Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council stopped proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine
Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council did what the O’Farrell and Baird Governments were averse to doing – it stopped the proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine in its tracks, North Coast Voices, 13 June 14 Early in 2014 the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council took Wyong Coal Pty Ltd (First Respondent), Minister for Planning and Infrastructure (Second Respondent),Planning Assessment Commission NSW (Third Respondent) and NSW Aboriginal Land Council (Fourth Respondent) to the NSW Land & Environment Court.
The judgment does not appear to have been published yet.
However, The Daily Telegraph reported on 13 June 2014:
THE controversial Wallarah 2 coal mine, which ICAC target Nick Di Girolamo lobbied for on behalf of Korean mining company Kores, has been put on hold and may never go ahead after a Land and Environment Court decision.
The decision was a win for the local Aboriginal Land Council, which had fought the mine on its land.
Planning Minister Pru Goward made clear last night she would not intervene in the matter, releasing a statement saying: “I have considered the judgment and I accept the decision of the court.”….
The proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine put forward by the Korean-owned mining company Kores Australia Pty Ltd and, its joint venture partners Catherine Hill Resources Pty Ltd, Kyungdong Australia Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Australia (Wyong) Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Pty Ltd and progressed by Wyong Coal Pty Ltd (T/A Wyong Areas Coal Joint Venture), had already failed basic environmental and risk management standards as the 4 June 2014 NSW Planning and Assessment Commission Final Report summary indicates:…..http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/darkinjung-local-aboriginal-land.html
Nuclear waste Dump Court Case – Day 6 – hearing at Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
Muckaty Court Report Day 6- June 9 Day 6 – Federal Court comes to Muckaty Beyond Nuclear Initiative, By Padraic Gibson, 10 June 14, The nuclear waste dump trial traveled to the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust on Monday June 9, to hear testimony from Traditional Owners opposed to the nomination of their land.
First, a convoy of ten vehicles traveled out to the nominated site. The site is located about 12 kms west of the Stuart Highway, on the southern boundary of the Land Trust. It can be reached along a bituman “haulage road”, built to cart manganese from the Bootu mine out to the Adelaide – Darwin railway line. Having the dump on this well developed road, with access to two major transportation routes – the highway and the railway line – would be perfect for the government, helping explain why they are fighting so hard to defend the Muckaty nomination.
Senior Warlmanpa man Dick Foster, one of the applicants challenging the waste dump, gave the court (and a throng of journalists) a short explanation of the dreaming stories that are significant to the nominated site and how these impact on the rights and responsibilities of different clan groups. His account is in sharp contradiction with the anthropology relied upon by the NLC to justify the waste dump nomination. His traditional knowledge and cultural authority is respected by all sides of this dispute. Mr Foster will give detailed evidence next week.
The convoy then proceeded further north into the Land Trust, stopping at an outstation about 5kms from the Stuart Highway to set up properly to hear evidence.
There was only time to hear the start of evidence from Bunny Nabarula, an 84 year old Warlmanpa Elder who has been a leading spokesperson in the campaign against the dump for 7 years now……….
Evidence from more Traditional Owners opposed to the dump will be given in the court house at Tennant Creek for the rest of this week. For many people, who feel they have been pushed aside and ignored through this whole process, they are eager to put their case to the court. It’s important to note that both the Commonwealth and the NLC argued strongly against the Court coming to the NT. Both parties strongly defend their consultation process. But they also argue that whether or not this nomination was put forward with genuine consent should not actually matter legally, due to draconian provisions in the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act passed in 2005. http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/muckaty-court-report-day-6-june-9/
Western Australia’s changes to Aboriginal Heritage Act will benefit miners, disadvantage Aborigines
Aboriginal Heritage Act changes help miners, but do little to protect sacred sites: Greens ABC News By Katrin Long 12 Jun 2014 The Greens have raised concerns over a WA Government proposal to amend parts of the Aboriginal Heritage Act, which sets out the way in which sacred places and objects should be preserved.
