Media Release 19B

1 November 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Traditional Law is Keeping the Peace On Aboriginal Lands : Says Senior Aboriginal leader, Dji nyi ni Go ndarra from Galiwin’ku, Elcho Island , Northern Territory .

Our Traditional Ma dayin Law outlaws any form of sexual or other abuse to children, women, old people or anyone else. These types of crimes are totally repugnant according to our Traditional Madayin Law. It is Traditional Aboriginal Law that is keeping the peace on Aboriginal communities’ right across the Northern Territory not the NT or Federal Government Law or Police.

Before the white invasion, we had our own systems of law just like all other people throughout the world. We had our own Ringgitj (Nation States) and our family clans that all had parliaments and police through our Yothu Yindi system of law. We also had the Ma dayin Law itself. No group of people can exist without a system of law to protect its people’s property rights and the people themselves. This was especially so for the most vulnerable people, the young and the aged, both male and female. Our law and the systems of law created a state of mägaya; peace and tranquility with justice for all. Our Traditional Law is the original Common Law of Australia and contemporary Australian legal system needs to understand this law. Unfortunately very few English speakers know anything about this system of law.

It was the Balanda white fella law that first showed us what real lawlessness and violence was about by stealing our lands and resources. This was done through the use of British Law over the top of our Law. When we protested they shot our children, our women and our men. Along with this, our traditional national and international trade was stopped. In Arnhem Land we lost our 400 hundred year old pealing and trepang trade with Macassar. We have only just discovered in the last few years how this was stopped by the South Australian Government in 1907.

Then in the 1970s and 1980s you gave us some rights recognising us as humans and not children anymore. So you allowed us to come out from under your disgusting welfare laws that had treated us like children on missions and government settlements for a number of decades. But at the same time you stole more of our industry and employment. We had learnt new trade and industry in the mission days; we even built all our own housing. Some of us had started a new national trade in crocodile skins so our families could be self-reliant and stay in on our clan estates. All this has also been stolen from us since Northern Territory self-government.

Then more white culture was introduced; alcohol and other drugs, videos and movies that showed Aboriginal people all sorts of sexual violence and abuse against women and even children. Our people knew nothing about these drugs and we did not know that the films and videos are just made for profit; we thought that these films and videos were real stories telling us the truth about white people’s culture and law.

These films and videos reinforced the violent experiences of the past and the stories we already had about white fella law and culture being a lawless, violent culture; where you just take what you want when you want it. A rule of man - not a rule of law. These influences, and the confusion that came along with it, have now created a new sub-culture within many Aboriginal communities.

This sub-culture can be seen in many large towns of the NT and in some other Aboriginal communities around these towns where there is easy access to grog and other drugs. Now some anarchist Aboriginal people living in this sub-culture use what they think is white fella law as an excuse to do disgusting things. Then white people call this anarchistic, lawless action “customary law”. But these lawless Aboriginal people are following what they think is accepted white fella law; it becomes their new custom and they call it, “My Aboriginal law”, or “customary law” as it is now called across Australia . At times they use this “customary law” as a defence for their lawless, unthinkable crimes. Doing what they think is accepted under white fella law and culture. They should not be allowed to get away with this lawlessness!

Our Traditional Law is not “customary law” as in a rule of man. It is a real law system, the original system of law of this land. It has parliaments, politicians, constitutions and Acts of Law. Our people assent to this law through a ceremonial process and we have our own police and sanctions at law - not payback - but sanctions at law. Stop making naive and disgusting paternalistic remarks about this law and history that some politicians seem to know little about. I am sorry, Mr Howard, we were here first and so was our Law that was given to us by the Great Spirit Creator (God). Nobody will silence that Holy Law given by Wangarr to create peace and order on our lands.

For clarity, I say again; Our Traditional Law outlaws all form of sexual abuse. I am sorry but it is white fella culture that encourages and allows this form of disgusting drunken abuse and many English-first-language people and businesses have become very rich on the back of our people’s suffering.

You have also stolen our culture and renamed it with English words that do not give the right meaning to either our culture or to us. Even though it is known medically that we have a greater brain capacity than most Europeans, you make us sound primitive and backward in your statements and government policies that are supposed to help us. We know it is our very different languages and history that keep us apart, so we have only a little understanding of each other. Those sent to ‘help’ have little encouragement from Government to learn our language. We just get more white fella excuses that there are too many languages. Rubbish. We have regional languages that can be used and they are rich teaching languages.

