Australia will ban alcohol and pornography in Aboriginal communities across the country's vast Northern Territory to combat widespread child sexual abuse, Prime Minister John Howard told parliament yesterday.
Describing the plight of Aboriginal children as "a national emergency," Howard said he was taking control of indigenous communities from the Northern Territory government because it had failed to address the problem.
The prime minister introduced the unprecedented measures in response to a Northern Territory government report released last week that found rampant child abuse fuelled by a "river of grog" [alcohol] in indigenous communities.
"This is a national emergency, there is no greater obligation this parliament has than caring for all the vulnerable and young in our community," Howard said.
"We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present. That's a sad and tragic event and exceptional measures are required to deal with an exceptionally tragic situation," he said.
Howard said once the federal government took over the administration of Aboriginal communities it would enforce sweeping changes including a six-month ban on the sale, possession and transportation of alcohol.
Hardcore pornography would also be barred from the communities once they came under Canberra's control, Howard said.
He said up to 50 percent of welfare payments would be earmarked for food and other essentials to ensure the money was not spent on alcohol, with the payment of some benefits linked to children's attendance at school.
Police patrols in Aboriginal communities would be immediately stepped up and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) would carry out health checks on all Territory children aged 16 or under.
Howard did not specify when the changes would take place but said that, if needed, he would recall parliament from an upcoming break to pass the necessary legislation.
The Northern Territory has one of the highest concentrations of Aborigines in Australia but Howard said the problems were nationwide.
He urged Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales to introduce similar bans.
But West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter said his government was already addressing the issue of Aboriginal child abuse and questioned why Howard had only declared it a national emergency after 11 years in office.
The report cited evidence that children as young as five had sexually transmitted diseases and that girls were being prostituted for gasoline, which is commonly sniffed by youths in Aboriginal areas.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS