15 Aug 2010

'Keeper of the Stones' could be Green Senator.



'I’m running for the Greens because I feel let down by the major parties. We vote for them and they don’t represent us.

I’m campaigning to end the NT intervention, against the Muckaty nuclear waste dump and for the environment. The environment is very important to me.

I don’t think the government is doing enough for Aboriginal housing. Most of the houses built have been for administrators, not the people that need them. Overcrowding is a big issue.

I’m also campaigning to restore bilingual education. I believe it’s important that our kids have the right to speak and be taught in their own language, not just in English.

The NT government made it so that teachers would be forced to teach only in English for the first four hours of the school day.

The environment and climate change is very important to Aboriginal people in the NT. We live on our land. If we keep killing it off, we won’t have anything.' Warren H. Williams.


Without some notion of critical indigenous politics, the Green Movement is nothing, indigneous people are fighting a huge struggle to protect the environment from mining, oil and gas extraction, if we are to tackle climate change by keeping fossil fuels in the ground and conserving carbon sinks like the rainforests, their victory will be the victory of humanity.

'Indigeneity' to me is about respect for ecology and communal ownership of resources like forests and land, although the idea that we can 'own' land even collectively is rejected by many indigenous people.

The person perhaps doing most to promote respect for indigenous thinking is Professor Elinor Ostrom.

Glad in this regard to see that the lead candidate for the Northern Territories for the Australian Green Party is the indigenous community leader and country singer Warren H. Williams.

There is an interview with Warren and article about indigenous Green Party candidates in Australia in Green Left Weekly here.

Warren's website is here.

And of course the Socialist Alliance (you can transfer votes in the Australian system and the Socialist Aliance are staunch ecosocialists) also have indigenous candidates like the great Sam Watson.

Greens look likely to do well in the Senate have a look here.

And of course my favourite all time Australian eco hero has to be the late Nick Origlass, you didn't mess with him if you trying to dump nuclear waste, build a chemical story in a working class community or break a strike.

The song is written about Warren, will post some of his music later!

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