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Central Land Council chief executive Les Turner has paid tribute to the High Court judge who wrote the lead judgement in the landmark Mabo case.
Sir Gerard Brennan’s judgement recognised for the first time under Australian law that the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to their land according to their own laws and customs not only predated, but survived, settlement and continue to this day.
Mr Turner said Sir Gerard, who died on Wednesday, on the eve of the 30th Mabo anniversary, would be always remembered for the historic decision.
“We will never forget that Sir Gerard exposed the lie of Terra Nullius at the heart of Australia’s legal system,” he said.
“By the time he handed down the Mabo decision in 1992, he had heard many appeals brought by the enemies of land rights in the Northern Territory.”
Sir Gerard is being remembered as a brilliant and compassionate man who in retirement campaigned for social justice and advocated for a national integrity commission.
In his Mabo judgement he wrote “It is imperative in today’s world that the common law should neither be, nor be seen to be, frozen in an age of racial discrimination”.
“The fiction by which the rights and interests of Indigenous (people) in land were treated as non-existent was justified by a policy which has no place in the contemporary law of this country.”
Mr Turner paid his respects to the family of Sir Gerard on behalf of the CLC. “I hope his children take comfort in the knowledge that thirty years on, their father’s judgment continues to set precedence in our continuing fights for our land.”
The chair of the Central Land Council, Robert Hoosan, has congratulated the Northern Territory’s four federal representatives on their election success. Mr Hoosan said he is particularly proud of the trio of female Aboriginal politicians.
“Marion, Malarndirri and Jacinta have campaigned hard for their victories and made history,” he said. “Each made their case strongly during our recent council meetings. I wish them all well. “It’s so good to have three Aboriginal women represent us in Canberra, and our elected members look forward to meeting with them again as soon as possible.”
Mr Hoosan plans to work closely with the new member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, and NT senators Malarndirri McCarthy and Jacinta Price to improve the lives of people in remote communities and town camps. “I want to work with them on creating real jobs and building decent houses in our remote communities, and making our communities safe and healthy places for all residents,” he said.
“From climate change to water security, the previous government has left us with a lot of challenges that we must now tackle together if we want to have a future on our country. There is no time to lose.”
Mr Hoosan, an elder and youth worker who teaches bush skills to young men at risk, believes that implementing the Uluru Statement for the Heart will change lives. “I would not be interested if it was about symbolism,” he said. “We need a voice to the parliament so we can let Canberra know which practical solutions we think will work for our people and which are doomed to fail.” Mr Hoosan said he wants elected representatives to leave the old politics of division behind.
“I hope we call all work together and make the voice a reality – for all Australians,” he said.
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) is an Australian government agency based in Canberra.
The objective of the ANAO is to support accountability and transparency in the Australian Government sector.
The ANAO is currently reviewing the governance of Land Councils in the Northern Territory.
Governance means doing things the proper way in organisations, according to rules, culture and the law.
We would like to hear your views on how the Central Land Council (CLC):
- Manages the operations of the CLC on behalf of Aboriginal people
- Conducts consultation with Aboriginal people
- Helps Aboriginal people and traditional owners manage and look after country
- Reports on the CLC’s performance
- And any other views you may have on how the CLC works
Please provide your responses before 30 September 2022 by:
• sending an email to the ANAO at clc@anao.gov.au or
• calling the ANAO on 0476 249 221 or
• submitting your comments on the ANAO website at www.anao.gov.au/clc
Any information you provide is confidential – it will not be shared with anyone outside of the ANAO.
Once we have finished collecting information, we will write a report that will be presented to the Australian Parliament in March 2023. It may contain some recommendations to help improve the governance of the CLC.
The Central Land Council has pledged to work closely with the new Australian Government to progress overdue policy reforms.
“I congratulate Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and incoming Aboriginal Affairs Minister Linda Burney, and look forward to help fast-track decent housing and jobs in our remote communities,” CLC chair Robert Hoosan said.
“Aboriginal peak organisations have developed a strong model for the creation of real jobs with which we want the new government to replace the Coalition government’s failed work-for-the-dole scheme.”
“We would also like to talk with Mr Albanese and Ms Burney about working with us to keep our young people out of trouble,” he said.
Mr Hoosan is an elder and youth worker who teaches bush skills to young men at risk.
As one of the delegates who endorsed the Uluru Statement for the Heart in 2017, he welcomed Ms Burney’s plan to consult with those who delivered the statement to the nation.
“Let’s all work together to finally get the Uluru Statement implemented in full,” Mr Hoosan said.
“We have been ready for a long time, and now the country is ready too.”
He was heartened to hear the Prime Minister make this promise at the start of his victory speech on Saturday night.
“I trust it means something that this was the first thing Mr Albanese said to the country. “It gives me real hope that, unlike Bob Hawke’s treaty promise, this promise will be kept,” he said.
Your guide to being a council member
Barbara Shaw and Derek Walker will represent the Central Land Council on the 12-member board of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation.
Ms Shaw, from Alice Springs, and Mr Walker, from Alekarenge, were chosen at the CLC meeting in Tennant Creek, in a secret ballot run by the NT Electoral Commission.
