Paddy Gibson recently visited the Northern Territory and spoke with Mitch, an Aboriginal woman from Central Australia

How has the recent intervention impacted on life for Aboriginal people in Alice Springs?

We've got new alcohol restriction laws in the Territory which include $1000 fines for drinking. People are being moved on under these laws, people are being harassed in the streets having their bags checked, police accusing them of drinking whether they are or they aren't, having their names written down.

People generally just being harassed because you're Aboriginal and because you're out on the street. So the town is not home anymore for us. Aboriginal people and family aren't up town to say hello to, they aren't up there to have a feed with or have a chat about what is happening out on the communities. It's really hard.

The place is full of tourists, white faces. It's really hard to spot an Indigenous face and that's demoralising. It's really impacting on our people emotionally.

People don't have the information to make decisions about their future. Policy is being made up as they going along.

Next week we've got meetings and information sessions we've organised, bush mob coming in, being supported by Tangentyere council and the land councils because the government will not provide us with the information we need.

Has life changed in the town camps?

It's sad. On some of the town camps we had a drop in violence in the first few weeks, but just recently the violence has escalated because we have family coming into town withdrawing from cigarettes because they are not allowed to buy them on the communities, withdrawing from alcohol and not getting the proper services.

We're due for a beer fest in the Territory, so we'll see how many drunken white people walk around and don't get locked up. That's the sad blatant thing about this-it's so racist.

We had [this problem] recently at Mutitjulu where people knew the legislation meant alcohol could not be consumed on Aboriginal land, and the white population knew that as well. This had a big impact on tourist operators because they couldn't take people to Ayers Rock to have a drink and watch the sunset.

So the legislation got changed and now white people can drink on communities but Aboriginal people can't. It's so hypocritical. We've got to sort out Australia's drinking problem. If you drink and you're a white Australian you're a larrikin according to John Howard.

How is the cutting of the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) being rolled out? What will this mean?

Centrelink has been out in the communities advising people what entitlements they can receive other than CDEP, so they'll go onto Newstart programs and parenting programs and things like that which basically takes away their job.

I don't know who's going to be collecting the rubbish. I don't think the government's willing to pay Indigenous people equal wages with rights to health care and superannuation like the workers for the town councils in Alice Springs.

I don't know who's going to be working in the clinics if its not the people working with the CDEP. I don't know who's going to be working assisting the one or two teachers in the schools in the communities.

We've got a lot of people coming into town now because there's nothing for them in the communities. There's no jobs, there's no work. But there's nothing for the town to offer them either. There's nothing about where we are going to house these people. Through this whole intervention we haven't had a single house built for an Aboriginal person. It's sad. They can build houses for the new managers, for white people to go out and boss around Indigenous people on their own land but we can't build houses for Aboriginal people. And the whole point of it was to save our children.

Are welfare payments being quarantined? Can you explain the impact that this will have?

They've rolled it out on four communities and for us they'll role it out in the next week or so.

We've heard on the radio that 50 per cent of our wages will be quarantined and if people want to receive those quarantined monies they'll have to contact the nearest office in Alice Springs and tell them exactly how much they need, on what date, where they are going to spend it, and Centrelink will deem whether that's an appropriate way of spending their money and say yes or no.

So Centrelink has control. For our people that means restrictions on being able to travel for ceremonies, for sorry business, for celebrations, births, for ceremonies on other countries that we have to participate in.

If Centrelink say its not OK its not OK. So that's the breakdown of our culture. The impact of this intervention is not only on land, it's on culture as well, and our spirit. We already had a program through the Tangentyere council in Alice Springs for people to put payments aside that could be spent in local shops we owned. It was running very successfully. Now Centrelink will hold the money and it can only be spent at Woolworths, so all the little shops miss out.

Have the new "business managers" come into any communities? How are they behaving? What has the response been?

I know they've got a manager in at Hart's Range and people are not impressed with her. She didn't learn anything about our culture, family, who belongs and who doesn't. I spoke with a woman who just came back from Yuendemu the other day and the Yuendemu mob have told their manager that he's trespassing! They are refusing to talk with him or deal with him at the moment because of his plans.

He came up with a brilliant plan a couple weeks ago that all children not attending school would pick up rubbish until they were sickly tired. Apparently John Howard agreed that was a good idea until the education department said children have rights under the UN. Then there is Mount Theo, the drying out place for petrol sniffers.

Yuendemu community have set this up with their own funds, on a little outstation. Now with this new manager they are under threat of being closed down and the petrol sniffers won't have anywhere to go. We've seen on TV-on Black Out and Living Black-about other communities where women's shelters are being shut down.

Everything we've fought for to protect our women over the years is being closed.

The bi-lingual schools we have had that run very successfully have recently been shut down, by Howard withdrawing funding. Whenever we come up with any solution, it is de-funded.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Yes. Mr Howard announced that he would put Indigenous people into the constitution if re-elected. It's not going to win my vote. I don't want the rest of Australia to be sucked in by this.

His words were absolutely disgraceful and had nothing to do with any of his words or actions in the last ten years. I don't know where he's come up with this. It's a good election ploy. It'll probably get three or four black votes, but we know who they are-the ones just hanging around Canberra!

I encourage everyone in Australia to vote Greens, Democrats or Independents because we have to think of the future of this country and not sell it out.