On Wednesday March 3, 150 people packed a community hall in Tennant Creek for a protest meeting against the imposition of a nuclear waste dump on the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust, 100 kilometres north of the town.
On January 31, residents at Ilpeye Ilpeye town camp in Alice Springs became the only Aboriginal land owners in Australia’s history to hand their land back to the Federal Government.
According to Minister Jenny Macklin, the new Intervention legislation would restore the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA), fulfilling a key Labor’s election promise. It’s a lie.
The attack on Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) that has gone along with the NT Intervention has cost thousands of Aboriginal jobs. People still on CDEP—some working up to 40 hours a week—are now mostly being paid only their Centrelink entitlements, but 50 per cent of this is quarantined on a “BasicsCard’’.
After four years of struggle, the federal government has finally secured 40-year leases over the Aboriginal town camps in Alice Springs, represented by the Tangentyere Council.
The continued suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) has acted as a lightning rod to the growing level of criticism against the Northern Territory Intervention. This clear symbol of the discriminatory nature of the Intervention has forced the Rudd government to implement a timetable for the reintroduction of the RDA.
Rudd Labor’s approach to Indigenous Affairs follows that of Hawke and Keating, argues Jean Parker
Conservative Indigenous leader Noel Pearson uses his new essay Radical Hope to argue for a neo-liberal agenda in Aboriginal education, argues Shannon Price
A “protest house” built at the walk-off camp established by the Alyawarr people, is set to be opened on February 14. It will coincide with national demonstrations against the NT Intervention.
The federal government’s “Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory” monitoring report, released quietly in October, provides damning evidence of the failure of the NT Intervention.
Breaking clear promises, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has introduced legislation that will continue to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) until December 31, 2010.
The suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA), stands as a blatant testament to the racism of the NT Intervention.
A national speaking tour has generated growing public and union support for the Ampilatwatja community walk-off, an ongoing protest camp against the NT Intervention involving hundreds of Aboriginal people.
Opponents of the NT Intervention have long maintained that its initial, stated aim—to protect Aboriginal children from sexual abuse—was an emotive smokescreen.
Review: The Politics of Suffering
By Peter Sutton, Melbourne University Press, $34.95
The bashing murder on July 25 of young Aboriginal man, Kwementyaye Ryder, by a group of five white men highlights the violent extremes of racism festering in Alice Springs.
Conservative Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson has used recent school attendance figures to trumpet the success of the punitive Family Responsibilities Commission (FRC).
In July Aboriginal elders from the Ampilatwatja community began a walk-off protest against the Intervention. Solidarity spoke to Richard Downs, one of the protest leaders.
Instability and opportunism have dominated the last few months in NT politics, with a merry-go-round of Ministers causing headache for Chief Minister Paul Henderson.
The Stop the Intervention Collective in Sydney organised a strong lobby of the national ALP conference on Thursday July 30. About 150 people turned out to the lunchtime rally.
The cracks in the NT Intervention project can be clearly seen in the pages of the Intervention’s urger—The Australian newspaper. The Weekend Australian August 15-16 devoted seven pages to exposing the plight of desperately poor Aboriginal people still waiting for a single house after two years under the Intervention.
The Australian hopes that by loudly condemning the bureaucratic failures of the Intervention, they can inject some credibility back into the project.
But they and Minister Jenny Macklin are on the back foot.
Firstly there is the mounting pressure on Aboriginal politicians and leaders from their constituents whose lives are wrecked by Intervention policies.
NT Aboriginal leader, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, used his speech at Arnhem Land’s Garma Festival to break from his previous support for the Intervention. A new regional council also declared its opposition to the Intervention.
Secondly, anti-Intervention campaigners have managed to turn Macklin’s threatened takeover of the Alice Springs town camps into a nightmare for the federal government.
Pro-Intervention forces splinter
On August 4 NT Indigenous Affairs Minister Alison Anderson brought the NT government to the brink of collapse. It was completely opportunistic, but Anderson, an ardent Intervention supporter and advocate of the neoliberal fantasy of Aboriginal home-ownership, was pushed to resign by the dramatic exposure that the $680 million Strategic Indigenous Housing Program (SIHIP) had not built even one house in two years.
Under SIHIP, funding is denied for any but the 20 government-nominated “viable” Aboriginal communities in remote Australia. Even then housing is only promised to communities which sign 40-80 year leases. It is straight out blackmail.
But, Tennant Creek residents discovered, signing a lease does not mean houses. The community has now been told that the most they will get is refurbishment of some existing houses.
The Australian is calling for new crack teams of bureaucrats from Canberra to “crash through” the red tape of the NT government. But the real solution is to immediately pay locally controlled organisations to build the kind of housing the communities need.
On the opening day of the ALP National Conference on July 30, the anti-Intervention campaign published a statement in The Australian opposing the takeover of the Alice Springs town camps and defending the Tangentyere Council.
