Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia

In the shadow of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted and endorsed by 143 nations on 17th September 2007, the then Howard Government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act in Australia to implement the Northern Territory Emergency Response Bill, commonly referred to as the Northern Territory intervention. This legislation included the compulsory acquisition of townships; the suspension of the permit system to access Aboriginal communities; the removal of customary law or cultural practices in any legal considerations in sentencing; the abolition of the Community Development Employment Projects; and the quarantining of a proportion of welfare benefits for all recipients in designated communities. While Australia was one of only four nations who did not endorse the Declaration in 2007, the UN Declaration was subsequently adopted and endorsed in April 2009 by the then Rudd Labor Government. The ratification of the UN Declaration may appear to reflect a change of policy, yet amidst significant Indigenous opposition and criticism of the United Nations, the Gillard Labor Government continued the central tenants of the NT Intervention for a further ten years in the form of the Stronger Futures legislation in 2012. This essay explores some of the tensions and contradictions inherent within legal and political discourse in the recognition of rights between the rights of the child on the one hand, and Indigenous rights and citizenship rights within the Northern Territory Intervention legislation and policy of Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory.