Warlpiri lexicon
Lawa = nothing
Yuwa/yuwayi = yes
Kardiya = non-Indigenous people
Yapa = Indigenous people
Welfare days = period before welfare payments were paid directly to individuals as cash, when instead individuals received rations such as flour, tobacco and blankets
Yuendumu has been subject to the attentions of federal politicians over recent weeks, with separate visits from Labor member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon and the Coalition's Senator Nigel Scullion. Warren Snowdon visited on the 24th of October, attending a meeting of Warlpiri elders from Yuendumu and surrounding areas. At the meeting, the elders expressed concerns about aspects of the intervention, in particular about the newly drawn boundaries demarcating the area around Yuendumu as government land for the next five years. They said that they had not been consulted about the government's boundary and as a result sensitive areas, including a men's law area and a Sorry business camp, have been included inside the boundary and will now be exempt from permit regulation. Their concerns come a week after taskforce chief Major General Chalmers said that despite the permit changes "sacred sites remain off-limits." Nigel Scullion, accusing Snowdon of "fear mongering", visited a few days later to saying he was keen to allay concerns.
On the 30th of October, Major Chalmers and senior public servant Brian Stacey visited the community and held a well attended meeting to hear community concerns that reportedly lasted 3 hours.
There are some transportable houses currently going up in the community, however they are unrelated to the intervention and were ordered some time ago. A Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) team visited the childcare centre to assess the viability of transitioning some local staff off their current CDEP positions into waged childcare worker positions (to be funded by the Department of Families, Communities and Indigenous Affairs). The childcare centre caters to up to 60 children a day and has 11 local staff members, who often work up to 20 unpaid hours (on top of CDEP hours) each fortnight.
This week, community members talk about how they feel about the way the intervention has been rolled out so far. They also speak about non-Indigenous people and Indigenous people working together and the issue of reconciliation.
Nancy has been a teacher at Yuendumu CEC for nearly 30 years, she teaches grade one and two. Nancy was involved in the development of the Warlpiri language program, she was born near Yuendumu at Mt Allen.
Wendy has lived in Yuendumu since 1973 and worked as a teacher for 30 years. She's now retired. Her children attended Yuendumu school and now her grandchildren do.
N: I want kids to come to school every day so they can learn and when they finish maybe they should do a little bit of training and maybe study too, like, plumbing, electrician. Maybe planting trees around the community and clean up Yuendumu, so they can be properly trained to look after everything…
W: People used to work here, a long time ago – they did all the building and the plumbing and looked after the community and worked for the cattle project and mining company and the shops - they worked in everything. Now, nearly all the work is done by outside contractors, people have been pushed aside, they haven't had any role in managing or running or working in their own community. If they could change that pattern, that would be really good. Centrelink has interviewed everybody and asked them what jobs they would like to do or what training they would like, what their interests are. Most people here, no one's ever asked them that before, they just fill in their forms for them and expect everyone here to do nothing….so maybe they're starting on a bit of change.
They've postponed Centrelink closing down until next March – it was going to be September but they've moved it on twice – so that's good, because CDEP employs 60 people here and there's not 60 jobs straight away to put those people into. I think CDEP here is working pretty well and it’s a stupid idea to stop it, when there is something for people to do CDEP is the one thing that does employ people. A lot of organisations depend on CDEP workers too, like childcare. The intervention people went to childcare and said 'how many workers have you got?' - they've got 11 yapa workers – and they said 'oh, you can only have 6' and that made people upset because some people have got to lose their job, and also not so many children can come, they'll have to turn mothers and children away. They want people to work, well how can those girls work if there's not enough places? So that's a backward one.
The housing one, they're putting up 8 new houses, but they haven't asked people where they want those houses, in which camps, and they haven't asked what sort of house do they want, and they haven't asked which way they should face – or anything about them.
