Left to right: Michael Ghillar Anderson, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra
Darwin, 3 September 2012 -- Two prominent East Arnhem Land leaders and sovereignty campaigner, Michael Anderson, have agreed in Darwin that a sovereign union of Aboriginal nations needs to grow from the grass roots.
Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra (OAM) from Galiwin'ku, George Gaymarani Pascoe, from Milingimbi and Anderson, the last survivor of the four founders of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra, agreed that its success can only be achieved “if our people want it”.
“Dr Djiniyini Gondarra agreed that we now work towards building alliances with our nations right across this continent under our law. He said that when we feel we have achieved this we should all walk to the centre of Australia, Uluru, the Rock, in order for us to become a collective One and thereby showing our national unity,” Euahlayi leader Anderson writes in a media release.
George Pascoe said he was devastated when he realised that Minister Jenny Macklin had raided the Aboriginal-owned treasure chest of royalties in order to fund her Stronger Futures program, “but through their military junta demanded that Aboriginal people sign head lease agreements for 40 years before they agreed to fund housing projects or any other infrastructure projects that are so necessary”.
The three also discussed impoverished Aboriginal communities.
“The federal government is denying our right of self-determination when it denies us the right to have administrative responsibility over our ‘indigenous estate’. If we were able to control this without government regulations ruling it, then we could apply the wealth for benefit of all our people throughout the continent and enable our people to free themselves from absolute poverty and welfare dependency.”
The statement in full:
In our discussions Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, George Gaymarani Pascoe and I agreed that a Sovereign Union of Nations is inevitable, but it needs to grow from the grassroots. We agreed its success can only be achieved if our people want it.
The Sovereign Union is about building a protective shelter while our people go through the hard, long process of organising from the community level up. Each of the sovereign nations’ sovereign independence dictates that they make their own rules about their own governance, while the Sovereign Union National Unity government deals with national and international political agenda items that will be dictated to by the individual sovereign nations.
Dr Djiniyini Gondarra said that the sovereignty movement is about educating our people about three things:
1. We are sovereign peoples who have our own law, language, population, economy, religion and if we choose to have all the rights to enter into any form of diplomatic agreements we care to;
2. We have never been conquered nor defeated in war at any time during the colonial expansion;
3. Just as they did in 1788, the Australian government is using military law under the Northern Territory Intervention acts to take away civil and political rights, as well as rights to be self-determining on our own lands.
George Gaymarani Pascoe argues that it is imperative that we teach our children and youth our sovereign rights, which we inherit through our law. He said it is about educating people at the grassroots to have the ability to say “No” to developers and government who, through history, have shown that their strategies are always aimed at assimilation and taking away what is ours. At the same time he emphasised he is not a British subject, nor an Australian subject. He is Yolngu.
I explained that the people in the NT must realise that the NT Emergency Response law derives its existence from the ability of the federal government to use a military law at the time of national emergencies, natural disasters, for the imposition of martial law. All such decrees are administered by the military forces. In the case of the NT Intervention the enabling of federal police to have a role provides a front for the government to hide behind and thereby argue that civil law applies and not military law, but under the NT Emergency Response appointed military personnel are the governors and this is tantamount to a dictatorship by a military junta, the head of which is Jenny Macklin and her colleagues in the executive government.
Our discussion also centred on our impoverished communities.
The federal government is denying our right of self-determination when it denies us the right to have administrative responsibility over our ‘indigenous estate’. If we were able to control this without government regulations ruling it, then we could apply the wealth for benefit of all our people throughout the continent and enable our people to free themselves from absolute poverty and welfare dependency.
George Pascoe said he was devastated when he realised that Minister Jenny Macklin had raided the Aboriginal-owned treasure chest of royalties in order to fund her Stronger Futures program, but through their military junta demanded that Aboriginal people sign head lease agreements for 40 years before they agreed to fund housing projects or any other infrastructure projects that are so necessary.
Dr Djiniyini Gondarra agreed that we now work towards building alliances with our nations right across this continent under our law. He said that when we feel we have achieved this we should all walk to the centre of Australia, Uluru, the Rock, in order for us to become a collective One and thereby showing our national unity.
Contact: Michael Anderson 0427 292 492 ghillar29@gmail.com
Comments
Sounds like a recipe for the mess the immigrants brought here
"Each of the sovereign nations’ sovereign independence dictates that they make their own rules about their own governance"
There are no rules for transparency and diversity, no guarantee of women's and men's business like with tradition? Sounds like a recipe for the mess the immigrants brought here all over again.
