HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE YOU?
NT minister for Justice and Minister for Child Protection: you told the Aboriginal people in the NT that your party was the best for us.
We gave you our votes and you have let us down. Instead of working towards a common goal regarding Aboriginal children, you have excluded our input and refused to work with us.
Once again you are telling us you know better, and what is best for Aboriginal children and their families.
HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE YOU?
I ask you what reason you have in 2022, especially after lessons learned from the Stolen Generations, to tell the Aboriginal families of the NT that we must accept what you have decided for our children? You know the change you propose regarding the Youth Bail Act will have no positive effect on the problems of Aboriginal families and their children in the NT, just purely a damaging one.
Raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years, and then following the Recommendations of the Royal Commission, the report that you recommended be undertaken, shut down Don Dale.
The vast majority of the children in Don Dale are Aboriginal. This is evidence identified that the best and most effective outcomes for Aboriginal children re achieved through preventative programs, rather than institutional horror stories that were identified in the Commission's Report. The NT government should to be ashamed of itself, especially the Aboriginal Minister’s and MLA’s to follow their party line.
Incarceration exacerbates mental instability, health issues, emotional trauma, and self-harming behaviours and does nothing to help children. Young people's wellbeing is not served by being locked up for long hours without any support mechanism. Detention just becomes a revolving door, in and out, without any therapeutic support programs and interventions.
The NT government's vison is purely based around punitive measures and outright racist policies as children are isolated from families and lack meaningful education whilst incarcerated. The system is dysfunctional with racist structures and lacks cultural competency in their policies to address the wellbeing of Aboriginal children.
In February 2021 there were 27 young people in Don Dale. Since the change of the Youth Bail Act over 80 children have been incarcerated and the majority of the children are under the protection of the CEO of Territory Families.
Today Aboriginal children are going through the NT Child Protection System and ending up in the Juvenile Justice System (Don Dale). Children are constantly incarcerated during their young years, causing trauma and long-term mental health issues that continue into adulthood. Most of the parents are also suffering from childhood trauma that resulted from been incarcerated.
No support has been provided to parents such as culturally appropriate family support programs, parenting programs and cultural care planning done our way. This involves effective collaboration between Aboriginal services, communities and the child protection authorities, Territory Families.
Aboriginal children need culturally appropriate therapeutic support, being the victim of their parent’s social issues or domestic violence, only to become victims of the dysfunctional NT child protection and justice systems.
The majority of these children are suffering from poverty, neglect, intellectual impairment, FASD, trauma, or neurological disorders from physical, mental and sexual abuse.
They are crying out for help, not to be locked away for long periods in the abandoned prison deemed unfit for aduls.
Let’s not forget the following reports and inquiries have already been under taken by Government going back 30 years. The government has failed to address the majority of the recommendation in each of the reports below:
1. Black Death In Custody Report – by Pat Dodson & Peter Yu (1987)
2. Bringing Them Home Report – Stolen Generation by Sir Ronald Wilson & Mick Dodson (1997)
3. The State of Denial – by Julian Pocock (CEO SNAICC) 2005
4. Little Children are Sacred – by Pat Anderson & Rex Wild (2007)
5. Growing Them Strong, Together – by Murial Bamblett & Howard Bath (2010)
6. A Life Long Shadow – by NT Ombudsman Carolyn Richards (2011)
7. Royal Commission – by Mick Gooda & Commissioner White (2017)
8. Productivity Commission Report – by Commonwealth Government (2019)
9. Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report – by June Oscar (2020)
10. Raise the Age kids belong in community – Amnesty (2020)
11. Don Dale Youth Detention Centre Monitoring Report (2021) – By NT Children’s Commissioner
How many reports do we need to have in the NT before the government takes action and works in collaboration with Aboriginal people to protect the wellbeing of First Nations children.
We demand that the NT Labor Government work with us and not against us.
Let us work together on the real issues; let us solve those problems with the voices of Aboriginal people. Housing, employment, health, education and the high incarceration rate of Aboriginal people; listen to us to solve the despair and helplessness and hopelessness which lead even to suicide.
