Organising a forum or workshop for your community is a simple way to help publicise the issue of the Intervention, hear stories from those affected and their supporters, and build support for an end to racist laws in the Northern Territory and beyond. If you haven’t organised a forum before, it’s fairly simple. The main elements are:
1) A venue: preferably, one that’s free to hire.
Neighborhood community centers are often set up for exactly this purpose, and can be used for events at little or no cost. Students, particularly student representatives at universities usually have free access to certain rooms, including large meeting spaces. Or you could approach a school or university with your idea, and ask for a cheap or free room hire. When you are choosing a venue, keep in mind;
* How many people are you planning for? Don’t get room that fits 500 if you only expect 80.
* What will the speakers need to be heard properly? Check if your venue comes with microphones and a P.A.
* Whether you will have access to stuff like toilets, a kitchen for water, tea and coffee, etc, etc...
2) Allies and partners:
Other groups who might want to help build the event, co-organise and/or promote, suggest speakers etc. For example, get in touch with:
* Student Union and University Indigenous Officers and Indigenous collectives on campus
* Supportive University staff and academics
* Indigenous Students Network
* Indigenous Learning Center
* Arts Faculty
3) Speakers and presenters
Check out the contact list in this Students for Sovereignty pack for some ideas of potential speakers in your area.
4) A format for the forum
There are lots of styles and formats for forums - and definitely scope to be creative.
Some key roles:
* Facilitator / MC / Compere
* Space / audiovisual person - making sure there are chairs, the projector is working, the room isn’t freezing
* Meet ‘n’ greet person for those who arrive early... and late! They could set up a table at the entrance with a sign up sheet (so you can contact people after the forum), some materials, leaflets, stickers and posters.
Key elements might be:
* Acknowledgement of country - invite Traditional Owners to speak at the start of the forum. If you don’t know who they are - do some research, ask people in your community, call around.
* Facilitator: introduce the forum and speakers
* Speakers (ten minutes each)
* Questions and discussion
* Brainstorm possible collaboration / next steps, break off into small groups to work on, reportback)
5) Promotion
You can students, staff, other ngos to send via e-lists, put in their newsletters etc, article in student rags, do interviews on community radio with one organiser and one or two of the speakers, posters and fliers, etc.
Example: Public Forum: After Sorry - Where to for Aboriginal Rights?
Monday 25th Feb, Redfern Community Centre, 6pm.
Speakers:
* Bev Manton, Chairperson, NSW Aboriginal Land Council
* Phil Bradley, NSW Teachers Federation and Reconciliation for Western Sydney
* Shane Phillips, Aboriginal Rights Coalition
* Nicole Watson, UTS
Following Kevin Rudd’s apology there has been a marked wave of progressive sentiment on issues of Indigenous justice throughout the country. After 11 long years of setbacks and blatant racism under Howard, there has finally been an important step in the right direction.
Yet there is still much to be done. Up to two thousand people rallied the day before the apology against the ongoing injustice of the NT intervention, with the support of a broad range of Aboriginal organisations, unions, human rights and social justice groups. A meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance took forward the project of building a strong political voice for Aboriginal people. People from affected communities gave moving testimony:
The cry for immediate review of the intervention has gone unanswered, the Racial Discrimination act is still suspended, Aboriginal land has been compulsorily acquired and Non-aboriginal business managers continue to have extraordinary powers, referred to as “analogous to a police state” by many from communities.
There has been a call for broad, diverse rallies on the first anniversary of the intervention in July. There are actions being organised at Centrelinks throughout the country on March 13th, highlighting the issue of welfare quarantines.
Come along to this forum to help build our power & to discuss the way forward for the movement for Aboriginal rights.
For more info contact: _____
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Aboriginal Voices on the NT Intervention
Collected from recordings from public meetings and demonstrations in Alice Springs, Darwin and Canberra. Transcribed by Holly, Scott and Anita. For copies of the recordings please contact studentsforsovereignty@gmail.com
Greg Eatock, Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Redfern
“We must end this racist legacy of the Howard government, and we must end it immediately. People are dying from it. It’s an apartheid system. We all know what apartheid is, and that’s what people are living under in the N.T. This is just the beginning of the campaign, and we will be organising on the 13th of each month around the country. What we’ve gotta do is get people mobilised 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.”
Walter Shaw, Mount Nancy Town Camp, Alice Springs
“We want this intervention squashed and we want the Prime Minister 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.
“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 3000 kilometres away that aren’t in touch with the people who are affected by the consequences of their advice.
“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 into 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.“
“This intervention was done from a child sexual abuse report by the Northern Territory. Once the Federal Parliament got hold of this sexual abuse report, a lot of sexual abuse reports were done on a national scale. There are small pockets in any community in suburbia or metropolitan areas that have people who are offenders in terms of sexual abuse. This intervention is racially vilifying all Aboriginal men as paedophiles.
“Once this Bill was passed, we had a rally in Alice Springs. A whole group of Aboriginal communities and town campers rallied on the front steps of the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister’s office. A symbolic gesture was made where all of the Aboriginal women shredded the 500 page bill and burnt it, simply because our women raise our children. Last year was supposed to be a commemorative year for all of us Aboriginal people in this country, our country, we celebrated the 1967 referendum and we celebrated NAIDOC, and yet last year and this year we are still fighting for our future existence.”
Stan Strantham, Papunya
“In Papunya there’s a policeman there who waits at the hospital. People coming in from miles away with an unregistered car are booked straight away. They charge you for driving in town, and that’s not a town area. No way. All the policeman just get in the motor car, all of a sudden just grab the driver and lock them up. That’s what they do, everybody, everywhere. Alice Springs, there’s a policewoman, pulled out a gun to shoot people in the creek: ‘Get out you black bastards!’ That’s how the policeman act in treating black people today. So please, we need help. And there’s a lot of people today in Alice Springs. People are treating people like dogs. So come on, lets chuck them dregs to one side, it’s an invasion! Not anything else.”
Christopher Poulson, Yuendumu
“We know Australia because all these countries have an Aboriginal name. You know, hills they got an Aboriginal name, our language name. Trees, the river, they got a name all around, Aboriginal name, and we come from this place. We know this country belongs to us and we will stand strong, we’ll fight together with words. It is important that sometimes we must stand together.”
Pat Turner, Arrente and Gurdanji woman, Head of National Indigenous Television and former administrator of ATSIC
“We have known about the issues in our communities for several generations and governments have done nothing... We know what the situation is like, we live it every day... We have to stand up to this Government and we have to say “if you want to do anything to us, you negotiate. We’re not interested in consultation, you negotiate. We have rights and we are not about to sacrifice them for anybody… We have, on Aboriginal land, inalienable freehold title. And we will keep it.”
Aunty Kathy Mills, Senior Traditional Owner of Larrakia Nation, Darwin
“Our status of traditional ownership is under attack, like never before. The Wild / Anderson report was intended to improve living conditions for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people continue to suffer under starving wages, crowded living conditions, high cost of living, isolation from major health and services supply outlets, and inadequate travel service provisions.”
