Steve Price: We must step in for vulnerable kids in Alice Springs

You wonder if the urban-dwelling, screaming protesters could look the mothers of sexually abused girls in the eye and convince them intervention in Alice Springs is wrong.

Australia hasn’t had a fearless prime minister since John Howard.

Fronting his own supporters with tough new gun laws, using the navy to stop refugee boats, and in 2007 pulling the trigger on intervention in the Northern Territory were examples of his bravery.

Compare those unpopular, politically risky and gutsy decisions with the PM’s that followed him.

Howard had an in-built gut feeling on what to go full bottle on and to fix what others thought was too hard.

Compare his June 2007 action to try to fix Indigenous poverty, child abuse and alcohol addiction to what we are currently seeing.

The former PM didn’t need to go there and see it for himself – he was too smart to get sucked into that PR stunt.

He instead chose one of his political allies and ministers, Mal Brough.

Simply, Howard relied on the recommendations of people on the ground and told Brough to fix it.

He acted after a 2006 NT government board of inquiry handed down its own findings on how we should protect Aboriginal children.

Compare John Howard’s June 2007 action to try and fix Indigenous poverty, child abuse and alcohol addiction to what we are seeing.

And surely that’s what this should be about given the almost impossible to believe evidence nurse Rachel Hale tearfully offered up this week on The Today show.

If she is to be believed – and no-one I’ve heard has cast doubt on what she said – then let’s stop some new useless report on how many Vodka Cruisers residents of town camps can buy and get those children out of there today.

Sorry to have to repeat her claims of primary school girls with anal warts and vaginal sores and two-year-olds being raped, but unless the nurse Hales of this world are heard, then we will again simply talk about this for a few weeks and forget about it again.

This time we can’t let that happen.

Children of any age that present with such injuries should be removed from those camps immediately.

And please don’t start with the stolen generation hand wringing as an excuse not to do it.

If paedophiles are raping toddlers and primary school children, then get the children away from their perverted attackers.

Someone out in these places would see and know who is doing this.

Find those people, get their evidence and start arresting people.

If a parent is the attacker, do we really think leaving that child in that family is the right thing to do? Of course not.

Is ripping that child away from that depravity stealing that child? No, it’s saving that child.

These kids deserve a better life than many of their own parents and grandparents have had. How do we seriously believe that’s going to happen by leaving them there?

Would we cry stolen generation if this was happening in Hawthorn or Albert Park to white babies and school kids and social services stepped in? Of course not.

Politicians of all colours, both in the Territory and Canberra, should be ashamed for how they have failed these people. Picture: JPL/Media Mode

All of us have become afraid to prosecute child protection removal as a solution for fear of being branded racist. It’s not racist to stop children being used as sexual play-things by drunk adults.

While much of the media and the political decision makers have pivoted to an aimless and ultimately useless discussion about booze bans and two-day dry spells – think about those wide-eyed little children and what has happened to them.

Politicians of all colours both in the Territory and Canberra should be ashamed for how they have failed these people.

Howard tried and can hold his head high. So too Brough.

A year after the NT government handed down that 2006 report about protecting Aboriginal children and did nothing Howard acted.

He appointed Brough to head the intervention and called it a national emergency response and with an election he would lose just five months later he acted.

The key points:

• Grog bans were put in place.
• Cashless cards were introduced to stop spending dole money on grog and gambling.
• School attendance was linked to welfare payments.

• Compulsory health checks were introduced.

• Police numbers were boosted.

• Work for the dole participants moved in to clean up town camps and rebuild damaged houses.

• Pornography was banned, and all government-issued laptops were audited.

Politicians should be ashamed for how they have failed the people of Alice Springs. Picture: Mark Brake

Compare that with the mealy-mouthed, feeble action we are seeing from the latest crisis in Indigenous communities around Australia. And make no mistake it’s not just the Alice.

History teaches us many things and when you look back on the 2007 intervention you realise the normal suspects didn’t like it and so it eventually became watered down.

To his credit — as much as it pains me to admit this — Kevin Rudd backed the Howard plan as a new PM.

He endured protests and criticism from loud voices who hated the intervention because it was Howard’s idea.

As recently as July last year the SBS Indigenous TV station NITV called it a “shameful chapter” in Australian history.

Human Rights advocate Nick Espie said it “disempowered, silenced and demonised Aboriginal people.”

If banning porn and getting kids to school is demonising, I’m all for it.

Eventually the blue no grog signs were pulled down and the NT government of course scrapped the town camp booze bans.

Here we are, right back where we started. Again.

You wonder if those urban-dwelling, screaming protesters could look the mothers of those sexually abused little girls in the eye and convince them intervention was wrong.

They wouldn’t — unlike John Howard — have the guts.

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• Chatting with that English villain we all secretly like, Baron Ian Botham of Ravenswood.

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Originally published as Steve Price: We must step in for vulnerable kids in Alice Springs