Alcohol. Enshrine it in Territory life! but only in pubs - not parks!

At the Australian Hotels Association award night on May 22, Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles said said  the NT's drinking culture was a "core social value", The ABC reported on May 23 that Giles said "'having a coldie' in a pub should be 'enshrined' as part of Territory life."

Alcohol indeed is a disturbingly  central part of life for many Territorians. The NT has the second-highest alcohol consumption rate in the world, and the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths in Australia.

Alcohol is a serious public health issue, and should be treated as such. International evidence consistently shows that the most effective policy approach to alcohol-related harm involves taking on the powerful liquor lobby: introducing price controls, limiting  take-away opening hours and licensing.

But the NT government has recently taken retrograde steps that will instead punish people who have alcohol addictions, effectively criminalising drinking by allowing police to ban people from drinking for three months at a time.

The new policy, announced on May 10 (and outlined in last week's Green Left) has been roundly condemned by health and Aboriginal justice experts.

So has the CLP done an about  face on how it views alcohol consumption in the NT? Is it a problem, or a fundamental human right?

The answer may lie in the different drinking patterns and places of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Because of complex historical and cultural factors, Aboriginal people in  the NT are more likely to drink outside, such as in parks or on the beach. than in hotels.

So, while a "coldie in a pub" might be an important part of NT life, according to the CLP, its tough-on-crime, clean-up-the-streets approach to alcohol means Aboriginal people will overwhelmingly be targeted by its harsh new measures.

In case there  was doubt about where the CLP stands in the debate about alcohol supply measures, the ABC reported that Giles told the awards night "the Government would do its best to support the liquor industry".

Anderson blames violence on welfare dependency

[Article written by Emma Murphy for Green Left Weekly]

The Northern Territory women’s policy minister, Alison Anderson, told a gathering at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne that “domestic violence has reached a crisis point”, the ABC reported on April 4.

It is unclear when Anderson thinks this crisis started. Certainly it is not new. The 2007 Little Children are Sacred report, which the then Coalition government used to justify the NT intervention, found “combined effects of poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment … poor education and housing, and a general loss of identity and control have contributed to violence and sexual abuse in many forms”.

Reports since the intervention have shown many social indicators — including family violence — are on the rise, as a result of the stress, confusion and disempowerment associated with the intervention.

Domestic violence is indeed a problem in Aboriginal communities — in fact there are unacceptably high levels of domestic violence across the whole Australian community. Tackling it will require policies that empower communities, and women in particular, and address the appalling social indicators we see in Aboriginal communities.

But according to the ABC, Anderson has a different analysis of the causes of violence. “Ms Anderson said the root of all evil in remote communities was welfare,” the article reported.

Anderson said that in communities near mines, nobody should be unemployed. “[Centrelink] should say to people in that area: OK, there's 2000 jobs there, nobody will be unemployed … You get out and get yourself a job, and earn yourself real money instead of being a burden on the taxpayer, just to wait for your $375 [welfare]."

Anderson is part of the Country Liberal Party government that came to power in August last year on the back of a strong bush vote. She is one of an impressive number of Aboriginal MLAs and ministers. This includes the Chief Minister, Adam Giles, who recently ousted Terry Mills to become the first Indigenous head of an Australian government.

But so far, there hasn’t been a lot for Aboriginal people to celebrate.

Anderson’s comments at the Wheeler Centre were in keeping with previous comments she has made, which must be like music to the ears of neo-conservatives around the country. She launched the Homelands Policy on February 25, which contained an unlikely combination of supporting her people’s connection to the land and demanding they open it up to private ownership.

She said: “Private ownership of housing is good because it encourages people to take out mortgages … Once you start to think about it, having a mortgage means you can build a better house for yourself and your children. It means you have to get up in the morning and have a shower and go to work to earn the money to pay the mortgage.”

As Jon Altman has written on news website Crikey, Indigenous people are overwhelmingly resistant to the idea of private home ownership.

Meanwhile, Anderson’s proposed solution to domestic violence — ending welfare in communities by forcing everyone to work in the mines — ignores the reality of Aboriginal employment trends. According to the 2006 Census, 176 Aboriginal people in the NT were employed in the mining industry, compared with more than 4000 in public administration and safety, and 2000 in health care and public assistance.

