The Wire

The Northern Territory’s annual Garma Festival may have wound up yesterday, but some of the comments made at the gathering have taken on a life of their own. The festival attracts hundreds to a remote community near Nhulunbuy, in northeast Arnhem Land. And the theme for this year was Indigenous Cultural Livlihoods. But former head of the powerful Northern Land Council Gallarwuy Yunupingu used a forum at the festival to focus attention on non-traditional Indigenous livelihoods, with a proposal to start his own mining company, to keep mineral resources in Aboriginal hands.