Archive for the ‘Aboriginal’ Category
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Paige Taylor, 3/2/10
A big drop in assaults, police call-outs and emergency hospital admissions in Halls Creek has made Western Australia’s government more determined to support alcohol restrictions in the remote town once described as the Gaza Strip of the Kimberley. And the Barnett government is preparing for the possibility of restrictions being rolled out in other Kimberley towns if the Director of Liquor Licensing, Barry Sargeant, deems it appropriate. The first study of the effect of a ban on full-strength takeaway alcohol in Halls Creek is an endorsement of Mr Sargeant’s decision last May to make only light beer available as takeaways. The interim report to be released by the state government today finds police attended 53 per cent fewer incidents in June, July and August last year compared with the same period in 2008.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Drugs, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Robert Milliken; 30/1/10
From the air above Maralinga you can still see the sites where Britain tested nuclear weapons in the South Australian desert 54 years ago. At least one is still contaminated with plutonium. The township that once hummed with Australian and British servicemen and nuclear scientists is just a shell. But if the new owners have their way, this secret place, once an unlikely flashpoint of the Cold War, may soon have a fresh life. The new owners are really the old owners: the Maralinga-Trarutja Aborigines, who were pushed aside when their traditional lands became an atomic testing ground. Late last month dignitaries again flew in, this time to witness a ceremony marking the symbolic closure of one of Australia’s most bizarre stories.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Arms, Australia, Environment, UK
Posted in Aboriginal, Arms, Australia, Environment, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Ben Cubby; 30/1/10; (2 Items)
A vast new coalmine planned for Sydney’s south-western outskirts will damage the city’s natural desalination plant – the ”hanging swamps” that filter pure water down into the Georges River. More than 50 swamps in the little-known Dharawal State Conservation Area, south-east of Campbelltown, will be undercut by longwall coalmines, which the mine owner, BHP Billiton, admits are likely to crack the bedrock and drain swamps. Aboriginal rock art above the mine site is also at risk. The proposal, being considered by the NSW Government, calls for a huge expansion of existing coalmines near Appin, which would lock in mining there for 30 years.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Environment, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights, Religion | No Comments »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Matthew Franklin; 30/1/10; (2 Items)
Aborigines in an Alice Springs community will be given their first opportunity to buy their homes outright under a landmark deal expected to spark a revolution in land tenure reform. Residents of Ilpeye Ilpeye, an Alice Springs town camp, have agreed to pass the title of their land to the commonwealth, allowing it to transfer the land to freehold and clear the way for subdivisions and individual ownership. In return, the commonwealth will flood the community with new infrastructure as part of a $100 million commitment to clean up the town camps, where some indigenous people have lived in squalor for decades.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Culture, Human Rights, Land
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights, Religion | No Comments »
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Paige Taylor; 29/1/10
Ooutback money lender Sam Tomarchio’s home office has been raided by the Consumer Protection division of the West Australian Department of Commerce, which says he has neither a credit provider’s licence nor the necessary exemption. Consumer Protection senior investigator Steve Reksmiss, a former detective sergeant in the WA Police Service, led three colleagues to Mr Tomarchio’s property in Augusta Street, Laverton, at 10.15am yesterday where they executed a search warrant. The team, including an IT officer, was looking for any evidence of lending activities, including a blue ledger described in a letter to Commissioner of Consumer Protection Anne Driscoll this month. Mr Reksmiss and his colleagues flew into the goldfields city of Kalgoorlie on Wednesday and began the three-hour drive to Laverton at dawn yesterday.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
28/1/10
Are there not plenty of home-grown breeding grounds for mental illness towards which Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry could direct his energies (”Gillard champions detention”, 27/1)? At the risk of sounding trite, charity begins at home, and the breeding grounds right here in Australia where indigenous children, in their deprived environments, are offered little hope for a future would be a good place for McGorry to start. Berndette McMorrow, Coorparoo, Qld
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Migrants & Refugees
