Police reported incidents in “prescribed areas” have dramatically increased since the Intervention and continue to increase - from 939 in 2010 to 1109 in 2011 (Closing the Gap Monitoring Report part 2).

Alcohol: Number of police incidents involving alcohol has consistently increased. Number of domestic violence incidents involving alcohol has consistently increased (Closing the Gap Monitoring Report part 2). The government has no hard evidence that less alcohol is being consumed in “prescribed areas”.

Links to referenced reports:

Closing the Gap in the NT Monitoring Report July – December 2011

Previous Closing the Gap in the NT and NTER Monitoring reports

Northern Territory Emergency Response Evaluation Report 2011

Northern Territory Department of Justice Quarterly Report March 2011

1. Bronwyn Rees says:

   May 6, 2013 at 12:48 pm

   How disappointing this is to read. When is our Government going to listen… We have a Human Rights Commission and the UN… Both which have said they need to do more. Forgive me but I am at a loss as to why our government can continue to ruin peoples life’s.