Traditional owners have told a parliamentary hearing for a controversial mining and manufacturing project that white ‘idiot’ activists are blocking their economic development opportunities.
Top End Aboriginal Coastal Alliance Chair Julius Kernan says Indigenous Territorians face many ‘hurdles’ and siding with interstate environmentalists had previously caused them to ‘miss out’ on the benefits projects bring.
‘It is time for our people to be recognised or identified as people to engage with in a culturally appropriate manner and have space to have a say without interruption from non-Indigenous idiots,’ he told a Senate inquiry examining the Middle Arm development in the Northern Territory on Monday.