The campaign raised $10,000 to publish the statement which was supported by a range of prominent individuals including Pat Dodson and Ian Thorpe, and organisations such as ANTaR, Unions SA and the CFMEU.
The statement coincided with a strident lobby held outside the ALP conference organised by the Stop the Intervention Collective.
The previous day, Macklin had tried to regain some initiative for the Intervention by (erroneously) claiming that Tangentyere Council had signed a 40-year lease. Rather than a media coup, however, her announcement led to an avalanche of media reports condemning the takeover as an act of government blackmail.
In another blow to Macklin, 13 town camp residents have gained a temporary Federal Court injunction to halt the takeover. The final court hearing, on August 28, may find that Macklin has not consulted adequately and must give residents another 60-days notice before takeover. This would be another blow to the credibility of the Intervention, but it will not be a knock out punch. Macklin could still try to gain control of the camps before her planned reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act.
However, the lies, the discrimination and racism at the heart of the Intervention are becoming more obvious.
Macklin may re-instate the Racial Discrimination Act, but the reality of the Intervention has already been exposed. And more legal wrangles will give the government more headaches.
Meanwhile the walk-off protest at Ampilatwatja (see box) has given a new focus for opposition to the Intervention.
By Jean Parker
The month old protest camp at Ampilatwatja is still going strong.
On June 20, coinciding with national mobilisations against the NT Intervention, more than 1000 people marched in Perth demanding justice for Mr Ward, an Aboriginal leader from the remote community of Warburton in WA.
A Productivity Commission report into Indigenous disadvantage was released in July. Examining the period 2000 – 2008, it demonstrates the horrific human toll of Howard’s assault on Aboriginal self-determination. Across 80 per cent of 50 surveyed indicators, “the gap” has stayed the same or become wider.
Review: Possession
By Bain Atwood, Melbourne University Press, $54.99
Echoing the dramatic land rights struggle of the 1960s and 70s, elders at the Ampilatwatja community, 300 kms north-east of Alice Springs, have walked off their community demanding an end to the Intervention and immediate action to address shocking housing conditions.
On Thursday May 21 Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin announced her intention to use Intervention powers to permanently acquire the Alice Springs town camps. Her move unleashed an avalanche of racism against Tangentyre Council and the residents of the camps.
Review: Samson and Delilah, Directed by Warwick Thornton
In selected cinemas now
On Sunday May 24 Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs put a gun to the head of the Tangentyere council, which represents town camp residents in Alice Springs. The Rudd government is currently denying funding for badly needed housing in Aboriginal communities across Australia, until control of the land and housing is signed over to the government.
ON APRIL 3 the Rudd government endorsed the United Nations (UN) declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, claims that it is a major step towards “closing the gap”. In reality the declaration serves as a façade behind which the government can continue to abuse the human rights abuses of Indigenous Australians.
Noel Pearson has resigned as Director of the Cape York Institute (CYI), with much fanfare from his legion of supporters at The Australian.
The campaign against the Northern Territory Intervention is taking significant steps forward following a recent east-coast speaking tour by women from “prescribed” communities in the NT.
Following his apology to the Stolen Generation, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised to deliver an annual “report card” on the government’s progress in addressing Indigenous disadvantage. This report card was to be delivered on the opening day of Parliament each year, to mark the 2008 apology.
Irene Fisher is a Jawoyn woman, whose people live mainly around Katherine in the “top end” of the Northern Territory. She works as chief executive of Sunrise Health, a network of 10 health centres servicing Aboriginal communities east of Katherine. Below is the text of a speech given to a forum during the Canberra convergence against the NT intervention in early February.
Under the cover of the NT intervention, governments are once again trying to force Aboriginal people off their land. If history is a guide, they are in for a hard fight. Aboriginal people have always fought doggedly to live on and control their land. One such struggle was at Nookanbah in Western Australia in 1980.
In early October, the Federal Labor Government announced major changes to the CDEP (Community Development Employment Programs). The changes have been met with outrage from affected Aboriginal communities.
Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced her government will ignore two key recommendations of the review commissioned into the Northern Territory intervention.
THE RECENT anti-intervention convergence on Alice Springs has galvanised the commitment of activists to step up the fight against the NT intervention. The Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS) has called for a rally on December 13 to coincide with international human rights day, and will be seeking endorsements from unions, human rights organisations, community organisations and the local Indigenous community.
After a trial lasting almost three weeks, and two days of deliberation, an all-white jury found Lex Wotton, an Aboriginal plumber from Palm Island, guilty of rioting with destruction. As a result, Chris Hurley, the police officer responsible for the death of an Aboriginal man is free, while someone who protested at this injustice sits behind bars.
THE REVIEW into the intervention in the Northern Territory, released in mid-October, has called for an end to blanket welfare quarantining and suggested the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).
WHILE THE restoration of the RDA would force some changes to the Northern Territory welfare quarantine legislation, it is likely that these would be modelled on the Queensland intervention legislation.