It is difficult to know whether the low numbers of Aboriginal workers in the mining industry reflect discrimination, Aboriginal people’s choices about work or the relatively limited employment opportunities created by mining. Certainly Anderson ignores the campaigns that Aboriginal communities have waged in resisting mining on their country.

Fifty years ago Yolngu people sent a bark petition to Canberra to protest Nabalco mining bauxite on their land. They lost the fight and the mine, now operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, is still at Nhulunbuy.

Today, the people of Maningrida are fighting against an oil exploration application over their country.

Is telling these strong fighters and custodians of country to get off welfare and into the mines really the best thing the CLP government has to offer?

In her Wheeler Centre address, Anderson also lamented the poor NAPLAN test results for Aboriginal primary school children in the Northern Territory.

She was clear about who was to blame for what others might describe as a systemic failing of Aboriginal people: “The younger generation are not forcing their children to go to school … They don't see the importance of a good education, they don't see that education is the key.”

However, the 2008 12-month review of the NT intervention found that parents and elders in communities were concerned that the next generation was not reaching national standards of English, and they were worried about “the impact this [had] on individual and community capacity”.

The report highlighted a sense that schools were not “important … for social and cultural development” because of “Aboriginal language and culture [not being] seriously incorporated into the formal school curriculum”.

To make schools more relevant, which would increase attendance and outcomes, the CLP government could re-introduce bilingual education. But that does not look likely any time soon.

On October 25, the ABC reported Anderson as saying she believed “Indigenous children should be taught in the same way as students in Sydney … ‘I am not suggesting we abandon our traditional culture or language but teaching them should not be done in schools, it should be done after school and on weekends, and during the holidays,’ she said.”

For Aboriginal Territorians dreaming of an English-only future of working in the mines and being tied to a mortgage, the CLP government might just have the answer.

But for those who value the linguistic and cultural diversity among the oldest continuing cultures on Earth, and for those Aboriginal people who believe they have the right to pursue different values and different ways of being — on their own country — it seems the struggle did not end with the arrival of black ministers in the NT parliament.

Another post for the long-grassers out the back

This year I am taking postgraduate studies in Aboriginal policy.  Today, national Close the Gap [on Indigenous Health] Day, I spent immersed in reading about child protection policy: a history, with particular focus on Aboriginal child welfare.

It's poignant reading that  stuff when you live in the NT - where the pointy end of neoliberal approach to Aboriginal policy is playing out, where a "national emergency" in Aboriginal communities  was declared, supposedly in response to child abuse, and Aboriginal affairs was set back 40-odd years.

I read all about the ongoing legacy of the years of taking Aboriginal children away: intergenerational trauma, imprisonment, drug and alcohol abuse ... you name it. And how fraught any new child protection policy is going to be, given the such recent memory Aboriginal families have of police coming into town and taking babies out of their mothers' arms.

And how, despite the Bringing them Home report, the Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in Custody, the apology, and everything else that has acknowledged the wrongs, the rate of Aboriginal children being removed from families continues to rise.... It is a form of genocide, this taking of black kids and placing them with white families.

Anyway. Today, while I studied at home, the long-grassers in the park out the back got themselves a ghetto blaster, and all day as they had their drinking session they were listening to awesome Aboriginal music: Blakbala mujik, Gurrumul, East Journey. They got pretty raucous for a while there, but it sounded like they were having fun, and I appreciated the soundtrack to my otherwise fairly heavy day.

Some time later in the day, though, it sounded like things might be getting out of hand. I went out to make sure everything was ok. And it was - the widely respected Larrakia Night Patrol workers were there, chatting quietly to the women separately, calming the men down. It was all fine. I don't know what will happen after June 30, when the night patrol is due  to lose its funding. I guess the police will turn up instead, and cart people off to the mandatory drying-out centres and work farms for "problem drunks" the CLP keeps talking about.

As I turned to go inside, I noticed that the song blasting out from their cheap tinny speakers had changed. It was Archie Roach's Took The Children Away.

