Media release April 15 2011
Barbara Shaw, spokesperson for the Intervention Rollback Action Group in Alice Springs and resident of Mt Nancy Town camp says that comments by Bess Price on Q and A about the "success" of the Intervention ignore the huge evidence of continuing failure.
IRAG says Mrs Price's comments have caused distress amongst people living in prescribed areas under the Intervention, whose experiences of deteriorating social conditions continue to be ignored by government and mainstream media.
"It is outrageous that Bess Price can continue to go on national media and spread false information on the Intervention while life in our town camps and communities gets harder and harder", says Barbara Shaw.
"We now have a massive crisis in Alice Springs as people come in from the bush because of the failure of the Intervention. On Monday night while Bess was on Q and A talking about our kids being safer, I was dealing with multiple situations of children needing emergency care."
"The Intervention has done nothing to help - I find it harder to look after my family because I am still on the BasicsCard. If things are so good, why do government statistics show more children being admitted to hospital for malnutrition and more young people committing suicide and self-harm? Why are more and more children being taken away from parents and put into care?” Ms Shaw asks.
"Bess says education is the key to improving lives. But she didn't say that Yuendumu school attendance rates have halved and are now down to only 30 per cent since the Intervention came in and bilingual education was banned by the NT government."
Ms Shaw says she is very concerned that Bess Price is misinforming the wider community about the feelings and views of NT Aboriginal people about the Intervention.
“Marcia Langton wrote in the Australian today that Bess Price ‘resides in Yuendumu’. This is untrue and the Australian needs to correct the public record. Bess does not live under the Intervention. She lives a comfortable lifestyle in the eastern suburbs of Alice Springs, not in a prescribed area. She does not have a Basics Card and she does not work for the dole. She doesn’t have her home raided. She doesn’t have her alcohol taken away at the bottle shop,” Ms Shaw concluded.
"Bess says Aboriginal women have been given a voice by the Intervention - but which ones? Thousands of women have lost their jobs as Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) close down, many women leaders have lost their positions of authority as community councils were closed and Government Business Managers and Shires took over."
"In the last federal election, I outpolled all other candidates in remote communities in Central Australia because people agree the Intervention and Shires have failed.”
"Women do need a voice - we need for the government to listen, to scrap the Intervention and empower us with resources and jobs to go forward."
An Alice Springs based community worker and IRAG member Marlene Hodder says, “Many Warlpiri women living in Alice Springs are very unhappy that Bess Price assumes she can speak for them. Last year they sent a strong recorded message to Minister Macklin as she refused to meet with them on more than one occasion. They are tired of not being listened to as they feel the Intervention is an insult to them as mothers, grandmothers and carers.”
”These women says they struggle to maintain their dignity with racist taunts being thrown at them as they walk into town and the unfairness of the BasicsCard when the reality is that there is no work for them. Strong in their culture and staunch Christians, they pray every night for the Intervention to end.”, concluded Ms Hodder.
Contacts: Barbara Shaw 0401 291 166
Marlene Hodder 08 8952 5032
Comments
Restore human rights to NT Aboriginal people
http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/
Letter to the Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay, who will visit Australia in May.
If you haven't already done so, would you please sign the petition and circulate within your networks.
Your signature is needed by 7 May.
Background information (PDF) - http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/media/Background-info-N-Pillay.pdf
Letter to Navi Pillay (PDF) - http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/media/Letter-to-Navi-Pillay.pdf
Electronic petition / letter: www.gopetition.com/petition/44188.html
Please make it happen and distribute through your networks
when i signed this petition i was amazed to find that only some 800+ signees.
for such an important matter as the nt intervention we shoul have 8000+ signatures.
please make it happen, and please distribute through your networks.
fkj
I have just visited GoPetition and found the following page very interesting:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/44188.html
Regards
Ray Jackson
The Yuendumu school has never been better
It is not true that school attendance in Yuendumu has halved since the intervention. The Yuendumu school has never been better. I have lived in Yuendumu for ten years and I have never seen so many kids at school and the school has a very happy and functional vibe for the first time since I came to live here in 2001. The current success of the school however probably has very little to do with the intervention but is due mainly to the fact that they have a very competent and committed Principal. Also my daughter attends the school here on and off..-
Declining attendance figures from the NT government
Figures about declining attendance at Yuendumu are from the NT government:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/northern-territory-schools-stic...
