Here's another recent story of a small, remote aboriginal community (this time in WA) suffering from the types of problems we are seeing in a fairly wide range of Australian towns:
Late last week, representatives from Halls Creek District High School held a meeting with parents, community members and service providers to brainstorm strategies to address youth offending.
The meeting was called after ongoing break-ins, car thefts and rock attacks that some fear could drive much-needed teachers away from the town.
Teachers are working to turn around chronically low school attendance rates.
The secondary attendance rate at Halls Creek District High School fell from 38 per cent in 2021 to 26 per cent last year, compared to 80 per cent across Western Australia's public schools.
Youth crime rates remain persistently high, and homes occupied by government workers have been a regular target.
The earlier article it links to notes this:
At what point these children will return home is unclear. Many stay out until dawn and don’t attend school the next day.
Some will replace a good night’s sleep with a nocturnal concoction of adrenaline-spiking car thefts, break-ins, police chases and rock attacks.
Their relentless offending puts them on a path to the sort of intergenerational poverty that is rife in Halls Creek, a town where most of the 1,500 people who live there are Indigenous.
They face a world marred by high rates of domestic violence and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
As adults, many will struggle to read and write and hold down a job at a time when employment is so readily available that seasonal workers from Pacific countries are filling hospitality positions.
Now, of course the articles talk about all the usual stuff (drug and alcohol problems, generational disadvantage, inadequate housing, etc etc), and yeah, it's not as if those aren't real factors.
But I keep thinking: to get things started in terms of improving living conditions, isn't it a fundamental thing that you have to respect private property rights, and personal safety? It makes particular sense to respect the private property and physical safety of the people who are re-locate to your area to try to help you.
And while we can have sympathy for property crime if its genuinely needed to survive (after all, modern Australia was originally built on the back of street thieves sent out on boats) - stoning a teacher's, or doctor's, or trademen's car or residence has nothing at all to do with survival. It has everything to do with a problematic view of the world that is not going to help anyone - and it's at least close to be able to be called a "cultural problem."
I know that Right wingers have argued for years that the way forward in terms of aboriginal housing is to move into private ownership, and do away with housing provided by the local community on a kind of rental basis. I doubt that is a necessary or useful step when its locations in which the remoteness means there is no real "market" with substantial values, and people with inadequate income from government with which to pay off the longest mortgages.
And there must be systems of communal ownership around the world that do work adequately.
But you have to start with the right attitude towards respecting property rights, whether it be private or communal. If you can't start there, pouring more money into the town is only going to be wasted money.
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But I keep thinking: to get things started in terms of improving living conditions, isn't it a fundamental thing that you have to respect private property rights, and personal safety? It makes particular sense to respect the private property and physical safety of the people who are re-locate to your area to try to help you.
People will respect property rights when they have property rights. When people experience a cost to owning property it fundamentally changes their attitude to their property. Neither of those two factors are in play here.
They should be paying a nominal cost to own a home, land and goods. However my understanding is that the goal of remote communities is to preserve the traditional lifestyle. That is a complete failure. I acknowledge the near impossibility of changing that situation.
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