Northern Territory

John Pilger: Honouring 'Brown skin baby' Author

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Kwementyaye Randall

(PLEASE NOTE: The determined substitute name for the passing of the writer and performer of 'Brown Skin Baby' is Kwementyaye).

If you want to meet the best Australians, meet Indigenous men and women who understand this extraordinary country and have fought for the rights of the world's oldest culture. Theirs is a struggle more selfless, heroic and enduring than any historical adventure non-Indigenous Australians are required incessantly to celebrate.        

Australian Education Union slams Wilson Review of Northern Territory Indigenous education

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The NT Government-commissioned Wilson Review recommends sending Indigenous high school students to boarding schools in regional centres.

"People in communities are saying we don't feel like we've been consulted," he said. "The Government has come and told us, 'This is what we're doing'." Prominent Indigenous educator Yalmay Yunupingu, a former teacher at Yirrkala school in East Arnhem Land, also said there had not been enough consultation.

Research findings back up Aboriginal legend on origin of Central Australian palm trees

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Several years ago Tasmanian ecologist David Bowman did DNA tests on palm seeds from the outback and near Darwin.The results led him to conclude the seeds were carried to the Central Desert by humans up to 30,000 years ago.Several years ago Tasmanian ecologist David Bowman did DNA tests on palm seeds from the outback and near Darwin. The results led him to conclude the seeds were carried to the Central Desert by humans up to 30,000 years ago.Several years ago Tasmanian ecologist David Bowman did DNA tests on palm seeds from the outback and near Darwin.

Whitegate: nation born under a tin shelter?

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If you don't know the word autochthonous you're in good company. It means “indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists”. It is in the text, prepared by legal advisors to similar movements around Australia, of Whitegate's “declaration of sovereignty and self-determination” of the State of Undoolya. A spokesperson stated the group will have nothing to do with the so-called National Summit for Freedom to be held in Alice Springs next week, run by interstate activists Tauto Sansbury, Geoff Clark and Michael Mansell.

Survivors of 'forgotten' Woolwonga tribe acknowledged 130 years after 'extermination'

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The man identified only as Long Peter

The Woolwonga were said to have been exterminated in 1884 at Burrundie about 200 kilometres south of Darwin in reprisal for spearing non-Aboriginal miners.

But about four years ago an 1899 census document was found showing at least one had survived. Exactly how the girl known as Jennie survived the massacre of her people - the Woolwonga of the Alligator River near Katherine - is not known.

Thousands of Arnhem Land rock paintings are under threat from buffalo, fire and feral animals

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The Northern Territory's Arnhem Land plateau has thousands of paintings amongst its myriad of rock shelters but a full survey of the exact numbers has not never been carried out.
Experts warn that it is now under threat from wild buffalo, fire and feral animals. The last First Nations clans moved down from the plateau in the 1960s, lured away from their traditional lifestyle by Western missionaries with tobacco, sugar and floor. Now there is no-one left to protect this vast library.

Smoking ceremony held at controversial explorer statue

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Around 80 people attended a rally in Alice Springs calling for the removal of a four metre high statue of explorer John McDouall Stuart, the first European to traverse the continent from south to north in 1862.
A letter was also distributed, written by the elders directly to John McDouall Stuart, accusing him of not asking permission to enter the land and of killing Arrernte people. "You came to Mount Hay and you killed our mob," it stated.

Child sex abuse inquiry: 'Crystal clear' evidence to support charges against Don Henderson

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The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Darwin has been focusing on abuse of children at the Retta Dixon home, which mainly housed Aboriginal children between 1946 until it closed in 1980.
There was clearly evidence to support charges against convicted sex offender Donald Bruce Henderson, who had numerous claims of child abuse against him dropped in 1976 and again in 2002, the head of an inquiry says.

Land Rights Act must not go to the Territory: The original policy architect

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A Territory government drive a train through the Land Rights Act if the Federeal government handed it over to them.

'So what', you may think, Land Rights as we know it is a farce, you might say. Well, thats all very well, but many of our brothers and sisters are locked into these contracts, and while they stay on country, they can't do anything about it. This article has some invaluable insights into how it was much better before John Howard smashed it, and how it can get much worse.

Australian government in a frenzy to dump their poison on 'Country'

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Many people in Australia are in the hunt for millions of dollars as the government searches for a place to dump 14 tonnes of nuclear waste, just for starters

The waste the government is 'talking up' will be returned to Australia by the end of next year following treatment in France and the UK.

It has been reported that some First Nations people in the NT are squabbling over hosting the nuclear waste in their land.