In a significant step towards greater Aboriginal control over the 1.3 billion dollar Aboriginals Benefit Account, the new corporation will manage the payments to Aboriginal Territorians and their organisations known as ABA grants.
The corporation, a commonwealth corporate entity established under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, will also make investments and provide financial assistance “to or for the benefit of” NT Aboriginal people.
Its board has a majority of Aboriginal members, including two from each of the four NT land councils.
“For the first time, an Aboriginal-controlled body will make decisions about ABA funds and I look forward to our members shaping the corporation that brings the ABA home to the NT, where it belongs,” said CLC chief executive Les Turner.
The ABA distributes the equivalents of royalties generated by mining on Aboriginal land in the NT, and the CLC has advocated for Aboriginal control over this income for more than three decades.
The council also elected a new leadership team that represents the CLC regions.
The new CLC chair, Robert Hoosan, and deputy chair, Warren Williams, will be joined on the executive committee by Barbara Shaw (Alice Springs region), Charles Gibson (South West region), Valerie Martin (Tanami region), Martin Jugadai (Western region), Sandra Jones Morrison (Tennant Creek region), Jackie Mahoney (Eastern Sandover region), Neville Petrick (Eastern Plenty region) and Kim Brown (Central region).
The North West region delegates will chose an executive member at a later date.
7 April 2022
Government rule change unfairly advantages horticulture company
The Central Land Council says the NT Government must scrap the Singleton Station water licence decision following revelations by the ABC that the government may have bent the rules to give Fortune Agribusiness an unfair advantage over Aboriginal landowners and the public.
“Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that one of the government’s own water planners warned against creating the impression that the government gave the company an unfair procedural advantage over the rights and interests of traditional owners, native title holders and remote community residents,” said CLC chief executive Les Turner.
“These documents show that the NT Environment Department chief executive Jo Townsend (who also happens to be the NT water controller) was alerted to the risk of the perception that her department is either incompetent or something more sinister is going on, but ignored the warning.”
“They demonstrate that the government puts private profits before the rights and interests of our people and treats sacred site protection with total contempt.”
The documents show that following a 2019 meeting between Ms Townsend, Fortune Agribusiness, chief minister Michael Gunner and water security minister Eva Lawler, Ms Townsend directed her department to quickly fix the issue of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, so that it would be clear that not all of these ecosystems needed to be protected.
The department then developed a guideline in consultation with the company which Ms Townsend approved.
It applies exclusively to the water region that includes by Singleton Station and allows for the destruction of up to 30 per cent of ground-water-dependent ecosystems, which were previously protected.
In 2020, this time acting as the water controller, she referred to the guideline in her decision to award the NT’s biggest-ever water licence to the company, allowing it to pump up 40,000 mega litres of finite groundwater per year for 30 years, for free and largely to grow export crops.
“Unsurprisingly, the company’s modelling showed that the impact of the licence on groundwater-dependent ecosystems would be within the 30 per cent allowed by the guideline,” Mr Turner said.
“As representatives of the traditional owners the CLC took part in water planning for the region around Singleton in good faith and made sure the water allocation plan stated that Aboriginal cultural values must be protected,” Mr Turner said.
“The department needs to explain why, without consulting with us, it tailored a guideline for the benefit of Fortune Agribusiness that flies in the face of that plan and allows the company to destroy the very ecosystems that are home to dozens of sacred sites.”
The water controller granted the licence before a thorough assessment of the environmental impacts of the proposal on culturally important groundwater-dependent ecosystems.
“She ignored the views of the traditional owners and failed to consider the impact of the water licence on their sites. She didn’t even include any conditions for sacred site protection in the licence,” he said.
“If Minister Lawler is a fair and independent umpire in the current review of the licence she would listen to the traditional owners and scrap it rather than roll over for private business.”
In Harold Furber the Central Land Council has lost a former assistant director and Alice Springs has lost a leader of great passion and strong convictions.
Mr Furber was born in Alice Springs in 1952 and in 1957 was taken from his mother Emily to the Croker Island Methodist Mission, along with his younger sister Trish, when he was still only four years old. During his early years on Croker, Trish was adopted by a couple from Queensland. Other future leaders such as the late Tracker Tilmouth became his surrogate family.
He first left the island to attend Darwin High School, returning to Croker for the school holidays until he was sixteen years old. Later, he did an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker in Adelaide. He went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma in Social Work, the latter at what is now the University of South Australia.
A talented footy player, he rubbed shoulders with the great players of his day at the North Adelaide Football Club in the early 1970s. During the off season he also played for the Buffaloes in Darwin. After he found his way back to his Arrernte family in Central Australia, he made a name for himself at the Pioneers and Souths football clubs in Alice Springs.
Determined to find his sister Trish, he signed up with a Queensland footy team, which gave him the opportunity to search for her. He eventually succeeded and was best man at her wedding in 1974.
In the late 1970s he became one of the early employees of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress in Alice Springs. In 1991, when he was the director of the Yipirinya School, he decided to broaden his education. With the help of an ATSIC scholarship he studied at the University of Canberra, graduating with a Batchelor of Arts (Public Administration).
