The Intervention: An Anthology - Softcover

Anita Heiss (editor) & Rosie Scott (editor)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1742235123 ISBN 13: 9781742235127

Publisher: NewSouth Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

In compelling fiction, memoir, essays, poetry and communiqués, the dramatic story of the Intervention and the despair, anguish and anger of the First Nations people of the Territory comes alive.

The Intervention: An anthology is an extraordinary document – deeply moving, impassioned, spiritual, angry and authoritative. It's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what the Intervention is all about, and why it prompts such passionate opposition.

About this title

About the Authors

Rosie Scott is an internationally published award-winning writer who has published six novels, a collection each of short stories, poems and essays and edited two anthologies. Her award-winning play Say Thank You to the Lady was the basis for the film Redheads, which received several international prizes. She is a permanent member of the Council of Australian Society of Authors, received the Sydney PEN Award, and she and Tom Keneally were nominated for the Human Rights Medal. She was a co-founder of Women for Wik. She was nominated for the education section of 100 most influential people in Sydney for her work in mentoring and teaching asylum seekers. Her last novel Faith Singer was on the international list of 50 Essential Reads by Contemporary Writers compiled by the Orange committee, the Guardian and Hay Festival. Her latest book is A Country Too Far, an anthology on asylum seekers co-edited with Tom Keneally. In 2016 she was awarded the Special Prize at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women's fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles. Anita has won four Deadly Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Literature, for her novels including Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming and for the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. Anita is an Indigenous Literacy Day Ambassador and a proud member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales. She was a finalist in both the 2012 Human Rights Awards and the 2013 Australian of the Year Awards (Local Hero). Her latest novel is Tiddas (Simon & Schuster).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Intervention

An Anthology

By Rosie Scott, Anita Heiss

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Copyright © 2016 Anita Heiss and Rosie Scott
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-74223-512-7

Contents

ANITA HEISS & GEORGINA GARTLAND Preface to new edition, 
ROSIE SCOTT Introduction, 
ANITA HEISS We Are Many Nations But We Are One People, 
ROSALIE KUNOTH-MONKS Reflections on the Intervention – Quotes Made between 2011 and 2014, 
PAT ANDERSON The Intervention: Personal Reflections, 
RACHEL WILLIKA A Statement, 2 October 2007, 
DJINIYINI GONDARRA Quotes from Speeches on the Intervention, 
P.M. NEWTON 567,000 km Driven, 
CHRISTINE OLSEN Crossing the Gap, 
YINGIYA MARK GUYULA A Statement, June 2011, 
LARISSA BEHRENDT The Dialogue of Intervention, 
NATALIE HARKIN Intervention: A Poem, 
DJINIYINI GONDARRA Response to the Prime Minister – Julia Gillard's Announcement of a Second Intervention in the Northern Territory, 26 June 2011, 
DEBRA ADELAIDE Welcome to Country, 
NICOLE WATSON From the Northern Territory Emergency Response to Stronger Futures – Where is the Evidence that Aboriginal Women are Leading Self-Determining Lives?, 
JOHN LEEMANS Media Release from the Gurindji, 28 July 2011, 
MELISSA LUCASHENKO What I Have Heard About the Intervention – Trigger Warning: Rape. Paedophilia. Racist Violence, 
LIONEL FOGARTY Philosophies Exterminated, 
DJINIYINI GONDARRA A spokesperson for the independently established Yolnuw Makarr Dhuni (Yolngu Nations Assembly), Statement 2011, 
JEFF McMULLEN Rolling Thunder: Voices Against Oppression, 
NORTHERN TERRITORY ELDERS AND COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVES Press Conference Statement, Melbourne, 4 November 2011, 
BRUCE PASCOE Bread, 
ALI COBBY ECKERMANN Four poems, 
Intervention Payback, 
Unearth, 
A Parable, 
40-Year Leases, 
JOHN LEEMANS Stronger Futures, 11 June 2012, 
BRENDA L. CROFT Signs of the Times, 
RODNEY HALL The Constitutional Connection, 
YOLNGU STATEMENT 24 June 2012, 
SAMUEL WAGAN WATSON Intervention Rouge – A Poem, 
DJINIYINI GONDARRA AND ROSALIE KUNOTH-MONKS Yolngu Nations Assembly and the Alywaar Nation Media Release, 27 June 2012, 
EVA COX The Intervention: Bad Policy and Bad Politics, 
DENI LANGMAN Traditional Owner of Uluru – A Letter to the Politicians of Australia Who Will Debate the Stronger Futures Legislation, June 2012, 
ARNOLD ZABLE Here is Where We Meet, 
YALMAY YUNUPINGU Human Rights and Social Justice Award – Excerpts from her Keynote Speech, 24 June 2014, 
ALEXIS WRIGHT Be Careful About Playing With the Path of Least Resistance, 
YOLNGUW MAKARR DHUNI Stronger Futures, October 2013, 
CONTRIBUTORS, 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 
NOTES AND SOURCES, 

