Newsletter date: 10 March 2011
Contents:
* Complaint against ‘racist’ Alice Springs TV advertisements
* Northern Territory (NT) Intervention articles
* Background to the Northern Territory (NT) Intervention
* Jude Kelly invites Kevin Rudd to Aboriginal Tent Embassy
* Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra speaks about Aboriginal Customary Law
* “The biggest failure in our health system”
COMPLAINT AGAINST 'RACIST' ALICE SPRINGS TV ADVERTISEMENTS:
- Statement / Report
Rollback the Intervention - Statements/Reports:
Intervention Rollback Action Group Response to ‘Action for Alice’
http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com/statements/
3 Mar 11: "The Intervention Rollback Action Group condemns the racist advertising campaign being run by business owner group ‘Action for Alice’ and their calls for further incarceration of Aboriginal people. We are extremely concerned at deteriorating social conditions facing the Aboriginal community both in urban centres and bush communities. These problems are the fruits of discriminatory government policy. Meeting this crisis must start with a strong stand against racism and for empowerment and positive investment in Aboriginal communities. ...
Calls for more punitive measures must be resisted. We must act immediately to force the removal of the racist advertisements and an end to vigilantism sponsored by groups like Action for Alice. The Intervention must be scrapped and the millions currently being spent on bureaucrats and punitive programs must be redirected to rebuilding Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal leadership."
- News
Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association:
Complaint against ‘racist’ Alice Springs TV commercials
http://caama.com.au/complaint-against-%E2%80%98racist%E2%80%99-alice-spr...
4 Mar 11: "Central Australian country music singer and Indigenous rights advocate Warren H Williams has today lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) against advertisements being run on the Imparja television network by business owner group ‘Action for Alice’. Mr Williams says the advertisements are racist and vilify Indigenous people. Mr Williams is being represented by human rights lawyer George Newhouse of Surry Partners Lawyers in Sydney. The complaint is requesting that Imparja and ‘Action for Alice’ take the advertisements off air and off the internet immediately."
ABC: Locals take legal action over Alice crime ads
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/03/3154221.htm
3 Mar 11: "Some Alice Springs residents are taking legal action over television ads they say are racially discriminatory. ... At least two local Indigenous residents are launching a claim with the Human Rights Commission. Their lawyer George Newhouse says his clients believe the commercials unfairly stigmatise Aboriginal people."
ABC: TV ad complaint
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/03/03/3153973.htm
3 Mar 11: "Well known singer / songwriter Warren H Williams has lodged an official complaint with the Human Rights Commission about Action for Alice's controversial television ads. The advertisements, which are aimed at tackling crime and show young Aboriginal people walking around at night, have been running in Alice Springs for around a month. Human rights lawyer George Newhouse says he's been contacted by 'a number of people' over the past few days and the complaint was lodged this morning."
NORTHERN TERRITORY (NT) INTERVENTION ARTICLES:
- 27 Indigenous leaders speak out
National Indigenous Times: Stop the Intervention!
http://www.nit.com.au/news/story.aspx?id=21289
3 Mar 11: "If there was any doubt there should be none now. Indigenous leaders throughout Australia have said overwhelmingly that Jenny Macklin should stop the Intervention in the Northern Territory.
Twenty seven of Australia’s Indigenous leaders, including Gail Mabo from the Torres Strait Islands, agreed to respond to our request to declare whether they believed the Intervention should continue. To a person they have declared: No, it shouldn’t.
They were all responding to the February 17 edition of The National Indigenous Times that featured a powerful appeal from traditional Elders from remote communities in the Northern Territory who declared the Intervention was destroying their communities and their hope of a future for the families."
See background:
WGAR News: A Further Conversation with Elders - impacts of living under the Intervention
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=153974
- Audio
Indigenous radio station 98.9FM Brisbane
Let's Talk - Indigenous presented talkback:
http://989fm.com.au/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29
3 Mar 11: "Reverend Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM: Tiga Bayles spoke with Reverend Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM. They spoke about the Northern Territory Intervention."
Listen to this interview on-line:
http://www.989fm.com.au/podcasting/audio/98fm-podcast-2011-03-03-71086.mp3
- Report
ANTaR's publication "A Better Way: Success Stories in Aboriginal community control in the Northern Territory"
Download ANTaR's A Better Way publication February 2011: http://antar.streetlinemedia.com/
- Analysis / Opinion
Socialist Alternative: Indigenous housing situation a result of racist policies
http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3130:i...
