On ABC radio, CEO Barkly Shire, Jeff Sowiak passed the buck to NT Housing
NT Times TARA RAVENS
ELDERS are threatening to abandon their remote community in central Australia, claiming intervention houses, rubbish and ankle-deep sewage are making residents sick.
A group of 30 indigenous leaders from Ampilatwaja have set up a protest camp three kilometres from the township, about 300km north-east of Alice Springs.
They say the federal intervention into remote communities has left them demoralised and sick, and they are threatening to build a new community on traditional lands not subject to government control.
"Under your intervention team's poor management, my people and community is in disarray," said community spokesman Richard Downs.
"(There is) malfunctioning with dust, rubbish and poor housing with leaking sewage...
"We have no other choice but have now decided and agreed upon to return to our grandfather's/mother's country which is on the pastoral lease."
Mr Downs said the intervention had widened the gap in Aboriginal disadvantage, and Government Business Managers (GBMs) deployed to the community had not shown "compassion, understanding or respect".
"Our people are demoralised, hurt, embarrassed, outcast on their own community," he said in a statement.
"We no longer have any rights to exist as humans in our own country...
"People have no motivation, no self esteem, no direction."
Mr Downs said the last straw for the community was the federal government takeover, using intervention powers, of a community-run store in May.
"What will you take away from us next?" he said.
"At this stage we no longer have any confidence with any members of your GBMs and intervention team and your government."
Health worker Kim Morrish said raw sewage in some of the public houses regularly resulted in gastric and skin infections.
"And there are quite a number of people living in houses that are exclusively made of tin," he told ABC radio in Alice Springs.
A Northern Territory government spokeswoman said "urgent work" was needed on seven houses and their septic tanks.
Work was expected to start on Friday morning "at the latest".
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