Aborigines want end to NT intervention

Thousands of Aborigines are petitioning to have the Northern Territory intervention abandoned.

Activists say their petition will be tabled in federal parliament in mid-September to coincide with the end of the Rudd government's 12-month review into radical measures to combat child sex abuse [Howard Gov't land Grab].

Organisers of the petition have warned that Labor is at risk of repeating the mistakes of the Howard government.

The campaigners from Central Australia on Friday backed calls from Arnhem Land, where elders earlier this week met with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and urged him to abandon key aspects of the reforms.

In a statement signed by Northern Land Council chair Wali Wungamurra and 52 traditional owners, they demanded the scrapping of "intervention bureaucracy".

The statement, which claims to represent more than 8,000 indigenous people, described the Income Management (IM) system, which quarantines 50 per cent of payments to prevent them being spent on alcohol or drugs, as "punitive".

Instead, they advocate implementation on a case-by-case basis.

Since coming to power in November last year, the Rudd government has already rolled back some of the reforms and reinstated the permit system and Aboriginal-work-for-the-dole.

But Mr Rudd has maintained the new government will not tinker further with the reforms until it had considered the findings of three-person review, headed by West Australian Aboriginal leader Peter Yu.

Anti-Intervention campaigner Barbara Shaw, from a town camp in Alice Springs, on Friday urged Mr Rudd not to ignore the elders' concerns.

"It's good to see people standing up," she said.

"Many more should feel confident to follow the lead of these elders. We share their frustration and anger ...

"It's unacceptable for the federal government to brush our concerns aside and leave everything to the work of the review."

Amala Groom, from the Stop the Intervention Collective based in Sydney, said a protest was being organised in Central Australia from September 29 to October 5, to coincide with the end of the review.

"They can't claim to be bringing in a new era of indigenous affairs whilst their policies bring on this latest stage of dispossession," she said.

Ms Groom said a petition calling for an end to the intervention, "which already has thousands of signatures", will be tabled in federal parliament in mid-September.

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