4 Mar 11: "The appalling housing conditions in remote Indigenous communities in Australia are a vivid indicator of the depth and persistence of systemic racism in this country. What is even more revealing is the way in which massive investment in remote housing in recent years has been used by the Australian state to further entrench the dispossession and subjugation of Indigenous peoples. ... Housing conditions in Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities are amongst the worst in the world." Alex McAulay
Crikey: NT intervention … why it just didn’t work
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/02/nt-intervention-why-it-just-didnt-work/
2 Mar 11: "Mal Brough, creator of the Northern Territory intervention, declared last Saturday that it was a failure, Jenny Macklin, not surprisingly, denies failure and claims it is both proceeding and succeeding. I agree with Brough that the intervention was a failure but not for the reasons he has stated. He claims the ALP government has gone soft and failed to ... " Eva Cox
- News
Green Left: Gov’t expands welfare quarantine scheme
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46894
6 Mar 11: ""The federal government’s expansion of income management in the Northern Territory has created new barriers for Aboriginal people who want to get off its welfare control scheme. The rollout has also affected hundreds — possibly thousands — of others, including residents of Darwin and Alice Springs and newly arrived refugees. ... The intervention into Aboriginal communities continues with compulsory land acquisition, prohibition, the destruction of Aboriginal-run services and an ongoing lack of any evidence of improvement. Income management still places a discriminatory burden on Aboriginal people." Jay Fletcher
National Indigenous Times:
Mal Brough, the supreme interventionist, agrees it’s not working
http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=21288
"Mal Brough, the Howard Government Minister who will always be remembered as the architect of the infamous Intervention into Northern Territory communities, has now declared the program isn’t working. In fact, Brough now believes the whole structure of the Intervention is broken beyond repair. It has, he said, become stagnant and buried in bureacracy. Mr Brough was Indigenous Affairs Minister in the Howard Government in 2007 when he launched the Intervention program, including the use of Australian Army personnel, to end what was claimed to be a crisis in the Northern Territory."
BACKGROUND TO THE NORTHERN TERRITORY (NT) INTERVENTION:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Northern Territory National Emergency Response: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory_intervention
Intervention walk-off's Blog: http://interventionwalkoff.wordpress.com/
IRAG (Intervention Rollback Action Group): http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com/
Jobs with Justice: http://jobswithjustice.wordpress.com/
Melbourne Anti-Intervention Collective: http://maicollective.blogspot.com/
STICS (Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney): http://stoptheintervention.org/
ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) - NT intervention: http://www.antar.org.au/issues_and_campaigns/nt_intervention
'concerned Australians': http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/
Defending Indigenous Rights: http://defendingindigenousrights.wordpress.com/
WGAR (Working Group for Aboriginal Rights): http://wgar.info/
JUDE KELLY INVITES KEVIN RUDD TO ABORIGINAL TENT EMBASSY:
- Media Release
Treaty Republic: Jude Kelly invites Kevin Rudd to Tent Embassy
http://treatyrepublic.net/content/jude-kelly-invites-kevin-rudd-tent-emb...
26 Feb 11: "Western Australian Yamatji/Noongar Woman Jude Kelly is inviting Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, to come to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra to have a meeting with her about her recent decision to renounce her Australian citizenship on the 15th February this year. "Renouncing my citizenship was no easy thing to do. The decision I made took a long time and a lot of thought to come to this," Ms Kelly says. Ms Kelly came to Canberra for the Apology to the Stolen Generation in 2008 and has since been living at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy for the past 2 years helping to maintain the fire and talk to interested visitors about Aboriginal history and dispossession of land and culture."
- News
Herald Sun: Tent embassy activist Jude Kelly gives up citizenship in protest
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/tent-embassy-activist-jud...
15 Feb 11: "AN Aboriginal tent embassy resident has renounced her citizenship and declared herself a refugee. Jude Kelly has given up the right to claim Centrelink or Medicare benefits as she continues living outside Old Parliament House in Canberra. The grandmother and member of the Stolen Generation will also refuse to pay tax as part of a protest against the treatment of indigenous Australians in the legal system."
REV DR DJINIYINI GONDARRA SPEAKS ABOUT ABORIGINAL CUSTOMARY LAW:
- Analysis / Opinion
Rollback the Intervention:
The Assent law of the first people: Principles of an effective legal system in Aboriginal communities
http://rollbacktheintervention.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/law-and-justi...
22 Feb 11: "The theme of this conference is “Law and Justice within Indigenous Communities”. BUT for there to be a real rule of law and true justice for our people, then the Law our people have assented to for thousands of years must be understood and recognised by all Australians. This will require an education and negotiation process between the Australian government and our Traditional Parliaments." Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM & Richard Trudgen
National Indigenous Times:
Assent Law of the first people: Views from a traditional owner
http://www.nit.com.au/opinion/story.aspx?id=21229
"The Reverend Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, a Senior Elder from the Dhurili Clan Nation and Chairman of the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation recently spoke at the 'Law & Justice within Indigenous communities' conference in Darwin. Dr Gondarra highlighted Aboriginal Customary Law as a rule of law, not rule of men; a framework that is underpinned by: good government, consistency of laws and consensus by the people; the Separation of Powers and the roles and responsibilities of the three arms of government; and establishing treaties that respect Indigenous law and custom and dialects between Customary Law and the Westminster system."
"THE BIGGEST FAILURE IN OUR HEALTH SYSTEM":
- Media Release
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO):
“The biggest failure in our health system”
http://www.naccho.org.au/Files/Documents/2011-2-16-%20biggest%20failure%...
16 Feb 11: "The AMA’s 2011 Federal Budget Submission released today endorses better investment in community-controlled Aboriginal health services to address “the very poor health status” of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples which the AMA President says remains, “the biggest failure in our health system”. Mr Justin Mohamed, Chair of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) welcomed the AMA’s budget submission saying it offers “practical suggestions for a way forward in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health”."
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