Anderson blames violence on welfare dependency

[Article written by Emma Murphy for Green Left Weekly]

The Northern Territory women’s policy minister, Alison Anderson, told a gathering at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne that “domestic violence has reached a crisis point”, the ABC reported on April 4.

It is unclear when Anderson thinks this crisis started. Certainly it is not new. The 2007 Little Children are Sacred report, which the then Coalition government used to justify the NT intervention, found “combined effects of poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment … poor education and housing, and a general loss of identity and control have contributed to violence and sexual abuse in many forms”.

Reports since the intervention have shown many social indicators — including family violence — are on the rise, as a result of the stress, confusion and disempowerment associated with the intervention.

Domestic violence is indeed a problem in Aboriginal communities — in fact there are unacceptably high levels of domestic violence across the whole Australian community. Tackling it will require policies that empower communities, and women in particular, and address the appalling social indicators we see in Aboriginal communities.

But according to the ABC, Anderson has a different analysis of the causes of violence. “Ms Anderson said the root of all evil in remote communities was welfare,” the article reported.

Anderson said that in communities near mines, nobody should be unemployed. “[Centrelink] should say to people in that area: OK, there's 2000 jobs there, nobody will be unemployed … You get out and get yourself a job, and earn yourself real money instead of being a burden on the taxpayer, just to wait for your $375 [welfare]."

Anderson is part of the Country Liberal Party government that came to power in August last year on the back of a strong bush vote. She is one of an impressive number of Aboriginal MLAs and ministers. This includes the Chief Minister, Adam Giles, who recently ousted Terry Mills to become the first Indigenous head of an Australian government.

But so far, there hasn’t been a lot for Aboriginal people to celebrate.

Anderson’s comments at the Wheeler Centre were in keeping with previous comments she has made, which must be like music to the ears of neo-conservatives around the country. She launched the Homelands Policy on February 25, which contained an unlikely combination of supporting her people’s connection to the land and demanding they open it up to private ownership.

She said: “Private ownership of housing is good because it encourages people to take out mortgages … Once you start to think about it, having a mortgage means you can build a better house for yourself and your children. It means you have to get up in the morning and have a shower and go to work to earn the money to pay the mortgage.”

As Jon Altman has written on news website Crikey, Indigenous people are overwhelmingly resistant to the idea of private home ownership.

Meanwhile, Anderson’s proposed solution to domestic violence — ending welfare in communities by forcing everyone to work in the mines — ignores the reality of Aboriginal employment trends. According to the 2006 Census, 176 Aboriginal people in the NT were employed in the mining industry, compared with more than 4000 in public administration and safety, and 2000 in health care and public assistance.

It is difficult to know whether the low numbers of Aboriginal workers in the mining industry reflect discrimination, Aboriginal people’s choices about work or the relatively limited employment opportunities created by mining. Certainly Anderson ignores the campaigns that Aboriginal communities have waged in resisting mining on their country.

Fifty years ago Yolngu people sent a bark petition to Canberra to protest Nabalco mining bauxite on their land. They lost the fight and the mine, now operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, is still at Nhulunbuy.

Today, the people of Maningrida are fighting against an oil exploration application over their country.

Is telling these strong fighters and custodians of country to get off welfare and into the mines really the best thing the CLP government has to offer?

In her Wheeler Centre address, Anderson also lamented the poor NAPLAN test results for Aboriginal primary school children in the Northern Territory.

She was clear about who was to blame for what others might describe as a systemic failing of Aboriginal people: “The younger generation are not forcing their children to go to school … They don't see the importance of a good education, they don't see that education is the key.”

However, the 2008 12-month review of the NT intervention found that parents and elders in communities were concerned that the next generation was not reaching national standards of English, and they were worried about “the impact this [had] on individual and community capacity”.

The report highlighted a sense that schools were not “important … for social and cultural development” because of “Aboriginal language and culture [not being] seriously incorporated into the formal school curriculum”.

To make schools more relevant, which would increase attendance and outcomes, the CLP government could re-introduce bilingual education. But that does not look likely any time soon.

On October 25, the ABC reported Anderson as saying she believed “Indigenous children should be taught in the same way as students in Sydney … ‘I am not suggesting we abandon our traditional culture or language but teaching them should not be done in schools, it should be done after school and on weekends, and during the holidays,’ she said.”

For Aboriginal Territorians dreaming of an English-only future of working in the mines and being tied to a mortgage, the CLP government might just have the answer.

But for those who value the linguistic and cultural diversity among the oldest continuing cultures on Earth, and for those Aboriginal people who believe they have the right to pursue different values and different ways of being — on their own country — it seems the struggle did not end with the arrival of black ministers in the NT parliament.

Soon I'll write a positive story...

But possibly never about what the CLP government, or for that matter the federal Labor government, is doing to Aboriginal people...

