Sovereign Union: Recent Episodes
As described
The Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in 'Australia' is asserting genuine pre-existing and continuing sovereignty over First Nations' territories, lands waters and natural resources. This is a liberation struggle educating, communicating, advocating and promoting the capacity-building of First Nation clans and Nations towards independence and governance, and involving reparation..
Facebook - Sovereign Union (https://www.facebook.com/SovereignUnion1/)
Lola Forrester interview with veteran Aboriginal activist Ghillar Michael Anderson, the last survivor of the founding four men of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra 1972
Interview in on Koori Radio, 17 October 2024
Lola Forester from Koori Radio's 'Blak Chat' with Ghillar Michael Anderson speaking on the current issues for self-determination and other First Nations Rights and the Blak Sovereign movement and other associated issues.
John Howard First Announced Constitutional Recognition to damage the First Nations Sovereignty. This audio was first broadcast on ABC Radio National PM Report 11 October 2007. The image here is of former PM John Howard and Mark Leibler, the co-chair of the Referendum Council' the media never shows. John Howard's statement was made during the same period of government when he reduced the rights in Native Title, a much weaker land holding, opposing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, opposing a Treaty and following the introduction of the Northern Territory Intervention and the shutting down of ATSIC.Mark Leibler Co-chair and pulling the strings of the Referendum Council is a Tax Lawyer who is now a Senior Partner in 'Arnold Bloch Leibler' a company that works with big business to minimise taxes. He is an active supporter of the illegal occupation of The West Bank in Palestine and one prominent member of the Australian Zionist lobby.
A lot of us know Bruce Pascoe as author of the award-winning Dark Emu, which introduced many Australians to the idea of Indigenous agriculture.
But, these days Bruce, together with his son Jack, is actually putting those ideas about land management into practice.
Bruce and Jack are co-founders of a social enterprise called Black Duck Foods, which works with the Indigenous community to establish traditional food growing and country management processes around the country.
Guests:
Bruce Pascoe, Yuin man, award winning author, best known for his work Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?, author most recently of an essay commissioned by the Wheeler Centre called Brave Old World, Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne and co-founder of Black Duck Foods
Dr Jack Pascoe, Yuin man, ecologist and co-founder and chair of Black Duck Foods
Duration: 20min 58sec
Broadcast: ABC Radio National - Life Matters with Hilary HarperThu 27 May 2021, 9:06am
A vast old Moreton Bay fig tree in the grounds of a former state-run children's home on the mid north coast of New South Wales has deep significance for the boys who were forcibly sent there.
The boys were chained to its trunk overnight - and worse - as brutal punishment and torture by a succession of sadistic managers who oversaw the notorious Kinchela Boys Home near Kempsey.
Like prisoners the boys were dehumanised and known by numbers.
The sexual and physical violence they experienced behind the iron gates of the home produced generations of rage-filled men - some of whom did not survive.
But as the rusted links of that chain are overgrown and disappear, literally swallowed by that tree, some of the former residents heal a little.
Features: Wailwan man, Michael Welshfrom (widdy) and Dhungutti and Gumbaynggir man, Richard Campbell, survivor's of the Kinchela Boys Home
(Source: ABC RN 'Awaye': https://ab.co/3hxEhyZ)
'Harold Thomas said he created the Aboriginal Flag for the unification of the people ... It's a journey of identity' but ...
Paul Wiles from CAAMA Radio in Alice Springs asks Harold Thomas for his position in the wake of criticism. CAAMA LINK: https://bit.ly/3llCtbT
Summer's fires have left their mark on Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe.
As he explains in this long conversation with Jonathan Green, the experience of fighting fire is something shared in a nod or a glance.
And while the fires raged, Pascoe was caught in the continuing culture war over his Aboriginal identity.
"It was an incredibly painful time and it just went on and on ... it was the kind of tactics which are meant to sap your morale, and it worked."
Large parts of eastern Australia remain in drought, which continues to devastate many rural communities. It seems that more and more often, the country is facing water scarcity.
Climate change is likely to mean that we will face increased levels of dryness in future, which will impact on those who make a living on the land, as well as everyone else relying on it for food and fibre.
Australia's first peoples have lived on this land for thousands of years. But how successfully are we integrating their knowledge into mainstream approaches to farming?
Guests:
Bruce Pascoe, farmer with Bunurong, Yuin and Tasmanian heritage and author, Dark Emu
Bradley Moggridge, Kamilaroi water scientist and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra
ABC RN 'Life Matters' 30 October 2019
He's been described as an Aboriginal prophet - an extraordinary man who dreamt of self-determination more than a century ago.
Anthony Martin Fernando emerges at a time in our history when Aboriginal people were being confined on reserves and missions - yet he spent much of his life overseas, agitating for political rights for Aboriginal people from self-imposed exile in Europe.
With that proverbial fire in his belly and not much else, Fernando travelled across Europe earning a living however he could.
But as you can imagine it was a precarious existence - a life lived in the shadow of poverty and homelessness spiked with racism.
It was on his wandering journey that Fernando left evidence – bits and pieces of an impassioned activist life - detailed by cultural historian Dr Fiona Paisley in her biographical study The Lone Protestor.
On the rocks of the Burrup Peninsula exist a vast collection of Aboriginal engravings, described as "the largest outdoor art gallery on the planet".
It's estimated there are a million of them and yet the sad fact is that most of us know more about the French engravings of horses at Lascaux than we do of what exists on our doorstep.
The Aboriginal people of the Pilbara region know the site as Murujuga
And while Lascaux is heavily protected, the rock art of the Burrup remains caught in a decades-long fight between culture, tourism and industry.
Within a stone's throw of this incredible art are petrochemical plants, a giant gas hub and one of Australia's busiest ports.
But now Aboriginal traditional custodians, archaeologists and government are working together to push for UNESCO World Heritage listing.
Joining Jo Trilling for this FOCUS conversation are Peter Jeffries, CEO Murujuga Aboriginal corporation, archaeologist Dr Ken Mulvaney, scientist Dr John Black and Yarra Pilbara spokesperson Luke Blackbourn.
**Source: ABC Focus with Jessica Strutt
Duration:** 43min 8sec
Broadcast: Wed 17 Apr 2019, 12:00pm
http://tiny.cc/j099cz
A new wave of Pentecostal missionaries is dividing remote communities in Australia’s north.
Some are promoting the idea that traditional Aboriginal culture is a type of witchcraft or devil worship, and their followers are setting fire to sacred artefacts in an attempt to drive away the devil.
Aboriginal leaders have accused the preachers of exploiting vulnerable communities.
Erin Parke from ABC Kimberley investigates.
http://tiny.cc/72l1cz
Respected Arrente/Alyawarr Elder Rosalie Kunoth Monks has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Council of the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.
Addressing the 2019 Bachelor graduates… Ms Kunoth Monks shared her passion about the journey of the first Nations under colonization and stressed the importance of cultural knowledge and its place in contemporary Australia.
Listen to the full presentation and interview with CAAMA's Gilmore Johnson here :
Source: CAAMA RADIO, Alice Springs http://tiny.cc/nlwwcz
Our perception of the world is significantly affected by the language we speak. Indigenous languages from around Australia pose a vastly different perspective of the world than that of English. We explore how these languages influence perceptions ...
ABC RN 'All in the mind' http://tiny.cc/s1i4bz
A First Nations Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution will not make a difference, in fact, it will make matters worse and it will cede your Aboriginal sovereignty status.
The First Nations people in Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland explain what has happened over there, and they were not even colonised countries. (AUDIO 28 minutes)
Listen later: 3mp Download: https://goo.gl/Kziwmn
Excerpt from ABC RN Rear Vision
When there is something you think is not offensive removed or report something you think is offensive on Facebook, it might surprise you to know that the moderator who makes the decision is a low-paid person in the Philippines, a country that has a huge Christian population and where no-one is allowed to criticize the country's leader.
An interview on ABC RN 'Download This Show' with Hans Block, director of 'The Cleaners', a new film about this subject. When the trailer was put on Facebook, it was deleted - lets see how this post goes.
From ABC RN 'Download This Show' 28 September 2018
The United Nations' expert adviser on the rights of indigenous peoples has urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to reconsider his rejection of the call for an Indigenous voice to Parliament, a key part of the Uluru Statement issued just over a year ago after a national Indigenous consultation process.
Special rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is currently in Australia and says the Government must listen more carefully to Indigenous people.
Duration: 6min 28sec
Source: ABC Radio 'PM' Broadcast: Mon 2 Jul 2018
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/indigenous-activism-criminalised-worldwide-un-adviser/9932484
The brutal, senseless massacre of 28 people on Myall Creek pastoral station in the New South Wales northern tablelands in 1838 echoes still.
In the litany of massacres, Myall Creek stands out - because it was the only mass murder for which some of the men responsible were charged, tried and executed for their crimes.
The ringleader, John Henry Fleming, escaped justice and died an unrepentant old man north-west of Sydney in 1894.
A symposium was held to mark the 180th anniversary of the massacre and the writer Bruce Pascoe delivered the keynote address.
The peak body for Aboriginal health, the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT) , has been outspoken on the recent media reporting around the sensitive issues of reported child sex abuses and has been critical of the NT Government's response so far.
Donna Archee, the AMSANT Chairperson said:
"Sexual abuses are abhorrent and must be addressed with the full force of the law.
Now, when we look at the situation that occured in Ali Curung it is our understanding that the four year old boy has actually suffered no physical injuries and 'The Australian' newspaper said he was tranferred to Alice Springs hospital because of severe injuries is UNTRUE. He was tranferred to enable a proper forensic assessment even though there were no signs of injuries on examination.
So this doesn't mean there is no harm in some way but we're actually concerned with the way the reporting is occurring in these particular incidences."
The Northern Territory's Police Commissioner has revealed plans to send a unit of camouflaged, specialised police with military-grade weapons to patrol Darwin and Alice Springs at night.
The Territory Response Group is known as the TRG, and is part of the Australian Government's National Counter Terrorism Task Force.
The announcement comes a week to the day since a Royal Commission delivered its report on youth detention and child protection systems in the Northern Territory.
From ABC RN 'The Castaways' - Hindsight July 2014
RELATED ARTICLE: https://goo.gl/pE75HJ
Court delays and a police crackdown on certain offences are thought to be behind a huge spike in Indigenous incarceration in New South Wales.
Between 2013 and 2016, the Indigenous imprisonment rate in New South Wales grew by 25 per cent.
Our reporter Angela Lavoipierre spoke to the director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, about the trend.
Featured:
Dr Don Weatherburn, Director, Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
Source: ABC Radio PM
From July 30th 2018, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs says he'll refuse to do business with any organisation that's not Aboriginal. Nigel Scullion said he's having tough conversations with organisations like church groups, who currently have contracts to provide some services in Aboriginal communities.
Source: ABC News
Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard announced Recognition during the same period of government where he significantly reduced the cultural and self-determination Rights in 'Native Title', strongly opposed the 'Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples', Strongly opposed a 'Treaty' and refused to apologise to the 'Stolen Generation'. Howard's government also introduced the 'Northern Territory Intervention' and shut down 'ATSIC'.
Surely, any First Nations or non-Indigenous person cannot believe for one minute, that introducing 'Constitution Recognition' was done in the interests of First Nations and Peoples culture, aspirations, self-determination and well-being. It was specificaaly a 'trick' to dissolve Aboriginal Sovereignty and enforce assimilation, and is largely promoted and funded by the mining industry.
In Western Australia, an Aboriginal man has walked free from prison after the Appeals Court overturned his conviction for manslaughter.
Gene Gibson is from a remote indigenous community and barely understands English, the language in which he was tried and convicted.
His lawyers argued he didn't understand what was going on when he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 21-year-old Josh Warnecke.
Featured:
Michael Lundberg, Gene Gibson's lawyer
Indigenous leaders from north-east Arnhem Land have devised a new plan to deal with family violence in their community.
It calls for a new approach to community policing, with a local authority of clan groups the first point of contact.
They say misunderstandings about traditional and western legal systems are part of the problem.
Featured: Yirrininba Dhurrkay, ARDS Aboriginal Corporation David Suttle, ARDS Aboriginal Corporation
ABC RN 'The World Today' 31 March 2017
ABC Article: https://goo.gl/zffGgZ
The Northern Territory youth detention royal commission has been told children were held on rolling 72 hour isolation placements because there was nowhere else to put them.
The Don Dale youth detention centre's former general manager has given evidence today. Russell Caldwell told the inquiry laws about prolonged isolation didn't account for the reality on the ground.
Featured:
Peter Callaghan SC, counsel assisting NT royal commission Russell Caldwell, former Don Dale Youth Detention Centre Includes: Felicity Graham, counsel for the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service Peggy Dwyer, counsel for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency
ABC Radio - Felicity James reported this story on Wednesday, March 29, 2017
ABC RN Background Briefing
Just five years ago this Northern Territory hospital was facing closure, its doctors were out of their depth and indigenous patients were leaving the wards in droves. This is the remarkable story of how Katherine Hospital turned its fortunes around. It now ranks among Australia's best for its relationship with its indigenous patients. How did the hospital do it and what lessons does this have for the rest of the nation?
More Here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/katherine-hospital-from-worst-in-the-country-to-one-of-the-best/8392792
In the Northern Territory, the grandmother of a former Don Dale detainee has told the youth detention royal commission how she thinks the system should change.
Her grandson told the commission today he was handcuffed to a fence and forced to sleep in a wet cell without a mattress for 24 hours, after another detainee set off a fire extinguisher.
This week the commission's hearings in Alice Springs have focused on people overseeing the youth detention system, along with former detainees.
Featured:
Tony McAvoy SC, counsel assisting the NT Royal Commission BY, former Don Dale detainee CA, BY's grandmother Commissioner Margaret White, NT Royal Commission
Source: Felicity James reported this story on Thursday, March 16, 2017 for ABC RN PM
On the first fleet there were eleven convicts who were freed slaves from America, and who for various reasons found themselves on a long and dangerous journey to what became the colony of Sydney. Judy Johnson has has not one but two of these black first fleet convicts as her ancestors, and has written a collection of poetry, based on the documents and personal accounts which still exits from that time.
Source: ABC RN Sunday Extra
A Bill before Parliament to amend the Native title Act in relation to Indigenous Land Use agreements has been described by a veteran Aboriginal rights campaigner as "'one of the vilest racist acts we've seen".
Ghillar Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union says the proposed amendments are a complete violation of the First Nations laws and customs because each clan makes its own decisions about its own land and what happens on and within those territories.
From CAAMA Radio - with Paul Wiles (23/2/17)
Dylan Voller speaks out despite his Lawyers recommendation, two weeks after being released from prison
Indigenous painter Albert Namatjira is widely regarded as one our greatest artists--his beautiful watercolour depictions of his country in central Australia stand apart in our artistic heritage.
Yet you may be surprised to learn that since his premature death in 1959, none of Namatjira's descendents have earned a cent from any reproductions of his work.
That's because the copyright to his estate was sold by the Northern Territory public trustee, reportedly without consultation with the Namatjira family, a deal which has been described as a major cultural injustice.
A new initiative called the 'Namatjira Legacy Trust' aims to right this alleged injustice by raising funds to buy back the copyright of Albert Namatjira's images from the family who now own it.
The campaign will be launched at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra on Friday.
From ABC RN Breakfast Among those leading the initiative is art curator and Indigenous woman Hetti Perkins, the daughter of the late Charlie Perkins, who's had a long association with the Namatjira family.
A Yolngu leader and member of the Northern Territory Parliament has rejected claims that all Aboriginal communities are not safe for children and says that his people need to be empowered to put traditional tribal practice back in place.
Yingiya Mark Guyula, the member for Nhulunbuy has slammed the Northern Territory Government's child protection system and says laws to place Aboriginal children with their extended family and community are being "broken".
Yingiya talks with Paul Wiles - CAAMA Radio
CAAMA NEWS 25th Jan 2017
Over the past year hearings, community meetings as well as victim testimonies have taken place.
Community engagement officers Barbara Shaw and Nick Espie joined us in the CAAMA studios to discuss the Royal Commission in 2016 and what's occurring in the new year.
A lawyer representing victims of child sexual abuse is calling on the Federal government to extend the term of the national royal commission.
The final public hearing is due to start next week, when consultations will also begin on a national redress scheme.
Jason Parkinson from Porters Lawyers told The World Today's Emily Bourke that he also has grave concerns that the scheme could compromise the common law rights of child abuse victims.
Henrietta Marrie, a Gimuy Walubarra Yidinji woman, has undetaken research in Australia and abroad on issues issues relating to traditional knowledge, access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing, protection of traditional knowledge as intellectual property, and the conservation and management of biological diversity.
Earth Matters 3CR and the Community Radio Network
With Bruce Pascoe, Bill Gammage, Uncle Max Harrison, Beth Gott, Heather Buith, Jimmy Onus, Dr Penny Wurm, Lorraine Williams, Ken Stewart.
Historians, writers and academics are upending the colonial lies and deception of First Nations agriculture, land management and medicinal plant knowledge, The first Nations peoples had complex systems of agriculture that went far beyond the hunter-gatherer tag. They were, in fact, our first farmers and land managers, whose intimate knowledge of the medicinal values and managing native plants and animals sustained them for thousands of years.
ABC RADIO NATIONAL 'Bush Telegraph' http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/rethinking-indigenous-australias-agricultural-past/5452454
Northern Territory Police are investigating allegations a former Don Dale detainee received a death threat ahead of his appearance before the royal commission into youth detention.
Kenny Rogan, 14, has been out of youth detention in Darwin for six months.
He has alleged that while he was there guards stripped off his clothes with a knife.
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. 00:00 00:00 AUDIO: Death threat made against former Don Dale inmate. (ABC News) His father, Colin Rogan, believes he has been threatened because the teenager is expected to give evidence before the commission in March.
Mr Rogan said he received a call on his mobile phone on Wednesday night.
"It was life-threatening mainly towards my son," he said.
"When I asked the caller to come around and speak to us face to face he said he'd come around at night time when we were asleep and kill the both of us. "It sounded like a person who has got a bit of authority in his life, only certain types of people talk like that: clear, concise and to the point, and very quick," he said.
"It frightened the hell out of me and my son."
Indigenous communities harvesting gubinge in Western Australia's far north are reporting some big yields this wet season.
(ABC News) January 2017
The bush tucker, which is also known as Kakadu plum, is found across northern Australia and regarded as having more vitamin C than any other fruit.
Lenny O'Meara from Kimberley Wild Gubinge said after big rains in December, there was an abundance of quality fruit on the Dampier Peninsula, north of Broome.
"The season up here is very good this year because of the rain," he told ABC Rural.
"The trees have flourished with the water and the fruit is abundant, especially compared to last year when it was a bit drier and there wasn't as much fruit around.
"So it's really good picking this year and the fruit are nice and fat."
Mr O'Meara said when the plums tasted 'tangy' it was a sign the vitamin C content was high. He said the quality of fruit this year was proving to be excellent.
MORE: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-12/big-yields-for-gubinge-industry-north-of-broome/8173320
The University of Melbourne has issued an apology to the Forgotten Australians, expressing regret that researchers linked to the institution were involved in experiments performed on children in state care. The move has prompted calls for other educational institutions to follow suit and make a concerted effort to contact anyone used as a subject without consent.
Barbara Miller reporting for ABC Radio PM 18 Nov 2009
The WA Government has once again refused to commit to a mandatory notification service when an Aboriginal person comes into police custody, despite the recommendations of a high-profile coronial inquest.
Last week the coroner found 22-year-old Aboriginal woman Ms Dhu had been "treated inhumanely" and that her death in custody was preventable.
The coroner recommended WA once again consider a Custody Notification Service, like the one which exists in New South Wales and the ACT.
Sarah Dingle reported this story on Friday, December 23, 2016 with Ruth Barson, Human Rights Law Centre
Bruce is a prolific writer and editor of fiction for adults and young people, and he also writes essays and history.
His most recent work presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia.
From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life.
Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems.
They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields, and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops.
Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush.
In Every Mother’s Son is Guilty, Chris Owen provides a compelling account of policing in the Kimberley district from 1882, when police were established in the district, until 1905 when Dr. Walter Roth’s controversial Royal Commission into the treatment of Aboriginal people was released.
Owen’s achievement is to take elements of the pre-existing historiography and test them against a rigorous archival investigation. In doing so a fuller understanding of the complex social, economic and political changes occurring in Western Australia during the period are exposed. The policing of Aboriginal people changed from one of protection under law to one of punishment and control. The subsequent violence of colonial settlement and the associated policing and criminal justice system that developed, often of questionable legality, was what Royal Commissioner Roth termed a ‘brutal and outrageous state of affairs’. Every Mother's Son is Guilty: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905
Every Mother’s Son is Guilty is a significant contribution to Australian and colonial criminal justice history.
UWA Publishing http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/every-mothers-son-is-guilty-policing-the-kimberley-frontier-of-western-australia-1882-1905
The Northern Territory youth detention Royal Commission has been told that vitriolic comments by government members created an environment for the abuse of young offenders.
Alice Springs Legal Aid lawyer Russell Goldflam gave evidence during the commission's final day of public hearings this year. The hearings had been set aside for evidence from young people, but those plans were abandoned.
Featured: Russell Goldflam, principal legal officer, NT Legal Aid Commission Alice Springs Peggy Dwyer, counsel for North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency
source abc pm
The longest surviving culture on earth has a lot to offer modern Australia
CAAMA NEWS 8th Dec 2016 Indigenous mental health academic Tanja Hirvonen talks to CAAMA's Paul Wiles about how the longest surviving culture on earth has a lot to offer modern Australia ...
From the series 'What keeps me Awake' ABC Radio National
Dr Tony Birch Academic, educator and author of Ghost River The Bruce McGuiness Indigenous Research fellowship, Moondani Balluk Academic Unit, Victoria University
The Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory has been told the current Don Dale detention centre is being run like a human storage facility.
The author of a damning report about the Territory's corrections system is giving evidence at public hearings this week.
Keith Hamburger says he and his staff have been horrified at conditions inside the former adult prison which is now being used to detain young people.
Featured:
Keith Hamburger, 'A Safer Northern Territory through Correctional Interventions' report author Tony McAvoy SC, Senior Counsel Assisting the NT royal commission Margaret White, co-commissioner for the NT royal commission
Between the 1790's to the 1870's, many shipwreck survivors and convict escapees managed to survive after being taken in by Australia's Indigenous communities.
Living with the Locals tells the stories of some of these men, women and children.
Authors John Maynard and Victoria Haskins join Patricia Karvelas in The Drawing Room.
John Maynard is the Director at the Wollotuka Institute of Aboriginal Studies, University of Newcastle and Chair of Indigenous History
Victoria Haskins is an Historian at the University of Newcastle
ABC RN 'The Drawing Room', Producer Barbara Heggen
IMAGE: 'William Buckley introduces himself to Batman's party' (State Library of Victoria) - Image touched up - to view the image in its origibal state see: - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/image/8075534-3x2-700x467.jpg
Source link: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/living-with-the-locals/8075512
The Federal Government's remote work-for-the-dole scheme is devastating Indigenous communities, with financial penalties causing insurmountable debt and social division, a report has found.
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. 00:00 00:00 AUDIO: Remote work-for-the-dole scheme failing Indigenous communities: report (PM) The Australian National University researchers described Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion's Community Development Programme (CDP) as a "policy disaster".
ANU researcher and co-author Dr Kirrily Jordan said financial penalties were being applied unfairly and an example of this could be found in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia.
"The rental arrears across the whole lands, across 12 communities, have gone up from $50,000 to $350,000, in the short space of time since CDP's been introduced," she said.
ANU researcher Dr Inge Kral said she had spent 30 years working in remote communities and the latest scheme had left people struggling to feed themselves.
"People with no money in families, there's no money for food, there's certainly no money for clothes — people are starving, people are begging," she said.
"The whole infrastructure around stores is collapsing because there isn't the reliable secure income coming in."
More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-02/remote-work-for-the-dole-scheme-failling-indigenous-communities/8089004
Australian Aboriginal culture is widely recognised as the oldest living culture in the world, but have you ever wondered what it was like for Aboriginal Australians to live by the stars?
The latest study in Aboriginal astronomy has found a site that could be older than Stonehenge, and even pre-date the Great Pyramids of Giza.
We talk to Dr Duane Hamacher from Monash University, and Jesse Fleay, PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University.
Speaking Out with Larissa Behrendt ABC RN
We all know about incarceration. But have you heard of decarceration?
Why do we invest so much in metal cages and punitive approaches?
Are there alternatives that might create strong and safe communities, without criminalisation, surveillance and overpolicing?
We hear from global critics of the prison industrial complex at the 8th international conference of the prisoners advocacy group Sisters Inside.
The theme of the conference was the abolition of the prison system - and the need to find creative and long-term solutions.
Source: ANC RN http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/should-we-abolish-prisons/7997056
Presented by Daniel Browning,a Bundjalung/Kullilli man
Bennelong and Yemmerrawanyea Rendition
AUDIO: Bennelong and Yemmerawanne's song, performed in London in 1792, as notated and published by musician Edward Jones in 1811. This version is performed by Clarence Slockee and Matthew Doyle at the State Library of NSW, August 2010.
More info here: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/bennelong-and-yemmerrawanyea-singing-england#
The Mayor of Kalgoorlie says anti-social problems in Kalgoorlie are the result of bad parenting and that each generation of Aboriginal people is worse than the last.
28th October ABC RN Breakfast https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pglxVL8mbV?play=true
The story of colonial Australia is as much a story of dispossession as it is of settlement, and dispossession often went hand in hand with terrible brutality. As a result, a great many regions of Australia have massacres of Indigenous peoples woven into their story—some are widely acknowledged, some will never be fully known, and others are sources of historical argument.
And so today we’re looking at a violent incident that occurred in Western Australia 178 years ago, in which 21 Nyoongar people were killed in a raid by mounted troops.
The place was Pinjarra, about an hour’s drive south of Perth—and the event is variously known as the ‘Battle of Pinjarra’ or the 'Pinjarra Massacre’. And this is the point, because language and labels are powerful, and an event’s meaning in history can be summed up in a single name.
Only in the last 15 to 20 years have the circumstances of the killings in 1834 been scrutinised and the evidence makes the conventional white story look very shaky.
It’s the basis of a website and of a stage production called Bindjareb Pinjarra which is now on a national tour of Australia.
While fermented food is all rage at the moment, it's cultural heritage goes back thousands of years.
Contrary to all teachings, Australia's first alcohol wasn't brought here by boat, it came from Aboriginal people fermenting their own special drink from tree sap.
While fermented food is all rage at the moment, it's cultural heritage goes back thousands of years.
Contrary to all teachings, Australia's first alcohol wasn't brought here by boat, it came from Aboriginal people fermenting their own special drink from tree sap and many other flowing plants and honey. This program features First Nations people using tree sap as a fermenting process.
mp3 Download file: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2016/03/ras201603041306.mp3
A former employee of the Northern Territory Department of Children and Families says that senior people within the department often fail to act in the best interest of Aboriginal children caught up in the system.
Kimberley Hunter a Nygina man from the Kimberley region of Western Australia told the Royal Commission's Alice Springs community consultation into the Protection and Detention of Children that although he has spent 30 years trying to help his people while working alongside the justice system ....it was his time working with Children and Families that left him the most concerned.
Speaking on CAAMA radio Mr Hunter says the process of bringing children into the department set alarm bells ringing ... but despite expressing his thoughts on a range of issues ... the numbers continued to grow.
Ask any West Australian whitefella how they feel about Rottnest Island and the responses are reverential. A holiday at Rotto is a West Australian rite of passage.
But for Western Australia’s Indigenous people, the memories and the stories are very different. Beneath its glittering surface is a history of horror and suffering.
A former juvenile detainee says she feels relieved after speaking to the Royal Commission into Youth Detention and Child Protection in the Northern Territory.
Lexi, 17, was among a small group of former juvenile inmates who attended a royal commission closed youth forum in Alice Springs this week.
"It feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, because telling this mob here so they can make a change to it, it makes me feel better," Lexi said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-19/nt-youth-forum-hears-from-former-juvenile-detainees/7945020
One to two Indigenous languages are being lost every year, say experts who estimate if the trend continues only 50 Indigenous languages will be left by the year 2050.
Experts say Australia is in the midst of a national crisis as with each year elders die and take with them the knowledge of Indigenous languages.
To try to capture these languages before it becomes too late, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) has launched a foundation to record languages and songlines.
Of more than 300 languages that existed pre-colonisation, fewer than half remain and all are considered endangered, many critically.
Rachel Perkins, the president of the new foundation, said if action was not taken now the languages would be lost forever.