CHAPTER 1

ANITA HEISS

WE ARE MANY NATIONS BUT WE ARE ONE PEOPLE

I was in the Northern Territory at a writers' event in June 2007 when the Howard government with the support of Labor and the Democrats rolled out the NT Intervention. Three months later I chaired a public forum organised by Women for Wik at Australia Hall in Sydney on 14 September. It was there I heard first hand from Northern Territory Aboriginal women about what was happening in their affected communities. Olga Havnen, Eileen Cummings, Raelene Rosas and Rachel Willika shared stories to a packed hall of concerned Australians wanting to know how they could help get the power back into the hands of those who had lost control over their own lives. It was one of the most emotional gatherings outside of funerals I have ever attended.

I remembered those women as I wrote my first blog 'Rallying the Troops to Get Out of the NT'. It was 12 February 2008 and the evening before the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. But the much-awaited 'Sorry' would follow a day when thousands of Australians converged on the capital to demand the human rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory be reinstated.

The rally saw people travel across the country specifically to declare their disgust at the racist legislation. I met young Nyungah woman Natasha Moore who had travelled from Perth just for the day. We met as the crowds gathered at the site of the Tent Embassy on the lawns of Old Parliament House. We stood there after Ngambri Elder Matilda House had welcomed politicians to the 42nd sitting of Parliament – a ground-breaking moment in Australian political history.

After we were given a welcome by the Tent Embassy mob at the ceremonial fire we marched, led by our brothers and sisters from the Northern Territory. I marched alongside friends I'd gone to university with twenty years earlier, supporters of Residents for Reconciliation in Western Sydney I'd met ten years before, family members I was meeting for the first time, local school students in full uniform, and many others (black and white) who were united under the banner 'STOP THE INTERVENTION – HUMAN RIGHTS NOW'.

There were many familiar faces there on the day, some locally from Sydney and others from across the country. The band Street Warriors and poets Kerry Reed-Gilbert and Elizabeth Hodgson were there. It didn't matter what nation you came from, we were one mob and we were united in fighting for the rights of our brothers and sisters in the Northern Territory. I noticed that even though I'd rallied in four different states in the previous fifteen years on issues such as land rights, black deaths in custody, budget cuts to Aboriginal affairs, the Stolen Generations and the Intervention, this was the first rally I had ever participated in that didn't have police lining the streets or watching our moves. There was not one cop to be seen, until we arrived at Parliament House and saw they formed a protective barrier around the building.

The wide range of media present spoke volumes about how the convergence on Canberra was being regarded generally. Apart from the expected Indigenous print, TV and radio media, there was mainstream media from every medium also. I was heartened by the media interviewing key members of the NT communities represented on site, because it meant that our issues, the issues of Australia, would get some mainstream coverage. It would further put the Rudd government on notice for what we expected from his term in office, aside from the Apology.

I spent much of my day with Aunty Eileen Cummings from the Northern Territory whom I'd met at the Sydney meeting of Women for Wik in 2007. Aunty was part of the Women for Wik monitoring project to keep a check on what is happening in the NT in lieu of any formal accountability process put in place by the government. When I listened and watched her interviewed by Gunditjmara film-maker Richard Frankland she made it perfectly clear what needed to be done in the NT: the government needed to start talking to communities, the Community Development Employment Projects program needed to be restored so that people could work, and the quarantining of wages needed to end.

She said, 'Our people need to get back the power to control what's happening in our communities. We're now reliving what happened to us as children when the Native Police came in. Right now in the Territory, I'm reminded of growing up on a mission settlement.'

Most of us saw the Apology as an important symbolic and healing gesture for those who directly suffered under legislation that stole our parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. Many of us also hoped it would come with practical actions to ensure the future sovereignty of our people as well.