N: They should ask the person who is getting the house 'which area do you want your house to be in?' Maybe north, south, west or east. 'Which side of Yuendumu town?' they should ask those people. It's not yapa people (installing the houses) – it’s kardiya. People are getting angry – 'ah we wrote letter (for a new house), we got sick baby, we got sick mother…'
W: (they say) 'We're sick… and our house is not working properly'.
N: Maybe we should have yapa, or someone to train yapa people to look after houses. Mildred wants to have a house because she's been living with her parents for a long time and she's got three kids, so she wants to move… Kardiya people, kardiya kids, they move out when they're 18.
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N: Mt Theo's working well, with yapa and kardiya working together, it's really good.
W: (they've got) lots of yapa employed… more yapa than white people… and Warlukurlangu (art centre) – same, lots of yapa, only a few white people.
N: But at school, only a few yapa working there.
W: Mostly white people. It used to be the other way around.
N: Yeah, there were lots of yapa working there.
W: The same at the clinic, they used to have lots of yapa, now they only have a few. It's because they have made the courses too hard – and the literacy based courses are all in English and people have to pass those courses to stay employed – but those people have other skills that are really important. The clinic struggles with no yapa people, when there's old ladies who hardly speak English, they (non-yapa staff) can't explain to them how they've got to take this medicine or why they take it – so they have a much bigger role than just what you learn on a literacy based course and it’s the same in school. The communication between Nancy and her kids is so much better than between a white teacher and those young kids. But the people who do the accreditations or make the hurdles for what you can do – they're not valuing yapa skills, they're not valuing their language and their cultural knowledge and their knowledge of the people and the community and all the families of all the people who are the clients for those institutions.
You don't need any literacy to do yapa paintings, and you can't replace those people with white people! And Mt Theo, they know that communication between young people who are at risk is much better with yapa people than with white supervisors… and aged care realise that too, and childcare – they need people who speak the same language.
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N: (Reconciliation is) recognising yapa people, Aboriginal people, because a long time ago they took yapa kids away and those kids don’t know their parents and some, they passed away, and maybe their parents passed away here and didn’t see their kids or grandkids. Government should say sorry to yapa people.
W: They’re talking about putting it in the constitution that yapa were the first people here in the country, that yapa have a special place, they can't be just pushed aside.
N: Because the land, it's got really special things – it's got songs, stories – dreamtime stories, and you know, old people didn't write it on paper, they got it here (in their mind) – and if they sang, people listened carefully. And when we asked the old people – 'can we write these songs down?' they said 'no – you gotta listen and learn to sing these songs.'
W: I think it would be good to have good Aboriginal studies programs in schools and bring people from places like this and talk to kids and show them how important the land is for people from this culture and maybe teach them some Aboriginal language.
N: They've got to listen to those old people. When they come and do mining, they might get sick and die. They got to listen to people, yapa people, you know – they might trespass.
W: They used to talk about a treaty and I think a treaty would be such a good idea. A treaty where we’re – white people – are not going to take any more land or force people away from their culture and allow people to have their children to have their own language in their schools. There's actually no real agreement ever been made between yapa and white people over this land, not over any of the land – people here have never agreed to give land away – they've just had it taken over, but they still have some and they got some back with the land rights act. It should stay theirs now, not just suddenly when white people want it for something else like a mine or a waste dump or a roadhouse or something, change the rules, say 'that’s not your land now, we want it'. I think it's important for the community to have their own council with real decision making power - as it used to be a long time ago. But they have stripped our council of any power and it’s white people making all the decisions, and when yapa don't have any say in it they don't engage in it – things don't work well. And also the men feel very bad when they just get pushed out like that.
N: We want a really strong council, man and women together. People who are living here who don't go away.
W: To encourage people and stop the grog coming in.
N: And talk to night patrol and police and help kids come to school.
Donovan is 33 years old and has lived in Yuendumu all his life. He is a family man with 4 children. Donovan is a Board member of the Mt Theo Substance Misuse Program. He is a leader of a Christian group in Yuendumu. Donovan is a musician and music producer.
