Of Course It Wouldn't be Done in Dickson! Why Howard's Battlers Disengaged from the Northern Territory Emergency Response (Australian Prime Minister John Howard's Land Policy and Apartheids on Aboriginal Lands) (Report‪)‬

Mr Brough's put it to me this way; that if this set of circumstances had been disclosed as taking place in the suburb of Dickson, can you imagine what the local response from police, from medical authorities and from the state government would have been? It would have been horror and immediate action and a demand by the community that something be done (John Howard, 21 June 2007). Almost two months after the former Prime Minister's now historic announcement on 21 June 2007, the Commonwealth Parliament passed legislation collectively known as the Northern Territory Emergency Response ('NTER'). This legislation would create a form of apartheid, intruding upon the daily lives of almost seventy percent of the Northern Territory's Aboriginal population. The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cwlth) provided for compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal lands, prohibited alcohol in prescribed areas, and gave the Minister considerable power to intervene in the affairs of community organisations.