Oongi Barb Flick is a Yuwaalaayi/Gomeroi/Bigambul woman, who comes from a family of activists for social justice and Indigenous rights. She spoke with 8CCC’s Kate Lyons-Dawson about her workshop with Professor Richard Tanter as part of the Close Pine Gap – Sacred Land Back Convergence happening 18-20 July in Mparntwe Alice Springs – US Imperial Power Projection from Northern Australia.

Barbara Flick was director of the Alice Springs-based Institute for Aboriginal Development IAD and a core member of the Alice Springs Peace Group, which organised the 1987 convergence on Pine Gap, which called for the closure not only of Pine Gap, but of bases right across the Asia-Pacific, as a first step towards the demilitarisation and decolonisation of the entire region.

She helped establish Redfern’s first Aboriginal health and legal services in the 1970s, was 
coordinator at Western Aboriginal Legal Service, Dubbo, and served as Secretary on the Interim NSW Aboriginal Land Council. Barb also served as Secretary of the National Federation of Land Councils, addressiong the Inquiry into the Sizewell B Nuclear Power facility in Suffolk, England 1983-1985. UK Labour has just approved the continuing operation of Sizewell B until 2055.