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.
Peter Robson
Jim Davidson was sacked as the head of the Northern Territory’s Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) on August 18.
Aboriginal elders and families from Ampilatwatja have set up a permanent protest camp outside their government-controlled community in protest against policies that have neglected their needs and desires.
“We've had the gun at our head.” This is what William Tilmouth, Tangentyere Council CEO, said in response to Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin's triumphant July 29 announcement that the council had agreed to lease Alice Springs town camps to the federal government for 40 years in exchange for $135 million in housing upgrades
On July 15, elders left the remote Aboriginal community of Ampilatwatja for more remote ancestral lands. They were protesting a dire lack of basic services in their community, despite repeated government promises to “close the gap” and end Aboriginal disadvantage.
The Alice Springs council will fine beggars $130 following new bylaws passed on July 20. The new bylaws also banned camping, lighting fireworks and holding protests without a permit.
On July 12, Greek police demolished a refugee camp in the port of Patras, home to about 150 people who were applying for asylum. The action was part of a “clean sweep” operation to discourage refugees and migrants from entering Greece.
Nazy (a pseudonym) is an activist with the Voice of Freedom and Democracy in Iran, which organised a protest outside the Iranian Embassy on July 9. She came to Australia on July 6 after attending the pro-democracy protests in Tehran that were organised in response to the Iranian regime’s repression of the mass demonstrations alleging vote-rigging in the June 12 presidential elections.
The first person in Australia to die from H1N1 virus (or "swine flu") was an Aboriginal man from a remote community.
Aboriginal residents living in remote communities in the Northern Territory have condemned the governments consultation about the NT intervention as farcical.
Climate activists in Newcastle, already the worlds biggest coal port, have been campaigning to stop a planned upgrade. The upgrade will double the ports coal export capacity and worsen climate change, they say.
Marion Scrymgour — the highest ranking Aboriginal member of any government in Australia — quit the Northern Territory Labor Party over its Aboriginal policy on June 4. As an independent, she now holds the balance of power.
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