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A Personal Account ...
I happened to be at the Sisters Inside Conference
in Darwin during the Federal Intervention in Aboriginal communities in the NT, during
June/July 2007. Many Indigenous women were participating in the
Conference, and this ... combined with the obvious presence of military
personnel at the airport, and the startling absence of Indigenous people on the
Darwin streets ... strongly reinforced my mixed feelings of anger, anguish and
anxiety about the way we treat Indigenous Australians. I can't imagine how much stronger these feelings must have been
amongst the Indigenous women who have spent countless hours
problem-solving concerns in their communities and begging for the funds to
be able to act on issues such as child abuse. Many women told stories about the
defunding of health/welfare/education/housing services in their communities ...
including
the very places of safety designed to protect women and children (eg.
women's centres and safe houses) ... over the
past 12 years.
Since returning to Adelaide, several Aboriginal
and non-Indigenous friends (especially Pilawuk - thanks!!!) have forwarded information relevant to the process
going on in the NT. So ... I thought ... why not put the most useful
material into documents, and make them available to others?
Thus began this new web page. I plan to
keep adding resources as they emerge ... and addressing the issues that I have a
particularly passionate personal response to. I hope it's useful to those of
you who are thinking through issues, lobbying for change or training/teaching
others.
Suzi Quixley (May 2008)
Topic 1 -
Australia's Apartheid?: The
Military Invasion of
NT Aboriginal Communities - This
page offers a collection of research, articles and commentary from a wide range
of sources - with a focus on the views of Aboriginal people themselves. Perhaps my
favourite element, is the fabulous photos of signs painted
to welcome the new arrivals in one community!
Topic 2 -
The Meaning of Means Testing -
Responding to the 2008 Federal Budget -
The thing that
struck me most about the Rudd Government's first budget, was the lack of clarity
about the purpose of means testing, and the confusion between individual welfare
and social good ... and, with the continuing economic crisis, the related
question of corporate welfare has become even more critical.
This emerging webpage begins to explore the issues.Federal
intervention, indigenous intervention, indigenous child abuse, aboriginal child
abuse, aboriginal rights, indigenous rights, land grab, permits, permit system,
Racial Discrimination Act,
Aboriginal Land Rights, little children, indigenous health,
means testing, social
good, individual good, middle class welfare, Rudd Budget, Swan budget, 2008
budget, Australian budget, welfare budget, budget discrepancies, single parents,
supporting parents, single parents disadvantage, skilled migration, indigenous
women’s centres, aboriginal women’s centres, aboriginal safe houses, indigenous
safe houses
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