The Act has not had any major changes since it was introduced 42 year ago.
One of the changes would see control of major decisions regarding potential and established heritage sites handed from a committee to a single CEO. The Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) has said the proposed changes would improve efficiency in the mining and energy sector.
Greens MP Robin Chapple said the changes would aid mining companies, but would constitute a “complete desecration” of an Act that has already been watered down since its inception.
“They’ve taken away what was left of a shell of an Act and just trashed it,” he said…..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-12/concern-over-proposed-changes-to-aboriginal-heritage-act/5518244
Muckaty Aboriginal landowners don’t want money: they want clean non-radioactive land
Muckaty Station: Traditional owners reject $12 million compensation offer for nuclear waste dump June 11, 2014, Traditional owners who have opposed a nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory say they had no interest in a $12 million compensation package offered by the Commonwealth……..Traditional Owner Ronald Morrison said current generations were guardians who inherited the land from long family lines.
“From our ancestors and our elders, from our elders down to us and from us we’d like to pass it on to our young ones,” Mr Morrison said.
Another traditional owner, Jeannie Sambo, said the money would run out, but the land would be there forever.
“Our land is more important than the money that we live on because as aboriginal people we have more food than buying things from the shop.”
Bunny Nabarula, a Milwayi woman, earlier described the compensation package as “dirty money”, telling the special sitting on country that she was passionate about keeping her land pristine. https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24209801/muckaty-station-traditional-owners-reject-12-million-compensation-offer-for-nuclear-waste-dump/?source=wan
Northern Land Council threatened Aboriginal opponent of nuclear waste dump?
NLC threats over Muckaty waste dump: court, 9 News 10 June 14If Aboriginal clans at Muckaty wouldn’t accept a nuclear waste dump on their land, the Northern Land Council threatened to decide for them, the Federal Court has heard.
The clans say their will was overruled by a fifth clan who worked with the NLC to approve it……
Yapa Yapa traditional owner Dianne Stokes told the court on Tuesday that she had had a loud disagreement with Kwementyaye Lauder, who drove the decision to accept the site nomination and has since passed away.
She said the NLC’s principal legal officer Ron Levy threatened to take the decision out of her hands.
“(He) said, ‘if youse don’t do this, we’ll do it for you’,” Ms Stokes said, alleging that Mr Levy said he would sue her for going to the media about the issue…….
Outside court, researcher Paddy Gibson, of the Jumbunna House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, called on the federal government to drop the nomination after eight years of struggle.
“The Commonwealth government needs to face up to what it’s done to this community, pushing forward this incredibly divisive proposal, and it needs to back off,” he said. http://news.ninemsn.com
Australian government offering Aboriginals basic services in exchange for hosting radioactive trash?
Nuclear waste dump would ‘dispossess’ Indigenous landowners in NT Australian Associated Press theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014 Researcher says commonwealth’s offer of financial help should not be conditional on outcome of court case over proposed site The commonwealth government is dispossessing Indigenous people by seeking to place a radioactive waste storage facility on their land, a researcher says.
The federal court is sitting in Tennant Creek this week to hear from traditional landowners, who say they were not consulted when the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the commonwealth decided to put forward the site for consideration in 2007.
Four clans from the Muckaty area, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, say they were cut out of the process in favour of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan.
The family were paid $200,000 and promised a further financial package of $12 million to pay for a road, educational scholarships and other initiatives benefiting all indigenous groups on Muckaty Station.
Paddy Gibson, a researcher with the Jumbunna House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, said the money should be released to the traditional owners regardless of the outcome of the case.
“It’s not money going into people’s back pockets as cash, it’s money they’re saying is going to be spent on basic services,” he told reporters in Tennant Creek on Tuesday.