* * *

A recent Deloitte Access Economics report recommended state and territory governments focus on treatment and rehabilitation, rather than imprisonment, of Aboriginal people facing drug and alcohol-related charges. The report found governments would save up to $110,000 per year for every person kept out of prison.

These findings are not new, and in fact – cost considerations aside – there are significant social justice reasons to keep minor Aboriginal offenders out of prison, as outlined in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which reported in 1991.

In the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people face increasing imprisonment rates. Since the NT intervention (now called Stronger Futures) was introduced almost six years ago, alcohol-related police “incidents” have risen from 3239 incidents in 2007-’08 to 4870 in 2011(NTER Monitoring report January 31). At June 2011, the overall imprisonment rates of Aboriginal people in the NT had risen 40%.

The Northern Territory now jails Aboriginal adults and children at rates higher than anywhere else in Australia.

But the Deloitte report has been dismissed by NT attorney general John Elferink, who said on February 4 it wouldn’t influence the NT Country Liberal government’s policies. “ This Government is not going to make excuses for people who commit violent offences while they're drunk”, he said.http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/02/04/3682533.htm

Earlier this year, in response to Warren Mundine’s call for a national summit to address soaring imprisonment rates, Elferink had said: “"Well, no, it isn't the government's role to fix these problems, the role starts with the parents." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-11/elferink-on-mundine-indigenous-youth-summit-call/4461082/?site=indigenous

But a glance at changes the CLP has made, or promises to make, since coming to power in August, suggests that government policy can and will impact greatly on the number of Aboriginal people behind bars. And the government is heading in the wrong direction.

On February 6, during the annual Closing the Gap statement to parliament, Prime Minister Julia Gillard attacked the CLP for “retrograde steps” being taken by NT and QLD governments, which she said meant “rivers of grog” were once again wreaking havoc in Aboriginal communities. She said: “We're hearing worrying reports about the rise in admissions in the emergency department at Alice Springs Hospital due to alcohol-related accidents and abuse."

She attributed this to the CLP’s scrapping of the controversial Banned Drinkers’ Registry last year. The BDR, introduced by the previous Labor government, required photo ID to be displayed when purchasing alcohol, so banned “problem drinkers” could be refused service.

But Gillard didn’t acknowledge that alcohol-related police incidents, domestic violence rates, suicide attempts and aggravated assaults have steadily increased over the entire period of the intervention and Stronger Futures.

Nor did she criticize the CLP for scrapping other programs, run by Aboriginal organisations, which were known to be effective in supporting Aboriginal people and minimizing their contact with police.

Aboriginal organisation Larrakia Nation runs a widely respected Night Patrol program, which gives Aboriginal patrollers a central role in protecting their people from the harmful effects of drugs, alcohol, and violence – and dramatically reduces their contact with the police.

Late last year, the territory government announced it would cut funding to the Night Patrol in June. Larrakia Nation and police representatives have slammed the decision alike. Vince Kelly, president of the NT Police Association, said in December that the decision might mean “an increase of people in police custody who are intoxicated and drunk, or at the very lowest place in their health … We have seen exactly what tragic outcomes can happen when that occurs."

Larrakia Nation’s return-to-country program, which lends Aboriginal people money to return home to remote communities, will also be scrapped. About 4600 people benefit from this program.

Defending the decision to cease funding, corrections minister John Elferink described the program as a taxpayer-funded service for people to “get on the turps … If you come to Darwin we have an expectation you will behave in a certain way...or you'll be charged with appropriate criminal offences or alternatively you'll be taken into custody”, he said in December.

The Nation’s CEO Ilana Elderidge responded to Elferink, telling ABC local radio on December 6: “For the Minister to suggest that everyone who comes to Darwin is only coming here to get drunk, I'm just appalled anyone could make such a disgusting suggestion … The impact will be people will still come to Darwin, because they have to [for medical care and other important services], and then they will be stranded here."

Meanwhile, hospital-based domestic violence services will be cut, as will the SMART court and Alcohol and Other Drugs Tribunals – two initiatives meant to help keep people arrested for drug and alcohol-related crimes out of prison.

The North Australia Aboriginal Justice Agency has slammed the cutting of SMART court and the night patrol as “short sighted” and having “serious long-term consequences”.

NAAJA Principal legal officer Jonathon Hunyor said on December 4: “The cut to night patrol funding flies in the face of the recommendations on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which emphasised the need to minimise contact between Aboriginal people and police. This decision … is a recipe for disaster.”

Survival Day: White Australia has a Black history

White Australia has a Black history

As often happens at this time of year, in the lead-up to January 26, commentators and activists raised the suggestion that Australia’s national day be moved to a different date.

Writing in the January 21 Sydney Morning Herald, Aboriginal MLA in the ACT legislative assembly Chris Bourke said: “Which nation celebrates its national day on the date it was invaded by a foreign power? … The answer, of course, is Australia.”

January 26 marks the day that Europeans arrived in Sydney Cove in 1788 . Aboriginal people around  the continent – especially in the North - had been receiving visitors from abroad and engaging in trade long before then. But there was something different about Captain Cook and his mob. They weren’t here to trade, they were here to stay, to build a colony on behalf of the British Empire. Aboriginal people were in the way.

Each year on January 26, there is an outpouring of national pride and nationalism. Mainstream politicians  spruik everything that is “great” about Australia.

But, while some may ignore or downplay the ugly side of Australia’s history, there is no escaping the facts: January 26 is the day Aboriginal dispossession began. It marks the beginning of a process of genocide, of land-grabbing, unpaid wages, and the smashing of traditional cultures to replace them with what we now know as Australia. 

Is that worth celebrating? If so, it reveals something of the racism deeply imbedded in Australia’s history.

In Darwin, the Aboriginal Rights Coalition will mark January 26 with a screening of Murundak: Songs of Freedom. In Australia’s north, where colonisation happened much later, many Aboriginal clan groups have been able to hold onto some, if not all, of their land, languages and cultures – although these languages face the serious threat of extinction due to lack of government investment. 

It is perhaps appropriate that in Darwin, January 26 is known as Survival Day, and will be marked with a  celebration of Aboriginal resistance through music. For, indeed, much has survived. Despite all explicit and implicit government attempts to the contrary, Aboriginal Australia remains proud and strong.

In Sydney, where the invasion began, it’s known as Invasion Day, and is commemorated with the annual Yabun festival.

In Hobart this year, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is organising a rally to call for a new date for Australia Day.

But whether survival or invasion is the theme, if January 26 is to remain a significant date, it should be the day we formally acknowledge that this country was – and is - built on racism.

Australia is a wealthy country because resource-rich Aboriginal land was stolen ; Aboriginal people were forced to work for little or no wages to establish a booming pastoral industry; rent was never paid and the Stolen Generations never compensated. No wonder the federal government can afford the hundreds of millions of dollars the racist Northern Territory intervention (now insultingly called “Stronger Futures”) is costing.

Bourke pointed out: “We cannot change our history, as much as we might desire it. We cannot ignore our history, because it has made us. But we can change our future.”

Changing the date of the national celebration is an easy, important first step, but there is no indication either of the mainstream parties wants to change Australia’s future, build something we could genuinely be proud of and celebrate.

Dispossession didn’t ever end – January 26 is not simply an historical anniversary, it is a painful and sobering reminder of the racism entrenched in mainstream Australian politics today. 

Aboriginal people are imprisoned at some of the highest rates in the world- rates that are rising as a result of federal and territory government policies in the NT. 

The health burden carried by Aboriginal Australians is shameful: in some communities, Aboriginal people are dying from diseases otherwise eradicated in this First World nation.

Aboriginal men and women die, respectively, 11.5 or 9.7 years younger than their non-Aboriginal  counterparts.

These appalling statistics, and many others like them, are deeply entwined with white Australia’s history: they are the result of what started in 1788 and continues today.

There is an alternative future, one that sees genuine engagement with Aboriginal communities – on their terms: treaties negotiated, reparations paid, original languages and cultures celebrated and protected. It is possible to imagine a future that brings true justice to Aboriginal people. 

But it won’t come from a society that celebrates invasion and dispossession as its national day - and that won’t change unless we, the people with the alternative vision, make it happen.

NT Elections: Aboriginal voters get Labor where it hurts

[A subbed version of this article will appear at Green Left Weekly. The figures will need to be updated in some seats, as counting is expected to continue until Monday September 3 - Emma]

by Emma Murphy

Aboriginal voters in remote Northern Territory put themselves decisively onto the political agenda in the August 25 territory election.

Indeed, as commentators have noted, it was probably the first time in Australia’s history when this otherwise marginalized (by mainstream parties) section of the population decided an election.

For only the second time in its short voting history, the Territory changed its ruling party. After 11 years of Labor, voters in remote and rural areas opted for change, and – in very significant numbers – voted for minor parties, independents, and the Country Liberal Party (CLP).

In a 25-seat parliament, Labor had just 12 seats, forming government with the support of independent Gerry Woods. And while bookies had picked the CLP as winning, the results still surprised many. It was assumed that the key seats to watch were in Darwin’s northern suburbs, which is where Labor put much of its energy.

But, in a remarkable twist, Labor retained all its urban seats. The rural areas, however, were a different story. Writing on The Conversation on August 27, Ken Parish said: “The picture in remote Aboriginal community-based seats could scarcely have been more different.  The ALP vote was decimated, with a general anti-Labor swing of around 16%.” http://theconversation.edu.au/arrogant-indigenous-policies-that-toppled-nt-labor-is-a-lesson-for-feds-9037

It looks likely the CLP will win 15 seats and Labor will be reduced to nine.

In the remote northern electorates of Arnhem and Daly, there were swings to the CLP of 30.7% and 14.2%, respectively. In the key northern seat of Arafura, with just over half the votes counted, the CLP’s Francis Maralampuwi Xavier leads Labor’s Dean Rioli 51.2% to 48.8% (at time of writing), and in the outback seat of Stuart, also with just 56% of votes counted, Bess Nungarrayi Price from the CLP is slightly ahead of Labor’s Karl Hampton, at 50.8% to 49.2% (after preferences). There was a 26.5% swing against Hampton.

So where did this massive swing against Labor come from, and why did it take so many by surprise?

Perhaps it should have been predicted, given federal and Territory Labor’s complete disregard for Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people in the NT have had a lot to be angry about over the last few years. The Coalition’s introduction of the widely hated NT intervention in 2007 was very quickly taken over by federal Kevin Rudd’s Labor when the party won the November election. Julia Gillard’s Labor recently extended the divisive policy for another decade, under the cruelly mis-named “Stronger Futures” legislation.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Territory Labor completely disempowered local Aboriginal leaderships by replacing 52 small community councils with seven “super shires” – some with headquarters not even located within the shire boundaries.

Through the dismantling of their councils, and the whitewashed “Stronger Futures consultations” in 2011, when articulate, angry voices fell on a federal government’s deaf ears, Aboriginal people got the message loud and clear: Labor wasn’t listening.

Unfortunately for Labor, Aboriginal people make up a large percentage of the NT population outside of urban areas, and on August 25, they found a way to fight back.

In many ways, the opposition CLP had an easy job in the bush: slam the bungled super shire policy (no need to give too much detail about how you would change it); spend time listening to the people – something Labor has consistently failed (listening is easy – no need to commit to anything beyond that).

There were also many impressive, strong Aboriginal candidates, who lived in the remote communities that would elect them. This was the case in all parties, and a look at the minor parties, and the preferences they directed, tells a slightly more complex story than a simple swing to the CLP – although that was also clearly the case.

In Hampton’s seat of Stuart, Maurie Japarta Ryan stood for the newly registered First Nations Party (FNP). He received an impressive 17.2% of the vote. Ryan, a fiery anti-intervention campaigner preferenced Price - a woman he’s described as “the face of the intervention”. When asked about this on Radio National’s Bush Telegraph on August 27, he explained: “I don’t support Bess Price … I gave my preferences to whichever political party … would remove the shires.”

While Price has been an outspoken supporter of the intervention, other CLP members have been careful to distance themselves from their federal counterparts’ support for Stronger Futures. Incumbent CLP MP Alison Anderson told Bush Telegraph: “The CLP’s position is that, even though our federal politicians supported it, we’ve already listened to Aboriginal people, and we will take the voice of the Aboriginal people back.” She accused federal Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin of not listening to Aboriginal people: a sentiment that would have rung true for many.

Labor’s Hampton was also careful to state his opposition to the intervention while campaigner – indicating that Territory Labor is also aware of the damage this has done to the Labor brand.

In the key seat of Arafura, Greens’ George Pascoe received 14% of the votes, with just 55.8% counted.

The CLP’s “listening tour” of remote communities, where it tapped into anti-shire sentiment and concern for homelands and housing, certainly worked as a campaign strategy. But now, in office, will it deliver? What can the people who voted for it expect from a CLP government?

There are certainly a few areas to watch. To start with, the CLP will have a number of strong Aboriginal candidates, who ran because they believed that was the party listening to their people. Hopes have been raised about changes to the unpopular shires policy, and about more support for homelands.

But while the CLP has been quick to tap into anger at the shires, details about what it proposes to do about them are scant. It’s “Shire reform” paper, released before the election, pledges to establish “regional councils” (it is careful not to promise a return to community councils” – but these regional councils will only be established where modeling shows “financial sustainability”. The document speaks of “Shires and Regional Councils”, indicating the shires may still remain.

Similarly, the CLP Homelands policy says the party supports the Federal Government initiative to invest in homelands services” – but doesn’t mention any investment at a Territory level.

How the CLP will balance this against the strong concerns of its Aboriginal MPs – some of whom will surely become ministers – remains to be seen. Will they be sidelined? Were they deceived during the election campaign? Or will some MPs (such as Alison Anderson) history of crossing to the other side if their concerns are ignored force the CLP to positions it may not otherwise support?

Another area of concern will be the perceived differences/divisions between remote Aboriginal communities and urban Aboriginal populations, especially those living in town communities and the long grass.

In the lead-up to the election, CLP member for Fong Lim David Tollner angered Bagot community residents by promising to “normalize” Bagot by turning it into “Darwin’s newest suburb”. Similarly, the CLP has promised the predictable “crackdown on crime”, saying “drunks will be taken off the streets” and Darwin’s parklands “cleaned up” – blatant dog-whistling to drum up fear and racism against Aboriginal people living in the long grass.

So it was with surprise that I noted Chief Minister-elect Terry Mills’ tribute to Aboriginal people in his victory speech on August 25. And then, with apprehension, I noticed his persistent use of the word “traditional” to describe them.

“I'm saying tonight, traditional people, we respect you, and we will work with you”, he said. He vowed to visit remote communities, saying, "My first trip will be to demonstrate to traditional people that we will work with you.”

Will we see a playing out of the “good black, bad black” politics of the likes of Price, who recently described Rodney Dillon, an Aboriginal activist and Amnesty campaigner as “a physically white English-speaking Tasmanian”, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/amnesty-a-racist-organisation-says-bess-price/story-fn9hm1pm-1226446316271.

It is fairly safe to assume there will be no “listening tours” of the long grass in Darwin, or the Alice Springs Riverbed. It’s much more likely to be the 100 extra police visiting those areas. And Bagot, or other town communities, will probably respond to any visiting CLP MPs with extreme caution, given Tollner’s election promise.

The CLP has a lot of bad policy and offensive comments to explain if it is to show it can really listen, and take direction from, Aboriginal people. It has been more than a decade since the party had to really show its true colours to Territorians, but the missing details in its policies and its “law-and-order” focus in urban areas don’t bode well.

But one thing was certain on August 25: like two federal elections since the intervention was announced, Aboriginal people voted in strong numbers against the incumbents, in protest against their racist policies and their refusal to genuinely engage with Aboriginal people. We can only hope they won’t be so easily ignored or taken for granted in the future.

Aboriginal rights movement mourns stolen futures

In the early hours of June 29, the Australian Senate passed legislation that is expected to entrench assimilation, disadvantage and racism for another decade in the Northern Territory.

Aboriginal leaders across the NT declared a period of mourning after the new laws – called Stronger Futures – were passed as they reel from the decision, restock and plan to up the ante in their fight against the latest neoliberal assault on their communities.

Stronger Futures replaces the widely hated NT Emergency Response (NTER, or the “intervention”). The intervention, launched by the then-Coalition government in 2007, expired in June.

The Labor government held “community consultations” last year, supposedly welcoming input into the new laws from those who would be affected. But the wishes of the people were ignored.

Labor has extended and strengthened the more hated aspects of the intervention, and added a few racist gems of its own, for good measure.

The Stronger Futures package links welfare to school attendance, so parents of children who fail to meet attendance benchmarks risk having their payments cut.

Rather than an approach that would see whole communities re-engage with the education process – such as reintroducing bilingual education – this policy will punish parents and hurt children.

The government’s own evaluation of a trial of this scheme, the School Enrolment and Attendance Reform Measure, found “preliminary results suggest income support suspensions had no impact on improving school attendance”.

The government said the rules law will apply to everyone, but the locations of the scheme tell a different story: Aboriginal communities, and towns with high Aboriginal populations, are the target.

The laws also introduce tough new alcohol restrictions. People caught with up to 1.35 litres of pure alcohol face six months jail; for more than 1.35 litres, this rises to 18 months or a $90,440 fine.

Aboriginal people want to know why they face such harsh penalties for something that is recognised as an NT-wide social issue. They also fear this will simply lead to more family breakdown, which they say is a consequence of high imprisonment rates for their people.

The new intervention will also prevent customary law from being considered by a court during sentencing and bail hearings. The Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT said customary law “has never been a defence to violent crimes”. But prohibiting courts from considering customary law “distorts ordinary and well-established principles for setting fair sentences. It prevents courts from taking into account all relevant factors when sentencing Aboriginal people”.

Compulsory five-year leases, forced on communities as part of the NTER, expire in August. Stronger Futures will, in effect, blackmail communities into signing “voluntary” long-term leases, by linking them to further funding for houses and other development.

Criticism of Stronger Futures in the lead-up to its passing was impressive in its strength and breadth.

The Yolŋu Nations Assembly statement, calling for a complete withdrawal of the legislation, was backed up by supporting statements from more than 60 organisations, ranging from the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) and the Australian Medical Association to religious organisations, Aboriginal organisations and activist groups.

It was widely understood that Labor would need to get the legislation through in time for the new financial year. So the Senate’s sitting fortnight – the last two weeks in June – was a tense one: on June 18, the Stand for Freedom campaign took a petition to parliament. Forty-three thousand Australians called on senators to reject Stronger Futures.

Pressure mounted on Attorney-General Nicola Roxon to refer the laws to the parliamentary human rights committee.

But all these protests fell on deaf ears.

A host of Greens’ amendments, seeking to remove the most harmful aspects of the bill, were ignored by Labor and the Coalition. The Greens did lock in a minor concession – the decade-long policy package will now be reviewed after three, not seven, years.

So, what can we expect, now that “stolen futures” has become a reality? The ALA has predicted Aboriginal imprisonment rates – already higher than those seen during apartheid South Africa – would worsen underStronger Futures .

The ALA said on June 29: “The Federal Government’s recklessness in pushing through parliament … racist legislation, that sets the rights of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory back decades, will not go unchallenged.”

Uniting Church Reverend Alistair Macrae said: “Today we join Indigenous Australians in mourning another lost opportunity for true reconciliation. By the time these laws are wound back, I fear a future Government will have to make another Apology.”

Yolŋu Nations Assembly spokesperson Dr Djiniyini Gondarra has called on organisations across the country to lower the Aboriginal flag to half mast, as a symbol of mourning in the wake of the Senate vote.

But even as they mourn, leaders across NT communities are regrouping, meeting and planning the next stages of the campaign. In a video address to supporters on July 2, Gondarra vowed the fight would continue.

“We will not stop fighting,” he said. “We will not give up… [The government] should have been very, very careful of doing this to their First People ... We will continue to fight, for our rights, for our freedom.”

Speaking to Green Left Weekly about the issue of supposed voluntary leasing, George Pascoe from Maningrida said: “It’s our land, we own it. The land is our intellectual property, inherited from our forefathers. If they want a voluntary lease, we want a treaty.”

In Bankstown, NSW – and in four other selected areas across Australia – the new financial year has meant the roll-out of compulsory income management, which was a key part on the NTER.

The Bankstown Say No to Income Management campaign has brought together a strong coalition of community groups, unions, religious organisations and others. The campaign has drawn strong links between the local issue and Stronger Futures.

One thing we know from the history of Aboriginal resistance is that the fight in the NT will continue, in new and creative ways. A strong, nation-wide solidarity campaign is as needed as it ever was: in the coming weeks and months we must be ready to support initiatives as the battle-weary but fiercely determined leadership in Aboriginal communities draws on its strength and longevity and plans its next moves.

Dr Djiniyini Gondarra:

June 29: Day of mourning

Sad, sad days in the Territory. Woke up on Friday June 29 to discover the Stronger Futures legislation had passed through the Senate at 2am that morning.

I guess we were expecting it, though they kept us on tenterhooks for the entire 2-week parliamentary sitting, leaving it until just two days before the new financial year kicked in - the thing being, if stronger futures didn't pass. what  would happen to those bits of the budget?

Djiniyini Gondarra has labelled the bill's passage a declaration of  "war on democracy". Alyawarr and Yolŋu Nations declared a day of mourning.

Soon there  will be blogging about it. Just giving people up here time to regroup and plan their next steps...

Stay tuned.

Aboriginal voices oppose Stronger Futures

(Editor's note: Stronger Futures has not yet been put before the Senate, despite it being touted to pass this week)

Aboriginal people across the NT have spoken out against the Stronger Futures laws, which they say continue the discriminatory and racist laws launched with the NT intervention five years ago today.

Maurie Ryan, of the First Nations Political Party said: “The First Nations political party does not support the Stronger Futures legislation. There are no Stronger futures unless we are part of it. The legislation takes away our autonomy; it’s just empty words.

“How can there be Stronger Futures if we aren’t in control of our own communities? This is why we oppose the Shires system, which has forced distant communities together and taken away community control.

“Stronger Futures is just the intervention under another name.”

"As a Yolngu woman I am strongly opposed to this law. Things will only get worse if the government tries to punish us for our situation. We need a way forward that is based on a solid partnership. We want control of our land and our communities, not this blackmailing TO's for houses." said Helen Nyomba from Galiwin'ku community on Elcho Island.

"We have made it very clear that we don't want the government to pass this law. When will Jenny Macklin listen to us? We are sick of being pushed around. We demand to have our law recognised, we want real employment and to be treated as equals in this country." said Matthew Dhulumburrk from Ramingining.

Joy White from Bagot Community said: "The government needs to look to its own parliament before condemning us mob about our actions does ... (he) ... Have a sign in front of his house saying no alcohol and pornography?"

"These people need to account for what they do themselves before judging us"

Phillip Goodman from One Mile Community said: "Some aspects of the intervention have not been offensive and I have no problem with these. But why has it just been rolled out in the NT and only for aboriginal people, there are people all over australia dealing with the problems we face, why was it only rolled out in the NT and let us not pretend that this is not racial discrimination when the racial discrimination act had to be suspended for the measures of the intervention to come into place"

Judith Donald from Kalkarindji said: “We’re not going to have it.” She supports the stament put out by the Gurindji people available here: http://concernedaustralians.com.au/media/stronger_futures_yolngu/Gurindji_People_of_Daguragu_and_Kalkaringi.pdf

These voices join those of the 43,000 who signed a petition opposing the Stronger Futures laws, which was accepted by Australian Greens MPs on June 18.

On Friday June 22, we will hold a press conference outside NT Parliament at 10am to call on the NT government to stand with those who have stood with us for freedom and against the Stronger Futures laws.

