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THE nation’s first long-term lease on Aboriginal land came into effect yesterday after a community on the Tiwi Islands formally agreed to hand over control in the first step towards private home ownership and economic development.

Three months after agreeing to the deal, traditional owners at Nguiu, north of Darwin, directed the Tiwi Land Trust to execute the 99-year lease, saying it marked a "new beginning" for local indigenous people.

Walter Kerinaiua, senior traditional owner at Nguiu, said the deal followed more than 50 meetings over three years between landowners, Tiwi Islanders and the commonwealth Government.

"The Mantiyupwi land owners are proud to have made history," Mr Kerinaiua said. "It will ensure we are full partners in the future development of Nguiu.

"The benefits we have negotiated will be shared by all Tiwi, and not restricted to the traditional owners."

Read the article in the Australian

It has yet to become clear to me why the government needs to take over land leases in order to provide Aboriginal communities with the basic infrastructure every other Australian takes for granted. If somebody can put some logic into this equation, please, enlighten me! Ed.

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The release of a report this week, tabling the huge increase in the number of Australians living below the poverty line since the Howard Government has been in office, has prompted a response from Steve Fielding, the Family First Senator for Victoria.

"Talking to people on the street in suburban and regional areas, they are really struggling with skyrocketing grocery, petrol and electricity prices," the Senator said.

Mr Fielding’s media release states that living costs in Australia are rising 50 percent faster than the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

His campaign is to ‘reduce the cost of living for families.’ But how about just reducing the cost of living for everybody, family or not? Buying petrol won’t be any cheaper just because you are single or live in a situation that doesn’t include a family.

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A remarkable group of high profile people have written a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, about the legacy of John Howard’s decade in office.

“Forming a new voice that speaks for Aborigines without one,” undersigned by such well known names as Pat Turner and Michael Mansell, state they are “establishing a national black voice that will seek to represent the unrepresented Aboriginal communities.” 

Read the letter

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In a landmark decision, the High Court has today upheld the fundamental
human right to vote, finding that the Howard Government had acted
unlawfully and unconstitutionally in imposing a blanket ban denying
prisoners the vote.

In 2006, the Howard Government passed legislation which denied all prisoners the right to vote. 

This law was challenged in the High Court by Vickie Roach, an
Aboriginal woman who is a prisoner at the Dame Phyllis Frost Prison in
Melbourne.  In orders made today, the High Court struck down the
blanket prohibition on prisoners voting.

The Court upheld the validity, however, of the law providing that
prisoners serving a sentence of three years or longer are not entitled
to vote.

The decision of the High Court is a victory for representative
democracy, accountable government, the rule of law and fundamental
human rights.

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The Central Land Council says it’s always obvious when an election campaign is approaching with the key indicator being politicians resorting to the black card.

CLC director David Ross said it’s been fairly typical during past election campaigns for some politicians to blame Aboriginal people for a variety of woes in an attempt to deflect attention from their own failures as representatives of all people from all cultures in their constituents.

“We have the Country Liberal Party’s Dave Tollner reported in the press as saying Aboriginal people should automatically have their land taken off them for 99 years,” Mr Ross said.

“He says the five year leases the Federal Government is forcing through for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, isn’t enough, but presumably a century would be long enough for the Commonwealth to get its work done.

“This is from a politician who didn’t even bother to read the Government’s intervention legislation even though constituents in his electorate will be greatly affected by the changes.

“The CLP would be well advised before the next federal election to actually take the time and effort to talk with Aboriginal constituents in the Northern Territory, ask them what they want and then represent those views as politicians are supposed to rather than trying to ram your own paternalistic views down their throats,” Mr Ross said.

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Tour operators to Uluru-Kata Tjuta national park continue to bleat about the alcohol ban the Federal Government has slapped on the area as part of the military intervention into Aboriginal communities.

The ban doesn’t affect Uluru Rock resort, but all those other poor tourists who can’t quite afford the 5 star treatment - in Central Australia for their Aboriginal Experience - won’t be able to sit anywhere else in the park on their fold out camping chairs and drink cold beer or champagne whilst watching the sun set behind the rock.

