New policies announced by the federal ALP Aboriginal affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, turn back the clock on Aboriginal land rights more than 30 years.
Peter Robson
Schools and clinics in many Aboriginal homelands and outstations are likely to close under proposed changes announced by the Northern Territory government on May 20.
In a new lease deal proposed by Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin in early May, Aboriginal people in Alice Springs town camps could lose control over their housing.
Domestic violence support centres in Alice Springs are in desperate need of funds to meet demand.
The Kimberley Land Council has made a controversial in-principle agreement with Woodside Petroleum and the federal and WA state governments to develop a liquefied natural gas project at James Price Point near Broome.
A medical professional from the Sunrise Health Service has attacked the Rudd government for continuing with the NT intervention policy. Instead of closing the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health outcomes, the intervention has made Aboriginal people less healthy, she says.
Labor governments at state and federal levels are persisting with two unpopular proposals for education in remote Aboriginal schools — the scrapping of bilingual education and the linking of welfare payments to school attendance — despite opposition from communities and educators.
On February 26, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave his first “report card” on the progress made on ending Aboriginal disadvantage, meeting a delayed election promise to do so every year at the opening of parliament. Rudd’s report, however, has been meet with criticism from Aboriginal activists and supporters.
As the global economic crisis worsens, a February 17 Counterpunch.org opinion piece by Mike Whitney argued that as much as 40% of global wealth has been destroyed by the current global economic crisis. Governments in Eastern Europe have faced mass riots and demonstrations in the face of their attempts to foist the costs of the crisis onto the poor.
Federal Labor’s proposed internet filtering policy is an attack on freedom of speech and needs to be stopped.
“Rudd is dangling the carrot of hope before us and it is a lie”, said Les Coe at the Aboriginal convergence in Canberra on February 3, at which 500 people protested the continuation of racist Howard-era policies by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
In December 2008, Green Left Weekly’s Emma Murphy and Peter Robson spoke to William Tilmouth about mandatory welfare quarantining — a feature of the federal government’s Northern Territory intervention — and its impacts on the Aboriginal town camps in Alice Springs. Tilmouth is the executive director of Tangentyere Council, the umbrella service delivery agency for the town camp Aboriginal housing associations.
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