Women For Wik 2007

[a post relocated from my retired blog]

An issue close to my heart …

Women for Wik have returned to monitor the Federal Government’s intervention in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

Ten years ago Women for Wik did great work holding awareness sessions all over the country about the Federal Government’s intentions to enact ‘bucketloads of extinguishment’ in relation to native title rights, rights that the Wik people of northern Queensland had recently won at that time (see old womenforwik site). I was part of Women for Wik then.

And, I’m so glad they’ve returned now. This Federal Government needs to be held to account by the public over their intervention in the lives and rights of indigenous people in the Northern Territory. Yes, critical issues have been identified in Aboriginal communities in NT, but taking away people’s rights in law to their land, property and assets is not a way to address those issues.

If the government’s intervention has caused you concern, take a look at the information and fact sheets on the new Women for Wik site, womenforwik.org, and give them your endorsement for this campaign. It’s not just for women.

Women for Wik press release

Women for Wik, a group of prominent Australian women, has been reignited to independently monitor the implementation of the Federal Government’s intervention in Aboriginal communities.

‘Women for Wik’ was formed in 1997 and was endorsed by 130 women’s organisations, representing hundreds of thousands of Australian women. Its original members included Ruth Cracknell, Jane Campion and Justice Elizabeth Evatt. It received overwhelming mainstream support.

The group was inspired by a speech by Lady Deane, the wife of the then Governor-General, Sir William Deane, who said women had to take the lead on the issue of reconciliation. This week Lady Deane reaffirmed this view stating ‘It is up to the women of Australia to get our country back on the path of reconciliation.’

‘Women for Wik’ intends to independently monitor the implementation of the Federal Government plan, both now and in the future.

A co-founder of the original group, writer Rosie Scott, said ‘10 years ago we raised issues that had been effectively hidden, and helped to disprove the fear campaign that Indigenous people would take over our backyards. We now intend to go through the same process with the Federal Government intervention in the Northern Territory. We intend to provide a voice for the women of the Northern Territory whose lives are being directly affected.’

Lowitja O’Donoghue, a member of the original group and former Chairperson of ATSIC stated ‘The Northern Territory intervention is patronising and unworkable. We need policies that will take us forward, not backwards.’

Christine Olsen, writer-producer of the film Rabbit-Proof Fence, said ‘The answer to the problem is the support of Aboriginal culture. Not the destruction of it.’

(from <www.womenforwik.org/press_release.html>)

Related [accessed 9 September 2007]

HREOC, 1999, Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Native Title Report 1999, Australian Indigenous Law Reporter, 2000 5(1).

Life Matters, 1997, The 10-Point Wik Plan Explained (transcript), ABC Radio National, original broadcast: 20 November 1997.

Longstaff, S. 1997, Native Title, St James Ethics Centre.

MacIntyre, G. 1999, Native Title and the Certainty Created by Racial Discrimination, University of New South Wales Law Journal 1999 22(2).

Jopson, D. 2007, Wik women sign up for a new battle in Territory, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September.

Yunkaporta, T. 2006, Australia On UN’s Black List: Australian Racism And Human Rights Abuses Of Aborigines Condemned, 13 May, Suite 101.

Yunkaporta, T. 2006, Land Rights Australia: Extinguishment of Native Title and ongoing Attacks on Aboriginal Land Rights, 15 June, Suite 101.