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Howard plan for cutting abuse spurs outcry

An Australian government plan to combat child abuse in indigenous communities by curbing Aborigines' rights will fail because it is racist, a territory government leader said yesterday.

Prime Minister John Howard announced plans on Thursday to stop rampant sexual abuse of children on Aboriginal-owned land in the Northern Territory by banning alcohol and pornography in those Outback communities as well as restricting the amount of welfare spending on gambling and substance abuse.

While the government's move to halt child abuse was widely welcomed, critics said the government had sidelined Aborigines from any say over policies affecting their lives, and said alcohol bans should apply to everybody, not just Aborigines.

"The Howard plan is selective, cynical and racist," Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said yesterday, saying the Howard government had neglected Aboriginal health and is only acting now in the lead-up to a national election.

Many Aboriginal communities already ban alcohol on their lands, but many overcome the restrictions by visiting bigger local towns to buy and drink alcohol before returning home.

Fed up with inaction at the local level, Howard said on Thursday that Aboriginal child sex abuse and violence was a national emergency, and said the federal government would override local authorities to impose new restrictions on Northern Territory communities.

Howard's intervention came a week after a report found child sexual abuse was widespread in Aboriginal communities, which were being destroyed by "a river of grog" or alcohol. Alcohol was also used as a bartering tool to procure children for sex, it said.

Howard defended the measures yesterday, saying the old approach of leaving problems to local authorities had "demonstrably failed" and governments had been too timid to intervene because of accusations of paternalism.

"Frankly, the care and protection of children is more important to me than slavishly following some philosophy or doctrine," Howard told Australian radio.

"In the end, if you can't protect children, you've failed," he said.

Jon Stanhope, chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, emerged yesterday as the most damning critic of the radical strategy among Australia's eight state and territory leaders.

"I think by any definition of racism, this is racist," Stanhope told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio of the plan.
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