Indigenous people of the Northern Territory are being driven off their traditional homelands and herded into 'hub towns' where the federal and NT governments are splashing out cash for resources and services, Amnesty International claims.
The human rights organisation profiled the Alyawarr and Anmatyerr people of the Central Australian homeland communities of Utopia.
Far from what the name suggests, most Utopia communities are more like third world slums.
The Utopia region, 260 kilometres northeast of Alice Springs, has 1400 residents in 16 different communities.
GOVERNMENT POLICY SLAMMED
In its report, Amnesty International slams the federal and NT Government's Closing the Gap policy that concentrates investment into 21 of the largest settlements.
The criticism comes after a Finance Department report prepared early last year revealed the Commonwealth is outlaying $3.5 billion each year on Aboriginal programs which yield dismally poor results.
More than one-third of the NT's Indigenous population lives in 500 remote homeland communities.
The Amnesty report says restrictions on health, housing and education services have resulted in many homeland communities falling through the cracks.
"The medium-to-long-term implication of the policy is the declining viability of homelands," Amnesty said.
INDIGENOUS CONNECTION TO LAND 'IGNORED'
Amnesty International says federal and NT government policies ignore the connection Indigenous people have to their land.
Internationally acclaimed indigenous artist, Anmatyerr elder Kathleen Ngal, 78, said if Utopia residents are forced to move to "hub towns" they will become "third-class, non-existent human beings."
"My paintings are maps of our country ... through my art I am educating the world about my country and my culture," she said.
"I cannot paint when I'm not on my land."
She wants her grandchildren to have the opportunity to live on their country and to know their stories.
"Country owns you or holds you, not you holding the country and becoming master of the land," she said.
Ms Ngal said the federal government's NT Intervention had been a "traumatising" land grab.
HOMELANDS LEASE EXPIRES NEXT YEAR
During the 2007 NT Intervention the federal government took over homelands under a five-year lease which is due to expire next year.
Amnesty International said the focus on "hub towns" also went against medical research that said there were health benefits to living on homelands.
There was limited access to alcohol in the Utopia region, the report said.
A Medical Journal of Australia study from 2008 said despite increasing levels of obesity and diabetes among indigenous people nationally, Utopian residents were healthier.
The NT government put a moratorium on money for homeland housing in 2006, creating a backlog of under-investment, Amnesty International said.
"Growth towns", with about 24 per cent of the NT Aboriginal population, are receiving $772 million for new housing and maintenance in 2010-11.
That's 100 times more than remote homeland communities, which have 35 per cent of the NT indigenous population but only receive $7.1 million for maintenance, the report says.
PEOPLE LIVING IN MAKESHIFT SHELTERS
There is severe housing overcrowding in Utopia homelands with about 85-100 people living in makeshift shelters known as "humpies" without power, running water or sanitation, the report says.
As many as 15-18 people sleep in some two-bedroom homes each night.
Houses in Utopia communities have become dilapidated because of "decades of neglect" and low levels of maintenance funding, the report said.
Most have dodgy electrical wiring, no insulation, no fans or air coolers, limited kitchen facilities and malfunctioning toilets and sewerage systems.
"There are incidents of raw sewage leaking from inadequate systems," the report said.
Amnesty International recommended ending the Closing the Gap policy's discrimination of homeland people.
It says funding should be distributed equitably to include homelands and rectify the backlog of under-investment in housing.
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