On permits: clearly, nobody opposing permits is suggesting that outsiders or visitors should have access to private houses or property being rented from councils or other housing bodies, so let's draw a line under that.

However, publicly-funded facilities are in a different category: at indigenous settlements, schools, clinics, airports, roadways, council offices, are almost all paid for out of public funds, as they should be. The question is: if they are publicly-funded, does the general public have the right of free access to them, to use them much as anybody from the settlements can ?

This is not an academic question: down here in southern South Australia, back in the twenties, the Protector tried to ban Afghan traders from entering captive settlements on the grounds that they engaged in immoral activities. But even the Education Department pointed out that, since the schools on government settlements were government schools, publicly-funded schools, the roadways to those schools had to be kept open to any member of the public: in other words, the roads to schools were public roads. The Afghan traders could not be kept out, provided they kept to the roadways.

So ....

Joe

2. So, this raises a few questions: of course, outsiders should not be able to enter private houses, but apart from that, at Indigenous settlements, what is private and what is public ? The land itself, apart from that on which publicy-funded activities are going on, surely must remain private: perhaps legally, the land on which publicly-funded facilities are operating is under some sort of implied lease to the funding body or its agent. So those two conditions limit what might be available to the public: the roadways, the school, clinic, council offices, airport, mechanic's workshop, perhaps the store ?

Of course, if the public does have access to these publicly-funded facilities, then the next vexing question is: can they take photographs from publicly-funded facilities, photographs even of people ? Can they talk to people who live at the settlement ? Presumably they can, provided they stay on publicly-funded land. Can they cause any disturbance or hurt or insult, or interfere in what people might be doing ? Of course not, no more than anywhere else.

But perhaps a lawyer could clarify whether or not the members of the public, going about lawful business, can use publicly-funded facilities in Indigenous settlements ? Having lived in one for several years, I am aware of the permit system in operation and its enormous expense relative to 'returns'.

Just wondering.

Joe

“It is their land and they should have the right to decide who visits it. Just like every other Australian.”

“Every other Australian” has rights over a small plot of land and house which they either own or pay rent on. That is hardly the same as a very small minority of people, totally beholden to the state, wanting to hog thousands of square kilometres of land rightly belonging to all Australians.

It’s amusing how aborigines want to be like ‘other Australians’ when it suits them.

It is easy to understand why some aborigines, living in isolation, might want to keep the permit system: to keep themselves free of the constraints of investigation and civilized behaviour and accountability under which ‘other Australians’ live.

The disclosure that mining rights earn these people “more than $1 billion a year in the Northern Territory” brings up the question as to why taxpayers are still forced to pour money into isolated, rundown communities where many of the inhabitants cannot even speak English and have no chance, or no intention, of being like “every other Australian”.

David Ross even has the gall to complain about “…huge distances, very small markets, lack of transport and communications and poor infrastructure….” .

And, of course, the Government is to blame for neglecting aboriginal education. But, when a government tries to encourage children to be sent to school, by carrot or by stick (as with ‘other Australians’) we have ‘racism’, ‘discrimination’ and all the usual nonsense.

This article is not so much about permits as it is about another opportunity for an aboriginal activist to have a good whinge about the dreadful white man. Mr. Ross would be much better employing his time and energy working out how to get his people out of isolated blacks camps so that they could enjoy the same benefits as ‘other Australians.

Really - Loudmouth and Leigh - what petty-minded comments!
Not content with us whiteys having forcibly taken away the great majority of this country, and having managed to pretty much ruin it - you guys want to remove the rights of the aborigines to have control over what bits of it are left to them.

David Ross has pointed out that permits have been readily given to people from many kinds of organisations. It hasn't been that hard to get a permit, as I have found myself, in travelling through areas in NT and WA.

I guess that the cultural notion of communal land is just something that some whiteys can't get their heads around, coming from our individualistic, materialistic, private property-mad Western culture.

Anyway, I hope that the permit system is maintained, especially to put the brakes on rampant uranium exploration and mining, and the desecration of environment, water, and sacred sites.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net

I thought better of you, Christina.

Forget the permit system and all the other side issues. It's difficult to believe that anyone can think that it's OK for people to live in squalor and poverty in remote ghettos.

