Vol. 71/No. 47      December 17, 2007

The actions, called for the week before the November 24 federal elections, took place in nine cities across the country, including in Darwin and Alice Springs in the Territory.

“We are the owners of this land, the first Australians,” Martin said. “Now they are laying down the laws on us, squashing our rights.”

Last June, then-prime minister John Howard of the Liberal Party announced the federal intervention, claiming it was to deal with child abuse in northern indigenous communities. Since then, newly elected Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd has said his government will continue the federal takeover, with a review after 12 months.

A raft of laws supporting the intervention was passed in August with Labor Party support.

Some Aborigines have supported the intervention, hoping the federal action would address social problems such as alcohol-related violence, and bring increased government spending to their communities.

Opposition to the government’s sweeping measures, however, has mounted among indigenous leaders around the country. In September a meeting of 100 Aboriginal activists in Alice Springs formed the National Aboriginal Alliance to oppose the takeover.

In the remote areas of the Northern Territory, where high unemployment is rampant, the government’s main jobs program has been abolished, forcing thousands more onto welfare. Welfare payments for all Aborigines living on Aboriginal land are now controlled by government bureaucrats. Federally appointed administrators with wide powers have been imposed. The permit system, by which Aboriginal communities in the Territory controlled entry onto their land and settlements, has been abolished.

Olga Havnen, a leader of the National Aboriginal Alliance, said in a message to the protesters in Sydney that the “only visible change in most communities has been the construction of housing for government business managers.” She noted, “There have been no new charges laid in connection with child sexual abuse.”

Valerie Napaljarri Martin, who is from Yuendumu, an Aboriginal town of 800 in the Northern Territory, came to the Sydney protest along with Harry Jakkamarra Nelson, president of the Yuendumu Community Council, and Barbara Shaw from Tangentyere Council, the representative body for the Town Camps, as the Aboriginal communities around Alice Springs are called.  
 
Attack on gains from 1970s
The Town Camps began as segregated shantytowns, since Aborigines were legally barred from living in Alice Springs until 1964. Shaw pointed to the gains made by the Tangentyere Council since it was established in the 1970s. Aborigines won indigenous leases for the Town Camps, the construction of brick houses to replace the shacks, and social services. “We want to keep our homes and keep our camps,” she said.

Several hundred residents gathered May 25 in Alice Springs to support the Tangentyere Council’s rejection of A$60 million ($52 million) offered by Canberra to improve housing and services. In exchange for the money, the federal government would take back control of housing in Town Camps.

Shaw said she now lived in a “prescribed” area where a $1,000 fine is imposed if alcohol is brought into the community. “They haven’t thought about rehabilitation [for alcoholics], but they’re extending the jails,” she remarked.

Nelson was part of a delegation of Aboriginal elders that traveled to Canberra in August to lobby against the new laws. In October he chaired a meeting of Warlpiri tribal elders in Yuendumu that issued the first united statement by an Aboriginal language group against the takeover. “This intervention has hit us like a ton of bricks,” Nelson said.

The Warlpiri elders said, “Our communities have been overwhelmed by the large number of changes and have been placed under enormous pressure and stress. We ask political leaders from all parties to show Aboriginal people respect and to talk to us about how we can make a new start to the intervention after the election.”

Further actions are planned for January 26, the Australia Day public holiday, known by many Aborigines as “Survival Day.”  
 
 
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