Antinuclear

Muckaty’s Milwayi Traditional Owners speak out against claims for Nuclear Waste Dump

National Land Council excluding true Muckaty Owners who oppose the nuclear waste dump.30/3/2010, Yesterday the Northern Land Council (NLC) supported a large group of Muckaty Traditional Owners to visit the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney and present at today’s Senate Inquiry in Canberra. Muckaty Traditional Owner Pamela Brown, from the Milwayi group, issued the following statement in response :

If the NLC and Amy Lauder are in Canberra, I want them to tell the government people where they really stand and tell them the whole truth, that Muckaty doesn’t belong to them.

Tell the government there that they changed all the document stories round, they should know that culture and dreamings never change, they stay the same.

Elders are telling us that Amy Lauder and her family don’t have any dreaming on Muckaty.

Governments should listen to all of the Elders who know all dreaming stories on Muckaty.

NLC should be consulting with all the dreaming groups that got that Land Claim.

All the Elders who first went through the Muckaty Land Claim fought hard to get the land back. The stories the Elders put in the Land Claim book should stay like that and never be changed, just like our dreamings never change.

NLC is separating us just for the money. They don’t care about our dreamings.

NLC should be helping everybody who is saying no. Since the Muckaty Land Claim started NLC mucked up everything. Why is NLC coming up with one map?  The government is listening to them because they are presenting them with one hand made map which we don’t see.

If the government comes and talks to us we will show them that we have a map as well, that says we still belong to Muckaty.

We want the Ngapa group to come out to Muckaty with the NLC and government people and show us their dreaming sites. That way, we can see who are the right people. We can prove it culturally.

Why isn’t AAPA (sacred sites Darwin) doing something to stop it? They have got map of sacred sites that belongs to Milwayi on Muckaty. No sacred site clearance has been done. Our land should be protected. Our sacred sites should be protected.

If Ngapa are saying Muckaty belongs to them, why didn’t they do the Land Claim since it started in 1976? They weren’t there when we got the land back. Milwayi people got Muckaty back with our dreaming ceremony. We might have to do that again with challenging the Ngapa. That’s the proper cultural way to prove who is the Traditional Owner of Muckaty.

Beryl Brown, Milwayi Traditional Owner from Muckaty added:

In the future NLC will create a problem for the family groups of Muckaty.

They are only focusing on one family group.

Who is the NLC working for? Are they working for the 5 family groups? Are they representing all of the Traditional Owners ? They are not supporting the people who are saying no. They are meant to work for everyone.

April 2, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, Northern Territory | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, indigenous, Muckaty, nuclear weapons, radioactive