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‘We are not animals or Wanted’: Uncle Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves’ Message at Garma Festival
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‘We are not animals or Wanted’: Uncle Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves’ Message at Garma Festival

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Warlpiri Elder Uncle Ned Ned Hargraves is in the middle of a background of fiber, Schorsbos and has traveled from the red center to the northeast of Arnhem in the Northern Territory with a message for the NT government.

Surrounded by the holy grounds that the Yolŋu people are known as Gulkula, Mr. Hargraves reflects on the failures of the NT right system, failures that he has endured firsthand.

“At the moment we live in fear; all our children live in fear,” the Senior Warlpiri -man told NITV.
“We want to live with our children, with our generations that are still coming.”

His words bear the weight of personal experience: death in custody of two of his Jaja – Warlpiri for grandson.

In 2019, Warlpiri Luritja -Teenage Kumanjayi Walker died during an attempted arrest in his home community of Yuendumu by the then agent Zachary Rolfe who has since been acquitted of all related charges.
Mr. Walker was 19 years old and was shot three times from close by under circumstances where no emergency help services were present in Yuendumu.
The NT government and the NT police still have to bind to one of the 32 recommendations that have been transferred in the findings of the coronial investigation into the death of Kumanjayi Walker.
The pain of that event was brought horribly in May of this year, after 24-year-old Kumanjayi White died while he was held by two undercover officers in a supermarket in Alice Springs.

Mr. White, who had a handicap, was a guardian order, lived in Alice Springs because he needed a level of care that was not available on land in Yuendumu.

Mr. Hargraves and the Warlpiri community have retained calls to release the CCTV vision of the incident and for the investigation into his death to be independent of the police.
Although his calls are echoed throughout the country and is even repeated by the federal minister of indigenous Australians, it fell on deaf ears.
“The community is not happy,” said Mr. Hargraves.

“We feel very, very angry about what is not [being] finished.”

‘Shame Northern Territory Government’

This week, the Northern Territory government introduced a major revision of juvenile rights, the use of the previously forbidden spithoods, and abolishing the principle that detention is a last resort.
It builds on a “Tough on Crime” policy agenda, including the tightening of the guarantee laws that, according to them, are now the “most difficult in the country” and the first jurisdiction in the country to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 10 two years after the legislation of the NT Labor government that increased to 14.

“Shame your Northern Territory government, ashamed,” said Mr. Hargraves.

In the northern territory, around 99 percent of the prisoners and more than 80 percent of the locked adults are native.
Since he came to power in August last year, the NT government has seen an increase in the total prison population by 20 percent, about 50 percent of that is awaiting the conviction.
The latest report from the Productivity Commission in the closure of the GAP measures brought a steadily deterioration of the imprisonment of the youth in the NT for several years.
In a statement today, the NT procurer-general Marie-Clare Boothby said that “strong reforms of the government work” before referring to deteriorating provisional detention.
They included more than 3300 people refused bail, with preliminary numbers by 40 percent.
The average waiting time for provisional detention has fallen by 7 percent compared to last year, now an average of 136 days.

Mr. Hargraves seemed frustrated by the newest NT legislation and the apparent bragging about a legal system in crisis.

His message for the NT government is clear.
“You have to change your attitude, change the way you do things,” said Mr. Hargraves.
“It is unfair for us, for Yapa (native people) to live like that.”
“The only think I would see is why they are doing it because Blackfullas, we are going to suffer.”

“We are not animals or wanted. We want to live in freedom.”

A message of hope from the Garma Festival

Myatili Marika is a Yolngu woman located in North East Arnhem Land and a traditional owner of the Rirratjingu clan.
In a powerful speech to the Garma forum, Myatili Marika spoke about the hope that her communities entail despite the constant pain.
“Every day we treat death and trauma and the overwhelming sorrow that goes with it,” said Mrs. Marika, spoke the forum on Saturday morning.
“The ruthlessness of these forces in our communities is something that few people can imagine, let alone understand.”

“And yet we remain strong, determined, hopeful, patient in the things that will be better now and for future generations.”

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