Brough holding us to ransom, says Tiwi community
Friday, 10 November 2006 9:35:12 AM
By Tara Ravens

DARWIN, November 10, 2006: An Aboriginal community says it is being held to ransom over federal government demands that it agrees to a 99-year lease.

Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough on Wednesday told a remote community on the Tiwi islands north of Darwin that the islands would only get a new school if it agreed to a 99-year lease.

Mr Brough delivered the ultimatum when he visited the community of Nguiu on Bathurst Island.

A boarding school for Tiwi Island youth is planned for nearby Melville Island.

But …

By Victor Hart, 19 October, 2006

Not long after the Palm Island police station was burnt down by locals to express their grief at the death in custody of a well-loved member of their community, Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland, issued a
statement saying the community council had shown poor leadership leading up to and during the community upsurge. Beattie quickly produced a five-point plan to soothe non-Indigenous outrage that Indigenous people
were being “naughty people” - again. It happens all the time.

This approach was not unsurprising: it’s what premiers and politicians often do when confronted by distressing social issues. Politicians understand …

Stuart Rintoul, October 14, 2006

ABORIGINAL people in Queensland and NSW are preparing legal action against their state governments over wages they should have been paid as labourers or servants, but which they never received.

This is despite a $55.5million offer to settle the stolen wages cases by the Beattie Government, which drew widespread condemnation when it was capped at individual payments of $4000; a NSW scheme that over the past year has accepted $400,000 in claims of up to $25,000; and a Senate inquiry into the matter.

Aborigines also learned this week that NSW archivists had discovered 139 boxes of …

THE man behind a native title claim over the Gold Coast says it’s not a land grab and will not bring a ‘pot of gold’ to Aborigines.

National Indigenous Council member Wesley Aird and 1000 other descendants of the Yugambeh people have filed a claim covering 1330sq km of vacant Crown land in the region.

“We’re very pragmatic out of what we expect for this claim,” said Mr Aird yesterday.

“We know the Gold Coast is developed and there are only parcels here and there.

“We’re not expecting a pot of gold. We are not expecting title in the conventional sense. I don’t think …

By Kathy Marks in Sydney. Published: 21 September 2006

Aborigines have been declared the traditional owners of Perth and given the right to hunt and fish in the area, in the first successful claim by indigenous people to an Australian state capital.

The landmark ruling by the Federal Court astonished Aboriginal groups, with one community leader, Noel Pearson, welcoming the “absolutely extraordinary” decision. The judgment opens the way for similar claims over cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

However, the state government of Western Australia said it would appeal, and it may be joined by the federal government. The Prime Minister, John Howard, …

(contributed by Derek Lane)

By: Makinti Minutjukur, www.newmatilda.com. Wednesday 13 September 2006

We are writing from Ernabella (Pukatja Community), our home on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in northwest South Australia.

We are writing now because we feel that we are being pushed around by the Federal and State Governments. We also have the opinion that our people and our communities are being systematically disempowered.

We want people to know about what is going on here.

For many years, we are suffering the effects of government strategies of extreme delay in service delivery. We are badly affected by the imposition on us of inappropriate and …

(Contributed by Derek Lane) NIT SPECIAL FEATURE, Issue 88: If you believe the Howard government’s figures - and we’ll explain a little later why you shouldn’t - then the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination will spend almost its entire $97 million annual budget administering Shared Responsibility Agreements that have been signed with Aboriginal communities.

And while it does, the money that will actually ‘hit the ground’ in those communities is likely to be less than $30 million.

In laymen’s terms, that means that in the course of this financial year, the government will have spent at least $3 to ensure $1 is …

(contributed by Derek Lane)

I found another article at ENIAR - http://www.eniar.org/news/hreoc11.html which is admittedly old (before the legislation was passed) but by a bloke who seems to know the reality and puts it quite well…

11 August 2006 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has grave concerns about the amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976, which is currently being debated in the Senate.

Commissioner Calma said: “I urge the government to postpone the passage of this Bill until there is more detail regarding the impact of the implementation of the legislation …

By Derek Lane - Under the amendments to the Land Rights Act 1976, it seems that what will likely occur is that previously Aboriginal townships will be leased to non Indigenous (and therefore, wealthy) people, and the subsequent leases internally may - if they are lucky or fortunate - go to Aboriginal residents.

The leases seem to be constructed with one major lease for the township (a headlease) and minor leases (though all at 99 years) under that. It is a little like, in Monopoly, needing to own all 3 plots before you can begin building on any of them.

It is, …

ABORIGINAL protesters will refuse to leave the Kings Domain at midnight tonight unless the State Government meets their demands.

The so-called sacred fire and Camp Sovereignty have attracted controversy since they were established during the Commonwealth Games.

The Supreme Court ordered the camp to be dissolved last month, but an indigenous heritage inspector put a 30-day emergency protection order over the fire, which is next to a burial site in the park.

Campaigner Gary Murray said the group wanted better security for the burial site. “The site has been desecrated,” he said yesterday. “There were five huge eucalypt totem poles. Where are they …