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A Central Australian Aboriginal community leader has told the new head of the federal intervention it is immoral to charge rent to people who are living in humpies on their own land.

Mike Zissler has met residents from the 16 homelands that make up Utopia, north-east of Alice Springs.

The community’s deputy chairwoman, Rosalie Kunoth Monks, told Mr Zissler people on income management under the intervention are paying $50 a fortnight each, mostly to live in humpies..

“People are sitting on their ancestors’ land and paying rent. That is almost immoral.”

Locals say the community is a model social structure, boasting health and harmony, but it is missing out on funding and infrastructure because of its status as an outstation.

Mr Zissler listened, but made no promises.

“I’m getting the message. Thank you.”

He is expected to meet the Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister next week to discuss the community’s concerns.

A 22-year-old man from a central Australian Aboriginal community has been convicted of having sex with a minor after going for a test at a sexual health clinic.

Four years ago, when the man was 19, he visited the Tennant Creek Sexual Health Clinic for a routine inspection.

When it was found he was suffering from gonorrhoea and chlamydia, he told the clinic his girlfriend should also be contacted and tested.

His girlfriend was 14-years-old at the time.

He was charged and and has been convicted of having sex with a minor.

In sentencing, Justice Sally Thomas noted that neither the man, the girl nor their families understood that the relationship was against the law.

Justice Thomas also noted the man had no criminal record and there was no victim impact statement.

He has been given a six month suspended sentence.

An Indigenous policy expert has questioned the success of income management trials on far north Queensland’s Cape York.

The scheme was rolled out last year in Coen, Aurukun, Hopevale and Mossman Gorge to reduce alcohol consumption, restore law and order, and increase school attendance.

The Cape York Institute director, Noel Pearson, says the trial has been positive.

But Griffith University’s Professor Boni Robertson has told AM that there should be an independent review of the scheme.

“What we need is to know that a program that has reaped as much financial support as it has must surely be based on a formal evaluation and until we see that evaluation, can we be optimistic that it has had an impact?” Professor Robertson said.

It seems it is extremely rare for an Indigenous musician to reach the top of the charts.

In recent years, very few have been able to reach the heights of artists like Yothu Yindi or Christine Anu.

But now the Federal Government is offering three grants of $25,000 to young Indigenous musicians, to try to find the next generation of stars.

Music, like other art forms, is often at its best when it tells a story or expresses an idea.

For contemporary Indigenous music, those stories are often about culture, past and present.

Wire MC has been rapping about Indigenous issues for years but has always struggled to get any commercial success with his music.

“Being a young Indigenous rapper, man, there’s already a couple of strikes against me; I’m black and I rap,” he said.

“This country really is white boy rock’n'roll, that’s another struggle that I come up across. You know me, I love rock’n'roll, so somehow I try to find a way around these obstacles.”

But that is not the only obstacle. He sees one of the biggest problems as mainstream audiences not being aware of contemporary Indigenous music.

“You have to be persistently driving yourself to work. You know what I mean?” he said.

“Like, when there’s no funding, there’s just you and your art, pretty much there’s no resources, other than community centre studios and things like that.”

And that is why the Federal Government is launching a new pilot program called ‘Breakthrough’ to give Indigenous artists those resources.

It is offering three grants of $25,000, to be used to break into the commercial music industry.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett says it would be used to record an album and promote it.

“Any new musician when they’re coming through in their early stages is competing with others,” he said.

“It means competing with people whose music gets played on radio here when they have recording budgets and marketing budgets, and production budgets that far exceed anything that any Australian musician could contemplate.”

The money will be available for artists who have been trying for years to crack the big time, or for younger singer/songwriters, who show potential.

“Whenever I’m travelling around the country, I’m really struck when I visit Indigenous communities at how much music is actually coming out of bedrooms and houses and from the back of sheds and other places,” said Mr Garrett.

“You know there’s that vitality and that productivity there which is just absolutely staggering. And anything that we can do to lift a little bit of that up and give it a bit more of a profile, is a good thing.”

At the Gadagil recording studios in the Sydney suburb of Redfern is a new set-up for Indigenous musicians to create their work.

The studios have only been there for a few months, but this weekend Gadagil will be releasing a hip hop album, created by young Indigenous artists.