"That would be a tragedy of enormous proportions," she said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-19/race-to-save-indigenous-languages-as-they-fade-away/7946006?pfmredir=sm
He was an Aboriginal stockman, turned world war two guerrilla fighter. It’s a story that reads like the plot of an action film, but it’s actually the remarkably true tale of a local from the WA Goldfields.
James Brennan was an Aboriginal stockman from Laverton whose life was shaped by battles at home and abroad.
He was born into battle between settlers and Aboriginal people in the northern Goldfields, and when world war two erupted, he enlisted to fight, where once again, it was a battle that defined the next chapter of his life.
ABC - Full Report http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-17/james-brennan-in-uniform/7935070
he Royal Commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory is heading out bush for a series of meetings in remote Indigenous communities.
Today the commissioners are flying north from Darwin to the Tiwi Islands where Tiwi youth workers are already working on solutions for diverting young people away from the criminal justice system.
But as Sara Everingham reports from the Wurrumiyanga community on Bathurst Island, there is concern that the commission has not done enough to let people know the meeting is on.
The remains of 13 Indigenous people were handed back to Aboriginal leaders at a ceremony at Australia House in London overnight.
Cambridge University and the University of Birmingham were among the institutions that returned remains as part of a repatriation process.
However, some institutions like the British Museum continue to defy the wishes of indigenous people by refusing to return ancestral remains.
This virtually unknown story is of fifteen men in 1797 who became the first overlanders on this continent to walk 700 miles through 'country', from Ninety Mile Beach in Victoria to Sydney Cove. The account of William Clark's trek is evidence of the humane and generous treatment of these forlorn interlopers by First Nations Peoples, who ensured the party's survival.
ABC Radio National, LNL with Phillip Adams
Have you ever wondered how ancient indigenous cultures maintain so much information about the thousands of species of plants and animals—without writing it down? Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines are key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world. It's intricately tied to the landscape and it can be applied in our everyday lives.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/indigenous-memory-code/7553976#transcript
SOURCE: ABC RN - 'All in the mind'
From the BBC (edited)
Were Australia's prehistoric Aboriginal people the world's first true astronomers, predating European and ancient Greek and Indian astronomers by thousands of years?
The stunning discovery of what is being called an "Aboriginal Stonehenge", the first of its kind to be found in Australia, could change that continent's history and with it our whole understanding of how and when humans began to accurately chart the night skies.
The 50 metre egg-shaped arrangement of stones in a farmer's field in Victoria, was forgotten after the arrival of European settlers some 200 years ago and until recently overgrown by meadow grass.
Now, the site called Wurdi Youang has got Aborigines and astronomers scratching their heads.
How did its stones come to be perfectly aligned with summer and winter Solstices and the autumn and winter Equinoxes, like Britain's 4,500 year-old Stonehenge?
The problem is that there are very few Aboriginal records in the literature and nobody left to explain what they meant and what they were used for.
What is becoming clear is that Australia's ancient indigenous people had a command of astronomy and mathematics, and ability to observe and keep accurate astronomical records.
The stones at Wurdi Youang will be a test of Australia's scientists and of Australia’s willingness to properly appreciate its ancient indigenous past.
Full audio here: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/02/bay_20150219_1005.mp3
Article: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/02/bay_20150219_1005.mp3
Northern Territory - A ceremony has been held to mark 130 years since almost the entire Woolwonga tribe was believed to have been murdered, with official recognition now paid to its descendants.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion unveiled a plaque to commemorate the tribe from Alligator River, near Katherine.
A girl known as 'Jennie' was found to be the only known survivor after an 1899 census document was discovered.
Woolwonga Committee Chair Lynette Hopkins says the ceremony welcomed more than 100 people to the old Burrundie railway station, the site where the massacre took place in 1884.
Image: Woolwonga Committee, courtesy of ABC
Audio Report:National Indigenous Radio Service
PM John Howard announced the idea of Recognition in October 2007 because he was worried about the fact that Aboriginal people still maintained their pre-existing and continuing sovereignty over First Nations' territories, lands waters and natural resources. This was bought to his attention some years earlier when PM Robert Menzies, a hero of Howard's, tabled the facts in parliament.
I announce that if I am re-elected, I will put to the Australian people within 18 months a referendum to formally recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution, their history as the first inhabitants of our country, their unique heritage of language and culture, and their special, though not separate, place within a reconciled indivisible nation.
My goal is to see a new statement of reconciliation incorporated into the preamble of the Australian Constitution.
If elected, I would commit immediately to working in consultation with Indigenous leaders and others on this task.
Sporting star Mundine has come under fire for suggesting players in the AFL and NRL grand finals take a stand and not sing the anthem.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged Australians on 3AW to "come together" over the weekend.
Wayne Wharton said he found both the national anthem and flag offensive.
"Australia is still a crime scene," he declared.
"And many aboriginal people who are locked up in jail are prisoners of war."
Neil Mitchell took offence to Wharton's claim.
"It's my country, too," the 3AW Mornings said.
A heated exchange followed.
The world's first Aboriginal Australian language video game has put smiles on the faces of Indigenous children who never thought they'd see their culture reflected in a game.
Lizzie Marrkilyi Ellis and Dr Inge Kral, research fellows with The Australian National University (ANU) School of Literature Languages & Linguistics have worked with the ANU School of Art, and the Research School of Computer Science 'TechLauncher' initiative to develop the game 'Tjinari', which is spoken in the Western Desert language Ngaanyatjarra.
The pair spoke to Adam Shirley on 666 ABC Canberra.
A national touring exhibition has opened in Sydney to mark the 60th anniversary of the first atomic test at Maralinga.
In total, seven nuclear bomb blasts were detonated between 1956 and 1967 in the southern part of the Great Victoria Desert in South Australia followed by more than 600 'minor tests'
Source ABC RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly
As dawn light crept across the Kimberley on April 1, 1897, the hot morning would become seared in Kimberley history. It's the day that Jandamarra was shot dead. The young Bunuba man had led a resistance campaign against white settlement of the West Kimberley for several years; sheep and cattle grazing had expanded, pushing out local Aboriginal people and turning traditional life into turmoil. There's been renewed interest in Jandamarra's story this year with the staging of a play at Windjana Gorge, his stronghold, an ABCTV documentary and an updated publication of Howard Pedersen and Banjo Woorunmurra's book - all named for the complicated character who defied whiteman's policy. Jandamarra was a wanted man, so his death was cause for victory by the authorities. And to prove they had him, his head was cut off, with a tomahawk writes historian Howard Pedersen. The skull was put on public display in Perth - although this was later found to be that of another Aboriginal man. Jandamarra's head had been sent to England for a private collection. It was sent to gun manufacturer William Greener, who had many trophies of birds and animals shot with his guns. Now he had a human skull to add to that collection. For Fitzroy Crossing's Joe Ross and other Bunuba families, finding that skull is of monumental importance
MORE ABC Kimberley
Debbie Carmody, an Anangu woman is First Nation radio broadcaster in the Goldfields region explains that 'anger is the voice of the people'. She talks about the deplorable history of racism and injustices in Kalgoorlie..
In examples of Kalgoorlie racism, Debbie said: 'Kalgoorlie had the highest NO vote in the 1967 referendum' and 'In the 2000 Olympics the people booed Kathy Freeman when she crossed the line in her win'.
ABC RN: Speaking Out with Larissa Behrendt
Dr Jim Green an expert on the Nuclear industry in 'Australia', provides us with an update on the Nuclear Waste dump proposals and other related matters.
The first plan is for a 'NATIONAL' Nuclear Waste dump on sacred country in the Flinders Ranges which is being driven by the Federal government.
There is a separate proposal which is led by the South Australia government on the same lands that is driven by the State's economic problems. They are looking at South Australia being the WORLD'S High Level Waste Dump.
Source; The Radioactive Show - Produced 3CR and broadcast Nationally through the Community Radio Network
More: http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive
Clinton Pryor is concerned for his people and aboriginal communities. He wants the Federal Government to listen to their cry for help and he's doing that by walking to Canberra from WA.
"Why the heck are our people living in poverty out in communities and they get away with mining the land and making billions of dollars", he said.
Mr Pryor is stopping into aboriginal communities along the way to talk with elders about what they want to say to Malcolm Turnball.
" The government think that they know what is best but it's time to listen to us. They need to sit around the fire, proper way and talk to the elders", he said.
"We might as well start forming an aboriginal party group so that we can vote our own into parliament to represent us".
Clinton Pryoraboriginal communitieswalk for justice Show more
This audio report from ABC PM with Mark Culvin
Ear, nose and throat specialists have declared war on one of the most preventable and treatable conditions undermining the wellbeing and learning of Aboriginal children - serious ear disease.
Brisbane-based ENT surgeon Chris Perry, president of the Australian Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, said the chronic problem was not factored into "Closing the Gap" practical reconciliation metrics and even the Australian Medical Association ignored the problem, "but it should be part of gap closure, because as many as 90 per cent of Aboriginal children … have deafness more than three months of the year.
"The incidence is seasonal," Dr Perry said. "In the Northern Territory, about 25 per cent have perforated eardrums and in the APY lands of South Australia it is 35 per cent, many times the incidence in caucasian children. It's responsible for delayed language development, difficulty with comprehension, boredom and inattention at school … and is a major contributing factor to truancy."
In turn, poor hearing and poor school performance set up a cycle of poor skills, unemployment, substance abuse, violence, high incarceration rates and suicide.
Dr Perry and more than 20 other Queensland ENT surgeons regularly spend several weeks a year in indigenous communities, performing up to 10 operations a day to clear children's ears and remove adenoids to reduce reinfections. They work as part of Queensland's Deadly Ears program, which visits people in remote communities regularly.
On Wednesday, ENT specialists, audiologists, Aboriginal health workers, scientists and administrators will meet in Newcastle to discuss middle-ear infections and a proposed national initiative to standardise an evidence-based approach to the infections, deafness and its educational effects and to hear from Australia's only indigenous ENT specialist, Kelvin Kong, a member of the Worimi people of Port Stephens, north of Newcastle.
Dr Perry cited a Senate committee report released in May 2010 that concluded indigenous Australians suffered deafness and ear problems at 10 times the rate of non-indigenous Australians.
"Little has been done since then," Dr Perry said. He believed Queensland's Deadly Ears program would serve as an ideal model to start from, but Aboriginal communities needed a program specifically designed for their circumstances.
With Paul Wiles CAAMA Radio
Michael Gunner, the Alice Springs born and bred Territorian who returned Labor to Government after only one term in Opposition says he is prepared to negotiate with local Aboriginal people about a Treaty and that it will be a critical agenda item during his first term of government.
Mr Gunner who has already visited a Top End Aboriginal community since being sworn in last week says he is also not averse to the transfer of housing assets as a means of growing financial security in remote communities.
In Western Australia the government is facing a potential class action over its controversial stolen wages reparations scheme, which paid Aboriginal people a maximum of $2,000 each after decades of wages withheld by government, child labour, and in some cases slavery.
Now a Background Briefing investigation has uncovered secret financial modelling, commissioned by government, on just how much the state of Western Australia owes its Aboriginal workers.
At one workplace alone the documents put the amount of Aboriginal wages kept by government at $63 million.
Jon Faine ABC 747 'The conversation hour (Excerpt) with Karly Warner, Ruth Barson, Benson Saulo and Julian Cleary
Karly Warner is the Executive Officer of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, and Chair of the Administrative Law & Human Rights Executive Committee at the Law Institute of Victoria. She also sits on the Aboriginal Advisory Council at Lander and Rogers.
Ruth Barson is Director of Legal Advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, and sits on the board of the Women's Legal Service Victoria.
Benson Saulo is Co-founder of The Man Cave, Benson is a descendant of the Wemba Wemba and Gundjitmara Australian Aboriginal nations of western Victoria and the New Ireland Provence of Papua New Guinea. He is a former Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations.
Julian Cleary, who is an Indigenous Rights Campaigner with Amnesty International
More: http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2016/09/05/4532950.htm
Researchers from the University of Western Australia have discovered what they believe to be the earliest "houses" in Australia dating back to almost 9000 years.
Prof. Jo McDonald is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at UWA and the Rio Tinto Chair in Rock Art Studies.
Her interests include rock art and information exchange, engendered rock art studies, arid zone rock art, direct-dating rock art and applied rock art research (Native Title, National Heritage and World Heritage).
CAAMA RADIO with Paul Wiles
On Friday Nathan Khan, aged 30, appeared at the Midland District Court and collapsed during his hearing before being escorted out of the court room by guards
Despite attending the hearing with Mr Khan, his family was not notified of his transport to hospital until hours later and were then left to their own devices to locate which hospital he had been sent to.
The family then arrived at the hospital to find Mr Khan in a coma handcuffed to his bed.
Bibbulmun man Mervyn Eades is a family member and head of prisoner release support service Ngulla Maya.
He says the family are questioning the events between his collapse in the court room and arriving at hospital.
From National Indigenous Radio
Dr Duane Hamacher, Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Indigenous Centre in Melbourne says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander astronomical and geological knowledge and traditions needs no validation from western science..
CAAMA Radio
An American born astrophysicist working in Australia has used National Science Week to share the significance of Aboriginal cultural knowledge which he says other scientists often fail to understand.... because it is a totally different way of thinking.
Dr Duane Hamacher...Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Indigenous Centre in Melbourne says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander astronomical and geological knowledge and traditions needs no validation from western science
Dr Jim Green is an expert on all matters nuclear and a national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth. Here he provides us with an update on all things nuclear on this continent and worldwide. An interview on 3CR Radioactive Program 20 August 2016
A panel of Indigenous health experts and tradition healers gathered at the University of Sydney for a discussion about the integration of Ngangkari (traditional Aboriginal healers) into traditional western practices.
This forum aims to close the health gap for Indigenous Australians by raising awareness of the need for culturally appropriate medical treatments.
Extract of Radio National interview with Siyavash Doostkhah, Director of Youth Affairs Network Queensland 19 August 2016
Jeff Kennett Redneck ex Victorian Liberal Premier and chairman of 'BeyondBlue' said the ABC Four Corners report highlighting the inhumane treatment of youth at the Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre was biased and destroyed the reputation of Adam Giles.
Robert Eggington, head of Nyoongah trauma support service Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, says Jeff Kennett’s position at BeyondBlue is now untenable.
Robert is a First Nations mental health worker has called for the resignation of former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett from the social welfare group Beyond Blue.
Kennett attacked the Prime Minister for calling a Royal Commission into juvenile justice the Northern Territory.
The Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles has defended his Governments efforts to reduce the rate of Aboriginal incarceration which last year stood at 86% of those in Territory prison and 96% of those in juvenile detention .
Speaking on CAAMA Radio Mr Giles rejected criticism from the left and says his Governments ongoing efforts to reduce rates of recidivism are being applauded across the country.
The journey from childhood disadvantage, to juvenile detention, to adult prison, is the life story for so many.
And it was Noongar man Mervyn Eades' story too, until his 30s.
Then Eades set about devising a training program to help prisoners find work upon their release, and to help stop Aboriginal youth from entering the prison system.
The success of his Perth-based program, called Ngalla Maya, offers a model for others to follow.
Territorians are scheduled to go to the polls on August 27 and a MediaReach poll commissioned by the NT News suggests a majority of them have lost confidence in the Giles Government's ability to manage youth detention A week after the Prime Minister announced a Royal Commission into the Northern Territory juvenile detention system, the poll suggests the Territory's Chief Minister Adam Giles could be facing electoral defeat
Chris Walsh is Political Reporter with the NT News
ABC NewsRadio's Glen Bartholomew asked him what the Giles Government's chances were of being re-elected...before footage of mistreatment in the NT's Don Dale Detention Centre went to air - ABC News Radio
The Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion has blasted the NSW government over its refusal to fund the Custody Notification Service.
In December the Commonwealth committed $1.8 million dollars to fund the hotline for another three years, but Senator Scullion argues the state government should be fronting the cost.
The CNS is delivered through the Aboriginal Legal Service and provides 24 hour legal advice and mental health checks for First Nation’s people if they are taken into police custody
CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service Gary Oliver said the hotline is a NSW government regulation, but has never been funded by the state since its establishment in 2000.
A First Nation’s lawyer has raised questions about the ethics of the appointment of social justice commissioner Mick Gooda to the role of royal co-commissioner.
Palawa man Michael Mansell said past appointments of Mr Gooda to sit on government appointed committees such as the expert panel on constitutional recognition and the Referendum Council indicates a relationship between the government and Mr Gooda.
From: National Indigenous Radio
Queensland law professor Kerry Carrington says she applauds the Prime Minister for appointing an Aboriginal commissioner but that the national statistics on juvenile justice suggest a broader inquiry is needed. Professor Carrington has been looking at youth justice for many years. She told Eleanor Hall she is particularly concerned about the massive numbers of young people who are in detention and have not even been convicted of a crime and she says the number of Indigenous children in detention should set off alarm bells nationwide.
Eleanor Hall ABC 'The World Today'
ABC Law Report excerpt 8 August 2016
Full Report Here http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/nt-juvenile-justice-legal-framework/7677530
Verteran Aboriginal rights campaigner, member of the Tangentyere Womans Council and town camper Barbara Shaw comments on the youth detention debacle
Minister Scullion tells media that he didn't watch FourCorners live as he was out for dinner, later watching it after a "fairly agitated" PM called him.
ABC Darwin
An Indigenous barrister in Queensland alleges the treatment of children in youth detention centres in his state is just as bad as that seen in the Northern Territory. He wants the Royal Commission broadened to include all Australian youth detention facilities.
ABC News
In the east of the land that Europeans named Australia, a nation has been reborn. Its new head of state knows where his people lit their campfires, long ago. Now he has declared independence – and they're not the first to break away.
In the past our peoples often told some tall tales to the anthropologists and researchers to keep their true stories within it's rightful place. Many stories could not be told for cultural reasons and they also saw that 'white man' would exploit the information in some cases.
Ghillar Michael Anderson
CBC Radio - Canada
Indigenous elders often say that memory is in the blood and bone, that our stories are passed not just verbally but through a kind of genetic memory.
Well, it turns out that may not be far from the truth. Amy Bombay is Anishinaabe from Rainy River First Nation in Ontario.
Amy Bombay and family Amy Bombay with her family. (courtesy Amy Bombay) She's an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and has been studying the impact of trauma and how it reverberates through generations. She was drawn to this field of study, specifically related to residential schools, because of its effect on her own family.
"Both my grandparents on my father's side attended, and most of my aunts and uncles on that side as well," she explained.
When she started her research 10 years ago, Bombay said she began by focusing on mental health outcomes, exploring why Indigenous Peoples in Canada and elsewhere suffer from higher levels of psychological distress.
"What we found was that ... those who had a parent or grandparent who went to residential school seemed to be at increased risk for psychological distress, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and this is in both adults and youth," she said.
Though our bodies are designed to deal with stress, Bombay said when the stress becomes chronic, our bodies are no longer able to keep up. That's when problems happen.
Bombay said in addition to the psychological and social pathways, there is evidence epigenetic pathways are involved in the transmission of trauma. That evidence has been studied in the children of Holocaust survivors, in regard to changes in the expression of DNA, not changes to underlying DNA.
"We now know that experiences and the environment can turn on or off genes, so the function of those genes is changed," Bombay explained. "In terms of how that is transmitted generationally, we know that if those changes happen to be in the germ line, so in the egg or the sperm, they have the potential to be transmitted across generations."
Though Bombay said you cannot draw exact correlations between the children of Holocaust and Residential School survivors, there are clear similarities between the two groups.
"We conducted our own research in relation to the residential school system and found a lot of the same issues like this conspiracy of silence around talking about this issue. And this research is consistent with populations that have undergone collective and historical trauma around the world," she said.
"So not only in relation to the Holocaust, but we know these big historical and collective traumas are associated with a number of negative outcomes. Which are expected."
Bombay has seen this research play a role in the process of reconciliation. And said taking the data out into communities and explaining it, has broken the silence.
"A lot of people didn't know why their parents had so many problems, or they didn't know why their parents acted the way they do," she said. "Learning about these intergenerational effects really helped a lot of people heal and elicited forgiveness within families and communities."
Since he was Prime Minister Bob Hawke has been calling for a Nuclear Watse dump on Aboriginal Land - It's a Win-Win situation
This Audio from 'The Wire' 2014
An excerpt from ABC 2010 report when people were moving into the Kennedy Hill area after being hunted off country by the WA government and mining companies.
TRANSCRIPT
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: A number of leading Australian academics are expressing deep concern about the viability of many government Aboriginal community programmes.
At a book launch in Sydney's inner west, researchers vented their frustrations at policy makers using words like "shameful" and "absurd" to describe many projects currently being implemented in outback communities.
Our reporter, David Taylor, was there for AM.
DAVID TAYLOR: Mark Moran has being looking at Indigenous policies over the past 20 years and whether or not they're working.
He's just written a book highlighting how governments have fallen well short of what's needed to support Indigenous communities.
MARK MORAN: You just arrive, you make it up and you leave after six months. And we wonder why we're not getting these long-term developmental gains.
DAVID TAYLOR: He says, over a given fortnight, an Aboriginal youth could be swamped by as many as 10 so-called community reengagement programs.
MARK MORAN: You end up with these quite ridiculous situations, where you'll have 50 disengaged youth and 10 programs that are specifically working to re-engage them. So in any one fortnight, an individual can have six, seven different programs hitting them at the same time.
And the net effect of all these programs pushing and pulling people in different directions: it really is becoming absurd.
DAVID TAYLOR: Mr Moran has support.
Eva Cox is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology, Sydney and specialises in Indigenous affairs.
EVA COX: I mean, we've just stuffed up. I think basically we've stuffed up at least over the last 20-odd years and I think it's time we actually went back and fixed it.
DAVID TAYLOR: She argues many Aboriginal policies haven't improved since the late 1990s.
EVA COX: Because I think we've grossly neglected anything to do with Indigenous policy in this last election. It's just disappeared.
We've had bipartisan negligence from both the major parties. And it's something which I think is shameful and we need to do something about it.
DAVID TAYLOR: Leanne Townsend is the CEO of the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy.
She grew up in the northern New South Wales community of Uralla and identifies as Anaiwan.
She says policy needs to be led by community elders to be effective.
LEANNE TOWNSEND: And the removal of politics to realise the genuine change driven by Aboriginal people themselves.
DAVID TAYLOR: In a written statement, a spokesperson for the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, said that the Coalition Government's focus in Indigenous Affairs has been on getting children to school and adults to work and making communities safer.
The statement went on to say that the Coalition's policies have seen progress made in these areas, but the Minister recognises a lot more work needs to be done.
DAVID TAYLOR: Leanne Townsend again:
LEANNE TOWNSEND: We have this approach and reference tonight, taken largely from the corporate sector of KPIs and measurements. And I agree that's absolutely what's required in performance.
But who holds government to account equally with their failures? And we understand that as the mob who are experiencing those failures, but what is the broader Australia doing about that accountability?
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Leanne Townsend from the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy, ending David Taylor's report.
Bruce is a prolific writer and editor of fiction for adults and young people; and he also writes essays and history.
His book Dark Emu presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia.
From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life.
Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems.
They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields; and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops.
Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush.
We extracted flour from kangaroo grass seed two weeks ago and have been able to make a wonderful bread with a 60/40 blend of white flour/kangaroo grass flour and it was delicious. Further information
Dark Emu: Black Seeds - Agriculture or Accident? is published by Magabala Books
Dark Emu won Book of the Year, and the Indigenous Writing Prize jointly with Ellen van Neerven, at the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Buce's latest novel for Young Adults is Seahorse
Sources referred to in Bruce's conversation include: The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage (2011) and Australia and the origins of agriculture by Gerritson (2008)
Original broadcast February 2016
Source ABC Local Conversations with Richard Fidler http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2016/07/05/4494632.htm
Irene Watson an Tanganekald and Meintangk woman from the Coorong region of the south east of South Australia, and one of the first Aboriginal people to graduate with a law degree. She has a long history in examining the legacy of colonialism, and the enduring doctrine of terra nullius in this country. She joined Amy McQuire to discuss many issues but in this excerpt why we have to start revitalising our connection to country, because there is no future in the Western idea of 'progress'. The complete discussion can be found on 98.9 FM 'Lets Talk'. www.989fm.com.au/podcasts/lets-talk/prof-irene-watson
Rodney Kelly is the sixth generation descendant of the Gweagal aboriginal warrior, Cooman, who was shot by Captain Cook's landing party at Botany Bay in April 1770. Kelly says Australia was invaded 'by gunfire'.
He says the shield belonging to Cooman still has white ochre on it from that day, and a musket hole from when his ancestor was fired upon.
The shield has been preserved in the British Museum for more than 240 years.
Now, Rodney Kelly is crowdfunding so he can travel to the UK to meet with the British Museum and continue his campaign for the shield's return to Australia.
'We feel [the shield] takes us back to a time before the British come here, it connects us back a long time ago. It's just significant, we have lost a lot of history, we've lost a lot of things,' says Kelly.
'For this shield to be connected to us is very significant and makes us very proud. We we just want it to come back home to Australia.'
ABC Radio - RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly
Rangers hosting this week's bilby festival in Australia's most remote community are pleased with the amount of knowledge that's been shared on protecting the native animal.
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. 00:00 00:00 AUDIO: Kiwirrkurra ranger Patrick Green says this week's bilby festival has been a success and he's pleased with the amount of knowledge that's been shared on protecting the native animal. (ABC Rural) The event in Kiwirrkurra, Pintupi country, 850 kilometres west of Alice Springs has attracted people from all over Australia's central deserts.
Kiwirrkurra ranger Patrick Green has been hosting the event and said it was important to share knowledge about Bilby protection because the native animal was endangered and vulnerable.
A new program at West Kimberley Regional Prison near Derby is using this philosophy to try to help the prisoners. Indigenous marathon runner, Adrian Dodson-Shaw talks to ABC Kimberley radio's Fiona Poole about how he will lead a 5km fun run with 21 prisoners.
ABC WA
In the past, the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape, and the stars in the sky too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem.
Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world. She has found that this ancient memory technique is the secret behind the great stone monuments like Stonehenge, which have for so long puzzled archaeologists.
Bilbies are desert-dwelling marsupial omnivores; they are members of the order Peramelemorphia.
At the time of European colonisation of Australia, there were two species. The lesser bilby became extinct in the 1950s; the greater bilby survives but remains endangered.
John Cleary ABC RN with Prof Eileen Baldry, Dr Mindy Sotiri, Fr Joe Caddy and Ben Quilty Recorded on Sunday, May 22, 2016
A dispute has broken out between the West Australian and Northern Territory Governments over the movement of Aboriginal people across northern Australia.
The Territory's Chief Minister, Adam Giles, has written to WA calling on it to take back homeless Indigenous people living on the outskirts of Darwin.
Across the border, his comments have not been welcomed.
ABC Radio 'PM' Repoprt
Steve Widders, an Anawain Elder has questioned comments by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce that Aboriginal people and their issues have always been a part of his life. Speaking on CAAMA Radio during a quick visit to Central Australia the Deputy Prime Minister told listeners he is not oblivious to Aboriginal issues. Steve Widders has a different opinion ... adding that Aboriginal issues appear to be getting little coverage in the lead up to the Federal election. Interview with Pixie Jenkins from Caama Radio
Victor Hunter is the Director of the Foundation for Indigenous Sustainable Housing and he works in the Fitzroy Valley. Victor Hunter spoke with Vanessa Mills after the 4 Corners report into the millions being wasted in remote communities. He says that there needs to be proper checks into those who work with Aboriginal people.
From ABC 4 Corners (Ripped Off)
Today on Flashpoints: Internationally renown documentary Filmmaker, John Pilger, on the silencing of America as it prepares for war. And Bernie Sanders supporters waiting to hear him speak out side the Allan Baptist Church in East Oakland, talk about why they much prefer him to Trump and Clinton
From Flashpoint News Magazine
An excerpt from ABC RN 'Books and Arts'
It's called Songlines, and it’s part of Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas.
Songlines draws on Indigenous creation stories from across Australia and it features the work of six Indigenous artists. Michael speaks to one of those artists, Djon Mundine OAM.
Aboriginal people say they they are shocked and alarmed that Australia is seeking to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2018.
In a detailed letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations Michael Anderson Convenor of the Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Nations and Peoples told .. Ban Ki Moon ... they object in the strongest terms to Australia being considered for such a high and important role in world affairs.
Mr Anderson says the world can learn a lesson from Australia which has mastered the art of deceit....with the laws and initiatives it floats in the international community as extremely deceitful, .bordering on lies.