“It’s an absolute disgrace that Aboriginal people in this region, who are some of the most impoverished people in the country, are being told they’re not going to be able to access basic services if not for establishing a nuclear waste dump.”……
“Our ancestors passed it to our elders and our elders passed it to us and we want to pass it to our young ones,” said Ronald Morrison of the Milwayi. “The dump would destroy our land and bush tucker for our living and for our next generation. We want to keep it clean for all of us.”…….http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/nuclear-waste-dump-would-dispossess-indigenous-landowners
Aboriginal clans do not want their land poisoned by nuclear waste
Nuclear waste will poison land: elder https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24214130/nuclear-waste-will-poison-land-elder/
NEDA VANOVAC June 11, 2014, The spirit people of Muckaty don’t want “poison” stored on their land in the form of a nuclear waste dump, the Federal Court has heard. The court is sitting in Tennant Creek this week to hear evidence from four clans who are against the radioactive waste storage facility being placed on their land, 120km north of the Northern Territory town.
The clans say their will was overruled by a fifth clan which worked with the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the Commonwealth government to approve it.
Milwayi woman Pamela Brown originally agreed to the radioactive waste storage proposal, thinking it would be a rubbish dump that would hold predominantly medical waste. “They said they would put gloves and gowns there from the hospital, that it’s not poisonous,” she told the court on Wednesday.
But her younger sister who was living in Adelaide reminded her of the long-term health effects experienced by Aboriginal people living at Maralinga, near Woomera in South Australia, in the aftermath of the British nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 60s. Ms Brown said she was also concerned by the explosion at Chernobyl.
“I don’t want any poison on our country,” she said. “I want my country for the future generations so I can teach them and they can get out there. “If the dump goes ahead, there will be destruction (of the land),” she said. “The spirit is alive. The spirit people don’t want any rubbish put on their country.”
Muckaty Station covers 221,000ha and seven Aboriginal groups claim land within it.
One of the key issues of the case is determining who owns the roughly two square kilometres which would house the dump: the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan have been acknowledged as traditional owners by the NLC, but the Milwayi people say the land is theirs.
Ms Brown told the court that maps used for the successful land rights claim of 1993 showed the Milwayi were traditional owners of the site, but said the maps had since been redrawn.
“All these names got juggled up by the new map the NLC did … they moved the sites around,” she said. “They changed the whole map.”
But the NLC says there was no claim that the land belonged to the Milwayi when the site was first proposed in 2006.
The hearings continue.
Federal Court hears from determined Aboriginal elders at Muckaty, Northern Territory
Indigenous elder speaks out at NT nuclear waste dump trial, Guardian, 10 June 14 Bunny Nabarula threatens to ‘block the road and let the truck run us over’ if a waste dump is approved on her traditional land A central Australian Indigenous elder has threatened to throw herself in front of a road train if a proposed radioactive waste management facility is approved to be built on her ancestral lands.
The federal court held a special sitting at the Muckaty community on Monday, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, to hear the evidence of Milwayi traditional owner Bunny Nabarula, about 84.
Members of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan laid false claim to the land when they along with the Northern Land Council (NLC) nominated the site for a national nuclear waste storage facility, say members of four other clans who are against it.
In 2007 the NLC nominated the site to the commonwealth and agreed on a package of $9m to be held in a charitable trust, $2m for a road on Indigenous land and $1m for scholarships over five years. A $200,000 payment was made to a narrow group of Indigenous families, which Nabarula dismissed as dirty money.
She told the court her Milwayi people had principal claim to the land, and that the Ngapa dreaming just passed through it……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/09/indigenous-elder-speaks-out-nuclear-waste-dump-trial
Federal Court holds nuclear waste dump dispute hearing at Muckaty – the government’s planned dump site
Muckaty Station: Federal Court hears Indigenous clan’s cultural stories at proposed nuclear waste dump site, ABC News 10 June 14 By Robert Herrick A traditional land owner has yelled and sworn during a Federal Court hearing examining plans to build a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia. Bunny Nabarula, a Milwayi woman, stood up and cursed before the court as she vented frustration over the kind of legacy a facility for storage of low and intermediate-grade nuclear waste at Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek, would be for future generations.
She told a special sitting of the court, on country, that she was passionate about keeping her land pristine and a $12 million compensation package was “dirty money”.
