Union support escalates for anti-intervention walk-off

November 11, 2009
Issue 
Richard Downs and Harry Nelson talk about the intervention and the walk-off

A recent national speaking tour generated growing support for the Ampilatwatja community walk-off — an ongoing protest camp against the Northern Territory intervention.

Walk-off spokesperson Richard Downs described the tour as "fantastic" after sharing the plight of his people with hundreds of supporters in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Alice Springs.

"The support is overwhelming, particularly from the union movement", he told Green Left Weekly.

The walk-off was launched in July by 30 Alywarr elders, echoing dramatic land rights struggles of the 1960s and '70s,.

Ampilatwatja community, 350 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs, is a "prescribed area" under intervention legislation. This means, as well as blanket alcohol and pornography bans, Aboriginal welfare recipients have 50% of their benefits "quarantined" — put onto voucher cards that can be used to buy only basic necessities.

As part of the intervention, the government compulsorily acquired community land through a five-year lease.

The protest camp is located outside the boundaries of the lease, three kilometres from the community, and has been joined by more than 200 people at times.

"Aboriginal people had no other option but to walk off the prescribed area … We no longer have any rights to exist as humans in our own country and are outcasts in our own community", said Downs when announcing the walk-off in July.

During the speaking tour he said: "We're saying 'no'. We're never ever going to go back to that community to live under the controls and measures [of the NT intervention]."

Harry Nelson, community spokesperson for Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, joined Downs on tour. Yuendumu has staunchly opposed the intervention since it was announced in June 2007, and has refused to sign a 40-year lease in exchange for basic housing services.

The speaking tour came two weeks after a Unions NSW delegation to NT communities, including Yuendumu and the Ampilatwatja protest camp.

Unions NSW deputy secretary Adam Kerslake was part of that delegation, and spoke alongside Downs and Nelson at a meeting of more than 40 unionists in Sydney on October 13.

Downs gained particular heart from the meeting. Afterwards, he said: "[Kerslake was asking], do we stand by and live with racism and discrimination towards people in the NT? Do we let history show we all stood by and let it happen without lifting a finger to support?"

Throughout the tour, successful meetings with a broad range of union branches and rank-and-file members testified to the strengthening relationship between the union movement and the campaign to repeal the intervention.

The Sydney branch of the Maritime Union of Australia arranged for the visitors to address a worksite meeting of more than 200 members at Port Botany on October 9. Unionists gave strong speeches drawing on the historical role wharfies played in supporting the Gurindji strike and walk-off in the late 1960s.

"Forty years on [from Gurindji] and we have to do something again" said Downs. "A link in the chain has been broken", said Downs.

At a meeting with Australian Council of Trade Union executive members on October 8, Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howse committed to pushing the Labor government to respect the self-determination of Aboriginal people.

In Melbourne, Downs and Nelson met officials from most big unions, including a meeting with 18 unions at Trades Hall on October 16. One day earlier, an Australian Manufacturing Workers Union delegates' meeting gave the speakers a rousing reception.

On October 19 in Brisbane, a meeting was arranged with the executive of the Queensland Council of Unions and others including the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), Nurses Association, National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Public Sector Association and the Plumbers Union.

Following substantial donations, including more than $1000 each from the CFMEU and NTEU, the protest camp has raised enough money to sink a bore for drinking water.

Unionists committed to mobilising for rallies on the national day of action against the NT intervention planned for February 13 next year — the two-year anniversary of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations. The apology is ringing hollow as the intervention continues.

"Hearing about the positive outcomes of the speaking tour gave our elders and the community so much more determination and reinforced that we are going in the right direction", Downs told GLW.

The historical partnership between the union movement and the Aboriginal rights struggle shows the importance of mobilising the power of organised workers in the fight against racist and assimilationist policies.

As the contemporary union movement takes up the struggle of the NT intervention, the momentum of the campaign is set to intensify.

[For information, see www.stoptheintervention.org or www.interventionwalkoff.wordpress.com.]

Richard Downs and Harry Nelson talk about the intervention and the walk-off

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