Speaking on CAAMA Radio Mr Anderson says the Australian Government is trying to push constitutional recognition on his people by spending millions of dollars to soften up the population... but what the Government has failed to recognise is that the community itself is asking what Aboriginal people want - not the Government.
At the heart of Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu is a bold assertion which explodes a foundational myth of white Australia: that Aboriginal people were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Dark Emu was recently named Book of the Year and joint winner of the biennial Indigenous Writing Prize at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
Bruce Pascoe convincingly argues the hunter-gatherer myth was a convenient lie that enabled dispossession - at least in the colonial mind.
His evidence though is drawn from records that even the most conservative historian wouldn't argue with: the journals and diaries of explorers such as Sir Thomas Mitchell and Charles Sturt.
Some publishers found the premise of the book - that Aboriginal people had an agricultural economy - too challenging and some even questioned whether the terms Aboriginal and agriculture could be used in the same sentence.
Now in it's sixth print run, Dark Emu has been such a popular success that it may even be adapted for the screen.
Bruce tells the AWAYE program on ABC RN that he is currently working on the screen writing of a film relating to Dark Emu/
The critical Housing issues for the forgotten Martu people at their Parnpajnya community in Western Australia. ABC Radio WA report
National Congress does not speak for First Nations people and their members mainly consist of people spruiked at Aboriginal Events by paid staff during their times of government funding. They have spent years promoting 'Recognition' and now they are themselves asking the government questions about the processes but haven't came out and clearly stated where they stand,. CAAMA Radio Interview with Kyle Dowling
Bidjara woman Keelen Mailman was nominated for the award by her niece and foster daughter.
Keelan Mailman says too many Aboriginal children are in out of home care, with Indigenous kids nearly 10 times more likely to be removed from their parents than non-Indigenous children.
Bruce Pascoe's work presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia.
From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life.
Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems.
They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields; and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops.
Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush.
To hear the complete recording of Bruce Pascoe and David Holmgren refer to the past to augment the future - Daylesford Town Hall, April 7 2016.
https://soundcloud.com/hrn-522934863/land-cultures-bruce-pascoe-david-holmgren
Brett Derchow spoke with ABCs Tangiora Hinaki about the conditions of his people working in the pastoral industry during the 1940s.
The world’s biggest study on the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people has found that living in a richer country doesn’t give Indigenous people an advantage.
The study of more than 150 million Indigenous people in 23 countries was published in the Lancet today. It’s found that the gap in life expectancy of Indigenous people in Australia is on par with Indigenous people in Cameroon.
The report's lead author says social inequity such as access to education and jobs needs to change to improve the health of Indigenous people around the world
Members of an Aboriginal community affected by the nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s are connecting with nuclear bomb survivors in Japan.
A group of artists from Yalata in South Australia are flying to Nagasaki today to unveil a sculpture for its peace park - it will be the first Australian sculpture in the memorial.
The exchange is also allowing the two groups to exchange stories and discuss their experiences.
Natalie Whiting from ABC Radio 'AM' reported this story on Thursday, April 14
See Transcript: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/aboriginal-people-affected-maralinga-nuclear-tests-take-peace-sculpture-japan
From ABC RN's 'The World Today' Transcript: -
ELEANOR HALL: To Victoria now, where a Federal Liberal MP is proposing to change the name of his electorate because of its links to the massacres of Australia's Indigenous people.
The Eastern Victorian seat of McMillan is named for the notorious explorer, Angus McMillan.
There is little resistance to changing the name, but there is debate about what the seat should be called now, as Robert French reports.
ROBERT FRENCH: Angus McMillan was a Scottish pioneer who played a leading role in the extermination of Aboriginal people in Eastern Victoria more than 150 years ago.
Jeannie Haughton is a local playwright who studied McMillan's life.
JEANNIE HAUGHTON: He was a murderer. He was one of the people involved in several of the massacres in Gippsland.
ROBERT FRENCH: The Federal Member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, believes it's time to remove that association.
RUSSELL BROADBENT: We're doing something about practical reconciliation. It's offering a hand out to those in our community, those Indigenous people that are offended by the name.
ROBERT FRENCH: He's written to the Electoral Commission, requesting the name be changed during a boundary redistribution after this year's federal election.
RUSSELL BROADBENT: It would send a message that we actually care about these issues and if we are not responsible to our past, we don't understand our past, we can't get on with our future.
ROBERT FRENCH: But Mr Broadbent wants it named after another famous white man.
RUSSELL BROADBENT: I just think that Sir John Monash is such an icon. He actually provided the electricity that provided the wealth for manufacturing right across Victoria.
He made Victoria great and he should be recognised.
ROBERT FRENCH: That's being questioned by local historian Linda Barraclough, who says the local Indigenous community should be consulted.
She says there are plenty of candidates within the Gunai Kurnai history.
LINDA BARRACLOUGH: One of the names that should be considered is Bungaleena who is an Aboriginal tribal leader in Gippsland and he was captured as part of the hunt for the mythical white woman and died in custody.
ROBERT FRENCH: Reconciliation Australia's chief executive Justin Mohamed says changing the name is a small but important step.
JUSTIN MOHAMED: It's a great tribute that people from that region have identified this and they want change and to have a name that everyone can be proud of.
ROBERT FRENCH: But he says it needs to be done in partnership with the traditional owners.
JUSTIN MOHAMED: Many Aboriginal people from that region would have known this history and it would have been passed down through many generations. So for them even to kind of even to have into walk into an electoral booth and vote for that seat would cause some distress and pain.
I think will be a sense of victory but also a sense that people feel yeah right, finally people have heard and understand and the truth is being told and the appropriate action has taken place.
ROBERT FRENCH: Mr Mohamed says it's the first time he's heard of it happening in Australia and hopes it will lead to further change across the country.
JUSTIN MOHAMED: Hopefully this can also be, you know, show some leadership across other parts of Australia where similar sorts of names or places have been headed up by people or named by people which have caused a lot of hurt and destruction to Aboriginal people.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Reconciliation Australia's chief executive, Justin Mohamed, ending that report from Robert French. MORE TO ADD? ALERT US » PRINT THIS STORY » EMAIL A FRIEND » SHARE ON FACEBOOK » SHARE ON TWITTER » SHARE ON REDDIT» From the Archives 26/02/2007 Keating reflects on Rudd's election in '07
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A new university degree that will allow Indigenous students to train to become Indigenous mental health practitioners has been widely praised by health and suicide prevention experts. It's hoped the course from Curtin University in Western Australia will be able to specifically address the growing rate of suicide within Indigenous communities.
ABC RN 'The World Today' 4min 12sec
Warringari Aboriginal Corporation CEO Desmond Hill said indigenous people were willing to work on farms but jobs had to be ongoing and well paid.
"People are interested and are willing to look at working on farms … but it has to be 12 months of the year, not just seasonal," he said."
The seasonality of harvest work was also flagged by Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation CEO Neil Fong.
"If they leave State housing and go into transitional housing then the season stops, they're then having to be forced to look for housing again," Mr Fong said.
"So there are other social issues rather than just saying that jobs are available for short term or select periods of time."
Ronald D Chrisjohn BSc (Central Michigan), MA, PhD (Western Ontario)
Since at least 1977 there has been unquestionable proof that, depending on age, region, and other demographic factors, indigenous peoples in Canada have suicide rates anywhere between three and ten times the rates for non-indigenous Canadians. As a consequence, there has been since that time at least a moderate interest in mainstream Canada, both bureaucratically and academically, not only to explain this difference but to supply interventions into Native centers that will ameliorate this disparity.
It is our contention that the existing work ostensibly aimed at resolving the "problem of Native suicide" has been less than useless, in that, not only does it promote a factually and scientifically specious understanding of the issues, it is a continuation and extension of the assault responsible in the first place. Our charge is grounded in the principles and origins of modern suicidology itself, while the traction that oppressive, victim-blaming explanations and interventions have received in even supposed radical-liberal literature is traced to the forces currently destroying everyone's... not just Indian's... worlds.
Audio Source; http://fromthemargins.h-a-z.org/podcast/?p=episode&name=2014-06-27_dying_to_please_you_full.mp3
Roland Chrisjohn & Shaunessy McKay are the co-authors of a forthcoming book of the same title as this presentation: Dying to Please You: Indigenous Suicide in Contemporary Canada
Bronwyn Carlson's parents frequently accused each other of being "touched by the tar brush", which underpinned her struggle with her Aboriginal identity as a child.
Her experience growing up with the understanding that she and her siblings "weren't white, but not Aboriginal either" inspired her recently published PhD, in which she explores the complexities of being an Aboriginal Australian.
"I see people from uni who say, 'I'm Aboriginal but I know I don't look it'," Ms Carlson, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Wollongong, said.
"I still hear comments like, 'I'm one-eighth, I'm one-quarter, half caste', and all these colonial terms, so those kind of things haven't gone away.
"Aboriginal people have a lot to face from non-Aboriginal Australia, let alone from our own communities."
Ms Carlson said Aboriginality was still a contested and complicated issue that had been fiercely politicised, with Aboriginal people still facing issues about "who gets to count" as Aboriginal.
More: ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-23/indigenous-academic-explores-the-politics-of-being-aboriginal/7192318
In 1990, Sixteen-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig kissed her mother goodbye before heading off to a friends party. That was the last time Aunty Murial Walker-Craig saw her daughter. For 24 years, Aunty Murial Walker has been waiting for her daughter to come home.
Colleen is one of three children from the Bowraville Aboriginal Community who suddenly disappeared, never to be seen again. The other two children, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux were found murdered. Colleen Walker disappeared on 13 September, 1990 and her weighted down clothing was later found in the Nambucca River. Although her body has never been found, she is presumed dead..
'Why should we go and apply for a permit when fisheries know that we've got a right to go out and get a feed,' Wally Stewart says.
'That's what we are saying—we don’t need to go and get a permit. As far as I'm concerned they are still trying to put a regulation on us, and that is what has destroyed our culture, all these regulations. If they pull me up I’m just going to say I’m exempt from the Fisheries Act and the Marine Park Act as a traditional owner.'
Read More: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/aboriginal-fishers-report-harrassment-fishing-traditional-food/7180326
Glen Yearwood (Storyteller) is a former London based communication expert who is traveling the globe to listen to the voice of the First Nations Peoples.
Currently living in Alice Springs, Storyteller says has never seen or sensed the seething that he has experienced since arriving in Australia last year.. and that he believes there is a massive cavity in the relationship between white and black Australians.
He told CAAMA that as a nation, Australia has a fundamental responsibility to teach children in schools the real history of their country.
These chirps are gravitational waves converted to audible sounds. The faint thump matches the gravitational waves’ frequencies. The louder chirp is a higher frequency better suited to human ears. LIGO
Doubling of female imprisonment rate in Australia almost entirely due to Aboriginal women being locked up
More here http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4066806.htm
There has never been any recognition for the role that Aboriginal women played during war times.
Many First Nations women joined the army, but those women who were left behind, had to take on traditionally male work.
Gunggari woman, Dr Ruth Hegarty, Aboriginal author, is a recipient of the Queensland Great award for her contribution to building Queensland, grew up in the dormitory in Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, also known as Barambah.
Aunty Ruth is 86 years old, and she remembers the role women from Cherbourg played during the second World War, and the role her mother, Ruby Duncan took on during war.
Aunty Ruth talks with her granddaughter, Living Black producer, Minelle Creed about those times during war, and roles women played, and how the returned men were treated when the war ended.
In the early 1970s, the Australian Government introduced a bilingual literacy program - known as two-way learning - for schools in the Northern Territory.
The program aimed to help Indigenous students learn oral English, while learning the basics of literacy and numeracy through their own languages.
The bilingual program continued for several decades, though as national standardised testing was rolled out in the 1990s, less focus and funding fell on the two-way learning approach.
As the bilingual programs were phased out, the text-based resources from the initiative were in danger of degradation and loss.
Read More: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/the-living-archive-of-aboriginal-languages/7120900
Bruce Pascoe's most recent work presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia.
From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life.
Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems.
They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields; and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops.
Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush.
Source and more info: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2016/02/01/4397892.htm#.Vq9BWE6zUbU.facebook
On the 27 January 2016 the Premiere Screening of 'Star Stories of the Dreaming' was held at the Chauvel Cinema One at Paddington Sydney. The Q&A was with [l-r] Bob Fuller, cultural astronomer; Ghillar Michael Anderson, Euahlayi Lawman and knowledge holder; Prof Ray Norris, CSIRO astrophysicist; & Eleanor Gilbert, filmmaker & producer.
This is a Phillip Adams interview with an expert on First Nations history, Dr Ray Kerkhove, who has undertaken new research on the warfare between First Nations people and the British advancement in Queensland during the 19th century - he has some interesting findings on Nations rallying together across Eastern states to fight the invaders ... and more.
'Latenight Live' ABC RN Wednesday 11 March 2015 10:20PM
An excerpt from Marjorie Thorpe's speech at an Invasion Day Rally Marjorie Thorpe is a descendant of the Gunnai and Maar people of Victoria Thanks to 3CR's 'Earth Matters' program for the audio
Cabbage Tree Island is a large, flat, teardrop of sugar cane land on a reach of the Richmond River on the New South Wales far north coast.
It is also home to the Njangbal clan of the Bundjalung people, and it is 'country' for former Jali Local Aboriginal Land Council chairwoman Sandra Bolt.
In the 1950s and 60s, Mrs Bolt's mother was assiduous in making sure the house was spick and span, and all 13 of her children were spotless ahead of the monthly inspection by the mission manager's wife — one of the few things her mother could do to stop her children being targeted by 'the welfare'.
"We were all as a family kept together because my mother protected us from being taken away by the welfare, and then my little brother was drowned on Cabbage Tree Island," Mrs Bolt recalled sadly.
"That was when my family moved to Sydney, and my sister and I worked as domestics at Vaucluse."
AUDIO 12:55 Bundjalung woman Sandra Bolt speaks about her family ABC NEWS The sisters met men and settled down. Mrs Bolt's sister Irene and her partner found a silver lining in a dark cloud after a workplace accident left them with enough compensation to buy a house in Balmain and a new car. - Then one day in the early 1970s, Government officers swooped and removed the youngest five of her six children, to be fostered in separate homes in different parts of the state. - The eldest child removed was just six years old.
A member of the newly-formed Referendum Council has questioned whether a referendum recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution should be held at all.
TRANSCRIPT The Squatters' Thesaurus By Geoff Page
The frontier runs are cleared by language. Myall niggers are dispersed. The Bible and Charles Darwin both declare the sons of Cain are cursed.
Two squatters on a front verandah put their feet up to relax and talk of last month's dressing down or proper thumping of the blacks.
That lad of mine, one squatter smiles, is much too keen on rushing gins. We had a parson by last month pronouncing on the seven sins.
Vigorous measures must be taken. Outrages are up again. Time, it seems, to be doing the needful. They need a dusting now and then.
Bodies strewn about like saplings are dragged into a pile and burnt. The future talks of settlement … and murder is a language learnt.
From book: The great forgetting http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/the-great-forgetting-0440000 - 'The great forgetting' by Geoff Page is based in Canberra and has published 21 collections of poetry and five verse novels. An abiding theme in one book was Aboriginal dispossession on the Australian Frontier Wars,
More: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/the-great-forgetting-0440000
Audio: ABC RN 'Earshot'
Jack Charles who was awarded Victorian Senior Australian of the Year in October 2015 but was asked to pay up front for his taxi ride because he was Aboriginal. (pic courtesy of abc.net.au)
In Western Australia the number of Aboriginal children being removed from their parents has almost doubled in the last five years.
Now Indigenous leaders are proposing that children could be looked after by elders on former missions as an alternative to foster care.
Lucy Martin reports for ABC RN 'The World Today' 22 October 2015
TRANSCRIPT: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4336740.htm
The first shipment of Australia's nuclear waste to be returned from reprocessing in France has now left a French port, and will arrive on our shores next month.
The return of the 25 tonnes of nuclear waste is putting renewed pressure on the Federal Government to find a location for a permanent waste dump.
Natalie Whiting ABC The World Today Read more + Transcript http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4333121.htm
Palm Islanders have welcomed a Court decision awarding compensation over police mistreatment after the 2004 Palm Island riot. The riot followed a police death in custody and in the aftermath, six police conducted a pre-dawn raid on a home, where they've now been found to have assaulted and falsely imprisoned a couple.
Transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4327034.htm
Ancient rock carvings on the Burrup Peninsula are among more than 1,000 sites the WA government removed or blocked from its Aboriginal heritage register in the last two-and-a-half years. In 2012 the government created a narrower definition of sacred sites. The Supreme Court has thrown out those changes, but the government now wants a single public servant to determine sacred sites. Sarah Dingle investigates for ABC RN's Radio National
Read More http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/whats-sacred-now/6549614
A pastoralist from Western Australia is calling for Indigenous ranger groups to take a more active role in preventing and fighting bushfires in the Kimberley, saying the number of fires in the region was "absolutely ridiculous".6809606
Gogo Station development manager Phillip Hams wants rangers under the auspices of the Kimberley Land Council to have a greater focus on combating fires which ravage the region.
Mr Hams said he would like to initiate discussions between the cattle industry, the KLC and the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) to further explore the idea.
"What we need to do is explore what portion they (rangers) are doing and maybe one way or another that can be increased," he said.
Tom Edwards, ABC - WA Country Hour
Read More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-28/pastoralist-wants-indigenous-rangers-to-fight-more-fire/6809606
Dr Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist at the Australian Catholic University, has spent years studying the behaviour of one of Australia's most misunderstood creatures, the Thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger. And he is the author of the seminal go-to book on the animal's extinction, The Last Tasmanian Tiger.
Lately, Dr Paddle has been researching the untold history of the women that played a part in both the animal's extinction and its conservation.
These women are brought to life in They Saw a Thylacine, a new play currently running at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, with other venues to follow.
ABC Radio National Background Briefing
Police in Darwin have jailed nearly 1,000 Aboriginal people under new public order laws that allow detention without an arrest warrant. Following a black death in custody, the coroner said the laws should be repealed because they perpetuate and entrench Indigenous disadvantage. But the NT government is refusing to budge. So have 'paperless arrests' reduced crime? Wendy Carlisle investigates.
Aboriginal Elder Aunty Jessie Clarke from Bordertown (SA/Vic border) turned 100 on 21 September 2015
More than 300 friends and relatives filled the Bordertown Hall on Saturday for an early celebration of the milestone.
Aunty Jessie was born at Swan Hill. Her mother was Aboriginal; her father was English.
She married an Aboriginal man, Laurie Clarke, and they moved to the Bordertown area where they lived in a hut on what local white people called 'blacks' camp,' and that's where they raised eight children.
Aboriginal people were not permitted to live in houses in the town.
In 1964 Laurie heard word that welfare officers were coming to take their four younger children away.
With help from some locals the family left in a hurry for Wolseley and in the process their hut was bulldozed along with possessions they'd intended to go back and collect.
Here are some audio highlights from Saturday's celebration.
The Transcript
MARK COLVIN: Who'll be in charge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in a Turnbull Government?
Senator Nigel Scullion may stay as Indigenous Affairs Minister, but he's in the outer ministry - Tony Abbott always said Indigenous questions were his responsibility inside the Cabinet itself.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, wants Malcolm Turnbull to confirm that the Coalition will still go ahead with a referendum in May 2017.
Mick Gooda says he's happy to continue working with Nigel Scullion, but has also suggested considering Aboriginal MP Ken Wyatt for the job.
He's spoke to Anna Henderson.
MICK GOODA: Everyone in Australia right now is waiting to see what happens over the next week or so with the new Cabinet, whether there's going to be any different ministry Government arrangements.
ANNA HENDERSON: Do you feel like Nigel Scullion should remain in the portfolio?
MICK GOODA: Oh look, it's not up to us to, or me in particular to determine, make any comment like that.
I have a good working relationship with Minister Scullion, we have robust discussion, we have really really frank discussion - I'd like to see that continue. But whether Minister Scullion remains in his place is really a matter for the Prime Minister now.
We do have an Indigenous member of Parliament, Ken Wyatt, maybe there could be something radical and he could be Aboriginal Affairs Minister if there is to be a change.
ANNA HENDERSON: So, at this point do you feel like a change of leader might actually be a game-changer in a positive way?
MICK GOODA: I don't know. I understand Malcolm Turnbull has been very positively talking about constitutional reform.
Again, it's a wait and see over the next week or so where we can make contact with his office to start working out where we stand with constitutional recognition.
I hope we just maintain the same timetable, you know, we've been at it now for - you know, I've been at it the whole time I've been in this job, getting onto six years of work. A lot of other people have been the same, or even longer.
We've now got a timetable, we agreed with the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader about early 2017. I think we should stick to that timetable and I'd like to see a commitment from the new Prime Minister to that effect really, that he's committed to it, that we've got a process in place and that should just continue.
ANNA HENDERSON: Now you heard Malcolm Turnbull's first remarks when he was elected by his party to the role of Prime Minister, among them he was talking about a more collegiate way of operating.
Did you read anything into that for his engagement with Indigenous Australians?
MICK GOODA: Well, when he talks about respecting the intelligence of the Australian community, I think he has to understand that and respect the intelligence within the Aboriginal community, that we do want to work through the problems that face us and face the country.
I just hope that we're not just brushed to one side when this conversation happens with the new Prime Minister.
As matter of fact, there'll be people who'll be very upfront about that, that we need this new relationship, we need proper engagement where both sides are respected, because that's the only way anything is going to change with our mob.
Imposing solutions without the engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will work for a little while, but they won't produce sustainable results and that's the message again I will be giving to the Prime Minister's office when I get the chance.
MARK COLVIN: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda speaking to Anna Henderson.
Up until the 1970s, generations of Aboriginal workers in WA had their wages systematically stolen over decades, and only a small minority received reparation—just $2,000 in 2012. Sarah Dingle reveals the secret calculations that recommended a much higher sum, and government efforts to minimise payouts.
ABC Radio National 'Background Briefing' - See more:- http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/was-stolen-wages-shame/6740068
In Western Australia, the government is facing a potential class action over its controversial Stolen Wages Reparations Scheme.
The scheme paid Aboriginal people a maximum of $2,000 in recognition of decades of withheld wages.
Now, a Background Briefing investigation has uncovered secret financial modelling commissioned by the Government which suggests the Government owes the workers much more than that.
ABC AM The TRANSCRIPT:- http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4306025.htm
In Queensland the discovery of the fossilised remains of a 23 million-year-old rainforest in the Gold Coast hinterland is shining light on a little understood period of geological history. The fossils were unearthed from a creek bed by a curious bushwalker who took them to the Queensland Museum for analysis.
The Northern Territory Government is grappling with a looming environmental disaster at one of the world's biggest zinc, lead and silver mines.
The McArthur mine is located about 900 kilometres south-east of Darwin in Gulf Country, and is operated by the Swiss mining giant Glencore.
Documents released through a Freedom on Information request now reveal though that Glencore is failing to manage the huge amounts of toxic waste being released at the mine—waste which environmentalists say could pose a danger for hundreds of years.
In fact, it's been revealed a leaking tailings dam is already contaminating local waterways used by people living near the mine.
The fear now is that the mining giant may leave Northern Territory taxpayers with a massive bill to clean up the site.
RN Breakfast
A contemporary artistic response to Lachlan Macquarie's term as governor of NSW, and the crossing of the Blue Mountains.
Artist Tim Miller became fascinated with the expansion of settlement west of Sydney during Macquarie's tenure. What would have been seen by the first European explorers and how their arrival might have been perceived by the local Indigenous peoples?
Source: ABC Radio National 'Earshot'
Artistic perceptions of Lachlan Macquarie's time as governor of New South Wales.
Australian artist Keith Dewell has a fascination with the human form—his drawings express ways in which the physicality of the human body exposes inner emotion. In a recent exhibition commemorating the bicentennial of Lachlan Macquarie's governorship, Keith contributes an insight into both the Aboriginal and the convict psyche during this time.
This is an excellent report on Keith Dewell work on Earshot with David Rutledge on RN - However the female historian called Grace who appears on this audio has a very blinkered view on the situation and talks about the invaders as if they are hero's for murdering the First Nations people and stealing their land. She even mentions how progressive the newly built orphanages were.
Joseph Lycett was a convicted English forger who was transported to New South Wales in the early nineteenth century. He had a colourful existence in Australia and documented the life of First Nations people of the Newcastle region at that time. - More info and images:- http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/true-light-and-shade-aboriginal-perspective-joseph-lycetts-artartist/6599240
There has been considerable misunderstandings about 1967 Referendum both in Aboriginal and mainstream Australians circles. Here is an audio made for SBS World News Radio by Ron Sutton in March 2014
For almost three decades, Pat O’Shane, the fiery daughter of an Aboriginal mother and an Irish father, was one of Australia’s most famous magistrates. In 27 eventful years on the bench, she was frequently under attack, her name never far from the word ‘controversial’ for some of her decisions and public comments.
In this interview with Julia Baird on Radio National, Pat, now retired, talks about everything from justice to her crippling depression and the immense stress the job caused her, as well as the pact she made with herself never to show her tears.
From RN Swam Songs with Julia Baird
The Fortescue Metals Group owned by Andrew Forrest have come under fire from a Federal Court Judge for their involvement in supporting certain community members to break away from Traditional protocol in an attempt to free up access to land they wish to mine on.
CEO of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation in Western Australia Michael Woodley told Donna Campbell, CAAMA Radio that within Aboriginal cultural there is a relationship structure…one that is now being -
2014 Audio Report: Over the last three years the support for homeless people with drug and alcohol issues in South Australia has been cut significantly. ICHAG, the Independent Community-Wide Homelessness Administrators Group has released a report describing this crisis and calling for the government to take immediate action. Backing this report is Shelter SA, and their executive director, Dr Alice Clark, spoke to Angus Randall.
Radio Adelaide Produced by Michael Moschos 7/4/14
A group of women in a remote Aboriginal community in South Australia's APY Lands have formed the state's first indigenous female fire-fighting team. For cultural reasons women in Mimili can't work with the men in the Country Fire Service brigade in the town. However with the men often out of community on cultural business and other help so far away the women decided to get trained up so they could protect themselves and their land.
Researchers are calling for the dog fence to be moved as an experiment that looks at ways to protect threatened native species and increase biodiversity.
The aim is to let dingoes breed up in Sturt National Park, near Cameron Corner, in far north-west New South Wales, so researchers can study the role the canines play in arid lands.
University of Sydney researcher Dr Thomas Newsome said the apex predator could play an important part in managing feral pests who prey on wildlife.
"There's been ongoing interest in exploring the ecological role of the dingo," he said.
New South Wales Police have named the rise of white supremacist groups as one of the main threats to social cohesion in Australia. Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas said a number of organisations fitting that description are moving out of the shadows. "Racist groups who have in the past worked under the radar, coming out, spreading hatred, particularly on the far-right," he said. Mr Kaldas said police were watching the trend closely although he declined to name any specific groups. "I'm loathed to give them any oxygen but I would say that there is definitely activity on the right wing, the extreme right wing, of politics and people who are using events around the world to create incidents in Australia and NSW and in Sydney," he said. "We're not taking our eye off that ball. We are watching it just as much as we watch anybody else." He was speaking at a community cohesion conference at the University of Western Sydney, in Parramatta.
The Official Opening of the Kukenarup memorial on the site of WA SE
Report and image by Tara De Landgrafft - ABC Rural
Kokenarup massacre: In 1880, a family group of approximately 30 First Nations people were massacred about 15 kilometres from the Ravensthorpe in Western Australia's south west region. One account states that John Dunn, a farm worker, attacked and raped a young Nyoongar girl and in accordance with the Nyoongar lore of that region he was subsequently killed by Yandawulla Dibbs and a group of local Nyoongar men. Dunn's overseer sent out word of the killing, and returned with a large group of armed settlers who rounded up and slaughtered 30 Nyoongar men, women and children.
The Official Opening of the Kukenarup memorial on the site of WA SE
Image: Noongar elders and sisters Carol Petterson and Roni Grey Forrest at the Kukenarup memorial
Kokenarup massacre: In 1880, a family group of approximately 30 First Nations people were massacred about 15 kilometres from the Ravensthorpe in Western Australia's south west region. One account states that John Dunn, a farm worker, attacked and raped a young Nyoongar girl and in accordance with the Nyoongar lore of that region he was subsequently killed by Yandawulla Dibbs and a group of local Nyoongar men. Dunn's overseer sent out word of the killing, and returned with a large group of armed settlers who rounded up and slaughtered 30 Nyoongar men, women and children.