The court is holding a rare hearing on country as it considers a challenge to plans to build a nuclear waste storage site on the remote station.
The Northern Land Council nominated the site on behalf of members of the Ngapa group, but four other clans have laid claim to the land and say it is adjacent to a sacred site……..
Traditional owner Kylie Sambo says a hearing on the station gives the Federal Court a real understanding of the land’s cultural significance.”I reckon its very important because they need to see how how we feel about the country and how the country is to us and actually be out here on country and getting the feeling and knowing and understanding that we have,” she said.
Another traditional owner Dick Foster pointed out the culturally significant parts of the site, important for passage to a sacred area where men’s business takes place. Paddy Gibson from the Jumbunna House of Learning says many traditional owners have been given the impression the waste is not very harmful.
“Some of the most dangerous waste in the world is a spent nuclear fuel rod and that’s what from day one has been the issue that’s in contention here, that they want to use this as a dumping ground for some of Australia’s most toxic industrial waste,” he said……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-09/muckaty-station-federal-court-hearing/5510346
Muckaty Court Report Day 3 – When is a nuclear waste dump not a nuclear waste dump?
Muckaty Court report Day 3- June 4 when is a dump not a dump? By Padraic Gibson Beyond Nuclear Initiative, 5 June 14 “…...Mr Merkel handed up to the court two anthropologist reports completed by the NLC specifically for the waste dump nomination in 2006. Mr Merkel argued there were differences between the first report, prepared exclusively by the NLC anthropologists, and the second, which had been both “heavily edited” and “rewritten” by NLC principal lawyer Ron Levy, despite his signature being absent…….
More significant than an argument about who has primary responsibility however, is the emphasis in the original report on shared responsibility for sites across Muckaty by all clan groups. Mr Yarrow argued that this fundamental principle that underpins the land grant had been abandoned by the NLC in their nomination of the site on Muckaty……
Despite the focus of the legal proceedings on the alleged misconduct of the NLC, from the perspective of the campaign against the Muckaty dump, the Commonwealth submissions provided an important reminder that the central problem here is the discriminatory actions of the government in targeting impoverished Aboriginal communities for some of Australia’s most toxic industrial waste.
The genesis of the Muckaty dump nomination is the Commonwealth push to establish a waste dump on Aboriginal land. The court heard evidence of Commonwealth representatives starting to attend full council meetings of the Northern Land Council in late 2005, to pitch the idea of a dump to Aboriginal land owners……..
As Traditional Owners have consistently pointed out – if this stuff is so safe, why do you want to put it so far away from the cities?
The second ideological argument put strongly by the Commonwealth, both in their submissions to court and in their presentations to Traditional Owners during consultations, is that the waste dump is needed to allow for the continued operation of nuclear medicine in Australia. This argument has been comprehensively rebuffed by health professionals, such as Dr Michael Fonda from the Public Health Association, who has highlighted the cruelty of making Traditional Owners, who live in communities that suffer from developing world health conditions, feel guilty that somehow their opposition to a waste dump would be an impediment to others receiving health care.
See for example the short video: Nuclear Furphies and Political Follies……..
No mention was made about provisions in the 2005 Radioactive Waste Management Act which stipulate that the Commonwealth will not hand back any land that had been contaminated. This also ignores the fact that the “low level” waste is set be buried, with no intention of recovery.
The nature of the waste dump then, is shaping up to be a central issue in the case……..
In my discussions with Muckaty Traditional owners over the last seven years, key witnesses relied upon by the Commonwealth have strongly rejected the assertion that they ever consented to the waste dump, or ever said the decision should rest with the narrow family group in question. Next week they will have a chance to be heard directly, as the court relocates to the Northern Territory for hearings both at Muckaty itself and in Tennant Creek http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/muckaty-court-report-day-3-june-4/
Australia needs new standards on the rights of indigenous people
The United Nations has established the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which has a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights. The United Nations World Conference on Indigenous Peoples will be held in New York in September 2014.
