[NSW] Show solidarity with Aboriginal activists in the Territory: Protest at Redfern Centrelink this Tuesday May 13

Protest at Redfern Centrelink
End the racist NT intervention–no welfare quarantines

National Day of Action against NT intervention
No Racist Welfare Quarantines!
Reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act!

Rally Tuesday May 13
12:30 Redfern Centrelink 140 Redfern st

Speakers recently returned from solidarity work in NT communities

The NT intervention is sinking into deeper crisis. Thousands of people from remote communities are being forced into urban areas by the racist welfare quarantine system, compounding social problems. Aboriginal people are experiencing shame and humiliation as they are forced into segregated systems at Centrelink, in supermarkets and in schools. Ignoring these problems, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Jenny Macklin has recently threatened to extend welfare quarantines into South Australia and is refusing to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act.

But people continue to resist. Yuendumu have held off attempts to impose the quarantine through a strategy of non-cooperation with intervention authorities and big rallies are being planned in Alice Springs, Darwin and around the country on June 21 to mark one year since the intervention. Join the groundswell against the intervention - join the protest at Redfern Centrelink this Tuesday!

Contact Greg Eatock 0432050240.

UNITE AND FIGHT! ARC National Conference this month!

70 years since the Day of Mourning.

Friday 23rd May: Opening forum
6:30 pm at Australia Hall, 150 Elizabeth Street, Sydney

Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th May:
Panels, Discussion & Workshops
Redfern Community Centre, Hugo Street, Redfern

Speakers include:
Larissa Behrendt
Vince Forrester
Tom Calma (tbc)
Heather Goodall
Sam Watson
Mick Dodson (tbc)
Barbara Shaw

Conference sessions include:
*History of the struggle
*Unions and Aboriginal rights
*Resisting the new paternalism

Almost one year since the NT intervention began, there is a pressing need for the Aboriginal Rights movement to come together, consolidate recent gains and plan for the fight ahead.

The new Rudd Government has made some important symbolic gestures - from the apology through to commitments to ‘Close the Gap’ in Indigenous health. But for communities in the NT, Rudd is now the face of an intervention which is causing a new wave of dispossession and, as argued by Mutitjulu elder Vince Forrester, “a return to Apartheid”.

Welfare quarantines, the destruction of Community Employment Development Projects (CDEP) and the compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal lands, businesses and services has forced thousands of people from their communities into urban centres. There they are met with racism and police repression - 190 people were taken into custody in Alice Springs on 4-5 April in an operation targeting “anti-social behaviour”.

The ideas of paternalism, assimilation and the free-market driving the intervention, and pushed so hard by the Howard government, are impacting on Aboriginal policy across the country. From the Queensland government’s decision to continue holding stolen wages “in trust”, the “mainstreaming” of Indigenous services which continues, through to the burgeoning national roll out of punitive welfare policies, a policy consensus has emerged in government and media against self-determination.

The new government is actively campaigning for retention and expansion of the explicitly racist intervention laws. They refuse to acknowledge the social break down taking place. They continue to deny Aboriginal people the basic human rights of protections against discrimination or rights to appeal.

2,000 people marched in Canberra on February 12, demanding an end to the intervention and campaign groups have been established iwn the major cities. Many trade unionists and activists in the broader community have recognised the need to actively challenge the racism of the intervention and renew the fight for Aboriginal rights around the country.

The upcoming conference aims to strengthen the networks that have been formed through this campaign. This conference will look to successful struggles from the past and hear from the strong communities leaders of today - to advance the politics of self-determination and forge demands and strategy for the ongoing campaign against the intervention.

Any groups wishing to become more involved in the campaign through organising and running a workshop at the conference are invited to register their interest with the organisers. For further information, please contact aboriginalrightscoalition @ gmail . com (with spaces removed).

Petition against NT intervention for the Federal Senate

Dear all,

With the support of activists from “prescribed areas” in the NT, the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in Sydney have initiated a national petition against the NT intervention.

Labor Senator for the NT Trish Crossin has agreed to present the petition to parliament in late June, to mark one year since the intervention and to coincide with the beginning of the official “review” process.

We are aiming to have thousands of signatures from all around the country.

Please print off the attached petition and circulate in your workplaces, organisations and communities. Return petitions to:

Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Sydney PO Box 433, Newtown NSW 2042 by 14/06/2008.

