Benefit for Ampilatwatja Nation:
Saturday. 13 Aug 2011
Refreshments from 4pm, presentation by Chris Graham at 5pm, music until midnight.
Ampilatwatja Nation (pronounced um-bludder-witch) is a community of up to 650 people 350 km north-east of Alice Springs (Mparntwe Country) and affected by the NT Intervention.
Some months ago Turnstyle hosted a fundraiser for Ampilatwatja where we raised $1600 and we are looking to do it again.
A night of music, food and fun, and a presentation from
Chris Graham – The Lies that Feed the NT Intervention.
Details about the speaker – Chris Graham
Last year, Chris Graham toured Australia with an explosive presentation ‘The Lies that Built the NT Intervention’, which revealed that the ABC Lateline program falsified much of its reporting that led to the 2007 Howard government policy.
Chris is back in 2011 with a new presentation: The Lies that Feed the NT Intervention. His latest expose looks at the original myths used to found the NT Intervention and in particular he focuses on the greatest myth peddled by media and government today – that it’s the ‘urban Aboriginal elites’ in the cities who oppose the Intervention, while Aboriginal people on the ground in the Territory actually support the policy.
Using government reports and data from the 2007 and 2010 federal elections, Chris Graham exposes the lies that not only feed the NT intervention, but allow the largest human rights violation of our generation to continue.
Chris also discusses a new form of reporting – Agenda
Journalism – and why it is the future for reporting Indigenous affairs, and minority interests.
Chris is the managing editor of Tracker magazine, a new publication produced by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. He is the former and founding editor of the National Indigenous Times newspaper and has twice won the Human Rights Award, plus a Walkley Award and a Walkley High Commendation for his Indigenous affairs reporting.
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“If you’re black you may as well not show up on the street
Unless you want to draw the heat…” — Hurricane by Bob Dylan
Very good talk by Chris Graham. The Intervention has now cost over $2 billion and there has been little housing put up, attendance rates at school are still falling, the reasons given for the intervention were lies and the army have been housed in expensive demountable housing while aboriginal children hang themselves in despair.
Chris told of his trip with Bev Manton to aboriginal communities suffering under the intervention. Bev grew up under the same conditions in the 1950s, the government talks about closing the gap but,for many, it is all lies.
Deservedly, Warren Snowden, Federal MP for Lingiari and the minister for indigenous health, will lose his seat at the next federal election but the original architects of the intervention will be back in power.
Chris spoke about Tracker Magazine (@ http://tracker.org.au/about-us/ ) saying that it is selling nationwide and a print run of 35,000 makes Tracker the biggest indigenous periodical in Australia. It publishes more copies than the Canberra Times that services the Federal politicians and public servants who make and implement indigenous policy like the Intervention. The Koori Mail has a print run of 10,000 and the National Indigenous Times even smaller. Chris still owns roughly a third share of NIT but parted ways from its other owners for political reasons and urges people not to buy it. Tracker is owned by the NSW Land Rights Corporation which has 20,000 members is state based, but ultimately gets its funding from the Federal Government.
There was good discussion after and Chris showed some videos, here is one –
[youtube=http://youtu.be/u9xzEC0jZ5U]
Meanwhile Warren Snowden visits Defence forces in the Middle East – sent at great expense to destroy the lives of Iraqis and Afghanis.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/SSK3Ocbpg2g]
Chris spoke about a Christian School on the Gold Coast — 30 of its students engage in the worst kind of racial vilification on Facebook. Tracker intends to out them to the school and their parents. I had a bet with Chris afterwards. I reckon that the students will get support from their parents because their attitudes are probably the same as their kids. I may be wrong – we shall see.
Chris said that the Northern Territory was not a land grab as some had speculated. Nevertheless the Federal government took over leases of 30 and 40 years held previously by aboriginal communities under land rights legislation. In a way, Chris is right – the LAND has already been grabbed, by colonial invasion and conquest. As Oodgeroo would have pointed out it is the Queen (crown) that took possession of the land.
Chris spoke also about ‘Agenda Journalism’ where Tracker magazine declares outright its purpose and writes to it – unlike the Murdoch Press that hides its real purpose under the facade of ‘balance’ and ‘journalistic ethics’. Here is Bob Dylan’s version of Agenda journalism – in the song he wrote about ‘The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll’ after he read in the newspaper how wealthy William Zangzinger killed a black woman, Hattie Carroll.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/b7h6xAxe_aY]
Keep a clean nose, Chris, watch out for plainclothes & ASIO …
in solidarity
Ian Curr
August 2011