After Rudd's "apology" to indigenous people Australian government extends welfare "quarantining" and land

On February 27, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin delivered a speech to the National Press Club that confirmed the necessity for that warning. Macklin announced that the two central thrusts of the former Howard government’s police-military intervention against Northern Territory (NT) indigenous townships and camps will be expanded, with slight variations. She outlined plans to extend the “quarantining”, or partial seizure, of welfare payments from the NT to Western Australia, and introduce new means for overturning communal land title to make way for private ownership.

Macklin said the welfare measures will give a government agency, Centrelink, the power to impose “income management to combat poor parenting and community behaviours”. Officials will be able to freeze all or part of a person’s unemployment, sole parent, disabled or retirement benefit, for alleged neglect of children or breach of “social norms”. As in the NT, those affected will receive vouchers for food and other designated items, to be spent at government-approved shops.