Transcript 5/04/99 MP accused of apartheid over "clean-up" KERRY O'BRIEN: It's almost a fortnight since residents of Exmouth on Western Australia's mid-north coast saw their town devastated by Cyclone Vance. While Exmouth rebuilds, another coastal town just a couple of hundred kilometres south is attempting a 'clean-up' of its own. The town of Carnarvan is wracked by social problems - not unusual for a remote community. But the local Liberal MP's proposed solution has indigenous leaders screaming apartheid. Rod Sweetman wants segregated schools and housing for so-called 'trouble makers', boot camps and adult sentences for juvenile offenders, and food and clothing vouchers instead of pension payments. And his parliamentary petition has found support around the town. Michelle White compiled this report. WOMAN SCREAMS: Shut the door! Shut the door! WOMAN SHOUTS DRUNKENLY: Oh, go away! SENIOR SERGEANT JOHN YOUNG: Just mainly Friday nights, you get quite a few people walking up and down the street and some juveniles, so there's been a lot of disorderly conducts, or it could be drunkenness - all those types of things. POLICEMAN ON RADIO: Yeah, mate, I'm just around the back at the moment. MICHELLE WHITE: Carnarvon - 1,000km north of Perth - shares the same social problems found in too many remote country towns. There's high unemployment, alcohol abuse, youths roaming the streets and petty crime. The problems are by no means exclusive to Carnarvon, but here the local Member of Parliament is proposing a hard-line remedy for the town's social ails. ROD SWEETHAM: To some extent, people should qualify to live in a place like Carnarvon, but we already have an Aboriginal community in town and it's been in place now for about 18 years and there have been times when the activity out in that village has been probably an insult to Soweto. MICHELLE WHITE: Rod Sweetman is on a crusade to clean up the streets of his home town. He's drawn up a petition outlining a list of controversial proposals to combat crime and, he says, restore common decency. Who in particular is responsible for this unruly, antisocial behaviour in town? ROD SWEETHAM: You're trying to get me to say Aboriginals and I don't shirk that issue at all. Primarily, this is an Aboriginal issue, an Aboriginal problem that we've got in Carnarvon. When you cast your eye down this street here, there's an obvious problem that we've got over there. Now, I don't think that's appropriate for a main street of your town. It's not much of an entry statement for your tourists coming into town. SANDY DAVIES: In my opinion, Rod Sweetman is nothing but a dimwit. MICHELLE WHITE: The petition has outraged Aboriginal groups. They've accused the Liberal member of Parliament of peddling racist policies and inciting hatred. SANDY DAVIES: You know, if I was the police department, I would be having a long hard look at this petition and then considering reading the riot act. You know, perhaps Mr Sweetman - they might want to consider Mr Sweetman to be charged under the Riot Act for inciting a riot, because this petition certainly has the potential to do that. ROD SWEETHAM: If our prime problem happens to be with some antisocial and delinquent Aboriginal people, then I think we've got the right to say so. MICHELLE WHITE: About 1,200 of the town's 6,500 residents have signed the petition. It contains proposals such as boot camps for repeat offenders and adult sentences for 14-year-old children. ROD SWEETHAM: So I think by shifting or developing a matrix to move offending - or punishments for offending down from 18 to 14 - you will likely see a dramatic downturn in the offending rate. MICHELLE WHITE: But what's caused the most concern is the plan to fast-track evictions for unruly tenants in public housing and create segregated housing for those deemed not fit to live in town. What happens to those families, though? Where do they go? ROD SWEETHAM: Well, you could say why are we overly consumed by that problem? Because it's a problem of their own making. DEEN POTTER: If Mr Sweetman wants to break cycles - cycles of offending, cycles of substance abuse - throwing people out on to the street and saying, "It's your problem," really is not the solution. DENNIS EGGINGTON: Certainly, I see it as being a watered-down apartheid. Not many people could argue against that. MICHELLE WHITE: Mr Sweetman's petition has fired up WA's Aboriginal Legal Service, particularly his proposal to have families affected by alcohol paid in food and clothing vouchers. DENNIS EGGINGTON: That's the old native welfare days. We've gone beyond that. We're a people in our own right. We're moving to become a republic in this country. Aboriginal people are now talking about self-governance and here's this guy talking about giving us food vouchers. What a clown! MICHELLE