International justice for Tj day
On the sixth anniversary of TJ’s murderRally, Sunday, 14th February 2010, 10:30 a.m.
Gather at the fence line.Cnr George and Philips Sts WaterlooMarch to The Block SPEAKERS
A Hickey Family Member Aboriginal Leaders Raul Bassi
Open microphone for concerned Community membersRally organized by ISJA. Supported by STICS, Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative SOVEREIGNTY TREATY SOCIAL JUSTICENO MORE BLACK DEATHS IN CUSTODY
Protest, march and concert – marking two years since the announcement of the NT Intervention
Saturday June 20, 10:30am Belmore Park, Eddy avenue, Haymarket (opposite Central station)
March to the Block in Redfern for family and culture day concert
Stop the NT Intervention
> Reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act
> No Blackmail – Land Rights not Leases
> Aboriginal Control of Aboriginal Affairs
> Housing and Services for all Communities
> Jobs – not cuts to CDEP
Speakers include:
> Maurie Japarta Ryan (Central Land Council, NT)
> Larissa Behrendt
> Adam Kerslake (Unions NSW)
> Geoff Scott (NSW Aboriginal Land Council)
> Jim Allen (Board Member NSW Aboriginal Housing Office)
> Jeff McMullen
> Dootch Kennedy (Illawarra Aboriginal Land Council)
Performers include:
> The Last Kinection
> Nadeena Dixon
> Cuzco
> Maupower (Torres Strait)
> Dizzy Doolan
> DJ Exile (Aotearoa)
Stand Against Rudd’s Racism
June 20, 2009 will mark two years since the Howard government announced its Intervention into NT Indigenous communities.
The Intervention promised health, housing and education – but it has delivered only racism, the destruction of Aboriginal control and worsening social problems. After the allocation of more than $1 billion the only houses that have been built with intervention funds have been for government managers imposed on communities. The compulsory quarantine of welfare payments is causing greater poverty, real hunger and segregation in Centrelink and in shops.
The Rudd government has made symbolic gestures to try and signal a break from the racism of Howard – apologising to the Stolen Generations and recently signing on to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But this is hypocrisy. They have pursued Howard’s agenda of “mainstreaming” and assimilation with force, expanding the Intervention, despite the recommendations of their own ‘review’.
In the NT, they have also overseen the withdrawal of funding from remote ‘outstations’, forcing migration into towns, and severe restrictions on teaching in Aboriginal languages. The government has pledged to re-instate the Racial Discrimination Act this spring, but has insisted this will mean no ‘softening’ of punitive Intervention policies.
Land Rights not Leases – Stop the national expansion of Intervention policies
A key aspect of the Northern Territory Intervention has been the compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal township land for five years. Housing assets have been forcibly transferred from community councils to the NT public housing agency. Over the past nine months, the government has announced that only 16 of the 73 ‘prescribed communities’ will receive any funding for new housing. And these communities have been given an ultimatum. They must sign township land over to the government for between 40-90 years before any construction can commence. While a handful of communities-desperate for housing and under extreme pressure-have signed these leases, the majority say they will never sign away Land Rights fought for over decades.
In March, the government announced it would extend the policy nationally – no new housing will be built in any remote community across Australia unless long-term leases are signed. And of the scores of Aboriginal communities in NSW who desperately need housing, only two – Walgett and Wilcannia – will receive funding.
The abolition of Aboriginal controlled Community Development Employment Projects (CDEPs) was a cornerstone of Howard’s Intervention, forcing thousands of Indigenous people in the NT out of work. Now this policy is also being rolled out nationally, with up to 30,000 CDEP jobs facing the axe this July. In the face of looming global recession this is madness. We need to fight these policies aimed at breaking up Aboriginal control and forcing Aboriginal people to leave their communities.
June 20 will be a national day of action, including a march in Darwin led by Aboriginal people living under Intervention policies. Join in the rally, march and concert in Sydney. Demand an end to Rudd’s racism and funding now for Aboriginal controlled housing and services in all communities.
For more info contact the Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS) through
Monique on 0415 410 558 or
Paddy on 0415 800 586
To see the flyer for the protest: click here
On the fifth anniversary of TJ’s murderRally, Saturday, 14th February 2009, 10:00 a.m. Gather at the fence line 10:00 a.m. Cnr George and Philips Sts Waterloo March to The Block
SPEAKERS A Hickey Family Member Aboriginal Leaders Raul Bassi Open microphone for concerned Community members Rally organized by ISJA. Supported by Aboriginal Rights Coalition Sydney, Stop The Intervention Collective and Socialist Alliance stop all black deaths in custody
Too many koori kids are dying at the hands of the ‘law’
Whose Son, Brother, Sister, Cousin, Uncle, Aunt will die this year at the hands of the police?
Protest to put a stop to the deaths and get true justice for Koori people
Support all the actions demanding that the Rudd government Stop the NT intervention and all attacks on aboriginal People
Enquiries Raul Bassi 0403037376 or ISJA@internod.on.net
TEN Redfern housing blocks have been torn down to make room for a new era in public housing.
The grim bed-sits will be replaced by Australia's first public housing development to pilot the "Green Star" national standard for energy-efficient residential buildings and the pilot project has implications for up to 150,000 properties owned by Housing NSW.