* * *

On 26 August 2011 I was part of the 45th Anniversary of the Wave Hill Walk-off. It was there that I felt the strength and dignity of those who walked off Wave Hill Station (then 'officially' owned by British Lord Vestey). The protest was a demand for rights to their traditional country, and to be treated equally with other Australians employed on the land.

Like most others, I went to Wave Hill to pay respect and to show gratitude to those who paved the way for the land rights movement nationally, and to acknowledge the great strength those involved demonstrated in the face of absolute racism and adversity. On Friday, 26 August to mark what is now known as Freedom Day, I marched along with local community members, friends and writerly peers, and those who had travelled over the country to be part of the celebration.

We were there also to pay homage to the memory of Gurindji/ Malngin leader Vincent Lingiari and to remember the significant and symbolic gesture of the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring red earth through the local leader's hands back in 1975. It was a moment that marked the return of the ancestral lands to the Gurindji mob and yet it was a moment declared null and void with the introduction of the 2007 NT Intervention, which shifted the power of Aboriginal lives and land away from individuals and communities, back to the Commonwealth Government.

The celebration therefore was heavily tainted with the reality of life for the local Gurindji mob today, and their new fight for old rights and their desperation to reclaim the freedoms they fought for in the 1960s.

With the event coordinated by Gurindji/Malngin/Mudpurra woman Brenda L. Croft (also an artist, curator and academic) and MC'd by Vincent Lingiari's grandson Maurie Japarta Ryan, we heard from staunch non-Indigenous unionists who played a key role in activating union members nationally to fundraise to support the Wave Hill mob. Aboriginal rights campaigner and one of the first to step up to assist the Gurindji cause, Brian Manning spoke with passion about his role supporting Vincent Lingiari, and stated in his address that 'The Walkoff succeeded in 1966 because of the unity of the people to stay solidly together in the face of all sorts of inducements. To decide on a course of action and remain united to achieve what you decided. That is the job ahead. You can do it!'

Another speaker, Jack Phillips of the Waterside Workers Federation who was involved in the Aboriginal rights campaign in 1966 – urged the politicians on the day – including the NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson – to go back to their parties and 'make them pull their socks up'.

A message delivered by the Central Land Council via Ngarla Kunoth-Monks demanded a formal government apology for the 'shame, hurt and trauma' the Intervention caused Indigenous Territorians, stating:

Throw the word 'Intervention' away. We demand an apology from our governments for the terrible recent policies that encourage assimilation and 'normalisation' – this amounts to cultural genocide.

Following formalities, we were treated with dancing by the local women before the crowds made their way down to Wattie Creek for a community barbecue. My head was spinning, my heart a mix of confusion – celebrating the past, concerned for the present and barely hopeful for the future – and so I headed back to the campsite to reflect on a most extraordinarily emotional morning.

* * *

On 29 June 2012, I was a guest speaker at Sydney Girls High School where they were celebrating NAIDOC Week. As the assembly occurred only hours after the Australian Parliament passed legislation to roll out another ten years of the NT Intervention (now known as Stronger Futures), I was preoccupied with what felt like someone standing on my heart. My head was pounding, trying to understand how the media had let this significant political moment pass Australians by. Following the Senate spending most of the previous day debating legislation aimed at re-introducing the offshore processing of asylum seekers and media covering it extensively, the Upper House continued sitting until early in the morning to pass the Stronger Futures legislation before a parliamentary recess. It was a non-debate, with many senators missing from the house.

As I sat on the stage I appreciated hearing the words of two Year 11 Legal Studies students Ruby Lew and Isabella Olsson, who delivered an address that demonstrated a better understanding of Aboriginal self-determination and native title than Australian politicians in the major parties. On the Intervention they said:

Self-determination has been the goal of Indigenous groups since even before Mabo, with the aim of it to have decisions regarding Aboriginal communities made by Aboriginal people rather than distant authorities. The Mabo decision and native title have been crucial elements in furthering self-determination and increasing the sense of pride and belonging in the Aboriginal community, but there are major barriers not only preventing progress for self-determination. For example, the Northern Territory Intervention was a drastic and inhumane measure against the chronic issues facing Aboriginal communities in northern Australia that stripped many Indigenous people of their basic human rights, and almost completely destroyed any concepts of self-determination worked for beforehand. It is one of many obstacles that are preventing Aborigines and the wider community from achieving self-determination.