When things are working with kardiya and yapa it's done respectfully, respecting the yapa and doing the right thing. Not for yapa or kardiya to … kardiya to not listen to yapa and just do their own thing. In this, like in this intervention thing, it should have been worked out before but it's come suddenly and we've got to deal with it. Most of the yapa in the community, they feel they haven’t got a right to say about what changes have been made because it's already been done, passed down in Canberra. It's a bit of a rush really, yuwayi, like a big tidal wave coming over Yuendumu, sweeping all the things away.
People don't know what's gonna happen next. It looks like the government is just doing what they want to do. Parents are a bit confused and sad, they feel left out, betrayed, yuwa, because they haven't been asked first and told in the right way what's happening. This intervention, it came upon us quite rushed. Confusion, fear…especially for the old people, they have fears on how to feed their children, grandchildren how to look after their family better, because changes have been made to the Centrelink payment system now, it looks like it’s wound back 50 years.
The only way we can move forward is if we remove, revoke this intervention altogether and start afresh on how to go about working things out properly, done in a respectful way with yapa instead of government coming and showing us what needs to happen and changes, without us having a say in the changes that are being made.
It should have been done 4 years ago…gradually building up getting this relationship happening between yapa and kardiya. Respect is the main thing for yapa – because if you don't have respect you can't make anything happen. You gotta win respect of yapa people first – that goes with yapa people and their relationships too – respect is the main thing in yapa communities all over Australia.
The way they're going now they don't care about what we say how we feel, it’s all done at the government level down in Canberra.
They're trying to help yapa people – but in their way, kardiya way, instead of sitting down building up a relationship, doing it respectfully – the way they've gone about doing things is just making people feel left out. Worthless and all that.
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All yapa are still waiting for Mr Howard to say sorry to yapa but I don't think that's going to happen. That's important, so relationships can be made right, bring healing towards yapa and kardiya and we can start back anew, afresh and start doing things the right way – with respect. It would make a big difference in every community – in the government and community levels. (They) just really need to spend some time together, yapa and kardiya.
(People need to) sit down here, maybe come and stay spend time in the community for a couple of years. Walk a mile in our shoes, you know, take a walk. Feel how we feel, then they'll know what we're feeling and saying… if they only spend time with the yapa people. But it's too late for all that now… if we're going to move forward we need to sit down together and work things out the proper way – the right way, with respect towards yapa people, that's what it’s all about. Come in and spend some time with yapa elders, maybe we can work something out – we can respect kardiya then, we can walk together – and we can do things at a government and community level. Yuwa, if we want to move forward. Work together, properly, proper way.
Ned is a Warlpiri man and Traditional Owner. He works as a receptionist at Yuendumu Health Clinic, working at the Men's reception desk and also on the Men’s Night Patrol. He has lived in Yuendumu all his life and is a father to five children. Prior to his work at the Health Clinic he was a plant operator and supervisor.
What I see when I work here in the clinic, I only see local nurses and doctors. I don't see any government intervention mob coming around. Intervention mob and other kardiya coming around here, we don't even know who they are. Some of them are construction workers, some of them just come and go. So I really don't know who the government bloke is around here and what they're doing. At the moment we got nobody here, all our machines are still locked up in the shed. There've been too many delays. I think they're waiting til after the election, who's going to win? If Labor wins they'll bring things back to normal, if Liberal win, they'll make things more harder for us, that's what I reckon. There's no progress yet.
With local kardiya and yapa here, we work very good at the moment – but we don't like this intervention mob coming in, barging in, telling us what to do this and that making new laws and that – we don't understand their law, they don't consult anybody.
We choose our own mob (kardiya) to come out and work, we look at their backgrounds… will they fit in with our mob? We're doing really fine, we got real good kardiya, dedicated to helping yapa people. They're happy, we take them out hunting, they take us out …we more or less get along well together like one big happy family. When you have outsiders coming in, like the intervention mob, we're all not sure what they're going to say, there's no consultation in all these things. We don't even know who they are, why they're here, which department they work for. But our local ones, we don't have a problem with them, we share things in common.