The themes of the Conference are set out in the Alta Outcome Document
This could set a new standard for Australia as a whole.
There is still distinct disadvantage in Australia, Australian Options Magazine May 31, 2014 in Focus, May 
2014 no 76 Dr Valerie Cooms* “……..With the enhanced involvement of the UN and the continuing relationship with resistance organisations, the Commonwealth had to not only address the suffering and treatment of Aboriginal populations, but also had to remove racist legislation from all Australian statutes (including its own). It was forced to commit to a program of land rights for Aboriginal peoples to address the disadvantage associated with the dispossession of lands by the colonisation process.[xviii] The UN also demanded Australia put anti-discrimination legislation in place. By 1975, the Commonwealth had removed its own discriminatory legislation, undertaken an investigation into a national land rights program by engaging Justice Woodward, and introduced the Racial Discrimination Act 1975as well as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act, 1975.[xix] The latter was introduced specifically to over-ride the 1971 Queensland Act which the State Government had refused to acknowledge contained discriminatory provisions involving the confiscation of earnings and property of Aboriginal workers. Though, according to John Pilger, no federal government ever enforced the 1975 Act about Queensland.[xx]
While the Racial Discrimination Act was watered down to a conciliatory process, its introduction along with the engagement of Justice Woodward, the removal of overtly racist legislation cleared the way for the Commonwealth to have UN conventions ratified. The Commonwealth also established the National Aboriginal Consultative Congress (NACC) in 1973 and informed the public it would be advised by the representatives elected from across Australia.[xxi] However, the Federal Government failed to fund NACC’s secretariat or to take advice that it either could not address or did not agree with.[xxii] Arguably, the NACC was put into place to quieten the growing Aboriginal activism which was in constant contact with not only the UN but other international resistance organisations.[xxiii]
Indisputably it was the need to avert UN and international criticism in order to have conventions ratified that saw the Commonwealth remove or over-ride racist legislation and address the appalling treatment and condition of Aboriginal people in Queensland. Yet as clearly demonstrated here, the Aboriginal policies of all Governments were merely modified into more acceptable methods of colonisation that could avert international criticism.
In 2014 and with decolonialisation almost complete, the critical United Nations’ body is the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which first met in 2002.[xxiv] The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007.[xxv] Only four countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, voted against. In 2009, the Rudd Government reversed the position that had been taken by the Howard Government and endorsed the UN Declaration.[xxvi]The Howard Government was based its opposition on claims that it allowed customary law to override legislative law. The current Attorney George Brandis said in 2009 that the UN Declaration had provisions ‘that go well beyond the rights recognised in Australian domestic law’. He said it conferred the right to seek compensation for land taken without permission and to veto projects affecting land, without providing recognition for the rights of third parties.[xxvii]
As the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner said The Declaration is the most comprehensive tool we have available to advance the rights of Indigenous peoples.[xxviii] The Australian Human Rights Commission in its Community Guide to the Declaration says that the preamble makes some key points including that Continue reading
Northern Land Council bars journalist from visiting Muckaty – planned nuclear waste dump site
There is a very important wider issue in all this – irrespective of my visit – “If the radioactive waste facility goes ahead, will journalists and indigenous rights advocates like me be able to have access to freely visit it and report on any issues associated with its operation?”
Northern Land Council puts out ‘Not Welcome’ mat for site visit at Muckaty. #wasteontrial http://songlines.org.au/2014/06/04/northern-land-council-puts-out-not-welcome-mat-for-site-visit-at-muckaty-wasteontrial/ June 4, 2014 by Bruce Reyburn One of the hallmarks of an open democracy is the ability of the media and human rights advocates to go freely to contested places where they can report on what they see and learn in the process.
As I have just found, this is not the case in one part of Australia.In keeping with the tight provisions of the Australian government legislation for a radioactive waste facility, a site on “Muckaty” was ‘volunteered’ by one small ‘local descent group’ (or part thereof) of Warlmanpa people in return for a few million dollars – and then nominated to the Australian government by the Northern Land Council. All done by the book, according to the NLC.