I am so sick and tired of hearing leigh's racist crap about Aboriginal issues that she obviously knows nothing about jugding by her uneducated and misinformed remarks on article on Indigenous matters in this forum.

If the justification for change is based on the notion that only whites pay taxes which is what leigh is saying, than I have news for her/him Aboriginal people have been paying tax and levies since federation on half the pay of whites.

Aboriginal people could not use public schools or hospitals or any other service paid for by our taxes and and since we could not vote we couldn't visit parliment either. Some how this didn't prevent us from being called up to defend white Australia in times of war to protect leigh's right to free speech which she conviently forgets.

My taxes as an individual and as a business heavily support farmers, the racing industry and other assorted parasites, yet I have to seek their permission to be on land that Aboriginal people had lived on for thousands of years. So if its good enough for us it should be good enough for you and other whites.

White's with your attitude have removed fossils and sold them overseas, damaged artwork thousands of year old not to mention the huge enviromental damage they have created with their four wheel drives and dune buggies or the bush fires and rubbish they leave behind whilst illegally camping or the dumping of toxic chemicals.

White gubberments have made no efforts to protect our rights against whites and its high time this situation was reversed. When I go back to my community in the north I have to seek permission to come on the land so why should't whites have to do the same.

Leigh,
where do you get the claim that Aboriginals are "wanting to hog thousands of square kilometres of land rightly belonging to all Australians."
How do you figure that the land belongs to all Australians

Yindin. In your last para. you say that you need permission to enter your own communinity land. Curious, is that because of the permit system or some other reason?

Yindin,

Yes, it bloody annoying that intelligent reasonable discussion is hyjacked by the resident KKK member Leigh and we spend our posts dealing with his crap.

I suggest that everyone simply by pass him and engage with the article at hand.

As Brother Dave has already stated:Why are Permits Necessary?

Aboriginal land is privately owned. Aboriginal people have the legal right to grant or refuse permission to people wishing to enter or travel through their land.

Would sheep and cattle farmers comply to similar conditions of entry being imposed on 'their' land?

I don't think so.

But its ok to impose this crap on Aboriginal people?

Yeah sure

Yindin,

Yes, it bloody annoying that intelligent reasonable discussion is hyjacked by the resident KKK member Leigh and we spend our posts dealing with his crap.

I suggest that everyone simply by pass him and engage with the article at hand.

As Brother Dave has already asked and answered

Why are Permits Necessary?

Aboriginal land is privately owned. Aboriginal people have the legal right to grant or refuse permission to people wishing to enter or travel through their land.

Would sheep and cattle farmers comply to similar conditions of entry being imposed on 'their' land?

I don't think so.

But its ok to impose this crap on Aboriginal people?

What a farce!

Well, I'm quite sure the permit system is very good at protecting those at the top of the aboriginal hand out industry, while they draw their high salaries.

I'm also quite sure it protects the child molester.

I'm also quite sure it protects all the other rip off merchants, who are robbing their communities.

For the rest, once you start spending my taxes to pay for the roads, & the other facilities, it becomes public, just like any public road.

I might mention, that goes for many public roads, traversing private properties, all over Australia.

Dear Hasbeen

Almost all the formed roads through the Aboriginal freehold lands claimed under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976) NT have always been excluded from the the claims and have remained government property and so are not subject to the permit system. The major exception is I think a road through Arnhem Land to Nhulunbuy.

The current debate & proposed changes do not effect much of the road system which is already reasonably open; the changes apply to the town centres, and to the bits of road from the highways, airstrips and barge landings to these centres.

Re child molestors: the permit system obviously does not protect against locally based Aboriginal child molestors and abusers of under-age women, but it probably has been of some use in preventing incursions by organised networks of non-Aboriginal paedophiles. It has been used on some occasions to get rid of some such people.

The claim by an earlier poster in this thread that half the child molestation comes from non-Indigenous men living in nearby mining camps is completely inaccurate. There are problems of this nature in a couple of places (Borroloola, Yirrkala) but the proportions are probably way out - from memory I don't believe that the Anderson/Wild report supports the 50% claim, although it does identify the problem.