Report and image by Tara De Landgrafft - ABC Rural
Radio National - Big Ideas 11 July 2013
The killing times. Cairns-based historian Timothy Bottoms has drawn a new map of Queensland, that places many more sites of massacres of Aboriginal people into the story than have ever been acknowledged before. And while he argues that this is a story of deep silences, what he demonstrates is how public and discussed these killings were in the nineteenth century. In conversation with RN’s Kate Evans, Dr Bottoms draws out his research and conclusions, while a powerful combination of elders and historians made the story live.
'How would you like to be me?’ was a forum held in Adelaide in May 2015, aiming to shed a light on the everyday experiences of First Nation peoples around Australia. Here we have Caper, Aboriginal rap artist, Michael Ghillar Anderson, Sovereign Union founder and Jeff McMullen, journalist and activist - Other speakers at the forum were included Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Alison Anderson, Tauto Sansbury and Gerry Georgatos.
Produced by Lovette Williams and Lisa Burns of 'The Wire'
Part one in a two-part series marking 40 years of the Racial Discrimination Act. Mr Koowarta's case could have been the end of our first human rights law.
Kintore community elder Irene Nangala says Tony Abbott doesn't understand the lifestyles of Aboriginal people living remotely - Ms Nangala said she moved to the remote Aboriginal community of Kintore in the 1980s. Kintore is 500 kilometres west of Alice Springs and around 50 kilometres from the Western Australian border.
Audio file: Ninah Kopel 'The Wire'
The Burrup peninsula is home to the world’s largest and oldest collection of rock art. It was once considered sacred by the Western Australian Government. Now only select areas are considered sacred. There are more than 2,400 registered Aboriginal sites on the Burrup Peninsula, but with ancient art covering the whole region, deregistered areas mean sights of culture could fall through the gaps.
image: 'Burrup Rock Art - Tiger' by Greens MPs on Flickr
A group of Aboriginal elders is concerned that moves to shut some remote communities in Western Australia will set a precedent for other parts of the country.
After months of speculation the WA Premier Colin Barnett yesterday outlined major reforms to the ways communities are funded.
He says Indigenous people will be consulted, but less viable settlements will eventually close.
As Natalie Whiting reports, elders and activists used a forum in Adelaide last night to air their concerns about the ripple effects of the WA plan.
A group who've dubbed themselves the 'Alice Springs Volunteer Force' have threatened violence against Aboriginal youth on social media.
Aiming to recruit volunteers with firearm experience, the group proposes to crack down on the town's young offenders through vigilante-style action.
Blair McFarland from the Central Australian Youth Link-Up Service says the group is deluded and only represents a minute number of people.
Mr McFarland said that the current conservative-type NT Government has cut $3m dollars from Alice Springs Youth Services, before that there was some night time activities that targeted the kids who are walking around the streets at night.
He likened the this and other governments to vigilante groups.
Felicity Meakins, a senior researcher says awareness about Australian Indigenous languages is very low, and that most Australians have little idea about the extent of linguistic diversity across the country. Felicity is a research fellow at the University of Queensland - More about this story here: https://theconversation.com/some-australian-indigenous-languages-you-should-know-40155
From Radio National - 'Afternoons' Presented by Michael Mackenzie
Author of the book ‘Dark Emu – Black Seeds : Agriculture or Accident?”
The book argues the idea that the first Australians were hunter gatherers has been invented to undermine Aboriginal people.
"My message to my own people," he says, "is the rest of the country's not going to change if we don't stick up for our culture; and our culture was one where we had an agricultural economy."
"If we stick up for our culture, it'll be useful not just for us but for the whole of Australia, because some of those crops that our people were growing are going to be useful in the future."
98.9fm, NIRS, Radio Brisbane
The Victorian Aborigines Advancement League is the oldest Aboriginal organisation in Australia. Now, the remarkable history of its activism has now come to light.
Historian Richard Broome has gathered stories from former and current members and compiled them in a book called 'Fighting Hard'.
He joins Patricia Karvelas in The Drawing Room along with actor and director Rachel Maza, who has a personal connection with the League.
Image: Gladys Nicholls Hostel for girls, Thornbury, 1958. (Courtesy A & M Jackomos collection.)
From CAAMA Radio - Western Australia’s Kimberley region continues to see rising levels of homelessness with a new report claiming seven per cent of the region’s predominately Aboriginal population is currently homeless.
Gerry Georgatos a long time human rights campaigner and suicide prevention researcher based in Western Australia says the current extent of homelessness in the Kimberley demonstrates the State Governments disregard in dealing with the inequalities that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders face.
Mr Georgatos told CAAMA that little has changed for Aboriginal people in Western Australia since the 1967 referendum calling the disparity of homelessness experienced by the First Peoples as ‘racialization’.
Mr Georgatos also discussed the adverse effects the looming community closures will have on residents within the Kimberley and surrounding regions over a chat with Kyle Dowling.
The Nyoongar Refugee Camp on Matagarup (Heirisson Island) Perth, Western Australia. in Western Australia again faces forced removal.
Over the last few months talks of closures of remote communities in Western Australia has forced many Aboriginal people from across the state and the Country to join together in Perth to show their support to the people that will be homeless if the closures continue.
Veteran Nyoongar Rights Campaigner Herbert Bropho speaks to CAAMA radio about the still standing strong for the rights of his people in the face of talks to evict people from the Nyoongar
A respected Central Australian Aboriginal Elder has rejected the suggestion that Aboriginal women exposing their bodies during ceremony is offensive. Rosalie Kunoth-Monks a Arrernte and Alyawarra woman told CAAMA Radio that Aboriginal women’s breasts are not considered to be as sexual objects in Aboriginal culture and that they carry and posses power and ancient Law.
Mark Colvin ABC - Natalie Whiting reporting. - Indigenous leaders in South Australia are calling for a guarantee that remote communities in the state won't close as a result of funding cuts. Crisis meetings were held in the state over the weekend, and leaders are calling for an urgent meeting with the State Government.
The West Australian Government has suggested closing some communities as a result of Federal Government funding cuts. The South Australian Government says it's pushing the Commonwealth to change its decision, but Indigenous groups say the lack of a plan B is causing anxiety.
USA MEDIA - This Audio is especially edited by Sovereign Union just to address Abbott and First Nations Peoples issues, especially The Homelands and the Carmichael Mine. KPFK, Pacifica in Southern California discusses these First Nations issues in Australia with guest Dr. Kampmark, who teaches within the Bachelor of Social Science (Legal and Dispute Studies) program at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia
Australia is considered one of the US’s main allies in the English speaking world. But the conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric on a number of policy fronts has made him an embarrassing bedfellow of the West.
On top of his vehement climate denialism, Abbott has recently been criticized for the appalling treatment of imprisoned asylum seekers that are held on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus. Mistreatment of prisoners includes sexual abuse, rape, and physical assault. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, singled out Australia for its abuse of children asylees in particular, to which Prime Minister Abbott responded that he was “sick of being lectured to.”
Abbott has also come under fire recently for policies and comments targeting his nation’s indigenous population. His administration has pushed severe cuts to Aboriginal legal services. Those cuts were just reversed after public outrage. But comments that Abbott made earlier in the month underscore the poor relations his government has had with indigenous communities. Abbott claimed it was not the responsibility of tax payers to subsidize the “lifestyle choices” of aboriginal people who live on remote lands and need services.
- See more at: http://uprisingradio.org/home/2015/03/27/tony-abbotts-abuses-of-australias-asylum-seekers-and-aboriginal-peoples/#sthash.Lp57WWf9.dpuf
Originally from Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, David Lans moved to Kintore, 520 kilometres west of Alice Springs, in a bid to gain employment in nearby mines and start his own earthmoving business.
He is keen to help the people of Kintore become self-sufficient.
"I'm looking to do some community work as well, in parks and gardens, building a community centre and a recording studio as well," he said.
Because of the Kintore's remoteness, infrastructure in the town is limited and the cost of food and water is high.
Mr Lans said he is well aware of the disadvantages facing small communities and wanted local Aboriginal people to run their own businesses.
"There are things we can change for the better," he said.
"We can have our own parks, we can have our own gardens, grow our own vegetables, we can start fish farms and make everything here," he said.
"We can do courses and training.
"We can run this community ourselves."
Mr Lans, who receives unemployment benefits, admitted much of the Kintore community is reliant on government benefits.
"It's been going on for years. They've been doing the Centrelink thing," he said.
"There's been no courses. They're just throwing money, which is the wrong thing.
"If they (the Federal Government) wants us to succeed, they need to help and understand our ways.
"Australia is like a house, not built on strong foundations.
"Australia's going to continue losing money if they don't help all Australians.
"Once they help all, we'll be a great nation."
ABC RADIO (PM) -TRANSCRIPT
DAVID MARK: Thousands of people have turned out at rallies and marches across Australia to mark Close the Gap Day.
The national event aims to highlight the discrepancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians in life expectancy, employment and education.
This year the focus has been on the idea flagged by the Western Australian Government and echoed by the Prime Minister to potentially close up to 150 remote Indigenous communities.
The Premier Colin Barnett came face to face with protesters during an intense and at times hostile rally in Perth.
Lucy Martin was there.
(Sound from protest rally)
PROTESTER: If the Government continues to remove us from our lands, then this country is doomed - domestically, internationally and spiritually. Shame!
LUCY MARTIN: From Broome to Bendigo, Melbourne to Geraldton, rallies were held in small country towns and major cities across Australia.
(Sound from protest rally)
PROTESTERS: Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you.
LUCY MARTIN: The biggest was in Perth, where more than 1,000 people marched from the CBD to Parliament House, demanding an audience with the Premier Colin Barnett.
(Sound from protest rally)
PROTESTERS: Abbott, Barnett you go home. You're supporting genocide!
PROTESTER 2: Who would have thought in 2015 we're up here protesting about being taken from our traditional lands?
LUCY MARTIN: They're furious with the State Government's plans to close up to 150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.
TAMMY SOLONEC: On this Close the Gap Day we're saying to people let's close the gap, not the communities!
PROTESTER 3: We want to live, we don't want to just struggle and survive!
LUCY MARTIN: The Commonwealth is transferring responsibility for funding the settlements to the State Government which says it can't afford to keep them all open.
The Premier Colin Barnett addressed the crowd on the steps of Parliament House.
COLIN BARNETT: Can I say, can I say to you, no Aboriginal people will be forced from their lands, no Aboriginal people will be forced from their communities.
(Sound of outcry and protesting from crowd)
LUCY MARTIN: Mr Barnett was jeered and abused when he told protesters to put themselves in his shoes.
COLIN BARNETT: My issue is, and it's your issue as much as it's mine - probably more yours than mine - is how can we ensure that boys and girls go to school? How can we ensure that they are safe?
(Sound of outcry and protesting from crowd)
How can we reduce alcohol and drug usage?
(Sound of outcry and protesting from crowd)
I would be failing you as the Premier of this state if I ignored those issues.
PROTESTER 4: You're are failing us!
COLIN BARNETT: You will not like me for that, but I will not resile from that.
LUCY MARTIN: The Premier was ushered away by his security team after a protester lunged at him.
Indigenous lawyer and Amnesty International campaigner Tammy Solonec also addressed the rally.
TAMMY SOLONEC: Moving Aboriginal people from their homelands will be harder than making these communities sustainable and viable. It will cause intergenerational trauma. It will break connections to land and culture.
LUCY MARTIN: Sandy Davies, who attended a rally in Geraldton, 400 kilometres north of Perth, says Aboriginal people have been left in the dark.
SANDY DAVIES: What we really need Colin Barnett to do is to come out - because all he has said is he intends to close 150 communities. He hasn't actually come out and given us any explanation about how he's going to do it, where he's going to do it, and which regions.
LUCY MARTIN: In Adelaide, hundreds of protesters gathered on the steps of Parliament House.
Thirteen communities in South Australia's remote APY lands (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara ) are also in limbo because of the Commonwealth's withdrawal of funds.
Local elder Tauto Sansbury.
TAUTO SANSBURY...
Warren Mundine wants answers on Indigenous Advancement Strategy funding decisions
Lindy Kerin reported this story on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 12:15:00
Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes) | MP3 DOWNLOAD ELEANOR HALL: When the Prime Minister's chief adviser on Indigenous affairs meets Tony Abbott this afternoon, he says he'll have a few things to get off his chest.
Warren Mundine says he wants a detailed briefing about recent funding decisions under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy.
He says he will also have a bit to say about the Prime Minister's comments that remote Indigenous communities are a "lifestyle choice".
As the two meet today, more details are already emerging about the funding of Indigenous organisations.
Lindy Kerin has our report.
LINDY KERIN: Since the 1970s, the Bloodwood Tree Association in South Hedland in Western Australia's Pilbara region has run a crisis accommodation centre and drug and alcohol service.
The association's CEO Bob Neville says he applied for funding under the Federal Government's new Indigenous Advancement Strategy back in September.
BOB NEVILLE: We were advised by letter from the Minister that we were successful in our funding and then three hours later we were told, yes we were successful but out of $1.3 million over 2.5 years we applied for, we were successful for $208,000 and that the hostel would not be funded and we would have to close it.
LINDY KERIN: Bob Neville says there is another hostel in the town, but that's currently full, and with average rentals being about $1,100 a week, his clients will have nowhere to go.
He says the whole funding process has been frustrating.
BOB NEVILLE: We're in remote area, we're some 2,000 kilometres out of Perth in the Pilbara and nobody has bothered to speak to us at all about the hostels program, nobody has bothered to speak to us about the substance abuse program, they've just come and said nup, not funding, close the doors, see ya later.
If I could get a plane from here to Canberra, I think I'd be on that and I'd be going over there and talking to some of those senators because what they are doing is crucifying the Indigenous people here in the Pilbara.
LINDY KERIN: The National Congress of Australia's First Peoples recently called out to its members and organisations to get a clearer picture of the Government's funding decisions.
The Congress co-chair is Kirstie Parker
KIRSTIE PARKER: A very small number of them have indicated that they've received partial funding, most of them have said they've received no funding whatsoever.
We said to them what would be the likely impact on your organisation and they've told us that projects and programs and some organisations will be crippled, if not unable to continue, so they will be unviable as at the 30th of June.
This also means some essential services will cease in our communities, including services for women, for kids, educational initiatives, legal services and jobs, so in effect, there will be an obliteration of a very large chunk of the Indigenous community landscape.
LINDY KERIN: The Federal Government says 41 per cent of more than 2,000 organisations that applied for funding have been successful.
The World Today has sought specific information, but we've been told the details of each grant will be listed on the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website within 14 days of the agreement taking effect.
Kirstie Parker says the new Indigenous Advancement Strategy has been a disaster.
KIRSTIE PARKER: We are hearing very high levels of frustration with the process and of course people will be upset and distressed and unhappy if the decision is an outright no.
Some are hanging in there because they've been told, look you're unsuccessful, but we'd like to talk to you about other opportunities.
Many of the people that have been told, or the organisation that have been told they were successful, have actually rece...
Joining CAAMA radio is Mitch Torres from the Kimberley, Western Australia
Remote Aboriginal Communities in Western Australia’s Kimberley region have announced a global call to action to stop the forced closure of Aboriginal communities which are causing people to leave their homelands due to state and federal governments withdrawal of support of basic essential services.
People all over Australia have been show their support for those that have been effected by the proposals to shut down 150 remote Aboriginal in Western Australia and Thursday the 19th of March across the nation will be celebrating close the gap day, yet for many people they feel the gap has significantly widened.
Campers at the Nyoongar Tent Embassy on Perth’s Heirisson Island has been given until midday today (Thursday) to pack up and leave. Last week the Embassy declared the site a refuge for homeless people being displaced from their communities… but W.A. Today reports the City of Perth has arranged for welfare support agencies to visit the camp and offer support to homeless individuals. The paper reports the city is planning for the worst case scenario of forced eviction.
Marianne McKay tells CAAMA the W.A. Government is breaking its own laws by forcibly removing her people from the island.
In his new book, The Story of Australia's People, Geoffrey Blainey writes that one of the reasons aboriginal tribes didn’t effectively resist European settlement was that they were militarily weak. Indigenous tribes often fought with each other rather than launch coordinated attacks against settlers. An alternative view comes from expert in indigenous history, Dr Ray Kerkhove, who has done new research on indigenous warfare in Queensland in the 19th century.
Castlemaine State Festival: John Romeril and Jack Charles Radio National - Arts Today 12 March 2015 Going Through is a new production by playwright John Romeril, starring veteran actor; indigenous elder and activist, Uncle Jack Charles. - Based on a true story from Jack Charles' time as an inmate at 'Old Castlemaine Gaol,' it premieres at the Castlemaine State Festival on the grounds of the goal itself.
National Indigenous Radio 98.9fm - Warren Barnsley
The Noongar Tent Embassy in Perth say they want to bring International attention to the Western Australian Government's plans to defund remote communities.
The Embassy on Matagarup, or Heirisson Island, has set up a 'refugee camp' to take in displaced Indigenous peoples if communities are closed and people forced off their land.
Noongar advocate Marianne Mackay told 98.9fm shutting down First Nations homelands is a policy which harks back to early colonial days.
ABC Radio - Radio National - Late Night Live
While our current criminal justice system is determined to treat everyone 'equally', it does not take into account often enough the disadvantages that may have led the offender to commit the crime in the first place. Russell Marks argues that it is important to ask some fundamental questions about punishment if the reduction of crime and a safer community to live in are the goals of the system.
ABC Radio National Law Report
Addiction, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, loss of culture, a sense of hopelessness, mental health issues. How can we keep indigenous people with these sorts of complex needs out of prison?
In our third part of a series the Law Report looks at programs that help keep people out of the criminal justice treadmill in the Kimberleys in Western Australia.
Transcript http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/diversionary-programs-in-the-kimberley/5827490#transcript
Gerry Georgatos National Indigenous Radio 3 March 2015
The Nyungah Tent Embassy on Perth's Heirisson Island has been re-established.
More than 70 Nyungahs gathered to rebuild the camp site which was demolished by police two years ago.
A small delegation from the Embassy has informed police they've reclaimed the Embassy's grounds and also stated they'll use the site as a refuge for the homeless.
It'll also be used a refugee camp for those displaced by the WA Government's closing down of remote communities.
Guest speaker at the reopening, Gary Jagamara, warned of provocations by WA authorities opposed to the Embassy.
– Ray Jackson (CAAMA) 26 September, 2014 Social Services and the NSW Police force have been criticised after footage was supplied to Australia’s National Indigenous TV (NITV) showing officers dressed in riot gear, raiding a home to remove multiple children from one family. The President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Ray Jackson, joins CAAMA Radio broadcaster Mikaela Simpson on the line to talk more about this shocking event.
ABC Radio National 'Arts Today' Michael Aird Guests: Photographic historian. Curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland Anthropology Museum Mandana Mapar and Photo media artist and curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland's Anthropology Museum
In the 1890s a ‘troupe’ of Aboriginal people travelled Australia to perform a sort of Wild West Show, under the wing of charismatic journalist, politician and entrepreneur Archibald Meston. The venture failed, and Meston effectively abandoned the 27 performers in Melbourne, but not before the actors were photographed and their images sold as postcards. Aboriginal curator and photography specialist Michael Aird has been interested in these images for a long time, and with Mandana Mapar and researcher Paul Memmott has put together an exhibition that opens tomorrow at the University of Queensland's Anthropology Museum.
ABC RN Phillip Adams 'Late Night Live' Thursday 19 February 2015
In 1961, young married couple Robert and Helen Singleton, joined the Freedom rides to protest against racial segregation in America's south. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on public buses and interstate transport, including at transit stops, was unconstitutional but southern states had ignored this ruling. As soon as they arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, Bob and Helen Singleton were arrested and incarcerated in the notorious Parchman Penitentiary, along with many other Freedom riders. Today, the Singletons say they are concerned about racial profiling and the use of force by police, as well as the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision blunting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the civil rights movement’s most important victories.
Image: Freedom Riders, Robert and Helen Singleton (Source ABC RN/Alex McClintock)
Pacific Islanders in Australia are angry over a federal government move to ban kava. Stefan Armbruster SBS World News 18 FEB 2015 - (Transcript from World News Radio) - Claims organised gangs of Pacific Islanders are smuggling kava into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities will see the federal government ban the traditional drink in Australia. - Existing import limits will be abolished, a move that has angered Pacific islanders. - The proposed ban comes as Australian aid funds the development of bottled kava drinks as an export industry in Fiji. - Stefan Armbruster reports - The drinking of kava is an ancient Pacific islander custom, now regularly practiced in Australia - (SFX of clapping) - The claps are a signal appreciation. - This kava club gathers regularly in Brisbane but soon these sessions could be illegal. - Federal Indigenous Affairs minister and Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion is on a mission. - "We accept people practising their culture in this country. Of course we do. But when it is perverted and redirected, and to harm our First Australians, it isn't a right, it's a privilege. But I'm an advocate unashamedly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. That's my job and I think it should be banned and I will continue pursuing it until it is banned." - A total ban on kava imports because of the actions of a few has shocked the tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders in Australia. - "It makes me angry, it makes me very, very angry." - Zane Yoshida is an Australian citizen from Fiji who regularly has kava sessions at his house and is the founder of Taki Mai, a company that makes bottled kava drinks. - "We definitely deserve to have kava as part of our traditional cultural practices, even in Australia. If anything, it has been a positive influence on the Fijian community. Even the youth in Australia, as an alternative to alcohol." - Kava is already illegal in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land because of the health, social and financial impacts. - NT police Detective Superintendant Tony Fuller of the Drug and Organised Crime Division has long worked in the remote communities. - "Basically what kava does is it compounds existing health and substance abuses issues in the communities, so what it does is it adds one more layer of problems to the community." - Two kilos of kava per person can legally be brought into Australia from Pacific Islands like Fiji. - "Generally it's brought into Australia by Pacific Island groups, and we're seeing what we call stockpiling in places like Sydney and Brisbane, and then the couriers will either bring it up by plane or mail it or sometimes they'll just drive it up." - NT police have seized about 10 tonnes since 2009 and made more than 200 arrests. - "The vast majority of offenders who bring it into the Northern Territory are Tongan, of Tongan descent. There are obviously some Tongans out there who don't abuse it. That said we have a significant amount of Aboriginal people we are arresting." - Penalties include prison terms of up to eight years for quantities over 25 kilograms. - Kava costs about $30 a kilo overseas, once in Arnhem Land it sells for about $1000. - Senator Nigel Scullion says kava smuggling is big business. - "There's been I think over seventeen busts over 100 kilo and one of the things this signifies is that this is a organised criminal activity. The size of the busts, the sophistication of communication, this is significant organised criminal activity and with significant organised crime comes other activities. People say, 'We are drinking kava today, but we have a suite of drugs for you'. " - Kava has a distinctive taste. - It comes from the root of a pepper tree, and has a relaxing and slightly numbing effect. - Pacific islanders enjoy sharing kava, much like a cup of tea or coffee in other cultures, but it is drunk in much larger quantities for the e...
Radio Australia - 20 February 2015
Claims that organised gangs of Pacific islanders are smuggling kava into Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory could see the traditional Pacific island drink banned.
Australia's indigenous affairs minister set on outright kava ban (Credit: ABC) Federal Indigenous Affairs minister and Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion says Australia accepts people practising their culture, but when it is perverted, redirected, and harms First Australians, it isn't a right, it's a privilege. - He says in order to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, kava should be banned and he will continue pursuing it until it is banned. - Anthropologist Kirk Huffman says the government is going about this in entirely the wrong way. - Presenter: Bruce Hill - Speaker: Kirk Huffman, anthropologist and honorary curator of the Vanuatu Museum
Aboriginal woman, Beverley Moore Whyman from Mildura is pleading to the Australian government for her son to be returned home from a US Prison. Beverley's son Russell Moore was taken from her at birth, and she has been fighting for her son to be returned home ever since.
Russell was adopted by a missionary couple and renamed James Hudson Savage. He was then taken to America by his adoptive parents when he was 6 years old. In 1989, James Hudson Savage was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the Electric Chair. It was during the appeal that it was revealed that Russell Moore was part of Australia's Stolen Generation of Aboriginal people.
Beverley says her son has been forgotten and left to fend for himself in a state prison in Florida, USA. The federal government has never contacted her to talk about his release. Suffering from chronic health programs, Beverley wants her son to come back home to Australian, and she is afraid she will die before he is released.
Source: SBS Living Black
Aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe talks about the Invasion Day rally and his thoughts on Invasion Day and his pride in the younger generation stepping up to the challenge of fighting for the rights of first nations people. (Source: SBS Living Black)
Lindy Kerin reports for ABC/AM 20 February 2015 - Image: Zona Moore was 14 when the Freedom Riders came to Moree - (Pic:Lindy Kerin) ------TRANSCRIPT------ MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: An ugly chapter in Australia's race relations will be remembered today in the regional New South Wales town of Moree. - Fifty years ago a group of university students led by the late Charles Perkins arrived in Moree and exposed widespread racism and segregation.
It was the flashpoint of the 1965 Freedom Ride when a violent race riot hit national headlines.
Many locals say times have changed, but others say there's still a racial divide.
Lindy Kerin reports from Moree.
(Sounds from a swimming pool)
LINDY KERIN: The Moree baths are like any other pools around the country. Young kids are in swimming lessons, older women are doing aqua aerobics and toddlers are running through water fountains.
(Sounds from a swimming pool)
But 50 years ago a council by-law banned some people from swimming here, as local Aboriginal woman Zona Moore remembers.
ZONA MOORE: My sister was fair, she had to live up with my grandmother who was fair, so she could go to the pool and I'd be on the outside, she'd be on the inside crying because I couldn't come in because of the colour of my skin, but she was allowed in there.
LINDY KERIN: Zona Moore was 14 and living at the Moree mission when the Freedom Ride rolled into town.
ZONA MOORE: We didn't know what was going to happen once we got on the bus or get to the pool.
All we remember was mayhem. There were screams, there were gunjies, you know, and all these people with placards and I though 'Oh my god, what are we in for now?" and we thought we were going straight into the pool but we had to get past those placards and have Charlie and the students get us in there. We thought we were just going straight in there.
The fight hadn't even started (laughs).
LINDY KERIN: Later today, some of the original Freedom Riders will arrive in Moree to mark the 50 year anniversary.
The manager of the Artesian Aquatic Centre, Julie Rushby, says the town has moved on from its troubled past.
JULIE RUSHBY: I think things are progressing not only here at the pool but within our community. There is... I don't know if divide is the right word, as much as the community is becoming inclusive.
There are still pockets of our community that aren't embracing moving forward.
For me, in speaking to some of the older Indigenous people that would have been either kids or even adults at the Freedom Rides, they've said to me 'Oh, I still don't go to the pool'.
So as part of our service on the Sunday, we did a smoking ceremony to cleanse the place and hopefully remove any bad feelings and hopefully everybody acknowledges that the doors are open.
LINDY KERIN: Speaking to locals about race relations here is still a sensitive subject and many locals were reluctant to share their opinions with AM.
This business owner, who didn't want to be identified, says Moree has changed.
MOREE WOMAN: I think we've come a real long way and I have heaps and heaps of Aboriginal friends here, which... and I take one to line dancing a couple of times a week, (laughs). Very good friends.
We feel we've done our best, the non-Indigenous have done our best.
LINDY KERIN: Fifty years ago, the Freedom Riders were run out of town by violence.
Today, the local council is leading the town's commemorations.
The Deputy Mayor is Sue Price.
SUE PRICE: No one could say that we still haven't got a way to go but things have come a long way. Just our council, for example, we have a 20 per cent Aboriginal employment rate in our council staff and that's very exciting for us as council - and for I think, for the Moree community.
LINDY KERIN: But for Lyall Munro, a mission kid who got on the Freedom Ride in Moree, things haven't changed enough.
LYALL MUNRO: There's certainly racism st...
Caitlyn Gribbin ABC AM 18 February 2015
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: There are fears in some of the most remote parts of the country that a government plan to shut Aboriginal communities is already driving people out of them.
The West Australian Government last year announced as many as 150 of the state's 274 communities will be closed in the next three years because of a funding shortfall.
No decisions have been made on which communities will shut, but Aboriginal leaders say the announcement is already causing fear.
Caitlyn Gribbin reports.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: The remote Aboriginal community of Mulan is home to about 100 people and sits at the top of the Tanami Desert. Mobiles don't work and phones at the local post office are used to communicate with the rest of the world.
But it hasn't taken long for word to spread to locals like Steven Kopp that some Aboriginal communities may be closed.
STEVEN KOPP: The stories I'm getting back from the Government is just frightening, you know, really. Don't know what to do.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: The chairman of Mulan says some people are so worried about the community's future that up to 20 have already moved away.
