ABORIGINAL CONTROL OF ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS

Stop the NT intervention - Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs

No to racist welfare quarantines!

Actions on Monday 14 July will target Centrelink offices when a policy that

has had the most acutely painful impact through this intervention - the

race-based quarantining of welfare payments - is rolling out into Aboriginal

communities in Qld and WA, and being considered by the NSW and SA

governments. In late May Environment Minister Peter Garrett raised the

possibility of extending measures like welfare quarantining into urban

Aboriginal communities, such as La Perouse in his electorate.

A year ago Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory were invaded and

martial law imposed. The Racial Discrimination Act had to be overridden

because these racist laws apply only to Aboriginal people. Those who

resisted the invasion have been fully vindicated. The intervention is not

about child sexual abuse. Communities are still crying out for more safe

houses, women's centres and child protection workers. That's because the

intervention was never intended to provide them in the first place.

Instead, it has been the cover for a massive land grab. By the start of June

not one cent of compensation or rent had been paid to Aborigines whose land

had been compulsorily acquired. The government has just got hold of the land

of the Alice Springs town camps for the next 40 years!

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has already announced that the

government is determined to strengthen the intervention into Aboriginal

communities. The number of people degraded and humiliated by having their

welfare "income managed" has risen sharply under Labor. In November, 1408

people in eight communities were being denied their rights in this way. By

the anniversary of the intervention in June this year, it had grown to

13,309 people in 52 communities, with Macklin promising "full coverage"

soon.

Over 1700 people have been "transitioned" off CDEP but only 667 have been

employed in government-funded jobs; the rest have been moved onto welfare

payments (and subsequently "income managed").

The cost of income management is around $3,000 per person per year - to

manage average annual welfare payments of around $10,000. That's $3,000 per

person paid to mostly white bureaucrats to ration out welfare payments to

Aboriginal people which could be put into genuine community-based solutions.

It's now clear that the Labor government will not roll back the compulsory

acquisition of Aboriginal land, or the suspension of the Racial

Discrimination Act of their own accord. Aboriginal rights have been won in

the past through the struggles of Aboriginal people, backed by

demonstrations and union action. The Aboriginal Rights Coalition exists to

organise and support opposition to the government's racist attacks on

Aboriginal people.