KEY POINTS:
ADELAIDE - South Australian Premier Mike Rann was called racist and "the Robert Mugabe of Aboriginal lands" when he intervened in his state's indigenous communities.
Rann says he was condemned nationally for taking a political big stick to the troubled Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the state's far north.
The APY Lands, Australia's oldest self-governing tribal lands, were returned to a form of white governance when Rann's government intervened in May 2004 in a radical bid to stop alarmingly high rates of petrol sniffing.
The intervention included a controversial "no school, no pool" policy - banning children from going to public pools if they did not attend school.
"There had been a whole series of youth suicides, petrol sniffing was out of control, so we made a decision that we were going to intervene," Rann told AAP this week.
"And I was condemned nationally.
"No school, no pool was described as Mike Rann's sheep dip policy by one Aboriginal leader.
"I was described as being a racist, which I am not.
"I was accused of being the Robert Mugabe of the Aboriginal land.
"My response was: kids are dying, ultimately it comes down to what we can do to give these kids a future."
Rann can relate to the reaction to Prime Minister John Howard's plan of commonwealth intervention in Northern Territory indigenous communities, which includes a six-month alcohol ban.
But the SA premier reckons Howard has got it wrong.
"The easiest thing to do is have a show of force - a shock and awe invasion - and then declare mission accomplished," Rann said.
"It's much harder, but more useful, to do the hard yards, reform governance arrangements and get steady, incremental improvements.
"All this takes more than six months.
"The key difference to what we have been doing, and what the prime minister is suggesting, is that it's all very well sending in the troops, it is what comes after.
"What happens after six months? This is a press release which sounds good but it's more important to do good than sound good."
Rann described the six-month ban on alcohol as "hocus pocus".
"There has been a 30-year ban on alcohol (in APY Lands), a permanent ban on alcohol, and there are still problems with grog-running," he said.
The Rann government intervened after APY leaders refused to have an election as required under laws which established land rights.
"There was a huge furore about that in terms of our intervention," Rann said.
"We had to pass legislation to insist on elections supervised by the Australian Electoral Commission, and as a result of that, we have seen change.
"We have got to get governance right at the local community level and that is what we did, and the only reason that we are making progress is because of the governance issue that we put in place and we then engaged the community."
After his government intervened, Rann "went up there and sat down in the dirt with some mums who told me that there were people from the communities itself, senior people, who were selling drugs and petrol to their kids".
"They said please bring the police onto the lands."
There are now eight police officers from four stations in the APY Lands.
The Rann government also appointed community constables, youth and social workers, psychiatrists, created a family centre, power stations, and other projects including a bush tucker program to boost health.
"In a sense we are a bit of a template because we intervened ... and were condemned by do-gooders, who do nothing, for doing so," Rann said.
"There are still problems - no one is suggesting the problems have been fixed, anyone who believes there can be an instant fix in Aboriginal affairs is a phoney.
"But because of doing the hard yards, because of action rather than talk ... we saw in the first year a 20 percent drop in petrol sniffing and now a 60 percent drop in petrol sniffing numbers.
"The key difference to what we are doing and what Howard is suggesting is that we intervened, we did the tough response and then we worked with the communities.
"If you don't work with the communities, nothing will be changed, the kids will not be served - it might serve six months of politics but it won't serve six years, 60 years of improvement."
The Rann government last week passed legislation widening an ongoing state inquiry into child sex abuse to include the APY Lands.
The premier conceded the inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Ted Mullighan, would be painful.
"There is no doubt that this process is going to cause considerable pain for some families, and for some families considerable shame," Rann said.
"But that is what we have to go through, the communities have to go through that in order to get justice and in order to start the healing process."
The premier also said opening up the Lands by erasing the permit system would create more problems.
"We are talking about an area that is as big as European nations," he said.
"What people who are opposing permits are saying is that we should basically have an open go, anyone can go in - yahoos driving through sacred ceremonies on buses, there would be people selling drugs, there would be paedophiles coming onto the Lands.
"The permit system is by no means perfect and I have been critical of some aspects of it. But at least people know who is on the land and where they are.
"Freehold title was given to Aboriginals in the 1970s and 1980s and they have a right to know who is on their properties.
"We are talking about some of the most vulnerable communities.
"Removing the permits would make it harder to police."
- AAP
