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The community spirit of two Gulf region Indigenous leaders has prompted the State Government to name a new bridge in their honour.

The bridge constructed over the Gilbert River on the Burke Developmental Road near N

The community spirit of two Gulf region Indigenous leaders has prompted the State Government to name a new bridge in their honour.

The bridge constructed over the Gilbert River on the Burke Developmental Road near Normanton has been named after Lily and Jubilee Slattery.

Lilly Slattery worked on cattle stations throughout the district while her husband Jubilee, helped raise 103 local children.

Mount Isa MP Betty Kiernan says Mrs Slattery worked to help facilitate reconciliation for the Gulf indigenous community.

ormanton has been named after Lily and Jubilee Slattery.

Lilly Slattery worked on cattle stations throughout the district while her husband Jubilee, helped raise 103 local children.

Mount Isa MP Betty Kiernan says Mrs Slattery worked to help facilitate reconciliation for the Gulf indigenous community.

The spokesman for the Davenport Aboriginal community just outside Port Augusta says he fears for the community’s future when Federal funding is cut today.

The Federal Government is cutting $400,000 in annual funding to the community.

Some of that money goes into the administration which mediates with government agencies, and coordinates training and employment partnerships.

Malcolm McKenzie says the administration which runs the community will be forced to shut down.

He says the Government should listen to the Northern Regional Development Board’s recommendation to fund the administration for the next three to five years, until it can break free of Government Funding.

Mr McKenzie says the administration is vital in driving employment and training opportunities.

“There’s people employed now through this process - there’s people earning good money, making a life for themselves, not relying on Government, not going out to Centrelink every fortnight to sign off cheques,” he said.

“They’re doing the things they should be doing like every Australian, but this is done through having a good administration, having a good council.

“It’s not a hand-out, it’s a hand-up to really build our economic capacity, so hopefully in three to five years we’re on our own, showing good leadership, not only to Davenport community members but the rest of South Australia Aboriginal people.

“If you’re really committed to what you want to do and you work with government agencies in the proper way, we’ll get things going.”

The spokesman for the Davenport Aboriginal community just outside Port Augusta says he fears for the community’s future when Federal funding is cut today.

The Federal Government is cutting $400,000 in annual funding to the community.

Some of that money goes into the administration which mediates with government agencies, and coordinates training and employment partnerships.

Malcolm McKenzie says the administration which runs the community will be forced to shut down.

He says the Government should listen to the Northern Regional Development Board’s recommendation to fund the administration for the next three to five years, until it can break free of Government Funding.

Mr McKenzie says the administration is vital in driving employment and training opportunities.

“There’s people employed now through this process - there’s people earning good money, making a life for themselves, not relying on Government, not going out to Centrelink every fortnight to sign off cheques,” he said.

“They’re doing the things they should be doing like every Australian, but this is done through having a good administration, having a good council.

“It’s not a hand-out, it’s a hand-up to really build our economic capacity, so hopefully in three to five years we’re on our own, showing good leadership, not only to Davenport community members but the rest of South Australia Aboriginal people.

“If you’re really committed to what you want to do and you work with government agencies in the proper way, we’ll get things going.”

Kimberley police are under fire for their efforts to impose the new liquor bans in Halls Creek.

Police are keeping a close eye on the highways around Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, conducting random searches of vehicles.

They are trying to ensure sly-grogging does not flourish, now the sale of take-away mid-strength and full-strength alcohol is banned.

But several residents say they are being made to feel like criminals when they transport alcohol back to the towns after monthly shopping trips.

Federal MP Barry Haase says the police searches and questioning is humiliating and excessive.

If you’re transporting a volume of alcohol and it’s for your private consumption, there’s certainly nothing illegal about that, but there is another perception being given,” he said.

“There’s a confusion in the minds of people - are they doing something illegal, or are they simply at the mercy of the decisions of the local police?

“That’s where my complaint lies. People’s perceptions are being skewed, and they’re not being skewed by the law, but by the behaviour of the local police.”

District police have been contacted for comment.

The Health Department says it is aiming to ensure remote WA communities have access to treatment for swine flu.

Seven people from the Kiwirrkurra remote Aboriginal community have tested positive for the virus.

Earlier this month, a 26-year-old man who had the virus and lived in the community died in Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Doctor Paul Effler says antiviral medication and masks have been given to medical services that attend remote communities.

“We do recognise that they are a long way from tertiary care centres, so our goal is to make the medicines as available in those communities as they are elsewhere in the state,” he said.

 group of researchers and Aboriginal community leaders is challenging the Northern Territory Government to change its plan to force bilingual schools to teach in English for four hours a day.

The group has compiled a report, being released in Canberra today, which criticises the policy.

Former Territory education minister Marion Scrymgour has said she was influenced by lobby groups, rather than by evidence, to bring in the policy. She says it was a mistake.

The Government has given the Territory’s nine bilingual schools 12 months from the end of last year to bring in the changes.

The author of the report, Patrick McConvell, says there is no evidence that forcing Aboriginal language-speaking children to learn in English will improve their grades.

“If children are speaking another language when they come to school, they really need to be taught in that language so that they can get up to the level where they can absorb English and other lessons in English,” he said.

“If you just walk in and start speaking standard English to these children, you’re not going to get good results.”

Beswick Indigenous community leader Miliwanga Sandy hopes the Territory’s Education Minister, Paul Henderson, will read the report.

She says encouraging bilingual education would make it easier for Aboriginal children to learn English.

“We know it is important for the children to learn to speak and read in English for their future in getting jobs and scholarships, or starting up a business.” she said.

