Start: 2008-07-14T02:30:00
End: 2008-07-14T03:45:00
Location: Redfern Centrelink 140 REDFERN STREET
Stop the NT intervention – Aboriginal control of Aboriginal
affairs
No to racist welfare quarantines!
Actions on Monday 14
July will target Centrelink offices when a policy that
has had the most
acutely painful impact through this intervention – the
race-based
quarantining of welfare payments – is rolling out into Aboriginal
communities
in Qld and WA, and being considered by the NSW and SA
governments. In late
May Environment Minister Peter Garrett raised the
possibility of extending
measures like welfare quarantining into urban
Aboriginal communities, such as
La Perouse in his electorate.
A year ago Aboriginal communities in the
Northern Territory were invaded and
martial law imposed. The Racial
Discrimination Act had to be overridden
because these racist laws apply only
to Aboriginal people. Those who
resisted the invasion have been fully
vindicated. The intervention is not
about child sexual abuse. Communities are
still crying out for more safe
houses, women’s centres and child protection
workers. That’s because the
intervention was never intended to provide them
in the first place.
Instead, it has been the cover for a massive land
grab. By the start of June
not one cent of compensation or rent had been paid
to Aborigines whose land
had been compulsorily acquired. The government has
just got hold of the land
of the Alice Springs town camps for the next 40
years!
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has already announced
that the
government is determined to strengthen the intervention into
Aboriginal
communities. The number of people degraded and humiliated by
having their
welfare “income managed” has risen sharply under Labor. In
November, 1408
people in eight communities were being denied their rights in
this way. By
the anniversary of the intervention in June this year, it had
grown to
13,309 people in 52 communities, with Macklin promising “full
coverage”
soon.
Over 1700 people have been “transitioned” off CDEP
but only 667 have been
employed in government-funded jobs; the rest have been
moved onto welfare
payments (and subsequently “income managed”).
The
cost of income management is around $3,000 per person per year – to
manage
average annual welfare payments of around $10,000. That’s $3,000 per
person
paid to mostly white bureaucrats to ration out welfare payments to
Aboriginal
people which could be put into genuine community-based solutions.
It’s
now clear that the Labor government will not roll back the
compulsory
acquisition of Aboriginal land, or the suspension of the
Racial
Discrimination Act of their own accord. Aboriginal rights have been
won in
the past through the struggles of Aboriginal people, backed
by
demonstrations and union action. The Aboriginal Rights Coalition exists
to
organise and support opposition to the government’s racist attacks
on
Aboriginal people.
The Aboriginal Rights Coalition meets every Monday
at 6pm at the Redfern Community Centre, Hugo St