The federal government is pushing ahead with plans for a nuclear waste dump in the NT. But traditional owners of the site say claims they support the dump are false, writes Freya Cole.
Aboriginal land rights
Crikey Says: Compare and contrast
If there’s one thing that the blanket blitz of Tent Embassy coverage lacks, it’s perspective.
Crikey Says: Choose your own angle on this Oz Day story
Like a giant national inkblot test for the nation, the “meaning” of yesterday’s events at the Lobby restaurant in Canberra is really what the observer brings to them.
Governments’ failure to regulate is costing mining industry, taxpayers and environment
A failure to sensibly regulate the mining industry is compromising its productivity, the environment — and the electoral fortunes of the Labor government, writes Lionel Elmore, Crikey naturalist.
The long and costly struggle for native title recognition
The Gunditjmara and Eastern Maar indigenous community won native title claims in south-east Victoria last week, but lessons learnt from previous wins show a long road still lies ahead.
Federal Court decision breaks through the native title roadblock
This power to determine native title applications without a court hearing has been neglected in most Australian state jurisdictions, however in the NT the government, native title representative bodies and non-government parties have embraced the approach set out in section 87.
Cry from Numbulwar: ‘They have broken Aboriginal law, but can’t be subject to it’
In a decision that has more than a few eyebrows raised and tongues wagging up north, all charges for desecrating a sacred indigenous site were dropped against the directors of S & R Building and the company fined just $500.
The Ampilatwatja walk-off: why the Intervention doesn’t work
Bob Gosford sits down under a shady tree to discuss the NT intervention and income management with Richard Downs of the Alyawarr people, who walked away from the nearby township of Ampilatwatja to camp on Aboriginal freehold land.
Kevin Rudd’s “clanging gong” rings hollow
The gift of a “declaration bell” will ring a loud and clear rallying call to the Alyawarr people of NT, who just a few months ago walked off the literal cess-pit that the Ampilitawatja township had become after years of neglect. Bob Gosford reports from the ceremony.
An infuriated Justice Kirby’s last day in court
Is it any wonder that Michael Kirby should excoriate the conservatism of his colleagues as he did yesterday in the NT Intervention case? Asks Greg Barns.
Land rights revisited: Good politics but terrible public policy
On the political front, it might be a significant symbolic victory for the Howard government to have co-opted a renowned leader of the land rights movement to its current view that traditional owners of townships should encumber their freehold title with 99-year leases to gain equitable access to public housing and utilities. But on the longer-term policy front this victory might be pyrrhic, writes Jon Altman.
Tiwi lease gives the lie to Aboriginal permit policy
A document has fallen into the hands of Crikey that clearly reveals that, if Aboriginal communities tow the line, they can retain the permit system—irregardless of the national emergency over child abuse on Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, writes Henry Ivrey.
Airing the truth on NT permit changes
From day one of Howard and Brough’s concocted emergency in the NT, the proposed changes to the permit system under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act stood out as having only the most tenuous connection to the issue of addressing child abuse in remote NT Aboriginal communities.
Howard’s land grab: The (d)evil is in the permit detail
There are two parts to Howard’s land grab. The first is the compulsory acquisition of the 64 ‘major Aboriginal communities’ spread across the NT , the second is the changes to the permits system under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act. Neither ‘initiative’ will do anything about Aboriginal child abuse in the NT. Both measures will ring the death knell for Aboriginal land rights, writes Bob Gosford.
Using children to nuke Aboriginal land rights
Aboriginal land rights and the freedom to mine uranium on Aboriginal land are looming as flashpoints in the PM’s intervention in Indigenous communities. Environmental engineer Gavin Mudd raises some of the issues.
