Jenny Macklin announced that in October the Racial Discrimination Act will be reinstated in the NT and the Intervention will be renamed "Close the Gap NT". this is a cynical window dressing in the face of the continuation of Intervention policies on the ground.

Welfare quarantining has been the most hated and disruptive of the Intervention measures. Again and again Aboriginal people have spoken out against the injustice of the BasicCard which allows the Government to decide where people are able to shop and what they buy. Trying to access welfare entitlement has become a new battle that has led many to go hungry and has forced unprecedented numbers off homelands and into towns that have Centrelink offices.
Aboriginal people are being forced to line up in separate queues to negotiate the "BasicCard" in Centrelink and in shops. Responding to the recent budget, Barbara Shaw from Mt Nancy town camp said, "We are being forced to scrounge around for food, being pushed further below the poverty line. Jenny Macklin has no compassion about our poverty. How will they close the gap when our children are starving because of this system?"

Come and show your solidarity with the Indigenous people of the Northern Territory in their struggle to hold onto their "Land and Basic Human Rights."

More information please contact Marisol on behalf of Melbourne Anti- Intervention Collective