FORMER Australian of the Year and Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunipingu has called on his people to stop accepting welfare handouts, saying it is killing them.
Mr Yunipingu was speaking at this year's Garma Festival, held on a remote region of Yolngu land on the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory.
"Stop relying on welfare handouts," he told an audience, which included executives from Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals chairman Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest.
"Please no more, please no more welfare handouts.
"It's a killer to the Yolngu Society."
Instead, Mr Yunipingu said his people deserved appropriate education.
"Not just any Mickey Mouse teaching, not just any education for blackfellas, please give us a real teaching give us a real education."
The Garma Festival is a celebration of the Yolngu cultural inheritance and will run until Sunday.
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