Rita Panahi: Alice Springs chaos should shame all Australians
What is happening in Alice Springs is in part due to boneheaded politicians who allowed their ideology to trump logic and experience.
Rita Panahi
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had to be shamed into visiting Alice Springs.
For weeks he has ignored calls to visit the mayhem that Labor policies, both federal and state, helped create.
In the end, consecutive days of media pressure from the media saw the prime minister fly into Alice Springs for a few short hours this week.
Rest assured if the violence and chaos occurring in the Northern Territory was happening in Sydney or Melbourne it would dominate media coverage and be top of mind for politicians.
If the horrendous rates of abuse and neglect that we see across the Northern Territory were occurring to mainly white folk, the coverage would reach saturation level.
That’s real racism; the bigotry of low expectations.
What is happening in places like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and in many other communities should shame all Australians.
How many Australians know that in a single week last month two sickening stories of child rape hit the headlines (of a select few media outlets); one concerning a 12-year-old and the other a seven-year-old.
Both cases occurred in Tennant Creek, a town with a population of around 3000.
For months we have seen shocking footage of drunken violence, looting and street fights.
But the bulk of the media and political class have turned a blind eye.
What is happening in Alice Springs and elsewhere is in part due to boneheaded politicians who allowed their ideology to trump logic and experience.
The booze bans and cashless debit cards are necessary to save lives; to ensure children are fed and women are not bashed.
These decisions were made despite the strong objections of informed Indigenous voices from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress.
On June 5 Senator Price wrote: “Mark my words with Federal Labor abolishing the Cashless Debit Card and NT Labor opening the floodgates to alcohol in vulnerable remote communities, rates of DV and sexual abuse of children are about to skyrocket.”
Last year, in Alice Springs, domestic violence assault was up by 53 per cent, alcohol-related assault increased by 55 per cent and property damage was up 60 per cent, according to NT Police’s crime statistics.
Senator Price isn’t Nostradamus.
She just knows that terrible policies have terrible consequences.
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