Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced her government will ignore two key recommendations of the review commissioned into the Northern Territory intervention.

THE RECENT anti-intervention convergence on Alice Springs has galvanised the commitment of activists to step up the fight against the NT intervention. The Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS) has called for a rally on December 13 to coincide with international human rights day, and will be seeking endorsements from unions, human rights organisations, community organisations and the local Indigenous community.

After a trial lasting almost three weeks, and two days of deliberation, an all-white jury found Lex Wotton, an Aboriginal plumber from Palm Island, guilty of rioting with destruction. As a result, Chris Hurley, the police officer responsible for the death of an Aboriginal man is free, while someone who protested at this injustice sits behind bars.

THE REVIEW into the intervention in the Northern Territory, released in mid-October, has called for an end to blanket welfare quarantining and suggested the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).

WHILE THE restoration of the RDA would force some changes to the Northern Territory welfare quarantine legislation, it is likely that these would be modelled on the Queensland intervention legislation.

OVER 200 people from around Australia travelled to join hundreds more from the NT in a protest convergence against the NT intervention in Mparntwe-Alice Springs from September 29 to October 3. Activists camped at the “prescribed area” Mt Nancy town camp, in solidarity with all targeted Aboriginal communities.

A planned protest convergence against the NT intervention, set to begin in Mparntwe-Alice Springs in late September, is gathering widespread support.

One year, 810 federal public servants, $900 million on—Jean Parker’s intervention report-card

With the government threatening to close so-called “unviable communities” as part of the intervention in the NT, Mark Gillespie looks at the shameful history of Mapoon—an Aboriginal community declared unviable and burned to the ground forty-five years ago

Review: On Rage
By Germaine Greer, Melbourne University Press, $19.95

ANTI-INTERVENTION campaigners Barbara Shaw, Paddy Gibson and Nat Wasley recently traveled to Tennant Creek to find out about how the intervention is affecting people’s lives. They spoke to Margaret Anderson, who is living under the harsh income management regime in Tennant Creek.

By Chloe Hooper, Hamish Hamilton, $32.95

CHLOE HOOPER, a novelist whose first book won international praise, recently released The Tall Man, a book on the Palm Island inquest into the death in police custody of Cameron Doomadgee.

THE RUDD government is set to hand down its “review” of the Northern Territory intervention at the end of September. All signs point to Rudd retaining the racist policies aimed at dispossession. Paddy Gibson spoke to Walter Shaw, an Aboriginal leader from the Mount Nancy town camp in the NT. Shaw is speaking around the country alongside screenings of the new documentary This is Our Country Too. The tour is designed to build the campaign against the intervention.

The new government's review of the Northern Territory intervention is stacked with supporters of the policy, and looks set to whitewash the disastrous impact on Aboriginal people in the NT

THE WIDESPREAD acclaim for The Australian journalist Paul Toohey’s Last Drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention (Quarterly Essay 30, June 2008), demonstrates just how deeply racist attitudes to Aboriginal people are embedded in Australian politics and culture.

Veteran journalist Jeff Waters has authored a new book investigating events surrounding the death in custody of Aboriginal man Mulrunji on Palm Island in late 2004, and the subsequent trial of Sergeant Chris Hurley for his manslaughter. He spoke to Lauren Mellor about the case and about the continuing struggle of Aboriginal people for justice.

Come along to the Aboriginal Rights Coalition and help build the campaign against the Northern Territory and Queensland interventions, and stand up for Aboriginal rights.

Meetings are weekly on Wednedays at 6:30 pm on Level 2 of the Trades and Labour Council Building, 16 Peel St, South Brisbane. Contact Rob on 0424 265 730 for more information.

On June 21, people from ten cities around Australia took to the streets to protest the ongoing NT Intervention. One year since John Howard and Mal Brough announced the Intervention in the NT the vast majority of it continues to be rolled out, full steam ahead, by Kevin Rudd.

More than 100 people came from all corners of the country to Redfern, Sydney for the Aboriginal Rights Coalition "Black and White, Unite and Fight" conference on 23, 24, 25 May. The conference has put the campaign on stronger footing to build opposition to the intervention. A public meeting on the Friday night attracted over 160 people.

On March 13, Protests against the NT intervention targeted Centrelink offices in 8 cities and towns around Australia, to draw attention to the racist policy of welfare quarantines for all people in "prescribed communities".

History's Children: History wars in the classroom

On March 25, Vince Forrester addressed the Darlington branch of the ALP which passed the following motion:

LABOR'S Aboriginal Affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, consistently presents the Northern Territory intervention as a humanitarian effort aimed at supporting remote Aboriginal communities and stamping out child abuse.

There is growing criticism of the welfare quarantining measures within the "intervention" into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. But the federal government has signalled its intention to expand the scheme into selected communities in WA, Queensland and NSW.

Kevin Rudd tells us that he is pulling together the "best and brightest" 1000 Australians for his 2020 summit in Canberra in April. Rudd has already been hammered for selecting only one woman, Cate Blanchett, among the 11 prominent Australians who will help select the participants. But it is not just Rudd's gender blindness that is a problem.

CURRENTLY THOUSANDS of Aboriginal people from outstations and remote communities in the Northern Territory are living in unstable conditions in the major urban centres of Alice Springs, Darwin, Katherine and Mt Isa.

ONE HUNDRED and twenty people packed a meeting of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition in Redfern in April to hear first-hand the impact of the intervention on remote communities in the NT.

WITH THE ALP's promised review into the first year of the NT intervention due to begin in July, there are new crises cracking the facade of the policies. The roll out now affects about 7700 Centrelink recipients in 29 Territory communities. Three groups of town camps are also subject to the restrictions.

Kevin Rudd talked about "opening a window on our democracy to let some fresh air in." But how fresh was the 2020 summit?

Solidarity is a newly-formed socialist group with branches across Australia. We are committed to building social movements and the wider left, through throwing ourselves into struggles for social justice, to overturn the legacy of the Howard government and to strengthen the confidence of rank and file unionists.