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Australian govt’s welfare measures push Aboriginals off homelands

The NT intervention is clearly racist and is not motivated by concern for Aboriginal children but to enable government control of Aboriginal land.

Many Aboriginal communities have been forced to sign over their land on five-year leases to the federal government — land that contains gold, iron ore, uranium as well as areas that have been slated as potential nuclear waste dumps.

We are all in this together, Green Left Weekly, Ruth Ratcliffe June 20, 2010“…….The Rudd government plans to extend the paternalistic policy of welfare quarantining, which the Howard government initiated in remote Aboriginal communities, to other areas of disadvantage. Instead the government should adequately fund appropriate services and empower communities.

Communities have not even been informed, let alone consulted about the fact that soon, half their Centrelink payment will not be available in cash.

Instead, Centrelink recipients in targeted areas will be given a Basics Card that can only be used at major retailers, not at community food co-ops or second-hand stores, thereby ensuring more dollars go to the coffers of big corporations and less to meet peoples’ basic needs.

The NT intervention is clearly racist and is not motivated by concern for Aboriginal children but to enable government control of Aboriginal land.

Many Aboriginal communities have been forced to sign over their land on five-year leases to the federal government — land that contains gold, iron ore, uranium as well as areas that have been slated as potential nuclear waste dumps. The NT intervention and the policy of welfare quarantining must end and not be extended to other communities…..

The Alyawarr people have set up a protest camp outside their town, have built their own “protest house” and are planning community gardens and renewable energy systems.

The Alyawarr people send an important message to the rest of Australia — if a small, remote community can stand up, reject government policy and demand their rights, so can we!

We are all in this together | Green Left Weekly

June 23, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues | antinuclear, AUSTRALIA, indigenous, nuclear wastes, uranium