The new homes will not come a moment too soon, says Mary Perkins, an advocate of low-income housing. Skyrocketing energy costs, especially electricity, are hurting poor tenants.
"People are telling us they've turned off the hot water tank [or] they've cut their soup intake," says Ms Perkins, the executive officer at Shelter NSW. "I wouldn't dismiss anything that reduces their energy costs."
Contractors have demolished 88 units at the Elizabeth Street site to make room for a mix of 246 public and private apartments and houses, with land for 149 private apartments being sold to offset the project's $28 million price tag.
John Gregory, acting director of asset management at Housing NSW, says that in the face of climate change, low-income households will be "adversely affected" if buildings do not operate more efficiently. "We know that electricity prices will go up as carbon pricing works its way through the system," he says.
The new housing at Redfern will have gas-boosted solar hot water, water-saving shower heads, rainwater tanks to supply water for washing clothes and flushing toilets, native landscaping and water recycling for gardens.
There will also be cross-ventilation within residences, insulation and thermal materials that act to reduce energy costs year-round.
Redfern is one of six residential pilots under way nationally.Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs
STOP THE RACIST INTERVENTIONS INTO ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES
Rally 11am Sat 27 Sept
at the Block (opposite Redfern station)
As Rudd prepares to receive his whitewash "review" of the NT intervention into Aboriginal communities, show your solidarity with Aboriginal people in the NT and here against this racist land grab, welfare quarantining, and increased police powers. Demand the restoration of the Racial Discrimination Act, and the funding of community-controlled services.
Defend the Redfern Block.
Speakers include Roslyn Frith, NT community spokesperson and granddaughter of 1966 strike and land rights leader, Vincent Lingiari, plus speakers from the Redfern community and unions.
Organised by the Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition
Sam Watson and Pat Eatock are long-time Aboriginal activists. Rosalyn Frith brings from the NT not only her own history of resistance to the NT intervention and in other struggles, but her grandfather’s role in sparking the modern land rights movement in the 1960s. This is a chance to hear her that is not to be missed.
Aboriginal Control of Aboriginal Affairs
Aboriginal Rights Coalition presents a Speak Out and Concert
Stop the federal intervention into Aboriginal communities
End the racist land grab
No welfare quarantining – in NT or elsewhere!
Defend the Redfern Block
Restore the Racial Discrimination Act
Fund infrastructure and community-controlled services
From 1pm, Sat 16 Aug
1pm BBQ and live music, jumping castle
MC Wire, Charlie Trindall and others
2pm Speakers
Rosalyn Frith, granddaughter of Vincent Lingiari
and NT community spokesperson
Sam Watson, Queensland Aboriginal activist
Pat Eatock, original secretary of Aboriginal Tent Embassy,
Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition
@ Redfern Community Centre
29-53 Hugo St
For more information, ring Greg 0432 050 240, or
https://aboriginalr ightscoalition. wordpress. com
Friday 23rd May: Opening forum
6:30 pm at Australia Hall, 150 Elizabeth Street, Sydney
Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th May:
Panels, Discussion & Workshops
Redfern Community Centre, Hugo Street, Redfern
Speakers include:
Larissa Behrendt
Vince Forrester
Heather Goodall
Sam Watson
Barbara Shaw
Conference sessions include:
*History of the struggle
*Unions and Aboriginal rights
*Resisting the new paternalism
Almost one year since the NT intervention began, there is a pressing need for the Aboriginal Rights movement to come together, consolidate recent gains and plan for the fight ahead.
The new Rudd Government has made some important symbolic gestures - from the apology through to commitments to ‘Close the Gap’ in Indigenous health. But for communities in the NT, Rudd is now the face of an intervention which is causing a new wave of dispossession and, as argued by Mutitjulu elder Vince Forrester, “a return to Apartheid”.
Welfare quarantines, the destruction of Community Employment Development Projects (CDEP) and the compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal lands, businesses and services has forced thousands of people from their communities into urban centres. There they are met with racism and police repression - 190 people were taken into custody in Alice Springs on 4-5 April in an operation targeting “anti-social behaviour”.
The ideas of paternalism, assimilation and the free-market driving the intervention, and pushed so hard by the Howard government, are impacting on Aboriginal policy across the country. From the Queensland government’s decision to continue holding stolen wages “in trust”, the “mainstreaming” of Indigenous services which continues, through to the burgeoning national roll out of punitive welfare policies, a policy consensus has emerged in government and media against self-determination.
The new government is actively campaigning for retention and expansion of the explicitly racist intervention laws. They refuse to acknowledge the social break down taking place. They continue to deny Aboriginal people the basic human rights of protections against discrimination or rights to appeal.
2,000 people marched in Canberra on February 12, demanding an end to the intervention and campaign groups have been established iwn the major cities. Many trade unionists and activists in the broader community have recognised the need to actively challenge the racism of the intervention and renew the fight for Aboriginal rights around the country.
The upcoming conference aims to strengthen the networks that have been formed through this campaign. This conference will look to successful struggles from the past and hear from the strong communities leaders of today - to advance the politics of self-determination and forge demands and strategy for the ongoing campaign against the intervention.
Any groups wishing to become more involved in the campaign through organising and running a workshop at the conference are invited to register their interest with the organisers. For further information, please contact aboriginalrightscoalition@gmail.com