STEVEN KOPP: It makes me sad too, that's all my family too, you know, all moving away from their country. You know, they're gone, they've just taken off. People are just looking for another place to move on to because they're just frightened.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: They're frightened that the community may be closed, are they?
STEVEN KOPP: Yep.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: Western Australia's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier stresses no decision has been made on which communities will close. In a statement, Mr Collier says the absence of the economic and social opportunities that other West Australians take for granted may be cause for people to leave communities.
But according to the Aboriginal Legal Service's Dennis Eggington it's the uncertainty that's driving people away.
DENNIS EGGINGTON: People are panicking, they're really getting quite upset. And there's a lot of anxiety among our mobs out there.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: Why would some people from these communities think it's a good idea to just leave now before any announcement is made?
DENNIS EGGINGTON: I think people are just preparing themselves for what the inevitable is. And that is the history of this country, that's the experience of Aboriginal people; that if government has said they're going to come and move you, then they're going to come and move you.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: The West Australian Government says it will consult with Aboriginal people, particularly those in remote communities.
Dennis Eggington says they're still waiting for that to happen.
DENNIS EGGINGTON: I find it really distasteful that the inability for government to get down and talk to our communities about this particular issue is causing so much distress. People are not just feeling let down, but feeling like they're not viable, they're not worthy, they're worthless. It's a terrible situation to make people feel like that.
CAITLYN GRIBBIN: Back in Mulan, Steven Kopp says he'll continue fighting to keep his community open. He says moving people to bigger towns isn't always a good idea.
STEVEN KOPP: When they go to town they just drink and live anywhere, on the street, yeah, they just camp out anywhere. It's really just making me sad really because they grew up here all their life, you know, and now they don't really know what to do.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Steven Kopp from the community of Mulan ending Caitlyn Gribbin's report.
The First Nations Freedom Summit in Canberra has seen Aboriginal Leaders from across the country have come together to share the First Peoples message with parliament.
Timothy Wilkey a Ngarrindjeri from South Australia attended the summit representing Aboriginal youth and he talks to Damien Williams on CAAMA radio about his hope to get more young people to take up the fight.
John Maynard provides an overview of his research project that documents and recognises Aboriginal involvement and service from the Boer war through to Afghanistan. He also explains how the seeds of modern indigenous political activism can be traced back to the First World War.
Highlights of Serving our Country presented during History week 2014 at the State Library of NSW
ABC RN 'Big Ideas' Wednesday 4 February 2015 8:42PM
Image: ABC 7PM News NT
Alan Parkinson is a mechanical and nuclear engineer who lives in Canberra. He has just written a book about the clean up of the British atomic bomb test site at Maralinga in South Australia. In April 2000 a $108 million clean up of the site was declared a success. However, leaked documents and some experts do not agree and suggest that the legacy of that failed clean up will affect the Australian population for many years to come.
ABC RN Ockham's Razor 2 September 2007 Presented by Robyn Williams
An interview with Duane Hamacher Australian Society of Indigenous Astronomy
Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences and there is evidence that the First Nations people in Australia have been looking to the night sky to learn the 'culture of the stars' for at least 60,000 years. The earliest European records of Indigenous astronomy was in an 1857 essay called 'The Astronomy and Mythology of the Aborigines of Victoria'. It was written by William Stanbridge who had befriended some Boorong people and they in turn showed him how they read the stars. Reading the stars is a very important part of Indigenous culture.
ABC Radio National Counterpoint 2 February 2015 Presented by Amanda Vanstone
The stunning Northern Flinders Ranges Country belongs to the Adnyamathanha people. 'Adnya' means rock and 'mathana' means people - the Adnyamathana people are ‘the people of the rocks’.
Adnyamathanha songs, stories and Law are all part of the Yuramuda. This program is about the journey of one of the major Adnyamathanha Creation Ancestors, Yulu the Kingfisher Man. Yulu’s Coal, explores the travels of Yulu as he moved across Country, followed by two Arkurra , Giant Rainbow Serpents and why the coal mined at Leigh Creek Coal Mine today belongs, from an Adnyamathanha perspective, to Yulu, the Kingfisher Man.
In the first of this two part series, we will move through Country with Senior Cultural Custodians learning about important features of the landscape brought into existence by these Ancestral Beings and why there are deep implications for the digging of Yulu’s Coal or Muda (Dreaming) from the ground.
ABC Radio National 23 January 2015 Program: Earshot - Producer: Liz Thompson Sound engineer: Russell Stapleton. Image: Copley -- The two Arkurra Abina (Serpents) that followed Yulu down to Wilpena pound in the Yulu’s Coal story were called Ngarnangarrinha and Wartawinha. They became these two hills at Copley in South Australia.
Members of the Freedom Movement have announced they'll return to Canberra when Federal parliament resumes next month.
Yesterday, hundreds of the movement's supporters marched from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy past police to stage a sit-in at Parliament House.
Freedom Movement delegate Michael Anderson (pictured) says the Aboriginal rights struggle has a new lease of life.
Mr Anderson says they'll commence another rally on February 9 when politicians return to the nation's capital.
ABC PM - SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Northern Territory Government is being pressured to address serious concerns about the treatment of teenage prisoners in Darwin.
Defence lawyers, youth workers and Amnesty International are angry that underage prisoners have been moved into an old, adult prison. They say the facility is dilapidated and under resourced.
Bridget Brennan reports.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Darwin's new $500 million prison opened last year. But there was no new facility built for children in jail in Darwin.
The former youth detention centre, Don Dale, was deemed unfit after five teenagers escaped last August.
Youth prisoners are now in Berrimah prison, a 20-year-old facility that was used to incarcerate adults.
The First Nations Soldiers were equals on the battlefield, but when they returned, they were not given the recognition or entitlements that they deserved.
Once forgotten, the Aboriginal and Islander people who went off to fight for Australia in the First World War have been getting increasing recognition a hundred years later. But many of the stories of soldiers who had to hide their true identity to fight are still untold. Some of their names are still not honoured in the Australian War Memorial, despite their active service.
Transcript from World News Australia Radio - SBS (January 2014)
There were concerns a review of the national curriculum could re-ignite the so-called history wars about Australia's past.
One particular area of contention is how Australian children should be taught about the early interaction - and often conflict - between Indigenous people and European settlers.
Christopher Pyne, the eurocentric Minister for Education said that he was concerned about a left-wing bias on the teachings of Indigenous Australians and the culture of the Europeans who arrived after them.
Thea Cowie reports
Audio source: ABC Radio National 'Hindsight'
2013 marked two hundred years since the death of Bennelong - that well known Wanggal leader and 'ambassador' to the Sydney colony.
Bennelong has long been cast as a tragic figure, a traitor to his people, a damaged character from countless Australian histories, novels and narratives. But as more information about him and his contemporaries comes to light, Bennelong is sometimes being recast as an adventurer, a politician, a diplomat … with documents that have come to light, he is still speaking to us across the centuries, in words and song.
Historian and curator, Keith Vincent Smith, has been investigating Bennelong’s life and his long, traumatic voyage to Britain in 1792. He found the copy of the letter we have today, in an obscure German astronomy journal.
Bennelong and Yemmerawanne's song, performed in London in 1792, as notated and published by musician Edward Jones in 1811. This version is performed by Clarence Slockee and Matthew Doyle at the State Library of NSW, August 2010.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/extra/2011/hht_20110403_BennelongYemmerrawanneLivePerformance.mp3 (02'01", 1.85MB)
Indigenous convicts: Khoisan, Maori and Aboriginal exiles - ABC Radio National - Hindsight
The convicts left to rot in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) didn't all hail from Britain. There were Australian Aboriginal freedom fighters, South African and even Moari convicts.
If you hang the Freedom Fighters (Trouble-makers) you are left with a body (evidence), but if you transport them to a penal colony, they can disappear without trace.
... tried and convicted in courts, and because of their perceived 'pagan' nature, they couldn't swear on a bible and thus give evidence.
How did a Maori man come to be buried on tiny, windswept Maria Island off Tasmania, way back in 1840?
Hohepa Te Umuroa was a convict, transported for joining the uprising of Te Rangiheata and other Wanganui Maori against settlers in the Hutt Valley. Hohepa was one of five Maori men who arrived as convicts, but they were among dozens of Indigenous people from across the Empire who were transported for waging war against the Crown.
Most Indigenous convicts didn't survive the harsh conditions of prisons like Norfolk Island, but some did. They often went to work in the service of the colony as trackers, bullock drivers, translators. They had been tried and convicted in courts, even though their 'pagan' natures meant they could not swear on a bible and thus give evidence. Gamaregal warrior, Musquito led a resistance against settlers in the Hawkesbury until he was caught and sent to Norfolk Island and then Van Diemen's Land.
Full size Image Link: Hoheps:- http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/hohepa/5283380 Gamareagal warrior, Musquito http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/musquito/5283120 Article link: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/aboriginal-convicts/5984106
A leading Western Australian suicide prevention and healing advocate has condemned the state Government's decision to push ahead with the forced closure of up to 150 homeland communities.
Robert Eggington (pictured) from the Perth-based Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation is calling on Premier Colin Barnett to reverse his decision.
Mr Eggington says any closures will lead to trauma, anger, dysfunction and suicides.
Source: National Indigenous Radio Service - This audio file posted by Gerry Georgatos
Proposed WA remote community closures labelled "ethnic cleansing" - National Indigenous Radio Service
The CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA) has described the state Government's decision to close about 150 remote communities as "ethnic cleansing".
The WA Government flagged the closure of homeland communities after the Commonwealth shifted responsibility for remote municipal service funding to the state.
Premier Colin Barnett says the state will not be able to afford to take up the costs of services.
ALSWA's Dennis Eggington told Koori Radio the move is discriminatory and will lead to more social problems.
MARK COLVIN: For the first time in Australia, Indigenous women from around the world are meeting this week, to talk about domestic violence in their communities.
The shocking rates of domestic violence in Aboriginal families, is mirrored in communities in New Zealand and North America.
A Global Indigenous Domestic Violence conference in Cairns has heard that Indigenous victims won't speak up, unless support services are run by their own people.
Bridget Brennan reports.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Aboriginal women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised with a domestic violence injury than other Australian women.
Domestic violence workers say nothing is changing.
ANTOINETTE BRAYBROOK: I have been working in this area for 12 years, and I just cannot see that things are getting better for Aboriginal women. You know, we're constantly fighting to make sure that our organisations are properly resourced so that issues can be addressed.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Antoinette Braybrook is chief executive of the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service in Victoria.
In Cairns, she's meeting with women from New Zealand, Canada and the United States.
They're all struggling to deal with the high levels of violence in their own Indigenous communities.
ANTOINETTE BRAYBROOK: We see the devastation that violence in causing in our communities, and we're all on the same page with what needs to be done - we just need some backing from our governments, and we also need to all stand together on these issues.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Family violence is also affecting Maori women in New Zealand.
Susan Ngawati Osborne works at the Maori women’s service the Tu Wahine Trust in Auckland.
SUSAN NGAWATI OSBORNE: What we can say is that our women in particular suffer at the hands of violent men and I think more so from men who are not from the same culture.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: She says Maori women are reluctant to report domestic violence, but they're having success with programs run by Maori people.
SUSAN NGAWATI OSBORNE: It is the proven pathway to creating healthy communities.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: From Auckland to Arizona, American social services worker Laura Horsley points out that violence against Indigenous women is systemic.
LAURA HORSLEY: It's really interesting to see how similar, even though we come from very different places and very different populations, it's interesting to see how many people are struggling with the same barriers and the same successes and the same types of issues that we're trying to address.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: She's been speaking in Cairns about her domestic violence service in Phoenix, which takes support workers into rural communities.
LAURA HORSLEY: The Native American population is also scattered in and amongst most of those communities that we provide services in, and so our goal is to put an advocate that is well versed and well trained in that particular culture as the person that goes out to deliver those services.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: It's a view shared by Antoinette Braybrook from Victoria's Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention service.
She believes the challenge is to build trust.
ANTOINETTE BRAYBROOK: Aboriginal people need to be able to do this our way, we don't need strategies imposed on us, and it's about time that we were given that opportunity to make sure that this violence against our women in our communities is stopped.
MARK COLVIN: Victorian Aboriginal women Antoinette Braybrook ending Bridget Brennan's report.
Breastfeeding is important for the development of a child. But what happens when the mother is in prison. Recently an Aboriginal boy was born to a mother who was a prisoner in Queensland. Ideally the mother could have her child with her, but purpose-built cells are few.The pair were separated and the mother was not given a breast pump so that she could provide milk to the child from prison. Support group Sisters Inside tried to get one to her.
A Spokesperson for Queensland Corrective Services provided this statement: “Mothers wishing to keep their baby with them in prison must make an application to Queensland Corrective Services. The decision to allow babies to remain or not is made after in-depth consultation with primarily Child Safety, and a number of other key service providers. Every decision is made with the best interests of the child the priority.The mother’s unit at [the featured mother's Queensland prison] is currently under capacity." [Image: Bars by Cross Duck on April 2 2012, Flickr]
Story and Text from 'The Wire' http://www.thewire.org.au/
Featured in story Debbie Kilroy CEO of Sisters Inside Dr Jennifer James senior lecturer and course coordinator in Nursing at RMIT University Kat Armstrong Director Women In Prison Advocacy Network -
One of the most familiar names in the story of Australian colonisation is that of the Tasmanian Aboriginal woman 'Truganini'. But for most people the story begins and ends with a single, very famous photo, along with a label describing her simply as the last of the full-blood Tasmanian Aborigines. Not only was that label deeply misleading, we now know that Truganini's life is one of the most significant foundation stories of European settlement in Australia. But there's still one story that few people know about and about which little has been written - it's the extraordinary tale of Truganini's time as a freedom fighter (named as a bushranger in this story). ABC Radio National 'Hindsight' - Presented by Lorena Allam in 2009 Thomas Bock (c. 1790-1855) ... IMAGE: PORTRAIT OF TRUGANINI (THOMAS BOCK, C. 1790-1855)
Five of the last Tasmanian Aboriginal people were shipped to the Victorian mainland to help the 'Aboriginal Protector' civilise the blacks - instead they gave the settlers such a fright, burning their houses and their money etc, that many of the settlers families left their 'stolen properties' and moved closer to Melbourne for protection. After a major hunting spree with mobs of police and settlers, they were finally caught and after a court case that they were not even allowed to speak at, the two male warriors ended up being the first hangings in Victoria - public hangings in a carnival atmosphere.
Known in Victoria as 'The Freedom Fighters', the two who gave their lives for First Nations peoples freedom were Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner. On the 20th January each year, there is a commemoration on the site of where they were hung.
Listen to this - it paints an amazing picture. A story that would not be too dissimilar to hundreds of other lost stories across Australia.
The Social Justice commissioner Mick Gooda has tabled his 2014 report calling on the Prime Minister and his Government to try harder to engage with Indigenous communities. He's also joined with the Law Council of Australia in labelling the rates of Indigenous people in jail as a national crisis. Both have called on the Government to introduce specific justice targets in efforts to close the gap of Indigenous disadvantage.
Phillip Adams from ABC 'Late Night Live' interviewed Tauto Sansbury, Michael Mansell & Rosalie Kunoth-Monks on the 2014 Freedom Summit in Alice Springs - Image by Gerry Georgatos
ABC PM with Mark Colvin
THE TRANSCRIPT
MARK COLVIN: A national campaign to stop mentally disabled people being jailed without a conviction is gaining momentum.
The Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign estimates more than a hundred people are in that predicament around the country and about half of them are Indigenous Australians.
Lawyers, academics and justice and welfare groups met in Melbourne today to develop an action plan.
Samantha Donovan reports.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign says about 130 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with a mental disability are languishing in Australian jails without having been convicted of an offence.
Some were born with an intellectual disability and others have acquired brain injuries, including foetal alcohol syndrome.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice commissioner Mick Gooda is involved in the growing campaign to stop these jailings.
MICK GOODA: We've had Marlon Noble here today who spent 10.5 years in jail and never been found guilty of anything, the charges have now been dropped so it will never face court. So after 10.5 years in jail he's now enduring parole-like conditions of release.
Now this is happening across the country and we think it's just about time we looked at it from a few perspective, one is a health perspective, another one's a human rights perspective. This almost goes against just about every human right we know around arbitrary detention and that's what we're seeing here with people like Marlon and others.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Mick Gooda says Commonwealth and state and territory governments need to take action.
MICK GOODA: The Commonwealth is our nation that signs up to international treaties that have obligations, they have that responsibility but the jurisdictions in Queensland, Northern Territory and WA are the ones that have got to start saying well if people are not fit to plead there's got to be alternatives to jail.
In the ideal world, Marlon would have gone to another facility and eventually would have got out and what you're seeing is a collision between the criminal justice system where you're innocent until proven guilty and the mental health system where you don't get out until you've proven that you're better. Well people with acquired brain injury don't get better, so you've got a situation where they can almost forever be stuck in the mental health system.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Patrick McGee is the coordinator of the Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign.
He says mentally disabled people at risk of coming to the attention of the police need to be identified early.
PATRICK MCGEE: It's far more expensive to put someone in jail than it is to provide support to them and what we also know is there's huge ethical and moral issues about, well, if you don't understand whether you're guilty or innocent, how can you understand the nature of punishment and how can you understand that you have to redeem yourself in the eyes of society and come out the other end and be a better person?
What we need to do is provide people with support so that they're not going into this situation in the first place. But if they do find themselves in this situation, that we've got methods that we understand will teach them to change their behaviour and understand the difference between right and wrong so that they cannot go back to where they've come from.
SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Are you envisaging some sort of supported accommodation as an intervention in these sort of cases or…?
PATRICK MCGEE: Supported accommodation that can be restrictive because some people are a serious risk of harm to others, right through to drop in support for people who just need a little bit of extra support to understand how to get through the working week and, you know, get up in the morning and have a good day and live a quality life.
MARK COLVIN: Patrick McGee, coordinator ...
Audio report from Anna Vidot ABC PM - Katrin Long and staff reporters
A petition with more than 1,600 signatures protesting against planned changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act has been presented to Western Australia's Parliament.
They presented the petition to the Opposition's Aboriginal Affairs spokesman Ben Wyatt and Nationals member for the Pilbara Brendon Grylls.
Port Hedland Nyamal elder Doris Eaton said she was not against mining but wanted protections in place.
"[Our heritage] is not going to be protected like the European heritage," she said.
"There's a hell of a lot of mining going on. We're not saying no to mining, but we want Government to negotiate properly with us."
Mr Grylls was moved by the distance people had travelled.
"It's relatively easy to come to Parliament and make your point if you live just over the river," he said.
"It's not easy to come to Parliament if you live in the Gascoyne or the Pilbara, or the Kimberley.
"That's damn hard, and that makes it very clear to me how passionate you are about this issue."
Mr Wyatt said it was clear that Indigenous people were not happy with the act's changes.
"It's my view that the change doesn't give due respect and consultation for Aboriginal people," he said.
"Aboriginal heritage isn't something for Government to bequeath to Aboriginal people. It's been there well before Government came along here in Western Australia.
"We need to look after and respect [it], and importantly Aboriginal people need to be involved in the process around heritage recognition and protection. That's my view and that's the view I'll take to the Parliament."
Changes speed up approval processes
Mr Grylls and a delegation of elders met Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier to voice concerns about the potential loss of Aboriginal cultural heritage and protection of sacred sites.
Mr Collier said he thought changes to the Act would be positive.
"The Aboriginal Heritage Act will actually enhance opportunities for Aboriginal people to have a say in what goes on," he said.
"It really does protect the sites, it provides much more clarity in terms of transparency of the process, everything will be readily available. At the moment it's not."
The draft bill, which was released earlier this year, speeds up the approval process for mining and other development by giving the Department of Aboriginal Affairs chief executive officer "expedited" or "fast track" authority to declare whether or not an Aboriginal heritage site existed.
The CEO would be able to issue land use permits when he or she decided a site would not be significantly damaged or altered.
Submissions on the draft amendments have been overwhelmingly critical of the proposed changes, in particular the new fast track approvals process.
Mr Collier said the pace of economic development in recent years, particularly in mining and construction, had highlighted inadequacies in the current legislation.
The proposed changes were labelled discriminatory by the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) which said earlier this year that they would disenfranchise Indigenous people.
The KLC said the draft bill focused power in the hands of one bureaucrat - the department's CEO.
Currently the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee (ACMC), established through the act, provides advice and recommendations to the Aboriginal Affairs Minister on heritage sites.
The Law Society of WA and other organisations have argued the new process, via the CEO, would largely cut out Aboriginal people.
The Law Society said the proposed amendments stripped the ACMC of its evaluative role and predominantly shifted power to the CEO, who was not obliged to consult with Aboriginal people or to apply anthropological expertise.
When the draft bill was released, the department said the CEO would have certain regulations to follow, including having to refer any permit applicatio...
Indigenous elders have welcomed a new agreement between France and Australia on the repatriation of Indigenous remains. Michael Kenny - World News Radio 20 NOV 2014 - (Transcript from SBS World News Radio) - Indigenous elders have welcomed a new agreement between France and Australia on the repatriation of Indigenous remains. - They say they hope it sets a precedent for similar agreements with other countries. - Prime Minister Tony Abbott and France's President Francois Hollande signed the agreement in Canberra this week. - Indigenous elders say it will help ensure Indigenous human remains held in French museums are returned to Australia. - Tony Abbott and Francois Hollande have agreed to establish a joint expert committee to help identify the origin of Indigenous Australian remains held in France.
Australia and Italy signed a similar agreement in 2009, and remains have also been returned from Britain, Sweden and Austria over recent years.
Palawa elder and Amnesty International campaigner Rodney Dillon has had a long interest in the repatriation of Indigenous remains from overseas collections.
He is a former chairman of the National Reference Group for the Repatriation of Australian Indigenous Remains.
In 2000, as a board member for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, he successfully pushed for a deal to speed up Indigenous repatriation between Australia and Britain.
Mr Dillon estimates four to five thousand Indigenous Australian remains are held in overseas galleries and museums, mainly in Europe and across the United States.
He hopes the deal with France can set a powerful precedent for similar agreements with other governments on an issue symbolically important to many Indigenous Australians.
"These remains were stolen in the first place. They were taken, and, the people's remains that were taken, they didn't want to be taken. So it's very, very disrespectful the way these were taken in the first place. And I think that the people who have still got our remains around the world are common thieves."
Since 1990, the federal government estimates the remains of about 1,150 Indigenous Australians have been returned to descendants for burial or cremation.
But the government estimates around 10,000 remains are held in Australian public collections.
Gumulray elder Bob Weatherall has campaigned for the repatriation of Indigenous remains to Traditional Owners for over four decades.
He is currently chairman of the Centre for Indigenous Cultural Policy in Brisbane.
Mr Weatherall believes the government needs to shift more decision making over the repatriation of remains away from bureaucrats and into the hands of Indigenous communities.
"Aboriginal communities have enormous barriers in bringing their ancestors home and laying them to rest. There are remains up in the Kimberly that are sitting in shipment containers. They've been there for over 10 years. There has not been a concerted effort and commitment by Australian governments of all levels to, basically, assist Aboriginal people to alleviate those barriers and to lay their ancestors to rest."
Anthropologist Dr Steve Webb has been involved in research projects on the repatriation of Indigenous Australian remains for over 30 years.
The Bond University lecturer believes some European scientists have been allowed to interfere too much in blocking the return of remains to Traditional Owners.
He says very little scientific research has actually been conducted on the remains and many European collections have been lost because of bombing in the world wars.
Dr Webb has told NITV French scientists now need to take care to ensure Indigenous remains are carefully identified before being returned to Traditional Owners.
"There have been instances and times where non-Aboriginal remains have been returned to Australia because of the lack of expertise over in Europe with regard to identifying ...
Radio National 'Drive' program on 19 November, 2014 Picture: Lex at G20 - Deaths in Custody March - Speaches
There are fears that a West Australian Government decision to scrap funding for an interpreting service could deny justice to some Aboriginal people in the Kimberley.
The Kimberley Interpreting Service helps Aboriginal people navigate the technical English of police interviews and the courts.
And the state's chief justice says Government should be increasing funding for Indigenous interpreters, not cutting it.
From Perth, Anna Vidot reports on ABC RADIO PM
The 3 Stooges: Marcia Langton, mining magnate Twiggy Forrest and the Coalition Parliamentary Secretary, Alan Tudge hatch a plan for the employment of First Nations people. A key player in the Abbott Government review into Aboriginal and Islander employment says both incentives (Mining Companies) and disincentives of the welfare system (First Nations people) are in their plans.
Alan Tudge, who is in charge of the Indigenous employment review says the review panel is taking advice from Twiggy and it appears that Marcia will undertake the propaganda.
In this interview with CAAMA, Tudge says despite all the efforts and goodwill of previous Governments… things need to change.
The complete interview here: http://caama.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Adam-Tudge.mp3
A First Nations health service in South Australia says claims of an ice crisis in remote Indigenous communities are overblown and could harm the fight against drugs. The APY Lands in the far north-west of South Australia, the Nganampa Health Service covers eight remote clinics and the director says if the drug ice was being widely used in the region, the clinics would probably know.
12 November 2014 - ABC AM AUDIO TRANSCRIPT - CHRIS UHLMANN: An Indigenous health service in South Australia says claims of an ice crisis in remote Indigenous communities are overblown and could harm the fight against drugs. - University of Melbourne Professor Marcia Langton recently told The Australian newspaper she'd heard many reports of crystal methamphetamine use in remote Indigenous communities. - But she's been accused by a Northern Territory politician of generalising about all Indigenous remote communities to win support for a major welfare change. - Sara Everingham reports. - SARA EVERINGHAM: On the APY Lands in the far north-west of South Australia, the Nganampa Health Service covers eight remote clinics. The director John Singer says if the drug ice was being widely used in the region, the clinics would probably know. - JOHN SINGER: And as far as I know we've had no reports of ice use amongst Anangu in the APY lands. - SARA EVERINGHAM: Last month the Melbourne University academic Marcia Langton told The Weekend Australia newspaper, "We heard many reports of ice or methamphetamines in remote communities. Whereas it was once marijuana and Kava," she said, "now there is a youth epidemic of amphetamine use." - Her comments were based on consultations while working on the review of Indigenous affairs by mining magnate Andrew Forrest. He has backed Marcia Langton's statements about ice, saying she spent countless days reviewing the information and that her academic reputation is beyond reproach. - But John Singer fears her comments could make it harder to deal with the problems his clinics already know about, such as marijuana and alcohol abuse. He says they also won't help if ice takes hold. - JOHN SINGER: It does put people off, in terms of if you want to make a change, if you want to do things in remote areas, you need to take people with you on that journey as a collective. - And automatically now people are on the defensive in the communities because they see these sort of extreme headlines with no real basis or evidence. - The peak body for the Aboriginal-run medical services in the Northern Territory says there are serious concerns about ice in urban areas such as Alice Springs and Darwin, where a community meeting was held about a month ago to discuss it. - The chief executive John Paterson says he fears the drug could end up in remote Indigenous communities but has not heard about widespread use there for now. - JOHN PATERSON: It is a major concern to the Aboriginal community, particularly in Darwin. I don't know how widespread. I am not hearing too much from our remote communities at this point in time, but that's not to say that, you know, it might be finding its way out there. - SARA EVERINGHAM: Ted Wilkes is a Perth-based drug and alcohol researcher and the chairman of the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee. He says there's a lack of solid evidence about ice use in remote Indigenous communities. - TED WILKES: I say to many Australians, this is a thing where not one size fits all, where some communities are more vulnerable and others may well and truly be safe. - But if we were to create a hysteria or a knowledge that Aboriginal Australians throughout Australia are using drugs of this nature, it would certainly be an unknown. We don't know what the evidence is. We need to make sure we get the evidence before we start saying things like this. - CHRIS UHLMANN: Associate Professor Ted Wilkes ending Sara Everingham's report.
Archives: National Indigenous Radio - "Now people are just going back into the corrugated irons that they came out of in the '50s and '60s. Concerning their policies, we're going backwards."
Pastor Stokes from the Kalgoorlie region in Western Australia, is also calling for unity amongst Indigenous people to improve their standing in Australian society.
He has lashed out at Australian governments for ignoring Aboriginal people and culture when formulating crucial policies in housing and land rights.
Pastor Stokes says Indigenous Australians who are often portrayed as 'leaders' by the media have vested political and economic interests and don't represent the majority of their people.
He says Indigenous people have been the victims of 'divide and conquer' policies by governments.
"The biggest weapon we have is us and unity and if we haven't got unity amongst ourselves, well the Government can do whatever they want.
