The Northern Territory National Emergency Response, also known as "The Intervention" or the Northern Territory Intervention, and sometimes the abbreviation "NTER" (for Northern Territory Emergency Response) was a package of measures enforced by legislation affecting Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia, which lasted from 2007 until 2012. The measures included restrictions on the consumption of alcohol and pornography (including complete bans on both at some communities), changes to welfare payments, and changes to the delivery and management of education, employment and health services in the Territory.
The Intervention was brought about by the enactment of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 and several associated new Acts of Parliament, along with a raft of changes to existing laws, by the federal government of Australia. The legislation was introduced and passed by the Howard government in August 2007. The justification given for introducing the measures was the Little Children are Sacred report published in June 2007, being the findings of an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the NT commissioned by the Northern Territory Government.
The measures proved controversial, being criticised by the Northern Territory Labor government, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and several Aboriginal leaders. A report by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2008 said that statistics for confirmed child abuse did not appear to support the "allegations of endemic child abuse in NT remote communities that was the rationale for the NTER".
The Act was amended four times by the successive Rudd and Gillard governments, and finally repealed in July 2012 by the Gillard government, which later replaced it with the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012, which retains many of the measures.