Re your point that the permit system "protects all the other rip off merchants, who are robbing their communities" this is a mixed bag and not as straightforward as you imagine. It certainly serves to protect the interests of some big men (and big women) who dominate and exploit some communities, and the other persons allied to them, but it has also been used at times by communities to get rid of rip-off merchants who manipulate traditional owners and others to gain control of & exploit stores, councils, medical services etc.

Leigh,

You can't be serious .

You complain of Indigenous people "wanting to hog thousands of square kilometres of land rightly belonging to all Australians ".

Where were you in the big land grab that disposessed indigenous AUSTRALIANS of the best of the continent ??

You must have missed out and now you want a cut of the bit they have left .

I suggest that you go out and buy some of the good stolen stuff.

Before native Title we had a saying up north , when we came across fairly ordinary country; it was "Give it back to the Blacks !"

i lived on navajo land for three years. it wasn't paradise, but they were vastly better off than any aborigines i've seen. nothing like seeing your own people as law officer, legal officer, school teacher- on your own land. it was an ordinary part of america, except if caught speeding the bloke who said: " i need to see your license, sir" looked like geronimo, if geronimo ever wore highway patrol uniform.

but even white ozzies are the cattle of parliament, not likely that parliament is going to give up power over black ozzies. so they will remain basket cases, propped up more, or less, according to political convenience.

let's hope the rudd gov is in 'more' mode, it's the best the old ozzies can hope for.

Permits are like a front door for a whole community of people. They're like the doorbell announcing your visit to a community of families, some who may or may not want you in their private space. Imagine you're living in a home without a fence where people could end up wandring around your backyard. This is what life would be like in remote communities without a permit system.
Why is it that in many suburbs around Australia there are gated communities? It's because people living in homes that share the same piece of land want to know who is coming into their community. We don't stop them putting up a gate or security system so why should we expect remote communities to have a free-for-all in their backyards. It's not rocket science!

Irene, perhaps you are using the word 'backyard' metaphorically but there is no evidence that, in the absence of a permit system, anybody would be allowed to wander through someone else's backyard at Indigenous communities without permission from the householder: where on earth do you get this idea ? Who has proposed it ? At settlements without permit systems, does this occur ? I think not.

The bottom line is that publicly-funded and -maintained roads are usable by the public, as would be public schools, clinics and other facilities. Perhaps stores at Indigenous settlements which are publicly-funded in some way are open to the public as well. Use of such resources does not mean that non-Indigenous people own them, only that they are available for use by members of the public, going about their lawful business.

Joe

Loudmouth,
Private hospitals and Private Schools receive a huge amount of public funding - this doesn't give me the right to use their facilities.They decide .

Permit Systems are used to enable Indigenous australians some peace from the prying eyes and lack of respect that many white Australians accord them . Genuine visitors on legitimate and friendly visits will be welcome.

The sooner they can own all the resources of their country such as they do in Northern Canada the better off they will be .

Kartiya Jim,

Of course it does, if you can afford it. You are certainly not barred from entering a private hospital, but of course, as in any situation, you would have to have business there: I am certainly not suggesting otherwise. For example, at Indigenous settlements, people entering a medical clinic, Black or White, would have to have business there, or be caring for, etc. somebody who does. If you come onto the premises of a public school, you have to have legitimate business there, in relation to a child.

Public roads, being a bit more open as to purposes, would be freely available to any member of the public, wherever they are. By definition, a public road does not go through anybody's backyard, Irene.

In any case, in my experience in Indigenous settlements, non-Indigenous people taking a wrong turn and driving in usually beat a hasty retreat as soon as they discover where they are. Mind you, somebody greeting them with a bundle of spears would hasten their departure. They do tend to drive out a hell of a lot faster than they drove in.

Joe

David Ross and the Central Land Council argue that "Traditional Owners" living in their "Traditional homelands" communities do NOT have:

- right for family to live with them ;

- right for family to visit them ;

- right for friends to visit or stay with them ;

- right for qualified tradespeople to visit and conduct repairs ;

- right to run a business under fair, reasonable and equitable terms and conditions;

- right to construct or live in a house (under fair, reasonable and equitable terms and conditions) ;

- right to obtain a fair, reasonable and equitable terms and conditions lease for their home (constructed with government monies) ;

- right to work (under fair, reasonable and equitable terms and conditions) ;

- right to receive legal assistance to have legal issues arising considered judicially ;

Ross & CLC object to Land Trusts -as the private land owners, being required to issue tenants with valid leases for their homes.

