Eileen Shaw is a grandmoth-er and Alice Springs towncamper. Her children, Walterand Barbara Shaw, also towncampers, were organisers of the convergence in Canberraand staunch critics of theIntervention in Northern Ter-ritory. Eileen speaks here indetail about the EmergencyResponse Bill and the effectsit has had since it’s legisla-tion.
“I just wanna go through what thatNorthern Territory Emergency Re-sponse Bill is because that’s what we are talking about today. Howardin government passed that bill andthere were six things to that bill. It’scalled:
A National Emergency Measure targeting the protection of Indigenous children.
Tomorrow we celebrate with Stolen Generations peoples thelegislation that the government passeddown years ago to protect children.We’re down here today to support theStolen Generations and we are alsodown here today to ask you to supportus. Because this intervention in theNorthern Terriotry is to protect child-rens, that’s what the government says,but we know different: It’s not....We come from prescribed areas. No where else in Australia will you havea law like this. We’re supposed tobe equal under one law in Australiabut that’s not true, after this bill waspassed we live under prescribed areas. There are certain laws we have to liveunder and as Stan says it gives policepowers to do what they want underthose orders.Computer audits to protect prohibitedpornographic material. My grand-children ask me “nanna, what’s that word?” And we have big signs outsideour prescribed areas and it’s got noalcohol and no pornographics. We didagree for signs about what the lawis, but we didn’t agree to the way thesigns were put up.
5 year leases
t
o better manage leasesand investments and improve living intownships. It was actually to compul-sorily acquire land for five years andit’s a fact sheet and I think it’s impor-tant while we’ve got the time to talkabout what the facts is. I came from atown camp. Stanley and Mervyn, we’reall town campers, and other mem-bers of the Intervention Rollback hereare from other communities. Underthe Act the Commonwealth Ministernow has the same powers as the N.T.Minister to administer, forfeit, breachor resume a town camp lease. He cantake leases off us. And the Common- wealth Minister has additional powersto compulsorily acquire town camps without additional notice or processand vest the freehold title in itself. Sothe leases we fought for 30 years ago,that we fought the government for, wegot those leases in our communiityname, they can come and falsely takethat lease off us.
When did the powers start?
It start-ed last year in August 2007. And whatare the possible problems? The newcompulsory powers does not followthe normal rules including noticingleaseholders. So if you’ve got a leaseon your land anywhere in Australia you’ve got a right to talk through that.We don’t have that anymore. That lawis still the same as it was last yeareven though there is a new govern-ment. That’s why its important for allof us who do support us to say stopthis intervention today. The Minister,he can take our land off us, that’s forour town camps in the Northern Terri-tory. The five year leases, what isit? All existing leases and othersin communities. The leases give theAustralian government right to exclu-sive possession to repair and demolishany existing structure, to terminatethe lease at any time... The peopleask us how we live. We live in fear of government coming in and taking ourlease. Cos we’ve been there, you know, years. But they could easily say to us,“well you can move out cos we nowown this lease”.
Which communities are affected?
All those communities that areprescribed areas … And it is for five years, so even though we might goand give a letter to the Prime Minister,federal government tomorrow, this isnot just a fight for today, this is a fightfor the future for us.Pornography, they thought that wasan issue. Most of us, most remotecomunities don’t know what that is.And it’s not an issue. We know what isright and what is wrong.Business managers, this is anotherissue that the Minister, the federalgovernment, gave new powers overthe entities that provide function andservices under the business manager’sareas.... Most of us are communitycouncils.We’re governed by our com-munities, we have elections and theyrepresent us. This business managercan come into any community and if there is a meeting on he can stop that.Community meeting, he can demandus to leave In our own country.. In ourown office.
The minister may universally alterfunding agreements.
That means wedon’t have certainty over the fundsthat we already have in our communi-ties. The Minister may direct wherehousing services are provided wherethe Minister is not satisfied with thecurrent service. Direct how assestsare used with entities. Most of us ownour communities. In our communi-ties there are buildings there. Thereare office buildings there. Homes; ourhomes are assets. That’s what thegovernment said. They can come inand they can direct and control thatasset. Suspend community organisa-tions or appoint managers for associ-ated grounds. The Act also createscivil penalities where entities fail tocomply wth the directions or to informof services meetings when its required.And it says what is an entity. That’sour community council, our govern-ment council.
