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The Federal Minister for Indigenous Health says a new peak body for Aboriginal and Islander health workers will be more than just an advocacy group.

Warren Snowdon launched the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers Association today in Ceduna, South Australia.

Mr Snowdon says there are 1,600 Indigenous health workers around the country, and they need proper representation and a voice in public debate.

“They are a very, very important part of our work force, I don’t think they’ve had sufficient acknowledgment,” he said.

“What this organisation will do is be a mentoring organisation, advocacy organisation, represent their interests on a national basis, help them be engaged with national forums on issues to do with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

“They are not participants in the national debate in a way in which they should be.

“They are participants at a local level, but we want [the association] to be an advocacy organisation for its members and for the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

The Federal Government’s My School website has revealed almost all Kimberley schools are languishing below the national average in literacy and numeracy.

The website allows the public to compare a school’s academic performance with schools of similar socio-economic status.

The Kimberley Land Council says the performance of north-west Western Australian schools proves regional and Aboriginal children do not have the same quality of education as their metropolitan counterparts.

The Kimberley Land Council says the results are disappointing.

“I’m absolutely shocked and disappointed,” a spokesperson said.

“I’ve been trying to champion education in the Kimberley on the expectation that students can have the same education opportunities as anyone else in Australia.

“I’m being told by bureaucrats that the Kimberley is doing good, but these results show exactly the opposite.”

The Torres Strait Regional Authority says the Queensland Government needs to commit to employing hundreds of residents currently working under the Indigenous work for the dole scheme.

Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) were wound up on the mainland last year and the Federal Government is reviewing its future in the Strait.

Toshie Kris says more than 1,400 locals are employed in the program at the moment and nearly half of those work in areas of State Government responsibility.

“It’s not acceptable to expect our people to be doing the same job as government employees on the mainland, but for far less money,” he said.

“With the reform, what it clearly shows is that our people should be given the same opportunities as any employees that have been employed by Government on the mainland.”

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Minister, Desley Boyle, says the Federal Government is yet to make a decision about the future of CDEP.

She says she has sought information from her federal counterpart.

The Darwin City Council has read a “welcome to country” message for the first time at its meeting.

The brief statement, written after discussion with Larrakia Nation representatives, paid respect to traditional owners and promised to care for the environment .

The chairwoman of the Larrakia National Aboriginal Corporation, Kathy Williamsbrown, was there to hear the welcome.

“The welcoming from the council members was very special,” she said.

“They all said the statement together of the acknowledgment of Larrakia traditional lands and I think that was really significant to the Larrakia people.”

Schools in South Australia’s remote Aboriginal lands are among the worst performers in national testing results.

The My School website shows schools on the Lands are substantially below the national averages in literacy and numeracy.

But some schools are better performers when compared to the data on similar schools.

Attendance at the schools is generally low, including the Watarru school at 43 per cent.

National testing results for some of the schools have not been provided for the website.

A Port Augusta magistrate says Aboriginal interpreters need to be employed full-time at the court to solve ongoing problems that are delaying trials and court proceedings.

Court sources say the current casually employed interpreters regularly arrive late or do not turn up at all and are not available on short notice.

Magistrate Clive Kitchin says some Aboriginal defendants are denied fair hearings and are kept in custody for longer than required and the court cannot rely on a few casual employees, because they are often unavailable.

“Whilst we just go on trying to find interpreters off the street in effect, there’s always going to be a problem of reliability because people don’t just hang around waiting for the court to ring and say, ‘we’ve got a job for you’,” he said.

The Federal Government has pledged $45,000 in emergency relief and financial counselling for Aboriginal people in remote parts of Western Australia.

This follows the revelation in The Australian newspaper that a businessman in the Goldfields town of Laverton has been lending Indigenous people money and charging them an interest rate of 33 per cent.

Families and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin says the emergency relief will help people’s immediate needs in times of crisis.

“There will be an extra $20,000 made available to emergency relief providers,” Ms Macklin said.

“People coming into Laverton who are desperately in need of additional cash or who need resources for food, other essentials, they’ll be able to go to the emergency relief agencies and get some extra help.”

Ms Macklin says the Government is also providing $25,000 for extra financial counselling.