The studio’s manager Brad Cooke says it is a popular genre.

“It is the emerging style. Whenever we go out with our young black and deadly performance projects into communities and teach kids how to sing, dance and write songs, most of the time it’s about hip hop music,” he said.

Any of the artists on the album would be able to use the money from the government’s ‘Breakthrough’ program.

Mr Cooke believes the most important part about it, if Indigenous music really is to make it into the mainstream charts in the future, is the money for promotion.

“The real need to highlight the money is for publicity and for the promotion - the marketing and push behind it so commercial networks do play it” he said.

“A lot of people out there listening now would know that some really bad artists have become successful on the back of good solid marketing promotion and because they might look good.

“We think our music’s got more substance than any of the music out there. We’d love for people to hear our stories and we now have a really good opportunity to do that and hopefully our artists will get to utilise the new breakthrough initiative to do that.”

Based on a report by Michael Turtle for PM

Indigenous conservative leader Noel Pearson says he is pleased that welfare reform trials on Cape York appear to be having a positive effect.

The Cape York trials were rolled out last year in four Indigenous communities - Aurukun, Hopevale, Mossman Gorge and Coen.

Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig says while there have been some teething problems, only 30 people in those communities have been forced onto income management.

Senator Ludwig says while they are required to spend three quarters of their payment on food or clothing, general figures that also include Western Australia and the Northern Territory show 90 per cent is being spent on essentials.

Mr Pearson says he is “ecstatic”.

“The big surge in the amount of money being spent on food and clothing is cause for great happiness on my part,” he said.

Senator Ludwig says he is getting advice on working with Ear Health Australia to reduce ear and hearing problems in the communities.

The new head of the federal intervention in the Northern Territory has admitted that the intervention has offended some communities.

Mike Zissler took over from Major-General Dave Chalmers earlier this month to oversee the next phase of the intervention.

Yesterday Mr Zissler travelled to the decentralised Aboriginal community of Utopia, 250 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs, to meet with about 30 residents about their concerns.

The community’s deputy chairwoman and the President of the Barkly Shire, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, lives at one of the 16 homelands that make up Utopia.

She told Mr Zissler to let Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin know that people are being punished for living their traditional way.

“Be serious about what you’re trying to put us through; be compassionate please, Minister,” she said.

“I don’t want any more mistakes whereby there’s going to be ethnic cleansing, that’s not what it’s about, because we’re not about to go away.”

Mr Zissler told the ABC he was not permitted to do interviews, but at the meeting he told the community he was listening.

“I can’t make you any promises. I can’t make undertakings, I can’t do things,” he said.

“What I will do is take your message back very clear to the Minister and express that as best I can.”

Apology

Ms Kunoth-Monks also asked Mr Zissler to remove a large sign banning pornography and alcohol.

“Our people don’t even know what pornography is; there are no paedophilias living in this community,” she said.

“Please, if the Minister knows different, I challenge her to produce that my family are mucking around with little kids. They’re not. They cherish little kids.”

Mr Zissler acknowledged the offence caused by the sign.

“I’m sure through the intervention we never intended to offend, as we clearly have,” he said.

“We never intended to divide, as I think you’re demonstrating here there is division. That is not our intention and for that, I’m sorry, and I’m sure the Minister regrets some of those things.”

‘We’ve had enough’

Meanwhile the Tiwi Islands Mayor, Lynette Desantis, is calling on the Federal Government to stop its Northern Territory intervention.

She says rather than describing the intervention as entering a “sustainable phase,” the Government should admit it has not achieved anything.

Councillor Desantis says policies including quarantining welfare payments and banning alcohol are just pushing people from remote communities into the cities.

“I just feel the intervention should stop because a lot of our people have moved from the Islands into Darwin, and it’s happened from a lot of communities,” she said.

“I believe it should stop because we’ve all had enough, and just let us get on with our lives. Now you’ve done your review, just let us stop the intervention and let us get on.”

She says the intervention is driving people to live as homeless long grassers in much worse conditions.

“It’s to access grog; they’re just not happy living in the communities,” she said.

“The income management, that’s a lot of the problem, that they just want to move into Darwin so they can have their full unemployment cheque or their full pension, and not have half going into this bucket, and half going into their hand.”