This story's right, this story's true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep.
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land.
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away,
Took the children away,
The children away.
Snatched from their mother's breast
Said this is for the best
Took them away.

The welfare and the policeman
Said you've got to understand
We'll give them what you can't give
Teach them how to really live.
Teach them how to live they said
Humiliated them instead
Taught them that and taught them this
And others taught them prejudice.
You took the children away
The children away
Breaking their mothers heart
Tearing us all apart
Took them away
[http://www.lyricsmania.com/took_the_children_away_lyrics_archie_roach.html]

It was pretty hard not to cry, after everything I'd been reading and thinking about all day.

I guess what I'm saying is, go easy on these survivors of [ongoing] trauma. Be gentle and understanding of the sometimes unhealthy, unhelpful ways they express - or escape from - the pain of what they've been through.

What's been happening in the NT?

... Certainly enough to keep us busy.

The Country Liberal Party government has done a deal with Rio Tinto to keep its polluting alumina refinery open at Nhulunbuy, byguaranteeing a gas supply, at taxpayers' expense, so Rio can make the switch from diesel to gas. Great to see the government locking us in to another non-renewable energy source for the near future.

Will this put even more pressure on nearby Aboriginal people to say yes to shale gas mining on their land?

The Environment Centre NT  has been doing some great organising around this issue, which kept us busy for a while - and hopefully will continue to do so if we can get  a community campaign happening.

Meanwhile new mandatory sentencing have come into effect in the NT, at the same time that diversionary programs such as Larrakia Nation's Night Patrol are being defunded. Presumably, though, this is all a good thing because according to CLP MP Bess Price prison is good for Aboriginal people.  They get three meals a day, sober up and  come out a lot healthier, she says. Well... yes, either that or they, you know, don't come out at all.

According to the NT News, the monsoon is finally arriving. Although it's been reporting that for most of  this horrendously hot, dry "wet" season.

And here's a pic of smoko time at the home office.

Soon I'll write a positive story...

But possibly never about what the CLP government, or for that matter the federal Labor government, is doing to Aboriginal people...

* * *

A recent Deloitte Access Economics report recommended state and territory governments focus on treatment and rehabilitation, rather than imprisonment, of Aboriginal people facing drug and alcohol-related charges. The report found governments would save up to $110,000 per year for every person kept out of prison.

These findings are not new, and in fact – cost considerations aside – there are significant social justice reasons to keep minor Aboriginal offenders out of prison, as outlined in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which reported in 1991.

In the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people face increasing imprisonment rates. Since the NT intervention (now called Stronger Futures) was introduced almost six years ago, alcohol-related police “incidents” have risen from 3239 incidents in 2007-’08 to 4870 in 2011(NTER Monitoring report January 31). At June 2011, the overall imprisonment rates of Aboriginal people in the NT had risen 40%.

The Northern Territory now jails Aboriginal adults and children at rates higher than anywhere else in Australia.

But the Deloitte report has been dismissed by NT attorney general John Elferink, who said on February 4 it wouldn’t influence the NT Country Liberal government’s policies. “ This Government is not going to make excuses for people who commit violent offences while they're drunk”, he said.http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/02/04/3682533.htm

Earlier this year, in response to Warren Mundine’s call for a national summit to address soaring imprisonment rates, Elferink had said: “"Well, no, it isn't the government's role to fix these problems, the role starts with the parents." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-11/elferink-on-mundine-indigenous-youth-summit-call/4461082/?site=indigenous

But a glance at changes the CLP has made, or promises to make, since coming to power in August, suggests that government policy can and will impact greatly on the number of Aboriginal people behind bars. And the government is heading in the wrong direction.

On February 6, during the annual Closing the Gap statement to parliament, Prime Minister Julia Gillard attacked the CLP for “retrograde steps” being taken by NT and QLD governments, which she said meant “rivers of grog” were once again wreaking havoc in Aboriginal communities. She said: “We're hearing worrying reports about the rise in admissions in the emergency department at Alice Springs Hospital due to alcohol-related accidents and abuse."

