This is part of a series of articles detailing the policies and platform the Socialist Alliance will be taking to the Federal election.
land rights
The great power of Vincent Lingiari始s story is that it teaches us how this land sings to us all, how it holds us and nurtures us. This is the common ground that we share.
When the Gurindji leader and his people walked off Wave Hill Station, camping by the Victoria River and then eventually by Wattie Creek at Dagaragu almost half a century ago, they understood that the land was their birthright and their destiny.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott鈥檚 recent comments on the 鈥渓ifestyle choice鈥 of Aboriginal Australians living in remote areas are troubling, especially given his self-anointed role of 鈥淧rime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs鈥.
I have been privileged to work in Aboriginal health, in a rural centre of South Australia, for a number of years. The simplistic notion that people live in remote regions purely due to a lifestyle choice is far from reality.
"Land rights is a load of crap," says Kaylah Truth. They are not the kind of words you'd expect to hear from a radical, politically-savvy Indigenous rapper. But Truth, of militant Murri hip-hop group Impossible Odds, says she has learnt from bitter experience to pursue sovereignty instead.
Rapper Caper slams the Native Title Act as a "white bible" on his latest release. The Narungga emcee has worked as a Native Title field officer in South Australia for the past 10 years.
Aboriginal leader Sam Watson discusses the brutal dawn eviction by 300 police of the peaceful embassy in Brisbane; the importance of the Tent Embassy movement; the need for unity to fight the LNP government which he compares to the infamous government of Joh Bjelke Petersen; and where to for the struggle for sovereignty.
As 2000 Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered at the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Tent Embassy in Canberra, Coalition leader Tony Abbott said: 鈥淚 can understand why the Tent Embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then鈥 I think it probably is time to move on from that.鈥
The following speech was delivered by Jeff McMullen to a September 8 meeting in Parramatta, organised by Reconciliation for Western Sydney.
Ewan Saunders, Socialist Alliance candidate for Brisbane, recently returned from the Justice Ride to Alice Springs.
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On July 14, after almost 50 hours spent on the road over four days, I, along with about 20 others, rolled back into Brisbane at 11.30pm.
The trip back from Alice Springs was the last leg of a two-week Justice Ride that changed the lives of a busload of people, many of whom hadn鈥檛 considered themselves 鈥渁ctivists鈥 before the bus left on July 1.
At the conclusion of the New Way Summit in Melbourne over July 1-4, a proposal was adopted stating that: 鈥淎boriginal people be encouraged to take possession of unoccupied and Crown lands, including abandoned buildings, to assert their ownership and original title.鈥
This was the third New Way Summit on Indigenous rights to be held. The New Way Summit was initiated by Euahlayi man Michael Anderson from far-western New South Wales. The first summit was held in Canberra in January.
The Punjab government has been given three months to decide the fate of 68,000 hectares of agricultural land. The land is owned by the government and has been cultivated by tenants for more than 100 years.
The tenants have demanded land ownership rights. Despite government promises, the land has not been allotted to them.
The three months鈥 notice was given at the end of a huge peasants rally on June 29 at Okara. The rally was organised by the Punjab Tenants Association (AMP) on the eve of the anniversary of 10 years of the tenants鈥 struggle for land ownership rights.
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