"Our people were able to live for thousands of years in such harsh conditions because of family, their culture and their way of life and we can still do that today only if we live in peace with one another."
Prof John Maynard's book, 'True Light and Shade' is based on the incredible paintings by convict artist Joseph Lycett (See cover photo above). Lycett captured many intimate landscapes featuring the First Nations peoples lives during the settlement of New South Wales, especially within the vicinity of Newcastle. He brings to life the rich cultural life of the peoples that belonged to the land and the pristine condition of 'country' before the total destruction on the land and the peoples by the invaders through their greed to conquer, their the lack of understanding and their dogmatic arrogance. ABC RN
Keischa Haynes-Jamieson reveals part of her life at the National day of Action, Justice for Ms Dhu, Canberra - Introduced by Lara Pullin
There are calls for the man who reviewed the national English curriculum to lose his University of Sydney job over emails he sent to colleagues that are considered racist and misogynistic. The university is investigating whether Professor Barry Spurr's emails are a breach of the school's code of conduct. The Opposition wants the Education Minister Christopher Pyne to explain whether the curriculum review is now irrevocably tainted.
Sovereignty Union Founder Ghillar Michael Anderson speaks about many things relating to First Nations Sovereignty, past plans, present and the future.
Source: Sovereign Voices Broadcaster Shane Mortimer on 2XX FM Canberra - 10 October 2014
Sovereignty Union Founder Ghillar Michael Anderson speaks about many things relating to First Nations Sovereignty, past plans, present and the future.
Source: Sovereign Voices Broadcaster Shane Mortimer on 2XX FM Canberra - 10 October 2014
First Nations people from across Western Australia will travel to Rottnest Island, or Wadjemup, to remember their ancestors who were brought there in chains.
The island's former prison, 19 kilometres from the Perth coastline, incarcerated thousands of people from as far as the Kimberley, Pilbara, Western Desert and across Nyungah lands.
It's believed at least 370 and possibly up to 700 men and boys are buried in unmarked graves on the island, which is now a tourist destination.
Friday marks 175 years since the first prisoners were brought there and remembrance co-organiser Iva Hayward-Jackson says the event will become annual.
Gary Foley 'in a past life' was a well known throughout Australia and beyond as an Aboriginal activist that didn't mince his words. Dr Gary Foley is now an academic, writer and actor.
In a lead up to his 2014 Melbourne University lecture, 'Tangled up in black' he speaks with Jonathan Green from ABC's Radio National.
Delegates at a bush meeting by the Yule River Representatives from Pilbara Aboriginal communities vote to reject the proposed changes to the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act.
'The Wire' interview with Simon Hawkins - CEO, Yamtji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation - September 2014
Western Australia paved the way for Australia in the issue of Aboriginal heritage. But now, it's making a huge backflip. The state passed the nation’s first laws to protect sites of Aboriginal Heritage. The Government of Western Australia has proposed amendments to the Aboriginal Heritage Act, which will allow the potential destruction of heritage sites by developers.
Aboriginal leaders and the local community have condemned the proposal. In fact, the Government has been accused of creating a “stolen heritage generation”.
Produced by Ben Nielsen - www.thewire.org.au
Murrumu Walubara Yidindji in a frank, informative and inspiring conversation with Michelle Lovegrove - SBS Living Black Radio 30 September 2014
ABC - AM - Michael Brissenden
Across Australia female imprisonment rates have doubled in the last decade and Indigenous women account for almost the entire increase.
That's the shocking finding of new research conducted by criminologist Professor Eileen Baldry, who's labelled the situation appalling and scandalous.
The first Indigenous magistrate in New South Wales, Pat O'Shane, says handing out repeat short sentences means prison rehabilitation programs are useless.
Sarah Dingle reports.
John Paul Janke from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs with the story of a 19th century tintype photo of a young Aboriginal woman.
Source: ABC TV 66 Canberra -
Mick's eyesight must have got worse if he hasn't seen the growing skepticism regarding the CON-stitution recognition farce by many First Nations people.
He fronted up for the the Nulungu Reconciliation Lecture at the University of Notre Dame, Broome with a lot of hoo har on the topic 'The Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Australian Constitution as an Act of Reconciliation.'
Mick called out to his mate Tony Abbott requesting the referendum to recognise Indigenous people in the Constitution is held by the end of 2015, imploring the Prime Minister to hold a vote before the next Federal election.
He says delays are no longer acceptable and the time has come to launch a 'proper debate' ... or is he getting itchy feet over the growing skepticism by First Nations people on this issue.
The Victorian Government has bought another 27 shipping containers to house the growing number of prisoners in the state's jails.
There will be 18 new shipping containers, or prefabricated buildings known as dongas, at Fulham Correctional Centre in Gippsland and another nine at the Marngoneet Correctional Centre near Geelong.
AUDIO: More shipping containers to house Victoria's prisoners (The World Today) They will accommodate up to 80 medium security prisoners and will be installed by August.
Not a real Book Review, but rather an interview with the author Larissa Behrendt about the book.
How much do you know about Australia's indigenous culture? Michael Pavlich speaks to Prof Larissa Behrendt, author of "Indigenous Australia for Dummies" she's also a barrister and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Recorded in July 26, 2012 - Interview by Daniel Horsley ABC Local NSW
In the early 1800's, when a fourteen year old French cabin-boy Narcisse Pelletier, who was abandoned by his captain and crew to die beside a dried up waterhole on Cape York but was rescued by the Uutaalnganu Aboriginal people. He also lived for seventeen years with them near what is now Lockhart River, going far out to sea in canoes with tribe members, hunting dugong, ray and turtle.
He only left them at gunpoint – the British sailors holding the guns on his adopted Uutaalnganu family thought they were rescuing him. He regarded himself as kidnapped.
This one 3 different stories of castaways who were living with the with Aboriginal people before the trauma of colonisation—and sometimes during it. Their accounts provide a fascinating record of that time. They come to us via Iain McCalman's book charting human interaction along the Great Barrier Reef, 'The Reef: a Passionate History'.
Read More: https://bit.ly/3u72n6C
Source: Radio National - Hindsight July 2014
Bruce Pascoe feels a visceral urge to write. His latest novel is a story about solitude, mateship and dying set in the Victorian bush. It's hero is that most reviled of introduced species - the fox. But his forthcoming work of non-fiction Dark Emu challenges what can only be described as a startling lack of intellectual curiosity about Aboriginal agriculture.
CAAMA Radio broadcaster Mikaela Simpson caught up with Mr Pascoe to discuss his discoveries, which date back to the first European explorers and their interaction with the First Nations Peoples.
Bruce Pascoe joined the Mildura’s Writers Festival to talk about his latest book Dark Emu. The book challenges the idea that the first Australians were hunters and gathers, claiming this label was invented to undermine Aboriginal people. He claims the history of Aboriginal people in Australia has been incorrectly misrepresented and that research into their agricultural practices can benefit all Australians today.
Radio National Breakfast with Fran Kelly
The centuries-old notion that pre-European Aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers who did not farm the land they occupied is under further challenge.
A new book by award winning indigenous author Bruce Pascoe draws on the diaries of early explorers to provide evidence that Aboriginal people across the continent were sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing.
He argues that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern re-tellings of early Aboriginal history.
Sam Watson interviewed by Tim Cox on 612 ABC Brisbane
Last week was NAIDOC Week, and you may have heard us talking here on Breakfast about formal recognition for Indigenous soldiers. But what do you think about recognition for the dealths of Aboriginal people during conflicts between them and white settlers?
A UQ academic has said that more than 65,000 Aboriginal people died in Queensland alone between 1788 and 1930 in the process of colonising Australia. Prof Raymond Evans has said that the Australian War Memorial should recognise it as a war.
Sam Watson is a Brisbane-based Aboriginal community worker and activist:
Ngarluma elder and park ranger Geoffrey Togo explains that it is on sacred land, steeped in culture and tradition. "It's very spiritual in lots of ways for us," he says. "Basically, I've been brought up to look after the place, with all the rest of the Ngarluma people."
Verica Jokic reports on ABC Radio National -10 July 2014
For almost a century, tens of thousands of Indigenous Australians were forced to work for pastoral stations, missions and government reserves for little more than pocket money. Some have called it legalised slavery and are now fighting to recoup stolen wages. .
Between the 1860s and the 1970s, Aboriginal people of all ages were taken from their homes and sent to work on cattle and sheep properties all across Australia.
Several such schemes were run by colonial and state governments, theoretically to protect Aboriginal Australians from mistreatment.
Unprecedented legal action has begun in Perth, with the family of a murdered indigenous woman suing the WA Police service and the State Government for negligence. Andrea Pickett was stabbed to death by her estranged husband in Perth in 2009 after he repeatedly breached restraining orders. An inquest in 2012 found that police had failed to investigate or act on the multiple breaches. Andrea Pickett's family say they want justice for their sister and mother.
Rosalie Kunoth-Monks wins Human Rights Award!
2014 - Caama Radio News
http://caama.com.au/rosalie-kunoth-monks-wins-human-rights-award
Howard plans constitutional recognition of Aborigines 11 October , 2007 - Reporter: Gillian Bradford
MARK COLVIN: The Prime Minister has tonight announced a new agenda on reconciliation. John Howard says if re-elected the Coalition will hold a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the preamble of the Constitution.
For more on the Prime Minister's speech, I'm joined now from Canberra - http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2057317.htm
Gerry Georgatos, Correspondent - National Indigenous Radio
New South Wales – A tent embassy at North Lismore has gathered to protect a sacred plateau from a property development of over fifteen hundred houses.
Bundjalung Wyia-bal elder Mickey Ryan says the Department of Planning hasn't consulted on sacred sites and cultural heritage and he's lodged a writ in Court to prevent the development.
Mr Ryan says two sacred fires have been lit, one at the Embassy and another on the plateau.
He says traditional owners are happy to escort any Embassy visitors to the plateau.
In the Anangu Pitjintjatjara Yangkunjatjara (APY) lands in northern South Australia, traditional health knowledge is alive and well, and working in a contemporary setting.
ABC AWAYE program - Presented by Rhianna Patrick
Image: Ngangkari healers Rama Simpson (left) and Cyril McKenzie
More at: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/
Aboriginal health may be high on the policy agenda, but traditional Aboriginal healers hardly rate a mention in Australia’s official health policies. Annie Hastwell meets an Italian researcher who is determined to raise their profile and bring them into the mainstream.
From the ABC AWAYE program -
- Read More: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/first-nation-healers-working-keep-traditional-medicine-alive
On the 18 June 2014 - Damian Williams from CAAMA Radio speaks with Paddy Gibson, Senior Researcher from Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning
Muckaty traditional owners are happy that they have finally been able to tell their version of events that led to the nomination of their land as a proposed site for a nuclear waste dump.
ABC Radio National 'Ockham’s Razor'
An outbreak of smallpox in Sydney in 1789 killed thousands of Aborigines and weakened resistance to white settlement. Chris Warren argues that the pandemic was no accident, but rather a deliberate act of biological warfare against Australia’s first inhabitants.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-an-act-of-biological-warfare/5395050
They've been called the faceless men of the right; the Institute of Public Affairs, or IPA, a Melbourne based think tank which enjoys what some feel is a large amount of political influence.
Before the recent election, the IPA issued a wish list of policies it would like to see implemented and many of the items match the Abbott government's own. So who is the IPA and how much political clout does it have?
Phillip Adams - Late Night Live - ABC Radio Nationl
Paul Wiles from CAAMA News interviewing Paddy Gibson.
IMAGE: Warlmanpa ladies dance at Manuwangku court hearings - no Muckaty nuke dump! photo Paddy Gibson - via @IndigenousX pic.twitter.com/eRZMfSwLXs
It has long been thought that prior to white settlement, Indigenous Australians lived a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Now some scholars argue that the first Australians practised forms of agriculture and aquaculture ... More http://www.sovereignunion.mobi
The death of 21 year old Eddie Murray was one of the cases that led to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Today his family are holding a national day of action and calling for another inquiry.
More: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/murder-eddie-murray
Peter Coleman, White Supremacist and non believer in global warming uttered out loud what many Neo-Liberals in Australia believe but are rarely game to say. The majority of Australians are extremely racist and the fundamental issue behind the suppression of First Nations Peoples.
Covered by Paul Wiles, CAAMA News
A Central Australian Aboriginal Elder challenged the moral conscience of the nation when she told a pro assimilationist championing the integration of her people that she is not “the problem” that white Australians have been trying to solve since colonization.
The granddaughter of Northern Territory Arrernte rights campaigner Rosalie Kunoth-Monks says she was inspired to see her grandmother take a stand against assimilationist policies.
The Utopia elder appeared on the ABC's Q&A program this week, saying her culture had survived despite colonisation.
She also praised the documentary film 'Utopia' for bringing Indigenous issues to light.
Amelia Kunoth-Monks (pictured) says she was pleased to see her grandmother be able to speak in a widely-view forum.
Source: Gerry Georgatos and Warren Barnsley - National Indigenous Radio
Chair of the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council, Warren Mundine, says ceremonies should not be an excuse to avoid other responsibilities.
The Abbott government is in damage control following reports the Liberals tricked their coaltion partners the Nationals into accepting the reintroduction of indexation of petrol excise.
Ellen Fanning ABC RN
Joe Hockey has launched defamation proceedings against Fairfax over its 'Treasurer For Sale' story from 5 May.
The front-page article went on to claim that Mr Hockey offered privileged access to businessmen and lobbyists in return for donations to the Liberal Party.
The proceedings again the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times and their online services were filed in the Federal Court today.
So, what are Mr Hockey's chances of success?
Audio source: ABC Radio Nations (RN Drive) 20 May 2014
The Chair of Abbott's Indigenous Advisory Council is trying to claw his way out of yet another hole he has dug himself. He is now gobbling off at full speed to try justify comments he made regarding First Nations culture and ceremonies.
Last month, it was reported Warren Mundine suggested in a speech to an employment conference in Darwin that ceremonies, such as Sorry Business, went for too long and were impeding employment and education obligations.
But speaking from the National Native Title Conference in Coffs Harbour, Mr Mundine is now trying to blame the ABC for misrepresented him.
Audio source: nirs.org.au
Some of the original founding members of the Aboriginal Housing Company have this morning launched a Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy. 26 May 2014
Jenny and Lyall Munro have pitched the first tent, claiming The Block is for Aboriginal people and saying they feel betrayed by the Housing Company.
The Embassy is opposed to a draft for a prime real estate and retail precinct at The Block, released in recent months by the Housing Company's Chair Mick Mundine.
Jenny Munro says the company is selling out its Charter and the right of low
Gerry Georgatos - National Indigeous Radio
Abbotts $7 Fee: Big medical chains could charge fees rather than bulk bill
Pat McGrath reported this story on ABC RADIO 'PM' Tuesday, May 20, 2014
In 2012 the WA State Government announced the stolen wages reparation scheme which invited people born before 1958 to apply for payments of up to $2,000 if they had directly experienced government control over their income. Kimberley Community Legal Service solicitor Judy Harrison, says that Aboriginal people her organisation has spoken to are not happy with the 2012 reparation scheme. "The government came up with a figure and said 'Well here it is. We'll give you this. You don't have to give up your rights. We're not apologising to you, so take it if you care to take it and this will be the end of it,'" she says.
Read more: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/node/897/edit
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's latest report on youth justice has revealed a significant drop in the number of young people within the system.
The Institute says the decrease of over 1000 youths is a promising trend.
But concern remains over the fact that almost half of the total numbers of youths under supervision are Indigenous.
Marc Tong reports on SBS World News Radio
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheneer Interview with Dr Clare Land ABC Radio National 'Hindsight' - Presented by Lorena Allam Sunday 16 March 2014 - The colony of Port Phillip was just eight years old when it held its first execution. The first people hanged in 1842 were two Aboriginal men from Tasmania. How did they come to be on the mainland? - The story of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheneer is shocking, exciting, tragic and moving. Their tumultuous and short lives tell us so much about frontier conflict and the early colonial history of Tasmania and Victoria. - The two men were among a larger group of people, including Truganini, who were brought to the mainland by George Augustus Robinson, to act as intermediaries. - Six months into their travels through country Victoria with Robinson, they spectacularly abandoned life with the whites and went on a six week ‘crime spree’. Eventually caught and charged with murder of two seal hunters, the women were sent back to Tasmania but the two men were put to death in a brutally botched execution. - They are remembered every year on the anniversary of their death by local Aboriginal people, and Melbourne Council has unanimously agreed to create a memorial to their lives.
What factors come into play when people are deciding whether to self-identify as Indigenous?
By Peggy Giakoumelos Source World News Radio UPDATED 28 MINS AGO - (Transcript from World News Radio) - Do you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander? - It's a question that appears on many government forms across the country but for some indigenous Australians, it's a question loaded with confusion, fear and sometimes shame. - The Bureau of Statistics has been asking Australians whether they identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders only since the 1971 Census. - More than 40 years on, Indigenous people are now encouraged to identify themselves when applying for government services as well as when applying for employment. - NSW Koori artist Darren Bloomfield is proud of his heritage. - But whenever he's asked, he prefers not to tick the box, taking issue with the word Aboriginal itself. - "I've been bothered by that for years because again you have to look at the word Aboriginal. Aboriginal means native to land. I find it quite derogatory in the sense of an identification that we stand under. I don't like to be called an Aboriginal. If someone says what country do you come from, I say I come from Australia and I am an Australian Aboriginal, so they know about my identification of what I am to this country, if I am outside this country, yeah, because that's all people know. But I try to convince them after, I tell them that I'm Aboriginal, I prefer to be looked at or identified as a Koori because that's what we identify and put ourselves into. It's our word."
The New South Wales government is concerned that not enough people are identifying themselves as Indigenous when accessing government services, and is looking at the reasons why.
The Aboriginal Affairs unit within the Office of Communities is conducting the project, saying higher rates of identification would mean more Indigenous people would use the programs and services available to them.
An online description of the project, acknowledges Aboriginal identity as complex.
Dr Victoria Grieves is the Australian Research Council's Indigenous Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney.
She says since European settlement, any traditional sense of what it means to be an Indigenous person in Australia has changed dramatically.
She also says past policies of removing indigenous children from families have also left a legacy of fear.
"A lot of our institutional structures have been knocked out from under us and we're in a process still I think of re-grouping and re-forming. Something that goes along with that is confusion, sometimes about identity, confusion about what it means. For example it's very concerning if people think that if I identify myself as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person, that means that I'm likely to be discriminated against. But I do believe that there are people who feel that way and they might have good reason to feel that way as well"
SBS asked members of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Facebook group for their views about self-identification.
These were some of the responses.
" About 60 years ago, Aboriginal people were forced to carry exemption certificates.. Remember FORCED if they wanted to go any where, work other places.... Now The Australian government has tricked us again, NOW you have to have certificate to prove you are Aboriginal.... Oh yes I know the argument of non aboriginals trying to be Aboriginals.... But isn't it funny, how after all the marches and fight to free the Aboriginal, so they would be treated as Humans and have same rights as white fella.... we're back to having to carry a paper.... boy oh boy who got done .. sorry if I offend but I find it ironic."
"...Why would people want to identify in a system that abuses them for statistical gain?..."
"If only we had a group who could help teach the culture to those...
ABC Radio 774
A fresh perspective of Indigenous history showing evidence of village populations, crop harvesting, and irrigation, is all explored Bruce Pascoe's new book Dark Emu.
The common perception of Indigenous Australians leading a 'hunter-gatherer' lifestyle before European settlement is ignoring strong evidence of sophisticated farming and agriculture practices, argues Mr Pascoe.
Don Weatherburn's the man who translates the statistics on robberies, assaults and drug trafficking.
Over many years as director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, he has tracked the disturbing ascension of the numbers of Aboriginal people in Australian gaols.
Interview: 666 ABC Canberra - 7 March, 2014 By Clare Blumer (with Genevieve Jacobs)
Water contamination, mining regulations, and the concerns of traditional owners were all discussed at a mining and fracking forum on 22 January 2014.
About 40 people gathered at the ABC studios in Broome to hear a discussion on the practice of hydraulic fracturing, with a focus on the Canning Basin.
The forum was broadcast live on the ABC Kimberley Mornings program, hosted by Vanessa Mills.
Water contamination, mining regulations, and the concerns of traditional owners were all discussed at a mining and fracking forum on 22 January 2014.
About 40 people gathered at the ABC studios in Broome to hear a discussion on the practice of hydraulic fracturing, with a focus on the Canning Basin.
The forum was broadcast live on the ABC Kimberley Mornings program, hosted by Vanessa Mills.
Water contamination, mining regulations, and the concerns of traditional owners were all discussed at a mining and fracking forum on 22 January 2014.
About 40 people gathered at the ABC studios in Broome to hear a discussion on the practice of hydraulic fracturing, with a focus on the Canning Basin.
The forum was broadcast live on the ABC Kimberley Mornings program, hosted by Vanessa Mills.
Gerry Georgatos and Warren Barnsley, National Indigenous Radio (NIR)
Western Australia - The Nyoongar Tent Embassy in Perth has rejected the state Government's draft recognition bill, introduced into Parliament last week.
The bill recognises the Nyoongar as the traditional owners of south-west and is a key component of the controversial Native Title settlement offer.
Nyoongar woman and Embassy spokesperson Vanessa Culbong says the recognition means little and is part of a proposal intended to short change the Noongar people.
She says the bill doesn't go far enough in terms of healing and rights.
It's well known that Indigenous Australians have much lower life expectancy than other Australians, and have disproportionately high rates of diseases and other health problems.
The Social Determinants of Health Alliance is a group of Australian health, social services and public policy organisations.
It lobbies for action to reduce inequalities in the outcomes from health service delivery.
Chair of the Alliance, Martin Laverty, has no doubt racism sometimes comes into play when Indigenous Australians seek medical attention.
"When an Indigenous person is admitted to hospital, they face twice the risk of death through a coronary event than a non-Indigenous person and concerningly, Indigenous people when having a coronary event in hospital are 40 percent less likely to receive a stent* or a coronary angiplasty. The reason for this is that good intentions, institutional racism is resulting in Indigenous people not always receiving the care that they need from Australia's hospital system."
Romlie Mokak is the chief executive of the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association.
Mr Mokak says the burden of ill health is already greater amongst Indigenous people - but this isn't recognised when they go to access health services.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics Corrective Services report shows the number of Aboriginal men in prison has risen by eight per cent and women by 12 per cent in the 12 months.
ABC PM - 8 January 2014
The spotlight is on Western Australia's prison transfer system after the escape of two prisoners triggered the cancellation of some transfers and prevented a mother attending her son's funeral.
The two prisoners broke out of a Serco prison van at Geraldton Airport last week.
"I can't think of any good reason that would explain why she could not attend the funeral of her son. I think they should offer an apology and get their act together, and look out doing what's right and operating in the culturally appropriate operations for prisoners," said Joyce Capewell,
"In Aboriginal culture, it is very important for people to attend funerals and to pay respect to the loved ones. And, if you don't attend it, in some communities, Aboriginal people can face tribal punishment."
Source: Phillip Adams, ABC Radio National 'Late Night Live'
South African journalist R.W.Johnson discusses whether idolising Nelson Mandela is overlooking more urgent problems. He suggests that the outpooring over Nelson Mandela may be an enormous hunger by the developed world to find a hero/saint/leader from the third world to displace their feelings of guilt from slavery and colonisation. He suggested that the western world want absolution by washing the feet of the great man.
When Nelson Mandela visited Australia months after his release from prison in 1990, he upset some Australian First Nations activists. How do they feel today?
By Ron Sutton SBS 6 December 2013
The Coranderrk Inquiry was the only official commission in 19th century Victoria which addressed Aboriginal peoples’ calls for justice, land rights and self-determination. It was one of the few times Aboriginal witnesses were called to give evidence on matters concerning their own lives and interests.
Phillip Adams from 'Late Night Live' on ABC Radio National interview with Giordano Nanni and Andrea James.
British atomic bomb testing began at Maralinga in South Australia in 1956 and 1957 with minor trials continuing into the early 1960s.
But it's only more recent decades that stories have emerged about what happened to the people living near the site.
One of those stories is Yami Lester's, a Yankunytjatjara man, who was only 10-years-old when the testing began.
"I was a kid.
"I got up early in the morning, about 7 o'clock, playing with a homemade toy.
"We heard the big bomb went off that morning, a loud noise and the ground shook.
"I don't know how long after we seen this quiet black smoke - oily and shiny - coming across from the south.
"Next time we had sore eyes, skin rash, diarrhea and vomiting everybody, old people too.
"Some of the old people, I don't know how many died."
Mr Lester was unable to open his eyes for several weeks, and when he did, he couldn't see.
By 1957 he was completely blind.
"When I was in Alice Springs in 1984 I heard Sir Ernest Titterton, who was saying blackfellas were all looked after.
"That it was all clear where [the] Maralinga testing occurred.
"I thought to myself 'he talking the wrong way.'
"He doesn't know what happened on our end.
"So I picked up the telephone and that's where it all started."
Mr Lester began telling his story, and his actions eventually led to the McClelland Royal Commission in 1985.
Source: Caddie Brain ABC Rural http://www.abc.net.au/site-archive/rural/content/2011/s3326601.htm
Damien Brown ABC Hobart 18 October 2013
A new bill has been tabled in Parliament this week. The Aboriginal Heritage Protection Bill is designed to protect the Aboriginal community with a clear statutory role in the protection and management of their heritage. It's also designed to provide landowners and developers with clearer procedures and greater certainty than the current system, a system that dates back to 1975.
To tell us more about the Bill, Damien Brown spoke to Legal officer for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Michael Mansell.
Michael told Damien that the Bill is "a shock and a disappointment because we have been waiting now 18 years since the Liberal government talked to us in 1995 and said look, we're going to have to give you a new Aboriginal Heritage legislation that's equivalent of the European heritage leg so it'll be an independent body that will protect Aboriginal heritage and even Governments will have to get permission and so on. When this Bill came out, it's the only piece of environmental and planning legislation in Tasmania that is not put out to an independent body. This is kept in the hands of the government. The biggest threat to Aboriginal heritage in Tasmania is from the Government, not the public..."
Thomas Wright - National Indigenous Radio - 12 November 2013
A Tasmanian Aboriginal lawyer says Aboriginal people in the state could be fined up to $260,000 for practicing their culture.
As Parliament resumes its 44th sitting, the Tasmanian State Parliament is expected to address the controversial Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage bill.
Tasmanian Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell says, the bill could enforce high fines including fining an Aboriginal person several thousand dollars for refusing to disclose the location of a sacred site.
A respected top end Yolngu elder has warned that 99 year leases of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory will lead to loss of language and culture and the assimilation of his people.
Caama News Report
Annie Hastwell - The Wire - Radio Interview with Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra
Aboriginal Land Rights are again in spotlight as the Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion seeks to negotiate 99-year township leases in Arnhem Land. Traditional owners are expressing displeasure, claiming they have been excluded from consultations about the the plans.
Traditional owners in Arnhem Land are claiming that the new leases are dismantling the Land Rights Act (NT) 1976 and are calling for other Aboriginal Communities to reject the plans.
October 18, 2013 by Gerry Georgatos
The daughter of a man who died while in prison hospital custody last year, has given an emotional appeal to a Coronial Inquiry investigating the circumstances of his death.
Family members spoke of being distressed by his maltreatment and of him shackled to the hospital bed.
Daughter, Kylie Hampton told the Coroner that prisoners are treated like animals, and that her father did not deserve to die in the manner he did.
A new report shows that indigenous Australians in WA's regional centres are struggling more than any other group in the country.
The report, written by Dr Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham from the Australian National University, looks at the socioeconomic differences between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in Australia.
Go to www.sovereignunion.mobi for more info
Aboriginal activists hope their actions at next year's G20 meeting will draw attention to their concerns about the Abbott government's handling of Indigenous rights.
World leaders and the international media will gather in Brisbane in November and a massive security operation will lockdown the C-B-D.
Activists hope for a repeat of the media attention given to the 1982 Commonwealth Games protests.
Commonwealth Games protest veteran Wayne Wharton told Queensland correspondent Stefan Armbruster they will use the same rallying point, Musgrave Park, on the edge of the summit venue's exclusion zone.
An assessment of Australia's performance in areas ranging from asylum seekers to climate change has produced a mixed report card.
The report states that Australia has failed by international standards on the treatment of Indigenous Australians.
The report praises moves towards holding a referendum on the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the federal constitution.
However it also criticises federal intervention measures in the Northern Territory.
Lecturer in indigenous policy at the Australian National University, Professor Jon Altman says the assessment of the federal government's treatment of Indigenous Australians is too lenient.
