A note on the Indigenous intervention

I wrote about the government's Northern Territory intervention the other day with an optimism that I didn't know I was capable of. Days have passed, and so has my initial state of shock that a government was actually doing something about the crisis up North. It's stopped feeling like news again, and started feeling like every other political hot topic -- a debate where everyone being quoted on the news seems to be missing the point.

Some parts of the strategy are heavy-handed and stupid. Why on Earth would they send the army in? Although much of the work they do overseas is humanitarian, the symbolism is bad; probably bad enough to taint and doom the entire strategy. And there's a nastiness to the idea of instigating compulsory medical checks for kids, as if to say kids aren't getting medical help because of parental laziness (when lack of access is surely at least as big a cause).

But there's bull on the other side too. The criticism of the strategy as too paternalistic seems ridiculous to me. What could be more paternalistic than the current system?

The status quo is dozens of towns with no real economy, crippled by poor health, social problems, crime, massive unemployment, often unrepresentative local governments that are corrupt or inept or both. And they're held perpetually, unnaturally in this state by a government that simply sends in cash, a few services, and cops.

I find it hard to disagree with some of Howard's comments: the system has failed, there's been too much talk, there's an emergency, there's a need to act. But, just like he did with education, he makes valid criticisms -- and then uses that as license to act like a dick and push other agendas.

I hope that some good may come of it.

The majority of the news media, of course, is unable and unwilling to give the story the analysis it needs. This morning on NewsRadio, Marius Benson was interviewing political correspondent Michael Brissenden, who had a really good go at breaking the issue down. Less than a minute into Brissenden's analysis, Benson steered the conversation back to useless punditry with a series of inane questions (I paraphrase to the best of my memory): "Okay, enough about whether this is the best way to deal with the emergency, and whether indeed it is an emergency -- is Howard doing this to play to the electorate? Isn't this a risky political move? Can they win votes with Indigenous issues?"

The most irrelevant questions of all. They might as well have been talking about TomKat.