She attributed this to the CLP’s scrapping of the controversial Banned Drinkers’ Registry last year. The BDR, introduced by the previous Labor government, required photo ID to be displayed when purchasing alcohol, so banned “problem drinkers” could be refused service.

But Gillard didn’t acknowledge that alcohol-related police incidents, domestic violence rates, suicide attempts and aggravated assaults have steadily increased over the entire period of the intervention and Stronger Futures.

Nor did she criticize the CLP for scrapping other programs, run by Aboriginal organisations, which were known to be effective in supporting Aboriginal people and minimizing their contact with police.

Aboriginal organisation Larrakia Nation runs a widely respected Night Patrol program, which gives Aboriginal patrollers a central role in protecting their people from the harmful effects of drugs, alcohol, and violence – and dramatically reduces their contact with the police.

Late last year, the territory government announced it would cut funding to the Night Patrol in June. Larrakia Nation and police representatives have slammed the decision alike. Vince Kelly, president of the NT Police Association, said in December that the decision might mean “an increase of people in police custody who are intoxicated and drunk, or at the very lowest place in their health … We have seen exactly what tragic outcomes can happen when that occurs."

Larrakia Nation’s return-to-country program, which lends Aboriginal people money to return home to remote communities, will also be scrapped. About 4600 people benefit from this program.

Defending the decision to cease funding, corrections minister John Elferink described the program as a taxpayer-funded service for people to “get on the turps … If you come to Darwin we have an expectation you will behave in a certain way...or you'll be charged with appropriate criminal offences or alternatively you'll be taken into custody”, he said in December.

The Nation’s CEO Ilana Elderidge responded to Elferink, telling ABC local radio on December 6: “For the Minister to suggest that everyone who comes to Darwin is only coming here to get drunk, I'm just appalled anyone could make such a disgusting suggestion … The impact will be people will still come to Darwin, because they have to [for medical care and other important services], and then they will be stranded here."

Meanwhile, hospital-based domestic violence services will be cut, as will the SMART court and Alcohol and Other Drugs Tribunals – two initiatives meant to help keep people arrested for drug and alcohol-related crimes out of prison.

The North Australia Aboriginal Justice Agency has slammed the cutting of SMART court and the night patrol as “short sighted” and having “serious long-term consequences”.

NAAJA Principal legal officer Jonathon Hunyor said on December 4: “The cut to night patrol funding flies in the face of the recommendations on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which emphasised the need to minimise contact between Aboriginal people and police. This decision … is a recipe for disaster.”

Briscoe inquest: 'Lessons learnt' - but will justice be done?

On September 17, NT Coroner Greg Cavanagh handed down his damning findings regarding the death in custody of Kwementyaye Briscoe in the Alice Springs watch house in January.

Briscoe, a young Aboriginal man, had committed no crime, but was taken into so-called protective custody for being excessively drunk.  He was found dead in his cell before the night was through.

He was found to have consumed most of a bottle of rum in the police van, which he obtained from another prisoner. He was dragged through the watch house and shoved down against a bench, where he hit his head and arm.

During the inquest, other prisoners reported having seen Briscoe bleeding from the head and gasping for air. He was left un-attended for two hours, despite prisoners asking police to check on him.

Cavanagh found the police on duty that night were “utterly derelict” in their failure to keep Briscoe under observation. He found they were distracted “by various things including an iPhone, iPad and the internet”, according to the September 17 Sydney Morning Herald.

But Cavanagh’s criticism reached beyond those directly involved on the night. According to ABC Online on September 17 he said: "In my view the catalogue of errors is so extensive and involves so many police officers of various rank as to suggest mismanagement for a period of time by police command at a level higher than just local."

However, justice campaigners fear nothing will change in relation to police treatment of Aboriginal prisoners. The SMH said up to 10 officers had been disciplined in relation to the event but confirmed none had been sacked. NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts said “lessons had been learnt”, the paper said.

NT Aboriginal leader Barb Shaw has called for constable Gareth Evans to be sacked. Evans was recorded dragging Briscoe through the watch-house.

