Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Roll Back the Intervention

Roll Back The Intervention

Convergence in Canberra, Feb 11-13

From February 11-13, 2008, over 2000 from across Australia gathered at the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra to protest the Northern Territory intervention legislation. Passed in 2007, the intervention was imposed on 72 communities in the Territory, regardless of their different needs and requirements. Its elements include removal of land permit systems, welfare quarantining, alcohol bans, and increased policing. A delegation of thirty traditional owners, elders and community residents from the prescribed communities in the N.T. raised over $40,000 to travel to Canberra to share their experiences to the intervention, to voice their resistance, and to seek support in their attempts to have it repealed.

The convergence began with a meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance, followed by a series of workshops in which participants discussed and heard experiences of the intervention and its effects, and ways of working to roll back the legislation. The workshops were followed by communal meals and music performances throughout the night.

On the following day, February 12, 2000 people gathered at the Embassy for a smoking ceremony and an opening address from Isabelle Coe, and then a march to the Parliamentary lawns for the first sitting day of Parliament. Protestors marched, chanting ‘Stop the Intervention: Human Rights for All!’, carrying banners with slogans such as ‘Sorry About the Intervention?’ and ‘N.T. Intervention = Ongoing Invasion’. On the front lawns, speeches were heard from the N.T. delegation, from Greg Eatock of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in Sydney, from Greens senators Bob Brown and Rachel Siewart, and others. There were also performances from Indigenous dancers and musicians.

‘We’ve been waiting for 36 years to see all you mob here, because we’ve come to finish the business off, once and for all. But first of all we’ve gotta tell Kevin Rudd he’s gotta get rid of the intervention laws! And then he’s gotta recognise our sovereignty to our country! Which means that we own from one end of the country to the other end. There’s never been any treaty signed in this land. We’ve been waiting, and we’re still waiting. It’s good to see everyone here. But if we have to organise another march we want to see thousands and thousands of our people down here to take a stand. It is about our sovereignty. This land is ours. Always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.’

- Isobelle Coe

The significance of the Canberra rally was largely overshadowed in the media by Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generations the following day. However, as important as the apology was, to many it is hollow considering that, in the Northern Territory, people are still living under a racist, paternalistic system of rationing and control, no different to that which Rudd apologised for.

‘Kevin Rudd has said his apology will contain an affirmation never to repeat past wrongs, but this is precisely what his government is doing rolling out Howard’s intervention. He is continuing the genocidal policy of the stolen generations and the Howard years,’

- Mitch


The following are a series of excerpts from speeches delivered at workshops and the.rally:

On how the intervention was developed and put in place…

‘When there’s a problem in our communities we deal with it. What Mal Brough did last

year was wrong. He only spoke to a few people in our communities, and those are the ones that welcomed the intervention.’

- Barbara Shaw

‘We sat with half a dozen senate committees, and basically all these previous politicians, and the ones who got re-elected, only had one night to oversee 500 pages. They didn’t have a clear understanding or in depth look at the impact that will have on trying to implement this intervention or the effects of this intervention. And it really wasn’t any realistic or measurable approach in terms of dealing with the epidemics within our own Aboriginal communities, that stem from the lack of resources, lack of funding.’

- Walter Shaw

‘There wasn’t any negotiation or consultation with any of us in terms of this intervention. Basically what they done is Mal Brough put his ideology on a piece of paper, passed it through Parliament, it became legislation, and then it was implemented. None of us knew what the intervention was going to do. This is racially vilifying all aboriginal men as to paedophiles! We want this intervention squashed and we want the Prime Minister elect Kevin Rudd and his Minister for Indigenous Affairs to come down to all Aboriginal communities and do it properly. There’s a right way of doing business and there’s a wrong way. And this is wrong.’

- Walter Shaw

‘I said [to a government official] how do you know these things: has someone come from your areas to these communities too check? He said: probably not. There’s no probably not about it. No one did! So basically I always thought this intervention thing was bullshit and racist.’

