Indigenous leader says it time for buck passing to stop
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2633921.htm
Alice Brennan reported this story on Thursday, July 23, 2009 08:12:00
Three-hundred kilometres from Alice Springs they’ve left their homes in protest at the Government’s housing program.
A spokesman for the Ampilatwatja community Richard Downs says they are becoming sick from living in tin houses which are ankle-deep in sewage.
RICHARD DOWNS: I want all this buck-passing stopped you know from the Federal and State territories and say okay we do have a problem right across the region with the housing crisis and stuff and now we need to do something.
So the Federal Government has got to start putting a lot more funding in those areas, those regions.
Three years ago I thought with the intervention that the federal and state governments would have been sort of talking with the families and the community and the leaders, consulting about roles and responsibilities; but that didn’t happen.
TONY EASTLEY: Richard Downs, a spokesman for the Ampilatwatja community in Central Australia.
Intervention walkoff's Blog 
Good stuff – I donate my brilliance.
I support Richard Downes in his call to the Government to do what they are meant to be doing and that is, provide the direct funding to bring Aboriginal people’s standard of living up to the same standard that non Indigenous people enjoy. Is it too much to ask that our people, the original peoples, who belong to this land, have at least a decent place to live!!! The Government must stop talking about it, stop taking and start doing. Consult with the people forced to live in these terrible conditions and build what they say is required. NOW!!
There are building standards in Australia which require adequate sanitation structures (piping etc) even if you don’t get town water. Uh, where exactly does the “intervention” enforce this? All I’m seeing is, give us your uranium and we’ll give you what you should have had years ago, otherwise suffer. It’s dispicable.
Good on you for stand up to those bullies in Canberra :). There are lots of people who support your cause and we’re thinking of you!