Cavanagh recommended police avoid dragging prisoners, suggesting wheelchairs or stretchers be used when people are unable to walk.  He also said nurses must be made available in watch-houses.

New NT Chief Minister Terry Mills has vowed to implement the recommendations, and promised a “genuine change of culture within the police force”. But the recommendations have been criticized as inadequate by justice campaigners.

Hilary Tyler, a friend of Briscoe’s family, said on September 18:  “The recommendations are a farce, and do not address the systemic issues. The NT Police needs to take ownership of this, and Constable Evans should lose his job.”

Bipartisan support for bilingual ed?

"Our language is like a pearl inside a shell. The shell is like the people that carry the language. If the language is taken away, then that would be like a pearl is gone. We would be like an empty oyster shell."

-Yurranydjil Dhurrkay, Galiwin'ku, Elcho Island, North-East Arnhem Land

Emma Murphy, Darwin

On September 17, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs tabled its much-anticipated inquiry into language learning on Aboriginal communities: Our Land Our Language.

The report unashamedly puts language front and centre not just to Aboriginal identity but also health and wellbeing. It says, for example, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who speak an Indigenous language enjoy “markedly” better health and are more likely to: be employed, attend school and receive a post-school qualification than those who don’t. They are also less like to abuse alcohol, be charged by police or to have been a victim of violence.

Aboriginal languages are dying at a horrifying rate: of the around 250 languages spoken at the time of invasion, around half have disappeared. The report found that only about 18 are spoken today – many others are being painstakingly revived, recovered and recorded. Greg Dickson, writing on Crikey.com on September 17, said that National Geographic has identified northern Australia as a “global hotspot”, where endangered languages face a “severe threat” of extinction.

It is with this sense of urgency that Aboriginal communities and bilingual education advocates have long rallied for more support and funding for the urgent work of teaching children to speak, read and write their own language.

The recommendations in Our Land Our Language have been welcomed by bilingual education advocates, and are implicitly highly critical of current approaches – especially in the Northern Territory, where bilingual education was dramatically shut down four years ago by the then Labor government.

For example, it recommends “resourcing bilingual school education programs for Indigenous communities where the child’s first language is and Indigenous language” – in the NT, about 40% of children speak a language other than English at home. It also recommends compulsory cultural awareness training, and training in “English as an additional language” teaching for all teachers working in Aboriginal communities.

Beyond the classroom, the report recommends establish a national interpreting service for Indigenous languages, expanding the Indigenous Languages Support Program and establish improving community access to language archive at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

It also recommends constitutional recognition of Indigenous languages.

While it is unclear how many of the recommendations will be implemented, both Labor and the Coalition were quick to welcome the report.  The September 18 Australian said School Education Minister Peter Garrett had promised to “talk to state governments about adopting bilingual education for Indigenous children”. He acknowledged attendance would improve if children were taught in their own languages for the early years.

Opposition Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion said education was a matter for state and territory governments, but conceded “I generally support bilingual education as a transitional program from preschool to Year 5”, the Australian said.

However in the recent past, both Labor and Coalition governments have stressed the importance of English as the predominant language in education.

Labor MP Shayne Neumann, who chairs the standing committee, told media on September 17 that the result of NT Labor’s English-only policy, introduced in 2008, was “a decline in school attendance and educational outcomes”. He said Territory Labor defended the policy at the committee hearing in Darwin early this year, only to quietly drop it soon after.

This report was released less than a month after the NT elections, which saw a CLP government swept to power on a strong bush vote. On the campaign trail, and during community visits since, the CLP has talked up the importance of first-language learning – without committing to any detailed policy or funding commitments.

The task now for Aboriginal communities and defenders of bilingual education will be to make sure governments start putting funding and resource commitments on the table. It will be a large task to rebuild abandoned bilingual programs in the NT, for example. We must ensure governments don’t adopt the easier, more symbolic recommendations and let the actual hard work fall by the wayside.

[Our Land Our Language can be accessed here.]

Life under the Country Liberal Party, week two

According to news reports today, two men - new Chief Minister Terry Mills and parliamentary secretary Peter Styles - will oversee the ministry for women's policy. Women's policy. That's right.

