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Wik women sign up for a new battle in Territory

By Debra Jopson

1 September 2007 - HUNDREDS of women, including Lady Deane, the wife of the former governor- general, have pledged their support to the lobby group Women for Wik, which its organisers reactivated a week ago to oppose the Federal Government's intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Lowitja O'Donoghue is among the elders who have joined the campaign. Tamie Fraser, the wife of the former prime minister Malcom Fraser, has also offered her support, organisers say.

"It is up to the women of Australia to get our country back on the path of reconciliation," Lady Deane says on the group's website.

Dr O'Donoghue says: "The Northern Territory intervention is patronising and unworkable. We need policies that will take us forward, not backwards."

Formed a decade ago to oppose the "buckets of extinguishment" in the Government's 10-point native title plan, Women for Wik had the backing of more than 100,000 people at its height in the late 1990s, including Hazel Hawke, Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Jolley, Faith Bandler, Ruth Cracknell, Dame Roma Mitchell and Marie Bashir, before she became NSW governor.

The group held rallies supporting native title rights and calling for an apology to the stolen generations. Six of its members appeared in chains outside Parliament House protesting against the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws, now repealed.

The president of the World Archaeological Congress, Claire Smith of Adelaide, said yesterday that she and the Sydney filmmaker Christine Olsen had decided to kick- start the network last Friday after conversations with ordinary women who felt impotent over an intervention they saw as well-intentioned but flawed.

"It's a fantastic opportunity to make an enormous, long-term substantive difference, and the way the overnment is going about it is wasting that by not spending the money in the way it needs to be spent," Associate Professor Smith said.

Describing the reformation of the organisation as "a kitchen-table-over-the-internet kind of thing", she said it would be bipartisan and would educate Australians by recording on its website the voices of Aborigines affected by the intervention. There could also be rallies in future.

Associate Professor Smith said she had worked in Northern Territory communities for 20 years and was appalled at the lack of respect shown for community organisations struggling with paltry monetary resources to find solutions.

"The pretext of the intervention was child sexual abuse," she said. "Now they've taken away the permit system and advertised these communities as vulnerable. Is that going to increase or decrease the level of pedophilia in these communities?"

Olsen, who wrote the screenplay for Rabbit Proof Fence, said that concerned citizens and the Government had dropped the baton on Aboriginal affairs since the walk for reconciliation across the Harbour Bridge seven years ago, but there was a fresh groundswell.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Media Release - Women for Wik - Women Re-Unite To Monitor Government Intervention In Aboriginal Communities Women for Wik, a group of prominent Australian women, has been reignited to independently monitor the implementation of the Federal Government's intervention in Aboriginal communities.

"Women for Wik" was formed in 1997 and was endorsed by 130 women's organisations, representing hundreds of thousands of Australian women. Its original members included Ruth Cracknell, Jane Campion and Justice Elizabeth Evatt. It received overwhelming mainstream support.

The group was inspired by a speech by Lady Deane, the wife of the then Governor-General, Sir William Deane, who said women had to take the lead on the issue of reconciliation. This week Lady Deane reaffirmed this view stating "It is up to the women of Australia to get our country back on the path of reconciliation."

"Women for Wik" intends to independently monitor the implementation of the Federal Government plan, both now and in the future.

A co-founder of the original group, writer Rosie Scott, said "10 years ago we raised issues that had been effectively hidden, and helped to disprove the fear campaign that Indigenous people would take over our backyards. We now intend to go through the same process with the Federal Government intervention in the Northern Territory. We intend to provide a voice for the women of the Northern Territory whose lives are being directly affected."

Lowitja O'Donoghue, a member of the original group and former Chairperson of ATSIC stated "The Northern Territory intervention is patronising and unworkable. We need policies that will take us forward, not backwards."

Christine Olsen, writer-producer of the film Rabbit-Proof Fence, said "The answer to the problem is the support of Aboriginal culture. Not the destruction of it."

Statements Of Support
This wouldn't be accepted by any other section of the Australian society. If they tried to implement this against women, or Jews, or gays, the country would be in an uproar. Why do we accept it for Aboriginal people? Olga Havnen, Indigenous leader and CEO, Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the NT (and founder of the original Women for Wik group).

In 1931 Molly walked home with her two sisters, following the rabbit proof fence. Mr Neville, the Government Protector, was outwitted and defeated. Now, 76 years later, John Howard is subjecting Aboriginal communities to the kinds of laws and the kind of thinking which Mr Neville used. Mr Howard says that "Unless the Indigenous people of this country become part of the mainstream of the nation, their future is bleak." Aboriginal culture lies at the very heart of this country. What will we do if that is destroyed. Christine Olsen, writer & producer of the film Rabbit-Proof Fence.

"The quality of justice in a democracy is measured by the quality of rights the weakest and most vulnerable enjoy. Women know this. Indigenous Australians know this. But does the Federal Government?" Diane Bell, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, George Washington University, DC; Professor of Anthropology, University of Adelaide.

Source: Women for Wik website

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