We are also seeking public endorsement of the petition from supportive organisations. Please reply to aboriginalrightscoalition @ gmail . com if your organisation is willing to endorse.

You can download the petition from here: Petitionagainstintervention.doc

[WA] Midland Centrelink Protest Demands an End to Quarantining

Annolies Truman, Perth

21 adults and 10 children gathered outside Midland Centrelink on April 14 to demand the end of welfare quarantining in the Northern Territory and to keep the quarantine laws out of Western Australia.

Organised by the WA Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC), the protest demanded the repeal of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act and associated legislation, which threatens to extend the Northern Territory Intervention into WA and other states.

The Federal and WA Indigenous Affairs ministers have already agreed to Department of Child Protection officers recommending the quarantining of welfare payments of WA Centrelink recipients.

Various speakers addressed the protest, while members of the crowd chanted “Justice Now!” and handed out leaflets.

ARC organiser, Natasha Moore, told the protest, “The intervention is just another form of government control over Aboriginal people’s lives. Housing is a major issue but the government prefers to target Indigenous people’s welfare benefits instead. The intervention is meant to protect children, but instead it’s leaving Aboriginal people in a more disadvantaged and marginalised position in society. Self-determination is the solution and Aboriginal people need to control affairs that affect them.”

Nyakinjaki Elder and ARC organiser, Wayne Riley-Collard, said, “These laws are like laws the government introduced during the assimilation period. We are going backwards to food rations days.”

Nyoongar elder and ARC activist Bev Humphries told the protest she didn’t want her grandchildren to be subjected to these laws. “Stop the injustice!” she shouted.

Nyoongar health worker Kerri-Ann Winmar said, “I’ve been to Alice Springs and I’ve seen the impact on communities. This scheme isn’t working and we can’t let it happen here.”

A Nyoongar worker with the WA Department of Indigenous Affairs stated, “Remote Aboriginal communities have few resources to tackle the issues that concern them. Instead of genuinely supporting them, the government is forcing people to travel miles to buy food from major corporations. Welfare quarantining means no book-up stores and basic things such as medication and white goods have become extremely hard for Aboriginal people to purchase.”

The protest pledged to organise a contingent for May Day and a rally and march for the June 21 National Day of Action, anniversary of the intervention laws. ARC will invite Aboriginal people who are experiencing the laws first hand to be key speakers.

To get involved contact Natasha on 0434 303 248.

Anti-intervention campaigner joins UN delegation

Media release 17/4/08 - for immediate release

Barbara Shaw, a prominent spokeswoman against the NT intervention, will join a delegation of more than forty Indigenous people from Australia attending the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.

Ms Shaw is a resident of Mt Nancy Town Camp, an area “proscribed” under the intervention. She will use the trip to strengthen support for the campaign demanding repeal of all NT intervention legislation.

This meeting of the Permanent Forum will be focussed on the situation facing Indigenous People in the Pacific. Ms Shaw will raise the issue of breaches of UN human rights protocols by the Australian government through the intervention.

Ms Shaw plans to build support for the following resolution:

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recognises that the Australian ‘Northern Territory National Emergency Response Intervention legislation’ contravenes a number of articles of the
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues therefore:

1.demands the Australian Government signs and ratifies the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2.demands that the Australian Government immediately reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act 1975,

3. demands that the Australian Government repeal all Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation (2007)

4. demands that the Australian Government implement the 97 recommendations of the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle - Little Children are Sacred report (Anderson and Wild, 2007)

It is rumored that the Rudd government will announce Australian support for the UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to coincide with the forum.

Ms Shaw arrives in Sydney this afternoon, April 17 at 5pm.

The delegation will leave from Sydney airport tomorrow, April 18 at 1pm.

Delegates will be available for interview and photograph at Sydney airport tomorrow morning.

For more information contact:

Barbara Shaw 0401291166
Les Malezer, leader of the delegation 0419710720

Media Release: NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AT CENTRELINK TARGETS WELFARE QUARANTINING

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION – END DISCRIMINATORY WELFARE QUARANTINING: Monday 14th April

A coalition of Aboriginal Rights groups around the country will protest on Monday at Centrelink offices to highlight the ongoing discrimination of welfare quarantining under the NT ‘Emergency Intervention’, and expose the detrimental impacts of the quarantine roll out.
In February, the Canberra Convergence saw over 2000 people gathered from around the country to protest the NT Intervention. In solidarity with the Centrelink events, many of the Central Australian delegates of the Convergence who live in ‘prescribed’ areas under the Intervention, will meet in Alice Springs with concerned community members, to create a letter to send to Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin to voice how and why they oppose the Intervention legislation.