World Council of Churches supports our Indigenous peoples
Document date: 4.09.2012
WCC Central Committee meeting, 28 August - 5 September 2012
Minute of support for the Indigenous Peoples of Australia
1. The World Council of Churches has a long history of concern for the Indigenous peoples of Australia. They have suffered dispossession of their lands and loss of language and culture and had to cope with decades of attempts at forced assimilation. Still today the Indigenous peoples of Australia suffer grievously in socio-economic terms, and they are seriously disadvantaged compared to other Australians.
2. Following a WCC “Living Letters” visit to Australia in September 2010, the WCC Central Committee in February 2011 approved a “Statement on the Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Australia”. This statement noted the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response, known as the “Intervention”, which imposed severe restrictions on the rights and freedoms of Indigenous families and communities in the Northern Territory and was highly discriminatory in nature.
3. The most objectionable factor about the Intervention is that it was imposed without any consultation with Indigenous communities and their leaders. The outcry from Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory resulted in some relief from the more discriminatory measures in the years 2007-2010, but still left most restrictions in place and no sense of partnership between Indigenous peoples and the Australian Government.
4. In April 2009 the Australian Government officially endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Both the Australian Government and Indigenous Peoples acknowledged this as an important step in resetting the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and moving forward towards a new future. However, Indigenous leaders in Australia have identified the necessity to implement the UN Declaration, particularly Article 3 which recognizes that Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination.
5. In June 2012 the Australian Parliament approved new legislation titled “Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory”. While this legislation is less severe than the 2007 legislation, in that it removes some previous restrictions, contains fewer punitive measures against Indigenous families and communities, and commits increased amounts of financial support aimed at improving the plight of Indigenous peoples, it still disempowers Indigenous families and communities in the Northern Territory and for the first time extends some control and punitive provisions beyond the Northern Territory.
6. In the months prior to the passing of this 2012 legislation, the Australian Government did undertake a consultation process with Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. However, Indigenous leaders throughout Australia continue to be outraged at the lack of notice taken by the Government of their views and suggestions. Indigenous communities and their leaders feel the Government approach is that of imposition, discrimination, control and punishment.
7. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on all parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to “Ensure that members of Indigenous peoples have equal rights in respect of effective participation in public life, and that no decisions directly relating to their rights and interests are taken without their informed consent”. Indigenous leaders in Australia are extremely critical of the Australian Government for the Government’s repeated failure to abide by this call.
The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Kolympari, Crete, Greece, from 28 August to 5 September 2012, therefore:
A. Reaffirms its solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
B. Affirms the many leaders of Indigenous communities who have protested against those elements of the “Stronger Futures” legislation which have been implemented without any meaningful and effective negotiations with the people most affected by the legislation.
C. Expresses support for actions which empower Indigenous peoples to take control of their own lives and destinies, and which enable partnerships between Indigenous communities and the Australian Government towards culturally appropriate efforts for improvements in the areas of health, housing, education, employment, self-sufficiency and well-being of Indigenous peoples.
D. Endorses the actions of Australian churches in protesting against the “Stronger Futures” legislation and in continuing to advocate for policies that build partnerships between Indigenous communities and the Australian Government;
E. Encourages the Australian churches to give further support to the efforts of Australia’s Indigenous peoples as they seek the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples especially the right to self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples;
F. Urges the Australian churches to work with the Australian members of the UN Peoples’ Forum on Indigenous Issues.
G. Reiterates its call on WCC member churches to continue to uphold in prayer and to raise awareness about the specific issues facing Indigenous Peoples and to develop advocacy campaigns to support the rights, aspirations and needs of Indigenous Peoples in Australia and elsewhere.
APPROVED
We’ll be sorry for NT intervention: teen
By Tracker, August 24, 2012
NATIONAL: By the time the federal government’s Northern Territory “intervention” expires in 10 years, Amelia Kunoth-Monks will have lived half her life under controls that she says are making her people feel scared and ashamed.
The 19-year-old from the Utopia homelands north of Alice Springs says the scheme, started under the Howard coalition government and continued under Labor, has done more harm than good in the past five years.
“We live in a state of constant fear,” she told AAP, while visiting Canberra this week to speak at an Amnesty International public forum alongside her grandmother, Rosalie, about the plight of people in traditional homelands.
