The coalition has reacted strongly to suggestions its intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities was racist, and says it won't support any moves to wind back the quarantining of welfare payments.
A review into the intervention, launched last year by the previous Howard government, has recommended compulsory income management be stopped except in cases where it needed to be imposed as part of child protection measures.
The Racial Discrimination Act should also be reinstated, the review states.
But opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott says if Labor follows the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board's recommendations it would "fatally undermine the intervention".
"The review board wants quarantine reformed because it thinks it's a 'collective imposition based on race'," Mr Abbott said in a statement.
"Wrong. It was based on the circumstances of remote NT townships."
Those circumstances could be expected in any welfare-dependent settlements "regardless of the culture or ethnicity of their inhabitants".
If the government wanted to stop indigenous people feeling "singled out" it should extend welfare quarantine arrangements "to all welfare dependent families".
The review, headed by West Australian Peter Yu, said income management should only apply to families whose children did not attend school or have been reported to child protection authorities.
Mr Abbott said that was "not workable" and would have the practical effect of ending quarantining.
"The Rudd government cannot accept this recommendation without fatally undermining the intervention," he said.
"The Rudd government does not have bipartisan support for ending the current system."
But the Australian Greens say Labor has to act immediately to end "the racist policies of the Howard government".
The review board had highlighted the excesses of income quarantining "and the way this racist intervention was imposed on NT communities", Senator Rachel Siewert said.
"Today the Greens are calling on the federal government to act immediately on its own review report to amend that (emergency response) legislation, to immediately get rid of the exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act, to end compulsory income quarantining and to start addressing the rights of Aboriginal people," she told reporters.
"It is time we actually did focus on finally ending the disadvantage Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory face and stop blaming them and start addressing their needs."
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the government would consider the report but remains committed to the intervention.
