Indigenous leaders, Climate Camp '09. Credit: Damian Baker.

By Rich Bowden

Uncle Dootch Kennedy from the Illawarra Aboriginal Land Council welcomed two NT Aboriginal representatives, to the Climate Camp ’09 at Helensburgh, NSW today.

The representatives, Uncle Harry and Uncle Richard, from the Northern Territory were keen to share with campers their experience with Federal Government assimilation strategies and demands that they sign 40 years leases for mineral exploitation which they said had tripled in the past two years.

“It’s all been a land grab,” Uncle Harry said.

“There have been lots of approaches offering money to my people. But we are standing strong, we are not signing any leases”, Uncle Harry said.

He said that current leases for five years have not been paid to their communities.

“It’s been blown away in the wind. It’s all lies,” Harry said of the Federal Government intervention instigated by the Howard Government in 2007 and continued under the present Labor administration.

The pair said they were looking to draw their protest away from the level of  Government and “build a bridge”  to ordinary people.

”It’s a movement. We want to connect with each other and everyone at a grassroots level. It may be silent; it may be quiet,” Uncle Richard explained.

“We aren’t fighting the government on their terms, they can come to us, on our lands,” he said.

“Our main message to you our brothers and sisters, is that we are not going to move until such time that the Racial Discrimination Act is reinstated and we are given back all our rights”

Tags: climate camp 09, helensburgh, Indigenous, NSW, Water