This is the abridged and edited text of a speech by Marie Allen, chairperson of the Garrukjarru Regional Council, at the Gurindji Freedom Day celebration in Dagaragu on August 23, marking the 30th anniversary of the Wave Hill strike, when 200 Aboriginal stockmen and their families began a struggle which eventually led to recognition of Aboriginal land rights.
Although this is a time of celebration, it is also a day of mourning for all Aboriginal people across Australia. When the Howard government came into power, they intended to wipe out ATSIC by downgrading the elected arm, cutting the number of representatives on regional councils. Could it be that they hoped that there would be no voices to speak for Aboriginal people? It has not been accomplished as yet.
The right to speak out on behalf of my people against injustices was given to me by you when you elected me as chairperson of this region. You know me and my family personally, and because of this I am here to seek your support.
Gurindji tribe, stand behind me and condemn the actions of this government!
Last Tuesday they announced cuts to the ATSIC budget of $400 million or 30% of our budget. These cuts were excessively savage toward indigenous people, a minority group of about 2.5% of the Australian population.
Aboriginal people have come full circle since when they began the fight for justice here at Wave Hill 30 years ago. The government has simply tried another way to achieve what they set out to do. and that is to eliminate Aboriginal voices and self-determination.
ATSIC has an annual budget of approximately $1.1 billion. Within this the government fenced off community housing, infrastructure and CDEP [Community Development Employment Projects], but they've cut 12% of the capital, forcing a 30% cut on ATSIC's other programs. This means that those of you on CDEP, an entitlement, will get your wages. It is the money to buy the tools and equipment you need to do your work that has been reduced. As a result of the cuts, the board has no option but to axe the following programs: Community Training, Business Industry Strategies, Movement to Award Wages and the Community and Youth Support Program.
CDEP, as only a work for the dole money, simply suggests that ATSIC will become an indigenous social security. No need for the ATSIC board, no need for regional representation to get a voice from the people for regional councils.
Axing the Business Industry Strategies funding means that Aboriginal people don't have access to funds to set up businesses to help them to become independent and self-funded, putting our people back in the role of begging. This is only this year, remember. What happens next year, the year after?
Axing the Community Training Program means that all those people based in remote and isolated communities to train local people in such things as technology, from car to housing maintenance as well as how to run budgets, will lose their jobs, plus cutting self-help from the communities. Again we will be reliant on the white people.
Axing the Community and Youth Support Program means that our children will be back to how they were years ago. They seek excitement from petrol sniffing, crime and alcohol, and those bigger cities and towns have things we can't give them . It is still years away until we stop these types of activities, but achieving this depends on appropriate programs or on gaining access to the resources available to every small town throughout Australia but not available to us.
It needs to be understood by the broader community that all those people who choose to live on their own land immediately face enormous problems of having to go to towns to access services. For services like chemists and a hospital, our people have to travel hundreds of kilometres.
We have to face the reality of getting the bare necessities of life — things such as food, shelter and clean water, education and health. We're not asking to be treated any differently from the rest of Australia. We're asking for equity with the rest of Australia.
Get back to how this community started, the struggle you all had to get here. Things are not automatically provided or accessible for many years, if at all. Would white people be expected to live like this?
Does the government hope that, without services to which we are entitled, they will bring us to our knees and allow the dissipation of our land through mining with very small returns for a few of our people? If so, they need to think again.
This government has judged us against very professional, well-established, sophisticated organisations, yet we have held our own. An indication of this will be the report of the special auditor. Remember this is the first generation who have had access to the full range of secondary and tertiary education services. We'll get there, but it takes time, and we must be allowed to make mistakes like everybody else and to learn from those mistakes.
In our communities there is no such thing as public transport. Cars cost money. Fuel is much dearer than in the cities. CDEP wages are much lower. A great many of our local stores, run by outsiders, are inadequately stocked and are much more expensive than in any city or large town. An example of this is $10 for a whole cabbage. Think about this: 16 cabbages equals one week on CDEP wage.
Even whites who live in the community do not shop locally. They have the money to go elsewhere, we don't. We do not have shops from which to buy furniture, and the cost of purchase from the cities plus haulage is prohibitive to all but a few. So we do without. Yet to attract skilled and professional workers and accountability requirements, we must provide all modern equipment and conveniences.
You people who live and own businesses in cities and towns should remember that the majority of our money goes into your businesses and helps the towns grow. In Katherine, through CDEP, five people put in excess of $1 million directly into the economy each month. All money goes into the economy through white fella wages, bank charges and services we buy. This is income to this region from only one ATSIC program. Last year the Garrukjarru put approximately $42 million into the local community.
We live in substandard housing. We often do not have acceptable sewerage systems, we don't have means of accessing drinking water, and the living areas often swim in sewage. We put up with substandard education and health service. We do not have access to resources like other small towns, like adequate roads. We fight for survival against all odds, yet we stay because it is our country.
In the past we've been forcibly removed from our land, have had our children taken from us and our women raped. We have fought in wars and have been the free labour for the white pioneers of our country. We have built the roads, the railways and the telegraph and don't forget the cattle industry. Our contribution has never been willingly recognised. We are now being forcibly denied the subsistence to enable us and our children and their children to live like human beings, to decide for themselves like other Australian people.
We live here and we will die here. This place is example of what I'm saying. After 30 years, we have built this community from scratch. This community is its people, hundreds of them, not just one or two individual families but a whole intertwined network with goals and a purpose. Thirty years ago in this place we began our fight. Let us not now give in .Let's stand our ground and fight. Let this memory of our first battle against injustice be stirred again and let Wave Hill go down in history as a battle ground, the place where Aboriginal people come to fight.
My people will not benefit from the government's policies. We're not the middle Australia that Mr Howard talks about, unfortunately. He's not talking geography. He's talking social money talk.
It is sad to see that the media have given more time to the United States upcoming elections than to the plight of Aboriginal people in this country. The only media attention we get is when we resort to violence like Halls Creek or on Tuesday in Canberra. Is this the only way we can attract attention to our cause?
We do not rate as important, as we are only 2% of the ballot box. All we can do is stand up and be counted, not as a mere percentage of a vote but as the original owners of this land and as the people with the greatest disadvantages.
It was disappointing to hear the minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Affairs, Senator Herron, state on TV that we must think of the other 98% of the population. I have not heard the minister of multicultural affairs or the minister for primary industries talk about the percentage of people outside their portfolio. It would appear to my people, and I'm sure the rest of the world, that he has treated us with disrespect, disregard and contempt, and this must reflect on the government as a whole. We wait to see how the Greens and Democrats will respond to the cuts.
We had great hopes from the royal commission that inquired into deaths in custody. We had great hopes from the high court decision on native title supporting our claims of dispossession. We have great expectations that the latest royal commission into the stolen generation will also support our claims of injustice. Yet once again, we wonder where it will lead and what will come out of it.
No other section of the population has had its people so scrutinised, analysed, questioned and found to have suffered multiple human rights violations as my people, but to date very little has come out of this. How many times must we answer questions which are no benefit to us? It's time for action, not words. It hurts me that I cannot come here and brag about our ongoing progress and successes — success which further changes my people's lives and bring us more level with the rest of Australia .
The cuts to ATSIC will reduce any higher standard of living that we had hope for in the near future or any self-determination or reconciliation. These recent events have put a blight on these celebrations at Dagaragu. Let's keep the rage and fight for our rights.