WITITJ HEALING

Aboriginal leader withdraws his support for intervention

By Tara Ravens; from: AAP, August 12, 2009

THE federal intervention into remote Aboriginal communities has been dealt a blow after powerful Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu withdrew his support for the controversial measures.

The former Australian of the Year has previously said the radical and sweeping reforms provided an opportunity to "empower" his people.

But in a strongly-worded statement issued today, he attacked the initiative for being discriminatory and paternalistic.

"The intervention has failed to deliver for our people," he said.

"It has become just another control on the lives of Yolngu people and has failed to deliver on the promised benefits.

"In Arnhem Land there are no new schools, no new roads, no new houses - just control of people's lives that is driving us crazy."

When the intervention was first announced by the Howard government in June 2007, the former head of the powerful Northern Land Council (NLC) described it as "sickening, rotten and worrying".

He backflipped a few months later, declaring his support after meeting with former indigenous affairs minister and intervention architect, Mal Brough.

More than two years later - and after more than a billion dollars federal funding - the prominent indigenous leader now says he's tired of waiting to see results on the ground.

"People like myself supported the rough edges of the intervention in the belief that it would deliver and do good for our people," he from the Garma Festival, deep in the heart of a stringybark forest in northeast Arnhem Land.

"There is no change on the ground only broken promises."

Mr Yunupingu had also supported federal plans to open up indigenous land for private investment and home ownership, having signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that would see people from his home country surrender control of their land, Ski Beach, under a 99-year lease.

But with no new houses having been built in any of the communities which have agreed to the arrangement, Mr Yunupingu said there was no longer an incentive for indigenous people.

"These leases take away our rights on a false promise of housing," he said.

"This is the wrong way to go."

Warramirri leader Terry Yumbulul, from northeast Arnhem Land, said Aboriginal people wanted to take back control of their own lives.

"The intervention was forced on us and went over the head of the senior leaders, without our consent," he said.

"We are not going to lay down under the tree anymore and we are now up and about to ensure that we will not be stood over anymore by government policies".

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Natasha Robinson | August 12, 2009

Article from ; The Australian

ARNHEM Land leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu has withdrawn his support for the federal government's intervention into remote Aboriginal communities and condemned what he labelled as the federal and Northern Territory governments' joint inability to deliver Aboriginal housing.

Mr Yunupingu, one of northeast Arnhem Land's most senior custodians, called yesterday for an immediate end to the commonwealth intervention, labelling it "a form of apartheid" that had punished Aboriginal people while failing to deliver a single house.

"We have to call the present intervention to a close, and let's start again," Mr Yunupingu told The Australian yesterday. "We hope there is not going to be anything like the intervention ever again. It is discriminatory, it's a form of apartheid. It has never been any good to us."

The Arnhem Land leader's repudiation of the federal intervention represents a dramatic about-face from his position two years ago, and comes as the Rudd government struggles to keep its $700 million project in Aboriginal housing on track.

After initially labelling the intervention "worrying and sickening", Mr Yunupingu in October 2007 swung behind the initiative, joining leaders such as Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton in putting his faith in the biggest overhaul of indigenous policy in decades.

But Mr Yunupingu said yesterday that two years into the billion-dollar program, he had not seen conditions change for indigenous people on the ground and the promised reforms had been strangled by bureaucratic inertia.

"I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed with the intervention," Mr Yunupingu said. "I thought it was going to be for the good of the people, but I have been disappointed no end. The slowness has gone further than I thought. There have been delays and delays and more delays, particularly in the housing areas.

"Housing is a big promise, and people are still sitting there biting their fingernails waiting for their homes, and that's never come."

Mr Yunupingu's comments followed the formation of a new political force in East Arnhem Land, the home of many of Australia's most traditional indigenous societies.

Yolngu clan leaders from Northern Territory communities stretching from Maningrida to Nubulwar yesterday signed the constitution for the what is to be "the highest authority in Arnhem Land", to be known as the Dilak.

Senior Yirrkala man Djuwalpi Marika said the Dilak would operate as a "Yolngu parliament" and would be seeking direct input into the federal government's task of closing the gap in Aboriginal disadvantage. "We are looking to get a real voice for Yolngu, a Yolngu parliament," Mr Marika said. "We are seeking direct information from the government, not second-hand information. In the Yolngu world we have our own democracy."

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the government had made it clear that indigenous engagement was the key to long-term effectiveness of intervention.

She said she understood Mr Yunupingu was frustrated "that decades of under-investment by successive governments cannot be reversed in 18 months".

"Mr Yunupingu's changed position is disappointing at a time when alcohol abuse, violence, crime and poor education and health outcomes are hurting NT indigenous communities."

Ms Macklin said she had instructed a senior official to go through the program "with a fine tooth comb" to make sure housing construction, rebuilds and upgrades were delivered as quickly as possible.

Mr Yunupingu said he would like to see an intervention in government bureaucracies, rather than indigenous communities.’