"I think that the rating of C+ is quite generous, but I don't think they've told us much about the ugly things that have happened. And by the ugly things I mean the contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory Intervention. and the ongoing support of measures like income management and punitive measures if children don't attend school by stopping people's welfare payments."
Professor Altman says the Stronger Futures initiative implemented in the Northern Territory to address issues of alcohol abuse and truancy should be reason enough to award a lower grade.
"The parliamentary joint committee on human rights in June of this year produced a report looking at Stronger Futures, where they basically say that the Stronger Futures measures certainly are highly problematic in terms of international human rights standards so on the basis of that report alone, I would be thinking a D or F for Australian government's performance in Indigenous affairs."
Australia's oldest political party has never had an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander take up a seat in the House of Representatives.
But Labor leadership aspirant Bill Shorten says he is determined to change that.
Bill Shorten says the party has had a lot of success in preselecting more women in winnable seats since it introduced a 40 per cent quota for women in preselections in 2002.
Three West Papuan activists who occupied Australia's consulate in Bali have left the compound after making pleas for the Government to take up their cause.
Student activists Rofinus Yanggam, Yuvensius Goo and Markus Jerewon climbed the wall of the consulate in the early hours of this morning.
They say they "took refuge" there and brought a letter addressed to the Australian people.
In it, they asked Prime Minister Tony Abbott to push the Indonesian government to release at least 55 political prisoners jailed in Indonesia's disputed Papua region.
The letter also called for greater press freedom for international journalists reporting on the province.
The High Court, for the first time in 30 years, will consider whether aboriginality can be used as a defence in sentencing. William David Bugmy, who's spent most of his adult life in jail, was convicted of assaulting a prison officer at the Broken Hill prison in 2011. The sentencing appeal judge ruled that special consideration for Aboriginal background can't be applied to repeat offenders.
Jan Mayman, journalist who covered John Pat's death in Roebourne in 1983
Picture: Mavis Pat at her son's memorial, 29 years later (Photo, Gerry Georgatos)
Maisie Pat speaks with Geoff Hutchison, 26 September 2013
Image: John Pat is buried in Roebourne and his Mother visits him regularly. (Photo: Margaret Bertling)
Warren Mundine on the role of the military in Aboriginal communities: “Actually the military does have a place … In the tsunami of Indonesia, you know at Sumatra and the Indian Ocean. And I said the military has got to train for emergency services and war situations.”
Mayors from Aboriginal and mainstream council in far-north Queensland say they don't recognise Aboriginal academic Noel Pearson as a leader and want his Cape York Institute to get out of their communities.
Mr Pearson has been hailed as a prophet by federal opposition leader Tony Abbott and been tipped as a key indigenous adviser, if the Liberal-National Coalition wins Saturday's election.
Eight Cape York councils question the transparency and effectiveness of Mr Pearson's programs, including the radical 120 million-dollar welfare reform trail.
SBS has contacted the Cape York Institute for a response, but is yet to hear back.
Aurukun Mayor Dereck Walpo, from one of the welfare reform communities, told Stefan Armbruster the local governments should be running their own affairs but are being sidelined.
Penny Phillips, who says she is a Traditional Owner from the Wirntulki group, says the community is excited that a minister has finally accepted their invitation.
Kevin Gilbert was a 20th century Indigenous Australian activist, artist, poet, playwright and printmaker. He is also a past winner of the National Book Council prize for writers.- 3CR Solidarity Breakfast 17 August 2013 live discussion - with Bill Deller, Melbourne, Humphrey McQueen, Canberra, Lalitha Chelliah and Annie McLoughlin, Melbourne.
An application to the High Court has a chance to reopen some serious questions about Aboriginal life and imprisonment in Australia.
An application to the High Court has a chance to reopen some serious questions about Aboriginal life and imprisonment in Australia.
It involves the case of a New South Wales man named William David Bugmy.
But it could end up affecting many more cases -- or, more specifically, sentences -- if the Court decides to hear it.
Ron Sutton has the story.
It is an age-old question: Just when do a person's childhood travails stop serving as a viable explanation for his or her actions as an adult?
Or do they ever?
Now, the Aboriginal Legal Service wants Australia's High Court to consider that question in light of the sentencing of an Aboriginal man who lived a deeply troubled youth.
William David Bugmy, from remote Wilcannia, New South Wales, faces seven-and-a-half years in prison for assaulting a prison guard by pelting him with pool balls.
The guard, hit in the eye, suffered serious injuries, including a loss of vision.
The state's Court of Criminal Appeal increased Mr Bugmy's original sentence of six years, ruling any reductions given for a socially deprived childhood must diminish over time.
But the Aboriginal Legal Service has applied for special leave to appeal to the High Court, saying it wants the High Court to issue sentencing principles for such cases.
The Legal Service is declining to comment, but a specialist in Indigenous people and the law, author and academic Thalia Anthony, argues the effects do not fade over time.
"It would seem that, over time, the appeal (of the argument to consider such things as social deprivation) would actually increase, because the significance of it is actually, I think, aggravated by the length (of time) that someone spends particularly in prison, but also confronted with various social factors. I mean, there is a strong argument to say that, for young people, there should be very serious mitigation because you would hope to break that kind of cycle. But after people have come in and out of jail -- and that's, obviously, especially common among Indigenous people -- the benefit of jail should be seen as being relatively small, and the benefits of rehabilitation and other forms of sentencing should be relatively great."
Ms Anthony, lecturer in law with the University of Technology in Sydney, is the author of Indigenous People: Crime and Punishment, a look at sentencing over the past half-century.
Melbourne law professor Mirko Bagaric, co-author of the book Australian Sentencing, also feels time should NOT diminish such mitigation.
"Conceptually, there's not a sound argument for that. If poor social background is a mitigating factor, that aspect of a person's life remains with them forever. And, therefore, logically, that should remain a mitigating factor always. The other converse and perverse aspect about that is that, if prior convictions, if they do mitigate the effect of poor social background, then prior convictions actually serve to compound the sentence in another way. Prior convictions, on their own, they have an escalating effect on sentence."
On paper, the courts began considering social deprivation in Aboriginal communities when setting sentences about 30 years ago.
In 1982, High Court Justice Gerard Brennan said courts were bound to consider those facts which exist only by reason of the offender's membership of an ethnic or other group.
Ten years later, in the so-called Fernando case, a New South Wales court set out eight particular principles to follow when sentencing disadvantaged Indigenous offenders.
Yet another decade on, in 2002, the High Court cautioned against assuming equal treatment meant ignoring differences in offenders' individual circumstances related to their race.
The Fernando case is the most-often cited, but that was two decades ago, and Thalia Anthony s...
Palm Island Community Justice Group's Deniece Geia discusses the over representation of Indigenous Australians in the prison system and the support by the elders Margie Parker and Bonnie Noble. Source: ABC Radio - North Queensland - 1 August, 2013
They have no formal legal education but Palm Island elders Bonnie Noble and Margie Parker are determined to do something about the over representation of Indigenous Australians in the prison system.
Source: ABC Radio - North Queensland - 1 August, 2013
Tasmanian Aboriginal community prepares for battle over heritage laws
This audio file was taken from an ABC TV News report - video available - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfVrgdhXp3I
When it comes to indigenous languages in Australia, the situation is grim, according to a leading linguistics professor.
Concerns over future for indigenous languages in Australia (Credit: ABC) It's one of the topics being discussed at an international conference in Adelaide starting today, focussing on loss and the revival of language. But all is not lost. Endangered languages are being reclaimed in parts of the country, while in others the native tongue has become the root to wellbeing.
Presenter: Caroline Winter
Professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann - chair of linguistics and endangered languages at Adelaide University
Barngarla man Stephen Atkinson
Geoff Anderson
Of the estimated 250 known Aboriginal languages - only 18 are actually spoken. "I think from many aspects, it is the lucky country but when it comes to language, when it comes to linguicide, it's one of the unluckiest countries on earth." Professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann, chair of linguistics and endangered languages at Adelaide University, wants to change that grim statistic.
"It is of national benefit, of national importance, of social benefit to put efforts in assisting aboriginal people in reconnecting to their language, it's not only an ethical, moral righting the wrong issue, it is also a utilitarian benefit."
To right that wrong, he's set his sights on reviving the endangered Barngarla language - native to indigenous people across South Australia's eastern Eyre Peninsula.
In a case of strange bedfellows. This Israeli-Jewish migrant has teamed up with community elders who together are using a Barngarla dictionary written by a german Lutheran Missionary in the 1840s, to teach the next generation.
Barngarla man Stephen Atkinson is part of the program.
"My mother, she actually spoke the language fluently before she got taken into the missions, when my mother came out of the missions system she actually couldn't speak her language anymore so that's why for me it's a great honour to be involved in helping to revive that language."
Along with Professor Zuckermann, Stephen Atkinson holds workshops in Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Lincoln. And says they're doing more than just reclaiming the old language.
"We're actually even creating new words that hadn't been used before such as computer which is gabbiwah and internet which is eribeyanu, so we're slowly not only just reviving the old language but recreating the language."
Geoff Anderson understands the power of language. Fear of the stolen generation meant his family never spoke about his indigenous heritage. But he knew something was missing. Crippled with severe anxiety, he was unable to leave the house, until the opportunity to learn Wiradjuri came about.
"Just right at that point, something happened to me and I still can't work out what it was and I just jumped in the car and said let's go, so I just felt like I was being reborn again, learned a couple of words and the more I was learning the better I was getting."
That moment transformed Geoff Anderson's life, and also his hometown of Parkes in New South Wales. He now teaches indigenous and non-indigenous students Wiradjuri at three primary schools there. And is right behind Professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann's plan to revitalise as many endangered indigenous languages Subjects: Human Interest;
as possible.
Right Now Radio - In June 2013, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child handed down a critical report following its review of Australia. Australia is a wonderful place for most of its children, however not necessarily all of its children, especially Indigenous children.
Ben Schokman and Evelyn Tadros (Right Now Radio) spoke with Frank Hytten, who recently returned from briefing the UN Committee in Geneva. Frank is the CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), the peak body for Aboriginal children in Australia. They spoke with Frank about his experience in Geneva and what needs to be done to ensure a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia.
Cairns-based historian Timothy Bottoms has drawn a new map of Queensland, that places many more sites of massacres of Aboriginal people into the story than have ever been acknowledged before. And while he argues that this is a story of deep silences, what he demonstrates is how public and discussed these killings were in the nineteenth century.
Read by Timothy Bottoms - Recorded by ABC Radio National - Hear the full interview - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/conspiracy-of-silence3a-queenslande28099s-frontier-killing-/4765066
The Book Conspiracy of Silence: Queensland's Frontier Killing Times By Timothy Bottoms Allen And Unwin 258pp, $32.99
More: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/node/596
Toni Comber, CEO of the Red Chief Land Council says there are concerns with the methodology associated with the collection process, and storage of the artifacts.
Toni explains the concerns of the protesters who gathered outside the office of Whitehaven in Boggabri on 10th July, 2013, calling for a halt to salvage works at the Maules Creek mine site because of threats to local indigenous culture and history
ABC New England NSW - Kelly Fuller and Lisa Herbert
ABC Radio National with Matthew Crawford:
According to the tradition of the Adnyamathanha people, the indigenous inhabitants of this part of South Australia, Wilpena Pound was formed when two Dreamtime serpents travelled south and carved the landscape in their wake.
Vince Coulthard, the chair of the Adnyamathanha Land Association, says it is a source of great pride for the local indigenous people that Wilpena is an attraction for both local and international visitors.
But it is also a place "of importance to us. It reminds us of our laws," he says.
"Wilpena Pound is a very sacred and significant part of the world...and there are an enormous amount of art galleries and so forth around the place, a lot of living archaeological significance.
It certainly is a very special place to the Adnyamathanha people," he says.
Vince's father was one of the first indigenous tour guides in the region, taking four wheel drive tours through the desert and pointing out the bush foods along the way.
Eighteen years ago the community also set up a cultural awareness tourism centre in the region.
What is important now is the creation of jobs.
Last year a partnership was formed between the indigenous community and the resort to employ more indigenous staff in all aspects of the resort.
"People come to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef, they come to see Uluru, and they come to see Wilpena Pound and they come to see Aboriginal people..and we should be able to offer that," Vince says.
Vince Coulthard, the chair of the Adnyamathanha Land Association
Image: Wilpena Pound Elder and AndyAMmathanha man, Vince Coulthard with Matthew Crawford (Pic: Matthew Crawford)
23 years ago, Mr Mandela had a rough encounter with some of the country's best known Aboriginal activists.
Ron Sutton looks at what they have come came to feel about him, all these years later.
"What about Aborigines, Mr Mandela? Why doesn't someone say something about the Aboriginal people in this country?"
It was October 1990, eight months after Nelson Mandela's release from prison in South Africa, three-and-a-half years before he would be elected the country's president.
After 27 years as a political prisoner of South Africa's apartheid government, he was on an international tour to thank those whose pressure finally led to his release.
Australia's unions, then under Bob Hawke, had been among those supporters and now Mr Mandela had come to thank the man who became prime minister.
But Aboriginal Australia had also supported Mr Mandela, and, as he walked into Parliament House with Mr Hawke without raising their issues, Michael Mansell was angry.
After calling out to Mr Mandela, he told reporters the man had let his people down.
"He's made a terrible error of judgment in coming to Australia in the manner in which he has done. And we would have hoped that he would have made a statement whilst he was here about the treatment of Aboriginal people."
That was then.
Now, it is almost a quarter of a century down the road, and Nelson Mandela, inarguably the most famous human rights defender of his era, is nearing the end of his long walk to freedom.
How does Michael Mansell, one of the staunchest defenders of Aboriginal rights for the past 40 years, feel today?
His answer comes in two parts -- again, then and now.
Looking back, he says he still believes Mr Mandela was wrong, starting with when he failed to ask Aboriginal people for permission to come, then did not insist on meeting them.
"My view is that Nelson Mandela is one of the great human rights activists but he was fallible. He made a miscalculation by not adhering to the principles of human rights, and he made a mistake. And all I was doing was giving him the opportunity to say to Bob Hawke, 'Well, when Aborigines come to the Parliament, do they get the same red carpet treatment that I'm getting, or do they get ushered around the corner?' And, 'If blacks are coming to power in South Africa, are blacks going to have power over themselves in Australia?' And, of course, he didn't."
Michael Mansell says Mr Mandela's African National Congress had asked the Aboriginal people not to do anything that promoted the apartheid government.
He says the ANC asked them to do nothing that could distract the government from the problems on the ground, too, and Aboriginal people almost totally adhered to both.
But, Mr Mansell says, he has no doubts today about the legacy Nelson Mandela has earned.
"The legacy that Nelson Mandela will leave is the determination of a man to fight for a human rights issue even if it meant staying (for) the rest of his life in prison, not being able to enjoy the same trappings of a good life that the rest of the world takes for granted. And there aren't many people prepared to make that sort of sacrifice. But he was prepared to do it."
Gary Foley was another veteran Aboriginal activist who spoke out at the time against Mr Mandela's visit.
He accused Mr Mandela - and the ANC - of hypocrisy, saying they were turning their backs on the very people who had put their necks on the line for them.
He accused them of currying favour and rubbing shoulders with people who had labelled them terrorists and were, in 1990, as he termed it, bandwagon jumpers.
Now, 23 years later, Dr Foley says he still feels the same way about what happened.
He says Nelson Mandela could have stopped to visit Aboriginal communities, as had founding Vanuatu prime minister Walter Lini and boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
"He didn't have to make any grand gestures. He didn't have to just go to the extent of completely humiliating the...
Transcript of Michael Mansell and CAAMA's Paul Wiles in CAAMA Radio News.
PAUL WILES:: First Nations rights campaigner Michael Mansell says outgoing Prime Minister Julia Gillard will be remembered in the context of Aboriginal Affairs as a woman who did nothing for his people. Mr Mansell said, under Gillards leadership the government extended the Northern Territory Intervention by 10 years and refused to give Aboriginal people a genuine political voice that had the ability to seriously represent Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders in a meaningful way.
"Across the board I think that her real railing was her willingness not to do anything positive to help Aboriginal people and I think thats what her legacy will be," Mr Mansell said. "With enormous power and influence and financial clout that the Federal Government have got they could have done a lot in land returns, promoted the retention of language and culture," he said "They could have insisted that the mining companies, who are ripping billions of dollars out of Aboriginal lands where Aboriginal people get jobs, (the Gillard government) could have done more - there could have been partnerships."
PAUL WILES:: Mr Mansell has urges his people to meet with Mr Rudd to discuss the state of Aboriginal affairs and what changes he might make.
"I think we have to be quick, we have to accept that the timetable for action is a very short one," Michael Mansell said "but in our favour is that Kevin Rudd will be looking for an issue that seperated him from the past couple of years under Julia Gillard, and Aboriginal affairs is a prime issue that Kevin Rudd is likely
Chris Graham is the former managing editor and founder of Tracker magazine and also the former and founding editor of the National Indigenous Times (NIT).
Chris got his start in the media at age 15 as a copyboy at the Sydney Morning Herald in 1988. In 1990 he started a cadetship at Magazine House, and from 1996 he headed bush to work in regional papers.
In late 2001, Chris was part of a small team that created NIT.
Chris has won a Walkley Award for Excellence in Indigenous Affairs reporting, a Walkley High Commendation, and has twice been awarded the Human Rights Award – Print Category for his Indigenous affairs reporting.
Chris lives in Glebe, Sydney and now works as a freelance journalist for print, radio and film. He spends much of his time on the road, writing and photographing from Aboriginal communities around the nation.
An expert in Aboriginal and Islander child welfare and wellbeing, Professor Muriel Bamblett, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, says that it is too simplistic to expect people who have been disempowered and are not self determining, to be able to come up and respond to issues of child abuse in the Northern Territory.
CAAMA News Team - Paul Wiles
3CR 'Radioactive show' recorded Kado Muir on the Walkajurra Walkabout - walking for Country - The full interview - http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive/podcast/radioactive-show-08062013
Walkajurra Walkabout was led by the Walkatjurra Rangers, in partnership with Footprints for Peace, Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA), the Anti Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia (ANAWA) and the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA).
Walkajurra Walkabout – Walking for Country
Provided opportunities for community members to undertake cultural maintenance activities, for youth to learn and for elders to promote their culture to others and develop opportunities for training and livelihoods based on cultural enterprises. Ranger group activities also provide inspiration in the community for cultural expressions in the art project by allowing access to country and traditional lands.
The objectives of the Walkatjurra Ranger Program are to:
- Increase the ability of Aboriginal people in the Region to interact with and manage their heritage and environmental assets
- Develop leadership in Aboriginal people, through increased informed decision making in heritage and environmental asset management
- Provide meaningful livelihood opportunities for Aboriginal people through cultural activities on country
- Generate partnerships between local communities and resource industry, Government, and professional organizations
- Contribute to the development of a new paradigm in heritage management for the Region
- Lift the profile of Aboriginal people within the Region through strategic training and employment opportunities
Walkajurra Walkabout – Walking for Country was led by the Walkatjurra Rangers, in partnership with Footprints for Peace, Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA), the Anti Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia (ANAWA) and the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA).
http://walkingforcountry.com/
Somali refugees claim immigration discrimination
Somali refugees waiting in Indonesia, say they're being forced to take dangerous boat voyages because Australia is refusing to resettle Africans.
The refugees say they have been told by the United Nations refugee agency, in Jakarta, that there's no point applying to be resettled in Australia.
They wonder whether they're being rejected automatically from Australia's humanitarian program because of their skin colour.
Indonesia Correspondent, George Roberts - Radio Australia
CAAMA News Team Paul Wiles 17 June 2013
A former member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child says Australia has to do more to understand the cultural sensitivity associated with removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and culture.
A Queensland based historian has branded the pioneering myth of the early white settlers as a lie. In his book Conspiracy of Silence, Doctor Timothy Bottoms claims that Australia has been let down by historians.
Dr Timothy Bottoms
Interview: Paul Wyles, CAAMA Radio
An aboriginal elder from far western New South Wales is threatening to take a case to the high court to prove her ownership of Lake Victoria. 0 The lake supplies parts of South Australia with drinking water. Dorothy Lawson's family has been in the area for thousands of years, but will argue a legal technicality, under a law known as Nullum Tempus. That means they had rights as squatters on the land.
ABC Local
More: http://sovereignunion.mobi/content/fighting-land-nothing-new-first-nations-elder
An aboriginal elder from far western New South Wales is threatening to take High Court action to prove her ownership of Lake Victoria. Dorothy Lawson's family have been in the area for thousands of years and she hopes to argue that under a legal technicality they have rights as squatters on the land. Deb Banks - ABC News 24
See more: http://sovereignunion.mobi/node/583
The United Nations has once again called on the Federal Government to improve efforts to deal with discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. In particular, it's raised the issue of the 13,000 Indigenous children currently in care, away from their culture and language.
Fran Kelly report - Radio National Breakfast - 5 June 2013
Interview with Marta Maurás Perez, vice-president of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and Special Rapporteur for Australia (2009-2013) etc
The Murrawarri people have proclaimed their traditional land a sovereign republic independent of the Commonwealth. But is the proclamation of the Murrawarri Republic a step forward for Indigenous land rights or is it merely symbolic?
Following Fred Hooper discussing the Murrawarri assertion of sovereignty, Professor George Williams of the University of New South Wales comments.
Source: Aboriginal nation proclaims itself a sovereign state Thursday, 11 April 2013 - 'The Wire' Radio
The Murrawarri people have proclaimed their traditional land a sovereign republic independent of the Commonwealth.
Fred Hooper, convener of the People's Council of the Murrawarri Republic.
Source: TheWire Community Radio Radio Adelaide, 2SER in Sydney and 4EB in Brisbane
An interview with Fred Hooper on Brisban'es 4ZZZ's 'Anarchy Show'
http://autonomousactionradio.com/tag/murrawarri-republic/
Sound quality is low but is recommended listening to those who are following this First Nations initiative.
The Australian prison population has more than doubled in the last twenty years from 15,000 to 31,000. Between 2000 to 2008 prison custodial deaths attributed to natural causes rose to 24.6 per cent per year nationwide.
From 1990 to 1999 natural deaths had been 16.3 per cent and in the 1980s they had been at 10.6 per cent.
See reports on http://.sovereignunion.mobi
Discussions following the Treaty Talks gathering in Brisbane 18th & 19th May 2913.
Michael Anderson, Conveyor of the Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia, spoke about the Australian First Nations Sovereignty Campaign and the Treaty Talks with Tiga Bayles, 98.9 Radio, Brisbane Indigenous Media Association.
Aboriginal sovereignty campaigners say that their struggle to decolonize and achieve independence of their own tribal areas within Australia has gone to another level. Aboriginal leader Michael Anderson speaks to Paul Wyles from CAAMA Radio about the situation as it stands on 21st May 2013 and the current approaches to the United Nations.
Aboriginal sovereignty campaigners say that their struggle to decolonize and achieve independence of their own tribal areas within Australia has gone to another level. Aboriginal leader Michael Anderson speaks to Paul Wyles from CAAMA Radio about the situation as it stands on 21st May 2013 and the current approaches to the United Nations.
A Victorian woman who stabbed her partner to death after years of domestic violence has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Veronica Hudson pleaded guilty to manslaughter after stabbing her partner, Woody Heron, during a drunken fight outside the tent they were living in at a Bendigo caravan park two years ago.
Heron was described as jealous and having no conscience.
He had served five years in prison for a vicious attack on Hudson.
Hudson, 43, had been sexually abused from a young age and became a prostitute at 13.
Justice Betty King said something must be done to stop this type of domestic violence.
"Your life reads like a horror story and I have no doubt people have tried, at different times, to help," she said.
"You've had years of abuse. Sexual, physical and emotional. And we, the rest of the community, appear to have been powerless to stop it.
"We must stop this appalling violence being inflicted one upon the other, by members of the Indigenous community."
The court heard since being in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Hudson's life has turned around.
She has completed cooking and computer courses and sought help for health problems.
"It is a rare thing to see people utilising the prison system for rehabilitation purposes and I'm heartened by your desire to do better for yourself," Justice King said.
"You need assistance, you need support and hopefully with all of that you may become a more functioning member of the community, more supportive to your son and more responsive to the social mores of our community."
Hudson cried as she was sentenced to six years' jail. She can apply for parole after serving three years.
Audio: SBS World News Australia Radio 16 May 2013 Article: ABC News 16 April 2013
Native Title challenge to mining and coal seam gas ABC Tamworth (New England North West) with Kelly Fuller
Four hundred Gomeroi people gathered in Tamworth over the weekend to consider the next step in their Native Title Application over the North West.
The applicants believe it has the potential to change the game when it comes to mining in the region and set a precedent right around the state, possibly Australia.
The applicants say Native Title has never been determined over water, and they want this to be tested.
Kelly Fuller spoke to Michael Anderson, one of the Native Title Applicants on the Morning Show
One of the largest black states in the country calls for a freeze on all mining and development on their ancestral lands.
More that 400 Native Title claimants met in Tamworth to discuss Goomeroi business on the weekend.
Representatives said that they are looking at options to stop ministerial decisions which approve mining in the region.
On the 3rd of April 2013 the Murrawarri Peoples Council wrote to Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the Second advising her of the declaration of the Murrawarri Nations continued Independence and Statehood and requested Her Royal Highness produce documents that show how Sovereignty, Dominion and Ultimate (Radical) Title was obtained over the Murrawarri Nation Ancient Lands, Waters, Subsurface, Natural Resources and Airspace under International and British Common Law.
By not producing these documents the Crown has affirmed the Murrawarri Republic to be a continued Free and Independent State, in line with International law and covenants.
Audio source: NITV News
Aboriginal Activist Kado Muir is a Tjarurru man, a member of the Ngalia tribe who are desert people from the Western Australia Goldfields region. He is passionate about his Aboriginal heritage, history, language and culture. He teaches its values to all Australians through his writings, cultural awareness courses and artworks. Kado's website: http://www.kadomuir.com
Two men have been arrested following a confrontation with police at the site of the Musgrave Park Aboriginal sovereign embassy.
The men were charged with wilful damage and obstructing police after lighting a sacred fire .
Terri Begley asked Embassy spokesman Wayne Warton why things have come to a head
Source: ABC 'Drive' with Tim Cox
Image: Embassy site at time of interview - arrests made, fire extinguished and and site cleared later in the day 30/04/13
Wayne 'Coco' Wharton interview (Pictured - bottom right)
The Hamilton Art Gallery is currently hosting a Shrine of Remembrance exhibition celebrating the contribution of Indigenous Australian soldiers to wars, from the Boer War to the present.
Two of the most celebrated families in the exhibition are from south west Victoria: the Saunders family and the Lovett family.
While Reg Saunders was, significantly, the first ever Indigenous Australian officer in the army, the Lovetts hold the distinction of having more family members serve their country in various wars than any other family in the Commonwealth.
In 1902 the Boer War in South Africa drew to an end. - The sovereign, anti-colonial, independent Republic leaders agreed to lay down their weapons, abandon their claims to independence and recognise Britain's Edward VII as their king. And so began the process of repatriating the 22,000 Australians who'd survived the distant war. A thousand of their fellow countrymen didn't. - But not everyone made it home. It's claimed 50 Aboriginal trackers were left behind because they were denied re-entry to Australia. - Charlotte Glennie spoke to Griffith University's Indigenous research fellow, Dr Dale Kerwin - he has spent years delving into a conflict which took place at the turn of last century far away in Africa. - Ashley Hall reporting on ABC Radio PM
Traditional caretakers of the sacred land and supporting conservationists are celebrating the abandonment of the gas hub project by Woodside and their partners.
The Murrawarri say they never ceded their sovereignty or ultimate title over their ancient homeland and never gave permission for the colonisers to enter their land.
It's an area known as the Culgoa River region, which includes towns like Bourke and Brewarrina in northwest New South Wales and Cunnamulla in southeast Queensland.
Fred Hooper is from the Murrawarri Peoples Council of the Murrawarri Republic.
"We firmly believe that our ultimate title has not been taken away by the King of England when Captain Cook first placed the flag on Possession Island. We believe that at that time the Murrawarri nation was an independent Murrawarri nation with boundaries and with the boundary that we've re-drawn up which had laws and customs that governed our people and governed our country and governed our land."
Ms Williams-Weston spoke with Zara Zaher about the significance of the site for her community.
Aboriginal protesters are campaigning against what they say are Victorian government plans to sell a sacred site in Melbourne to developers.
Aboriginal protesters are campaigning against what they say are Victorian government plans to sell a sacred site in Melbourne to developers.
