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NT Emergency Response Still Ignores Aboriginal People

Central Land Council

A media release from the Central Land Council

“We see the tangible effects that these measures have had on people on the ground – they feel demoralised, they feel disenfranchised and they feel powerless.”

At a meeting of its 90 members in Tennant Creek on 25 November, the Central Land Council said that the Federal Government had squandered a valuable opportunity to reset the relationship with Aboriginal people.

CLC members said that the Federal Government’s application of the Racial Discrimination Act to the Northern Territory Emergency Response legislation still ignores Aboriginal people’s interests and its ‘special measures’ remain discriminatory.

CLC director David Ross said that he felt deeply disappointed with the Government. “To us it looks like more of the same. The Government has even ignored its own progress report which showed that the measures had failed to make a difference and continued on its path of ignoring Aboriginal people,” the director of the CLC David Ross said.

“The decision to retain the five year leases is reprehensible and amounts to compulsory acquisition for five years. We see the tangible effects that these measures have had on people on the ground – they feel demoralised, they feel disenfranchised and they feel powerless.

“The Government has used the five year leases to further its own and the Northern Territory Governments interests without any benefit to the residents of these communities.

“While we welcome the attempts to make welfare quarantining non-discriminatory, the system still punishes responsible people in areas where employment is almost non existent.

“The Australian Government should instead be working with Aboriginal people to find solutions to some very difficult, long-term problems,” Mr Ross said.

In regard to the alcohol restrictions, CLC member Valda Shannon from Tennant Creek said Aboriginal people had fought for 20 years to get alcohol restrictions in the town.

“There was never any support for us then – we were ignored. They should have built on the hard work done by the community and included us in beating grog. Instead they try and remotely control us from Canberra,” Ms Shannon said.

The Central Land Council is a Council of 90 Aboriginal people elected from communities in the southern half of the Northern Territory.