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Reconciliation, it was going good, it's still good but there's been a lot of damage done to it. It'll take a bit long to reconcile. It'll take, maybe 20, 50 years could be more – with what this government's done, treating us like second class citizens. They want to make us join the mainstream – but we're Aboriginal people, we're two different cultures. What he done to reconciliation, he damaged a lot of infrastructure in that reconciliation business, nobody don't really understand what's gonna be done about this reconciliation business. This Mal Brough and this Howard bloke, they done too much damage to it.
Well, the government's got a lot of apologising to do… they've got a lot, lot of apologising to do. They got to start from the beginning - to the stolen generation, the damage what they've done to our communities – accusing us of being sexual predators. And we are real Australians, true Australians – I don't know where they've come out from! They talked about this sex child abuse thing case hey? It's (the intervention) supposed to be focused only on that… but it went beyond that, it's got into our lands, it got into our permit system, the way we live. We're cultural people, we're connected to this land, you take the land away from us, we're nothing. Like me… you take this away from me, I'm nothing. All our things exist in our country – we're just like the dirt.
Leave us to get on with our culture and our beliefs. We're not like other sorts of people - they rush too quick into the 21st century. Us people, Aboriginal people, we like to take things in time, we're still connected to our dreaming. That's why the earth… what you call it?... global warming and all that (is happening) because these white people they rush to things – reactors and all this sort of things, they got the land and they're destroying the planet. We don't want to move that fast – they want us to move in with them in the mainstream join them going to the moon or to mars - we're not ready for that, not us Aboriginal people anyway…we're too frightened to climb that pole over there!!
In my book, it'll (reconciliation) work but it'll take a long time to repair it. I got privacy like everyone else, I pay my tax, I go to work every day, pay superannuation. I'm sure we should be treated equal like everybody else.
Connie was born in Yuendumu in 1954 and has lived here all her life, she has 3 children, 6 grandchildren and one great-grand daughter. She lives with her husband, daughter, grand daughter and great grand-daughter.
Marlene Robertson is a media worker with skills in video and audio editing. She has also worked at the Yuendumu School. Marlene is Connie's daughter. She has two children and is grandmother to a 2 year old.
Marlene translating for Connie
Connie When government tries to change things around, yapa people - we’re really worried about how they’re going to do things. They (the government) came to Yuendumu and they talked about changing, they was trying to do it their way but people at Yuendumu kept saying ‘No’.
For government people to help yapa people better way, is to help sick kids and not to take them away. Yuwayi. About these sick kids, yapa and kardiya should work together and help yapa people to look after sick kids. That’s how it should work.
When those doctors and nurses from government people came to Yuendumu they really helped out with kids at Yuendumu really well with ear problems, sore throats and all that. But mothers were a bit concerned – they were a bit frightened because they thought they were going to take their kids away but they were here only to help little kids.
Mother and fathers were really worried about their kids. What happened long ago back in the 60s and 70s they didn’t return the kids. That’s why they were a bit frightened – they had this big fear.
They took the kids away without letting mothers and fathers know about those kids when they were taken away before. That’s why they wouldn’t let this happen again to their kids.
In the early days, they took the kids away. Some they took them away for good, some they returned to their parents. I think that’s a good way when they bring the children back. When they’re adults now, it’s good to know their families and their backgrounds – it’s better for them.
Welfare days, long time back in 60s they used to only have little bit of food, they used to get a little bit of rations from the ration store. That was a bit hard for them to get food, so welfare people had to take their kids away. I think that was a bit hard for Aboriginal people in those days. This time Aboriginal people want to fight for their kids and to look after them properly.
Marlene When this government intervention started we got really scared you know. I thought they was going to take the kids away but lawa, that’s why we want to be strong for our kids. That’s why yapa are going to start fighting for their own rights. It’s been taken before but this time they’re going to stand and fight for it now. Yuwayi. I think it’s better to listen to yapa people – to hear what’s coming from their heart, what really is good for them. I think it’s good to listen to yapa people.
