intervention gone wrong: ampilatwatja, australia

Four years ago, the Australian government seized control of 73 indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. The Age reports that in Ampilatwatja, 350 km north-east of Alice Springs, Richard Downs, the leader of the Alyawarr people asked that no pictures be taken of his people as it embarrasses them to be pictured living in dirt.

Along dirt streets littered with rubbish and abandoned vehicles, he points out a $500,000 building, the home and office of a government business manager, one of 60 appointed across the territory to supervise delivery of government services under the emergency intervention. ”That’s all we got over four years … a government business manager living here who everyone in the community tries to avoid and doesn’t listen to,” Downs says. Downs says 500 of his people living in Ampilatwatja have been treated as outcasts from white man’s decision-making. ”No one has asked us what will work for us,” he says.

Federal funding for homelands has been capped at $20 million a year for three years and runs out next year. No government funding is available for new houses on homelands, leaving people living in substandard, overcrowded accommodation with poor infrastructure.