NT intervention making life worse

Spokesperson for the Intervention Rollback Action Group in Alice Springs and resident of Mt Nancy Town camp, Barbara Shaw, has disputed claims by Bess Price on ABC Television's Q&A on April 10 about the “success” of the federal governments’ Northern Territory intervention.

"It is outrageous that Bess Price can continue to go on national media and spread false information on the intervention while life in our town camps and communities gets harder and harder,” Shaw said on April 15.

“We now have a massive crisis in Alice Springs as people come in from the bush because of the failure of the intervention. On Monday night, while Bess was on Q&A talking about our kids being safer, I was dealing with multiple situations of children needing emergency care.

"Bess says education is the key to improving lives. But she didn't say that Yuendumu school attendance rates have halved and are now down to only 30% since the intervention came in and bilingual education was banned by the NT government."

Shaw said she is concerned that Price is “misinforming the wider community about the feelings and views of NT Aboriginal people about the Intervention”.