- Aaron

On welfare quarantining and the removal of the CDEP program…

‘I’ve got Kathy Williams here, she’s in her 70’s, she’s an old pensioner, she lives in a prescribed area. She’s worked all her life and she’s now subject to these welfare reforms in which the government has put in.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘It’s hurting people in a lot of areas.And it’s affecting a lot of people emotionally and physically. People cant afford to live.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘[The intervention] makes us prisoners in our own country. These people are talking about their monies. How’d you like it if I came to your house and quarantined all the public servants, everyone who makes a wage. Quarantined your wages. Go up to Parliament House on Wednesday and say: ‘All you politicians, here’s your ticket for $150, $50 a ticket. You go and do your shopping in Alice Springs.’ How do you reckon they’d feel? And yet they can impose these laws on us.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘Mutjikara had a tourist enterprise running out there. They were running on CDEP. As soon as CDEP got scrapped, the enterprise went down and our men were unemployed. Now our men gotta line up at Centrelink and wait for their wages, and they’re getting wages out of our cards…We’ve got ration cards.’

- Barbara Shaw

‘There was an old man who walked off the station up at Wave Hill because he didn’t wanna get paid in vouchers or rations. We don’t wanna be paid in vouchers or rations anymore!’

- Barbara Shaw

‘When you look at the intervention itself, you’ve got people who are doing the right thing for their families, and being providers for their families. This lady looks after her nieces and nephews and whole extended family, and yet she was subjected to the laws that are entailed with this intervention. All of us here are.’

- Walter Shaw

‘You see the problem is here is this, as I put it to Jenny Macklin, is an indiscriminate action against all aged persons or people with families. Cos we’re going find shortly that just because you’re living in sight or sound of a community you are income managed.’

- Kathleen

‘We get half [our Centrelink payments] quarantined and half of our Centrelink paid into our bank. Half of our people get $70, less than $100, about $90 to spend on themselves. And they’ve got a card they’ve gotta go spend at Coles, Kmart or Woolworths. Those are the only three options we have with the card which is not fair to us. We are ordinary people... It’s like back in the day I grew up with my family working on the stations, getting rations…And then when this was introduced, old people working on them stations say we are back in those days again. We should be going forward. The governments taken us back and back. Leaving us behind. What are we gonna achieve with that, ya know?’

- Vanessa Davis

‘I’m being asked by people that I know are being intervened: “where’s our money?”’

- Aaron

‘I actually work for an Indigenous job network. And June last year, 2007, the government actually slashed our town services which operate or help the indigenous people with employment. And when they did that they basically kicked us in the guts for the town services, and now I actually work out in remote areas. And what I am seeing out in the remote areas, it’s really really heartbreaking. Cos what I see is a lot of confusion with people out in the communities. But most of all once they’ve cut out the CDEP a lot of people are just sort of walking around in a daze. They don’t know what’s happening. The other thing that’s also happening is if these people don’t work they get cut. Eight weeks of no money whatsoever. So these people on quarantine, their money gets cut because they’ve been forced to do some sort of training or look for some bloody job out on these communities that’s barely got jackshit to me. And that’s unfair to me.’

- Leslie

People in my community were happy and working before this intervention came, collecting wood for the old people, taking out rubbish. Every morning they get up, 7 o’clock in the morning, and have a shower and go to work, even the young women. Ever since this intervention came, we have only half of the young people working at the communities. And they have to go to town to get the unemployment, but it’s gonna be hard for them to get unemployment because of this quarantining of money.’

- Eric Braden

‘There was this old fella and his daughter standing in front of me at the bank, happy to get his money. He went up to the receptionist, he told his name and where he come from, and asked how much he got in the bank, and the bank told him, “You got this much”. Then the receptionist turned around and said “Have you got an I.D. card”, and he said “No,” and the old fella he said “What is an I.D. card?” All those old fellas in the centre, they don’t even know what an I.D. card is. Then the receptionist told him you have to go take your birth certificate, go to the office, but in those days, those fellas were just born in the bush. There was no hospital, there was no doctor, no nurse, and now they want a record of a birth certificate which they didn’t have. This old fella didn’t know what to do, what to say, just stood there for a few minutes, and then he walked out the door. And I just stood there, shook my head, and said, “why is this happening to our people?”’