Mr Furber became the CLC’s assistant director in 1994 and worked there in a variety of senior positions until 2005. He was very invested in the repatriation of cultural objects to their rightful owners and is one of the authors of the CLC’s oral history collection Every Hill Got A Story. His recollections about his experiences as a member of the land rights movement, the Stolen Generations and as a driving force behind many Aboriginal-controlled organisations around Alice Springs in the 1970s and 1980s make for compelling reading.
Organisations that have benefited from his energy and passion for more than three decades include the Tangentyere Council and Desert Knowledge Australia, where he was a deputy chair and board member. He was part of the committee that planned the Desert Knowledge Precinct and until recently served there as elder-in-residence. He also chaired the Desert People’s Centre (a joint venture of the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education and the Centre for Appropriate Technology) and was on the board of the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre.
Mr Furber also ran (unsuccessfully) as a Labor candidate for the NT Legislative Assembly twice – first in 1990 in Greatorex, and then MacDonnell in 2001.
Most recently, he advocated strongly for the establishment of a National Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Gallery at the Desert Knowledge Precinct. He was implacably opposed to the NT Government’s plans for a National Aboriginal Gallery at the ANZAC Oval.
Mr Furber passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family in Alice Springs on Friday. He is survived by his three children, Melanie and Patricia Marron and Declan Furber Gillick, and his sisters, Margaret Furber, Toni Arundel and Trish Kiessler. He will be deeply missed.
One of the most prominent workers who walked off Wave Hill Station in 1966 and helped spark the land rights movement has passed away – two days after the 55th anniversary of the historic strike.
“Cullum Wave Hill was a young man when he joined the strike,” Central Land Council chair Sammy Wilson said.
“He was one of the heroes of the land rights struggle and his sudden death at 85 years of age has left us all heartbroken.”
The CLC delegates, meeting at Mr Wave Hill’s home town of Kalkaringi, observed a minute’s silence at the news of his passing.
“He represented his community on our council for decades and came to greet us all at our meeting only yesterday,” Mr Wilson said.
“We all looked up to him and were hoping he would join us again this afternoon.”
CLC chief executive Lesley Turner said Mr Wave Hill will be missed deeply.
“As a CLC delegate, he was there for all the big milestones of our history. He was passionate about protecting his country and losing him is too sad for words,” Mr Turner said.
“Only last September, he and the other families of striking Wave Hill Station workers celebrated the recognition of their native title rights at Jinbarak, the old station homestead.”
The station was the site of the Wave Hill Walk Off, the strike led by Gurindji stockman Vincent Lingiari that marks the beginning of the land rights movement.
The members and staff of the Central Land Council farewell land rights leader John ‘Christo’ Christopherson, who was laid to rest in Darwin today.
“Christo was much loved and admired by so many, for his intellect and clear-sighted and unceasing advocacy for our land and water rights on the national and international stage,” CLC chief executive Lesley Turner said.
“His career, from apprentice electrician to regional manager of the Aboriginal Development Commission and first manager of the first men’s health clinic at the Danila Dilba health service, continue to inspire, and so does his commitment to a healthy environment and climate.”
Mr Christopherson was the longest-serving member of the Northern Land Council, where he worked for many years as executive member and twice served as deputy chair.
“He was a passionate advocate for our water rights and sustainable development, targeting commercial fishing and fracking alike,” said Mr Turner.
“We owe him a debt of gratitude for the role he played in the lead-up to the High Court Blue Mud Bay decision which recognised that Aboriginal rights extend between the high and low water mark adjoining Aboriginal land.”
On his ancestral lands, the Cobourg Peninsula, he provided leadership on the board of the region’s sanctuary and marine park.
He served on the Cobourg Fisheries Management Advisory Committee and was instrumental in the development of the Cobourg Marine Park Plan of Management.
He was also a member of the National Federation of Land Councils, Indigenous Protected Areas National Working Group, as well as serving as Vice President of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples.
In 1988, Mr Christopherson joined CLC members and staff as they embarked on a 11,000 kilometre journey to the anti-Bicentenary march in Sydney.
His heart-felt account of the growing convoy in Land Rights News describes how buses carried an estimated 1,000 people from the Kimberley, Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs to Sydney’s La Perouse.
“Our thoughts are with his mother and siblings, his nine children and many nephews, nieces and grandchildren,” Mr Turner said.
Harry Jakamarra Nelson had planned to sit down with Land Rights News for more than a year to talk about his long and distinguished life as one of the nation’s land rights pioneers.
Sadly, an accident, followed by long months in hospital in Adelaide and Alice Springs, forced Jakamarra to postpone the interview several times and, in the end, the man who gave so generously of his time and knowledge all his life simply ran out of time.
He died surrounded by his loved ones in Yuendumu at the start of February. His family has given the Central Land Council permission to publish this tribute to its executive member and long-term delegate.
“Jakamarra was a land rights champion of the first order and commanded enormous respect,” CLC chief executive Joe Martin-Jard said. “He often described himself as ‘a CLC man through and through’.”
