The Northern Land Council (NLC) has called on the Territory Government to stop making decisions without it.
NLC announced this week it supports the call by the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the Northern Territory (AMSANT) that a safe reopening of the Northern Territory must be based on a number of key principles and actions.
Prior to the recent COVID-19 transmission events in Darwin and Katherine, the NLC Chairman Samuel Bush-Blanasi emphasised that: “We need higher vaccination rates in the NT because 80 per cent … is too low to protect Aboriginal people in remote communities. We need minimum of 90 per cent.”
Mr Bush-Blanasi stressed the need to use the best information available, and based on the recent Doherty Institute updated data modelling, the NLC supports AMSANT’s call for 90% coverage for Aboriginal people over the age of 16 years before NT borders open. Once a safe vaccine is approved for children from 5 years of age, the NLC would support AMSANT’s call for a revised target of 80 per cent.
Without an enhanced and targeted remote vaccination program, the NLC has concerns about the requirements, complexity and workability of rapid antigen testing and mask wearing in communities with a vaccination rate below 70 per cent.
“If we don’t have reliable vaccination data outside of Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs, then we won’t know where to target our multilingual vaccination promotional efforts. Remember our Aboriginal land and waters border Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia and major towns across the NT too,” said Mr Bush-Blanasi.
“This is about our lives, our people and our country. Governments have to think beyond the big cities when making important decisions about our mob out bush – don’t make decisions about us without us.”
This article appeared in Tennant & District Times, 12 November 2021.