The high level of government control in communities had made some “people feel scared about painting up and doing their traditional songs and dances”.
Some elders are dying “with broken hearts because of the stress people are under”, Amelia says.
In late June, the federal government passed its Stronger Futures legislation to extend the NT intervention for another decade, despite widespread opposition from indigenous communities and concerns from the United Nations about human rights.
Amelia isn’t confident the laws will live up to their name, because communities were not consulted properly, weren’t part of the decision-making process and there was a lot of confusion among people.
Asked about rules that will see families’ welfare payments cut as a last resort if children skip school, Amelia doubts there will be any long-term improvement in attendance.
“I used to hate high school and would pretend to be sick,” she said, adding schools needed to try harder to stimulate students.
“More kids would go, and parents would be encouraging them to go to school, if the lessons were more relevant, taught in both languages with a strong focus on our culture,” Amelia said.
Bilingual education has been in decline in the Northern Territory in recent years.
The NT government introduced a policy in 2009 mandating the first four hours of a school day be taught in English.
Amelia is studying her year 12 equivalent at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.
The institute’s mode of learning allows her to bring her culture and keep her “Aboriginal identity intact” while learning skills she’ll need for the future.
“Having both ways and the two cultures there, is absolutely amazing – rather than being at school and feeling like you’re not really wanted in society.”
She wants to study law at university and become a human rights lawyer.
Amelia receives the youth allowance from Centrelink, but half her money is automatically quarantined on a basics card and can only be spent at certain retailers.
“I hate the basics card,” she said.
“This card controls what you spend and how much you spend.”
When she goes down to Alice Springs to go shopping she feels the card “degrades you to a second-class citizen.”
“The transactions take a lot longer than a normal (bank) card,” Amelia said.
“I feel frustrated and really ashamed when I’m holding up the line. You hear people muttering under their breath. It can be intimidating.”
Amelia says by the time she reaches her 30th birthday and has lived through 15 years of “intervention”, she hopes the federal government will acknowledge the pain Aboriginal people in the NT have suffered as a result of the program.
“It’s like saying to a five-year-old, `go sit in the time-out and think about what you’ve done to hurt this person’,” she said.
“We want the government to think about how they have hurt the nation’s first people.”
She has no doubt a future government will have to deliver a national apology for the intervention.
AAP
APY hit with dole controls
by: Mark Schliebs in The Australian September 07, 2012
THE Gillard government will introduce an income management scheme, involving voluntary and forced quarantining of welfare payments, in South Australia's remote Aboriginal lands.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has announced her plan for the troubled Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands to begin from next month.
The $3.8 million scheme will enable Aborigines to volunteer to have welfare payments quarantined and for child protection and Centrelink workers to force the measure on the most vulnerable and at-risk members of the communities in the region.
"The government will introduce income management in the APY Lands to help families ensure their welfare payments are spent in the best interests of children," Ms Macklin told The Australian last night.
The controversial move comes a year after The Australian first revealed the level of dysfunction in the region, including children going hungry, and the systemic mismanagement by the state Labor government.
Under the model to be used for the APY Lands, those who volunteer will have 50 per cent of their benefits quarantined, to be spent on food, rent, clothing and other essentials using BasicsCards.
The same rate will apply to those who Centrelink deem financially vulnerable, such as those who cannot keep up with rental payments.
For parents forced onto income management on referral by child protection authorities, 70 per cent of their Centrelink benefits will be quarantined.
A decision on the model was made after 10 weeks of consultation with local communities.
The Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Women's Council, one of the most vocal proponents for income management on the lands, applauded the announcement.
"(We) were absolutely clear that it needed to be provided to families where children are at risk and vulnerable people," NPY Women's Council co-ordinator Andrea Mason said yesterday.
"In two or three years' time, people will reflect on the improvements in their own financial wellbeing and financial control."
APY council chairman Bernard Singer said communities had been calling for such a scheme for several years.
"It should help families keep their welfare payments for essential food and other goods," Mr Singer said.
Stores in the APY Lands have been set up to accept payments from quarantined accounts through BasicsCards.
Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Nigel Scullion said anyone who had been to the lands would know how vital it was for income management to be used.
Formal calls for income management in the region were first made by the APY land council in early 2010, following meetings with former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough, who introduced a compulsory scheme in the Northern Territory.
The calls were dismissed by the SA Labor government.