100 people picketed the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs on June 18 to protest the third anniversary of the Northern Territory intervention.
Kevin Bracken from the Maritime Union of Austrlalia said “The intervention has turned the clock back 50 years to when people were working for rations.”
The rally also heard from Alistair Nicholson, former Chief Justice of the Family Court, the Greens, the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union and local indigenous activists Richard Kennedy, Sharon Firebrace and Robbie Thorpe.
After the picket, activists burned a mock Basics Card, which replaces 50% of Aboriginal welfare recipient’s income in targeted NT Aboriginal communities.
The rally was organised by Melbourne Anti-Intervention Collective maicollective.blogspot.com.