That sentiment expressed by CLC chief executive Joe Martin-Jard aptly sums up the life and career of Jakamarra Nelson.
Born on Mount Doreen Station, Mr Nelson was six years old when his family was moved to Yuendumu, a welfare ration depot, around 1946. He was the fifth of nine siblings and his father had four wives.
Even though he only attended the community’s school until grade five, he benefited from many extra lessons by Baptist missionary Tom Fleming.
“I was lucky,” Jakamarra recalled in the CLC’s oral history collection Every Hill Got A Story. “The whitefella missionary used to teach me after hours … to give me extra education. That’s where I managed to pick up my command of English.” He considered himself blessed to have received a two-way education, with regular breaks from settlement life. “You’d go to church every Sunday, practice our culture every night if possible,” he said.
On frequent trips to his family’s country “we had explained to us how far, how long it would take from A to B to get there – walking that is, cross-country with no map recorded, except in your mind. I think I could still do that – but I can’t walk!” After a mechanic’s apprenticeship Mr Nelson attended teachers college in Darwin and returned to the Yuendumu school as one of the first Aboriginal teachers in Central Australia.
“There were two of us, one at Alekarenge and myself,” he said. After five years of teaching Jakamarra decided the adults needed his help more, and he joined the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to support the outstation movement as an assistant community advisor.
He was a champion of Aboriginal-led economic and community development, serving on the advisory committee of the Aboriginal Benefit Account and as a director of Yuendumu’s Yapa-Kurlangu Ngurrara Aboriginal Corporation and always had the back of the CLC’s community development team.
As a director of the Granites Mine Affected Areas Aboriginal Corporation he helped to fund projects with mining compensation income that support Yuendumu’s most vulnerable, particularly the elderly.
A lifelong advocate of truth-telling, one of Mr Nelson’s last public appearances was as master of ceremonies for the 90th anniversary Coniston Massacre commemoration at Yurkurru in 2018. He was a nephew of Bullfrog, who died when Jakamarra was a young fella.
At the commemoration, he talked about the disastrous consequences of his uncle’s killing of the white dingo trapper Fred Brooks in 1928. “Hundreds of Aboriginal people got shot by the punitive party led by Constable George Murray. They just went beserk,” he explained. “I’m not angry,” he told the ABC. “The truth needs to be told, that’s all. It’s time that we move on and live in harmony.”
To help with this healing, he and other Yapa leaders believe we need a public holiday to mark the massacres. As for Yurkurru, one of the massacre sites: “I would like to see this turned into a national park.”
His call remains unfinished business, but one who would remember it is Labor’s Warren Snowdon who attended the commemoration with his “close friend for over 35 years”. “We have lost a great friend and a leader of passion and conviction,” the member for Lingiari said in February.
“A strong voice that demanded to be heard, a person of great intellect and knowledge.”Another admirer, anti-domestic violence activist Charlie King is working on establishing an award in Mr Nelson’s name.
He told the NT News the award would recognise outstanding work in the fight against domestic and family violence and should become one of the annual NAIDOC awards. Mr King recalled that Jakamarra inspired the name for “No More”, the awareness campaign that works with sporting clubs to reduce family violence.
When the activist spoke with a group of Yuendumu men in 2006 about the shocking rates of domestic violence in the Territory, Jakamarra responded by waving his finger, saying “No more. No more.”
“How powerful is that?” Mr King said. “We will remember him for being a giant.” Jakamarra will also be remembered as a peace maker, who along with other senior men and women travelling between Alice Springs and Yuendumu, helped to prevent an explosion of grief and violence in Yuendumu following last year’s police killing of Kumanjayi Walker.
“It was through their leadership, calling for calm, calling for peace, calling for justice” that worse was averted, even though Jakamarra did not achieve his aim of moving the trial to Yuendumu, Mr Martin-Jard told the ABC.
“He wanted to see his people to see justice being done.” Mr Nelson worked as a Warlpiri interpreter during the early land council meetings and represented his community of Yuendumu on the council since 1988.
But more than 40 years later, following the most recent CLC elections in 2019, he told the many new young delegates why he was not yet ready to retire. “We are still very strong and still battling with the government and others who are damaging our country. I’m talking about the mining companies. That’s why I joined the land council,” he told them.
Mr Martin-Jard said that leadership will be missed. “He was a thorough gentleman who walked with ease in two worlds. We will all miss his wisdom and his humour,” he said.
Jakamarra leaves some big shoes to fill, and not just at the CLC.
“Mr Nelson was a fighter to the end,” Mr Snowdon said. “I met with him recently and he hoped those following in his footsteps would continue to protect knowledge, country and culture.”
Our thoughts are with Mr Nelson’s wife Lynette, his children and families.
Source: Land Rights News – March 2021
Members and staff of the Central Land Council are mourning the passing of executive member and long-term delegate Jakamarra Nelson and send their deepest condolences to his family and friends.
“Jakamarra was a land rights champion of the first hour and commanded enormous respect,” CLC chief executive Joe Martin-Jard said.
