Dean Foley/Australian Correspondent.
The Northern Land Council has expressed profound shock that 13 Yolŋu clans announced at Garma they were breaking away to form their own Dilak Land Council, admitting it “wasn’t briefed” and found the news “a surprise” — a reaction Larrakia man Uncle Ted Fejo called “the most on-brand thing a big organisation could possibly do.”
“They’re stunned the mob want to leave. STUNNED,” said Uncle Ted, 64. “Mate, that IS the reason the mob want to leave. A body so far from the ground it didn’t hear thirteen whole clans deciding to walk… and its main complaint is that nobody told IT. You spend decades not briefing the communities, then get your feelings hurt you weren’t briefed. Poetry.”
Uncle Ted said the surprise “answered its own question.” “If you’re genuinely shocked your own people would rather run things themselves,” he said, “that’s not a betrayal, cuz — that’s a performance review. The clans didn’t blindside anyone. They’ve said it for years. The council just wasn’t listening, which, again, is the whole point.”
He noted the fix was “beautifully simple.” “Djawa Yunupiŋu stood up at Garma and said power should sit with the landowners,” Uncle Ted said. “That’s not a crisis. That’s land rights doing exactly what it was built to do — coming home.”
At press time, the NLC had scheduled an urgent meeting to discuss why nobody tells it anything.
