Candidate helps build Aboriginal protest house in remote NT

MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday July 22, 2010 - Jess Moore, Socialist Alliance candidate for Cunningham, has just returned from the Northern Territory where she helped put the roof on the Alyawarr people's 'protest house'. The Alyawarr people have walked out of Ampilatwatja, a remote Aboriginal town about 350 kilometres north east of Alice Springs, to protest government treatment and the Northern Territory intervention. They have set-up a camp on their traditional lands just out of Ampilatwatja; the protest house is the first building to be constructed.

‘The Alyawarr people are an inspiration; working on the house was just amazing. They are taking things into their own hands after repeated government failures in the areas of housing, health and education and being supported by solidarity activists and trade unionists. We need to show solidarity with the Alyawarr people and their walk-off', said Moore.

Moore also attended the Defending Indigenous Rights gathering in Alice Springs, which took place over July 6-9 and brought together 200 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people from around the country.

‘The immense poverty and Third World conditions inflicted upon Aboriginal people was a stark feature of the gathering', she said. 'There were stories of communities without doctors, schools or housing, and the inability of remote communities to access fresh fruit or veggies (a lettuce cost $14(!) in one community). This was also very visible in Alice Springs with widespread homelessness among Aboriginal people.'

In Ampilatwatja, Moore could see first-hand the effects of the intervention. The complete lack of real employment for Aboriginal people was striking.

'There are people in the community who desperately want to work. And there is certainly plenty that needs doing. But with the intervention came welfare quarantining, and changes to the Community Development Employment Projects. Aboriginal people now are forced to work for the dole, and half their payment is put onto the Basics Card, which can only be used at certain stores to buy certain things', she said.

'This is nothing more than working for rations, and it’s happening across the Territory. Unless government policy changes more communities will follow the lead of the Alyawarr people. I'll be returning to the walk-off camp again to help out, and plan to organise others from the South Coast to join me'.

'Every election candidate should get out to remote Aboriginal communities and see the impact of the NT intervention for themselves. The gap is not being closed, it's getting wider. And an enormous amount of public money is being spent to starve Aboriginal people off their land.’

'The human impact of the racist NT intervention must be brought to light. Out of sight cannot be out of mind. Aboriginal people are living in Third World conditions in wealthy Australia. We must put an end to this!', she concluded.