Lying about attendance to ensure that funding wasn't cut
the claim of a drop assumes an accurate measure of attendance for the baseline. I was amused by an article that appeared on crikey written by a teacher that worked at lajamanu in the time i lived there. he too cited these stats as evidence that the intervention has negatively impacted on school attendance. the fact is though that on the many occasions i went to talk to his class there was never more than two or three kids there out of 20+ that should have been and that was in 2008 when these stats say there was 60% attendance. clearly the the people recording stats were being dishonest or deluded. i was in lajamanu a couple of months ago i was surprised to see a school full of kids... many, many more than i had seen in the 15 months l lived there.
(i should note that there are good reasons to be dishonest about such stats. i was talking to some teachers recently that had about 10-20% attendance but were lying about attendance to ensure that funding wasn't cut for the school further disadvantaging the few kids that do attend)
Loss and denial of identity is Warlpiri Elders' greatest concern
If you are referring to the article and Lance Box's comments on Crikey, when I worked at the school his room consistently had more then 2 children and roll recordings were accurate and to have only 2 students was a rare event for Box more likely 15 children attended his class. Everything that Box says in the article - http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/01/18/remote-nt-education-crisis-lost-in-t... - is factual and accurate. I talk to the elders and town folk a lot and this is their greatest concern - loss and denial of their identity. A Quote from S.A. Nampijinpa "I was born Warlpiri, I will die Warlpiri, I will die speaking Warlpiri." She lost her job after signing a letter to the education department protesting something, maybe the loss of language taught in the class. The school looks lovely to Kardiya, because it is Kardiya. It has cut itself off from the town. It is highly likely there more children attending the creche (31) which is Warlpiri run then the school run by white people. Pull you finger out Department of Ed and do what the Australian tax payers are paying you to do. Systemic failure for decades can't be just Aboriginal's fault. They are an easy target and scapegoat, but you are getting the money to do the job, stop taking tax payers money under false pretences.
Possibly an unrepresentative set of experiences
ok... i accept that I may well have had an unrepresentative set of experiences... i look forward to talking to people up there about it in a couple of weeks when i'm there next.
They are being forced to be someone else in their own country
If you read stats and note the 2007 figures they are similar to 2008 figures therefore they are quite believable. The lady who keyed in the figures would be most upset if you said she was falsifying the figures on purpose or in error. Box isn't known for lying nor was the admin staffer. Box was very respected by the Locals of Lajamanu so when you are talking to the locals here mention what you think of him and I'm sure they won't want to talk to you. The town has never since Language and Locals were pushed out of the school had so many kids playing in the streets of the town during school hours. Read Jumpijinpa's comments below yours. This is representative of the towns feelings. They are being forced to be someone else in their own country. Do you too believe they must be white to get white man's money? The people here are tired of telling their story. They vote with their feet. If you are so into stats understand the accurate figures that have been recorded and understand there is something wrong. Do something without blaming people who have no say/power. they know the problem and are telling you.
They moved most of the Yapa out of their jobs
Here's some quotes from Lajamanu teachers at a public meeting held last April to protest the Intervention:
Julieanne Ross Nampinjimpa
The school is like a prison.
White teachers are asking me, "why is the community calling this a Kardiya (white person) school?". I say, "it's because you are giving more jobs to Kardiya people than Yapa, making the Yapa go down". It doesn't matter if you've got a certificate, they tell you to wait - they say they need a Kardiya to work.
They moved me out of my job and somebody else took over. They moved most of the Yapa out of their jobs. And we talk to them, "hey what about our role, what's our role in the school?" The principal couldn't even say anything. That's the truth what is happening.
Yapa we need to wake up and be strong.
---------------
Steve Patrick Jampinjimpa
I'll make this short.
We're sitting here and we don't know what's happening. Even me, I'm not praising myself.
I've been to Africa, its a sad place and it frieghtened me. I've seen what it's like - straight in my mind I thought this the future for Yapa in Australia. Living in shanty-towns like this.
The old people have got to get up and pass the knowledge down.