Leslie
“My name is Leslie and I actually work for an Indigenous job network. And June 2007, the government actually slashed our town services which actually 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 what I am seeing out in the remote areas, it’s really, really heartbreaking. Because what I see is a lot of confusion with people out in the communities. 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. If these people don’t work they get cut. Eight weeks of no money whatsoever. So these people on quarantine, their money get cut because they’ve been forced to do some sort of training or look for some bloody job out on these communities that have barely got jackshit. And that’s unfair.
Eileen Hoosan
“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 cut our leases off us. And the Commonwealth Minister has additional powers to compulsorily acquire town camps without additional notice or process and vet the freehold title in itself. So the leases we fought for thirty years ago, that we fought the government for, we got those leases in our community name, they can come and falsely take that lease off us! We live in fear of government coming in and taking our lease. Cos we’ve been there, you know.“
Barbara Shaw, Tangentyere Council, community and health worker, and resident at Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs:
In Alice Springs, July 2007:
“I’m proud to be a town camper. All my great grandfathers and grandmothers they fought for these town camps for years and years and years. And we’re gonna hold onto them, no matter what. No matter what colour you are, where you come from, and where you live; today all Aboriginal people are being painted by the same brush, with one colour. Aboriginal people are being jammed between a solid wall and a hard rock....
“In regards to welfare reform, Aboriginal women have had these programs already running out of their resource centres, for their children and their families. These programs worked for our communities. It made women stronger and gave them control in their communities... So let’s put the lid back on the paint tin and toss it. This big fight and struggle is not going to stop here, because it’s going to carry on in the generations to come. Let’s take a stand in solidarity today.”
In Canberra, February 2008:
“You see those men, those men over there, they are ‘prescribed area’ men. They look after their children and they look after their women. They’re not paedophiles. They are men of the communities, leaders. Everybody looks up to them. When there’s a problem in our communities, we deal with it.
“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, and they are gift cards. All of our people are lining up at Centrelink. And Centrelink is not sending information out on time so our people can be fed on our communities.
“In Katherine during Christmas time people travelled all over 300 kilometres to go and get there store cards from Katherine centrelink, their ration cards. In the end there was 500 people there and they ran out of store cards. So people with kids, old people they went without. They went without whole Christmas, without anything because of Centrelink, because Centrelink ran out of ration cards. We don’t want to be paid in vouchers or rations anymore! This takes us back to 1890 when they started the ration days. We scrap this intervention. We focus on the real things: that’s the health, housing and education.
“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.”
Mitch, Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice Springs
“My family are coming to me because I live in the suburbs. I’m under the welfare quarantine stuff. I’m not under the other stuff. I don’t have to put a card in at the moment, so every fortnight when i go to put my form in I beg them to put me under, because I’m feeding thirty extended family members on my pension with two kids.
“So this intervention stuff has already divided us in our communities. I live in Alice Springs after coming in from bush because we had no high schools. We’ve heard this word sovereignty. I learnt about sovereignty in school. We’ve come here to gather that strength under that sovereignty word so we can take that back to our elders and discuss that.
“We’ve stood up and 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 that funding. So i don’t know how in all of this our children are supposed to be safe.”
Greg Eatock, Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Redfern
“We must end this racist legacy of the Howard government, and we must end it immediately. People are dying from it. It’s an apartheid system. We all know what apartheid is, and that’s what people are living under in the N.T. This is just the beginning of the campaign, and we will be organising on the 13th of each month around the country. What we’ve gotta do is get people mobilised 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.”
Walter Shaw, Mount Nancy Town Camp, Alice Springs
“We want this intervention squashed and we want the Prime Minister 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.
“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 3000 kilometres away that aren’t in touch with the people who are affected by the consequences of their advice.
“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 into 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.“
“This intervention was done from a child sexual abuse report by the Northern Territory. Once the Federal Parliament got hold of this sexual abuse report, a lot of sexual abuse reports were done on a national scale. There are small pockets in any community in suburbia or metropolitan areas that have people who are offenders in terms of sexual abuse. This intervention is racially vilifying all Aboriginal men as paedophiles.
“Once this Bill was passed, we had a rally in Alice Springs. A whole group of Aboriginal communities and town campers rallied on the front steps of the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister’s office. A symbolic gesture was made where all of the Aboriginal women shredded the 500 page bill and burnt it, simply because our women raise our children. Last year was supposed to be a commemorative year for all of us Aboriginal people in this country, our country, we celebrated the 1967 referendum and we celebrated NAIDOC, and yet last year and this year we are still fighting for our future existence.”
Stan Strantham, Papunya
“In Papunya there’s a policeman there who waits at the hospital. People coming in from miles away with an unregistered car are booked straight away. They charge you for driving in town, and that’s not a town area. No way. All the policeman just get in the motor car, all of a sudden just grab the driver and lock them up. That’s what they do, everybody, everywhere. Alice Springs, there’s a policewoman, pulled out a gun to shoot people in the creek: ‘Get out you black bastards!’ That’s how the policeman act in treating black people today. So please, we need help. And there’s a lot of people today in Alice Springs. People are treating people like dogs. So come on, lets chuck them dregs to one side, it’s an invasion! Not anything else.”
Christopher Poulson, Yuendumu
“We know Australia because all these countries have an Aboriginal name. You know, hills they got an Aboriginal name, our language name. Trees, the river, they got a name all around, Aboriginal name, and we come from this place. We know this country belongs to us and we will stand strong, we’ll fight together with words. It is important that sometimes we must stand together.”
Pat Turner, Arrente and Gurdanji woman, Head of National Indigenous Television and former administrator of ATSIC
“We have known about the issues in our communities for several generations and governments have done nothing... We know what the situation is like, we live it every day... We have to stand up to this Government and we have to say “if you want to do anything to us, you negotiate. We’re not interested in consultation, you negotiate. We have rights and we are not about to sacrifice them for anybody… We have, on Aboriginal land, inalienable freehold title. And we will keep it.”
Aunty Kathy Mills, Senior Traditional Owner of Larrakia Nation, Darwin
“Our status of traditional ownership is under attack, like never before. The Wild / Anderson report was intended to improve living conditions for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people continue to suffer under starving wages, crowded living conditions, high cost of living, isolation from major health and services supply outlets, and inadequate travel service provisions.”
Leslie
“My name is Leslie and I actually work for an Indigenous job network. And June 2007, the government actually slashed our town services which actually 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 what I am seeing out in the remote areas, it’s really, really heartbreaking. Because what I see is a lot of confusion with people out in the communities. 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. If these people don’t work they get cut. Eight weeks of no money whatsoever. So these people on quarantine, their money get cut because they’ve been forced to do some sort of training or look for some bloody job out on these communities that have barely got jackshit. And that’s unfair.
Eileen Hoosan
“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 cut our leases off us. And the Commonwealth Minister has additional powers to compulsorily acquire town camps without additional notice or process and vet the freehold title in itself. So the leases we fought for thirty years ago, that we fought the government for, we got those leases in our community name, they can come and falsely take that lease off us! We live in fear of government coming in and taking our lease. Cos we’ve been there, you know.“
Barbara Shaw, Tangentyere Council, community and health worker, and resident at Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs:
In Alice Springs, July 2007:
“I’m proud to be a town camper. All my great grandfathers and grandmothers they fought for these town camps for years and years and years. And we’re gonna hold onto them, no matter what. No matter what colour you are, where you come from, and where you live; today all Aboriginal people are being painted by the same brush, with one colour. Aboriginal people are being jammed between a solid wall and a hard rock....
