JOINT STATEMENT

by the

Indigenous Peoples Organisations of Australia

attending the eighth session of the

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

New York, 18 to 29 May 2009

On 24 May 2009 the Minister for Indigenous Affairs announced the Australian Government is taking steps towards compulsory acquisition of the Alice Springs town camps ‘to give children in the camps a better chance at a safe, healthy and happy life’. The Minister described the conditions in the camps as appalling, referring to acute overcrowding, sub-standard housing, alcohol abuse, despair, hopelessness and horrific crimes. The Minister announced intentions to implement a comprehensive plan to transform the town camps and provide intensive support services.

(Article 23, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)

‘Australian governments must urgently address the humanitarian tragedy of the lack of housing and basic services for the indigenous peoples of Australia, living on indigenous lands and elsewhere. To this end, the Special Rapporteur encourages relevant government staff to visit and reside in indigenous communities, including town camps, and rural and remote communities, in order to better comprehend the reality and the challenges faced by the populations and communities in these locations.’

(Para 133, Report on Mission to Australia, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, UN Document A/HRC/4/18/Add. 2, 11 May 2007)

‘The State party should increase its efforts for an effective consultation with indigenous peoples in decision-making in all areas having an impact on their rights … The State party should redesign NTER measures in direct consultation with the indigenous peoples concerned, in order to ensure that they are consistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1995 and the Covenant.’

(Concluding observations on Australia, Human Rights Committee, UN Document CCPR/C/AUS/CO/ 5, 2 April 2009)

‘The Committee recommends that the State party take effective measures, in line with the Committee’s general comment No.4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing (art. 11, para. 1, of the Covenant), to address homelessness in its territory. The State party should implement the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing contained in the report of his mission to Australia… The Committee calls on the State party to take immediate steps to improve the health situation of indigenous people, in particular women and children, including by implementing a human rights framework that ensures access to the social determinants of health such as housing, safe drinking water, electricity and effective sanitation systems.’

(Concluding observations on Australia, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Document E/C.12/AUS/CO/ 4, 22 May 2009)

TJ rally 5th aniversary

JUSTICE FOR TJ !

On the fifth anniversary of TJ’s murder

Rally, Saturday, 14th February 2009, 10:00 a.m. 

Gather at the fence line 10:00 a.m.

Cnr George and Philips Sts Waterloo

March to The Block

SPEAKERS

 A Hickey Family Member        Aboriginal Leaders          Raul Bassi

Open microphone for concerned Community members

Rally organized by ISJA. Supported by Aboriginal Rights Coalition Sydney, 

Stop The Intervention Collective and Socialist Alliance

stop all black deaths in custody

Reopen the TJ enquiry!

Too many koori kids are dying at the hands of the ‘law’

Whose Son, Brother, Sister, Cousin, Uncle, Aunt will die this year at the hands of the police?

Protest to put a stop to the deaths and get true justice for Koori people

Support all the actions demanding that the Rudd government Stop the NT intervention and all attacks on aboriginal People

Enquiries Raul Bassi 0403037376 or ISJA@internod.on.net

Support Aboriginal Rights – Get on the bus to Canberra!

Converge on Canberra 2009- 1st-3rd Feb

1. Rally for Opening of Parliament: February Tuesday 3rd 12pm.
2. Join activists from around the country in workshops at Aboriginal Tent Embassy February 1-2.
3. Donations desperately needed!
4. Canberra convergence statement – please endorse

1. Rally for Opening of Parliament: February Tuesday 3rd 12pm.

A bus from Brisbane will leave Saturday 31st January at 1pm to take people to Canberra for the national convergence to be held at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy from the 1st – 3rd of February. Seats on the bus are $60 negotiable – to book on the bus call Lauren on 0413 534 125.

2. Join activists from around the country in workshops and campaign discussions.

Workshops include discussion of the impacts of the NT Intervention and how we can stop it, attacks on CDEP (Community Development Employment Programs) and the new mainstreaming, the fight for recognition of
Aboriginal Sovereignty, and more.

There will also be a public forum on the Monday night in Canberra: The NT Intervention – Living with a Racist Policy. 7pm Monday February 2 Albert Hall, Commonwealth Ave, Yarralumla, Canberra.

Speakers include: Barbara Shaw – Mt Nancy Town Camp, Mparntwe – Alice Springs, Harry Jakamarra Nelson – Yuendumu community, Elaine Peckham – Iwupataka Land Trust, George Newhouse – Human Rights Lawyer, Jon Altman.

