NSW: Anti-intervention protesters march through Redfern
13 Dec 2008 1:16 PM
SYDNEY, Dec 13 AAP - Protesters in Sydney have called for a halt to the federal government's intervention program in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.
Organisers said about 150 people - Aboriginal and non-indigenous - walked from Redfern to Broadway in inner Sydney before assembling in Victoria Park at midday in a rally calling for the scheme to end.
Speakers included Roy Kennedy, chairman of the Illawarra Aboriginal Land Council and Malcolm Tulloch from the NSW branch of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
Activist Monique Wiseman from the Stop the Invervention Collective Sydney said government policies in the Northern Territory were racist.
"The intervention is another way of oppressing Aboriginal people by driving them off their land into main stream society," she said.
"They have been managing their communities and protecting their traditional ways and culture for thousands of years, and are now being forced off those communities through racist government policies."
Mr Kennedy is head of a campaign opposing the government's abolishment of Community Development Employment Programs across the country.
In the Illawarra, he said, the program had been established for 21 years and employed indigenous and non-indigenous people.
"We have contracts with the Department of Housing in maintaining their lawns and gardens," he said.
"We have a catering service. We also run two recycling centres."
Mr Kennedy said the program would end by next June.
"The federal government said it is not viable," he said.
"We have a workforce of 120.
"You take away 120 positions, who is going to employ our people?
"In the Illawarra we have the highest unemployment rate in the country.
"I don't see black people employed in Coles or Woolworths or Target or David Jones, Myers, Rebel Sport."
An organiser of Saturday's rally said of the 150 estimated crowd who attended, about 10 percent were indigenous.
