55 people attended a June 11 forum with Peter Inverway, a Gurindji worker from Kalkaringi, who said Gurindji people are being forced to work up to 30 hours a week for Centrelink entitlements.
Inverway said: "I was working on [a] construction site. Working hard for up to 30 hours per week and maybe just getting $4 an hour on Basics Card. But just like working for ration like our people done in the past. If we don't work then they'll cut our Centrelink."
Kalkaringi has a special significance because it is the site of the famous Wave Hill walk-off, which won equal wages and land rights for the Gurindji people.
These victories are now being taken away through the NT intervention, which was introduced by the Howard-Coalition government in 2007 and is being extended under the Rudd-Labor government.
The forum also heard from Mick Bull, an Australian Metal Workers Union organiser who was involved in the brigade to build a protest house at the remote Aboriginal community of Ampilatwatja, and Lucy Honan from the Melbourne Anti Intervention Collective.
[For more information, visit Melbourne Anti-Intervention Collective.]