End Quarantining
At the start of April, the Rudd Government commenced racist quarantining of welfare payments for an additional 1,190 Aboriginal people, taking the total to more than 7,700 people across 29 communities.
This rollout is occurring despite increasing complaints to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and evidence that the Intervention violates Australia’s international human rights obligations, as documented in HREOC Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma’s recent Report.
Surveys undertaken in Darwin and Alice Springs over the past month have shown that discriminatory welfare quarantining is creating real problems for people and communities on the ground:

• Difficulty transporting a fortnights worth of groceries back to communities from major centres, where people are forced to use their ’store cards’.
• This is especially difficult for those with disabilities or aged pensioners who are caught up in the blanket nature of the quarantining.
• Communities which once pooled resources for major purchases such as homewares and car registration can no longer do so, leaving them worse off
• People are facing increased difficulties in saving and budgeting for essential expenses outside of food and rent, such as school fees
• In major urban centres, such as Darwin and Alice Springs, service providers have reported increased numbers of people coming in from communities, who are afraid to return home or find they are unable, due to the intervention changes.

Above all, Aboriginal people are experiencing shame and humiliation as they struggle to come to terms with this imposed and racist legislation that blames them rather than works with them to overcome decades of disadvantage – ”I thank you Prime Minister Rudd for your apology…(but) it’s an invasion all over again. We are being told where to shop, what to eat, how to act and how to live’ says Lyle Cooper, Vice President Bagot Community, Darwin

EVENTS AROUND THE COUNTRY:

DARWIN
Monday 14th April
Palmerston Centrelink Office 9am – 12pm
Casuarina Centrelink Office 9am – 12pm
Contact:
Lyle Cooper (0 89483166 (Vice President Bagot Community)
Liv Nigro 0401 955 405 (Darwin Aboriginal Rights Coalition)

ALICE SPRINGS
Monday 14th April
Community Meeting 9 -12pm, followed by delivery of letter to Warren Snowden’s Office (local member)
Contact: Barbara Shaw 0401291166
Marlene Hodder 0438 816 851

SYDNEY
Monday 14th April: 6pm
Redfern Community Centre
Speakers: Vince Forrester from Mutijulu (NT)
Monique Wiseman (Darwin Town Camp feedback)
Darren Dick (HREOC – info on recent Social Justice Report)
Contact:
Greg Eatock 0432 050 240 (Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition)

PERTH
Monday 14TH April: 12pm
Midland Centrelink
Keane St, Midland
Contact:
Natasha 0434 303 248 or Annolies 9299 6453 (WA Aboriginal Rights Coalition)

MELBOURNE
Sunday 13th April: 12pm
cnr Bourke and Swanston Sts, city
info stall about the intervention and the negative effects it is having on
Aboriginal communities in the NT

Monday 14th April: 10am
protest and info stall outside Fitzroy Centrelink
62-70 Johnston St, near cnr Bourke St
Contact:
Michaela Stubbs 0429136935 (Alliance for Indigenous Self-Determination)

ADELAIDE
Monday 14th April
Centrelink Topham Mall, City: 12pm

BRISBANE
Picket Anna Bligh’s Office
3pm Monday April 14th
Suite 1/90 Vulture Street, West End.
Speakers: Sam Watson and Les Malezer

Media Release prepared by Darwin Aboriginal Rights Coalition, on behalf of the groups organising events detailed above. Contact: Alyssa Vass 0402 680 337

HREOC Social Justice Report gives clear direction to the Labor Govt

Media release 31/3/08

The Aboriginal Rights Coalition welcomed today’s release of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Social Justice Report into the Northern Territory Intervention into Aboriginal communities. Commissioner Tom Calma’s Report provides an independent analysis, critically assessing the race-based welfare quarantining and the contravening of the Racial Discrimination Act which he claims has been repealed on flawed premises, resulting in multiple breaches of international human rights charters that Australia is a signatory to.