“He worked as a Warlpiri interpreter during the early land council meetings and represented his community of Yuendumu on the council since 1988.
“He was a thorough gentleman who walked with ease in two worlds. We will all miss his wisdom and his humour.”
Born on Mount Doreen Station, Mr Nelson was six years old when his family was moved to Yuendumu, a welfare ration depot, around 1946.
He was the fifth of nine siblings and his father had four wives.
Even though he only attended the community’s school until grade five, he benefited from additional tuition by Baptist missionary Tom Fleming.
“I was lucky,” he recalled in the CLC’s oral history collection Every Hill Got A Story.
“The whitefella missionary used to teach me after hours … to give me extra education. That’s where I managed to pick up my command of English.”
He considered himself blessed to have received a two-way education, with regular breaks from settlement life.
“You’d go to church every Sunday, practice our culture every night if possible”, he said.
On regular trips to his family’s country “we had explained to us how far, how long it would take from A to B to get there – walking that is, cross-country with no map recorded, except in your mind. I think I could still do that – but I can’t walk!”
After a mechanic apprenticeship Mr Nelson attended teachers college in Darwin and returned to the Yuendumu school to teach, becoming one of the first Aboriginal teachers in Central Australia.
After five years teaching he joined the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to support the outstation movement as an assistant community advisor.
“He was a champion of Aboriginal-led economic development, serving on the advisory committee of the Aboriginal Benefits Account and as a director of Yuendumu’s Yapa-Kurlangu Ngurrara Aboriginal Corporation,” Mr Martin-Jard said.
A lifelong advocate for truth-telling, one of Mr Nelson’s last public appearances was as MC at the 90th anniversary Coniston Massacre commemoration at Yurkurru in 2018.
Following the last CLC elections, in 2019, he told the many new young delegates why he was not yet ready to retire.
“We are still very strong and still battling with the government and others who are damaging our country. I’m talking about the mining companies. That’s why I joined the land council,” he said.
Our thoughts are with Mr Nelson’s wife Lynette, his children and families.
MEDIA CONTACT: Elke Wiesmann | 0417 877 579 | media@clc.org.au
David Ross, AM richly deserves the honour bestowed on him today.
“From leaving his mark on the national Aboriginal land rights struggle to guiding the CLC’s successful ranger and community development programs, Mr Ross is an outstanding leader who has done so much to advance the rights and improve the lives of Aboriginal people in Central Australia,” CLC chief executive Joe Martin-Jard said.
“Today’s announcement that he has been awarded membership of the general division of the Order of Australia for serving his community will be warmly welcomed by our constituents, elected members and staff, and all the more so because he has never sought the limelight.
“He is a famously humble leader who has always focussed on serving his ‘bosses’ out bush and getting the job done. His integrity is legendary.”
Mr Ross was part of the Aboriginal leadership group that advised former Prime Minister Paul Keating about the Native Title Act.
“He has achieved the rare distinction of being both highly respected by the nation’s Aboriginal leaders and all spheres of government,” said Mr Martin-Jard.
Mr Ross joined the CLC as a field officer in 1979 and became its director in 1989.
Apart from a few years in the late 1990s, when he was a full-time commissioner with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the inaugural executive chair of the Indigenous Land Corporation, he led the CLC until his retirement last year.
He guided its transition from an agency that won land claims for a culturally diverse constituency to an organisation with growing land management and community development programs that provide employment for Aboriginal people on their country and promote investment.
In 2005, Mr Ross became an early champion the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT), an initiative of a group of female educators from remote communities in the Tanami Desert that has so far invested more than $34 million of gold mining royalties in almost 200 projects for life-long education and training.
“This award-winning bicultural and bilingual program kicked off our broader, cutting edge community development program through which our constituents have invested almost $117 million in projects they control,” Mr Martin-Jard said.
“It has inspired a similar program at the Northern Land Council, and other Aboriginal communities, and organisations around Australia look to it as an example of how they can drive positive change through their income from land use agreements.”
“That the program has grown from strength to strength is due to the extraordinary personal commitment of Mr Ross over the past decade to Aboriginal employment and control.
“The same can be said about our Aboriginal ranger program which started in 2000 and employs a hundred men and women in remote communities and which is close to his heart.”
Also under Mr Ross’ leadership, the CLC recently negotiated agreements for two pipeline projects that have together involved investment of more than $1 billion.
It negotiated with multiple groups of traditional owners and yet delivered the projects on time and on budget.
The first of these pipelines supplies gas to the eastern states, thereby addressing the acute shortage, and the second lowers carbon emissions by replacing diesel with gas at Newmont Goldcorp’s mine in the Tanami.
MEDIA CONTACT: Elke Wiesmann | 0417 877 579| media@clc.org.au
Northern Territory artist and senior law woman Eunice Napanangka Jack has won the $15,000 Vincent Lingiari Art Award prize for her painting Kuruyultu.
The widely acclaimed artist from the remote community of Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff), approximately three hours’ drive west of Alice Springs, doesn’t only paint her country – she also wears it on her body.
