Mission & Justice

John Wiseman; 18/8/08

His deeply etched face is the map of a hard life in central Australia, Aboriginal elder Graham Kuyulura has seen the grog and petrol sniffing come and go in his community of Pukatja, in the remote Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara lands of northern South Australia. The one constant - not that it provides any comfort - is the squalid and overcrowded housing his people endure, up to 10 to a home that’s freezing in winter and an oven in the blisteringly hot summer months. Overcrowding does not attract the attention of alcohol and drug abuse, nor does the violence it fosters in indigenous communities, but it is increasingly being recognised as central to the dysfunction engulfing them.

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John Wiseman; 13/8/08

Jenny Macklin will today face down Aboriginal leaders on remote homelands in South Australia, telling them the time is almost up for them to sign a new federal housing agreement. On her first official visit to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, the Indigenous Affairs Minister has delivered an ultimatum to the communities to accept the $25million housing deal. “I want the agreement and we just can’t take any more time about it,” she said after visiting Amata, near the Northern Territory border. Ms Macklin and state counterpart Jay Weatherill will today meet members of the APY executive, including chairman Bernard Singer, who has resumed his position after being told to stand aside pending criminal proceedings for assault, alcohol and driving offences.

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Natasha Robinson; 23/7/08

Health and education groups claim the Northern Territory Government is cynically ignoring the plight of remote Aborigines as it pitches its re-election case on a second gas plant for Darwin harbour. They also accuse the Labor Government of promising only a “pitiful pittance” in funding for indigenous services. The Australian Education Union and the Territory’s peak Aboriginal health group were united in criticising Chief Minister Paul Henderson’s Government yesterday, questioning why indigenous affairs appeared to be a low election priority despite remote health and education systems being at breaking point.

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Russell Skelton; 23/6/08

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has offered to spend $50 million on a clean-up of Alice Springs’ town camps, home to some of the worst incidents of domestic violence and alcohol-related crime in the Northern Territory. Ms Macklin said she had offered the Tangentyere Council, the indigenous body overseeing the camps, an immediate injection of $5.3 million, provided the council relinquished control over housing and other essential services. “The situation is shocking. We need to act urgently to house people properly so children can go to school and lead decent, fulfilling lives like all other Australian children,” she told The Age yesterday. Ms Macklin said the Government wanted to overhaul camp infrastructure, including roads and housing. “We are offering $50 million on condition we get to secure tenure over the sites,” she said. “Most of the money will go to housing. We require a minimum sub-lease of 40 years — that is the bottom line, won’t accept anything less.”

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Pia Akerman; 20/6/08

Housing funding of $25million for South Australia’s troubled Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands finally cleared yesterday, easing strained relations between local indigenous leaders and the state Labor Government. The APY executive and the South Australian Government have formed a revised memorandum of understanding and the largest community on the lands, Pukatja (Ernabella), has also now agreed to the key conditions of the deal, including 50-year leases, down from the 99-year leases pursued by the Howard government. The breakthrough comes as Bernard Singer, chairman of the APY Lands board, faces court in Port Augusta today, on a charge of aggravated assault. He has also been charged with driving offences and breaching alcohol restrictions on the lands. Mr Singer has repeatedly refused government requests to stand aside from the board, leading Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jay Weatherill to refer the case to state Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

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John Wiseman; 3/6/08

The supervisor of a federally funded employment program has been ordered to leave indigenous lands in northwest South Australia, widening the rift between the local governing council and service providers. Ken Larkins, who supervises the Community Development Employment Project operation in the Indulkana community on the eastern edge of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands has been told he must leave by next Monday. Mr Larkins yesterday received notice that his permit to live on the lands had been cancelled by the APY executive board. The cancellation follows a complaint to police last week about the presence on the lands without a permit of South Australia’s most senior Aboriginal affairs bureaucrat, Joslene Mazel.

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Patricia Karvelas; 20/5/08

Asbestos has been found in 45 of 50 remote Aboriginal communities surveyed in the Northern Territory, with the Rudd Government vowing to remove it within 12 months. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin also ordered a review after criticising her department for not alerting her sooner to the findings of the federally funded survey. Ms Macklin last night said the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs told her that in late August last year tradespeople had raised concerns about the presence of asbestos in the houses they were working on.

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Paul Toohey; 14/5/08

There are 41 functioning houses shared by the 500 residents of Bagot Community, which means that the largely rundown two and three-bedroom homes sleep, on average, 12 people each night. From the inside, Bagot looks like a bush community, but it’s on a main road of Darwin, 32ha of half-trashed homes and high grass hidden away behind tin walls. Under the federal intervention, Bagot has become labelled a “town camp”, subject to alcohol and pornography prohibitions. Bagot is probably Australia’s biggest town camp. Once upon a time, it was a place where bush people on short visits to town could stay, though in recent years, it has become a permanent home for many. It has become a place without purpose. There is no CDEP program at Bagot and no work-for-the-dole program. Bagot has somehow been forgotten and is in a holding pattern.

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Patricia Karvelas; 14/4/08

All rural and remote Aboriginal children would be entitled to a bed in full-time hostels built by the federal Government beside new schools, under a radical proposal to be put to the 2020 Summit. West Australian Aboriginal activist and chair of the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Peter Yu - a participant in the 2020 indigenous panel - said if the Rudd Government was serious about social change, it would invest millions into school-based infrastructure. Mr Yu, who is a previous leader of the Kimberley Land Council and made his name during the native title debates of the 1990s, believes the new hostels should be built in all regional centres and provide full-time mentors to indigenous students

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Jamie Walker; 10/5/08

Having  worked on 50 Aboriginal land rights cases, anthropologist Peter Sutton says that time is up for the nation’s troubled indigenous communities. Professor Sutton, picking up on this week’s Mullighan report in South Australia, the latest to uncover rampant child sex crime in an Aboriginal homeland, said governments should withdraw funding rather than perpetuate the cycle of abuse. There was no future in “state-funded ghettos”, he told The Weekend Australian. Asked if they should be closed down, Professor Sutton said: “No, I am talking about withdrawing funds rather than actively closing them. The fact is they are artificial communities. If they were full of white fellas, no one would dream of propping them up just because the people say they want to stay there.

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