“But [the] bilingual program is very vital for our community.

“It is part of our culture and without their language the kids would be lost.”

The Northern Territory Government should stop being “held to ransom” by the Federal Government over Indigenous issues, the Territory’s former Indigenous policy minister Marion Scrymgour says.

Ms Scrymgour, who walked out on the Labor Party last month over its stance on remote Indigenous communities, says the Territory Government needs to lobby its federal counterpart over changes to the Community Development Employment Projects program.

Under the changes, which come into effect on July 1, CDEP staff will be put onto Work for the Dole, where they are not paid top-up wages and lose other full-time employee entitlements.

“I think the Northern Territory Government needs to stop being held to ransom by the Federal Government and stand up for Aboriginal Territorians in those communities,” she said.

“And to start putting across a stronger message to the Federal Government that they can’t continually erode Aboriginal communities of their resources.”

The independent politician says once people are moved from jobs onto welfare they will lose all incentive to work.

“We saw Work for the Dole in Maningrida absolutely fail,” she said.

“When the [Northern Territory] intervention happened and they transitioned people from CDEP to the Work for the Dole program, nobody turned up.

“People who will get out of bed and will participate in these CDEP programs just didn’t participate in terms of Work for the Dole.”

The Alice Springs Hospital is having to delay some surgeries because it needs the beds and staff to deal with the swine flu outbreak.

The Territory Health Department says non-urgent procedures like gall bladder operations, which require overnight stays, have been delayed by a few days.

The number of confirmed cases in the Northern Territory is now 115.

The Territory’s chief health officer Barbara Paterson says many of the new cases are in indigenous communities in Central Australia.

“There’s seven in the Alice Springs area, six in the Warlpiri area, a couple in Katherine and then up in communities Lajamanu, Kalkaringi and one in Darwin.

Nine people with swine flu are receiving treatment in the Alice Springs Hospital, while one person is in the Royal Darwin Hospital.

A new report being released today has found Indigenous Australians are 13 times more likely to end up in jail than the rest of the population.

The Australian National Council on Drugs is urging the federal and state governments to drastically change the way Indigenous people are treated in the criminal justice system.

It says the system is failing to help Indigenous offenders with drug and alcohol problems.

The report found a clear link between drug and alcohol abuse and the over-representation of Indigenous people in jail.

The council’s executive director, Gino Vumbaca, says almost a quarter of male prisoners, a third of female prisoners, and half of all juveniles detained are Indigenous.

“We also know that some of the figures coming through from the institute of criminology are showing us that a fair proportion of Indigenous prisoners are actually intoxicated at the time of their offence,” he said.

“And a lot of them actually attribute their offences to their dependence on alcohol and drugs.”

Mr Vumbaca says the report estimates that it costs taxpayers $269 a day to keep a person in jail, whereas residential rehabilitation costs about $98 a day.

“Invest in treatment,” he said.

“Treatment is a far better option and a far more effective option than building prison cells. Build treatment centres, invest in that. Give Indigenous people the power and the opportunity to actually deal with their problems in a much more effective way, a much more positive way.”

Associate Professor Ted Wilkes is a member of Western Australia’s Nyungar community and the chairman of the council’s National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee.

He says, from an Aboriginal perspective, the system is broken.

“It’s not working for Aboriginal Australians,” he said.

“It’s been set up to look after the mainstream. Aboriginal people don’t fit into the mainstream, we live on the margins. And consequently this system needs major repairs. We don’t want these statistics and these incarceration rates around when our grandchildren turn into adults.”

The report makes a number of recommendations, including the creation of educational support funds for every young Indigenous person, as well as diversion programs specifically designed for Indigenous offenders.

Mr Wilkes says mainstream diversion programs to get offenders out of the criminal justice system and into healthcare are often unavailable to Indigenous people.

“If you’ve got a criminal record, you’re out, it’s like the two strikes and you’re out on this one,” he said.

“Things like you have to plead guilty if you’re going to go to these diversion programs. I’m not sure whether throughout the country the [Aboriginal Legal Services] have a policy where most of the clients of Aboriginal Legal Service are encouraged to plead not guilty in the first instance, whether those sort of little things might have an impact.

“We need to find out why our people aren’t accessing the current diversion initiatives. Let’s give our young people a chance to turn into adults in this country, and know what’s good and bad, and know what’s right and wrong, have informed knowledge about what they can do to create good pathways and quality life for themselves.”

Swine flu infections have now spread across a swathe of Central Australian Indigenous communities, the Northern Territory Centre for Disease Control says.

The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the Territory has climbed to 78, or 3.5 cases per 10,000 people - the highest rate in the country.

Just over 60 of those cases are in Central Australia, and about half of all people infected in the Territory are Aboriginal, the head of the Centre for Disease Control, Dr Vicki Krause, said.

Four adults have been admitted to Alice Springs Hospital with swine flu.

Dr Krause said the entire Warlpiri region, which includes the communities of Papunya, Yuendumu and Kintore, has cases of the virus.

“From a public health perspective and people understanding where the virus is, it’s really most important to say that whole region should be looked at as having virus presence,” she said.

“In that whole region there have been cases.”

The Chief Minister, Paul Henderson, says he is confident Northern Territory health authorities will be able to bring the growing number of cases under control.

Mr Henderson says particular attention is being paid to remote Indigenous communities.

“Certainly in the Northern Territory, and particularly Indigenous people, are very mobile,” he said.

“People do move around and through these communities.

“It is now in a protect phase.

“There is a very significant and detailed plan in terms of trying to contain flu outbreaks.”