And Alison Anderson has been sworn in as Minister for Indigenous Advancement. Advancement? Sorry, what century are we in? That's right, blackfellas, get ready to be pulled up by your bootstraps and ... advanced into civilized society, as defined by the "tough-on-crime", "let's normalize Bagot", CLP.

Shudder.

NT Elections: Aboriginal voters get Labor where it hurts

[A subbed version of this article will appear at Green Left Weekly. The figures will need to be updated in some seats, as counting is expected to continue until Monday September 3 - Emma]

by Emma Murphy

Aboriginal voters in remote Northern Territory put themselves decisively onto the political agenda in the August 25 territory election.

Indeed, as commentators have noted, it was probably the first time in Australia’s history when this otherwise marginalized (by mainstream parties) section of the population decided an election.

For only the second time in its short voting history, the Territory changed its ruling party. After 11 years of Labor, voters in remote and rural areas opted for change, and – in very significant numbers – voted for minor parties, independents, and the Country Liberal Party (CLP).

In a 25-seat parliament, Labor had just 12 seats, forming government with the support of independent Gerry Woods. And while bookies had picked the CLP as winning, the results still surprised many. It was assumed that the key seats to watch were in Darwin’s northern suburbs, which is where Labor put much of its energy.

But, in a remarkable twist, Labor retained all its urban seats. The rural areas, however, were a different story. Writing on The Conversation on August 27, Ken Parish said: “The picture in remote Aboriginal community-based seats could scarcely have been more different.  The ALP vote was decimated, with a general anti-Labor swing of around 16%.” http://theconversation.edu.au/arrogant-indigenous-policies-that-toppled-nt-labor-is-a-lesson-for-feds-9037

It looks likely the CLP will win 15 seats and Labor will be reduced to nine.

In the remote northern electorates of Arnhem and Daly, there were swings to the CLP of 30.7% and 14.2%, respectively. In the key northern seat of Arafura, with just over half the votes counted, the CLP’s Francis Maralampuwi Xavier leads Labor’s Dean Rioli 51.2% to 48.8% (at time of writing), and in the outback seat of Stuart, also with just 56% of votes counted, Bess Nungarrayi Price from the CLP is slightly ahead of Labor’s Karl Hampton, at 50.8% to 49.2% (after preferences). There was a 26.5% swing against Hampton.

So where did this massive swing against Labor come from, and why did it take so many by surprise?

Perhaps it should have been predicted, given federal and Territory Labor’s complete disregard for Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people in the NT have had a lot to be angry about over the last few years. The Coalition’s introduction of the widely hated NT intervention in 2007 was very quickly taken over by federal Kevin Rudd’s Labor when the party won the November election. Julia Gillard’s Labor recently extended the divisive policy for another decade, under the cruelly mis-named “Stronger Futures” legislation.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Territory Labor completely disempowered local Aboriginal leaderships by replacing 52 small community councils with seven “super shires” – some with headquarters not even located within the shire boundaries.

Through the dismantling of their councils, and the whitewashed “Stronger Futures consultations” in 2011, when articulate, angry voices fell on a federal government’s deaf ears, Aboriginal people got the message loud and clear: Labor wasn’t listening.

Unfortunately for Labor, Aboriginal people make up a large percentage of the NT population outside of urban areas, and on August 25, they found a way to fight back.

In many ways, the opposition CLP had an easy job in the bush: slam the bungled super shire policy (no need to give too much detail about how you would change it); spend time listening to the people – something Labor has consistently failed (listening is easy – no need to commit to anything beyond that).

There were also many impressive, strong Aboriginal candidates, who lived in the remote communities that would elect them. This was the case in all parties, and a look at the minor parties, and the preferences they directed, tells a slightly more complex story than a simple swing to the CLP – although that was also clearly the case.

In Hampton’s seat of Stuart, Maurie Japarta Ryan stood for the newly registered First Nations Party (FNP). He received an impressive 17.2% of the vote. Ryan, a fiery anti-intervention campaigner preferenced Price - a woman he’s described as “the face of the intervention”. When asked about this on Radio National’s Bush Telegraph on August 27, he explained: “I don’t support Bess Price … I gave my preferences to whichever political party … would remove the shires.”

