With the Howard and Rudd governments' Northern Territory Intervention rapidly devolving into a punitive and racist quagmire, it is more than interesting to note that the giant supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths have enthusiastically entered into the ration book system which so bedevils and taints the recent practice of indigenous income management.
Calling a spade a spade, one would have to point out to these supermarket chains that they are knowingly colluding in institutional racism.
Extracts from 14 February 2008 Senate Hansard at page 76 (the bolding is my own). Senator Siewert:
Is the government aware that income quarantining in
the Northern Territory is viewed by the community as
going back to ration days and is causing huge hardships
in the NT?.......................quarantined money is being
given to people in the form of gift cards, that aged pensioners
—including a lady who has worked for 48
years, has been retired for 10 years and has raised 10
kids—are being subjected to quarantining and that parents
are unable to send food money to children who are
away attending college? How does the government see
ration cards as a new beginning? Isn't the Northern
Territory intervention an example of an old approach
which is clearly failing? Will the government commit
to immediate review of the NT intervention?...........
People are being provided with a ration card. By the
way, this is a copy of the card people are given by
Coles. This is how big it is—it is small. It says 'Coles gift
card'. What an insult to the Aboriginal people of
the Northern Territory. Mothers at the meeting yesterday
were outlining the extreme shame that they feel
when they are standing in a queue at Coles or Woolies
—they are the two main places you can get a card
for. They are standing there with no cash in their hands
and they are told that they have to take some of the
things back because they cannot buy them on the card.
They are standing there with people who have cash,
and they do not. They described the deep shame they
feel. It takes them back to the ration days, when they
can remember that their parents, in some cases, were
given rations in old sugar bags. That is how these people
in the Northern Territory feel. It is outrageous."
On 12 February 2008 thousands of people marched in Canberra against this legislation. Me, I'm going to make sure I spend a lot less at any supermarket chain which takes ration cards for goods and, if the Rudd Government doesn't get it's finger out and roll back this racist legislation then it won't be seeing my support at the ballot box.
