“Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land: The struggle for Aboriginal rights”, was the title of an August 3 forum in the Brisbane Activist Centre sponsored by Socialist Alliance and Resistance. Speakers were Murri activist and SA Queensland Senate candidate Sam Watson and Ewan Saunders, SA candidate for the seat of Brisbane who has recently returned from the Justice Bus Ride to the Northern Territory.
Watson told the meeting: “For the Australian people, the two major parties refuse to engage with the key issues of society. Both hammer the asylum seekers; both follow discriminatory policies against Aboriginal communities.
“For the Indigenous community, they provide no solutions to our problems.”
Saunders talked about his experiences in the NT. He spoke about the degrading effect of “income management” on Indigenous people, growing housing crisis and the lack of real jobs for Aboriginal people.