A bad week for the Northern Territory...

The week of June 18-22 will be a difficult one for Aboriginal communities in the NT, and defenders of Aboriginal rights the nation over. While rallies and meetings will take place to commemorate June 21 - the anniversary of that fateful day when John Howard and Mal Brough announced the NT Intervention - Labor's Stronger Futures legislation is expected to pass through the Senate on June 18.


Here's a talk I wrote thinking about that, and about the Yolngu friends and colleagues who will bare the brunt of whatever might come next.


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This talk will be a bit different to others I have given, although it feels like I’ve been talking about the NT intervention for so many years I don’t have to think about it.

I did think about it this time though. For many years, whenever I gave a talk about the struggle of Aboriginal people in Australia, it was me, a non-Aboriginal person, talking by and large to other non-Aboriginal people, about something I’d glimpsed and thought I knew enough about that I could share it.

These days, on a typical day, as a non-Aboriginal person, I am often in a minority.  I work and travel with Yolngu - the First People of the North East Arnhem Land region. Often I have no idea what is going on. The people I call my colleagues, friends, family, are affected by the government’s racist policies on a very personal level: their son is in prison, their daughter attempted suicide again, their grandchildren are disengaged from mainstream education because all of a sudden it’s all in English - their fifth language. They themselves have been diagnosed with a disease otherwise eradicated from the First World.

So these days, when I think about the NT intervention, these are the things that first come to mind. And I feel I owe it to the people I work with to bring some of that into this talk.

That’s not to say it isn’t political. In fact, what we’re talking about cuts to the very heart of
Australian politics: we’re talking about a country founded on racism, on dispossession, a wealthy First World nation made so with stolen resources taken from stolen Aboriginal land, on the back of unpaid Aboriginal labour. When I travel through Arnhem Land today, I think what I am seeing is just the continuation of those colonialist, assimilationist, interventionist policies we
may have hoped ended with the so-called era of self-determination.


It’s the pointy end of what, actually, Labor is doing everywhere. Maybe it’s just more obvious in the NT, where Aboriginal people make up 30% of the population, as opposed to less than 4% in other states.

The NT Intervention was launched by the Howard Coalition government in 2007. Its extension, insultingly called “Stronger Futures”, is a wake-up call for anybody who’d forgotten about
the bipartisan nature of Australian racism. Labor’s Stronger Futures strengthens many of the more punitive aspects of the NT Intervention - the ridiculously harsh grog laws, income management, the linking of welfare payments to school attendance - and enshrines them in law for decade.

By the time the legislation is up for review in 7 years, there will be Yolngu teenagers who have lived their entire lives under this apartheid system, regulated by laws nobody else in Australia is governed by.

I feel I owe it to my Yolngu friends and colleagues to re-frame some of the things I said at the start of this talk. Aboriginal people are imprisoned at much higher rates than non-Aboriginal people, they die much earlier... there are so many shameful statistics that I hope many people here are already familiar with. But it is important to also celebrate their strength, resilience, their spirit of resistance and survival. Not only did the first nations of this continent live sustainably in sometimes pretty harsh environments. They have resisted and survived 220 years of explicit or implicit genocide at worst and government neglect at best.

They still hold their heads up high and speak with pride of their language and culture. Where I spend my time, Yolngu people still practise their rich cultural and legal traditions. It might
be banned in the schools, but they’re still speaking their languages - the oldest living languages on the planet. We have to celebrate that.

In the last year, there has been a movement in Arnhem Land to revive the Yolngu Nations Assembly. This isn’t a new development on one level - it’s a reminder of the political and
legal institutions that existed here long before someone decided planting a flag on a beach meant anything significant.

But in a way it’s a new development - the onslaught of the intervention and Stronger Futures policies has forced Yolngu leaders to regroup, to unite to fight. They’re doing it combining their own ancient languages, political structures and clan associations with a feisty, media-savvy, campaigning approach that personally I find quite humbling. People who don’t speak an awful lot of English are moved by the solidarity coming from down south, and are gaining the confidence to do things like radio interviews, or fly to Sydney to speak at rallies. 


They might have to stand on top of the troopcarrier to get mobile coverage, and they might have to put on the first pair of socks they’ve ever worn, as they fly into a NSW winter, but they are seeing the importance of grassroots campaigning and solidarity in a way reminiscent of the Gurindji struggle, and Vincent Lingiari’s fundraising trips with unionists and radicals.

I’d encourage everybody to have a look at the statement the Yolngu Nations Assembly released condemning the Stronger Futures package as it prepared to pass through the Senate. (www.concernedaustralians.com.au)

The statement calls on traditional owners and land councils to refuse to release any more land for government leases until the Stronger Futures legislation is withdrawn in its entirety. That’s quite radical. They call for homelands –some of which may only have 20 or 30 people – to be given equal weight to larger communities in terms of resource allocation and economic development.