One Alice Springs tour company referred to the alcohol ban as a ‘nightmare’. It means they’ll have to re-print thousands of brochures and advertisements and re-distribute them across the country.

The tourists won’t be able to have ‘just having one or two glasses of champagne’ in the shadow of a third world community.

Oh dear. What a tragedy.

Now they know how it feels to be on the receiving end of the Federal Government’s military intervention.

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Prime Minister John Howard’s rhetoric about Aboriginal people becoming part of the mainstream of this ‘great and prosperous nation’ was blown out of the water today with the release of new data comparing Australia to other OECD countries.

Australia ranks behind countries like Japan and Canada as 14th out of 18 countries on the United Nations Human Poverty Index.

The gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is much greater in Australia than in the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

Around 10 percent of Australians are estimated to be living below the poverty line, up from 7.6 percent to 9.9 percent between 1994 and 2004.

Poverty levels were even higher when calculated accordion to UK rates, which measures 60 percent of median incomes, making the poverty level in Australia 19.8 percent of the entire population.

The report, A Fair Go for All Australians, says Australia has ‘entrenched and continuing’ social exclusion, despite a booming economy.

 Twenty-two of the 30 OECD countries have implemented strategies to reduce poverty, but Australia is not one of them.

Australia spends less on education than other developed English speaking nations, housing affordability and dental health problems are the worst of any English speaking country.

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The Prime Minister has been rehearsing.

"Unless they (Indigenous people) can get a share of the bounty of this great and prosperous country, their future will be bleak."

He has repeated his ‘bounty of this great and prosperous nation’ statement many times in the past two days.

What he really means by that became clear when he was interviewed on CAAMA radio yesterday:

"Part of sharing the bounty of this great and prosperous country is ownership of land and without disputing the importance of community in the life of Indigenous people, the right of people and the opportunity of Indigenous people to have their own land is very, very important and that’s why we think that past attitudes to individual ownership have got to change.

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Prime Minister John Howard was welcomed to the remote Aboriginal community of Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory yesterday.

It is the first visit the Prime Minister has made to an Aboriginal community since declaring a national emergency in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory in June.

The subsequent military intervention has resulted in unprecedented changes to federal legislation, some of which concern land tenure and the scrapping of the Aboriginal work for the dole scheme, CDEP.

Mr Howard toured the community – the first in the Territory to undergo compulsory health checks for Aboriginal children.

The media was well represented at the visit, with CAAMA radio receiving special mention from Mr Howard, in praise of its Indigenous trainee program.

Two trainee broadcasters, Marissa Wollogorang and Kira Rogers, had a brief audience with the Prime Minister after the press conference.

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Noel Mason, the newly appointed Government Business Manager to the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory, has drawn up a document stating that "the names of children staying up late at night will be collected and those children will be used to assist with the clean up of the town site the next day … The aim is to make children who want to avoid school, have a busy, tiring day."

The document "Yuendumu – School Attendance Proposal", proposes giving civilian bureaucrats power to direct the police.

The document states the local police will "support Night Patrol and elders to collect children identified for work crews" and check on the work crews "throughout the day".

The ABC reports Yuendumu Community Government Council member Ned Hargraves has been given a copy of the proposal.

"The plan that I got, it is just outrageous and we don’t like it," he said.

"We don’t agree with it and that’s not going to happen. That’s not how we want our kids to be treated.

"We, the community, are not happy with it."

The manager of the art centre in Yuendumu, Cecelia Alfonso, says she is appalled by the suggestion.

“I consider this my home. I have a child. I don’t know if this is only going to apply to aboriginal children but certainly I wouldn’t allow anybody to force my child to do that.

Listen to the interview with Cecelia Alfonos on CAAMA’s Strong voices
N.B. Interviews are streaming. Click on the forward arrow button on you media player to hear the interview of your choice

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