Posts Tagged ‘indigenous
Town camp housing: “We don’t want disasters”
Territory Opposition Housing spokesman Adam Giles says he’s “not surprised” to hear that 65 of the new houses built in Alice Springs two camps during the past two years need repairs, although Territory Alliance says the faults are “cosmetic” and not structural. It may be too soon for alarm bells, but it’s a reminder of the historically proven need for vigilence when it comes to building on Aboriginal communities. Last week Alice Online ran the first part o...Read more
House-fixing and myth-busting with Paul Pholeros
I and many others were enlightened and inspired by two talks at this week’s Connecting the Dots conference in Alice Springs: one by Nobel Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus and the other by Healthabitat’s Paul Pholeros. For two days delegates at the conference, organised by Infrastructure Australia, explored the vexed issues of how to improve the poor state of houses, amenities, roads, communications and just about everything else on Aboriginal communities, especially in remote areas. A...Read more
“It could be good, it could be bad.”
We Say Yes , proclaims the Centralian Advocate, and then across pages two and three: The Centre Speaks: Do The Right Thing. The second banner headline holds up two pages of vox pops on the Gillard plan to include a special mention of indigenous Australians in the Australian constitution. The reputed multitudes who only read headlines in newspapers might be forgiven for thinking those voxed, whose numbered photographs on the front page of the same issue of the Centralian Advocate, all agree with ...Read more
Where it all began — but when?
For a place so deeply soaked in human story, Alice’s Old Telegraph Station still exudes an atmosphere of peace and serenity. Is it just the location — on the banks of the meandering Todd, with a waterhole nearby, the grassy banks blessed by shady gums and a sense of cool respite even on the hottest summer day? The park-like banks have of course been cultivated for many decades, but the reserve has much more to it. Its spell begins at the top of the hill over the Charles Creek cross...Read more
Carbon storage proposed for Indigenous land
The ABC recently reported about how a not-for-profit group, Centrefarm, is establishing a scheme to encourage Australians to offset their carbon emissions on Indigenous land. Earlier this year a not-for-profit company, the Aboriginal Carbon Fund, was set up to buy and sell carbon credits generated on Aboriginal lands by Aboriginal people in Australia. Centrefarm is calling on the government to establish laws that recognise Aboriginal ownership of the carbon, thus securing any economic benefits d...Read more
Where to from here for Yuendumu?
By Bernard Leckning We’ve been following the coverage of disturbances at Yuendumu (over here and here). The latest news is that some 100 people from Yuendumu who had fled to Alice Springs have now been moved to Adelaide. This ABC report highlights how, apart from creating strain on welfare services in Adelaide and political tension between the South Australia and Northern Territory governments, there is also the lingering question of how the dispute will be resolved or whether it will be. ...Read more
Community leader calls for spearing
The council chairman of the Laramba community just north of Alice Springs says a spearing is the only way to stop escalating violence and menace in the wake of the murder of two men at the community just before Christmas, reports PAUL TOOHEY in the Northern Territory News. Late last year a forum at the Araluen Arts Complex in Alice Springs called for Australian governments to recognise tradiitonal law. It followed the screening of a documentary called Bush law, made by Alice Springs lawyer Danie...Read more
Should Customary Law be recognized by the courts?
By Dave Price I once asked an old Warlpiri man from Yuendumu, who’d worked as a police tracker for many years, why there were so many young Aboriginal blokes locked up in the Alice Springs jail. He answered; “There’s yapa (Aboriginal law) here,” indicating with his raised right hand, “and there’s kardiya (whitefella law) here,” raising his left hand. “Those young fellas are running around in the middle. They don’t know.” This same old man’s response to a member of the parol...Read more
Independent Anderson
`I just suddenly realised, being a member of parliament within the Labor Party and being a minister, how you just can’t have a voice , You’re just so much gagged from having an opinion … it’s either spin or nothing” `A whole family structure just moves into town, so it’s one renal patient, 27-30 people, out of that there might be seven to ten schoolchildren who don’t go to school’ Either we can sit back for the next 40 years and keep putting the $500 or $600,0...Read more
Bush law: the forum
Danielle Loy’s film Bush Law presents the passionately held views of a group of senior men from the community of Lajamanu who are calling for the recognition of Aboriginal customary law. It was screened for the first time at the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs in November this year and has already provoked some intense discussion in Alice Springs media. Alice Online filmed the forum....Read more
Make us send our kids to school
The principal of the Territory’s only independent school says he and his board believe the NT Government is taking the wrong tack in getting rid of bilingual education and should instead be forcing parents to send their kids to school. In a frank interview with Alice Oline, Ken Langford-Smith talks about why the school is committed to “two-way education” more than 25 years after it began....Read more
Recent Features
- The hospital they didn't want
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- Crime levels not new: police commissioner
- Mandatory treatment plan would cost hundreds of millions
- Misbehavers "not welcome": police commissioner
- That famous Whitegate mob again
- CASA and the zen of tourism
- Return of the man from Oodnadatta
- The memories are always there
- More truancy officers
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