“I have a scar on my back from it,” Ms Jack said. “It happened before I was born.”
Ms Jack said the night before she was born, approximately 80 years ago, her mother’s father ate a wallaby he had speared at Kuruyultu, a site near the remote community of Tjukurla in Western Australia.
“At the same time my heavily pregnant mother could feel me moving inside her.
“Only my father knows all the stories for that country, and he painted them too. I know the story of the wallaby which left me with a birthmark. That’s what I paint,” she said.
This year’s award judge Glenn Iseger-Pilkington said Ms Jack’s work “speaks to the story of her life, her birth and her cultural inheritance, which informs all that she paints, all that’s she is, and where she belongs”.
“I was taken aback with the sense of movement, balance and energy held within a modest sized canvas rendered in blues, oranges, varying shades of golden creams and pale yellows. It is a painting which is quiet and reflective yet simultaneously bold and energetic.”
Ms Jack has held 11 solo exhibitions and has been a finalist in many art prestigious awards, including several times in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, but this is only her second art prize.
Desart and the Central Land Council joined forces for only the second time to present the Vincent Lingiari Art Award.
Mr Lingiari’s granddaughters were present when Ms Jack was named the winner at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery in Alice Springs on Wednesday night.
The CLC’s deputy chair Barbara Shaw also announced the winner of the CLC Delegates’ Choice Award on the night.
“At their council meeting in August at Ross River, our delegates picked a small painting by David Frank which celebrates a successful handback of land near Ernabella in the early 80s,” Ms Shaw said.
“It’s the second time they voted for one of Mr Frank’s works. They really like a good handback.”
Mr Frank, from Iwantja Arts, also won the first CLC Delegates’ Choice Award in 2016.
The inaugural Vincent Lingiari Art Award celebrated 40 years since the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (ALRA) and 50 years since the Wave Hill Walk Off.
The 23 entries from across central Australia and beyond in this year’s award reflect the artists’ personal truths.
They tell stories ranging from the fallout of the Maralinga nuclear tests to reconciliation, housing and road construction in media such as sculpture, ceramic, video installation and painting.
Aboriginal artists and art centres in the CLC region as well as Desart member centres and individual Aboriginal artists close to the CLC region with strong links to Aboriginal land in the region were eligible to enter in the award.
The Vincent Lingiari Art Award exhibition runs until 18th October at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery at 16 Fogarty Street in Alice Springs.
It has been generously funded by the Peter Kittle Motor Company and Newmont Goldcorp.
Media contacts: Philip Watkins, eo@desart.com.au, 0403 193 266 and Elke Wiesmann, elke.wiesmann@clc.org.au, 0417 877 579.
Desart and the Central Land Council have joined forces for the second time to present the Vincent Lingiari Art Award.
Mr Lingiari’s granddaughters will be present when the winner of the $15,000 Aboriginal art prize is announced at the exhibition opening at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery in Alice Springs on Wednesday, 4 September, at 6pm.
Just like the inaugural Vincent Lingiari Art Award in 2016, which celebrated 40 years since the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (ALRA) and 50 years since the Wave Hill Walk Off, this year’s award is unashamedly political.
The theme True Story – My Country resonates with the Uluru Statement’s call for truth telling.
CLC chair Sammy Wilson, one of the hosts of the 2017 convention that agreed on the statement, said Australia needs to face up to its colonial history before it can move forward as a reconciled nation.
“Anangu believe that if you don’t know your tjukurpa – your country’s stories, songs and ceremonies – you remain a child, no matter how old you get,” Mr Wilson said.
“This is true for people and for nations. You can’t grow up without facing the hard things. As a person, you have to keep opening the doors of deeper knowledge. If Australia doesn’t open the next door it will be stuck.”
“The Uluru Statement – voice, treaty and truth – is the next door and our art is a key to that door,” he said.
The 23 entries from across central Australia and beyond reflect the artists’ personal truths.
“The works tell stories ranging from the fallout of the Maralinga nuclear tests to reconciliation, housing and road construction,” said Desart CEO Philip Watkins.
He congratulated the artists and thanked Glenn Isegar Pilkington for agreeing to judge the award.
“Glenn is a highly respected Nhanda and Nyoongar artist, writer and curator with an impressive practice working alongside our communities,” he said.
Aboriginal artists and art centres in the CLC region were eligible to enter works in any medium, and the exhibition features sculptures, ceramics, video installations and paintings.
Desart member centres and individual Aboriginal artists close to the CLC region with strong links to Aboriginal land in the region also entered works.
CLC members again elected the winner of the Delegates’ Choice Award and will announce the winner of the $2,000 prize on Wednesday evening.
The CLC and Desart created the Vincent Lingiari Art Award to celebrate the shared history of land rights and the Aboriginal art movement which evolved at the same time, share the same roots and have both empowered Aboriginal people.
Marlene Rubuntja, from Alice Springs, won the inaugural prize for her sculpture My future is in my hands.
The Vincent Lingiari Art Award exhibition will be open until the 18 October and has been generously funded by the Peter Kittle Motor Company and Newmont Goldcorp.
