Peter Robson

Bashings of Indian students continue, revealing that despite official statements to the contrary, racism in Australia persists.

“Two hundred years [ago], we had all the country out there, we had freedom to move, freedom of access to all our sites”, Aboriginal leader Richard Downs told Green Left Weekly on January 4.

When Labor came to power in November 2007, new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "Today, the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward, to plan for the future, to embrace the future and, together as Australians, to unite and write a new page in our nation's history."

The Australian Human Rights Commission has condemned income management — a key plank of the Northern Territory intervention — as racist, in a report released on November 13.

The Northern Territory Emergency Response, a “tough love” government intervention into remote NT Aboriginal communities, has been renamed by the federal ALP government. Its official name is now "Closing the Gap NT".

Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced in May that the federal Labor government would reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act by the end of October. But she has also said key policies of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) would remain — discriminatory policies that required the suspension of the RDA to be passed.

Five Alice Springs men have been charged for the July 25 bashing of Aboriginal man Kwementyaye Ryder. The killing is part of a spate of racist violence that has plagued Alice Springs over recent months.

In early October, Green Left Weekly visited the Alyawarr people’s walk-off camp, three hours north-east of Alice Springs.

Aboriginal activists have attacked Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin’s claim that a proposed government takeover of the Alice Springs town camps would involve consultation with residents. They say it is false and misleading.

Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma released the Our Future in Our Hands report to the National Press Club on August 27. It outlined a proposed structure for a new national body to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.