Prime Minister John Howard’s plan to intervene in child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory has sparked concerns, with critics labelling the move as ‘authoritarian’.
Mr Howard has announced bans on alcohol and pornography in Northern Territory indigenous communities, as well as an increase in police, health checks for Aboriginal children and a scrapping of the permit system which restricts non-Aboriginal access to indigenous land.
Describing the plight of Aboriginal children as “a national emergency”, Mr Howard said he was taking control of indigenous communities from the Northern Territory government because it had not addressed 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.