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.
Aboriginal land rights
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.