“One of the difficulties we have is people haven’t had access to enough financial counselling to help them learn how to manage their own money,” she said.

“The third initiative, which is being introduced in the next fortnight, is that Centrelink are going to offer people the capacity to get their Centrelink payments paid weekly instead of fortnightly, to help them better manage their money.”

The department is also encouraging Aboriginal people who have borrowed money, to cancel their bank cards and change their pin numbers.

“We want to make sure that Aboriginal people in this area have access to their Centrelink payments themselves, and they’re not paying outrageous interest rates to people who obviously then leave Aboriginal people in dire financial circumstances,” Ms Macklin said.

“I want to provide protection to people who need that protection.”

Ms Macklin says it is up to individuals to decide if they default on their loans, and describes legal issues around lending arrangements in the area as “extremely sensitive”.

“It is very clear that there are serious issues going on in this area,” she said.

“We definitely want to make sure that people are able to control their own money, that they have financial counselling to give them the skills to do that, to pay them more frequently so that they can manage their money more easily, and if people need emergency relief that there are more funds available in the region.”

Ms Macklin says that the current situation demonstrates the need for ongoing financial counselling services, Centrelink services, and reputable credit facilities in the Laverton-Kalgoorlie area.

“These are the services that Australians in these remote areas really need, and I think this Laverton example has really brought home that point very strongly,” she said.

Ms Macklin says although it has emerged the department knew about this problem a year ago, she was only informed of it when it was made public.

The Northern Territory Opposition says the Government’s plan to accommodate people while homes in some Alice Springs town camps are renovated could create yet another town camp.

Camp houses are being repaired under the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

The Government is considering off-site temporary housing options for some town camp residents who will need to leave their homes during renovations.

The Opposition’s spokesman for Indigenous affairs, Adam Giles, says it sounds like another town camp in the making.

“What we don’t [want] is additional town camps created in Alice Spring,” he said.

“We need to remove this separatist sort of approach.”

The Northern Territory Government says it is still considering the best way to rehouse Alice Springs town camp residents while their homes are rebuilt.

Some residents will have to move out of their houses while major internal renovations are completed.

The work will be done as part of the $100 million Commonwealth-funded upgrade of the camps.

The Minister for Central Australia, Karl Hampton, says there could be short-term accommodation provided outside the camps or temporary housing on-site.

“Territory Housing, the Government, will work very closely with alliance partners in making sure there is alternative options open to those residents, so we’re working on that as we speak,” he said.

“We’ll be looking at temporary accommodation to accommodate those needs.

“At the moment it’s the make-safe program and the clean-ups that are being done and we saw [this] before Christmas and that doesn’t require people to actually move out.

“But certainly once the repairs and maintenance and the new houses are built, we’ll make sure there are contingencies in place to have those accommodation places for residents to move into.”

In his final day in the job as Australian of the Year, Mick Dodson says the nation ought to have a discussion about the date of Australia Day and its symbolism.

The prominent Indigenous lawyer and activist says a significant number of Australians are troubled by the meaning of the present date, which marks the day the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove.

Many Indigenous Australians call the day “Invasion Day”.

Professor Dodson has told ABC Radio National it is time for a mature, national discussion on what Australia Day actually means to the country.

“I had thousands of bits of correspondence on this issue, but in the end, the date to me doesn’t seem that important,” he told Radio National’s Life Matters program.

“What to me is important is what does the day mean? And if we get the meaning right and the date doesn’t become as relevant, then perhaps we can live with January 26.”

Professor Dodson says he has not achieved everything he set out to do during his year in the job.

The prominent Indigenous lawyer and activist spoke at the National Press Club shortly after being selected a year ago and said he wanted every Australian child to be enrolled in school by the start of 2010.

Professor Dodson also called for a 25-year national plan for Indigenous education, including more investment in teachers to overcome a piecemeal approach.

He says the Federal Government has invested heavily in education, but more needs to be done.

“Sadly we’re still got a way to go on that - it was a fairly ambitious call on my part, I must confess,” he said.

“But I think we made some movement. There is some indication that attendance rates are up in some parts of the country, but I guess it’s the drawing of attention to these sorts of things that often start to whip us into action.”