Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia

09 October 2007

Hosted by Jack Waterford

On 21 June 2007 Prime Minister John Howard and Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough declared a ‘national emergency’ in relation to child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory. In an unprecedented set of actions, the Commonwealth has taken direct control of communities, overriding the authority of both the NT Government and local community organisations in the name of creating safe and healthy environments for children.

In this public lecture, Dr Hinkson, Professor Behrendt, Ms Watson and Professor Altman contributors to the first book about the intervention Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia assess the intervention from the perspectives of human rights, welfare and land rights reforms, Indigenous representation and reconciliation, and the recognition of cultural diversity.

Broad Topics: Law

Sub-topics: Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, University

The Authors

Jon Altman is the Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. He has undertaken research on Indigenous economic development policy since 1977.

Melinda Hinkson is a lecturer in social anthropology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and convener of the Visual Culture Research postgraduate program in the Research School of Humanities, the ANU.

Larissa Behrendt is Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. She won the 2002 David Unoapon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for her novel Home.

Nicole Watson is an Aboriginal lawyer and academic from Brisbane. She is currently employed as a senior research fellow at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney.

Part of the 2007 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series