Our Traditional Law is still here and it is keeping the peace on hundreds of Aboriginal communities in the NT. That is, it is not the NT or the Federal Government jurisdictional powers that are protecting our women and children and keeping the peace amongst many different clans and families, and from English-first-language predators on the traditional Aboriginal communities across the NT; it is the Traditional Aboriginal law that is doing it and it is costing the government nothing. But our Law-keepers are finding this an almost impossible job. This ancient common law, the first common law in Australia , that has served Aboriginal people for thousands of years is under constant attack from naïve and even lawless influences.

First of all the contemporary law of both the NT and Federal Governments does not recognize our Traditional Law that has kept the peace for thousands of years. In fact many Aboriginal elders, both male and female, have their hands tied behind their backs by the NT Law. If they try to keep the peace and/or protect someone whose rights are being violated, and in doing it have to use a degree of force or call upon a traditional policeman and he uses a degree of force, these peace-keepers can suffer under NT Law with charges of assault. Many have been put in jail. So our ‘grandmother’ law and other Yothu Yindi laws can not work properly because of contemporary NT law.

Secondly, most of these communities are now suffering from the sub-culture that is coming through the influence of the television, movies, bad schooling, and now the Internet. Our Elders are left powerless from this onslaught as they have no media outlets operating in our language to combat it.

Thirdly, because we have lost our industry and trade to dominant culture businesses, our people have no purpose or meaning in life. There is nothing left to do but drink alcohol and take drugs. That is all that has been left for us. Even now when some people look again for answers many talk about kit homes and houses on the backs of trucks. What about some real long term jobs and a chance at business for Aboriginal people?

In the NT, there has been some good discussion just starting to occur between traditional Aboriginal law and the NT government. Some judges and magistrates in Darwin are just starting to understand the difference between the disgusting excuses that are brought before their courts under the banner of customary law (sometimes by defence lawyers who know no better) and the real Traditional Law. Now they can say outright that this is not traditional law. But there is still a lot to be done.

Under the NT Sentencing Act some good work has been done to try and find some real answers to these complex issues. Aboriginal Elders believe they can help solve some of the problems in the NT through a true coexistence of Traditional Aboriginal Law and the NT law. For example, if an Aboriginal person is sent to jail by the NT government, they come home a greater criminal than before they went to jail. They will abuse their family if they do not get their way for money and resources that they are not entitled to, they become very abusive, sometimes their anger leads to abuse of women and children. But when they are punished under Traditional Law they become respectful and courteous; that is they learn what real law is about.

So Aboriginal elders believe they can help in a real way through the application of Traditional Law and many of its legal systems. They believe the real law of this land can solve many of the problems facing the NT. No law-abiding citizen wants the violence happening around Alice Springs or any of the other major towns and some Aboriginal communities in the NT to continue. But do not blame Traditional Aboriginal Law for this violence and do not heap more criticism on our Aboriginal men for supposedly doing nothing when you make their job impossible.

There needs to be a real dialogue between these two systems of law so we can move away from the colonial mud slinging and find some real answers to real problems. Of course this will mean that there needs to be some true communication between these two systems of law. That is the real Aboriginal Traditional Law and the NT legal system.

I become tired of the naive paternalistic comments from some politicians who make broad statements that denigrate our Traditional Law, while we are working our guts out trying to maintain law and order on our communities with little real help from government. We need real dialogue; where we are met as equals with people who are looking for real long term answers. Confusion, unemployment, education that does not work, drug abuse, lawlessness, helplessness and the lack of purpose that many of our people experience must be dealt with in a real, constructive way. We are ready to live with a one foot in both systems of law; can we find others on the other side who are ready to stand and work with us for the good of this country that we all call home?

Rev. Dr. Dji niyini Go ndarra OAM

Chairman, Aboriginal Resource and Development Service Inc.

Political Leader of Golumala Clan

An interesting quote;

“We don't retain information - we hear teaching, especially in English and feel that we don't grasp what is being taught, and so it disappears. We go to school, hear something, go home, and the teaching is gone. We feel hopeless. Is there something wrong with our heads because this English just does not work for us? In the end, we smoke marijuana to make us feel better about ourselves. But that then has a bad effect on us. We want to learn English words but the teachers cannot communicate with us to teach us. It is like we are aliens to each other. We need radio programs in language that can also teach us English. That way we will understand what we learn.”

Statements from 12 and 13 year old Aboriginal youths at Galiwin’ku, NT 2006 given to Yolngu Radio when they were asked what they want to hear on their non-funded radio service. These students speak English as a second or third language. Almost all of the teachers that come to teach them speak only English. ards.com.au

For further details contact Richard Trudgen 08 8987 3910

or visit www.ards.com.au