As Garrison Keilor might say “It’s been an interesting week in Yuendumu”. Here it feels like a second wave of The Intervention is upon us, and it is a wave that has far wider and deeper implications than its first iteration in late 2007.
While the edges of The Intervention are being played with by Minister Macklin, mainly by discriminating against welfare benefits recipients generally, rather than just against welfare benefit recipients in remote Aboriginal communities so that it can be argued that income management is not racially discriminatory, remote communities are being visited by the Remote Services Delivery team.
(As an aside we were privileged at the Remote Services Delivery meeting to be given an explanation by a government representative about the difference between late 2007 and early 2010 – in late 2007 it was called The Intervention, now it is called the NT Emergency Response).
One of the goals of the Remote Service Delivery (RSD) program is to develop Local Implementation Plans (LIPs). As usual there are lots of acronyms when government introduces new programs. The areas that need to be developed are already worked out by government and the role of local people is to say how they want government services delivered within these parameters. Apparently this means that the LIPs will be about grass roots involvement and the plans being developed at a grass roots level. More and more Orwell’s 1984 world is played out in NT Aboriginal communities, but the public servants and consultants delivering these new programs with evangelistic zeal, say no no, this is going to be about local involvement. The divide is fundamental and all the power belongs with government. The fear is palpable – if we don’t get involved we will miss out, our children will suffer, this is the only way to get what we need.
And so the meeting moved to nominating people who would be on the LIP – I resist the temptation to pun about this being LIP service. Twelve would be a good number says the RSD spokesperson. It should represent the skin groups says a senior Aboriginal woman – that will mean 16 at least. The traditional owners need to be on it (noting that the main TO was not at the meeting – but as it transpires turns up at the end of the meeting because he hadn’t been told the meeting was on). And what about that senior person says another – that person is really important for this group.
At the end there were 36 names on the board representing key families, skin groups and TOs. This is the kind of democratic model that sits under Warlpiri communities like Yuendumu, and one that works on consensus rather than majority rule or small groups of “decision makers”. Another fundamental divide between whitefella ways and Aboriginal ways.
And so the week rolled on, with a Local Advisory Board meeting (a local advisory group for the Central Desert Shire) where only three recommendations are permitted per meeting to be sent up to the Shire Council itself.
Friday night never looked so good as a way of vegging out watching ABC Friday night crime.
