They are here now. I don't know what they are doing. They are talking at the church today. Mal Brough, he'll be talking to all the people, I think. And John Howard here, too.

What is this all about? I thought this was all over? What is going on?

They came and talked to us. They talked about all the houses they are going to put up, and a big office. Policing, watching for drugs, alcohol and check-up school attendence ... if they [those kids] miss three days of school, that government money not going to be stopped, but quarantined. I don't know what that 'quarantined' means.

I just want to know what is going on.'

Rachel Willika, Eva Valley Community, 30th August, 2007

Hi Rachel
Thank you for letting us know how you are feeling. I am so sorry you have these worries.

I have been reading a very interesting blog by a fellow called Wamut living at Ngukurr. The government people were there again last week, talking about the changes to CDEP. Click on this link to read more:

that munanga linguist

Best wishes
Sally Fitzpatrick

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'My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.'
Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm posting this here as well as in the "Post your comments on the Federal election" section linked under Rachel's story Community Viewpoint On Election - "My NT community faces quarantined Christmas" - Rachel Willika, ABC News: Opinion, 17 December on the front page of WomenFor Wik this Christmas just in case our good moderator is already on holiday herself:-



Uhh, I don't know why Rachel Willika's story of 17th December is linked to last month's elections. Its over - and we now know that little has changed outside the Northern Territory. Looking at the picture on the front page of the NT government website, it is obviously a place seen as a carefree happy holiday hunting ground for single young white Australians and little else http://nt.gov.au/

Nevertheless, indigenous MLA Marion Scrymgour and others have succeeded in imposing a "roadmap" upon the federal Labor government in the same week that the G77 succeeded in imposing a roadmap on the USA for years to come regarding climate change at the Bali conference. That she has done so is the direct result of having firmly stood up to the Labor party system and rebuked the intervention despite Rudd's approval of it.

But, it is Rachel Willika's Christmas that I really want to say something about. "To make our kids happy" is what family life is all about. It isn't done by failing to support people in communities anywhere. It isn't done by punishing people for the results of the bad management of governments. It isn't done by deceitfully devising a way of keeping them in perpetual poverty and helplessness as an excuse to finally steal their remaining land.

Eva Valley, a remote community which can be cut off from the world for months at a time in the Top End wet season is no place to be without a store. Not having reasonable transport through the rest of the year makes it difficult to pack in supplies. No phone, no TV, no internet and only a 2-way radio (or a satellite phone) to occasionally communicate with the nearest town is a very restricted lifestyle in the so-called 21st century.

"I think they won't let us" have these things is going to sound rather different "come the revolution" (see media article, The Age, 23rd Dec.). It is a revolution starting in the hearts and minds of all right-thinking people this Christmas. Instead of a time of joy, it is a time of frustration and deprivation for many. It now permeates through the towns and suburbs of unhappy white Australia too.

Instead of everyone being aboard a "ship" that is going nowhere, we all now need to realise that the end for this country will come as soon as the last shipment of coal or iron ore or uranium is finally mined - or the last tree is chopped down. Kicking indigenous people off their land won't make much difference to how long it lasts. When the last load extracted by the cargo-cult worshippers is finally ready, the desperate scramble by white people to go back where they came from will be what we then see before the last ship finally leaves.

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Freedom is Enlightenment!