Aboriginal Rights Coalition members are joining people from around the country to converge and camp at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns of Old Parliament House. Convergence organisers have arranged porta-loos and marquees, and the “Chai tent” will be providing some food for a donation. But campers are asked to bring some snacks.

People coming for the workshops and camping at the embassy need to be as close to self-sufficient as possible in the following things:

- Tent
- sleeping bag
- sleeping mat
- large water bottle
- bowl and cutlery
- mug
- snacks
- torch
- wet weather gear

3. Donations desperately needed!

Busses of people from prescribed areas in the NT are costing $20,000. On top of that, hire of a cool-room to allow food at the Tent Embassy, and porta-loos, sound systems and marquees are costing at least another $8,000.

Additionally the campaign groups have needed funds for other transport to the convergence, publicity materials etc…

Please support this effort to take the struggles of Aboriginal people directly to those making the policies that are unwinding Aboriginal self-determination. Please approach supportive organisations to donate and endorse the convergence (below is the convergence statement which can be endorsed by emailing: lauren.a.mellor@gmail.com

Transfer money to: Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Uni Credit Union
Bsb: 804 083
Account: 08 332 933
(Please include your name in the deposit so we can keep track of payments, and send an email for confirmation. If you’re transferring online don’t forget the three letter abbreviation for the account which is MEL). Include your name or organisation in the deposit description if you wish to be identified.

4. Canberra convergence statement – please endorse

Stop the racism – Converge on Canberra

- Immediately reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act

- Repeal the NT Intervention laws

- Justice Not Jail – Stop Black Deaths in Custody

- Community control and full funding for all Aboriginal services, housing, health and education. Stop the cuts to CDEP

- Recognise the culturally autonomous Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal Nations of the Australian continent and immediately end the one-size fits all approach to Indigenous affairs. Consult with communities and nation groups independently in order to develop policy in partnership with sovereign cultural law and practice.

- Full welfare rights for all. End the punitive welfare quarantine.

- Immediately adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Aboriginal Australia still waits for human rights. Aboriginal people are 13 times more likely to be in prison than non-Indigenous Australians and horrific deaths in custody continue, as highlighted by recent events on Palm Island. Aboriginal babies die at more than twice the rate of the non-Indigenous population. The Stolen Generations still wait for compensation. Land rights are under increasing threat by mining companies and waste dumps and by the government’s push for leases to remove community control over community land. Labor has not adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The NT Intervention is based on Racial Discrimination:

In April 2008, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tom Calma said, “The most revealing indicator that the NT intervention was not consistent with human rights principles was the provision at the centre of the legislative machinery used to support the intervention, namely suspending the operation of Racial Discrimination Act.”

Yet the Rudd government says the Racial Discrimination Act will remain suspended and a blanket welfare quarantine will be maintained for at least the next year.

An Intervention that relies on the suspension of the very Act designed to protect people from racism, makes a mockery of any claim that it is for the benefit of Aboriginal people.

Self-determination – Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs:

“For old people the intervention is bringing up bad memories of the past, the old days, the ration days, the dog tag days and the mission days” (Women’s statement from the inaugural Prescribed Area People’s Alliance, 29 September 2008).

Under the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), leases and government business managers have been imposed on prescribed communities.

The only houses built with Intervention funds have been for the business managers, many of which are unoccupied. Only a handful of ‘prescribed’ communities have been offered funding for housing – and only if they lease their land to the government for 40, 60 or even 90 years.

Many communities, deemed “unviable” will be denied funding and basic welfare rights.

Successful programs run by local communities dealing with issues of alcohol abuse, domestic violence and education, have been dismantled as the NTER has taken bureaucratic control. The recommendations of the “Little Children are Sacred” report are being ignored.

The women of the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance declared, “we want to strongly maintain and practice our culture. We want to stay in our communities and pass on traditional knowledge to the future generations.”

Yet the NT government has announced a ban on the teaching of Aboriginal languages in schools for all but one hour in the afternoons.

This approach – of open assimilation and “mainstreaming” is being rolled out across Australia. Koori schools in Victoria are being closed by the state government.

Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP), a crucial source of support for Aboriginal communities and employment for thousands of families, are being threatened with closure nationally. People are facing the prospect of having to leave their communities in order to access employment and basic welfare rights.

