Australian Aborigines face forced relocation

Oombulgurri was an Aborigine community of about 200 people on Balanggarra land in Western Australia's far north. During the wet season, the road to Oombulgurri is cut off, meaning the area can only be reached by plane or a half-hour boat ride. The area was the scene of a massacre that took place in 1926 when law enforcement sought revenge on local Aboriginal people for the killing of a pastoralist. In 2011 the Western Australian government moved to close the community and while the state government insists the residents of Oombulgurri left voluntarily, the closure began with the withdrawal of services from the community. The process was gradual. Welfare payments stopped being processed before the local store closed. After that, the schools and health services shutdown, followed by municipal services. This effectively forced residents with children and older residents in need of medical attention to leave in order to access services elsewhere. Finally, the power and water were shut off. Few of the former residents seem to have fared well in the transition, with many having nowhere to go and ending up homeless, living on the fringes of bigger towns in the region. To combat the problem, the state government was forced to spend at least $1.6m at the time to provide temporary housing. None of the social problems that had developed in Oombulgurri over the previous decade have gone away, with many former residents turning to alcohol more than ever.

The experience of Oombulgurri's closure may be repeated across the country. The West Australian state government may bulldoze 150 remote indigenous communities that it says are too expensive to keep open under a new funding arrangement between federal and state authorities. Canberra has offered each state a one-time, lump-sum payment to take over the responsibility of financing remote Aboriginal communities indefinitely. In an ultimatum, Western Australia was offered $90m, enough to fund remote communities through to 2017. Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett has taken a cautionary tone saying “the reality is that WA will struggle to afford subsidies of that amount." But as of June 30, 2015, past federal funding agreements will end, effectively giving Western Australia authorities about seven months before they must start working out how to fund remote communities in the future - and which ones will have to close.

Similar arrangements have been made with South Australian, Queensland, Victorian and Tasmanian state governments.

 South Australia rejected a $10m payment on the basis that it was not enough for the obligation being created. South Australia's Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Ian Hunter warned if his government was forced to accept the new arrangement, 60 remote communities - home to 4,000 people - would have to close.

"This is about our people's right to stay on our land," National Congress of Australia's First Peoples co-chair Kirstie Parker told Al Jazeera. "People are very frightened that the days are numbered and their communities will be closed." In an open letter to the prime minister Abbott, the organization said:

“The First Peoples of Australia had, and will always have, inherent rights to exist on and develop our lands and territories. These rights derive from the continuing and ancient title to these lands and territories, and according to our collective rights to self-determination as Peoples. By circumstances of Australia’s colonial and post-colonial history, and particularly in the absence of a consent agreement for acquisition and distribution of the wealth from our lands, territories and resources, our Peoples hold as a very minimum the right to enjoy equal outcomes from social and economic advancements benefitting all Australians. This must be clearly understood and respected by all governments in Australia.”

Kirstie Parker said targeting of their communities by states and territories was racially discriminatory and the Commonwealth must urgently intervene.

“While jurisdictions quibble about who is responsible for what – our peoples are vulnerable, under threat and in distress,” she said. “Hundreds of communities could potentially be forced to shut down and families moved away from their traditional lands into regional centres. This discriminatory action is happening across multiple states and territories. The fate and concern of so many communities cannot be left to the whims of different jurisdictions. Governments need to stop treating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as pawns…”