That is important because, at the same time the federal Coalition was rolling out the intervention- literally rolling, in army tanks – the NT Labor government was enacting a “Hub Towns” policy that starved the homelands of funds, channelled people into large communities. And all the evidence shows that the health, education and general wellbeing indicators on homelands far outweigh those in the larger communities.

The Yolngu Nations know this, because this is their home: the government might not have graded the road for five years, there may be no medical services, the place might be inaccessible during the wet season, but the homelands are their strength. It’s where they go to get away all the heavy crap the government keeps laying on them. It’s where they take their kids who are trapped in the cycle of racism and poverty and are succumbing to petrol sniffing. It’s where they are alive and strong.

But these aren’t things the government is concerned about. The economic rationalist agenda implicit in the government’s “Closing the Gap” strategy doesn’t quite have the imagination to work out how 30 people living simply with a diesel generator could be “economically viable”.

How does the government encourage the important things like private home ownership and economic participation in a place where there is only one house, and no economy – at least nothing resembling the market economy the government is hellbent on thrusting  onto Aboriginal communities, never mind it’s the same market economy that is destroying the climate and undermining workers’ rights.

I think the homelands movement is an important precisely because it doesn’t fit this capitalist modus operandi – it asks us to think differently about “economy” and “employment”. It asks us to take risks and allow Yolngu to take risks too – maybe even risks that a resourced by the taxpayer, god forbid.


I don’t believe Stronger Futures, and all the associated federal and territory neoliberal policies, will destroy Yolngu communities. But that says everything about my confidence in the strength of the First Nations – not about my conviction that these racist, regressive laws are a huge step backwards that will take years to recover from. Aboriginal people will survive. With our help, they will change the laws, and rebuild.

But they will need our support and solidarity. It will be a long struggle. It will require that we take risks, are willing to take the lead from an ancient people with a wisdom very different from our own.


Healthy homelands, successful two-way learning, strong and confident community leaderships can take years to build up. And, as recent policy shifts show us, they can be destroyed in the time it takes to pass a new law through the Senate. But the underlying resilience, the fighting spirit and commitment of Aboriginal people, are still there. These will be the foundation for whatever struggle comes next.

When the dust settles on Stronger Futures and apartheid in the NT is “normalised” for another generation, let’s make it our duty to not let this fall off the agenda. Yolngu will continue to fight, in ever-changing ways, and we can make it our pledge to fight alongside them.

In the future – the truly stronger future, when we live in a society that celebrates human worth, community control & a sustainable environment- we will look back with pride, in ourselves and our Aboriginal brothers and sisters that we ensured the  world’s oldest living culture survived even this - and shame that it came so close to destruction.

Statement from the Yolŋu Nations Assembly

To the Leaders of the Australian Federal and Northern Territory Parliaments:

1. The Yolŋu Nations reject the Stronger Futures Bill (and those associated) and call on the Senate to discard these Bills in full. We have clearly informed you that we do not support the legislation.

 The Australian Federal Government can achieve all its aims through partnership in our communities. They have no need to grant themselves the continued and new powers contained within these Bills.

2. Until the Stronger Futures Bill (and those associated) are thrown out of the Australian Federal Parliament, the Yolŋu Nations call on all traditional owners across the Northern Territory to refuse:

a) participation in land lease negotiations with the Australian Federal Government, and

b) approval for any exploration licenses  

3. The traditional owners (T.Os) of prescribed community lands have been placed under extreme pressure from the Australian Federal Government to grant them head leases over these communities. T.Os want independently facilitated negotiations that can result in enhancing the interests of both the T.Os and the Australian Federal Government.

4. The Land Councils are increasingly being pressured by Government to act outside their roles and become agencies of Government. We want our Land Councils to advocate for our needs and not have their independence curtailed by Government funding arrangements and political interference.

The Yolŋu Nations call on the Australian Federal Parliament to ask the Auditor General for a review of the relationship between the Australian Federal Government and the Land Councils of the Northern Territory.

5. The Yolŋu Nations call on both the Australian Federal and Northern Territory Governments to end their interventionist policies and agendas, and return to a mindset of partnership based on the principles of Self-Determination.

6. The Yolŋu Nations call on the Northern Territory Government to reform the structures of local government (the Shires) to better reflect Yolŋu and 1^st People’s government structures which will provide a more locally based and accessible form of local government.

7. The Yolŋu Nations call for an end to the Northern Territory Government’s Working Futures policy. For the sustainable social and economic development of our society Homelands need to be considered equal to communities that were former mission and government settlements.

8. The Yolŋu Nations call for an end to the Northern Territory Government’s Compulsory Teaching in English for the First Four Hours of Each School Day policy. To be successful we need education with instruction in our Yolŋu languages through all levels of schooling.

Djirrkaymirr Rev. Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra

Spokesperson Yolŋuw Makarr Dhuni