Critical Times

Protest at an industry briefing about the ‘BasicsCard’ system

Wednesday June 10
1pm @ The Sebel
28 Albion st Surry Hills

On Wednesday, the government will hold a consultation meeting for
industry about the ‘BasicsCard’ system, which facilitates the
compulsory Income Management regime forced on Aboriginal people under
the NT Intervention. The government are looking for a company to
design new BasicsCard infrastructure. This process is about
entrenching income management in Aboriginal communities and spreading
it out around Australia.

2 weeks ago Jenny Macklin announced that in October the Racial
Discrimination Act will be reinstated in the NT and the Intervention
will be renamed “Close the Gap NT”. This is cynical window dressing in
the face of the continuation of Intervention policies on the ground.

Welfare quarantining has been the most hated and disruptive of the
Intervention measures. Again and again Aboriginal people have spoken
out against the injustice of the BasicsCard which allows the
Government to decide where people are able to shop and what they buy.
Trying to access welfare entitlement has become a new battle that has
led many to go hungry and has forced unprecedented numbers off
homelands and into towns that have Centrelink offices.

In the next year alone, $106 million will be spent on this Income
Management system in the NT. That’s a cost of $7000 per person. $11.8
million was allocated in the recent budget to developing the new
BasicsCard infrastructure by June 2010, a process which will begin on
Wednesday in Sydney. In comparison, over the same period, only $10.5
million was allocated for “supporting families” programs, including
funding to support safe houses and remote Aboriginal family and
community workers.

Aboriginal people are being forced to line up in separate queues to
negotiate the ‘BasicsCard’ in Centrelink and in shops. Responding to
the recent budget, Barbara Shaw from
Mt Nancy town camp said, “We are being forced to scrounge around for
food, being pushed further below the poverty line. Jenny Macklin has
no compassion about our poverty. How will they close the gap when our
children are starving because of this system?”

Minister Jenny Macklin says she can reinstate the RDA, without
changing the racist nature of compulsory Income Management, because it
is a “special measure”, “for the benefit” of Aboriginal people. We
need to take action to expose the truth.

Come and protest against this meeting and stop companies profiting
from racist segregation. Demand an immediate end to Income Management
and that the $7000 per person being spent on controlling Aboriginal
people goes to funding for Aboriginal organisations.

Help build the momentum for a major demonstration on June 20, marking
two years of racist Intervention, demanding Aboriginal rights across
Australia.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rHbpKEZVco to see a short clip
of Yuendumu elder Peggy Brown talking about the Intervention.

see www.stoptheintervention.org for more info
contact Monique 0415410558 or Paddy 0415800586