Reversals seem to be the order of the day around the globe. You think you’ve won certain rights. Little did you know, they can take it away any day.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Aborigines on Tuesday said the government was trying to steal their land under the guise of responding to a crisis that Prime Minister John Howard has labelled Australia’s own Hurricane Katrina.

Canberra began deploying police and soldiers to the Northern Territory outback this week under a controversial plan to combat widespread child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities.

Indigenous leaders presented a letter bearing more than 90 signatures to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough Tuesday condemning the plan, which involves Canberra taking control of leases on Aboriginal land for five years.

Pat Turner, who was once Australia’s most senior Aboriginal bureaucrat, said Howard’s conservative government was trying to reverse hard-fought indigenous land rights.

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