See the published version of this story at Green Left Weekly http://www.greenleft.org.au/ node/51412
Last
night at the Arena Project Space in Melbourne, Indigenous speakers
lashed out against the Labor government's five-year-old NT
Intervention.
Rosalie
Kunoth-Monks, the ex-mayor of Barkly shire, from Utopia, NT, made her
thoughts on Labor leadership clear:
“That
redhead lacks maternal instinct.”
She
explained that Indigenous people in the NT are being “traumatised”
by the government policies and drew parallels between her current
nightmare and that faced by the Jews during the Holocaust of World
War II.
“It
was kinder being shot than being under the care of Macklin.”
Dr
Gary Foley, the event chair, called the actions of Jenny Macklin, the
Federal Minister for Families, Housing,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, a“significant
portion of the problem”. His goal for the night was to raise
awareness.
Barbara
Shaw, a descendant of the Kaytetye, Arrernte, Waripiri and Warumungu
people, described how her community was taken by surprise at the
start of the 2007 Intervention. “Newspapers are not delivered
here...we were rounded up into a basketball stadium, and told the new
laws.”
“It
makes me feel sick as a mother.”
Shaw
described how an 11 year old boy was locked up for four weeks.
Incarceration rates of Indigenous Australians have increased by 30%
since the Intervention began.
She
went to the second consultation “just to add colour”. Essentially
social workers and government bureaucrats were the majority at the
“local” consultations.
Panelist
Jon Altman, ARC Australian Professorial Fellow at the ANU Centre for
Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (and token white fella), pointed
out that 80% of Indigenous adults in the NT were on government
support. “It is destructive of Aboriginal societies with only one
end game: assimilation.”
Les
Malzer, co-chairperson of the National Congress of Australian first
peoples, reminded the audience that it was time to “stand up and
fight for people's rights”. He demanded that more people
scrutinise the June 21, 2007 bills that “legislated away
rights....against the people of the NT in particular.”
Mr
Malzer made links to other indigenous groups facing discrimination
around the world, stating that Australia continues to discriminate
against Indigenous people.
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