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calls for a boycott of Australian wines

5 July 2000 Media Release - Michael Anderson, Convenor of Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Peoples challenges John Howard Prime Minister of Australia, over the alleged benefits of Federalism to Aboriginal Peoples and calls for a boycott of Australian wines.

In a statement of facts, he says:

1. "Aboriginal people in Australia hold the oldest continuing culture in the world but are amongst the most oppressed.
2. Australian Aboriginals die 20 years younger than non-Aboriginal Australians. Life expectancy for Barkandji people in Wilcannia, Western New South Wales) is 32 years. "The really exceptional feature of Aboriginal and Torres Straite Islander health is the enormously high adult mortality, particularly in the middle age, and I have been unable to find any other population in the world (for whom figures are available) that has rates as high" Professor Ian Ring, 1995.
3. Contrary to global trends, an Australian Government health report records Aboriginal health as being in massive decline. Aboriginal people suffer extremely high rates of
   -kidney disease, kidney failure, diabetes, trachoma
   -stress levels from trauma, grief and loss are equivalent to those suffered by concentration camp victims, people subjected to sustained torture, people subjected to genocide.
4. Six million non-Aboriginal Australians would die if their health level was the same as that of Aboriginal peoples. (National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation Report to the United Nations Committee on Social, Cultural and Economic Rights, 15 May 2000).
5. Aboriginal adults are 17 times more likely to be arrested than non-Aboriginals, (Dr Chris Cunneen, Institute of Criminology, 1999).
6. Aboriginal deaths in custody have increased since the 1990 Royal Commission, no matter has ever been referred to the Public Prosecutions Office for consideration of possible criminal charges.
7. The foster care rate for Aboriginal children in New South Wales is 19 times the national average. Aboriginal children are still being taken away. This is due to the discriminatory application of the New South Wales Parenting Responsibility Act (1998) which gives power to the police and the Department of Community Services workers to detain and remove children as young as 8 who are found on the street after sunset.
8. The Australian Government's refusal to acknowledge the atrocities of their past policies and practices continually perpetuates the trauma, grief and loss that Aboriginal people experience.
9. The current Native Title Act as amended in 1998 creates false hope and expectations for Aboriginal people, thereby continuing the mental torture and cruelty. The Act extinguishes hereditary rights to for more than 90% of the Aboriginal population.
10. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in March and August 1999 and March 2000, condemned the Australian Government's extinguishments of Aboriginal Native Title Rights to land and recommended that implementation of the 1998 Native Title Amendment Act be suspended.
    CERD asked the Australian delegation to introduce Federal legislation to outlaw and criminalize racial vilification. The Feeder Minister for Immigration and Reconciliation, Mr Philip Ruddock, responded by arguing that article 4(a) of the CERD was a human right through the exercise of freedom of speech.
11. The Australian Government refuses to sign the European Union Trade Treaty to avoid human rights scrutiny, which results in a massive trades deficit for Australia.
12. Australia does not have a law against genocide and continues crimes against humanity. (Refer to Full Bench decision of the Federal Court of Australia A5 1999. see www.fedcourt.gov.au).

Source: Soveriegn Union of Aboriginal Peoples

related links:

• Celebrating genocide?
• Old Bill digs up Little Weed besides Big Ben

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