Welfare rights are non-negotiable:

The Intervention represents a wholesale attack on Australia’s commitment to universal social security rights. “Income management” means Aboriginal people are treated as second-class citizens. Some
communities literally rely on the uncertain delivery of food parcels. Others are left with no money to attend funerals or ceremonies, pay for school excursions, or even buy Christmas presents.
Aboriginal communities nationally are bearing the brunt of attempts to extend the punitive “income management” regime.

Never Again

In February 2008, Prime Minister Rudd apologized to the Stolen Generations committing the government to, “A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again”.

But injustices are being perpetuated under the NT Intervention. The paternalism that created “the gap” between the lives of Aboriginal people and the rest of Australia is being fostered by the Intervention and the renewed push for assimilation.

The solution to the poverty and disadvantage of Aboriginal communities begins with self-determination – allowing affected communities to decide what programs are needed and how they will be implemented.

The Labor government’s own NTER Review (13 October 2008) stated, “…addressing specific concerns in Aboriginal communities does not require the exclusion of fundamental human rights such as the Racial Discrimination Act.”

The following individuals and organisations support a convergence in Canberra on the opening day of parliament, 3 February 2009, to say no to racism and demand justice for Aboriginal Australia:

Central Land Council – Full Council

Prescribed Area People’s Alliance (NT)

QLD Aboriginal Council Mayors roundtable

Intervention Rollback Action Group (Mparntwe – Alice Springs)

Stop the Intervention Collective (Sydney)

Aboriginal Rights Coalition (Brisbane)

Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Canberra)

Top End Aboriginal Conservation Alliance

Sunrise Health Service (Katherine)

Black GST

Camp Sovereignty

Gordon & Elaine Syron, The Keeping Place/Black Fella’s Dreaming Museum

Aboriginal Tent Embassy (ACT)

Nuclear Disarmament Party

Women for Wik

WA Aboriginal Rights Coalition

Socialist Alliance

Aboriginal Rights Coalition – Sydney

Harry Nelson (Yuendumu)
Phillip Wilyuka (Titjikala)
Barbara Shaw (Mt Nancy Town Camp)
Dootch Kennedy
Michael Mansell
Sam Watson
Robbie Thorpe
Les Malezer
Nicole Watson
Monique Wiseman
Pastor Ray Minniecon
Millie Ingram
Donna Jackson
Tiga Bailes
Irene Fisher
Dianne Stokes
Mark Lane
Jeff McMullen
Professor Larissa Behrendt (Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House ofLearning UTS)
Leonie Chester
Elaine Peckham (Iwupataka)
Eva Cox
George Newhouse (B.Com, LL.B, Human Rights Lawyer representing the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance in the United Nations)
Jon Altman
Shane Phillips
Valerie Martin (Yuendumu)
Lee Rhiannon (Greens NSW MP)
John Kaye (Greens NSW MP)
Nala Mansell-McKenna, State Secretary, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre
Gracelyn Smallwood
Rosalie Kunoth-Monks
Robin Granites (Yuendumu)
Bertha Nakamarra Spencer (Hidden Valley Town Camp)
Michael Thompson (President, NTEU USYD Branch)
Rex Granites Japanangka (Yuendumu)
Caril Conners aka C Saville (Mindaribba Local Aboriginal Land Council member)
Kerree Parter (Regional Network Programs Officer, DEWHA, Rockhampton ICC)
Rebecca Saville (Mindaribba Local Aboriginal Land Council member)
Deborah Ruiz Wall
Daniel John Peterson
Matthew Maurer (LLB)
Irene Doutney (Greens Councillor, City of Sydney)
Genevieve Kelly (Secretary NSW NTEU)
Terry Mason (Senior Lecturer, Indigenous Education, University of Western Sydney)
Fiona McAllan (Macquarie University)

To support the Canberra protest, please E-mail:
sam.watson@uq.edu.au or lauren.a.mellor@gmail.com

“DEFEND ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES,

FROM ‘THE BLOCK’ TO THE TOP END!”

Aboriginal activists and other speakers take a critical look at Rudd’s Review Panel Report on the on the NT Intervention, the continuation of attacks on welfare and the need to resist racist attacks on Aboriginal Communities in Sydney as well as the NT

2pm – 4pm Saturday 1^st November

Redfern Community Centre Hugo St

For more information, ring Greg 0432 050 240 or email aboriginalrightscoalition@gmail.com

The Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Sydney, meets every Monday at 6pm @ the Redfern Community Centre. Please come along and join the campaign for justice.

