Australian PM backs Aborigine help plan

John Howard

CANBERRA - Australia's Aboriginal communities might lose some basic rights under a tough new approach to help lift their living standards.

Prime Minister John Howard said the Government needed to support solutions put forward by local communities such as curfews and alcohol bans even if they infringed universal civil rights.

He said staying alive was more important for Aborigines than any 1970s view of civil liberties.

The Prime Minister has won support from two of Australia's most respected Aboriginal leaders, Pat Dodson and Noel Pearson, for his approach, which will end passive welfare payments and which will, the Government says, build self-respect within indigenous communities.

"The answer lies in finding solutions at a local level that keep families together, re-assert the authority of parents, [and] instil a greater sense of responsibility in parents and Aboriginal leaders," Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Prime Minister has had a strained relationship with Aboriginal leaders over his refusal to apologise for past injustices and for his approach to indigenous affairs over more spiritual issues such as traditional land rights.

Tensions between black and white Australians have been at flashpoint in the past week after rioters burned down a police station and courthouse at the Palm Island Aboriginal community off north Queensland, following the death of a local man in police custody.

But a meeting on Friday between Howard, Dodson and Aboriginal football star Michael Long signalled a reconciliation between the Government and indigenous leaders over the future of Aboriginal policy.

"Where they want to impose the disciplines of things like alcohol bans and limitations, they should be fully supported by governments and they shouldn't get tangled up with people running around and saying this is some kind of restriction on civil liberties," Howard said.

"The most important civil liberty is to stay alive and unless people are given the opportunity to do so then you can't really start even talking about civil liberties."

He said Australia should not be hung up on a "1970s and 1980s notion of perfect rights and liberties".

Dodson, a past critic of Howard's practical approach to indigenous affairs, yesterday backed the Prime Minister's plans for a mutual obligation policy on welfare, where benefits are paid in return for some kind of community work.

"I have a clear understanding of reciprocity that applies in Aboriginal societies as a basis of our social and cultural operation."

- REUTERS