WHITE: Carnarvon's Aboriginal leaders don't deny there are social problems in the town. PENNY WALKER: It is a problem on the streets and things like that, but, you know, we're trying to cope with it. MICHELLE WHITE: These parents and grandparents want to see a positive, united approach to tackling the town's woes. PENNY WALKER: We are not all the same. We can overcome the problem if we get a chance to come together. MICHELLE WHITE: Rather than come together, Mr Sweetman claims white families are being driven out of town and those that remain are fed up. KERRY THOR: With Rod Sweetman's petition - as far as I'm concerned, it needs to be statewide, not just for Carnarvon - statewide. MICHELLE WHITE: Kerry and Ivan Thor have had their shop and home broken into more than 10 times in recent months. IVAN THOR: I've been in Carnarvon for 30 years. Yes, I've had enough. MICHELLE WHITE: Local amusement parlour owner John Troy agrees. JOHN TROY: $201 worth of glass - I've been more or less told you have to sing for your money. MICHELLE WHITE: Does it make it hard to run a business in town when you have these sorts of things happening? JOHN TROY: I think so, overall, yeah, yeah. You know, it's just - it just makes life difficult for you. MICHELLE WHITE: While many businesses have embraced the petition, local police are a bit more wary. SENIOR SERGEANT JOHN YOUNG: I can only comment on one section of that petition and that is that the police would not like to see the Inebriates Act re-enacted. We're adequately dealing with drunks at the moment in town and I believe it is the correct way to go and that is that we take them home. DENNIS EGGINGTON: I don't know whether Mr Sweetman is having trouble regaining his position there and he needs to come out strong and show people that he's worthy of being a leader in that community. Unfortunately, he has taken the option that a lot of people do which is to bash blacks. ROD SWEETHAM: If I was just out there 'black-bashing', as he referred to it, which I find quite offensive, you know, we would not be advocating solutions to the problem as well. Because if we were of that mind, then why do we need to give a damn? MICHELLE WHITE: Mr Sweetman has already had success with one of his proposals. The MP was behind a push for a separate school for a group of Aboriginal students. So again, you're talking about segregation? ROD SWEETHAM: Yes, because they've shown that they can't go - that they just don't mix, that they are not suited to the institutional environment of a school. JOHN GARNAUT: It is not a race issue. Any educational program that we set up off-site will be for any student in the school who misbehaves. MICHELLE WHITE: While Mr Sweetman's petition has whipped up a race debate in the north-west, Premier Richard Court has come out and thrown his full support behind the Liberal Member for Ningaloo. RICHARD COURT: So before people become armchair critics, I suggest, get up to Carnarvon, spend some time with Rod, with the Aboriginal communities and then come up with your positive suggestions as to how you believe the problem should be addressed. SANDY DAVIES: Well, I find that fairly hypocritical from the Premier when you consider the high moral ground that he took when the Federal elections were on in terms of One Nation and One Nation policies. MICHELLE WHITE: In the meantime, Mr Sweetman is still collecting signatures and his controversial petition will be tabled in Parliament after Easter. ROD SWEETHAM: My argument is that you don't start to fight the fire, you know, when it's finally got into the roof. You know, if you see it burning in a wastepaper basket, go and put it out. Now, I think that's what we're trying to do. Before the house is totally enveloped in flames, let's try and hose it down while we can still salvage something. Premier backs Carnarvon MP Tuesday 6 April, 1999 (8:00am WST) Western Australian Premier Richard Court has given his full support to a Carnarvon MP who is proposing segregation and boot camps to cope with crime. The Member for Ningaloo, Rod Sweetman, has issued a petition to residents in Carnarvon, in Western Australia's north west, proposing boot camps for repeat offenders and segregated housing for people deemed not fit to live in town. The Aboriginal Legal Service says Mr Sweetman's ideas are a watered-down form of apartheid. Mr Court has told the ABC's 7:30 Report that people should not be armchair critics of the proposals. He says people should go and see Carnarvon for themselves and come up with their own suggestions on how the problems in the town should be addressed. A full transcript of the 7:30 Report story can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s21105.htm. ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." 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