Sandra Onus: 'What was the Apology for, Rudd? You conned us all'

Intervention update: Compulsory land acquisitions in the Northern Territory to start from August '09. Sandra Onus - Gournditch-Mara Elder, Melbourne, 29 July 2009

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has announced that the Commonwealth Government of Australia is going to compulsorily acquire Aboriginal Community Town Camps in the Northern Territory. This will start happening from early August 2009.

The main focus has been on the Tangentyere Council which is based in Alice Springs. Tangentyere provides services to the 1,600 people from most Central Australian tribal groups living on the 18 town camps around the town.

Over the years the council has been a spearhead for the establishment of other organisations as the need arose, such as Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (medical services), Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Planning Unit (alcohol rehabilitation), Institute for Aboriginal Development (educational institution), Central Australian
Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, Yipirinye School (independent Aboriginal school), outstation resource centres and so on.

The NT Intervention took out compulsory 5-year leases over the town camps serviced by Tangentyere, along with outstations and other remote communities. The government said it needed powers to build housing
quickly but not a single house has been built for Aboriginal people through the Intervention. Communities across the NT have been told that no housing will be built until long-term leases are signed with government.

Town camps are now under threat of having their living areas compulsorily acquired permanently by the Federal Government and their housing stock given to the Northern Territory Government to manage. Most town camp residents have experienced tenancy under Territory
Housing and know it doesnt work for them. Tangentyere, on behalf of its client group, wants to embrace the move taking place nationally towards community housing models. With government support they have undergone the process of setting up the Central Australian Affordable
Housing Company and are keen to move ahead with this. They have implored the government to work in partnership with them and respect their right to have a say in the plans for their lives and for future generations.

Town camps are special purpose leases in perpetuity and are set up as Aboriginal communal living areas. This is not nepotism: this is how Aboriginal people live together and support each other.

A campaign in support of Tangentyere Council, its constituent members (the Housing Associations) and retention of its autonomy is growing nationally. Many more people need to raise their voices against this injustice.

We are calling for public endorsement of the Statement opposing the Commonwealths proposal to compulsorily acquire the Alice Springs town camps. It is planned to publish this Statement and endorsements in the national media on 30 July, on the first day of the Australian
Labor Partys national conference and one week prior to the governments planned takeover date of August 5.

Signed

Barbara Shaw
Mt Nancy town camp, Intervention Rollback Action Group

Larissa Behrendt
Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, UTS

17 July, 2009.

Source: http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpr...

Background information on the proposed takeover is available from the website: rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com, together with the
Statement of Support.

More information on the Council is available on: www.tangentyerecouncil.org.au.
Audio interviews with William Tilmouth, Executive Director of Tangentyere Council, can be found on www.caama.org.au/radio

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[Drawshot100]

1000 years ago Europeans were killing animals with sticks just to survive. Australian Aboriginals were doing the same. In the that time, Europeans figured out how to get to the moon & back. What are Australian Aboriginals doing? Left to their own devices, still killing animals with sticks. No evolution. Still a stone age people. Stop whining about white settlement and what happened in the past & start contributing to today's society.

[thejuicemedia]

your history is quite off the mark: 1000 years ago Europeans were launching crusades. Westerners made it to the moon in the last 50 years but in the same space of time look at what they have done to the planet and its people. Aborigines may not achieved what you consider a measure of success, but they didn't destroy the land and its ecosystems. That is what they have contributed to today's society, and they have never been acknowledged for it. (if only ignorant people like you would realise it).

[MrCoverx]

First of all Comedytracker, The Europeans never discovered Australia, How can you discover something that belonged to some one else, The Indigenous Aboriginal people arrived in Australia more then 35,000 years ago, The only thing Whites have done is destroy civilizations for there own greed, I'm black American, so I can understand my Aboriginal brother and sisters, both are races have a common enemy.

[gunailad]

@carbideagle i hope your still at school, you might find history interesting

[carbideagle]

Get over whats written on paper and just enjoy the country and how good it is now, you like the smokes drugs and the alcoholism. You guy were nomadic so you had no country according to you guys. Its just a bunch of grubs wanting a free ride not a piece of bush. AND I agree RUDD is a dickhead no one I know here wanted to say sorry or felt they should, so he has no right to say it. Its like me asking you all to say sorry for your kids raping or braking in to my car and house.

[anomistars]

Hello Sandra, I visited Central Australia in 1971. What I saw has never left me, I'm a whitewoman, and a mother who sleeps with one eye open. Thx for updating ,me on the traps. I'm with you. This has to stop.

[Swadzang]

@thejuicemedia Furthermore the reason Eurasian societies progressed can be clarified purely by geographical location rather than the European’s ‘flawless’ genomes. Australian Aboriginal people simply lacked the resources e.g. vegetation and animals capable of being domesticated. Once civilisations had a reliable food source at their disposal, they then had time to develop other aspects of their society. BOOM.

[ChuRRRbWoii]

And so yas best thank yourselves lucky for being on this GREAT land. If you don't like it, go home..

[ChuRRRbWoii]

@GilbertGrape78 - sweeeeeet!!! :-D take your poison and ur pollution and death with you too, freak. Dont 4get to leave any money made frm our land, oceans, and rivers too sunshine. Also compensation for the murder and mismanagement of my people will be in order b4 ya budge.. Dont let our gold plated black n red door hit ur broke raggity ass on the way out.. lmao you think u rich uh ? your people have been bankrupt for a LONG time ;-p idiot.

[martinqn]

i said love i said darl i said pet

[Proloco47chev]

the apology was for the things they have done. not things they were going to do. come back in another 200 years for another apology. she goes on about what "we" ( white people? government? ) are doing to them, but its no worse than what i've seen some aboriginals do to each other. respect the land. absolutely, we cant live without a planet, but indiginous culture has to change. encouragement, pride, self respect self discipline and honour to your family is how to get there. 

[SupermarketsRevil]

@MrCoverx First, it should be said that myself or my ancestors did not destroy anyone (cept maybe some motherlovin nazis n japs back in the 40s). That said, I agree, it's going to take a long time to improve the societal problems in today's aboriginal population.

All the more reason to stop pointing fingers at the 'evil europeans' back in the day and actually get something done.