If you can’t make the meetings, please consider donating to help the ARC cover our costs. Whether it be travel costs for speakers, photocopying, food or venue hire, the ARC is a volunteer organisation, and depends upon your help to continue.

Given that the NTER Review board has finally released its report, it is timely for the various submissions to the NTER Review to be read by the general public.

Please share widely.

Aboriginal Rights Coalition’s Submission to the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review.

Other submissions:
Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association
Australian Council of Social Services
Larissa Behrendt, Nicole Watson, Ruth McCausland, and Alison Vivian, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney
Tangentyere Council, Alice Springs
National Welfare Rights Network
Catholic Religious Australia
Central Land Council
Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre
GetUp! Action For Australia
Jon Altman, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University
Reconciliation Australia
Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC)

Stop the NT intervention!

No expansion of racist welfare quarantines!

In ongoing action against the NT intervention, people around the country will take action this week against the ongoing injustice of the NT intervention and against its expansion to other areas of the country.

The policies of the intervention, which place targeted communities on ‘welfare quarantine’, have dramatically reduced access to food in remote areas.

The policies have reduced Aboriginal communities’ right to determine who does and does not enter their lands.

Police have been given extraordinary powers to arrest and hold people without charge, as well as powers to enter people’s homes and search without warrants. Compulsory bans on alcohol have put more Aboriginal people in jail, despite all recommendations of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, which argue that this should only be used as a last resort.

Vince Forrester from NT community of Mutitjulu, has said of the laws, “We are living through Apartheid, we are back to the ration days”.

The Rudd government has continued to support these Howard-era policies, despite calls from doctors, social workers and the affected Aboriginal people themselves, to end them and restore the racial discrimination act.

On 11am Saturday 27th September, Sydney people will stand together against this intervention and with all others who stand against it. We will also stand against any expansion of these policies to anywhere else in the country — including La Perouse, which has been proposed for welfare quarantining by MP Peter Garrett.

Please donate to help us cover the travel costs of community members to get to the Sydney to speak directly about their experiences. The Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Sydney, meets every Monday at 6pm @ the Redfern Community Centre.

Aboriginal Control of Aboriginal Affairs

Aboriginal Rights Coalition presents a Speak Out and Concert

Stop the federal intervention into Aboriginal communities

End the racist land grab

No welfare quarantining – in NT or elsewhere!

Defend the Redfern Block

Restore the Racial Discrimination Act

Fund infrastructure and community-controlled services

From 1pm, Sat 16 Aug

1pm BBQ and live music

Wire MC, Charlie Trindall, The Stiff Gins, and others

2pm Speakers

Roslyn Frith, granddaughter of Vincent Lingiari

and NT community spokesperson

Sam Watson, Queensland Aboriginal activist

Pat Eatock, original secretary of Aboriginal Tent Embassy,

Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition

@ Redfern Community Centre

29-53 Hugo St

For more information, ring Greg 0432 050 240

On July 14, the Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition held a successful rally outside Redfern Centrelink, with around 50 people attending. The protest was addressed by members of the community, a representative of the Teachers Federation, and local Greens candidate, Irene Doutney. The text of her speech is attached below.

ARC rally 14 JULY 08

My name is Irene Doutney and I’m the Greens candidate for the City of Sydney Council elections,

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and I have to ask has anything really changed since that first day when the English landed in Sydney and began the oppression of the Indigenous people of Australia?

We are out the front of Centrelink today because across the country our brothers and sisters are being treated like third class citizens…..if that word citizen really applies at all

What other citizens are treated in this way….no-one! and yet the first Australians are constantly punished and treated in a way that no other group has ever had to put up with.

In Australia when I was young we looked at South Africa with its apartheid and said how good Australia was, but in reality the racist plan here was to breed our indigenous Australians out of existence.

Well hey it didn’t work and the people are still here and growing stronger year by year and justice must be given to them at last.

We have to ensure that the great wealth of this country is shared out to all of its people especially the traditional owners of the land, and that they are given the resources they need to live a decent life.

The Greens are the only parliamentary party that has called for proper restitution and compensation for all the crimes committed against the Aboriginal people, we believe there should be more than just an apology, just words.

We believe that the indigenous Australians should be compensated for all the great crimes European Australians have put them through, from stealing their land and their children to making them work without payment and live with constant abuse and dishonor but what does this government give you?…..an apology that hides the extended quarantining of benefits and the acquisition of traditional lands for god knows what purpose and exploitation – be it mining or dumping toxic waste.

