Unraveling The Ideologies Of Neoliberalism And Racism In The Northern Territory Emergency Response

In 2006,sexual abuse of children in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities was brought into national attention.Responding to this,the Northern Territory Government set up an Inquiry Board to make an investigation into the accusation of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.The Inquiry Board's report,Little children are sacred confirmed that Aboriginal child abuse was a severe and common problem in Northern Territory and linked it with other social problems in Aboriginal communities including alcohol abuse,pornography,gambling,poverty,housing shortage,unemployment and the like.To solve the many social problems,Howard government introduced a highly controversial policy-the Northern Territory Emergency Response.Although scholars have already studied the NTER from many different perspectives,so far there is no research focusing on the ideologies behind it.To make up for this research gap,this dissertation employs the method of discourse analysis to explore ideologies.Firstly this dissertation identifies two strands of ideologies:neoliberalism and racism.There are three neoliberal assumptions:primacy of market principle,conception of responsible citizenship and legitimacy of state intervention in individual life.And there are three racist assumptions:problematization of Aboriginal people,communities and culture,agenda of mainstreaming Aboriginal affairs and colonial form of paternalism.All these assumptions work together to blame Aboriginal individuals,communities and culture for the many social problems and to obscure the responsibility on the part of the government.And they have reinforcing assumptions concerning the appropriate role of government:neoliberalism makes state intervention in personal life legitimate while racism further justifies authoritative and discriminatory form of governance.Secondly,this dissertation points out that neoliberalism and racism are illegitimate in dealing with Aboriginal affairs for the following reasons:the Australian state has played an important role in creating social problems in Aboriginal communities by past colonial practices and by systematic policy failure;Aboriginal cultural deficiency is only a myth and actually Aboriginal culture can be part of the solutions;the agenda of mainstreaming Aboriginal affairs completely ignores the agency and will of Aboriginal people.Thirdly,by historically contextualizing the two ideologies,this dissertation explains how they can get the upper hand in Howard government's political discourses.Neoliberalism became the guideline for Australian economy in the 1980s and it was expanded into the social area by Howard's Liberal Party.Racism has a much longer history in Australian Aboriginal affairs which can be traced back to the beginning of Australian colonies.Therefore the prevalence of neoliberalism and racism is not unexpected.