Media contacts: Philip Watkins, eo@desart.com.au, 0403 193 266 and Elke Wiesmann, elke.wiesmann@clc.org.au, 0417 877 579.
The members and staff of the Central Land Council mourn the passing of Kumanjayi Granites who chaired the CLC from 1994 until 1996.
Kumanjayi is remembered as a senior law man, pastor and education champion.
“Mr Granites knew the value of a well-rounded bilingual and bicultural education,” said Central Land Council director David Ross.
As a young man he trained as a teacher. He completed a Bachelor of Education and later undertook post-graduate studies.
Kumanjayi was an ATSIC councillor and served on the Yuendumu Community Council, including as its president.
Until close to his death last night, he worked as an interpreter, mentor and mediator in his home community of Yuendumu, three hours north-west of Alice Springs.
He was born there in approximately 1950 and raised in the community by parents from the Mount Doreen and Granites areas.
Kumanjayi was widely related to families across Central Australia.
In the CLC’s oral history collection, Every Hill Got a Story, he spoke about his grandfather from the Lake Mackay area and connections on his mother’s side towards Alekarenge and Willowra.
In his time as the CLC chair, Kumanjayi focussed on the repatriation of sacred objects.
“In 1994, he travelled with inaugural CLC chair Wenten Rubuntja to Sydney to collect sacred objects bought overseas by a businessman to bring them back home to their rightful owners,” Mr Ross said.
During a CLC symposium on the return of sacred objects in 1995, an effort to persuade museums around the country to return these objects, he spoke about the urgency of this unfinished business. Around the same time Kumanjayi began to make a name for himself as an artist. His works are held by public and private collections throughout Australia.
The Central Land Council is backing the residents of Tennant Creek and the Director-General of Licensing on the extension of the emergency alcohol restrictions in the town.
“We support the decision of the Director-General, Cindy Bravos, to keep the current grog restrictions in place and urge that they remain in place until more permanent restrictions have been implemented,” said Central Land Council director David Ross.
“Calls for hard decisions to curb the level of alcohol consumption in Tennant Creek go back decades and it should not take a media storm for government to act.”
Back in February 2009, NT Chief Justice Trevor Riley made sentencing remarks that sound depressingly familiar today:
“The courts regularly hear evidence of alcohol being consumed in Tennant Creek in quantities beyond comprehension. It seems that the excessive consumption of alcohol continues for so long as alcohol is available. People drink until they can drink no more and then get up the next day and start all over again. The frequency with which drunken violence occurs is unacceptable and the level of violence is likewise completely unacceptable.
For the good of the town, for the good of the victims, for the good of the offenders and for the good of the innocent children of Tennant Creek, it seems to me obvious that a system must be devised to limit the amount of alcohol made available to the people whose lives are being devastated in this way and to educate and rehabilitate those already abusing alcohol. The people of the Northern Territory cannot sit on their hands and allow what is occurring in Tennant Creek to continue. I accept that it is a complex issue but it is an issue that must be addressed and must be addressed sooner rather than later. Hard decisions must be taken.”
Mr Ross said he takes concerns about next week’s annual general meeting of the Tennant Region Aboriginal Corporation (TRAC) seriously but they are a diversion from the essential issues facing the town.
“Aboriginal corporations are legally obliged to hold AGMs in a timely manner and we have been working with corporation directors and the federal government to minimise any adverse impacts,” Mr Ross said.
“There is no distribution of cash at these meetings, as has been claimed.”
“The Director-General of Licencing and NT Police have been invited to meet with the TRAC directors following the AGM to discuss the impact of liquor restrictions on the wider community,” he said.
Mr Ross said the small team at the CLC’s Aboriginal Association Management Centre must facilitate almost 100 Aboriginal corporation AGMs a year within a statutory time frame.
“We schedule meetings when they have the smallest possible impact on school attendance,” he said.
“We draw on independent analysis of NT Education Department statistics showing where and when a meeting may have harmful impacts,” he said.
Mr Ross said the CLC has also long supported traditional owners to invest their income in community development programs.
“While the amount of money going towards these community driven projects is steadily increasing governments could offer incentives to encourage more traditional owners to take up this option.”
South Australian artist David Frank has won the Central Land Council Delegates’ Choice Award for his painting Our Future at the CLC meeting at Kalkaringi today, ahead of a historic joint meeting of Northern Territory land councils tomorrow and on Thursday.
Mr Frank is a ngangkari (traditional healer) and former South Australian Police employee who has worked on cattle stations before taking up painting at Indulkana community’s Iwantja Arts Centre.
The $2,000 prize he won today is part of the Vincent Lingiari Art Award which marks 40 years of land rights and 50 years since the Wave Hill Walk Off that kicked off the national campaign for Aboriginal land rights in 1966.
Our Future depicts the famous scene of Gough Whitlam pouring red dirt into Vincent Lingiari’s palm.
“We, too have been stockmen, many of us,” Mr Frank said. “When we were young we worked hard on cattle stations for rations. Lingiari helped to start the land rights story.”