The 2007 Social Justice Report provides clear direction to the recently elected Labor Government on how to distinguish itself from the legacy of the Howard Government

and work with Aboriginal communities to effectively address child sexual assault and family violence, while maintaining Australia’s human rights obligations.

The Report identifies that $150 million has been spent on the administration of welfare quarantining, while community services that have proven to be effective in dealing with and preventing family violence and child abuse remain starved of funding. The Report outlines 19 successful community based strategies such as the Tangentyere Safe Families Project, the Mawal Rom Project, the Rekindling the Spirit and Balgo Women’s Law Camp, Yuendumu’s Women’s Centre and Night Patrols, Murri Courts and Umbakumba Alcohol Management Program. These programs represent some of the highly successful culturally appropriate community based programs that communities have developed.

‘The HREOC Report confirms that attacking Aboriginal people’s rights to social security, disbanding the Racial Discrimination Act and instigating food voucher cards does nothing to address the long term neglect of successive Governments to fund services for Aboriginal people,’ Mr Eatock said.

Mr Eatock spoke of the frustration of many Aboriginal service providers, ‘The national Secretariat for Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) has developed a detailed national child protection strategy, in conjunction with Aboriginal communities, which it continues to seek funding to implement.’

Mr Eatock called on the Federal Government to overhaul the Northern Territory Intervention and fund the Aboriginal services on the ground that have effective evidence-based strategies to deal with the complex issues of dysfunction in Aboriginal communities.

Mr Eatock referred to the NT Intervention measures as ‘apartheid in nature and a new era of paternalism akin to those of 50 years ago which led to the policies of the stolen generation and the need for an apology.’ He called on the Indigenous Affair Minister Jenny Macklin to ‘use her discretionary powers to immediately halt the punitive measures of the Intervention, reinstate the human rights safe guard of the Racial Discrimination Act and work with Aboriginal people.’

For further comment and information contact Greg Eatock: 0432 050 240

Monday: HREOC joins Mutitjulu elder at NT intervention forum

Darren Dick from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission worked with Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma on the recent Social Justice Report 2007. This report provides extensive analysis of the way the NT intervention is breaching Australia’s Human Rights obligations.

This Monday, he will join Mutitjulu elder Vince Forrester and Monique Wiseman from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in discussion about the current impact of the NT intervention and the future of the campaign.

Monday April 14 6pm Redfern Community Centre
BBQ provided

Speakers include:
* Vince Forrester - Elder from Mutitjulu community
* Darren Dick - Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
* Monique Wiseman - Aboriginal Rights Coalition activist, recently returned from solidarity work in Darwin town camps

Two months after Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generation, a new wave of dispossession in sweeping through the Northern Territory.

The NT intervention has introduced a punitive welfare regime and seen the closure of many services in remote communities. Large numbers of people are being forced into the major urban centres, where they can not access employment or accommodation. Last Thursday and Friday in Alice Springs, a “special police operation” targeting “anti-social behaviour” (ie Aboriginal people in public spaces) saw 188 people taken into custody.

Vince Forrester is a long time land rights activist and Aboriginal leader. He is from Mutitjulu, a proud community whose demonisation paved the way to the federal intervention. He will discuss the devastating impact this policy is having on his people - from the intimidating police raids through to the closure of the local high school and health care facilities. He will also discuss strategies for reasserting self-determination and campaigning to seriously address disadvantage.

Monique Wiseman has recently returned from Darwin. She will speak about the deteriorating conditions in Darwin’s town camps, whose populations have doubled through the intervention as people are forced in from remote communities.

This forum will also provide an opportunity to talk about the way forward for the campaign against the Northern Territory intervention. The Aboriginal Rights Coalition is preparing for a national conference
in May. We are also building for mass rallies on June 21, marking one year since the intervention.

Come along, here the stories first-hand and get involved in the campaign!

For more info see: http://aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com
Contact: Greg Eatock 0432050240 Paddy Gibson 0415800586

Watch footage of recent ARC protest at Redfern Centrelink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g5Er9jdxNo

Media release: 188 taken into custody in Alice – raids linked to intervention

Media release 7/4/08 – For immediate release

ABC news is reporting that 188 people were taken into custody in Alice Springs in a “special operation” targeting alcohol consumption and loitering on Thursday 4th and Friday 5th of April. Police have been given increased powers under the NT intervention.

