It is not easy to discuss the situation of the Northern Territory and the plight of Aboriginal children who are being sexually abused.

If you want to criticize what is happening you look like you don't care about the Aboriginal children. And that makes some people go silent in the face of what Mr Howard is doing at the moment. "Oh well, at least he is trying something!" is the kind of comment I hear over and over again.

But there are a lot of questions that need to be talked about. There are a lot of concerns.

So I begin by saying: Of course I care about the abuse the children are experiencing and of course something must be done about it.

But I want to also say that there are good and appropriate ways to respond to a terrible situation, and there are damaging and inappropriate ways to respond. We do not need to query the need: it is real. But we must ask about the method of responding.

So here are my questions:

1) Why doesn't Mr Howard work with the local Aboriginal leadership and get them involved in the planning of strategies to fight the problem? Why doesn't he consult the Aboriginal elders and leaders to get them into owning the actions that must be taken? Why won't he hear their ideas and negotiate and plan with them? When Aboriginal leaders decide on a "no alcohol" ban for their communities, it usually works a whole lot better than when the white leaders of the country decide to ban things on their behalf.

2) Why does Mr Howard, after 10 years of inactivity towards the Australian Aboriginal people, suddenly position himself as someone who cares about them? He is going to put nuclear waste material in remote Aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory, if he wins the next election. How is this caring for the Aboriginals well being, their health, their future? Is Mr Howard schizophrenic? How can he say he cares in one breath, but will damage Aboriginal communities in the very next one?

3) Why is Howard acting so massively and decisively now, just a few months before a federal election? Could he be using the Aboriginals for personal political mileage? He will look like a caring and decisive leader. Some might then conclude that we had better keep him in power at the up and coming election. But if this is so, then he is actually adding to the abuse of the Aboriginal communities, but in a different way. He is abusing the Aborigines of the Northern Territory for his own political agenda. He is using our care and sympathy, for his own political capital. The Australian Aboriginals are once more the tool of the powerful to be used for their own outcomes.

4) When Mr Howard says "what matters more, the constitutional niceties or the care and protection of young children?" does he not realise the seriousness of what he is saying? This must come back to bite him. Does he really believe that the constitution of our nation and our states and territories, does not matter if we are fighting a good cause? He would never say that in most other situations. It is not what a believer in democracy says. It is the kind of logic that says it is ok to start wars for a good cause; it is ok to leave Australian citizens in overseas jails that torture their prisoners, for a good cause. It is ok to put refugee children in jails in offshore detention centres, for a good cause. It is the ends justifying the means. And it has never been a good idea.

Mr Howard - you might be a clever political animal. But your actions are deeply disturbing and I will not be silenced in questioning them. Of course I care about children suffering abuse. Of course something must be done. But I do not believe your responses will help the situation.

Jim Reiher

June 2007