“In regards to welfare reform, Aboriginal women have had these programs already running out of their resource centres, for their children and their families. These programs worked for our communities. It made women stronger and gave them control in their communities... So let’s put the lid back on the paint tin and toss it. This big fight and struggle is not going to stop here, because it’s going to carry on in the generations to come. Let’s take a stand in solidarity today.”
In Canberra, February 2008:
“You see those men, those men over there, they are ‘prescribed area’ men. They look after their children and they look after their women. They’re not paedophiles. They are men of the communities, leaders. Everybody looks up to them. When there’s a problem in our communities, we deal with it.
“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, and they are gift cards. All of our people are lining up at Centrelink. And Centrelink is not sending information out on time so our people can be fed on our communities.
“In Katherine during Christmas time people travelled all over 300 kilometres to go and get there store cards from Katherine centrelink, their ration cards. In the end there was 500 people there and they ran out of store cards. So people with kids, old people they went without. They went without whole Christmas, without anything because of Centrelink, because Centrelink ran out of ration cards. We don’t want to be paid in vouchers or rations anymore! This takes us back to 1890 when they started the ration days. We scrap this intervention. We focus on the real things: that’s the health, housing and education.
“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.”
Mitch, Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice Springs
“My family are coming to me because I live in the suburbs. I’m under the welfare quarantine stuff. I’m not under the other stuff. I don’t have to put a card in at the moment, so every fortnight when i go to put my form in I beg them to put me under, because I’m feeding thirty extended family members on my pension with two kids.
“So this intervention stuff has already divided us in our communities. I live in Alice Springs after coming in from bush because we had no high schools. We’ve heard this word sovereignty. I learnt about sovereignty in school. We’ve come here to gather that strength under that sovereignty word so we can take that back to our elders and discuss that.
“We’ve stood up and 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 that funding. So i don’t know how in all of this our children are supposed to be safe.”
The LITTLE white lie … Bluffing Sovereigns out of their rights….
By Peta Ridgeway, Member of the Kattung Nation
Imagine there is a game that 2 people sit down to play, one player knowing all the rules & the other player not knowing one. Who do you suppose would win the game if the one who knows the rules is a cheat by nature?
The game is called stealing sovereignty. The board is our Lands.
The Rules are Sovereign Rights. Winner takes all.
The one who knows the rules has been playing this game for a few thousand years…
After years of them making moves for us, Mob are getting to know the rules.
We the Original People of this continent have continuing sovereignty, though the Crown & purported governments (PG) upon our continent have bluffed us into believing that it is non existent. They have worked hard to invalidate our belief in sovereignty via the genetic memory of fear of violence enforced upon us throughout the generations. To this day it uses tools such as racist policy & police forces to bully us into believing there is no other option to be free so we fall into quiet desperation, destitution, complacency & submission to their jurisdiction.
Within our own collective paradigm many of us who are aware of sovereignty think that we should either leave it alone because we will suffer as our Ancestors did or that we will have to fight to achieve it because the PG won’t give sovereignty to us.
A few home truths….
For us Mob upon this continent as we have not ceded our sovereignty through treaty, no entity can give us Sovereignty beside our parents!!! It is our BIRTHRIGHT…
Nor can anyone steal our sovereignty; they can only bluff us into believing it doesn’t exist as they have done since 1770.
What we DO have to do is assert our continuing sovereignty. This action results in stepping out of their jurisdiction. The work then is learning about our sovereign rights and then using, walking & planting them in our daily lives. This means being free from the governance of a foreign power that continually seeks to rob us of our freedom. Sovereignty is about protecting our FREEDOM …
Once suvereigns (a sovereign individual) have the awareness of these truths then the hard work, if chosen can expand onto the rebuilding of nationhood.
We as Mobs have mostly forgotten what true freedom is, we have been trained to forget. I guess the hardest work of a suvereign is to believe in, accept & own freedom for ourselves, for our children & for our linage to come.
THE REALITY OF OUR FREEDOM
If the knowledge of our “sovereign rights” was as common as the propaganda that is taught in education institutions about us & upheld in society then the PG would not be in power. The common person would even know about the illegal status it has here, this would create a scrutiny by the people that it definitely couldn’t handle. Perhaps British subjects would want to be part of our jurisdiction instead of the PG’s. This would challenge their very existence. The PG has a staunch commitment to bluff all of us for as long as they can to retain (in our minds) total power of this continent.
In their illegal jurisdiction the instrument & self appointed relationship they formed over us was & still is the PG as the “Protector/Trustee” & us as the state ward/POW*/beneficiary. This means that they are responsible for all decision making & management of our communities, affairs, finances, lands & resources.
No matter what political party (sales team) is in power it has the Protector/Trustee instrument over us en masse unless we choose to free ourselves. The Labour party of the 80’s wasn’t so publicly heavy handed in its use of the instrument though we can see that the Labour party of 2008 is using the instrument for all its worth as we look at the whole intervention issue. It has used this instrument to further steal land, resources, withhold wealth from the Mob & of course to assimilate us further so who we are as can be forgotten in a generation or 2. The instrument is executed under “the knowing what’s best for us guise”. At the time of writing I was informed about failed attempt at the quarantining of payments in Yuendumu, Walpiri Nation. The whole of the community including community stores had told it a loud & proud “no” to quarantining. Yuendumu is the only Mob as a prescribed community to have no quarantining of payments. In this situation the Walpiri used their sovereign right to govern in rejecting the jurisdiction of a foreign power. Any move by the PG asserting its policy on a sovereign without their permission is an “ACT OF WAR”.
Their jurisdiction over us is a bluff in itself. It has no sovereignty here itself. Only we do. This not only stems from our lawful authority but its own legal point of view for example, in 1872 “The Pacific Islander Protection Act” came into being .An amendment to “The Pacific Islander Protection Act 1875”states that the queen of the parliament of the UK could only exercise its’ laws (not sovereignty) over British subjects, and that the UK parliament had, by this amendment, clarified that:
Nothing herein or in any such Order in Council shall extend or be construed to extend to invest Her Majesty with any claim or title whatsoever to dominion or sovereignty over any such islands (ie: the Pacific Islands) or places as aforesaid (ie: the Australasian Colonies including Australia and NZ), or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands or places, or of the Chiefs or rulers thereof, to such sovereignty or dominion……….”
THIS ACT HAS NEVER BEEN REPEALED…
LIFE WITHIN THE WINNERS CIRCLE ….
There is only one way out…using our sovereign right to be free. There has been a very deliberate campaign to bluff us out of our “sovereign jurisdiction” & into the PG’s illegal jurisdiction .The campaign has been faithfully upheld since 1770 & driven through;
➢ Terrorism:
• by instilling fear into Mobs through a long running history of outright violence through war, permitted genocide & police brutality,
• murders & mistreatment in police & other institutions “protective” custody ie: Deaths in Custody
• the kidnapping of children & destruction of the natural family/community unit,
• forced immigration en masse from Homelands,
• the forced institutionalization or imprisonment of whole communities through the mission system,
• slave labour of our communities en masse including children,
• martial law in communities,
• being under perpetual surveillance & social scrutiny,
• capital & corporal punishment suffered by families & individuals for; - speaking our own languages,
- believing in our own spiritual systems,
- & the practice of our own divine Law,
➢ Denial:
• of rent,
• of management of our own finances ie: Stolen Wages
• of justice on all levels & in all aspects,
• of compensation or reparation of any crime,
• of presence & voice within the their jurisdiction,
• of the status of being “human” in legal terms ,
• of our nationalities;
• of our international identity,
• of our authority over our cultural lore & knowledge,
• of our creation or origins,
• of our own education, spiritual systems and our divine Law,
• of our own sustainable lifestyle or culture,
• of our vision for a quality of life,
• of access to our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
• of authority of our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
➢ Propaganda:
• by intergenerational brainwashing through the education & mission system of whole communities to enforce western values & lifestyle, ie: assimilation,
• by editing, censoring or even deleting accounts of history ,ie: the “British Invasion”.
• through appointment of scientists & anthropologists as authorities of our culture & creation (origins),
• teaching legal fiction that uphold their jurisdiction throughout institutions both here & globally, ie: “The aborigines come from Africa”
• by poisoning the faith of our spiritual systems in order to enable the en masse conversion of our people to Christianity,
• by deviating cultural knowledge such as tribal & national boundaries to further deny our nations & nationalities,
• by leading the world astray until 1972 that the indigenous people of the continent were “White Australians”
• to enable division in the wider community by creating & upholding racist social stereotypes such as,
ie “aboriginals get everything for free.
These points are only a broad few, as you know so many more can be added. The examples of the 29 points above are 29 ways they have forced us to divert our attention from our truth, being sovereigns with rights & a jurisdiction. Once their diversion is believed in then we submit to their illegal jurisdiction. In their jurisdiction the only place promised to us is enslavement.
On the other hand the 29 points above are 29 reasons to set yourself & your Mob free.
A LOOK @ OURSTORY
In order for us to forget & not get educated about our true rights they have diverted our movements onto the “civil rights” path.
Our fight against the illegal occupation upon our lands from another nation & their sovereignty or rule started in the 1770’s with the “British Invasion Wars” (hundreds of National Wars) fought against Britain & later her newborn colony “Australia” across our continent from 1770 – 1930’s.These were our first feudal campaigns on such a scale.
Our Earliest political campaigns were born out of our sovereignty being honoured like the campaign of the Pallawa petitioning the British monarchy in the late 1800’s about honouring the verbal treaty made with them in the 1820’s as Sovereigns.
In 1967 after a long hard fight the Mob was given the “civil right” to vote. Our civil rights movement was finally acknowledged after 30 yrs as well as supposedly dropping our “fauna & flora” status in Australian society.
Our Sovereignty movement continentally hit its peak during the late 60’s –late 70’s with many events such as the strike led by Vincent Lingiari in the NT, the birth of the Tent Embassy in the ACT & international interest in our state of affairs from China & then globally for the first time.
With this state of affairs attention had to diverted. This is when our people were first given government jobs, federal & state budgets allocated for health, housing & education thus funding for organizations. This diverted attention from our sovereign rule & their illegal status here. They did anything to shut us up & to plant the seeds of forgetfulness about our sovereignty. As trustee the PG had to give a little back then to protect itself, funnily enough just about everything that it gave back then has been & is in the process of being taken from us today.
A LOOK @ THEIRSTORY
In 1494 the Papal Bull of Oceania came into existence. The Bull is a declaration given by the Vatican a nation unto itself. This came about by the colonizing nations of the world bickering about their booty being raided by each other so they went to the Pope to sort this problem out. As the purported ruler of the world & looking to expand his dominion or sovereignty, he then divided the globe up like a mandarine & assigned zones to each at the table, our Nations sit within the zone assigned to Britain.
They called our continent “Terra Australis”, Land of Spirit or Light.
So the big picture is …Britain was given the Vatican’s Papal Bull jurisdiction over our part of the globe since 1494.
It is well known that the Dutch, French & Portuguese visited before 1770, they had a job to do….they mapped our land, chartered our waters, studied our peoples & resources. Throughout the coasts of our continent we have many accounts of these liaisons; in fact there are Mobs that carry these bloodlines as a result of these visits well before the Invasion of Britain.
In 1770 our continent was given another name but only in legal terminology, Terra Nullius (Empty Land), this is when in regards to their laws our peoples became “flora & fauna”. When land is deemed Terra Nullius it paves the way to “settlement” (legal term for squatting) & then opens the door to plant “Common Law”…This is how their law came to be upon our continent illegally.
Right now we are hearing about “Australia becoming a republic” .A referendum asking the same “republic question” to the Australian people can not be asked again ,it is illegal within their jurisdiction to do so. Though the PG has a couple of options up its sleeve;
➢ It can secede from the Crown…..meaning it can break away from the Crown, British Parliament (BP) & Commonwealth just as the 40 or so micro-nations called “principalities” have done upon this continent (a bit of history that the above mentioned didn’t want you to know about, the Principality of Hutt River being the 1st) It is a movement that has been happening over the past 36 years. These principalities as its name suggests are ruled by “princes”. These people realized that for themselves to step out of the jurisdiction they needed “sovereignty” so they declared themselves “princes” .In reality they have a very flimsy type of sovereignty in fact these principalities need to have the legitimate sovereignty of the people of the land to be totally empowered. Even if it means having Originies* within the citizenship base, then our sovereignty is used to justify their own (the vampirism of our sovereignty!). At this point of time with the PG changing laws about land tenure in regards to fee simple (a clause on deed & title meaning no one can enter the property uninvited including police or crown) now more than ever these principalities are & will be seeking the Originies of the land having had a taste of freedom from the purported government’s jurisdiction.
➢ The British Parliament can repeal the Australian Constitution Act 1901...
This means that since the Australian Constitution is just an act of the British Parliament it can erase the entity called “Australia” at the stroke of a pen.
The British parliament could offer “Independence”. Though ,it is not true severance as the name would suggest.
The problem with independence given from the crown is that it will still have ties to the British Parliament .Here is how….
It is the expected that the signatories of any official document/instrument such as a declaration of independence or treaty are either opposing or independent bodies.
If one of the signatories is in service or employ of the other signatory then it makes the agreement, be it a declaration or treaty null & void.
Kevin Rudd has sworn allegiance to the Queen of the British Parliament as a Prime Minister which means he is in service to the British Parliament & the Queen. An official document produced between them is null & void.
ILLEGAL AGAIN
SO WHAT WILL THEY DO KNOWING THEY HAVE NO SOVEREIGNTY OF THEIR OWN?
In any case the new republic will need sovereignty to become a legal entity…
They will have to get it from somewhere…
Here is a look at what could happen….
➢ Soon enough the begging of a treaty will begin again through the reconciliation movement. For example; It was in their best interest to have had us to beg for a “Sorry”. Why? Because the people demanded an apology for years with nothing else prominently attached such as compensation & reparation thus the apology alone became a “legal remedy” to the whole Stolen Generation/Stolen Wages issue, in which we were paid in full. The people need to be clear & strong about the direction of their campaigns & not be contaminated by purported government’s guided versions of them.
