Aboriginal community aid plan criticised

Australia’s government today rejected accusations it had humiliated an Outback Aboriginal community with a demand that indigenous children wash their faces twice a day to promote public health if the town is to be given a petrol pump.

Aborigines and opposition MPs branded the deal racist and blackmail while the government promised hundreds of thousands of similar pacts will be introduced to Aboriginal communities across the nation.

The government offered to provide the Mulan desert community in Western Australia state with a 170,000 Australian dollars (€97,000) pump if its 170 Aboriginal residents signed an agreement they would comply with a range of conditions including making their children wash their faces twice a day and shower daily.

The pump would prevent the residents of having to travel 44 miles for fuel and could bring some income from tourists who might stop to refuel and buy provisions from the only store in the otherwise welfare-dependent, disease-ridden community.

The community, located about 1,865 miles north-east of the state capital Perth, has one of the world’s highest rates of trachoma, a bacterial infection that causes blindness, which is usually associated with Third World countries and poor hygiene.

The trade-off is part of the government’s new national policy of attempting to improve Aboriginal health, education and living standards by placing conditions to Aboriginal welfare checks.

But the opposition Labour Party condemned the Mulan agreement, arguing Aborigines should not have to bargain for necessities.

“Indigenous Australians must be able to reach genuine agreements with government, not be forced into coercive and patronising contracts,” Labour indigenous affairs spokesman Kim Carr said.

The only Aborigine in federal parliament, Senator Aden Ridgeway, said the deal exposed the government’s approach to Aboriginal problems was akin to blackmail.

“In this system, the government gives with one hand and slaps with the other,” said Ridgeway, an MP with the minor Australian Democrats party

The New South Wales state Reconciliation Council, an organisation devoted to improving the living standards of Aborigines, described the deal as a scary, racist throwback to decades ago when church missionaries controlled Aborigines’ lives.

Prime Minister John Howard dismissed critics as “negative and old fashioned,” saying shared responsibility agreements would become an important element of his government’s indigenous policy.

Mulan’s administrator Mark Sewell said his community had freely accepted the deal in the interests of their children’s health.

“The community doesn’t feel blackmailed; doesn’t feel it’s patronising,” Sewell said.

“It is nothing to do with government holding something over us; it is the community understanding that they need to take a part in the system that makes sure the kids remain healthy,” he said.

As well as ensuring children wash, the community would have to ensure household rubbish bins are emptied twice a week, homes are kept rubbish free and rents are paid on time.