The following statement is by Yingiya Guyula, a Yolngu man from North East Arnhem Land. His family is based in Millinginbi and Gapuwiyak.
My name is Yingiya Guyula from Liya-dhalinymirr clan of the
Djambarrpuy People. I am a Yolngu Studies lecturer at Charles Darwin University.
The Northern Territory intervention has only created problems in East Arnhem Land communities as well as remote homeland centres. The intervention has made our people more frustrated and confused, the white man's way of thinking is forced on us, and forcing us to abandon our culture.
Government ministers have flown into Arnhem Land communities just for a few hours on the ground to gather a little bit of
information, then they fly back into cities thinking they know
how to fix the problems in the communities, thinking they know
what's best for us.
Governments only looked at the fringe camps and towns and wet
areas where people drink alcohol, in places such as Nhulunbuy,
Katherine, Tennant creek, Jabiru, Alice Springs and Darwin.
White people see Aboriginal people in these places and think
that these people don't care about life, don't care
about living. But who are they to judge them? They class all
Aborigines as the same, but they are wrong.
These white people and those bureaucrats do not go out to the
East Arnhem Land communities, where my people live, where there has never been alcohol, and there is no child abuse.
There are Aboriginal people living on remote communities of Arnhem Land, in homeland centres, away from towns, away from the binge drinking areas, poker machine and gambling venues.
These are people that are able to manage their funds and work — or want work — educate, discipline, and practice ceremonies.
Quarantining of Centrelink payments should be optional and not
compulsory. Quarantining might be okay for people living in town camps and cities, where alcohol and gambling is a problem, but it doesn't work for my people living on remote Arnhem Land homelands where there is no gambling, no alcohol and no child abuse.
We are asking simply for understanding that in life, there needs to be an understanding between two cultures. There needs to be respect between cultures.
Mapuru homeland has a co-op store which won a national award for selling healthy food. Centrelink won't approve it to accept quarantined money.
This means an aircraft charter flight from the mainland homeland at Mapuru to the closest shop on Elcho Island costs $560 return. This means it's costing $560 just to buy
$150 worth of food, where's the sense in that?
Arnhem Land is like the European Union, made up of many different nations, each clan-nation with their own language, each with its own national estate. Bringing everybody in from the homeland centres into the major settlements is not the right thing to do because people do not feel secure or happy living in another person's land.
Children are forced to go to school, but really they do not feel safe and secure on other peoples' land.
There are about 40 children who willingly run to school every
day at Mapuru homeland because it's their home and they feel
secure. Yet the NT government wants to close down the homeland
schools and bring everyone into the major communities.
It thinks it's not worth spending money on homeland schools who have 40 or more children freely, and with their own will,
attending school, but is providing internet services, facilities and technology to white schools with attendances as low as five.
The education department provides computers and internet and
distance learning for hundreds of cattle stations and small
schools, across the Northern Territory, but homeland schools are neglected.
Furthermore, I would like say that these homelands are our
homes. There is no violence in the remote homeland communities, no child abuse happens, no alcohol, no pornography, because out there in the bush is where the cultural ceremonial grounds are, and from it is where strong discipline comes through spirits of our fathers talking through the land.
Both the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory governments have not given equal opportunity to us, the First Australians, to be able to exercise our rights.
Through the intervention, white police stations have been put
in the major communities for dealing mostly with cultural
conflict issues (problems that can only be solved through
traditional cultural justice), but instead the white police
force white law onto us, disrespecting our black fella law.
They think they've done the right thing. But often they're only making it much worse by locking up senior leaders, the very ones who are wise and keeping our Indigenous law strong.
This time we are taking the case further where it can be heard
loud and clear by people whose ears, brains and feelings have a heart for Indigenous Australians.
It is now being taken further where there is an ear that will listen. We are taking it further, to the United Nations and will talk about the intervention, about how income management in the NT has had a devastating and debilitating impact on
remote communities in Arnhem Land.
Finally, we need you to support us. We need you to tell
governments that we want the same opportunities as white people: to live and enjoy our own cultural life. They must stop trying to make us like white people, we have our own cultural identity.
Let us be who we are, and together we will have hope for the future.