His painting was one of 23 collaborative works and individual creations in a range of media shortlisted by judges Brenda Croft and Stephen Gilchrist.
Aboriginal artists from Central Australia submitted one work for each of the 40 years of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976, the high water mark of Aboriginal rights in this country.
“Mr Frank’s painting captured the hearts and minds of our elected members,” said CLC chair Francis Kelly, who announced the Delegates Choice Award winner with Mr Lingiari’s son, Timmy Vincent.
“Now we have to be a little bit patient to find out who will win the main $15,000 Vincent Lingiari Art Award prize.”
Curator Hetti Perkins will choose the overall winner on 7th September at Tangentyere Artists Gallery in Alice Springs, at the opening of the Our Land Our Life Our Future exhibition, a collaboration between the CLC and Desart.
“The exhibition is an inspired way to celebrate 40 years of land rights,” said Ms Perkins, the eldest daughter of the CLC’s first chair, Charlie Perkins.
“Our artists express the enduring bond between community, culture and country that is central to our identity as the First Peoples of this land.
In bringing together the work of artists from across Central Australia, CLC and Desart will emphatically show that this is Aboriginal land – always was, always will be.”
“We chose the Tangentyere Artists Gallery for the exhibition to honour the important role town campers played in the early days of land rights,” said CLC director David Ross.
Our Land Our Life Our Future will run for a month and is an opportunity for Aboriginal workers from Desart member art centres to gain on the job training and experience in all aspects of curatorial practice.
Financial support from the Peter Kittle Motor Company, Newmont Australia and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund made the land rights anniversary art award and the exhibition possible.
For images go to https://goo.gl/photos/Ymr2oNDpXd5U4Lx46
The Central Land Council has welcomed opposition leader Bill Shorten’s promise to double the number of indigenous ranger jobs if Labor wins the federal election.
“Today’s announcement backs one of Australia’s biggest Aboriginal success stories,” said CLC director David Ross.
“It’s a sound investment in our future generations, our shared environment and a long overdue example of politicians listening to Aboriginal people when they tell them what’s working.”
“Voters in remote communities no doubt would like to hear whether the Prime Minster also has more jobs and growth to offer them than working for the dole,” Mr Ross said.
He said the CLC is examining the detail of the announcement to determine whether it means ranger jobs in the southern half of the Northern Territory will increase from currently 100 to 200 if Labor wins the election.
“We hope that it will allow us to respond to increasing community demand and environmental need for more ranger jobs and double the number of CLC ranger groups in our region from currently 10 to 20 groups within the next three years.”
“There’s never been a more exciting time to be a ranger or a school kid in a remote community,” said Benjamin Kenny, co-ordinator of the CLC’s Kaltukatjara rangers in Docker River near the Northern Territory/Western Australian border.
Mr Kenny flew to Canberra late last year to lobby politicians for more ranger group funding.
His team of only six rangers operates on the smell of an oily rag to manage threats such as feral animals, weeds and fire across the five million hectare Katiti Petermann Indigenous Protected Area.
Australia’s newest IPA completely surrounds and dwarfs Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park.
“The men and women in our group are really happy about the announcement because it means more of their families can get proper jobs and training looking after country, together with our elders and children.”
“Most of our kids want to be rangers when they grow up. That helps to keep them at school but until now their chances of landing a ranger job have been very limited because there are so few of those jobs,” he said.
Mr Kenny said the CLC’s ranger program is so popular because it has been developed with Aboriginal people and combines the latest science with Aboriginal ecological knowledge.
“Our ancestors have worked on this country for thousands of years to protect it and look after it.
They were rangers before our time and everything that we are doing today is the same as what our ancestors have done.”
The CLC has called on Mr Turnbull to match Mr Shorten’s promise.
Related story : ABC Lateline story broadcast on 26/05/2016
Elected delegates from 75 remote communities and outstations across the south of the Northern Territory are travelling to Uluru today to vote for a new Central Land Council chair, deputy chair and Executive Committee.
The 90 delegates will also elect five members of the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA) Advisory Committee, which advises the Indigenous Affairs Minister on the expenditure of the royalties equivalent-funded community grants program.
Council has reserved two of the five positions for female delegates.
ABA Advisory Committee members and CLC delegates serve three year terms, with delegate elections for the current term of council concluding last week.
The leadership elections at Yulara Pulka outstation on Wednesday, 20 April, overseen by the Australian Electoral Commission, will use a preferential voting system.
Ahead of the vote, the new delegates will take part in an all-day induction at the Ayers Rock Resort on Tuesday, 19 April.
The session aims to help delegates to familiarise themselves with their responsibilities of determining the CLC policy and strategic direction, as well as with new legislation.
“The day is only the first step in the CLC’s ongoing governance capacity development program,” said CLC director David Ross.
“Our policy staff has teamed up with a locally experienced governance expert to design and deliver a program that meets the unique needs of our elected members and builds on their strengths.”
Council meets three times per year in different locations across the CLC region, while the Executive meets between Council meetings.
Delegates and Executive members also attend regional meetings in remote communities throughout the year.
Download the CLC’s governance manual (.pdf)