OVER 200 people from around Australia travelled to join hundreds more from the NT in a protest convergence against the NT intervention in Mparntwe-Alice Springs from September 29 to October 3. Activists camped at the “prescribed area” Mt Nancy town camp, in solidarity with all targeted Aboriginal communities.
A planned protest convergence against the NT intervention, set to begin in Mparntwe-Alice Springs in late September, is gathering widespread support.
One year, 810 federal public servants, $900 million on—Jean Parker’s intervention report-card
With the government threatening to close so-called “unviable communities” as part of the intervention in the NT, Mark Gillespie looks at the shameful history of Mapoon—an Aboriginal community declared unviable and burned to the ground forty-five years ago
Review: On Rage
By Germaine Greer, Melbourne University Press, $19.95
ANTI-INTERVENTION campaigners Barbara Shaw, Paddy Gibson and Nat Wasley recently traveled to Tennant Creek to find out about how the intervention is affecting people’s lives. They spoke to Margaret Anderson, who is living under the harsh income management regime in Tennant Creek.
By Chloe Hooper, Hamish Hamilton, $32.95
CHLOE HOOPER, a novelist whose first book won international praise, recently released The Tall Man, a book on the Palm Island inquest into the death in police custody of Cameron Doomadgee.
THE RUDD government is set to hand down its “review” of the Northern Territory intervention at the end of September. All signs point to Rudd retaining the racist policies aimed at dispossession. Paddy Gibson spoke to Walter Shaw, an Aboriginal leader from the Mount Nancy town camp in the NT. Shaw is speaking around the country alongside screenings of the new documentary This is Our Country Too. The tour is designed to build the campaign against the intervention.
The new government’s review of the Northern Territory intervention is stacked with supporters of the policy, and looks set to whitewash the disastrous impact on Aboriginal people in the NT
THE WIDESPREAD acclaim for The Australian journalist Paul Toohey’s Last Drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention (Quarterly Essay 30, June 2008), demonstrates just how deeply racist attitudes to Aboriginal people are embedded in Australian politics and culture.
Veteran journalist Jeff Waters has authored a new book investigating events surrounding the death in custody of Aboriginal man Mulrunji on Palm Island in late 2004, and the subsequent trial of Sergeant Chris Hurley for his manslaughter. He spoke to Lauren Mellor about the case and about the continuing struggle of Aboriginal people for justice.
Come along to the Aboriginal Rights Coalition and help build the campaign against the Northern Territory and Queensland interventions, and stand up for Aboriginal rights.
Meetings are weekly on Wednedays at 6:30 pm on Level 2 of the Trades and Labour Council Building, 16 Peel St, South Brisbane. Contact Rob on 0424 265 730 for more information.
On June 21, people from ten cities around Australia took to the streets to protest the ongoing NT Intervention. One year since John Howard and Mal Brough announced the Intervention in the NT the vast majority of it continues to be rolled out, full steam ahead, by Kevin Rudd.
More than 100 people came from all corners of the country to Redfern, Sydney for the Aboriginal Rights Coalition “Black and White, Unite and Fight” conference on 23, 24, 25 May. The conference has put the campaign on stronger footing to build opposition to the intervention. A public meeting on the Friday night attracted over 160 people.
On March 13, Protests against the NT intervention targeted Centrelink offices in 8 cities and towns around Australia, to draw attention to the racist policy of welfare quarantines for all people in “prescribed communities”.
History’s Children: History wars in the classroom
On March 25, Vince Forrester addressed the Darlington branch of the ALP which passed the following motion:
LABOR’S Aboriginal Affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, consistently presents the Northern Territory intervention as a humanitarian effort aimed at supporting remote Aboriginal communities and stamping out child abuse.
There is growing criticism of the welfare quarantining measures within the “intervention” into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. But the federal government has signalled its intention to expand the scheme into selected communities in WA, Queensland and NSW.
Kevin Rudd tells us that he is pulling together the “best and brightest” 1000 Australians for his 2020 summit in Canberra in April. Rudd has already been hammered for selecting only one woman, Cate Blanchett, among the 11 prominent Australians who will help select the participants. But it is not just Rudd’s gender blindness that is a problem.
CURRENTLY THOUSANDS of Aboriginal people from outstations and remote communities in the Northern Territory are living in unstable conditions in the major urban centres of Alice Springs, Darwin, Katherine and Mt Isa.
ONE HUNDRED and twenty people packed a meeting of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in Redfern in April to hear first-hand the impact of the intervention on remote communities in the NT.
WITH THE ALP’s promised review into the first year of the NT intervention due to begin in July, there are new crises cracking the facade of the policies. The roll out now affects about 7700 Centrelink recipients in 29 Territory communities. Three groups of town camps are also subject to the restrictions.
Kevin Rudd talked about “opening a window on our democracy to let some fresh air in.” But how fresh was the 2020 summit?