- Harry Nelson

‘I don’t like this idea they gave us cards to do the shopping. Why can’t they give us taxi vouchers? They give cards, but we got no way of doing our shopping. Funny that. We got the cards and then gotta make long way into the city. How do you expect us to go all the way and then back with all the shopping?’

- Vince Forrester

On business managers and removal of land permits…

‘I came from a town camp… Under the Act, the Commonwealth Minister now has the same powers as the N.T. Minister to administer, forfeit, breach or resume a town camp lease. He can take leases off us… So the leases we fought for 30 years ago, that we fought the government for, we got those leases in our community name, and now they can come and falsely take that lease off us… The leases give the Australian government right to exclusive possession to repair and demolish any existing structure, to terminate the lease at any time... The people ask us how we live. We live in fear of government coming in and taking our lease.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘Most of us are community councils. We’re governed by our communities, we have elections and they represent us. This business manager can come into any community and if there is a meeting on he can stop that. Community meeting, he can demand us to leave In our own country. In our own office. The minister may universally alter funding agreements. That means we don’t have certainty over the funds that we already have in our communities. The minister may direct where houses services are provided where the minister is not satisfied with the current service. Direct how assets are used with entities. Most of us own our communities. In our communities there are buildings there. There are office buildings there. Homes; our homes are assets. That’s what the government said. They can come in and they can direct and control that asset.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘If five year leases are put on Aboriginal communities and imposed on the town camps, all of the municipal services, all of the essential services, get sourced back to the local government. Back to our Northern Territory local government, and we have to basically tender for any contracts in terms of any services. And with programs that are not government mandated, we can see what works with the individual, for the community, and for the family. So when you look at a systematic approach, a paternalistic approach, it will not work with Aboriginal people. They’ve tried it! This is another government policy, it’s an ideology from people living 3000km away that aren’t in touch with the people who are affected by the consequences of their advice.’

- Walter Shaw

‘When we talk about the land grabbing... When you look at the town camps within the townships they’re prime real estate and that’s what they’re after. They’re after our land.’

- Walter Shaw

On policing…

‘We’ve never been subjected to raids before by police yet in the last year we’ve had our community surrounded by police. No one could get in and no one could get out. What they did was go through people’s homes. Barbara and the women of the town camp said, “No, that’s not the way you should work. You’re creating children to fear police.” They stopped that but if we didn’t stand up to them and say that’s wrong I think they would have gone further.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘We’ve always worked with police. We’ve worked with problems to do with our own

communities but because these police have got so much powers, they can go in your house, they can look under your pillow, they can go in your fridge, they can go anywhere on your town camp and look for anything.’

- Walter Shaw

‘I wanna touch on the emotional abuse that’s happening to our people. Would it be acceptable for the army to go into any community here?’

- Mitch

‘When it first started I saw the fear on the children’s and parents’ faces when the armies were going into the communities. I’ve never seen so many children in town that day. We had to calm them down. It’s like being stolen all over again. We all know what

fear is, but this is more than being scared by some scary movie or someone saying boo to you. And after hearing about the police coming into the communities. South Africa of the old may have died but it moved to another continent: N.T. So we have basically apartheid in the Northern Territory. Where the police can do what they like. They even allow tasers.’

- Aaron

On child protection and community services…

‘This intervention in the Northern Territory is to protect childrens, that’s what the government says, but we know different: It’s not.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘We’ve been singing out for housings. The government, in less than two months, they prepared full housing for these business managers with six foot high barb wired fences for living in our communities.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘Where I come from we already worked out years ago how we can look after our women and children and how to put food on our women’s and children’s tables. We set up a system were they agreed to set aside some part of their own money for a food order system. And that was working well for us.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘I’m not denying that children are interfered with. They are interfered with everywhere. There are a lot of these children affected everywhere. By sexual abuse, physical abuse and mental abuse. Human beings have been doing for a long time. A lot of that was brought here since 1770 after Cook. But because the Northern Territory is not a state, doesn’t have the same rights under the Constitution of this country created in 1901, we are second rate citizens in our own country. That is part of why the intervention is there. Why didn’t it happen in New South Wales? Why didn’t happen here in Canberra? Victoria?... the whole lot? Why? Because they can’t do it. They don’t have the power under legislation to overrule the states. And if you look under the ground in the Northern Territory there’s masses of uranium.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘They talk about our children not going to school. Our children go to mainstream school in town from town camps. Our children go to schools out bush, and yet they are not putting higher education out there for our kids. All those young fellows who go through

