SYDNEY — Forty people gathered at the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) offices to hear a reports from unionists recently returned from the Alyawarr people’s walk-off in the Northern Territory, where they participated in building a house in protest against the NT intervention.
Emma Murphy
From February 1-14, in a remote part of the Northern Territory, a group of trade unionists and Aboriginal rights activists from Victoria, New South Wales and the NT joined forces with the Alyawarr people from Ampilatwatja community to help make history.
We come here today to say we're sorry
For the injustice done
We reach out our hands to hold you
We grieve as one
But we won't leave it there cos it wouldn't be fair
We've just begun
Eddie Mabo was a man from an island
And his skin was
The January 15 Australian reported that outback prospector Sam Tomarchio had “struck a new kind of gold in Western Australia by taking control of Aboriginal Centrelink payments”.
Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have had a policy of treating refugees as enemies for at least 20 years. Probably the most infamous occasion was the Coalition’s November 2001 federal election victory, where the major parties adopted a joint policy of turning back 438 refugees who had been saved from drowning by the Norwegian freighter the MV Tampa.
Three hundred and fifty kilometres north-east of Alice Springs a group of elders from the Alyawarr language group are sitting down in a rough, makeshift camp. Three kilometres away is their community of Ampilatwatja.
Three hundred and fifty kilometres north-east of Alice Springs a group of elders from the Alyawarr language group are sitting down in a rough, makeshift camp. Three kilometres away is their community of Ampilatwatja.
"It should not be the case in 2009 that Aboriginal people live [on average] 17 years less than the wider community", National Indigenous Television CEO Pat Turner said at the October 14 launch of Living Strong. The new program on NITV focuses on improving the health of Aboriginal people in remote, rural and urban communities.
In early October, Green Left Weekly visited the Alyawarr people’s walk-off camp, three hours north-east of Alice Springs.
“Help us, do something for us — but the way we want them to be done. Talk to us”, Alice Springs town camp resident Audrey McCormack pleaded of ALP conference delegates.
On August 1, thousands of supporters of same-sex marriage rights rallied around the country demanding equal rights for gay and lesbian relationships. On the same day, the ALP national conference passed a policy motion supporting the recognition of same-sex relationships but opposing gay marriage.
“Under your intervention team's poor management, my people and community is in disarray”, said Ampilatwatja community spokesperson Richard Downs, reported the July 16 Sydney Morning Herald.
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