Over the past year, we have met a long line of aunties and uncles from the Territory telling us about the reality of living under the intervention and our hearts cry out for what is being done in our name…..shame, shame, shame…..and that is what these people were feeling was SHAME…..

Everyone in our country deserves respect, especially the traditional owners who have cared for the land over tens of thousands of years, but what we are seeing is disrespect of the highest order. The humiliation of having your payments quarantined is never really for the recipients benefit but ultimately for control of that person……it’s a form of abuse.

I have had my payments quarantined for not reporting to Centrelink on time and it’s totally undermining and degrading. Suddenly you don’t have any money, no independence, no ability to do anything or go anywhere or even buy food.

I’ve also had to use charity food vouchers and that is equally humiliating as all the people around you, shoppers and staff know your too poor to have any cash…..judgments are made about your character simply because your using vouchers not cash.

Why should anyone be branded like that? Imagine how much worse it is for the people in the NT when this is dictated to be your way of life…just because your indigenous. This is the big stick that the Government is using to continue a disgraceful white history of racism and exploitation, while they are pretending to help the communities they are really destroying them.

Even the most basic human need for shelter is not being met for all the promises of the government.

On Wednesday the ABC reported that:

Wednesday, 09 July, 2008 ABC News

A member of the Maningrida community in the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land says he cannot see any infrastructure changes as a result of the emergency intervention, and wants to know where the money has been spent.

San Munro says the intervention has failed to deliver on improvements in housing and health services.

He says the only visible change he can see is a few empty shipping containers where some of the intervention staff once lived, and no new houses.

Munro says he believes it is the same situation in all 73 prescribed Aboriginal communities.

“It’s disappointing for people who had hoped that the financial muscle of the Commonwealth Government would create significant improvements in the lives of these Aboriginal citizens” he said.

“Particularly in such prosperous times for our nation it simply doesn’t seem right to see Aboriginal people living 25 to a house and living in a certain level of despair about their futures.”

“Eight hundred additional Commonwealth public servants doesn’t seem to me like a good investment when Maningrida, the largest community in the Northern Territory, can’t have a dentist or a child protection worker or a youth worker”.

The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin has objected to the claims.

Jenny Macklin says 750 new houses will be built in remote Aboriginal communities in partnership with the Territory Government, and 2,500 houses will also be upgraded.

The Federal Government has committed about $700 million to housing but the NT Minister for Housing says they will need at least $3 billion.

Promising words from the Minister but when is it actually going to happen…..its been over a year now and it appears no housing has been built….where are the training courses that will allow indigenous young people to learn the trade skills that would allow them to build their own housing…..where are the apprenticeships that will give the communities their own brickies, sparkies, mechanics and builders…..

And what about the safe houses, the rehabilitation and detoxification units, youth facilities, counselling, and all the other services that are needed and were identified by “The Little Children are Sacred Report”…..when are they going to be supplied to the communities?

But the sad truth is these communities are being destroyed as people drift into the towns and leave their homes to be near Centrelink offices, the big supermarkets that will take their vouchers and all the things denied them in the prescribed communities.

But it will get worse as the Federal Labor government extends the intervention system to other states like Western Australia and Queensland and Ministers like Peter Garrett talk about how good it would be to extend these powers to the aboriginal people in La Perouse.

Which brings us to the disgraceful racist behaviour of the NSW Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor. Here in Redfern we have the same battle going on over building some decent housing on the Block. Minister Sartor quite openly showed his contempt for the local aboriginal community when he said there were too many black faces in Redfern. His answer was to redevelop the Block into white yuppie commercial high rises with no thought for the existing residents.

Thankfully he failed to get his hands on the Block but since then he has blocked every move by the Aboriginal Housing Corporation to build 62 new units of traditionally based housing. The Greens believe this should be a priority for the community and it should be given appropriate government funding.

We need justice for blackfellas not this racist paternalism and we need blackfellas making their own decisions and being involved in their own future development.

Now more than ever we have to fight against this interventionist mentality before it gets extended even further into our own communities. In standing up for the remote communities we are ultimately standing up for ourselves and we must continue the straggle for true justice and equality for the aboriginal people, before it’s too late and their traditional lands are stolen yet again.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today and I urge you to continue to support the work of ARC and the struggle against ongoing oppression, discrimination and racism against our aboriginal people..

The Greens will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in this ongoing struggle.

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