Indigenous affairs

John Howard took until his fourth term to actualise his preferred approach to Indigenous affairs. As he says in his autobiography Lazarus Rising: 'our last year in government finally saw a paradigm change. It was as if the dam had finally burst and much of the approach which had held sway for a generation, or more was swept away. Howard is referring to taking over Indigenous affairs in the Northern Territory" known as the Northern Territory Intervention. This package, announced on 21 June 2007 by Mal Brough, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, included the following items: alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land; controls on welfare recipients' expenditure (Basics Card); linking welfare payments to parental performance in getting their children to school; compulsory health checks for Aboriginal children; acquiring certain townships on Aboriginal land through five-year leases; increasing police presence in certain communities; new rent and tenancy arrangements for households; additional funds for housing; banning X-rated pornography in prescribed communities; ending the permit system for defined areas within Aboriginal lands; phasing out the Community Employment Development Projects (CDEP) scheme, to encourage people into 'mainstream' employment; appointing managers of all government business in certain communities. I will not revisit the debate about the Intervention. I will instead locate it in its party-political context and point to five legacies of Howard's approach to Indigenous policy.