There is something from old stories that was taught, that was foretold - I'm not sure how to explain it. It's a monster like thing with many teeth, something that eats people. A really dangerous one that's coming.
Listen to the old stories and the old people. We can win the country back, with our own culture.
This is no mucking around. The school is stealing all our kids.
It's like that man was saying before - it's assimilation policies. But in a 'nice' quiet way. Make our children's all coconuts, that's what the school is doing. Yapa with a white man inside. We won't think Yapa way anymore - nothing.
The school is like a detention camp.
We have to wake up Yapa - we have to win them back our own country.
The Kardiya have claimed this land without right. They continue to take.
Captain Cook brought them there.
Before that, things were running in good order. We had our own law, own language, everything. We can win them back.
Three-bedroom houses shatter Black Fella extended families
Methinks white-fellas notions of putting Community-minded People, aka Aborigine People, off into anti-social '3-bedroom, nuclear family houses' is what is sending the Bleck Fella off? Because it (the nuclear family home) is designed to shatter the Strength and Collective Wisdom of the Bleck Fella's Ancient Extended Family.
It (the nuclear family home) shatters True Economic Living, making the smallest group the bankers can classify as 'a family' - mum, dad, 1, 2, 3 or more kids under one roof - spend whatever they earn or save, or get through other avenues of income, on their own household's 'white goods' and other consumer thingees like teles, sound systems, and even food in small amounts, compared to a large organised EXTENDED family which buys in bulk, stores in one large fridge-freezer, or larder etc., and cooks and eats together, so the small, divided-off nuclear family are pushing it to save bucks and stay financially (and psychologically) secure, for emergencies or holidays etc.
AND, worse thing is, they are thereafter separated from Aunties and Uncles and Cuz's, Grandmums-plural, Grandads-plural Et Al, and thus 'stolen' from their learned Traditions and Knowledge on how each person best behaves and Honorably Lives, and as well how the Group, Tribe, Nation stays Balanced and Together.
These 'western' housing models are pure CRAPitalism, built purely for profit - NO WISDOM - NO INTELLIGENCE - NO HONOR! just fast bucks for the developers, builders and corporate materials suppliers.
And for the bankers, of course! OFFSHORE BANKERS!!!
Divide and conquer! divide and conquer!
Look in the white society? They're all gone bonkers! Nuts! Insane! But O! They got a nice big screen idiot-box! And music machines to send baby and grandmum deaf and crazy! And white media and social commentators ask "why are the children acting-up?"
It's more than just the grog and hyper-sugar fizzy drinks, aye?
Culture! No wisdom in letting the mind be lazy, by leaving the thinking to that other fella Jesus!
Nah! Bleck Fella Australia-wide got to ORGANISE and put the scientific evidence to the governments, that things like the divide-and-conquer nuclear family models are deadly for everyone and for everything, especially for Country - for the Environment, because they cost the natural resources so much, just so one mum and one dad, and a few kids can delude themselves that they live in luxury, but in reality hide from the Real World of a Big, Strong, Wise, Powerful AND HAPPY Community!
Methinks, methinks?
Got to throw-out these foreign, unwise, 'Roman-tic' 'Enlightenment' bullshit ideas of memememe-first beliefs. False and dangerous beliefs!
Men are Men. Women are Women. All, Sure and True!
Living, as white-bums do, in isolated housing, always wondering where the other-half is playing up, letting the mind get away from us, always paranoid about affording the mortgage (french for 'death-pledge') and keeping the missus or hubby happy, and the kids quiet with MORE NEW TOYS, and next week MORE NEW TOYS, having to lie-like-a-snake to keep making bucks, and keeping false friends, destroys the Noble Soul within each of us, and turns us into sewer-rats.
Bleck Fella knew the Culture which Endures. That Men have their own 'Business' and Roles within parenting and within the Group.
Exactly as Women do.
These are Best and Strongest when Men and Women are allowed to focus on their Work, without the constant distraction of the other-half's glitches and troubles. Troubles which arise because they are taken from what they intuitively know about their own gender's Soul, Role and Work. And play! And Culture. And safe and secure rest. Etcetera!
Methinks, methinks?
Re: Town camp leader outraged by Bess Price claims on ABC ...
tv izle
Re: Town camp leader outraged by Bess Price claims on ABC ...
tv izle