Where are these business manag-ers?
They are in everyone of those 72prescribed areas. What happened withthose business managers? We’ve beensinging out for housings. The govern-ment, in less than two months, theyprepared full housing for these busi-ness managers with six foot high barb wired fences for living in our com-mmunities. Welfare, they changed theSocial Security Act to introduce thissystem of income management. WhereI come from, we already worked out years ago how we can look after our women and children and how to putfood on our women’sand children’s tables. We set up asystem where they agreed to set asidesome part of their own money for afood order system. And that was work-ing well for us. The government camealong and what they did, they saidanybody who gets government grants,they halve those grants. And they willset those government grants moreaside for food than for rent.Now that caused a lot of concerns andproblems for people concerned withthat. I’ve got Kathy Williams here,she’s in her 70’s, she’s an old pen-sioner, she lives in a prescribed area.She’s worked all her life and she’s nowsubject to these welfare reforms thegovernment has put in.It started last year and is expected togo for 5 years. Community stores…they took over our community’sstores. They promised every Aborigi-nal that they would upgrade thosecommunity stores. And they haven’t. They’ve only done one or two and said,“look, we’ve done a good job for you.”And what they’ve done, they’ve madesome improvements, but they havegone out with the improvements likethey said they would. The permit system was one thing thatall the traditional owners said we want permits on our country, and thefederal government did promise ontheir election they would do somethingabout permits. That was one thingthat we were prepared to almost diefor. That is protecting our country.Hopefully, Kevin Rudd’s government,the Labour Party, they did give acommitment before the election to dosomething about the permit system.Publicly funded computers. They saidthat anybody in your house, in ourhomes, they can, the police, the Aus-tralian Federal Police, have the rightsto go into our homes to have a look at whats in our homes. They can havea look in fridge, they lift up our bedssee if there’s anything there and theycan confiscate anything that’s in ourhomes. Something like computers.Statutory rights in buildings. Whatthe government did is, they didn’t dothis ad hoc, they worked out exactlyhow they could take away our rightsand leave us with nothing. Statutoryrights in buildings, we’ve had bui-dlings built on our communities for years and this bill gives them the rightto control those buildings. Five yearleases, they said this bill that theypassed last year, that they will acceptthe existing leases and other landinterests but that they would decide what they were going to do with that.We’ve fought different governmentsover the years to get proper leasesfor our people and what they’ve donetoday is make our life a life of uncer-tainty.What Stan was talking about is policepowers. We did meet with the policeand we said to them, this bill here was supposed to protect women andfamilies, and what we’ve seen now isthat police have extraordinary powers. They have the power and right to gointo our homes. And they don’t needthose orders to have the power to gointo our homes. If they suspect thatthere is someone they need to talk tothey can walk into their homes. Now we’ve had police, police action. Wesaid to the police: “We know that youmay be looking for someone to talk tobut don’t you have the right and de-cency to go to the families first beforentering into their homes?” What theysaid to us was, “we have the right toenter into your home at anytime if webelieve that we need to find somebodythere.”And the other thing with police is thatthere have been raids. We’ve neverbeen subjected to raids before by po-lice, yet in the last year we’ve had ourcommunity surrrounded by police.No one could get in and no one couldget out. What they did was go throughpeople’s homes. Barbara and the women of the town camp said “No,that’s not the way you should work.You’re creating children to fear police.” They stopped that, but if we didn’tstand up to them and say that’s wrongI think they would have gone further.But they do have the right to that if they suspect that there is alcohol,drugs or someone with an outstanding warrant in your home.We did wanna work with the police because its im-portant that we try and stop this, letpolice know that there’s a right way of doing things.So that’s the facts. We got the fac-tual sheet of what the bill means tous today but we are here today to tryand make it an open issue. Tomorrow we’re hopeful, we’re trying to get signs with Stop NT Intervention: Invasion.And that’s what we are wanting peopeto carry tomorrow those signs withStop: NT Intervention, Invasion. And we will have our banner, that’s what well walk behind when we head up toParliament House.”
The Emergency Response bill.
april 2008
Sorry,
about
the
N.T Intervention?
NT mob at Tent Embassy 11-02-08 photo Belinda Faulkner
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