Planes, Roads, Automobiles.
Mata Mata is a Yolŋu homeland in North East Arnhem Land, founded by Gatirri Burarrwaŋa and family around 1948 and supported by Marthakal Homelands & Resource Centre. It has no working vehicle. Homelands have a strong health record, but homeland programs do not fund a transport system, and private vehicles are a gap that families fill themselves.
This main paper traces the Mata Mata fleet car by car from 2015 and describes the Djotarra 2 campaign. Companion papers to Planes, Roads, Automobiles treat Planes (Bäpa Sheppy, MAF and fares), Roads (the Central Arnhem Highway), and Royalties (where Gove mining money went). Appendices A and B address the “forty billion dollars” claim.
The ISX’s role is micro-work: to pinpoint the vehicle gap and show how inadequate government funding and royalties leave families and supporters carrying it.
This paper was written while living on the Mata Mata homeland from 28 Sept 2026 to 7/10/2026.
9520 words, 33 pages
The paper is available free to subscribers for 48 hours after first being posted. After than it can be downloaded as a pdf for a nominal sum of $5.
Downloadable files:
