Walkoff website

Media release:

NT Intervention Walkoff Spokesman, Richard Downs, Harry Nelson and Michael Anderson at ANU Friday 9/10

In a statement issued today Richard Downs accuses the Australian government of disempowering Aboriginal peoples:

Hear Richard Downs in a radio interview: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2713195.htm

The walkoff website: http://interventionwalkoff.wordpress.com/

Hear and see Richard Downs in a filmed conversation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkB_bj5PPE

"The NT Emergency Response (NTER) measures have disempowered Aboriginal people. The suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act has taken away our rights. It has taken away our land rights, our ownership and control. We have no say in the running of our communities or lands. There is no self-determination.

"We are taking our message to the Australian public to let them know exactly what is happening under the NTER.

"We need to get rid of the racial discrimination policies that are imposed by the federal government!"
Richard Downs will speak at the Manning Clark Lecture Theatre from 6 p.m. Friday 9 October as part of a speaking tour. Harry Nelson from Yuendumu and Euahlayi activist Michael Anderson are also speaking.
Michael Anderson says: “I hope that the visit by Richard Downs and Harry Nelson will act as a single stimulus to motivate people into calling for the Australian government to not only reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act but also that their speaking tour will act as a trigger to activate all Australians to demand Section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution is put to a national referendum in order for it to be deleted:
51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to Commonwealth with respect to: -
xxvi.) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws:
“I am constantly commenting on this hideous section which establishes Australia as a stand-alone country, where the constitution provides the legal framework for the government to pass laws for any race it deems necessary.
“Australians need to be aware that Section 51(xxvi) can also be used to deport any race deemed necessary.
“This has been done once in Australian’s history when from 1954 onwards Aboriginal Peoples were removed from the Australian Capital Territory. The new queen Elizabeth II assented to “An Ordinance Relating to Aborigines” (ACT No. 8 of 1954) which relied upon section 51(xxvi) to make it possible for the Ordinance to remove Aboriginal people from the ACT and relocate them elsewhere.

“In the Hindmarsh Island High Court decision Justice Kirby made it very clear that Section 51 (xxvi) can be used to the detriment and not always for the benefit of any race.
“The Australian public needs to understand that there can come a point in history when the powerful can convince the public into believing, through total ignorance and manipulative lies by those who seek power, that what they do is in the interest of the nation and the dominant society. People will put them in power.
“It will be one of these types of leaders who could use this section 51(xvi) of the Constitution, without any regard for public opinion and will say ‘it is in the national interest.’ This will be a sorry day.
“It was once said in Europe that the cultured and civilised society could not possibly have experienced what they did during the Nazi regime. Let us all learn from this and make sure this will never happen again.”

Contact:
Richard Downs 0428 611169
Michael Anderson: 0427 292 492 or 0421 795 639

Background:
See: www.interventionwalkoff.wordpress.com; wgar.info; stoptheintervention.org; rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com

Dump racist intervention measures: QC
Tara Ravens AAP
October 6, 2009

A leading human rights lawyer says the federal government must rework or scrap racist elements of the intervention program in remote indigenous communities and honour Australia's obligations under international law.
Labor is moving to reinstate the legislation that allowed some of the more controversial measures to be rolled out.
But Julian Burnside, QC, said Australia would fail as a signatory to a number of UN conventions and violate its own laws, unless there are changes to the intervention's "overtly discriminatory" measures.
"This is a moral obligation on the part of the government and nothing less would be acceptable," he said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The removal, or redesign, of special measures is an essential starting point."
The former Howard government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to allow for the intervention's more extreme measures, such as compulsory welfare quarantining.
But the Rudd government announced plans to reinstate the Act when it gave public support to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Mr Burnside said that if Australia wanted to abide by the agreement it made with 144 other countries in April, it had to take into account the findings of the UN's special rapporteur on indigenous rights.
Professor James Anaya described the intervention as racist and discriminatory following his tour of Australia in August.
He singled out compulsory welfare income management, land take-overs and alcohol bans and said the measures - which failed to comply with Australia's international obligations - would have been illegal had the Racial Discrimination Act not been suspended.
"It is essential that the directions provided by Professor Anaya be given serious attention, as government strives to implement new legislation that will fully comply with its international obligations," Mr Burnside said.
"As legislation is drawn up to reinstate the Act, any 'special measures', if still deemed necessary, must be redesigned to ensure their compliance with international human rights principles."
Mr Burnside, who received an Order of Australia this year for his work as a human rights advocate, said the gap in indigenous disadvantage would only close when Aboriginal people had their rights protected.
Aboriginal elder Richard Downs has also slammed the intervention policy.
Mr Downs was on a speaking tour to rally support for a protest camp set up outside the Ampilatwatja community in the Northern Territory.
Residents of the camp said they would not move back into the community until the intervention measures were lifted.
"I want people around the country to know what it is like to live under the intervention," Mr Downs said in Sydney on Wednesday.
"At check-outs in Woolworths and Coles... we have got one line for the black people who have these special basics green cards and you have got the other check-outs which are open to the general public.
"It is an embarrassment.
"We have just gone backwards 50 or 60 years, back to the welfare days."
Mr Downs said the intervention had not brought any improvements and claims of positive change were just that - claims.
"We have had night patrols for years... we have had Centrelink income management... but it was a choice," he said.
The intervention had taken away Aboriginal people's human rights, Mr Downs said, adding that the policy must be scrapped.
Politicians must return to the drawing board and work with Aboriginal people to find solutions, he said.