Indigenous mayors and presidents of the Northern Territory’s shires have accused the Federal Government of unfairly bribing communities to sign land leases.

The shire presidents had the chance to question Federal Government officials in Darwin today about the refusal to build any more houses in communities unless the communities agree to lease their land to the Commonwealth.

Tiwi Islands mayor Lynette Desantis says she did not like the answers.

“It’s just a bribery thing,” she said.

The Barkly Shire president Rosalie Kunoth Monks agreed, saying “the hardest [thing] was the leasing of Aboriginal land back to the Government.”

West Arnhem Shire’s CEO Mark Griffeon said “a lot of our community members feel they’ve been pressured into these leases.”

The Government says it wants the leases so it can control the maintenance of its public houses and offer secure tenure for private businesses.

The Barkly Shire’s president Rosalie Kunoth-Monks has welcomed the Federal Government’s rebranding of the Northern Territory Emergency Response.

The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin said last week the intervention had moved from a “crisis” to a “sustainable development phase”.

Ms Kunoth-Monks says communities want the increased health, education and housing funding the Government has promised.

She says it is time the Government admitted it has been wrongly using the excuse of child abuse and domestic violence as the basis for its intervention.

“There is no pornography on Utopia community - they don’t even know what it is,” Ms Kunoth-Monks said.

“In the last 72 years since I’ve been alive there has been one case of incest which we dealt with and which was also dealt with by the Australian court.”

She has asked the new head of the intervention, Mike Zissler, to pass on demands for an apology from some of the Aboriginal presidents of local shires councils.

The Territory’s mayors and shire presidents are meeting Mr Zissler in Darwin today.

Ms Kunoth-Monks says the intervention was imposed in a racist way.

“Its no good saying nice words and doing another thing,” she said.

“I looked at what was presented and if it was given in good will - if it was given with two-way dialogue - I would not mind in the least.”

A lawyer representing a group of central Australian Aboriginal people has reiterated calls for the immediate restoration of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The Federal Government will keep an election promise next Friday when it pledges its support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

But despite UN concern, the Racial Discrimination Act remains suspended to allow measures such as welfare quarantining to take place in the Northern Territory.

George Newhouse says the Federal Government needs to bring all legislation into line.

“If the government wants to be seen internationally as a good citizen it needs to immediately reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act and remove the discriminatory aspects of the Northern Territory Emergency Response,” he said.

Mr Newhouse says the declaration contains articles requiring the Government to actively involve Indigenous people in developing their own health, housing and social programs.

He says that is not the current Government’s policy.

“I’ve seen many situations where the government is actively de-funding Aboriginal institutions, not consulting with Aboriginal communities: Article 23 will see the Government forced to actively consult with Indigenous communities and that can’t be a bad thing,” he said.

The Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation says the Federal Government needs to support its words with action when it comes to Aboriginal rights.

The corporation’s Donna Jackson has praised the Government for keeping its election promise to support the declaration, but says the rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are still being ignored.

“There’s still the reality that the Intervention, which has suspended the Racial Discrimination Act, and the nuclear waste dump which is to go on or near Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory, actually is in contradiction with some of the rights being supported,” she said.

“It’s confusing, I guess is what I’m saying. These are the things that are enshrined in the declaration… if you say you’re going to support it on one hand and then still have these things in place on the other, it does seem to be extremely hypocritical.”

Australia will next week officially back the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, reversing the Howard Government’s vote against it in 2007.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin will make a statement on Australia’s change in position on April 3 at Parliament House in Canberra.

The decison to support the declaration, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007, was part of the Rudd Government’s election promises.

It also follows an unprecedented apology last year by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the stolen generations.

Ms Macklin says supporting the declaration is an important step towards closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

“We want Indigenous Australians to be partners in efforts to close the gap. For this to happen, we must recognise the unique place of Indigenous people in Australia,” she said.

“In supporting the Declaration, Australia will join with many other countries to show our respect for Indigenous people”

Australia was a key player in drafing the declaration in the 1980s and 90s but the Howard government eventually chose to vote against it in 2007.

It was one of only four countries including the United States, Canada and New Zealand to do so.

The declaration is not legally binding and the Government’s statement to support it could be reversed by the next Government.