Australia’s left-wing Labor government has announced it will build new boarding schools for Aboriginal children in the centre of the country as crime and social dysfunction spiral out of control.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney announced in Alice Springs on Monday a pledge of $18 million to build new boarding schools and extend existing facilities for Aboriginal students in Central Australia.
“This investment is about improving education outcomes in Central Australia and giving students from remote communities the best chance of reaching their full potential,” she said.
Assistant Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said: “For many First Nations students from remote communities boarding away from home is the only option, so it’s important facilities are improved to give students the best chance of success.”
The move comes decades after the end of the so-called stolen generations policies where Aboriginal children were removed from their families by the government, often ending up in church-run missions. From the 1930s to the early 80s an estimated 250,000 White Australian children were also removed from unmarried mothers or “unfit” parents and forcibly adopted.
A 45-year-old man has been charged after he allegedly restrained three children with cable ties in WA’s north-west. The town of Broome is on edge, with police and politicians now calling for calm. https://t.co/Z5HQJD4ndN #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/KHmaEg67fK
— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) March 6, 2024
Ms Burney was forced to address rampant Indigenous crime in the town during the boarding school announcement, describing the issues of crime and “intergenerational disadvantage” as “complex” and requiring long time frames to solve.
Days before her visit an 18-year-old was killed in a stolen car in the Alice Springs CBD, and an elderly couple were robbed at knifepoint in a violent home invasion.
Youth crime rates in the Northern Territory are up 50% since 2020.
In Western Australia last week a tradesman was charged with three counts of aggravated assault after allegedly using cable ties to restrain three Indigenous children he found trespassing on the property he was working on and swimming in the pool.
But he said his actions were not racially motivated, and that he has lost thousands of dollars as a result of youth crime.
And another local in the crime-ravaged town of Broome told the Daily Mail he had sympathy for the man, saying after he reported a similar incident to police a group of Aboriginal kids poured white paint in his pool and smashed up his yard.