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Paige Taylor; 26/1/10
Broke Aborigines in the West Australian goldfields town of Laverton have turned to the state emergency welfare agency for help instead of borrowing from outback money lender Sam Tomarchio. And yesterday West Australian Premier Colin Barnett called on indigenous leaders and Aboriginal corporations to help lessen the appeal of Mr Tomarchio, describing his activities as un-Australian. “He is clearly preying on Aboriginal people, they are vulnerable and I think it is quite reprehensible what he is doing,” Mr Barnett said. The Barnett government’s Department of Commerce has begun an investigation of Mr Tomarchio – the second to be conducted by the Consumer Protection division since 2008 – but is yet to decide on a course of action.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Lindsay Murdoch; 26/1/10; (3 Items)
Djambawa Marawili says many awards have been passed to him through ancestral beings and his grandfathers. ”I have now passed them on through the tools of my art to the young people I mentor,” he says. But Marawili, one of Australia’s most important indigenous artists, says being awarded a Member of the Order of Australia is important for his Yolngu people of Arnhem Land because it will help bridge the divide between their culture and that of the balanda (white person). Marawili, 56, received the award for service to the arts as a sculptor and painter, to the preservation of indigenous culture, to arts administration and as a mentor of emerging artists. He is worried the stories he tells through his art are fading as Western influences encroach on Yolngu culture. ”That’s why I see it as important for me to mentor the young generation who are living on their ancestral lands, away from the grog, drugs and violence in the bigger communities,” he said. ”It’s important to stand firm in passing on the stories and also to stand up for Yolngu.”
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Australia Day, Racism
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Racism | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Lex Hall ; 25/1/10
A 34-year-old Aboriginal prisoner who allegedly hanged himself with a bedsheet was an at-risk prisoner and had complained about being bashed while in Darwin jail, a legal aid lawyer says. The man was found by staff at Darwin’s Berrimah jail at about 7.30am on Saturday and was rushed to Royal Darwin Hospital where he died a short time later. It is understood he had used a bedsheet to hang himself. Glen Dooley, head of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, said the man had been in jail since Christmas after being convicted of robbery. Mr Dooley said he understood the man was an at-risk prisoner and had made complaints about being beaten by prison officers. “If he was an at-risk prisoner, why was he not being cared for better and receiving psychological or medical support?” Mr Dooley said.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Death in Custody, Human Rights
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Natasha Robinson; 25/1/10
Three Aboriginal townships on the Tiwi Islands are lobbying to sign up to long-term leases as residents push for greater access to housing and commercial development opportunities. The Melville Island communities of Pirlangimpi and Milikapiti and the small Bathurst Island township of Wurankuwu have expressed support for 99-year leases, the Tiwi Land Council confirmed yesterday. The majority support of traditional owners at the three communities is now required to enable the townships to sign the long-term leases with the federal government. The move towards secure land tenure on the Tiwi Islands comes three years after a bitter political controversy erupted when the nearby town of Nguiu became the first Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory to sign up to a 99-year lease. The lease was supported by Howard government indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough but opposed by several NT government Labor ministers.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Environment, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Lex Hall; 25/1/10
The Rudd government has shied away from acting on a self-imposed January deadline for remote indigenous housing, despite only a handful of dwellings having been built. Nearly five months after Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin threatened a federal takeover of the troubled Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Project, she has defended the slow progress that has led to only six houses being completed. This small accomplishment pales in comparison with the 55 houses that officials promised would be finished by the end of last year. “I have been clear in my expectations that the states and the Northern Territory deliver on the agreed targets in the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing,” Ms Macklin said. “It is vital that the states and the Northern Territory move quickly to build and repair houses on the ground to overcome years of under-investment and neglect.”