➢ It will ratify the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. All in the name of “good will”. The UN is an image laundering machine. It protects, primps & polishes the purported government’s & other the member states’ image within the international community .The PG ratifies treaties to benefit its image & has used the UN in its former glory as the League of Nations to justify itself as an international entity by signing onto international treaties. It only has domestic sovereignty under the British Parliament since it is still legally a colony of Britain. We all know it doesn’t heed the UN charters. Their law is not enforceable upon any nation .They are at best guidelines. Under the UN charters, indigenous populations (of the nations that have been colonized) come under the status of peoples. Peoples are not seen as nations thus their sovereignty or nationhood is not acknowledged by that body. The “4th World” is made up of such peoples. The PG has always shared this view in regards to Originies upon this continent. We are put under the banner of “peoples”. This means in their jurisdiction we are seen as one body, one people. This is akin to seeing Africa as one country & all its Mobs as one nationality.
➢ They will manufacture the “Treaty of all treaties”. The treaty will be a style that cedes our sovereignty & looks upon us as a people. It will offer the approval of the creation of defacto governments in remote communities especially to those Mobs that are using or threatening to use their sovereign rights. A defacto style government is one that rules within a jurisdiction though is funded by and ultimately adheres to the jurisdiction of a mother government; in autonomy, defacto governments are just one step above a shire council in reality. For the rest of the continent it will initiate a treaty with its handpicked indigenous leaders to represent all Mob & they will sign off on for the continental ceding of sovereignty. The purported government will use our sovereignty to build the future republic. The vampirism of sovereignty at its peak.
Only Nations that have proclaimed their continuing sovereignty will be free from such actions.
If we think that the policy within their jurisdiction is inhumane now than how it will be when Kevin Rudd has the free reign to make any Law unhindered….in the name of building a “republic”….????
Glossary
ORIGINE
Latin: meaning the original people. The term is starting to be used internationally through the opposition of using the term “aborigine” because of its meaning in Latin.
Ab= not
Origine=original people
POW
Prisoner Of War. A Nation that has had a declaration of war made against them without a treaty of peace negotiated with them at any time afterwards is deemed to be still at war. Kattung had war declared upon them on 30th March 1804.The Kattung Nation members within the PG jurisdiction are POW’s.
BIRTHRIGHTS
Birthrights can never be given by a foreign power be it government, monarchy or corporation. They are born with oneself just as we were given a body at birth. We carry birthrights within us. Our hands & feet were given at birth to be used for this lifetime so are our birthrights.
SOVEREIGN RIGHTS
Sovereign rights are our birthright to govern upon & protect our homelands, to uphold our Law, to determine our own destinies whether that be spiritually, culturally or economically, to be apart of the international community & to be free from the jurisdiction of foreign powers.
CIVIL RIGHTS
Civil rights are rights that can only be given to the people by a state/government or monarchy.
For more details and to contact:
kanuguba1@gmail.com
Imagine there is a game that 2 people sit down to play, one player knowing all the rules & the other player not knowing one. Who do you suppose would win the game if the one who knows the rules is a cheat by nature?
The game is called stealing sovereignty. The board is our Lands.
The Rules are Sovereign Rights. Winner takes all.
The one who knows the rules has been playing this game for a few thousand years…
After years of them making moves for us, Mob are getting to know the rules.
We the Original People of this continent have continuing sovereignty, though the Crown & purported governments (PG) upon our continent have bluffed us into believing that it is non existent. They have worked hard to invalidate our belief in sovereignty via the genetic memory of fear of violence enforced upon us throughout the generations. To this day it uses tools such as racist policy & police forces to bully us into believing there is no other option to be free so we fall into quiet desperation, destitution, complacency & submission to their jurisdiction.
Within our own collective paradigm many of us who are aware of sovereignty think that we should either leave it alone because we will suffer as our Ancestors did or that we will have to fight to achieve it because the PG won’t give sovereignty to us.
A few home truths….
For us Mob upon this continent as we have not ceded our sovereignty through treaty, no entity can give us Sovereignty beside our parents!!! It is our BIRTHRIGHT…
Nor can anyone steal our sovereignty; they can only bluff us into believing it doesn’t exist as they have done since 1770.
What we DO have to do is assert our continuing sovereignty. This action results in stepping out of their jurisdiction. The work then is learning about our sovereign rights and then using, walking & planting them in our daily lives. This means being free from the governance of a foreign power that continually seeks to rob us of our freedom. Sovereignty is about protecting our FREEDOM …
Once suvereigns (a sovereign individual) have the awareness of these truths then the hard work, if chosen can expand onto the rebuilding of nationhood.
We as Mobs have mostly forgotten what true freedom is, we have been trained to forget. I guess the hardest work of a suvereign is to believe in, accept & own freedom for ourselves, for our children & for our linage to come.
THE REALITY OF OUR FREEDOM
If the knowledge of our “sovereign rights” was as common as the propaganda that is taught in education institutions about us & upheld in society then the PG would not be in power. The common person would even know about the illegal status it has here, this would create a scrutiny by the people that it definitely couldn’t handle. Perhaps British subjects would want to be part of our jurisdiction instead of the PG’s. This would challenge their very existence. The PG has a staunch commitment to bluff all of us for as long as they can to retain (in our minds) total power of this continent.
In their illegal jurisdiction the instrument & self appointed relationship they formed over us was & still is the PG as the “Protector/Trustee” & us as the state ward/POW*/beneficiary. This means that they are responsible for all decision making & management of our communities, affairs, finances, lands & resources.
No matter what political party (sales team) is in power it has the Protector/Trustee instrument over us en masse unless we choose to free ourselves. The Labour party of the 80’s wasn’t so publicly heavy handed in its use of the instrument though we can see that the Labour party of 2008 is using the instrument for all its worth as we look at the whole intervention issue. It has used this instrument to further steal land, resources, withhold wealth from the Mob & of course to assimilate us further so who we are as can be forgotten in a generation or 2. The instrument is executed under “the knowing what’s best for us guise”. At the time of writing I was informed about failed attempt at the quarantining of payments in Yuendumu, Walpiri Nation. The whole of the community including community stores had told it a loud & proud “no” to quarantining. Yuendumu is the only Mob as a prescribed community to have no quarantining of payments. In this situation the Walpiri used their sovereign right to govern in rejecting the jurisdiction of a foreign power. Any move by the PG asserting its policy on a sovereign without their permission is an “ACT OF WAR”.
Their jurisdiction over us is a bluff in itself. It has no sovereignty here itself. Only we do. This not only stems from our lawful authority but its own legal point of view for example, in 1872 “The Pacific Islander Protection Act” came into being .An amendment to “The Pacific Islander Protection Act 1875”states that the queen of the parliament of the UK could only exercise its’ laws (not sovereignty) over British subjects, and that the UK parliament had, by this amendment, clarified that:
Nothing herein or in any such Order in Council shall extend or be construed to extend to invest Her Majesty with any claim or title whatsoever to dominion or sovereignty over any such islands (ie: the Pacific Islands) or places as aforesaid (ie: the Australasian Colonies including Australia and NZ), or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands or places, or of the Chiefs or rulers thereof, to such sovereignty or dominion……….”
THIS ACT HAS NEVER BEEN REPEALED…
LIFE WITHIN THE WINNERS CIRCLE ….
There is only one way out…using our sovereign right to be free. There has been a very deliberate campaign to bluff us out of our “sovereign jurisdiction” & into the PG’s illegal jurisdiction .The campaign has been faithfully upheld since 1770 & driven through;
➢ Terrorism:
• by instilling fear into Mobs through a long running history of outright violence through war, permitted genocide & police brutality,
• murders & mistreatment in police & other institutions “protective” custody ie: Deaths in Custody
• the kidnapping of children & destruction of the natural family/community unit,
• forced immigration en masse from Homelands,
• the forced institutionalization or imprisonment of whole communities through the mission system,
• slave labour of our communities en masse including children,
• martial law in communities,
• being under perpetual surveillance & social scrutiny,
• capital & corporal punishment suffered by families & individuals for; - speaking our own languages,
- believing in our own spiritual systems,
- & the practice of our own divine Law,
➢ Denial:
• of rent,
• of management of our own finances ie: Stolen Wages
• of justice on all levels & in all aspects,
• of compensation or reparation of any crime,
• of presence & voice within the their jurisdiction,
• of the status of being “human” in legal terms ,
• of our nationalities;
• of our international identity,
• of our authority over our cultural lore & knowledge,
• of our creation or origins,
• of our own education, spiritual systems and our divine Law,
• of our own sustainable lifestyle or culture,
• of our vision for a quality of life,
• of access to our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
• of authority of our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
➢ Propaganda:
• by intergenerational brainwashing through the education & mission system of whole communities to enforce western values & lifestyle, ie: assimilation,
• by editing, censoring or even deleting accounts of history ,ie: the “British Invasion”.
• through appointment of scientists & anthropologists as authorities of our culture & creation (origins),
• teaching legal fiction that uphold their jurisdiction throughout institutions both here & globally, ie: “The aborigines come from Africa”
• by poisoning the faith of our spiritual systems in order to enable the en masse conversion of our people to Christianity,
• by deviating cultural knowledge such as tribal & national boundaries to further deny our nations & nationalities,
• by leading the world astray until 1972 that the indigenous people of the continent were “White Australians”
• to enable division in the wider community by creating & upholding racist social stereotypes such as,
ie “aboriginals get everything for free.
These points are only a broad few, as you know so many more can be added. The examples of the 29 points above are 29 ways they have forced us to divert our attention from our truth, being sovereigns with rights & a jurisdiction. Once their diversion is believed in then we submit to their illegal jurisdiction. In their jurisdiction the only place promised to us is enslavement.
On the other hand the 29 points above are 29 reasons to set yourself & your Mob free.
A LOOK @ OURSTORY
In order for us to forget & not get educated about our true rights they have diverted our movements onto the “civil rights” path.
Our fight against the illegal occupation upon our lands from another nation & their sovereignty or rule started in the 1770’s with the “British Invasion Wars” (hundreds of National Wars) fought against Britain & later her newborn colony “Australia” across our continent from 1770 – 1930’s.These were our first feudal campaigns on such a scale.
Our Earliest political campaigns were born out of our sovereignty being honoured like the campaign of the Pallawa petitioning the British monarchy in the late 1800’s about honouring the verbal treaty made with them in the 1820’s as Sovereigns.
In 1967 after a long hard fight the Mob was given the “civil right” to vote. Our civil rights movement was finally acknowledged after 30 yrs as well as supposedly dropping our “fauna & flora” status in Australian society.
Our Sovereignty movement continentally hit its peak during the late 60’s –late 70’s with many events such as the strike led by Vincent Lingiari in the NT, the birth of the Tent Embassy in the ACT & international interest in our state of affairs from China & then globally for the first time.
With this state of affairs attention had to diverted. This is when our people were first given government jobs, federal & state budgets allocated for health, housing & education thus funding for organizations. This diverted attention from our sovereign rule & their illegal status here. They did anything to shut us up & to plant the seeds of forgetfulness about our sovereignty. As trustee the PG had to give a little back then to protect itself, funnily enough just about everything that it gave back then has been & is in the process of being taken from us today.
A LOOK @ THEIRSTORY
In 1494 the Papal Bull of Oceania came into existence. The Bull is a declaration given by the Vatican a nation unto itself. This came about by the colonizing nations of the world bickering about their booty being raided by each other so they went to the Pope to sort this problem out. As the purported ruler of the world & looking to expand his dominion or sovereignty, he then divided the globe up like a mandarine & assigned zones to each at the table, our Nations sit within the zone assigned to Britain.
They called our continent “Terra Australis”, Land of Spirit or Light.
So the big picture is …Britain was given the Vatican’s Papal Bull jurisdiction over our part of the globe since 1494.
It is well known that the Dutch, French & Portuguese visited before 1770, they had a job to do….they mapped our land, chartered our waters, studied our peoples & resources. Throughout the coasts of our continent we have many accounts of these liaisons; in fact there are Mobs that carry these bloodlines as a result of these visits well before the Invasion of Britain.
In 1770 our continent was given another name but only in legal terminology, Terra Nullius (Empty Land), this is when in regards to their laws our peoples became “flora & fauna”. When land is deemed Terra Nullius it paves the way to “settlement” (legal term for squatting) & then opens the door to plant “Common Law”…This is how their law came to be upon our continent illegally.
Right now we are hearing about “Australia becoming a republic” .A referendum asking the same “republic question” to the Australian people can not be asked again ,it is illegal within their jurisdiction to do so. Though the PG has a couple of options up its sleeve;
➢ It can secede from the Crown…..meaning it can break away from the Crown, British Parliament (BP) & Commonwealth just as the 40 or so micro-nations called “principalities” have done upon this continent (a bit of history that the above mentioned didn’t want you to know about, the Principality of Hutt River being the 1st) It is a movement that has been happening over the past 36 years. These principalities as its name suggests are ruled by “princes”. These people realized that for themselves to step out of the jurisdiction they needed “sovereignty” so they declared themselves “princes” .In reality they have a very flimsy type of sovereignty in fact these principalities need to have the legitimate sovereignty of the people of the land to be totally empowered. Even if it means having Originies* within the citizenship base, then our sovereignty is used to justify their own (the vampirism of our sovereignty!). At this point of time with the PG changing laws about land tenure in regards to fee simple (a clause on deed & title meaning no one can enter the property uninvited including police or crown) now more than ever these principalities are & will be seeking the Originies of the land having had a taste of freedom from the purported government’s jurisdiction.
➢ The British Parliament can repeal the Australian Constitution Act 1901...
This means that since the Australian Constitution is just an act of the British Parliament it can erase the entity called “Australia” at the stroke of a pen.
The British parliament could offer “Independence”. Though ,it is not true severance as the name would suggest.
The problem with independence given from the crown is that it will still have ties to the British Parliament .Here is how….
It is the expected that the signatories of any official document/instrument such as a declaration of independence or treaty are either opposing or independent bodies.
If one of the signatories is in service or employ of the other signatory then it makes the agreement, be it a declaration or treaty null & void.
Kevin Rudd has sworn allegiance to the Queen of the British Parliament as a Prime Minister which means he is in service to the British Parliament & the Queen. An official document produced between them is null & void.
ILLEGAL AGAIN
SO WHAT WILL THEY DO KNOWING THEY HAVE NO SOVEREIGNTY OF THEIR OWN?
In any case the new republic will need sovereignty to become a legal entity…
They will have to get it from somewhere…
Here is a look at what could happen….
➢ Soon enough the begging of a treaty will begin again through the reconciliation movement. For example; It was in their best interest to have had us to beg for a “Sorry”. Why? Because the people demanded an apology for years with nothing else prominently attached such as compensation & reparation thus the apology alone became a “legal remedy” to the whole Stolen Generation/Stolen Wages issue, in which we were paid in full. The people need to be clear & strong about the direction of their campaigns & not be contaminated by purported government’s guided versions of them.
➢ It will ratify the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. All in the name of “good will”. The UN is an image laundering machine. It protects, primps & polishes the purported government’s & other the member states’ image within the international community .The PG ratifies treaties to benefit its image & has used the UN in its former glory as the League of Nations to justify itself as an international entity by signing onto international treaties. It only has domestic sovereignty under the British Parliament since it is still legally a colony of Britain. We all know it doesn’t heed the UN charters. Their law is not enforceable upon any nation .They are at best guidelines. Under the UN charters, indigenous populations (of the nations that have been colonized) come under the status of peoples. Peoples are not seen as nations thus their sovereignty or nationhood is not acknowledged by that body. The “4th World” is made up of such peoples. The PG has always shared this view in regards to Originies upon this continent. We are put under the banner of “peoples”. This means in their jurisdiction we are seen as one body, one people. This is akin to seeing Africa as one country & all its Mobs as one nationality.
➢ They will manufacture the “Treaty of all treaties”. The treaty will be a style that cedes our sovereignty & looks upon us as a people. It will offer the approval of the creation of defacto governments in remote communities especially to those Mobs that are using or threatening to use their sovereign rights. A defacto style government is one that rules within a jurisdiction though is funded by and ultimately adheres to the jurisdiction of a mother government; in autonomy, defacto governments are just one step above a shire council in reality. For the rest of the continent it will initiate a treaty with its handpicked indigenous leaders to represent all Mob & they will sign off on for the continental ceding of sovereignty. The purported government will use our sovereignty to build the future republic. The vampirism of sovereignty at its peak.
Only Nations that have proclaimed their continuing sovereignty will be free from such actions.
If we think that the policy within their jurisdiction is inhumane now than how it will be when Kevin Rudd has the free reign to make any Law unhindered….in the name of building a “republic”….????
Glossary
ORIGINE
Latin: meaning the original people. The term is starting to be used internationally through the opposition of using the term “aborigine” because of its meaning in Latin.
Ab= not
Origine=original people
POW
Prisoner Of War. A Nation that has had a declaration of war made against them without a treaty of peace negotiated with them at any time afterwards is deemed to be still at war. Kattung had war declared upon them on 30th March 1804.The Kattung Nation members within the PG jurisdiction are POW’s.
BIRTHRIGHTS
Birthrights can never be given by a foreign power be it government, monarchy or corporation. They are born with oneself just as we were given a body at birth. We carry birthrights within us. Our hands & feet were given at birth to be used for this lifetime so are our birthrights.
SOVEREIGN RIGHTS
Sovereign rights are our birthright to govern upon & protect our homelands, to uphold our Law, to determine our own destinies whether that be spiritually, culturally or economically, to be apart of the international community & to be free from the jurisdiction of foreign powers.
CIVIL RIGHTS
Civil rights are rights that can only be given to the people by a state/government or monarchy.
For more details and to contact:
kanuguba1@gmail.com
Racism and the NT Intervention
One of the clearest examples of the tenuous link between child abuse and many measures in the NT intervention, is the brazen undermining of Aboriginal land rights.
Provisions include:
- The Australian government forcing compulsory 5-year leases on all major Aboriginal communities in the NT. No negotiation or lease document is required. ‘Just terms’ compensation will only be paid ‘if warranted’. The leases do not guarantee Aboriginal people right of residence – it is not clear whether the government could evict Aboriginal people from their own communities.
- The government compulsorily acquiring town camp leases and vesting freehold title in itself. This dispossesses Traditional Owners of their land. No notice or process is required. Compensation may be payable but is not guaranteed.
The implications of these provisions are two-fold. One: these changes dilute Aboriginal control of land and expand their potential for commercial development. The context of the NT intervention was a push for an Aboriginal community in the NT to host a nuclear waste dump on their land; twinned with corporate agitation for the expansion of uranium mining and exports. The change of government in Australia last year did not also see a change in the aims – or influence – of the mining lobby. Mining interests have led opposition to the notion of Aboriginal land rights, and certainly have not opposed the NT intervention: weakening as it does Aboriginal control of land, easing access to land for powerful corporate players.
The NT intervention destabilises Aboriginal control of land, and community structures enabling the making of decisions regarding land. Secondly, it destabilises Aboriginal communities themselves, with reports today of the movements of outer communities in the NT moving into town centres as the NT intervention spreads across the territory in size and scope. Again, this undermines the force of Aboriginal decisions regarding access to land.
These provisions display the racist extensions of the intervention beyond even the inherently racist aspects of the invasion. The undermining of Aboriginal land rights not only weakens Aboriginal communities and culture, but also further advances exploitation of land and Aboriginal people being dumped with the problems associated with storing nuclear waste or with the consequences of uranium mining. The environmental racism implicit in the intervention adds further importance to greenies supporting the alliance for Indigenous sovereignty.
Though sudden and intense, the NT intervention is not new policy: but an extension of government ideologies towards Indigenous people. The intervention is a development that already deserves its own shocking – but not new – place in the ongoing history of Indigenous genocide in Australia.
Provisions include:
- The Australian government forcing compulsory 5-year leases on all major Aboriginal communities in the NT. No negotiation or lease document is required. ‘Just terms’ compensation will only be paid ‘if warranted’. The leases do not guarantee Aboriginal people right of residence – it is not clear whether the government could evict Aboriginal people from their own communities.
- The government compulsorily acquiring town camp leases and vesting freehold title in itself. This dispossesses Traditional Owners of their land. No notice or process is required. Compensation may be payable but is not guaranteed.
The implications of these provisions are two-fold. One: these changes dilute Aboriginal control of land and expand their potential for commercial development. The context of the NT intervention was a push for an Aboriginal community in the NT to host a nuclear waste dump on their land; twinned with corporate agitation for the expansion of uranium mining and exports. The change of government in Australia last year did not also see a change in the aims – or influence – of the mining lobby. Mining interests have led opposition to the notion of Aboriginal land rights, and certainly have not opposed the NT intervention: weakening as it does Aboriginal control of land, easing access to land for powerful corporate players.
The NT intervention destabilises Aboriginal control of land, and community structures enabling the making of decisions regarding land. Secondly, it destabilises Aboriginal communities themselves, with reports today of the movements of outer communities in the NT moving into town centres as the NT intervention spreads across the territory in size and scope. Again, this undermines the force of Aboriginal decisions regarding access to land.
These provisions display the racist extensions of the intervention beyond even the inherently racist aspects of the invasion. The undermining of Aboriginal land rights not only weakens Aboriginal communities and culture, but also further advances exploitation of land and Aboriginal people being dumped with the problems associated with storing nuclear waste or with the consequences of uranium mining. The environmental racism implicit in the intervention adds further importance to greenies supporting the alliance for Indigenous sovereignty.
Though sudden and intense, the NT intervention is not new policy: but an extension of government ideologies towards Indigenous people. The intervention is a development that already deserves its own shocking – but not new – place in the ongoing history of Indigenous genocide in Australia.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Roll Back the Intervention
Roll Back The Intervention
Convergence in
From February 11-13, 2008, over 2000 from across
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
‘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
‘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
- 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
- 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.
- Aaron
On child protection and community services…
‘This intervention in the
- 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
- 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
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
- 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
- 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
- Mauri Japarta Ryan
‘This is our land,
- Christopher
‘I been coming up here, or down here, for thirty years, fighting for the rights of Aboriginal people of the
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
children gonna be saved in
- 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
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
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Standing against the NT Intervention - Voices for self-determination
Monday April 14 6pm Redfern Community Centre
BBQ provided
Speakers include:
* Vince Forrester - Elder from Mutitjulu community
* Monique Wiseman - Aboriginal Rights Coalition activist, recently
returned from solidarity work in Darwin town camps
* Darren Dick, HREOC
Two months after Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generation, a new
wave of dispossession in sweeping through the Northern Territory.
The NT intervention has introduced a punitive welfare regime and seen
the closure of many services in remote communities. Large numbers of
people are being forced into the major urban centres, where they can
not access employment or accommodation. Last Thursday and Friday in
Alice Springs, a "special police operation" targeting "anti-social
behaviour" (ie Aboriginal people in public spaces) saw 188 people
taken into custody.
Vince Forrester is a long time land rights activist and Aboriginal
leader. He is from Mutitjulu, a proud community whose demonisation
paved the way to the federal intervention. He will discuss the
devastating impact this policy is having on his people - from the
intimidating police raids through to the closure of the local high
school and health care facilities. He will also discuss strategies for
reasserting self-determination and campaigning to seriously address
disadvantage.
Monique Wiseman has recently returned from Darwin. She will speak
about the deteriorating conditions in Darwin's town camps, whose
populations have doubled through the intervention as people are forced
in from remote communities.
This forum will also provide an opportunity to talk about the way
forward for the campaign against the Northern Territory intervention.
The Aboriginal Rights Coalition is preparing for a national conference
in May. We are also building for mass rallies on June 21, marking one
year since the intervention.
Come along, here the stories first hand and get involved in the campaign!
For more info see: aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com
Contact: Greg Eatock 0432050240 Paddy Gibson 0415800586
BBQ provided
Speakers include:
* Vince Forrester - Elder from Mutitjulu community
* Monique Wiseman - Aboriginal Rights Coalition activist, recently
returned from solidarity work in Darwin town camps
* Darren Dick, HREOC
Two months after Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generation, a new
wave of dispossession in sweeping through the Northern Territory.
The NT intervention has introduced a punitive welfare regime and seen
the closure of many services in remote communities. Large numbers of
people are being forced into the major urban centres, where they can
not access employment or accommodation. Last Thursday and Friday in
Alice Springs, a "special police operation" targeting "anti-social
behaviour" (ie Aboriginal people in public spaces) saw 188 people
taken into custody.
Vince Forrester is a long time land rights activist and Aboriginal
leader. He is from Mutitjulu, a proud community whose demonisation
paved the way to the federal intervention. He will discuss the
devastating impact this policy is having on his people - from the
intimidating police raids through to the closure of the local high
school and health care facilities. He will also discuss strategies for
reasserting self-determination and campaigning to seriously address
disadvantage.
Monique Wiseman has recently returned from Darwin. She will speak
about the deteriorating conditions in Darwin's town camps, whose
populations have doubled through the intervention as people are forced
in from remote communities.
This forum will also provide an opportunity to talk about the way
forward for the campaign against the Northern Territory intervention.
The Aboriginal Rights Coalition is preparing for a national conference
in May. We are also building for mass rallies on June 21, marking one
year since the intervention.
Come along, here the stories first hand and get involved in the campaign!
For more info see: aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com
Contact: Greg Eatock 0432050240 Paddy Gibson 0415800586
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Students of Sustainability 2008
Students Of Sustainability 2008
July 5th-9th: Newcastle, New South Wales
Students of Sustainability (SoS) is a five day camping conference for anyone interested in creating a more ecologically and socially sustainable world.
SoS '08 will be held at the University of Newcastle, from the 5th - 9th July, on the lands of the Pambalong, Awabakal and Woroni peoples.
At SoS, students and environmental activists are given the opportunity to learn from the stories and struggles of Traditional Owners from many nations around Australia. As campaigners for social and environmental justice, it is important for us to recognise the past and ongoing custodianship of this land, and to stand in solidarity with Traditional Owners who continue to fight for clean country and strong culture. Forums such as SoS are an important place to gather, share stories and plan campaigns in support of real sustainability and sovereignty for indigenous Australians.
To assist indigenous delegates attending SoS, a reduced or waived fee for conference registration will be offered, along with transport and accommodation assistance for speakers and presenters. We are hoping that delegates from many nations, including those far from the east coast, will be able to come to SoS 2008; there are many ways that you can help to make this a reality.
What you can do:
- Organise transport for your state network or collective to get to SoS 2008
- Invite indigenous students from your campus or school to come to SoS
- Fundraise to assist Traditional Owners from your area attending SoS
- Talk to Traditional Owners in your area about their campaigns, issues and struggles, and how your collectives can help.
For more information:
www.studentsofsustainability.org
July 5th-9th: Newcastle, New South Wales
Students of Sustainability (SoS) is a five day camping conference for anyone interested in creating a more ecologically and socially sustainable world.
SoS '08 will be held at the University of Newcastle, from the 5th - 9th July, on the lands of the Pambalong, Awabakal and Woroni peoples.
At SoS, students and environmental activists are given the opportunity to learn from the stories and struggles of Traditional Owners from many nations around Australia. As campaigners for social and environmental justice, it is important for us to recognise the past and ongoing custodianship of this land, and to stand in solidarity with Traditional Owners who continue to fight for clean country and strong culture. Forums such as SoS are an important place to gather, share stories and plan campaigns in support of real sustainability and sovereignty for indigenous Australians.
To assist indigenous delegates attending SoS, a reduced or waived fee for conference registration will be offered, along with transport and accommodation assistance for speakers and presenters. We are hoping that delegates from many nations, including those far from the east coast, will be able to come to SoS 2008; there are many ways that you can help to make this a reality.
What you can do:
- Organise transport for your state network or collective to get to SoS 2008
- Invite indigenous students from your campus or school to come to SoS
- Fundraise to assist Traditional Owners from your area attending SoS
- Talk to Traditional Owners in your area about their campaigns, issues and struggles, and how your collectives can help.
For more information:
www.studentsofsustainability.org
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