We have had the very special experience of having two indigenous women as our local members of parliament. Carol Martin, whose video interview for Broome Voices is featured below, was the first aboriginal women elected to any parliament in Australia. She is the State Member for Kimberley in Western Australia.
Marion Scrymgour, who is a Minister in the Northern Territory government, was our local member during the four years we lived in Maningrida. Yesterday she took on Mal Brough and his invasion of NT aboriginal communities. It was time that someone of Marion's authority spoke up so strongly:
Aboriginal Territorians are being herded back to primitivism of assimilation and the days of native welfare. It has been a deliberate, savage attack on the sanctity of Aboriginal family life.
Brough wants NT Minister to resign over intervention criticism (ABC News 24 October 2007)
Download the audio podcast from the ABC news site.
If anyone knows of a complete copy of her speech, please let me know.
Original post at: Labor View from Broome
|