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INDIGENOUS leaders in Arnhem Land have asked Kevin Rudd to abandon key aspects of the federal intervention in remote Aboriginal areas, including the quarantining of welfare payments.

The leaders, who represent 8000 Aboriginal people, said the intervention had created a wasteful bureaucracy and described the quarantining system under which payments had to be spent on food or other essentials as punitive. The payments should only be quarantined on a case-by-case basis, they said.

Clan leaders agreed on the statement after a marathon and sometimes fiery meeting. The statement said indigenous people had been "marginalisd and demeaned over the past decade by the Howard regime and have been denied a say in our aspirations and futures".

Mr Rudd told journalists the Government was waiting on the findings of a review of the intervention by a three-person board expected later this year.

He said that under the intervention in 73 communities, 14,300 people had had their welfare payments quarantined and 1100 children had been given health checks. "These are important achievements," he said.

Among the leaders who signed the statement was Wali Wunungmurra, chairman of the powerful Northern Land Council which represents most indigenous groups in northern Australia.

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