Government consultations and Amnesty International’s research in prescribed communities revealed that some people do consider measures such as compulsory income management, and alcohol and gambling restrictions to be beneficial. This is in the context of problems such as humbugging and alcohol and drug-fuelled violence.
But the fact remains that these measures curtail rights available to the rest of the Australian community. It is not clear that restrictions, such as compulsory income management, are improving the welfare of residents living in communities subjected to these measures, particularly women and children. From the evidence available - and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare notes that it is of poor quality, in part due to the failure to set up baseline measurements - there has been no clear improvement in child welfare, rates of domestic violence or school attendance. There are no other indicators that the gap is being closed.
Above all, community members have not given their consent to being the subjects of extraordinary restrictions. As Amnesty International and the government’s own review of the intervention found, there is widespread community resentment of racially-targeted measures. For many Indigenous peoples these measures are a forcible reminder of the paternalistic, intrusive control and egregious discrimination of the past.
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The Bills widen the already considerable discretions of the Minister for Families, Housing and Community Services in relation to prescribed areas, and compulsory welfare quarantining. It is proposed that some of these powers be exercised in a delegated instrument not subject to disallowance by the Senate.
Even the most liberalising reforms in the Bills - the possibility of obtaining exemptions from compulsory income quarantining or special benefits for submitting to it - have not been developed with the individuals who will be affected. They don’t meet UN human rights standards for ensuring that the marginalised enjoy the right to social security on the basis of equality with others.
Indigenous people in Australia need human rights protections. They need the government to fulfill its international human rights obligations to ensure equality before the law.
As the ALP 2007 Platform acknowledges, “historical policies are a fundamental cause of poverty and marginalisation today”. These proposed laws provide no assurance that the Australian community will not be faced with this reflection as it contemplates the current policy in some years’ time.
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