Here were young Australian women who were already writing about the injustice that the NT Intervention and Stronger Futures serve upon their fellow Australians. I believe all writers have a responsibility to hold a mirror up to society, to reflect back to those who cannot see what is happening around them, and to make readers stop and think about it.

I am a Wiradjuri woman. I come from central NSW and have lived most of my life on the land of the Dharawal in Sydney. I am the beneficiary of the sacrifices of the old people I went to Wave Hill to honour. We in the state of NSW enjoy the land rights that were born out of the protests made by the Gurindji people, led by Vincent Lingiari.

With this in mind, I keep asking myself: how many of my extended family, my friends, my fellow Australians (black and white) know the true story of the Wave Hill Walk-off? More importantly, how many understand that these very same people, this very same community, have also been stripped of their self-determination, their sovereignty, their human rights, because of the racist NT Intervention?

Many older Australians who read my novel on the Stolen Generations will tell me 'they didn't know'. No Australian today can claim 'not to know' what is happening in the Northern Territory. This anthology is just another means of helping people engage, think and talk about the issues surrounding the policy, the practice and the repercussions for those impacted on – Australians who happen to be Indigenous.

In working on this anthology, I was not surprised at all by the willingness and urgency of the writers who agreed to participate and their need to speak out. They reflect a mere handful of those who generate conversations through their work daily on issues that matter to all of us as Australians.

CHAPTER 2

ROSALIE KUNOTH-MONKS

REFLECTIONS ON THE INTERVENTION

Quotes Made between 2011 and 2014

Excerpts from Speech at Arena Forum,June 2012

I have lived seventy-five years of my life feeling that I'm an outsider in my own country. And that's not easy to do when you're clinging to your language, when you're clinging to your identity and when you're clinging to the essence of your being.

Tonight I thought I'd share with you some of the reflections since the Intervention. I don't want to talk to you as you being white people and me being an Aboriginal person. I want to talk to you and hopefully reach out with the pain in the last five years that the Aboriginal people have carried around.

We are all aware in Australia of the horrific journey that Aboriginal people have had to take right from the beginning. People say invasion but I say on our first encounter. It was kinder when we were shot than being under the care of Macklin.

Trauma, emotional and mental, a lot of us are going through – tremendous, tremendous trauma and that's not over exaggerating.

Because we live in terror of our languages, our ceremonies and our land being taken off us right at this time in our history.

My recollection of the Intervention in my home community Urapuntja, commonly known as Utopia, was the day that soldiers in uniform, the police and public servants arrived and we were ushered up to the basketball stadium and we were all told that we were now under the Intervention.

We don't have access to newspapers, a lot of us we don't have access to TV, a lot of us were going along our normal way, living at home, and just doing the normal everyday things but on that day that they landed it was incredible.

We really thought we were going to be rounded up and taken, because John Howard had made the statement and Mal Brough of course carried it out, that we were now under the Intervention.

So tonight I thought I'd share with you the greatest impact of the last five years of the Intervention has been on the mental and emotional health of the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.

People have developed a very deep sense of insecurity that undermines their feelings of certainty and safety because the ageold social structures are being eroded as we sit in this room.

People from the Homelands and the remote areas are being forced to recognise their own vulnerability and their dependency on the system that is being forced on them and consequently the lack of control over their futures.

People who've been made to starve on a daily basis to get their food, absolutely rely on that horrible Centrelink money, which is a pittance anyway.

Young people of course are our concern, as mothers, grandmothers, all of us, we worry about our children.

In the Homelands young people are staying close, in my Homeland that is, with their Elders but those who have drifted to the towns or who live there are in difficulty. We see that. Barbara Shaw talks about it quite a bit. She puts a nice picture on it because she can't really bring it out in the way, the raw way, that it's happening in Alice Springs in particular and also in Tennant Creek.

So these kids they drift away from our place but at the same time in the last five years those kids are not rocks. They feel. They feel the shift of what used to be their stable home, what used to be their stable family. They feel it.

We are traumatised. We are traumatised by the government policies that are in place right now.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Intervention by Rosie Scott, Anita Heiss. Copyright © 2016 Anita Heiss and Rosie Scott. Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
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Edition details

• Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1742235123
• ISBN 13: 9781742235127
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 280