initiation, they need some training and alternative education. We gotta scrap this intervention. We gotta focus on the real things: that’s the health, housing and education.’

- Barbara Shaw

‘The reason why Aboriginal communities have been going in a downward spiral is

because of lack of resources, lack of funding, and our voices falling on deaf ears.’

- Walter Shaw

‘We stood up we explained exactly what we’ve implemented in Alice Springs. Our own grog and rehabilitation centre. Our own children’s centre, where they can go and play safely. All those things we’ve fought long and hard for, people have chucked their pension money in to keep these things going. We’ve had cake stalls. Now the government is withdrawing all of this funding. So I don’t know how in all of this our children are

supposed to be safe.’

- Mitch

‘So lets be really clear on this, that there hasn’t been a house built for an Aboriginal person, there hasn’t been a school, a kindergarten, or a high school built for Aboriginal people, and that’s all we’ve ever begged for, is the same standards as everybody else. That’s all we want: equalness. And a house and a school and a job to look forward to is basically our human rights.’

- Mitch

‘I know we’d like our kids to have a education and all that, we need better housings and that for our health issue. But we don’t want the intervention to go in there and do that. We got speakers who can speak up, you know. We got other Aboriginal organisations to help us do that. But instead we got government people who don’t know how central Australian people live. They have no idea. I questioned the Centrelink lady, she was from Melbourne. And I asked her: “Do you know what these people are like?” “Ah, I don’t have a clue.” “And why did you come here then?” “Ah it’s the government’s orders.” “I don’t wanna be served by you if you don’t know what my living conditions are.” So I just got up and walked away.’

- Vanessa Davis

‘So what I want for is you people to help us stop this intervention, this quarantine. Supposed to be Little Children Are Sacred, not quarantining anybody’s money.’

- Vanessa Davis

‘I work with the Aboriginal organisation at home, and my job is Australian Medicare. I get the information and in Yuedumu report. What I said was evidence. I don’t see any of those words. And what you have been hearing from the government for a couple of months is absolutely lies.’

- Christopher

On racism…

‘This is one of the most racists Acts in legislation since the White Australian policy stopped Asian people coming in.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘We shouldn’t have to beg, borrow... or steal. We are not children getting pocket money. We are not animals being told what to do. We are a people, a proud people, the first people. And we need to tell the Parliament here today where to stick the intervention policy.’

- Aaron

‘They are invading our homes and our lives. Telling us what to do, telling us how to run our lives. We want to be living free. Our people used to live free and roam round the country. But what this government up here is doing, telling us what to do, how to go about our lives. It’s really bad! We know how to look after our kids, how to protect our kids. We, they know what’s wrong… We teach our kids the right way and they expect us to tell them. We know how to look after our kids and protect our kids. Even the ceremony side iss gonna be demolished, taken away from us. They [the government] don’t know the land, the beliefs to us, they don’t believe that.’

-??

‘We’re supposed to be equal under one law in Australia but that’s not true. After this bill was passed, we live under prescribed areas. There are certain laws and laws we have to live under and [the intervention] gives police powers to do what they want under those orders.’

