Self Determination

This 'cash for mining' is part of the plan that Tony Abbott, Colin Barnett and Twiggy Forrest have slowly been putting place for the past two years. A plan for government to hand out large sums of money to the big mining companies and forcing Aboriginal people into the mines. With displaced people from the forcing Homeland community members living on the streets allows the government to force them into work at the big mines or starve. This plan also includes government money for training Aboriginal prisoners in mining skills. [node:read-more:link]

In the 1950s the Spinifex people living in the Maralinga region in the Great Victoria Desert were dispossessed from their homelands to allow for atomic testing to be carried out by governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. The people were placed at Cundalee and later moved onto Coonana because of water issues. Coonana lies approximately 170km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder along the Trans Access Road, Once a busy community but following the government bleeding the community of vital resources, it is now all but deserted. [node:read-more:link]

Amid the questioning of government support for remote Aboriginal communities and what PM Tony Abbott called the “lifestyle choices” of those who live there, the growing role of First Nations management of large areas of remote Australia has been overlooked. There are 1,200 small, discrete communities in Australia with various sources of income, including federal government “Working on Country” funding, as well as meagre and tightly regulated welfare payments. They fulfil a key role in populating large areas of outback Australia. [node:read-more:link]

More than a thousand protesters shut down traffic in Melbourne's CBD to rally against the planned closure of remote Indigenous communities in West Australia. The group initially hoped to confront Tony Abbott at the National Gallery of Victoria about his statement and support of the displacement of thousands of peoples. The crowd eventually gave up on seeing Abbott and walked from the gallery to the State Library. About half-a-dozen tram routes were disrupted and roads were closed as they made their way up Swanston Street. [node:read-more:link]

Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett originally said that he was closing down the remote Homelands communities because of the lack of funds. Now he is saying that he is doing it because of the 'appalling mistreatment of little children'.
Following Barnett's recent complete change of story, Ben Wyatt, the WA's opposition spokesman for Aboriginal affairs has described the new story as not the actions of a Premier but the actions of a desperate, despicable man. [node:read-more:link]

WA Premier Colin Barnett is looking for dirt in the poor under-resourced communities of remote Western Australia. He's peeping under every bed and under every tree searching for evidence to improve his argument to close down remote Homeland communities. The Western Australian government has done this at Lockridge in Perth's Swan Valley and then more recently at Oombulgurri in the North Eastern Kimberley. Colin Barnett has turned removals and dislocation of First Nations and Peoples to a new level. [node:read-more:link]

The Aboriginal Housing Company posted the trespass signs in February, giving the protesters 72 hours to vacate the property. The protesters rallied to bolster their ranks and were still in their 'tent embassy' more than a week after the deadline passed. Wiradjuri elder Jenny Munro has been camping at the site since May 26 last year, to demand more affordable Aboriginal housing on the land which was purchased by the Aboriginal Housing Company with a federal government grant in the 1970s. [node:read-more:link]