SA GOVERNMENT RAMS THROUGH LAWS TO ALLOW AN INTERVENTION ON APY LANDS
The South Australian Labor Government has succeeded in pushing through discriminatory legislation through the upper house, which will mean Minister Hunter can stage an intervention on the APY Lands.
If the Bill is endorsed by the lower house, it will mean Minister Hunter can suspend the board and appoint an Administrator, who will have complete control over APY.
“This move is condemned by the APY Executive. Minister Hunter has failed to tell us or the parliament what the problems are,” said APY chair, Bernard Singer. “The Minister has failed to provide any substantial evidence of the need for this racist intervention.
“It seems that Anangu are second-class citizens in the eyes of this Government,” said Mr Singer.
“Anangu don’t even have the right to be heard now. Proper consultation should have occurred. It did not. Ten days ago, the Minister said he was going to appoint a General Manager of his choosing and that he expected us to endorse that decision. He did not mention an Administrator. If he had mentioned an Administrator, we would have told him that would be opposed. Tonight we believe he misled the parliament about that meeting.
The APY Executive yesterday passed a unanimous resolution opposing the Bill to strip away their powers.
The public gallery of the upper house was full of Anangu, appalled at the process which stripped away local autonomy on Aboriginal Land. They stood when the Minister read the bill, as a sign of their disgust.
“The Minister looked weak in the parliament tonight, he could not answer even basic questions about how business is conducted on the Lands. He did not even know if the cattle money, that has been the subject of false media reports, was private money or government money,” said Mr Singer.
“We have lost confidence in the Minister.
Mr Singer said the APY Executive would return to the parliament on Wednesday when the lower house gets to discuss the bill.
“We have not lost all hope. Maybe the politicians in the lower house will realise that what this Minister is doing is unnecessary, without foundation and racist. We urge them to throw this bill out and let Anangu continue with the process of rebuilding its organisation after the mess left by General Managers pushed on the Executive by the Minister’s department.