- Eileen Shaw

‘I say to all the public servants that if every Aboriginal person in this country died tomorrow, there would be two million public servants out of work. You know that? Two

million public servants. It’s phenomenal. The Aboriginal industry is the biggest single industry in this country. How much do you think this country has made? It’s not millions, it’s not trillions, but zillions. It’s made the bread thieves of this country very rich. The bread thieves. The corporate thieves. The Packers, the Murdochs, everybody who donates to political parties. They are thieves. While us are land rich and dirt poor. We don’t have nothing. We have our lives. I look forward to tomorrow if I’m alive. Or the next morning. Vinnie said 25 years but I’m not going to be here then. This country has not given, not shared, the wealth of this country which has not been made on the back of the sheep, but this country has made rich on Aboriginal land and sea, which did belong and still does belong to these people.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘To the people who really understand, we’ve actually leased the country to you people for 220 years. But Australia’s in a denial, this country has been in a denial, not telling the truth. This country is stolen. That’s right. It’s stolen. I want two apologies. One to the stolen generations and one for all the atrocities inflicted on my people for over 220 years.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘This is our land, Australia, and Australia has a meaning. Stories, songs, things, different languages, and we are still strong. There is legislation or whatever, but we will stand strong and fight for our rights. I am here to tell this government, we gotta tell them what they are doing is just not right. And we know Australia. We know what its like, and them, they don’t know. We know Australia because all these countries have an Aboriginal name. You know, hills, they got an Aboriginal name, our language name you know, trees, the river, they got a name all around, Aboriginal name. We come from this place. We know this country belongs to us and we will stand strong, we’ll fight together with words.’

- Christopher

I been coming up here, or down here, for thirty years, fighting for the rights of Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory and all over Australia. My job down here is to approach every one of you who is interested in supporting us against this intervention. It’s a mongrel act, which was loaded upon us with no warning whatsoever. Been talking to some of the people living here in Canberra. I’m talking politicians and other rednecks. They have been planning this intervention for years. You have no idea what effect it has been done to our people up there in the Territory. Our dream of improving our lifestyle and standards has been shattered. Not completely, we are still fighting. I’m asking you my people, friends support us. We don’t want intervention, second invasion.’

- Harry Nelson

‘If you look at why the intervention was put in place, Howard had nothing else to take to the white Australian people in an election. He didn’t have a Tampa, he didn’t have a Wheat Board, all he had to do was lean back and flog the blacks.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘This intervention is a weapon. It’s a weapon to break down Aboriginal community,

and it’s a weapon to break down the cultural maintenance that Aboriginal people have maintained throughout past governments.’

- Walter Shaw

‘Ain’t going to talk to no government and tell me how their community should be run when really it should be the community mob telling them, “Nah, sorry, we live here, we’ve been here for so long and we should, you shouldn’t be telling us what we should be doing, that’s our land and that’s our area.”’

- Leslie

‘Now they did suspend the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. This intervention is racially vilifying our people, men and women, saying women neglect their children, men abuse them, men and women are chronic alcoholics. We wanna move forward. This is not the right way of doing business. This intervention feels like the last nail in our coffin for us in the Northern Territory. We want to maintain our cultural existence and our existence as people.’

- Walter Shaw

‘They compulsory acquired our lands, they compulsory acquired our businesses. They then closed our schools, to which they didn’t put much in and we built ourselves, and they have extinguished our human rights up there, suspended democracy in the Northern

Territory.’

- Vince Forrester

‘We are not yet a whole country, because we have not yet recognised the first Australians who occupied this great land of ours, who were part of, who are part of, who will always be part of, the soil, the living fabric, the wildness, the tameness of this magnificent Australia.... We must move on to a recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty, of country… so we can join you and be whole Australians. Cos we recognise that this whole country comes from first Australians, is from first Australians, and we are all custodians…

- Bob Brown

‘Always was and always will be, Aboriginal land. The Greens as you know opposed the intervention since day one. We said it had to go, and we know is has to go, and we’ll

continue to fight to oppose it. This is racist legislation; otherwise they wouldn’t have had to exempt it from the Racial Discrimination Act. This is taking people’s land away,

taking their income away, taking the permit system away, to try to “fix” problems that are evident in the N.T. because of a lack of resources provided by successive governments. The N.T. intervention is the Howard way of doing business, and what we’re seeing at the moment is the Rudd government continuing the Howard agenda. Well we say no…’

- Rachel Siewart

Demands

‘What has to happen is we have to walk together, united. Black, white. There’s no such thing as brindle. You are black, white or brown, or you’re a different colour. You’re not brindle. But we are human beings. What you have to do tomorrow is go together, march together with these cards and say to this mob, take this intervention back because we don’t want it.’

