November 17 Rally Against NT "Intervention"

Karranjal John Hartley, Coordinator of EarthSong Consultancy and adviser to the SA Branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), delievered the following speech at a rally against the Federal Government's Northern Territory "intervention" on Saturday 17 November 2007.

The speech is reproduced below:

I firstly acknowledge the Ancestors and continuing culture of the Kaurna People in whose country we gather.

Brothers and Sisters

My name is Karranjal John Hartley I am Ku Ku Yalanji and my mothers people are from the rain forest country of far North Queensland

I work in the area of Family violence I want to be clear today that Family Violence and in particular child abuse in all its forms is both culturally abhorrent and unacceptable.

Family violence affects each and every one of us regardless of race, country, class or gender.

Allow me to acknowledge all those surviving the trauma of such abuses and the many brave Aboriginal Women and Men who have for decades been at the forefront of raising these issues within our communities.

Brothers and Sisters

We gather here today to rally support for the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory and call for the immediate repeal of the NT Emergency Response Legislation.

We are here to demand that governments of all persuasions listen to, consult, negotiate and support Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory in addressing issues within their communities consistent with the Little Children Are Sacred report.

I would like to spend my brief time here today to talk on the need for us to break through the veneer that John Howard and Mal Brough are acting for the “good of our children.

It is important that we break through the manufactured perception created by both John Howard and Mal Brough that the extreme racist measures they have devised are needed to effectively tackle child abuse in Aboriginal communities that their measures are in fact, in the interest of children and for the ultimate good of Aboriginal people.

It is important we look beneath the Howard / Brough veneer, so that we may bring to the light of day the hidden mainstreaming and racist agenda that lay buried within the 500 plus pages of the “so-called “ Northern Territory emergency response legislation.

Howard and Brough argue any means to an end and that if you are not with them - you are therefore against them and by some warped definition either an abuser of children or at minimum prepared to accept child abuse as a functional way of life.

This of course is absurd. But what it does do quite effectively is inhibit people from speaking out for fear of being branded a pedophile. I am here today to dispel that fear
I vehemently disagree with both Howard and Brough and let me repeat; child abuse, in any form, in any culture is abhorrent and absolutely unacceptable

Brothers and Sisters

In non - Aboriginal urban mainstream communities where child abuse has been substantiated on the basis of clear evidence the child is removed to ensure the safety and future of that child - who would argue with that?

But is the whole neighborhood then held responsible?

Are all your houses, land and community assets then confiscated?

Are all your wages, unemployment or pension payments then quarantined?

Are you then told with what is left of your money were, when, why, how and with whom you can spend it with?

Are your businesses taken over and placed into the hands of Government managers?

Are all your workplaces shut down?

Brothers and Sisters

If it were simply a case of more policing - a matter of establishing law and order as is often heard. Why is child abuse on the increase in mainstream society?

Why does a child die approximately every three-days through child abuse with barely a headline?

Why is pornography openly for sale at our local news- agents and corner shops?

Why is Canberra known as the porn capital of Australia?

Brothers and Sisters

Ask yourself how many children have been removed under protective orders in targeted Northern Territory Aboriginal Communities since the intervention?

Ask yourself how many charges have been laid against offenders?

Brothers and Sisters

What is happening in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities is a return to failed ideologically driven social experiments of the very recent past.

What is happening in our name is unfair, unjust, un-Australian and unworkable.

Brothers and Sisters

On each occasion the racial discrimination act has been suspended in this country, it has been to the direct detriment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

This intervention is racist to the extreme and we must demand the immediate repeal of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation. These back to the future polices never worked before and they will not work now.

Black Yellow Red or White we can only do this together. Let us throw whatever resources we may have, whatever they may be to bring about the abolition of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation.

Lets us hold up the Little Children Are Sacred report as a first step in ensuring the safety and future not only for the children of the Northern Territory, but for all children everywhere.

Thank you for listening.

Adelaide, South Australia. Parliament House Steps National Day of Action
For the abolishment of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation.
17th November 2007.