Police have said arrests focussed on youth who, “might get up to no good” and linked the operation to increased numbers of Aboriginal people in public spaces in Alice Springs. Activists argue people are being pressured into town due to intervention measures.

“Politicians like Alison Anderson say people are welcoming the intervention. So why are so many now in town, homeless and jobless?”, said Barbara Shaw form Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs.

“Large numbers of young people are getting stuck here now, and caught up in substance abuse. There is more petrol sniffing. Police have all these new powers to punish people – where are the resources for rehabilitation? Arresting people will only set their lives back even further”.

“Taking more Aboriginal youth into custody will lead to increased suicide. How many non Aboriginal youth were taken into custody in Alice Springs last week for loitering? This is clearly Apartheid. How are people supposed to pay their fines when half their incomes are now on ration cards”, said Greg Eatock from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in Sydney.

“This legislation and government action is a form of terrorism used specifically against our people. They are entrenching racism with these actions” said Vince Forrester, a Mutitjulu elder who has travelled to Sydney as an ambassador from Uluru and Kuta-tjuta to speak out about the Northern Territory Intervention.

“The Police in the Territory, especially in the remote communities, are acting like Cowboys” said Vince today. “I have had a shotgun pointed at me by police as part of a clear strategy of intimidation” he said.

“Alice Springs now is full of many people who, because of ‘welfare quarantines” cannot afford to get back to the bush. Only certain shops in town can accept the invasion tickets (food vouchers), and these same supermarkets are making big profits by selling alcohol for any remaining cash. They exercise no duty of care while it is the Aboriginal people who are being punished” he said.

For more information contact:

Vince Forrester 0423686281
Greg Eatock 0432050240
Barbara Shaw 0401291166

Vince Forrester will be speaking further about the negative impacts of the Northern Territory Intervention on his people at a public forum at the Redfern Community Centre, 6pm on April 14.

Media release: Intervention Earthquake Shakes Top End

Media release 7/4/08 – For immediate release

Spokespersons from the Bagot Town Camp in Darwin say they are now feeling the effects of the Northern Territory Intervention:

• The population of Bagot has risen from an average of around 500 to 1200.
• Of the 57 houses at Bagot 3 are earmarked for demolition. In the meantime all houses are vastly overcrowded, including one three bedroom house currently housing NINE FAMILIES (not just nine people.)
• Only one in five houses have either a stove or a refrigerator. Many stoves may have only one element of the stove top in working order.
• An ever increasing number of newly homeless people are being forced from the more remote communities and are moving into “the long grass” (fringe dwellers) just outside of Darwin. These people are an additional burden on Bagot services, and this picture is repeated in many NT towns, including Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Katherine.
• As elsewhere in the Territory, the only previously viable community enterprise, the community store, is excluded from the Welfare Quarantine system - which applies only to Woolworths, Coles and Kmart in the major population centers. Obviously, without customers, the community stores are facing a rapid extinction.
• Although the Welfare Quarantine only denies direct access to 50% of pensions and other Centerlink entitlements, recurring charges such as rents, gas and electrics, and chemist charges/medicines must then be deducted from the remainder. This can leave pensioners and Centrelink beneficiaries with as little as thirteen or fourteen dollars per fortnight. (Pity help the poor nicotine addict.)
• The demolition of CDEP and its servicing structures has drawn a halt to the employment of more than five hundred Aboriginals in community maintenance, and traditional land care practices and has resulted in a hugely detrimental effect on community services, health and morale.
  Suicides are reportedly increasing to almost one every week.

Bagot Elder Lyle Cooper, runs the food and nutrition program at the Bagot health clinic, has said “I thank you Prime Minister Rudd for your apology…(but) it’s an invasion all over again. We are being told where to shop, what to eat, how to act and how to live”.

Greg Eatock, from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition has drawn attention to the recently released HREOC report, in which the Human Rights Commissioner , Tom Calma, called for the Minister, Jenny Macklin to utilize her discretionary powers in an effort to minimize many of the negative social and economic impacts on Aboriginal individuals and communities.

Mr Eatock stated that the Minister “must immediately reapply the Anti-Discrimination Act (NT) of 1992 while continuing to work towards the reapplication by the Federal Government of the Racial Discrimination Act and an end to the Intervention.”

For more information contact:
Greg Eatock 0432050240
Lyall Cooper 08 89483166