- Mauri Japarta Ryan

‘Jenny Macklin said that she wasn’t able to go to over 73 communities but she’d go to one place and we want her to come to Alice Springs because that’s where the intervention started. Now a lot of these people up here on stage they come from different areas, different communities, different language groups but we’ve all got the same problem. [The intervention] is not working for us and we want it stopped.... We all want change for our communities and lifestyles....Once this intervention has stopped we’ve gotta talk about the real issues: housing, education and employment. I’m a fourth generation town camper, these mob here the fifth. The old people, they’ve lived through this before, and they don’t want us to’

- Barbara Shaw

Since the convergence…

What you can do…

‘What those people are facing up there is an apartheid state that is a legacy of racist laws of the Howard government. And we say shame. The international community needs to know that land rights in the N.T. are under attack. People are suffering we must end this racist legacy of the Howard government, and we must end it immediately. This is just the beginning of the campaign, and we will be organizing on the 13th of each month around the country. What we’ve gotta do is get people mobilized again, we’ve gotta stand up and be counted. This is happening because of a lack of respect and recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty in this country.’

- Greg Eatock

‘We sit in front of parliamentarians all the time when they come out to Alice Springs but it goes in one ear and out the other, from one community to the other to the other. Round in circles. They’re not listening to us. We get up and say as much as we can in Alice Springs, that is why we travelled over 3000 km to get here to ask you mob for help.’

- Barbara Shaw

‘This campaign has gotta carry on. It’s just started. And people do believe it. Many of us have passionate beliefs that Aboriginal people are strong, proud, and they will get what they want.’

- Greg Eatock

‘What can you do? There’s lots you can do. On the 13th of every month we’re gonna

picket the Centrelink offices. For those people who can’t attend a Centrelink office to stand outside, we ask that you jam up their telephone service and their internet service. We also ask that you go into your local Centrelink office if you’ve had a child molested in any century in Australia in your community and put your hand up for the intervention. Ask them why it’s only black babies that are gonna be saved in Australia. Why aren’t all

children gonna be saved in Australia?... And when you leave here today get onto your politicians, get onto your members of Parliament and let them know exactly how you feel and how you want Australia to go ahead.’

- Mitch

Do we want to wait another thirty years to say sorry for this intervention?

For starters how can it be racist if it only picks on blacks?

Can’t be racist, they suspended the Racial Discrimination Act.

Continued to attack the most disadvantaged people in this place.

Make them hasten the pace to join the rat race while we continue to flame the ingrained prejudice that makes this nation an international disgrace.

Forced us to reform by quarantining welfare, well I don’t think that’s fair

They take income from one group in the community which everyone in this country gets as a basic right

They put their own money on a gift card and make them queue up to get their own money back as a gift.

Now in Alice them mob are given free reign to inflict more pain and stand over us mob without disdain backed up by

Utopian blacks who plea for us to stand back, retract and change our tact, well I say they broke the pact on what it means to be black.

Even if us mob wanna reform, its still us mob who’ve gotta weather the storm the previous government created.

Instead of consulting and informing they imposed these drastic measures on the most uneducated people here after spending millions this past year

What’s a family have on the ground, where are they to be found?

How many services does countrymen get their hands on, and the land tenure basic services held to ransom by a government that doesn’t exist anymore?

This mob who just started up here were backed up the Central and Top End blacks with their political will

We overwhelmingly chose to resist, convincingly chose to insist that the invasion be at least reformed

So this mob up here they saying they are starting to listen, but don’t close your ears if you wanna hear

Re enact the Racial Discrimination Act for the benefit of the nation sign the

Un Indigenous person declaration.

Oh yeah, p.s. don’t forget to repeal the Emergency Response legislation

- Steve