They say the Ballerrt Mooroop site in the northern suburn of Glenroy includes a spiritual healing tree and ceremonial ground.
Tensions over the site go back to 2011, when the Ballerrt Mooroop College was closed, with the state government claiming low student numbers.
But Convenor of the Ballerrt Mooroop Support Group, Barbara Williams-Weston argues the government set about a deliberate policy to see the school fail so the land could be taken over for development.
The Euahlayi elder and Convenor of the Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia says the wording of the Act of Recognition is of serious concern.
Mr Anderson says, while people support the intent of change, no-one has dealt with the particular wording used, and there are serious implications.
He's speaking with Michelle Lovegrove.
Living Black SBS - Voices on Constitutional Reform
Traditional land owners in Western Australia's Pilbara region have won a a major battle against mining giant FMG with the Federal court ruling the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation is now the only group legally permitted to represent local stakeholders.
A breakaway Yindjibarndi group has moved to accept Fortescue Metals Group;s $4 million benefits package… which would allow the mining giant to develop the multi-billion dollar iron ore mine in but the court has overruled the powers of this group.
The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation Legal counsel George Irving says YAC now has the legal right to be the sole representative for the traditional owners…in a decision that cannot be overturned….leaving the breakaway group a lame duck in the negotiating process.
Michael Woodley CEO of the Yindiijbarndi Aborignal Corporation says while they are not against forming partnerships … they are against one which tells them how they are going to do things.
Source: CAAMA - Imterview with Paul Wiles
sovereignunion.modi
The 2013 'Australia Day' (now known to First Australians as Survival and/or Invasion Day) marks the 75th anniversary in the fight for Aboriginal rights and recognition. In 1938, a large group of Aboriginal people gathered in Sydney, at a protest called 'The Day of Mourning'.
Will Ockenden reports for ABC Radio 'AM'
Former Victorian Judge and Poet Peter Gebhardt speaks to Paul Wildes on CAAMA's 'Strong Voices'.
Ms Gillard exercised what she called a captain's pick to override the preselection processes for Northern Territory Labor and to recruit Ms Peris.
The Prime Minister says she felt it was important for federal Labor to embrace an Indigenous woman of what she called incredible merit.
But another Indigenous woman, the Territory's former deputy chief minister Marion Scrymgour, was already running for preselection.
SBS's Ron Sutton asked her how she felt - about Ms Gillard's move, and her remarks.
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener were the first two men executed in Melbourne on 20th January 1842. They were two of the First Nations Freedom Fighters, who took up arms against the colonisers and paid the ultimate price for defending themselves and their people against the invasion of their lands and genocide.
Spoken by Dr Jo Toscano on 3CR The full transcript of the 'Freedom Fighters' can be found on podcast at 3CR.
http://pod.3cr.org.au/pod/3CRCast-2012-12-19-86092.mp3
On the 16th December 2012 a First Nations man falsely arrested and treated for schizophrenia in Western Australia.
The man was wrongly identified as the missing patient and then given an antipsychotic drug.
He had a bad reaction and was taken to hospital, where the mistake was discovered.
Western Australia's Mental Health Minister Helen Morton says she was shocked to hear about incident.
"The policies and procedures are stringent about identifying people when they are made involuntary and when they are about to receive a Schedule 4 drug, and it would appear those policies and procedures weren't carried out," she said.
Source: ABC Radio 'AM'
On December 10, 1992. The Hon. Paul Keating Prime Minister of Australia gave this address in Redfern NSW to launch the International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
".. Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians - the people to whom the most injustice has been done. And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? ..."
The Muckaty radioactive waste dump campaign Update 01 December 2012
3CR's Radioactive Radio program talks with Natalie Wasley from the Beyond Nuclear Initiative about recent developments in the waste dump campaign.
Source: 3CR Radioactive Show - www.3cr.org.au
Women's prisons are filling up at an alarming rate in Australia.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the number of women behind bars has increased by more than 8 per cent in the last year - a much faster rate of increase than for men.
The surge is being driven by a 20 per cent increase in the number of Indigenous women being locked up, as Simon Lauder reports.
Source: ABC 'The World Today'
An Act to recognise First Nations Peoples in Australia’s Constitution has been tabled and was introduced to Federal parliament last week. But Michael Anderson, Founder of the Sovereign Union National Unity Government, believes the Federal Government's Act is an insult to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Image courtesy of NACCHO. Featured in story Michael Anderson, Founder of the Sovereign Union National Unity Government Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
Source: The Wire (6 December 2012) www.thewire.org.au
Indigenous singer-songwriter Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, on tour in Melbourne with Missy Higgins, was refused a taxi in St Kilda after performing at the Palais Theatre.
Gurrumul's manager Mark Grose says he cannot see any other reason than racism for the fare being refused. Mark Grose says he went out and hailed a taxi following a 'fantastic show' by Gurrumul at the theatre. He got the taxi to pull up by the stage and went in to get Gurrumul and his girlfriend Bronwyn. "The taxi driver looked at him, said no, locked the car and drove off," says Mark Grose. "He refused to take the fare."
Robbie Thorpe - 1st Brisbane Sovereignty & Land Rights Conference 2012 - Queensland State Library 25 November 2012
Wayne Coco Wharton - 1st Brisbane Sovereignty & Land Rights Conference 2012 - Queensland State Library 25 November 2012
Mark Mc Murtrie - 1st Brisbane Sovereignty & Land Rights Conference 2012 - Queensland State Library 25 November 2012
Blacktown Council has stopped recognising the Darug tribe as the traditional owners of Blacktown.
The move comes amid accusations those recognised as Darug elders were committing "ethnic fraud" and had no legitimate claim to being descendants of Blacktown's Aborigines.
Darug Tribal Corporation (DTC) secretary Aunty Sandra Lee said she was given no warning of the decision at last week's extraordinary meeting to suspend the council's indigenous policy and had been left "stunned".
This Audio Report from SBS Living Black
Sovereign Union spokesperson Michael Anderson told Tim Roxburgh from 'The Wire' that Isabell Coe would be remembered as one of the strongest and most forthright campaigners for her people.
'The Wire' Community Radio
For decades, Isabell Coe played a key role in the campaign for Indigenous sovereignty and was instrumental in keeping the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra going. The Wiradjuri woman has died in Cowra at the age of 61.
Lindy Kerin reports for ABC's 'The World Today'
First Australians call to the Royal family to heed an 1830 promise
New Aboriginal heritage laws in Tasmania are another step closer with the announcement of a six-week consultation process.
The Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage has released the draft Aboriginal Heritage Protection Bill 2012.
The new legislation is predicted to better protect and manage Aboriginal heritage, while at the same time providing clarity for landowners and developers.
The Aboriginal and broader community now has a chance to look closely at the detail.
Michael Mansell from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in two minds about the proposed legislation. Mr Mansell says the state has made many advances in recognising Aboriginal culture in Tasmania but wonders whether better enforcement of existing legislation would have been enough. Nevertheless the discourse is another step on a long road for his community.
Damien Brown invited Mr Mansell to discuss some of the issues around the battle to preserve Aboriginal history. During the conversation Damien asked whether his community would be protesting on the Royal visit by Prince Charles. Mr Mansell revealed the Aboriginal community have a meeting with the Prince to remind the Royal family about a royal promise made to Tasmanian Aboriginals back in 1830.
Audio source: ABC 936 Hobart, Tasmania
The Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation is in administration, leaving hundreds of employees fearing for their future and community pride shattered. In the past, the BAC won national recognition for services to outstations, employment for Indigenous rangers and support for highly successful Indigenous artists. But in less than three years the BAC has gone from a strong financial position to what's believed to be millions of dollars in debt.
The outgoing CEO, Luke Morrish, is an ex Federal Police Officer from Canberra. He first arrived in Manigrida in 2007 as the government business manager, the regional head of the federal intervention, before joining the BAC as the CEO.
Audio: ABC Radio National 'The World Today'
The sister of an Aboriginal man who died in September, less than two hours after being released from police custody said that her brother suffered from diabetes and needed regular medication.
Audio: CAAMA news - http://caama.com.au/radio
Sovereignty: Northern Murray Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN). This audio includes an interview with Fred Hooper, NBAN Chairperson.
Audio source: 3CR Community Radio Melbourne Program Name: 'Earth Matters'
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Gerry Georgatos, Darren Axtell talk with Tiga Bayles - Audio file: 98.9FM broadcast on 25 September 2012
It's been a big week for our country on the international stage, with Australia winning a seat on the United Nations Security Council. But not everyone's happy. Founder of the Sovereign Union of the First Nations and Peoples of Australia, Michael Anderson, believes Australia doesn't deserve the seat because of its poor human rights track record.
The Union aims to give a voice to and raise the international profile of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.
Michael Anderson, Chair of the Interim National Unity Government, Sovereign Union of First Nations Peoples in Australia and Leader of the Euahlayi Nation in Northern NSW.
Tranby Aboriginal College in partnership with Tracker Magazine and Friends of Trabby Presented Tranby Conversations - Aboriginal Social Justice - 'Have we Surrendered' on Tuesday 9th October 2012 Guest Panelists Include Larissa Behrendt - Eualeuai/Gumilaroi, Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies, UTS, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Murri Ghillar) - Euahlayi Nation Leader, Elected representative of Gomeroi Nation Roy Ah-See - Wiradjuri, Elected Councillor for Sydney/Newcastle Region NSWALC Moderator: Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director, Tranby Aboriginal College
Tranby Aboriginal College in partnership with Tracker Magazine and Friends of Trabby Presented Tranby Conversations - Aboriginal Social Justice - 'Have we Surrendered' on Tuesday 9th October 2012 Guest Panelists Include Larissa Behrendt - Eualeuai/Gumilaroi, Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies, UTS, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Murri Ghillar) - Euahlai Tribe Leader, Elected representative of Gomeroi Nation Roy Ah-See - Wiradjuri, Elected Councillor for Sydney/Newcastle Region NSWALC Moderator: Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director, Tranby Aboriginal College
Social Justice conversations at Tranby, Glebe, Sydney - "Have We Surrendered?
Speech by Prof Larissa Behrendt
Tranby Aboriginal College in partnership with Tracker Magazine and Friends of Trabby Presented Tranby Conversations - Aboriginal Social Justice - 'Have we Surrendered' on Tuesday 9th October 2012 Guest Panelists Include Larissa Behrendt - Eualeuai/Gumilaroi, Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies, UTS, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Murri Ghillar) - Euahlai Tribe Leader, Elected representative of Gomeroi Nation Roy Ah-See - Wiradjuri, Elected Councillor for Sydney/Newcastle Region NSWALC Moderator: Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director, Tranby Aboriginal College
"Have We Surrendered" Q&A hosted by Bob Morgan, CEO Tranby College, Glebe, Sydney.
Tranby Aboriginal College in partnership with Tracker Magazine and Friends of Trabby Presented Tranby Conversations - Aboriginal Social Justice - 'Have we Surrendered' on Tuesday 9th October 2012 Guest Panelists Include Larissa Behrendt - Eualeuai/Gumilaroi, Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies, UTS, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Murri Ghillar) - Euahlai Tribe Leader, Elected representative of Gomeroi Nation Roy Ah-See - Wiradjuri, Elected Councillor for Sydney/Newcastle Region NSWALC Moderator: Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director, Tranby Aboriginal College
Veteran Tasmanian campaigner Michael Mansell says First Nations people across the country are again finding their voice and “the fire in the belly” to renew campaigns and challenge Governments over their choice of advice and inability to engage with grass roots organisations.
Former ATSIC boss Geoff Clarke says that there are mechanisms in the United Nations system where daily reports within Australia are monitored and the UN can then put pressure on the Australian government.
Caama News Report
"People on Country, Vital Landscapes, Indigenous Futures" is a compilation of essays looking at some of the more positive aspects of Australia's Indigenous people managing their country.
It stems from the People and Country project which is jointly funded by the Australian National University, the New South Wales government and the Australian Research Council
The book has thirteen contributors, each offering an insight into Indigenous people's perceptions of resource management and environmental threats.
One of the editors, Jon Altman from the Australian Research Council who has worked on for People on Country for 30 years discusses the story behind the book with Geraldine Coutts, ABC's Radio Australia.
(Image: Dr Jon Altman)
Australia’s First Nations sovereignty movement, Sovereign Union, has called upon the United Nations to deny Australia’s Security Council seat bid. The movement argues Australia is founded upon a colonial state that is in breach of the Human Rights Conventions in its treatment of Indigenous Australians. The Wire community radio spoke to Michael Anderson, Chair of the sovereignty movement about their letter sent to UN ambassadors in New York. Produced by Tawar Razaghi (Image from michellerlee on Flickr)
Brisbane's Aboriginal Tent Embassy at Musgrave Park has burnt to the ground.
Local resident and 612 Breakfast family affairs reported Susan Hetherington reports live from the scene - 02 October 2012
Australia sent about 16-thousand troops to fight and by the war's end more than 500 were dead. Two years ago Dr Dale Kerwin from Griffith University found 50 Aboriginal trackers also served and many were left behind when Australian troops returned home in 1902. Their contribution will now be included as part of a Boer War memorial planned for ANZAC Parade at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Worimi man Dale Kerwin spoke with Stefan Armbruster about his latest research into the fate of the Aboriginal trackers.
- SBS Audio
Between 1899 and 1902, fifty Aboriginal black trackers were summonsed by the British forces in South Africa to join the Boer war effort.
Griffith University's Indigenous research fellow, Dr Dale Kerwin said that the black trackers came from all over the country but very little else is known about them.
He claims they were left behind at the end of the war in 1902 because they were denied re-entry into Australia under the Immigration Protection Act, known as the White Australian Policy.
ABC PM - Radio report
Moree Fire Brigade attended the Embassy after a an anonymous call that the Embassy infrastructure was ablaze. Police said they are investigating! ABC New England report 18/09/12
An inquest into another First Nations death in custody has prompted questions about what's changed, 25 years since the Royal Commission into the issue.Twenty-five years ago, the Royal Commission into 'Aboriginal Deaths in Custody' was established to investigate why so many First Nations people died while while held in state and territory jails.
In September 2012, the Northern Territory coroner released a damning report into the death just a few months ago of a young indigenous man in police custody.
Kerri Worthington reports for SBS
The culture within the Northern Territory Police which has allowed aggressive behaviour displayed by some officers against First Nations people to go virtually unchecked is being condemned by human rights experts. CAAMA News report - 20/9/12
Emotional and angry scenes outside the Alice Springs Courthouse on Monday 17 September 2012 when the Northern Territory Coroner announced that the death of a First Nations man in custody was due to a series of errors by police and could have been prevented. CAAMA Radio - News Report
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was offered an First Nations Nations passport in an inner-city Sydney ceremony after he was "abandoned" by Australian authorities. His father, John Shipton, accepted the document at a celebration in Darlington on 15 September 2012. CAAMA News report.
Mr Shipton said his son had been jilted by the Australian government, and the passport ceremony - which follows Ecuador's decision to grant Mr Assange diplomatic asylum - was a show of solidarity.
Caama News Report
Fortescue Metals Group, has admitted to the destruction of Aboriginal sites at its Solomon Hub project in Western Australia's Pilbara.
In November 2011, Indigenous people said sites had been damaged but FMG dismissed the claims as offensive and untrue.
Now, the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation has documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information act, showing that two heritage sites were destroyed and a third was damaged by earth-moving equipment.
Ray Jackson, President of Indigenous Social Justice Association (ABC 'The World Today' - Report)
The Shooting of 6 unarmed First Australian occupants of an alleged stolen car by police officers at Kings Cross
Ray Jackson, President of Indigenous Social Justice Association (SBS News Report)
Shooting of 6 unarmed First Australian occupants of an alleged stolen car by police officers at Kings Cross
I worked for shirt, hat, boots: stockman Geoffery Fletcher. An archived ABC Kimberley 'Stolen Wages' Interview
In August 1966, Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari led Aboriginal workers on a walk-off at Wave Hill pastoral station in the Northern Territory. They were protesting against discriminatory working conditions, but they also demanded the return of their traditional land. At the time, this land was leased from the Government by a British pastoral company, Vesteys. The protest eventually led to land being granted to the Gurindji. The Gurindji walk-off inspired the song From Little Things Big Things Grow.
Representatives from three Aboriginal homelands in Australia's Northern Territory have called for more consultation with the Federal Government on policies affecting indigenous people. They've just returned from visiting Canberra, where they raised concerns about legislation known as "Stronger Futures". They say the policy is pushing Aboriginal people to move away from their traditional homelands into towns for work and education.
12 months ago Amnesty International reported the legislation was stripping Aboriginal people of the right to remain on their ancestral lands. - Source: Radio Australia, 24 August 2012 - ABC Presenter: Melanie Arnost - Radio Australia
Treaty – the importance of Treaty and its relevance today and in the future – Robbie Thorpe, Melbourne based Activist.
Melbourne New Way Summit - 3rd July 2010
Professor Gracelyn Smallwood said in an interview for Noosa Community Radio she expects her three talks, based on her PhD thesis to go feral internationally. The thesis is to be published by a London publisher Routledge "because it was too hot a potato for Australian publishers" she approached.
Audio 1. Australia is a racist society and we cannot reconcile without the truth
Professor Gracelyn Smallwood said in an interview for Noosa Community Radio she expects her three talks, based on her PhD thesis to go feral internationally. The thesis is to be published by a London publisher Routledge "because it was too hot a potato for Australian publishers" she approached.
Audio 1. If we didn't collect enough copper wire and bottles to sell, we starved
Professor Gracelyn Smallwood said in an interview for Noosa Community Radio she expects her three talks, based on her PhD thesis to go feral internationally. The thesis is to be published by a London publisher Routledge "because it was too hot a potato for Australian publishers" she approached.
Audio 1. Horrified about Australia's deep dark secret
Palm Island's mayor Alf Lacey wants the Queensland government to compensate his community for emotional trauma if it agrees to pay the legal costs for a police officer cleared of the brutal killing Mr Doomadgee in the island's watchhouse. Mayor Lacey said the application's approval would be yet another blow for the community, which feels it has been denied justice over the incident. - CAAMA Radio News report with Paul Wilde.
On December 10, 1992. The Hon. Paul Keating Prime Minister of Australia gave this address in Redfern NSW to launch the International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
On Thursday the 21st June 2012 at Fitzroy in Victoria, Gary Foley introduces Barbara Shaw, descendant of the Kaytetye, Arrernte, Warlpiri and Warumungu people, from Mount Nancy Town Camp, now a prescribed area under the NT Intervention "Stronger Futures" legislation.
Indigenous Australian boxer, Damian Hooper was forced to apologise after wearing a t-shirt featuring the Aboriginal flag into his first round bout, in lieu of his official uniform. Professor Richard Waterhouse, an Emeritus Professor in History and an Authority on Race in Sport spoke with Richard Glover on ABC's 702 Drive program.
Tiga Bayles fom 989fm Brisbane interviewed Kylie Hamilton, the daughter of Mr Clarke and Bruce Campbell from Western Australia's Deaths in Custody Watch Committee on 24 July 2012
Michael Anderson Interview following Moree Sovereign Gathering. The gathering took place on 28th and 29th July, 2012.
Michael Anderson Interviewed by Sue Lee 3CR Melbourne - Interview shortly after the 40th Tent Embassy in 2012, where the First Nations people of Australia re-asserted their sovereignty
Michael Anderson's speech at 'Occupy London' in December 2011
'We said it aloud all the time "Sovereignty Never Ceded" and now we can reveal that our sovereignty is real, both as a matter of fact and law. The challenge that is now before us as Peoples is how to put it all into practice.
We assert our sovereignty as a right recognised in English law is the political and legal confrontation that we now face with the Australian governments and territories.'
Litigating Sovereignty - Roy 'Dootch' Kennedy at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Fred Hooper 4 at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Fred Hooper 3 at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Fred Hooper 2 at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Fred Hooper 1 at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty, Virginia Marshall - Solicitor at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Juristiction Prudence & International Law - M Anderson - at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Michael Anderson at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Dr Alessandro Pelizzon at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty - Professor Nan Seuffert at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
Litigating Sovereignty Welcome - Aunty Barb Nicholson at the 2012 Sovereignty Symposium - Wollongong, New South Wales, May 2012
"We've got to be able to grow - let the Embassies grow all around the country." - Wayne 'Coco' Wharton
"We ran the country once and we can run the country again" - Wayne 'Coco' Wharton, Sovereign Union Foundation 2012
Aunty Barbara Nicholson - Native title is "...the last drink at the poisoned water hole."
The first National Assembly of Nations is a key moment in history - "The Last Stand" - Michael Anderson
Welcome to country - Opening ceremony of the Sovereign Union Foundation Meeting by Roy "Dootch" Kennedy - 2012
High Court challenge to indefinite detention in NT of a number of cases where Aboriginal Australians with disabilities or mental impairment are being held in Northern Territory prisons despite not being convicted of a crime. ABC's Law Report
Northern Territory Arabana man, Peter Clarke died on Tuesday 3rd April 2012 while he was in custody. Mr Clarke was ankle cuffed to a hospital bed in an Intensive Care unit, just days before he was due for parole. Paul Wiles from CAAMA News Interviews Ray Jackson, President, Indigeous Social Justice Association.
Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna elder from the Lake Eyre region, has been fighting against Olympic Dam Uranium Mine in Roxby Downs South Australia since it began operations in 1986. The mound spring areas, which are dotted all across Arabunna land, are threatened due Olympic Dam using up 30-40 million litres of water each day from the Great Artesian Basin. There are many issues associated with mining uranium and the sacred waters.
Source: jessieboylan.com/inhabited
ABC Country Hour looks at some of the environmental issues associated with the Olympic Dam expansion plan.
The mine expansion will make it the biggest extractor of uranium.
South Australian police are planning road closures around the Olympic Dam copper mine as protesters plan to gather over the next six days.
The mine sits on one of the biggest known deposits of uranium in the world and is being considered for a massive expansion.
Police say they'll stop all traffic heading into the mine for safety reasons and deny they're taking sides.
The protesters say if there's any trouble it will be initiated by police.
National Unity Government Foundation 2012 - Welcome to country - Opening ceremony of the First Official Meeting by Roy "Dootch" Kennedy at Sandon Point, New South Wales, Australia
National Unity Government Foundation 2012 - Welcome to country - Opening ceremony of the First Official Meeting by Roy "Dootch" Kennedy at Sandon Point, New South Wales, Australia
An Australian identity starts with a "Treaty" - Aboriginal Elder - Paster Ossie Cruse from Eden, South East Coast, New South Wales #AboriginalAustraliaTreatySoverignty
A sacred fire is at the heart of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and Robert Corowa is one of the men who keeps the fire burning - On ABC (North Coast) he talks about the relevance of the Tent Embassy and the Sacred Fire in NAIDOC week 2012
This clip from a 1995 Tasmanian ABC 'Stateline' report features prominent Tasmanian Aboriginal activist and community Elder Aunty Ida West. The clip focuses on her involvement in the protest movement for the rights of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
Questions and Discussion 2 - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Questions and Discussion 1 - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Questions & Answers - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Christine Milne, Leader of 'The Greens' - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens' #AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyNtInterventionStrongerFuturesRacism
Damien Curtis 'Stand For Freedom Campaign' - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Sue Gillett, 'Stop Income Management' - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Graeme Mundine, Aboriginal Catholic Ministry - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
St Vincent de Paul - Dr Falzon - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Rev. Roberts - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Margaret Bearlin (right) representing Quakers - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens #AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyNtInterventionStrongerFuturesRacism #aboriginalaustraliasovereigntyntinterventionstrongerfuturesracism
Catholic Bishop Pat Power - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens' #AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyNtInterventionStrongerFuturesRacism
Barbara Shaw (2) "My Grandfather"- A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
Barbara Shaw - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
George Gaymarani Pascoe - A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
A coalition of Aboriginal, church and community leaders came together in Canberra on the 18th June 2012 to oppose the Government's proposed legislation to extend the Northern Territory intervention for Aboriginal communities. Audio files from that public meeting include comments by Barbara Shaw, George Gaymarani Pascoe, Graeme Mundine and 'The Greens'
SBS "Stronger Futures" report on the next day after the the legislation was approved by the Senate - Monica Morgan and Barbara Shaw
(2) Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, Arnhem Land NT- 2nd Intervention 'Stolen Futures' - #AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyInterventionGenocide
Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra talking about the racist and dis-empowing intervention the day after the bill was passed by government. -
#AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyNtInterventionStolenFutures
Anthony Martin Fernando was one of the first Aboriginal political activists yet he lived more than half his life overseas. This program documents Fernando's solitary life and extraordinary political career. On his sometimes wandering journey, he left evidence - bits and pieces of an activist life that we're only now putting together.
Fernando told anyone who cared to listen that his people were being exterminated, that the toy skeletons he sold on the streets of London were all that Australia had left of his people. - This program was first broadcast on Hindsight on July 13 2007 - This audio file if from ABC's 'AWAYE' program.
The story of Aboriginal activist, Anthony Martin Fernando who protested on the streets of early 20th Century Europe and England against the British government and the treatment of Australian Aborigines. -#AboriginalAustraliaSovereigntyAnthonyMartinFernandoEuropeBritian
Aboriginal perspective of the motion was put forward and carried at the Glenelg Shire Council April meeting, recognising the rights of the Portland Sovereign Aboriginal Embassy to protest. Sandra Onus, Aboriginal Activist from the Embassy speaks on 3CR's 'Earth Matters'.
Arabunna Elder Uncle Kevin Buzzacott's challenge to Federal Court approval of BHP-Billeton's Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion gets dismissed - BHP & the Federal Government seek court costs from Uncle Kev, who is an elderly pensioner. Also, update from Portland Aboriginal Tent Embassy. - 3CR Earth Matters | 5th May 2012
Professor Henry Reynolds is an historian, and author, predominantly focussed on the history of Aboriginal and settler relations including the violent conflicts between settler Australians and Indigenous Australians in 20 books and countless articles. Interview with Kate O'Toole, ABC Darwin
Councillor Gilbert Wilson, Mayor of Glenelg Shire is questioned by ABC South Western Victoria's Jeremony Lee about the Portland Tent Embassy. Councillor Wilson states the Shire Council's position just one week after the Embassy was established in February 2012.
Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation CEO Michael Woodley on campaign to protect the Yindjibarndi People's sacred land & sovereign rights from iron ore giant Fortescue Metals Group (FMG). 3CR's 'Earth Matters'
From 3CR's Earth Matters Program - Original Nations in New South Wales and Queensland have united to control the waterflow in the Murray Darling Basin. Fred Hooper, Chairperson of the The Northern Murray Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations is interviewd on Earth Matters. www.earthmatters.com.au
Police brutality is out of control - Ray Jackson, spokesperson from Indigenous Social Justice Association talks about the shooting of two Aboringal teenagers at Kings Cross, NSW, who allegedly stole a car. Amateur mobile phone video footage demonstrates unnecessary police brutality. (SBS) #AustraliaPoliceBrutalityAboriginalYouths
The New South Wales Police Integrity Commissioner says his organisation has neither the resources nor the expertise to carry out an independent investigation into the shooting by police of two teenagers at Kings Cross in Sydney last month. The incident and graphic amateur vision of its aftermath led to calls for an independent probe. #AustraliaAboriginalPoliceBrutalityAboriginalJuveniles
Sue Lee from 3CR's 'Wednesday Hometime' interviews Michael Anderson - Here we have Michael explaining his investigating trip to England and his findings after viewing 'The Pacific Islanders Protetection Act 1975', and his talks with constitunional lawyers regarding the legiminacy of the explicit findings. #AustraliaPacificIslandersProtectionActAboriginalSovereighty
In this Podcast Michael Anderson explains 'Aboriginal Sovereignty' at the National Univerity in Canberra in January 2012. He explains the 'Doctrine of Discovery' and other related documents. He outlines what they mean in relation to Aboriginal sovereign rights. #AustraliaSovereigntyAboriginalDoctrineOfDiscovery
ABC 612 Brisbane's Breakfast program coverage of events at Musgrave Park, where police have arrived and were about to evict the Aboriginal Tent Embassy ahead of Paniyiri Greek Festival - Wayne Wharton was interviewed. - ABC 612 Brisbane 15/05/12 #AustraliaBrisbaneTentEmbassyAboriginalSovereign
Portland Sovereign Embassy is visited by reporter Margaret Burin after 100 days of standing strong on country. Sandra Onus explains Originals customs and tradition meanings relating to the land and that cultural tradition dictates that Aboriginal people need control over their Clan areas. - ABC Ballarat #AustraliaAboriginalSovereignTentEmbassyVictoria
Dr Gondarra talks about the racist and dis-empowing intervention the day after the bill was passed by government - No 2