Other Warlmanpa at Muckaty objected to this process – hence the present Federal Court case presently underway in Melbourne, thence Tennant Creek, Darwin, Melbourne.
The Northern Land Council is a respondent in this Federal Court case, along with the Commonwealth of Australia.
Under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act a permit is required to enter onto Aboriginal land (as defined by that Act).
Issuing permits is a function of the relevant Aboriginal Land Council to process permit applications.
Soon after I decided to blow the budget and travel to Tennant Creek to see old friends and listen to Warlmanpa people’s evidence in their Federal Court case, I realised that the Federal Court would travel to Muckaty to view the site nominated for the Australian government’s radioactive waste facility. This proposed radioactive waste facility site is on Aboriginal Land gained by a traditional Aboriginal land claim under that Act, and has a pastoral lease “Muckaty” over it. Muckaty is in that part of the Northern Territory covered by the Northern Land Council.
Therefore I would need a permit to visit Muckaty and the proposed site if I got the opportunity, either as part of the court case or separately during my short visit, with Warlmanpa people who might want me to help tell their story to the wider world.
Accordingly, I made an application to the Northern Land Council, nominating a couple of different dates and mentioning that I aimed to write about these matters on myhttp://www.songlines.org.au blog.
When I did not get a reply back I sent an email to the NLC asking about the progress of my permit application. Copies of that correspondence are included below My application does not appear to have been referred to the traditional owners of Muckaty, but the NLC legal section.
On the basis of that I have been effectively blocked from visiting the proposed radioactive waste site…..
The main question in my mind is this – “Is the decision of the Northern Land Council to deny me access to visit the proposed radioactive waste site a decision which:
(a) truly reflects the wishes of the traditional owners of Muckaty, in whose name the Northern Land Council operates or
(b) was it a decision based on other than normal considerations and
(c) if it was not normal practice, was the decision in keeping with the relevant legislation regarding the role of the NLC in processing permits?”
There is a very important wider issue in all this – irrespective of my visit – “If the radioactive waste facility goes ahead, will journalists and indigenous rights advocates like me be able to have access to freely visit it and report on any issues associated with its operation?”
Aboriginal art exhibition “Flow of Voices” highlights environment and history
Aboriginal elders paint pre-mine tragedy GINA FAIRLEY Visual Arts Hub, 3 JUNE, 2014
A new exhibition from remote mining country provides a ‘prequel’ tale that goes back to colonial frontier massacres Jacky Green’s potent pictures of the environmental impact of the Macarthur River Mine’s (MRM) on the remote Gulf Country of Borroloola recently offered a powerful example of the way art tells an important contemporary story.
But the region, which sits just below the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory, has an equally charged story of land and dispossession from colonial times which is now the subject of a matching exhibition Flow of Voices 2: Stewart Hoosan and Nancy McDinny……….in this unrecognised frontier war about one-sixth of the population lost their lives in lawless massacres and violence (600 men, women and children in official records),’ said Cross Arts Projects director Jo Holder.
‘Nancy McDinny and Stewart Hoosan insist that the settlement of Australia wasn’t a simple story of Aboriginal people acquiescing to the occupation of their land, but one of resistance where many people fought back against violence, sexual abuse and dispossession’, Holder added in a statement.
‘When they were powerful old people, didn’t know how to speak English but used to talk in language, saying, “We not going to give away our land. This is our land. It belong here. This is our history, our story and our dreaming”,’ said McDinny.
The old people who set up Waralungku art centre – including McDinny, Hoosan and the late Ginger Riley (from Ngukkur) – wanted to make history paintings to account for their peoples’ agency and overwhelming belief in their just claim on their land. Renowned for their colour and realism, ‘many paintings from the Gulf are unique conceptual and analytic documents about history and contemporary issues,’ explained Holder………The partner exhibitions ‘argue for proper consultation, environmental monitoring, restoration and community benefit in exchange for resource extraction. Without proper respect for people and country racial hierarchies and “imperial” attitudes persist,’ said gallery director Jo Holder.
