Unfortunately, Australia is winding back the clock and enforcing
genocidal policies on Aboriginal people. Here's yesterday's editorial by
WHO social Determinants Commissioner Fran Baum:


Apartheid to be enforced on Aborigines
Fran Baum
August 7, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/apartheid-to-be-enforced-on-aborig
ines/2007/08/06/1186252625016.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

THIS will be a week of shame for all non-indigenous Australians if the
legislation planned by the Howard Government is passed by Parliament.
This legislation, among other things, will make the welfare system an
apartheid one with different rules for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
people and make payments depend on government-dictated behaviour. It
will also take control away from Aboriginal people over who goes on
their land.

Ironically, this intervention is part of the Government's response to
the Little Children are Sacred report by Pat Anderson and Rex Wild, QC.
Anderson's and Wild's report is nuanced, wise and demonstrates deep
understanding of the complexity of abuse in communities that have
suffered long and hard from the processes of colonisation - processes
such as

land grabs, stolen children and fundamental lack of respect and racism
from the dominant white culture.

Their report called not for the declaration of war, with its echoes of
domination and crisis, but for a thoughtful consultative process that
stands some chance of achieving meaningful change.

It recognised that there has to be change but that this was likely only
if Aboriginal people are listened to and respected - the basis of any
functional relationship. Instead, the Government is sending in the army,
boots and all.

I write this while attending the Garma Festival, which is organised by
the Yothu Yindi Foundation and held at Gulkula on the Gove Peninsula, in
East Arnhem Land. The festival is a celebration of the art, culture and
ceremony of the Yolngu people who are the traditional owners of this
land.

We are in the heart of one of the oldest living cultures on earth, one
that stretches back thousands of years and reverberates through the
heart and spirit of this festival and the land on which it is held.

It is such a privilege for me, a non-indigenous Australian, to
experience this. The theme for discussion at this year's festival is
"Indigenous health: real solutions for a chronic problem".

The forum was designed a year ago to be a celebration of some of the
positive processes in indigenous health: the success of Aboriginal
Community Controlled Health services in Central Australia at increasing
the birth weight of Aboriginal babies to the national average, for
example; or the health services in Katherine that are as well thought
out as any mainstream services in Australia.

Yet instead of this anticipated celebration, the overwhelming feeling is
now despair and anger. Despair that a report that bravely named and
respectfully described the problem of child sexual abuse is being used
by the Government for an assault on fragile Aboriginal communities.
Anger at the damage the intervention and associated legislation are
likely to do.

One Aboriginal leader said the past month had been one "of the most
destructive times in our history".

People are speculating on why this is happening. Is it a bid for the
swinging votes in the marginal seats? Is it an attempt to wedge Kevin
Rudd as the federal election looms large? Is it a cover for long-held
desires to force an assimilationist agenda?

Is it a Trojan horse by which to undo hard-won land rights? Is it
because Clare Martin's Northern Territory Government created a vacuum,
offering no strong response to the Anderson and Wild report?

It could be all or none of these, but one thing I'm sure about - based
on my knowledge of public health - is that the intervention stands a
very good chance of being detrimental to the health of Aboriginal people
and their communities.

For the past two years I have been serving on the Commission on the
Social Determinants of Health, which was established by the World Health
Organisation and has gathered evidence from around the world about the
underlying causes of disease and illness.

A consistent message from the evidence is that when you rob people of
control over their lives, it is uniformly bad for their health, whether
they be British civil servants or Indian women living in slums.

The commission's interim statement, to be published soon, will stress
the importance to health of people having control over their lives and
meaningful participation in decision-making processes.

I assume that John Howard and Mal Brough would justify their tactics as
a means to the end of providing safety for children. But what evidence
is there that these and the removal of control will make children safer?

The Anderson and Wild report offered a gentler way with 97
recommendations designed to invest in communities, build trust by
involving people in the solutions and ensuring that the healing
necessary in damaged communities could happen.

Their recommendations should form the basis of some kind of accord
across state and federal governments and with a bipartisan approach
about long-term, sustainable action plans that are developed through
real and meaningful partnerships that ensure control remains with
Aboriginal people.

Child abuse is wrong and abhorrent. On that we all agree. But the
legislation that is going to be forced through our Federal Parliament
this week is equally wrong. It robs Aboriginal people of their rights
and respect. It will undermine trust that is so essential to good
policymaking. It assumes

that Aboriginal people are the problem rather than the solution. It
ignores the evidence on the central importance of control to individual
and community wellbeing.

Fran Baum is professor of public health at Flinders University.

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