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Australia's shameful treatment of its indigenous people

"One of the most telling facts about the rushed Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill becomes clear when you look for how many times the word "children" or "child" appears. You would think that any legislation that is supposedly part of an emergency response to the issues raised by the Little Children Are Sacred report on child abuse in indigenous communities would have children mentioned throughout its scores of pages. Our legislators had these pages in front of them for only a day or so before they were passed by the House of Representatives with the support of both main parties.

Guess how many times the words "children" or "child" appear in the bill? One hundred? Twenty? Five? Wrong — the answer is zero."

So writes Murial Bamblett, chairwoman of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care in a powerful and heartfelt op-ed piece in The Age. Bamblett's cry could not be more pointed!

To say that this legislation - due to passed in the Senate today - is a disgrace is beyond question. Certainly young aboriginal children need to be protected where they are at risk, but this 500 page piece of legislation rushed into Parliament has been criticised by everyone even remotely in the know or experienced in indigenous affairs. The sad thing is that the general population will ignore what will be wrought by the Howard Government's legislation setting back the position of indigenous people by decades - apart from trampling on their rights and real welfare and wellbeing.

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