Critics of the Northern Territory intervention policy fear a chance to rethink the controversial legislation is about to be lost in the federal parliament in Canberra.
The Greens are fighting to keep the statutory requirement for an independent review of the Stronger Futures Act, commonly referred to as the intervention. The Greens say the act has failed Indigenous people and requires major reform.
The act rebadged the 2007 Northern Territory emergency response, a policy which required the Racial Discrimination Act to be suspended so its sweeping changes and restrictions on Indigenous people and communities in the NT would be allowed.
It was widely criticised for not consulting Indigenous groups, for its execution and affects on Indigenous people, and for its lack of impact on Close the Gap targets. Critics included the authors of the Little Children Are Sacred report which triggered the intervention.
The omnibus Repeal day (spring) 2015 bill seeks to repeal redundant provisions in a number of acts and make amendments to reduce regulation in Australian law. Within the 100-page bill is the removal of section 117 of the Stronger Futures Act, which demands the minister obtain an independent review of the act’s first three years. Under current requirements the report is due in June.
However, the government says the section is redundant because a “formal revision” was conducted in 2014-15, and a national partnership agreement is being negotiated which can review specific points of the operation “with an equivalent level of scrutiny”.
The Greens senator Rachel Siewert wants the bill amended to keep the requirement, and accused the government of reneging on its commitment.
“Rather than trying to improve the review, this government is trying to remove the review,” Siewert said.
“The government does not want the scrutiny. It does not want to have an independent review tabled in parliament of some of the most significant legislation impacting Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.
“There are so many problems with the intervention. We need a full and independent review that will look at the impacts of legislation, that is, what outcomes have been achieved.”
The removal of the review requirement, first included in the stalled 2014 repeal omnibus, was criticised in November by the parliamentary joint committee on human rights.
Labor’s Indigenous affairs spokesman, Shayne Neumann, supported the government’s stance, largely because similar requirements for a review into alcohol-related legislation had resulted in what he called a “desktop review” which took just three weeks and “said nothing much about what happened”.
“The key issues here are accountability and transparency of Stronger Futures,” he said.
“We understand that there are negotiations under way with the NT government, which we will monitor and assess in order to keep this government accountable.
“We want greater transparency. What we do not want is another desktop review from this government.”
Rod Little, co-chair of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, said the call to scrap the review “didn’t make sense”.
“If the review is thoroughly done and it presents some facts, any government would want to be taking notice of that and making the necessary adjustments, and learn from those things,” he said.
“Especially if there is a mechanism that the government has itself, like the human rights committee, [criticising it] you’d be mad not to take any notice of what they’re recommending.”
