"Crimes against the person"

sounds dramatic and the story in the paper makes it seem dramatic too.The long list of rural communities and their crime rates makes depressing reading. It is especially so if you consider that these are the crimes which are actually reported. The actual rate would be even higher in some places, perhaps much higher. People have simply given up reporting the less serious offences against them because they know the police will not be able to do anything. They know that, even if the police do catch the perpetrators and charge them, the courts will let them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. They know the courts will do that because government policy is what requires them to do just that. The perpetrators are all too often seen as people who have come from poor backgrounds, people who have been abused themselves. Courts are supposed to take that into account.

Some of the children involved are untouchable - and they know it. If you look at the names of some of the areas where the crime rates are highest you will see they have indigenous names. Not all of them have indigenous names of course but the other places with the worst crime rates also tend to have high indigenous populations. If there is a one in three chance of being the victim of an offence against the person in a community with an indigenous name then it is surely something we need to be concerned about?

No, I do not have the answers to the many problems but I do know that some of the problems and some of the answers lie in a change to the present government policies. There would need to be a radical shift in attitudes for this to occur and I recognise that is unlikely.

We need to be listening to women who want "welfare cards" to be brought back in. If they want to be sure they can spend money on essentials to feed their families rather than on alcohol or gambling then why should they be denied that? It is not as demeaning as having to go to a poorly stocked foodbank and beg for food. These women do not view it this way at all. They regard it as getting government assistance to handle the alcohol, drug and domestic violence issues in their communities. Not everyone needs to have their income support planned in this way but there are women who welcome it. The level of domestic violence and public drunkenness was reduced and school attendance increased. Why then did the government go against the wishes of those involved and remove those cards? The idea that the cards were somehow wrong has more to do with what bureaucrats and their advisers want than what people wanted. The very people who say that others need to be independent and able to make their own decisions are actually encouraging dependence on welfare and taking away the capacity to make other decisions.

We also need to ensure the children are learning English and then learning in English. That of course goes entirely against the notion that "culture has to be preserved".  We expect children of migrants to this country to go to school and learn English. They do just that and many of them do extremely well. Why then do we do everything possible to hold back indigenous children by insisting that their "culture" needs to be preserved? This is especially the case when what it is claimed is being preserved is actually nothing like the culture it is said to be. All too often what is being taught is not a culture which is being preserved but a culture which is being created. How can it be anything else when they see twenty-first century ideas on satellite television in remote communities?  We are setting children and young people up to fail when we insist on teaching them "in their native language".  Nobody wants to lose languages or cultural identities but if the alternative is a lifetime of unemployment and violence then we need to rethink our ideas about the consequences.