What Would the Voice Do for the Northern Territory: A Failed State? By James Reed
Both former prime ministers, John Howard and Tony Abbott, have said that the Northern Territory is a failed state. That is about as bad as it gets, putting the Northern Territory in the African camp. Remote communities are not getting even basic services, such as adequate education for indigenous children, and both doubt whether the Voice could in principle solve these problems. Both liberals rightly have stated the Voice changes to the constitution would put racial separatism into the constitution, which would be highly divisive. Further, whatever proposals are canvassed for helping remote communities, nothing will be seen for some years, while urgent action is needed now. And, that is the problem with having a centralised body such as the Voice. The Yes side, has to some degree recognised this, but instead as seeing their proposal as fundamentally flawed, have doubled down, wanting masses of regional Voices. It will only multiple problems, increase expenses, and go nowhere except, make a group of elites, even more well paid.
Vote No for the sake of the Northern Territory and regional communities.
“John Howard and Tony Abbott have declared the Northern Territory is a failed state because of its inability to provide basic services to remote communities, including education, and believe a voice to parliament will not improve practical outcomes for Indigenous people in central Australia.
The former Liberal prime ministers, who implemented the Coalition’s 2007 intervention into the Northern Territory, which included grog bans and placing military personnel in some remote communities, said little had changed for Indigenous Australians in the 15 years since the Coalition government’s action.
Mr Howard said changes to the Constitution to include an Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government would be tied up for years would not do anything to address the problems facing Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory.
Mr Abbott said a Yes vote for the voice would only “entrench Indigenous separatism” that had not helped disadvantaged communities.
“I think that it entrenches race in the Constitution in a very damaging and destructive way,” Mr Abbott said in an interview for an Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy conference to be aired on Monday.
“I think it would gum up our system of government even further. I think it would reinforce the separatism that’s at the heart of Indigenous disadvantage. So I really do hope that we say a resounding no to this divisive voice.”
Mr Howard – defending his government’s decision to launch the Northern Territory Response to combat child sex abuse, which was heavily criticised – said it was necessary the Northern Territory government had failed.
“The intervention was a recognition that the Northern Territory government had completely failed in its responsibilities and it doesn’t appear as if a lot has changed over the 15 years that have gone by,” Mr Howard said in a presentation for the Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy conference.
“And, I think what emerged from the events in the Territory was a further indictment of the inability, the failure of the Northern Territory government to provide the basic services.
“You can make all sorts of changes to the Constitution but unless you have a police force, you have medical services and you have an education system that is up to the task of helping the disadvantaged, then you’re going to have a failure of government.
“And that’s what’s happened in the Northern Territory.”
Mr Abbott, in response to revelations in The Australian about failures within the NT education system said central Australia resembled a “failed state administratively” and the education of Indigenous children in remote communities was a chronic failure.
“Central Australia basically resembles a failed state,” Mr Abbott said in an interview with The Weekend Australian.
“Education delivery is a huge recurring problem because of a chronic failure of administration in central Australia.
Sky News host Rita Panahi says it appears the Voice to Parliament’s Yes camp has not yet grown tired of “kicking… own goals”. “This lot have made an art form of damaging their own cause,” she said. “The race-based referendum is toxic enough by itself, in principle it is toxic.
“Part of the problem is that there are no people with authority who are on the spot, people who can make decisions and are living in the communities. Too many agencies and departments work in silos separated from each other and are only there in the communities a few times.”
The most authoritative representative body for Aboriginal people in central Australia has called on the Albanese government to intervene immediately to fix the Territory’s schools funding crisis. The Central Land Council’s 90 elected delegates, who represent 24,000 Indigenous people from dozens of communities, decided on Thursday to ask the commonwealth to force the NT government to deal with its bloated bureaucracy and start funding its schools properly.
The Australian’s NT Schools in Crisis series has revealed a shortfall of $214.8m a year for Territory schools, which disproportionately affects the country’s most disadvantaged students under an attendance-based funding model that does not operate anywhere else in the country.
CLC chief executive Les Turner said on Thursday: “It is deeply unfair that our children have to leave home and become boarders if they want to go to high school – a hurdle that is too high for most.
“We need federal action to prevent a total collapse of the NT’s remote government education system, which is starved of funds and unable to support the needs of all children.”
The CLC said an Indigenous voice to parliament and government would help ensure governments were told where money could be spent with the best effect.
In 2007 the Howard government intervened in the Northern Territory, suspending the Racial Discrimination Act, introducing grog bans and sending military personnel to some remote communities. There was a furore last year when the NT Labor government allowed alcohol to return to some camps after the intervention-era bans expired, a move that fuelled violence, crime and alcohol abuse in central Australia.
Peta Credlin has taken aim at Ray Martin and his recent remarks about the Voice to Parliament, arguing the… controversial speech was a “cheap shot”. The veteran TV broadcaster delivered a speech at a Yes campaign launch last week, criticising the slogan, “if you don’t know, vote No”.
Under pressure from the federal Labor government the bans were reinstated early this year, although NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said the Howard-era intervention had “disempowered Indigenous people” and was a Coalition distraction.
Mr Howard said the intervention was aimed at stopping terrible and appalling child sexual abuse that “should make every Australian feel ashamed”.
“I just think that if the referendum is carried, which I hope it’s not, it will present some real difficulties and real challenges,” he said. “If the voice were to get up in the referendum, the next several years will be all about who’s going to get elected to do it and about all the magnificent procedural issues and innovation that won’t solve any problem for Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory.”
Attendance rates at remote Northern Territory schools are as low as 18.7 per cent and have been falling for a decade.
Mr Abbott said the problem was there were no “adverse consequences” for parents who did not send their children to school.”
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