Homes constructed mostly with public funding still refusing their tenants valid leases, claims for leases unreasonable...

Elsewhere such approach quite rightly deemed repugnant and racist.

.

In the 1980s, the now disgraced WA premier Brian Burke held an inquiry into whether land rights should be granted to Aboriginal people. Then as now, I argued that their land claims should be assessed in essentially the same way as those of other Australians: grant private freehold title over the most important, most significant smaller parcels of land (for Aboriginals, this would mean hills, rivers, rock outcrops, special sections of coastline, etc; for people other than Aboriginals, this would mean their homes and work environments, etc) but leave the vast areas of infrequently used land in public ownership (for Aboriginals, this was their 'walkabout' country; for others, this would be national parks, state forests, etc).
If this system had been adopted, then I would have supported the use of permits to control non-Aboriginal access to the smaller parcels of land which would have been 'owned' by Indigenous people. After all, no one should trespass on on another person's most sensitive, important land. But free access to the remainder of the land would have been allowed, subject to conditions, just as we can visit national parks and forests but can't damage the environment, etc.
David Ross highlights problems if the permit system is removed, but two wrongs don't make a right. If as Noel Person says Aboriginal people are suffering because of the lack of economic opportunities in their communities, then the permit system is entrenching this problem. If people with bad intentions visit an Aboriginal community, they should be hit by the full force of the law. But as we are seeing in WA with the restrictions on alcohol sales in one Kimberley town, Aboriginal people who want grog will simply move to another.
..... see next post

One of the solutions to the currently terrible living conditions of many Indigenous communities is their reliance on 'sit-down money' and their inability to take advantage of the many economic opportunities that a free market can provide. Removal of the permit system, while making sure that areas or sites genuinely significant to Aboriginal people are protected, will help Indigenous communities to more quickly adapt to the changing world they live in.

Most state governments appeared happy to hand freehold Torrens style titles for all unalienated crown lands over to "previous occupants" or nominee companies acting for them.

Problem was creating new perpetual land titles, whether to prevent land being reclaimed for public purposes (despite just compensation), along with attempts create independent kingdoms with land and residents not bound by same legislation as others.

My grandparents once had, so I must keep forevermore...

People having (prior) interests recognized through shareholdings in corporations holding titles was, and it seems remains, far to alien to many purporting to help.

Sorry for wrongs previously done, yet expected to accept, to tolerate same/similar wrongs still being committed...

--start cut and paste--
EVICTED FOR BEING WHITE
11.02.2008
By ANDY PARKS andy.parks@northernstar.com.au TERRI FRANKS was still mourning the death of her husband when she was given notice she and her five children were to be evicted because of the colour of her skin.

Terri and her family have lived in their Goonellabah home for 10 years, a house which is owned by the Bundjalung Tribal Society. Terri’s husband Barry Franks was a Kamilaroi man who met all the criteria for subsidised housing through the society. He died unexpectedly on November 21 and two weeks later Terri was told she would have to attend a meeting to discuss what was going to happen to the house.

“I was told that because I was not Aboriginal, I might not be able to stay,” she told The Northern Star.

“I went to the meeting and was told we would have to move out by May 4.”

Mrs Franks took her friends Norton and Mim Bolt along to the meeting for support, as well as her children, but they were told they weren’t welcome. Eventually Norton was allowed to stay.

Mrs Franks appealed to the society to reconsider. She asked if there was a way to put the lease in her eldest son’s name because he satisfies three of the four criteria in the housing policy.

But she was told it was an old policy and her son didn’t fit all the criteria in the new policy.

“They didn’t want to listen. They wouldn’t reason,” she said. “When I asked for a copy of the new policy they said ‘no’ because I was white.”

--end cut and paste--

For entire article see Northern Star: http://www.northernstar.com.au/

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