While Price has been an outspoken supporter of the intervention, other CLP members have been careful to distance themselves from their federal counterparts’ support for Stronger Futures. Incumbent CLP MP Alison Anderson told Bush Telegraph: “The CLP’s position is that, even though our federal politicians supported it, we’ve already listened to Aboriginal people, and we will take the voice of the Aboriginal people back.” She accused federal Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin of not listening to Aboriginal people: a sentiment that would have rung true for many.

Labor’s Hampton was also careful to state his opposition to the intervention while campaigner – indicating that Territory Labor is also aware of the damage this has done to the Labor brand.

In the key seat of Arafura, Greens’ George Pascoe received 14% of the votes, with just 55.8% counted.

The CLP’s “listening tour” of remote communities, where it tapped into anti-shire sentiment and concern for homelands and housing, certainly worked as a campaign strategy. But now, in office, will it deliver? What can the people who voted for it expect from a CLP government?

There are certainly a few areas to watch. To start with, the CLP will have a number of strong Aboriginal candidates, who ran because they believed that was the party listening to their people. Hopes have been raised about changes to the unpopular shires policy, and about more support for homelands.

But while the CLP has been quick to tap into anger at the shires, details about what it proposes to do about them are scant. It’s “Shire reform” paper, released before the election, pledges to establish “regional councils” (it is careful not to promise a return to community councils” – but these regional councils will only be established where modeling shows “financial sustainability”. The document speaks of “Shires and Regional Councils”, indicating the shires may still remain.

Similarly, the CLP Homelands policy says the party supports the Federal Government initiative to invest in homelands services” – but doesn’t mention any investment at a Territory level.

How the CLP will balance this against the strong concerns of its Aboriginal MPs – some of whom will surely become ministers – remains to be seen. Will they be sidelined? Were they deceived during the election campaign? Or will some MPs (such as Alison Anderson) history of crossing to the other side if their concerns are ignored force the CLP to positions it may not otherwise support?

Another area of concern will be the perceived differences/divisions between remote Aboriginal communities and urban Aboriginal populations, especially those living in town communities and the long grass.

In the lead-up to the election, CLP member for Fong Lim David Tollner angered Bagot community residents by promising to “normalize” Bagot by turning it into “Darwin’s newest suburb”. Similarly, the CLP has promised the predictable “crackdown on crime”, saying “drunks will be taken off the streets” and Darwin’s parklands “cleaned up” – blatant dog-whistling to drum up fear and racism against Aboriginal people living in the long grass.

So it was with surprise that I noted Chief Minister-elect Terry Mills’ tribute to Aboriginal people in his victory speech on August 25. And then, with apprehension, I noticed his persistent use of the word “traditional” to describe them.

“I'm saying tonight, traditional people, we respect you, and we will work with you”, he said. He vowed to visit remote communities, saying, "My first trip will be to demonstrate to traditional people that we will work with you.”

Will we see a playing out of the “good black, bad black” politics of the likes of Price, who recently described Rodney Dillon, an Aboriginal activist and Amnesty campaigner as “a physically white English-speaking Tasmanian”, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/amnesty-a-racist-organisation-says-bess-price/story-fn9hm1pm-1226446316271.

It is fairly safe to assume there will be no “listening tours” of the long grass in Darwin, or the Alice Springs Riverbed. It’s much more likely to be the 100 extra police visiting those areas. And Bagot, or other town communities, will probably respond to any visiting CLP MPs with extreme caution, given Tollner’s election promise.

The CLP has a lot of bad policy and offensive comments to explain if it is to show it can really listen, and take direction from, Aboriginal people. It has been more than a decade since the party had to really show its true colours to Territorians, but the missing details in its policies and its “law-and-order” focus in urban areas don’t bode well.

But one thing was certain on August 25: like two federal elections since the intervention was announced, Aboriginal people voted in strong numbers against the incumbents, in protest against their racist policies and their refusal to genuinely engage with Aboriginal people. We can only hope they won’t be so easily ignored or taken for granted in the future.