In March 2015,
18,000 people across Australia turned out at protests against
the forced closure of up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities in
Western Australia, as the Barnett state government of the time had
announced they were no longer economically viable.
The slated closures followed on from
a federal government decision to cut the funding that covered
the municipal and essential services to these communities, many of
which are in the Kimberley region. However, some pointed to the
move as being a blatant land grab by government.
Much of the development proposals contained in the White
Paper on Developing Northern Australia – released by the
Abbott government in July 2015 – would have been facilitated
by these closures, which have never taken place in the systematic
way proposed by former premier Colin Barnett.
