In 1977 the small Warlpiri township of Lajamanu was about as remote a place in this country as you could get. About 900 kilometres from the major Northern Territory centres of Darwin and Alice Springs, Lajamanu, then known to most but the locals as Hooker Creek, was at the end of very long and very […]
This is a guest post by Frank Baarda, a long-term resident of Yuendumu, NT. Yesterday hundreds of Yuendumu residents marched on the Yuendumu police station. The police station was going to be opened to allow the station to be swept. Sweeping is a ritual whereby after a death the areas the dead person had frequented […]
What is required is a regional structure with culturally appropriate boundaries which oversees all programs and consultations in the region. The directors would be elected to salaried positions and there would be staff to support and advise the elected members. Local Government bodies could not fill this role because they are ultimately controlled by the Minister, and they have roles that conflict with a body such as I propose. This would eliminate the random and uncoordinated “consultation“ burden and replace it with something much more effective and productive.
Don’t get me wrong - we understand the importance of tourism to the economy but meanwhile in the bush the housing crisis continues, the housing deficit grows, indigenous people are living lives characterised by poverty and neglect and despair. Another child is born to another overcrowded home. Another kid gets no sleep and can’t get to school. Another assault takes place in a house full to bursting point, and so on.
A look at all things northern... and some of the myths behind them.
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The story this woman tells is the story of their being imprisoned there. The men are only allowed out to work; they cannot get visitors and they cannot visit other people. I find it extraordinary that people could behave so savagely in 1989 against fellow human beings. Justice Nader, NT Supreme Court.
Nearly 10% of domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with 1000 more breeds still threatened which means the pool of genetic variation which underpins food security has declined. Astoundingly, the Report is the first intergovernmental report on biodiversity and ecosystems that takes into account indigenous knowledge.
This is an excerpt of a speech given by the President of the United States of America on January 19, 1989. The full text of the speech can be viewed at https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/011989b Now, tomorrow is a special day for me. I’m going to receive my gold watch. And since this is the last speech that […]
This is part 2 of what may become a multipart series … Darwin harbour is without doubt still a beautiful place. Sure, while humans and nature have both tried their best to trash the place over the past couple of hundred years – the settler society with inappropriate residential and industrial developments, the WWII bombing […]
There is the promised threat of long-overdue but never-coming rain through the long months of the Gurrulwa Guligi (big wind) and Dalirrgang (build up) seasons, when pretty much every-thing and -one is stagnant with humidity, sweat and dread and when anything, nothing and everything does, can – or doesn’t and can’t – happen.
Foster and Others v Mountford and Rigby Ltd 14 ALR 71 (1976) was an unusual case in a number of respects. Firstly, the plaintiffs were members of an unincorporated association (the Pitjantjara Council) that represented the Pitjantjara people, who live on large tracts of land that spans the south-western corner of the Northern Territory, the north-west of South Australia and the far central east of Western Australia ...
