Kalumburu’s struggle for a better future

This is the example of bad thing done by a church.

Kalumburu is a small aboriginal town, of about 500 people, formerly a Catholic mission.

the Benedictine order which settled there more than a century ago ruled like colonial administrators until the Federal Government finally forced them to relinquish control in the early 1980s. The mission is now a parish under the auspices of the Bishop of Broome.

Recently as the community grows, it went out of land for housing.

most of the land beyond the town boundaries is flood prone for many months of the year.

Except that is for a huge tract of high ground just across the road from the community, over which the Catholic Church has freehold and leasehold title.

The Church secured those titles when the mission finally surrendered management of the community in the early 1980s.

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That land, one, belongs to the Indigenous people and should be handed back to them freehold.

But number two, the biggest argument and the strongest argument was the fact that during the wet season, Kalumburu is waterlogged or water locked, if you like, and the only land that is available for Kalumburu to expand is that land that the Catholic mission, Catholic Church, believes is theirs.

The community tried to contact the Bishop of Broome, but he refused to respond nor talk to the community.

More bad things done by the church in the transcript of the show.