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Housing
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Paige Taylor; 25/1/10
A lull in lending by one-man bank Sam Tomarchio has coincided with a 60 per cent drop in police callouts in the outback town of Laverton, from where he had been making loans to welfare-dependent Aborigines totalling up to $5000 a day. Police say alcohol-related violence and anti-social behaviour in the West Australian goldfields town has fallen dramatically since The Australian revealed on January 15 how Mr Tomarchio controlled the welfare payments of hundreds of Aborigines as far away as Alice Springs, lending them money at interest rates of 33 per cent and more. Mr Tomarchio keeps the bank cards and PINs of his clients so he can use the eftpos machine attached to his other business, Laverton Chalets, to withdraw the money owed plus interest on the days of Centrelink payments. Mr Tomarchio appeared to still be lending money on Friday, but locals said there were fewer people visiting his home office and police had succeeded in encouraging several of his clients to default on their debts to him by cancelling their cards.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Michael Bleby; 18/1/10
Michael Bleby is an Australian journalist working in Johannesburg for Business Day, South Africa’s main business daily.
On the surface, Australia and South Africa face different challenges to do with reconciliation. Australia is grappling with the entrenched problems plaguing an indigenous population that makes up just 2.5 per cent of the national total, or 500,000 people. In South Africa, the imbalance continues to affect the nine out of every 10 people who are not white – some 44 million. But the questions policy makers in the two countries grapple with are similar. As Aboriginal rights advocate Mick Dodson said during a visit to South Africa late last year, reconciliation requires social justice. ”It is the prospect of genuine employment, good health, of choices and opportunities free from discrimination,” the 2009 Australian of the Year told an audience in Pretoria. He made it clear that this was an issue of human rights – and acts such as the apology the then-new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave to victims of the ”Stolen Generation” last February, were not enough.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
John Warren Harbour; 23/1/10;
My progress at school was not through ability in the academic area, where I only managed a pass rate, but in sport, where I found my natural skills took me to the top of my year. I would spend hours by myself hitting a tennis ball against the brick chimney, sharpening my hand-eye co-ordination. This process worked in my favour to the degree I was appointed captain of my year in football and cricket.It was around this time in year seven or eight I began a friendship with an Aboriginal boy. We played games and would kick the footy to each other before school, at lunch, and after school until we were exhausted. I could not understand why some kids called him Abo or why they would not include him in their games. It made no sense to me, as he had truckloads of natural ability and could run rings around the others, myself included.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Racism
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Racism | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Pia Akerman; 23/1/09
Cherie Blair QC, wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair, will represent Aborigines seeking compensation from the British government for illnesses allegedly resulting from its atomic tests in Australia. Five claims have already been lodged in the British courts by Aborigines from Emu Field, in South Australia’s northern deserts, where two atomic tests were conducted in 1953. Neil Gillespie, chief executive of South Australia’s Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, said he had spoken to Mrs Blair several times to receive advice. “She has been recruited not because of her old man but because she’s one of the leading silks in the UK,” Mr Gillespie said. “We are so pleased, she is an incredible individual, sharp as a samurai sword.” In 2000, Mrs Blair represented Aborigines challenging the Northern Territory’s mandatory sentencing laws in the UN Human Rights Committee.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Nuclear, UK
Posted in Aboriginal, Arms, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Paige Taylor; 23/1/10
When West Australian consumer protection authorities announced in 2004 that they had hired two indigenous community education officers, Tammy Solonec and Wayne Bynder dutifully set about researching “the consumer needs of indigenous people” across the state. Bynder made a discovery on a trip to Laverton in April 2008 that led him to lodge a formal complaint with his bosses when he returned to Perth. He had gone to the goldfields to examine the practice of “booking up”, whereby Aborigines buy food and other items without paying for them and settle the bill when their Centrelink benefits are made.In Laverton, 719km north-east of Perth, he heard about a chalet owner, Sam Tomarchio, who controlled the Centrelink payments of hundreds of Aborigines from central Australia.
(more…)
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Trade
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
