Aboriginal 'welfare apartheid' denounced

A protest picket outside the Sydney office of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd demanded an end to the racist NT intervention on October 29. The intervention was initiated by the previous Coalition government and continues under the ALP. It imposes welfare apartheid on NT Aboriginal communities and threatens Indigenous land rights.

The picket was organised by the Stop The Intervention Collective, Sydney.

Indigenous activist and academic Nicole Watson addressed the picket. "I am a reformed Labor voter", she said. "I was brought up in Queensland and taught when I was young that the ALP cared about people. Now the ALP government has perpetuated the greatest assault in Aboriginal people: the NT intervention."

A national day of action against the NT intervention has been called for February 13, 2010.

From GLW issue 816