Green’s work captures that sentiment: ‘I want to show people what is happening to our country and to Aboriginal people. No one is listening to us. What we want. How we want to live. What we want in the future for our children. It’s for these reasons that I started to paint. I want government to listen to Aboriginal people. I want people in the cities to know what’s happening to us and our country.’
The artists and Waralungku Arts are proud to announce their plan to found a Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra and Gudanji People’s Keeping Place and Knowledge Centre at Borroloola.
Flow of Voices 2:
Cross Art Projects, Kings Cross
22 May – 28 June 2, 2014
www.crossarts.com.au
www.waralungku.com http://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/visual-arts/aboriginal-elders-paint-pre-mine-tragedy-244014
Australian govt to open up nuclear weapons test site to Aboriginal people, AND to uranium mining!
Traditional Maralinga Tjaruta people gain unrestricted access to rehabilitated land where nuclear testing occurred news.com.au 3 June 14 The federal government will on Wednesday announce 1782 square km in area will be formally excised from the Woomera Prohibited Area at the request of the Maralinga Tjaruta people……..
Maralinga Tjarutja general manager Richard Preece said the decision would enable the traditional owners to enter section 400 without seeking approval from the Defence Department.
“We didn’t think it’s sensible to have within the range something that would probably be the last place in Australia you’d want to drop bombs on,’’ Mr Preece said…….
Nuclear testing was conducted by the British government in Australia between 1952 and 1963.
Maralinga was officially closed in 1967.
The federal government hopes a bill opening the Woomera Prohibited Area for exploration and mining will be passed by Parliament during its winter sittings. Up to $35 billion worth of iron ore, gold and uranium is believed to lie beneath the ground in the prohibited area.
If the bill becomes law, it will create a new access regime for non-Defence users.
The State Government and federal Labor MPs have been pushing for the bill to be passed as soon as possible, arguing it will create new economic opportunities for South Australia, which could help offset the impact of the Holden closure. http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/traditional-maralinga-tjaruta-people-gain-unrestricted-access-to-rehabilitated-land-where-nuclear-testing-occurred/story-fnii5yv4-1226942188796
Abbott government cuts Aboriginal funding, and promotes discrimination
Budget cuts stir Aboriginal anger in Australia Ft.com By Jamie Smyth in Sydney, 3 June 14, “……This is our land. They have pulled our houses down and want to replace them with student accommodation and shops,” says the 66-year-old, who has lived for a half century in Redfern, seen by many Aboriginals as their spiritual home in Sydney.
This battle for social housing is just one of the many struggles Aboriginal communities face as they strive to emerge from two centuries of discrimination and grinding poverty.
The Redfern protest – timed to coincide with National Reconciliation Week – is taking place against the backdrop of a A$500m cut in Aboriginal funding programmes in the federal budget, which includes A$160m in health services alone. It also comes as Canberra proposes a watering down of the racial discrimination act, which was introduced in 1975 following a long and bitter political battle.
The government changes are alarming Aboriginal leaders, who were told by Tony Abbott when he was elected in September 2013 he would be a “prime minister for Aboriginal affairs”. Critics say it is a broken promise by Mr Abbott, who has been accused of backtracking on several key election commitments since May’s budget – the toughest in Australia for almost two decades.
“What beggars belief is they are saying they support freedom of speech while at the same time they are taking away money from [Aboriginal] advocacy bodies,” says Thomas Calma, an Aboriginal elder from Darwin and former race discrimination commissioner
The coalition wants to repeal a section of the race discrimination act, which makes it unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” another person because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.
“People do have a right to be bigots,” said George Brandis, Australia’s attorney-general, when he proposed the changes to parliament as a way to bolster free speech.
“With this budget the government is really moving back to the discriminatory policies we saw in the past. It is back to the future in Australia.” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5d031d70-eab5-11e3-80fb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33hiLRfqj
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 