Neville has over 30 years experience as a teacher. He has taught at Yuendumu, Papunya, Yirara College, Ali Curung amongst other places. Neville, known locally as Cobra for his love of the Cobra car, has been a Coordinator for the Warlukurlangu Aboriginal Artists Gallery at Yuendumu as well as a park ranger in the Tanami area and at Telegraph Station in Alice Springs. Neville is a member of the Baptist Church congregation and was recently the President of the Baptist Union of NT.
It’s (the intervention) sudden and it should have proper planning. In a way it’s really hard to understand them – they just came by force. Like when Captain Cook came into this land of Australia he just forced himself in. This intervention thing is really the same thing. They just came in and did what they want to do. This government is sort of a…didn’t have organisation and didn’t have planning of how to do it. Some (changes) are good and some are bad.
Bad side is the money side – Centrelink will hold some money for yapa. Half of their money will go towards purchase orders. It’s a funny idea, it goes back – way back to the '60s where people used to go not with money but with tickets to get their rations, flour, tea and sugar. Here, it’s kind of a new way that’s really bad. Aboriginal people, we are going forward. We know all the banking side and to do it like Europeans. Some of the people – yapa from Yuendumu – they are living interstate and they live side by side with kardiya neighbours. They pay rent and water and they go to the shop and save money and they’re well off. Doing this – cutting the money half and half – is really bad because it goes back to blackfella. This government should treat us good – wisely you know. Another part is, in a way, all the things came up because of child abuse problems. They’re cutting money off and taking money off from yapa and putting leases on. You can’t do that in pastoral lease – telling kardiya ‘I’m putting my lease here – you get off the land’. You can’t do that – you have to go to court for that. You have to do it properly. We need our land back because that’s a really source… we live with it. Land is so valuable for yapa because we do hunting and we know that Dreamings are there and we’re happy. So, land grab, you know.
I think they can’t understand (connection to country). They think that we think like Europeans – kardiya but we’re different people and we think different and we want to live like this. We don’t want foreigners to push us around.
Well they shouldn’t bring army. This is not like earthquake things happening overseas and army comes in trying to help. We never done anything and nothing happened here and we saw the army here. It’s a good idea for kids to go to school and learn more and more education and give us more money and more work – jobs – that’s a good idea. Developing communities proper way, that’s good. A lot of good things too happening. I think this government has done a good thing too – they want to see yapa get a proper job, like anyone else – I agree on that. When I look at bad way and good way I look at balance good way – this government is focused on yapa because they want to help, which is good. But they've come in forced.
(We should) keep going forward, not backwards, work towards doing good jobs, work together – take the money problem (quarantining) away so money can be normal. Money thing and land thing, they should change it – go back to old law. Permit system must stay. I'm strong about that one. Without land we're just lost. We need the land. It’s like in Burma, their government is taking up all the forest trees, rainforest trees, and you got those monkeys - Orangutan ones, in a few years time Orangutan one never have those trees anymore to live on. It's like that, if they take land away yapa – we'll have nothing.
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Reconciliation is… walking together forward. You don't look at the bad things about it, this world is spinning – we go forward. We don't look at the bad things. Let's be friends, people make mistakes, we're just people and we can fix it up by smiling and working together, that's what I believe.
Anybody comes in from other countries should be happy together and walk together and live together and look forward for these other generations when they come up.
I reckon it's (reconciliation) happening, I can see it. In my experience, when I go to hospital I look at kardiya nurses, I reckon they're gentle, helpful… why would you hate people for that? When you go to the shop you got smiling kardiya wanting to serve you when you buy things. On this planet you got nice people, kardiya or whatever – I don't have a thing against them. Working together – respecting one another, you know, if you in an office you don't look at him 'he's a blackfella' or whitefella, he don't talk about it – you know, sharing together , live together – not only white people I'm talking about – Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, African – live together, happy. That's what I believe, strongly.
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