About 20 police officers stood in a row to separate the
dissenters from the formalities as indigenous leaders took the stage on a
nearby lawn.
“God save the Queen ‘cos nothing will save this parliament
if they don’t pull out of the Northern Territory,” said the president of
the National Aboriginal Alliance, Sol Bellear,
borrowing from the former prime minister Gough Whitlam.
“We have people who have served in the world wars
having their pensions quarantined. It’s like the stolen wages all over
again.”
It was Mr Bellear’s group that organised the rally of
thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in Canberra yesterday..
One woman, who identified herself as Aunty Valerie from
Yuendemu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs,
vented her frustration with the intervention. “We know how to look after
our kids,” she said. “We don’t want to be treated like animals. We
want to be treated like human beings.”
Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy, from Elcho
Island, off Arnhem
Land, was angry about the portrayal of indigenous people in the
media. He spoke directly to reporters. “Get this down right,” he
said. “We came all the way to talk about what problems we are having out
there because of the intervention.”
Common complaints were the constraints put on indigenous
welfare payments and the imposition of laws based on race.
The Greens senator Kerry Nettle said the Government needed
to work with indigenous groups.
“You can’t impose things,” she said. “I don’t
want governments 10, 20 years from now having to say sorry again.”
For Josie Agius,
an Aboriginal woman who travelled from Port Adelaide in South Australia, the events of this week
were worth the trip.
“It just makes you proud,” she said, sitting in
the afternoon sun.
Patricia Waria-Read, also from Port Adelaide, agreed.
“It’s a day we stand up and make changes for the better. When we say
rights for one and all.”
Source: www.smh.com.au/news/national/protest-against-intervention/2008/02/12/1202760301388.html