Indigenous intervention an election ploy: Scrymgour
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Marion Scrymgour says the Federal Government is repeating the mistakes of the past. (File photo) (ABC file photo)
Northern Territory Family and Community Services Minister Marion Scrymgour has launched a scathing attack on the Government's intervention into Aboriginal affairs.
Ms Scrymgour delivered the speech during last night's Charles Perkins oration in Sydney, likening the new Indigenous policies to those used by the Commonwealth to remove Aboriginal children from their families.
She said the values and principles that led to the Stolen Generations were also behind the Commonwealth's latest response to Indigenous people nearly a century on.
Ms Scrymgour accused federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough of using scare tactics to gain compliance for the intervention.
"Mal Brough has launched attacks on anyone who has raised doubts and fears about this new world order for Aboriginal Territorians," she said.
Ms Scrymgour told the gathering the new Indigenous policies were brought in as part of an election ploy, describing them as "Howard's rabbit out of a hat - the black kids Tampa".
But she said she would not bow to pressure, slamming the new legislation for not addresing any of the 97 recommendations laid out in a child sex abuse report it was responding to.
"I'm condemning its motivation, I am condemning its operations and I am condemning its moral basis," she said.
She said the intervention had given the Commonwealth permission to herd Aboriginal people back into the primitivism of assimilation and the days of native welfare and described it as a deliberate and savage attack on the sanctity of Aboriginal family life.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says Ms Scrymgour should resign over the speech because she is out of touch with people on the ground.
"Marion needs to resign. She is part of a Territory Government that has signed up to this," he said.
"She is there blatantly saying it's wrong. She is one of a long list of Labor people including Jenny Macklin who have been out there who have said they will reinstitute the permit system and they'll reinstitute CDEP."
Ms Scrymgour has responded by calling for Mr Brough to resign.
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