news index: 2003-2 |
| Study tracks the grim path from juvenile detention to adult jail 2 December 2003 - Young people caught up in the state's juvenile justice detention system have had their lives marked by neglect, abuse, mental illness, drug abuse and poor education, researchers have found. |
| Logic on the Australian fontier 2 December 2003 - The latest winner in our Lateline History Challenge is a remarkable story: it concerns an Aborigine named Logic who won the hearts of many in South Australia even though he killed a white man and escaped from jail. It is a frontier story with a difference and watch out for the bitter twist at the end. |
| Eddie Mabo proclaims great southern rainbow republic 14 November 2003 - MELVILLE ISLAND, ANTIPODEAN STANDARD DREAMTIME: The eternal spirit of Eddie Mabo officially proclaimed the the Great Southern Rainbow Republic of Antipodea late today, in a small ceremony on the island formerly known by British Colonial Office bureaucrats as ‘Melville’. The ceremony was attended by over a dozen spirit generations of ‘Australians’ of all nationalities, races and creeds, along with countless numbers of the island’s original inhabitants, stretching back beyond all recorded White Man’s time. |
| Aborigines join Gorleben nuclear protest 7 November 2003 - Two Aborigine women whose people were contaminated by radiation from an atomic bomb detonated in southern Australia in 1953 will join a German anti-nuclear protest next week, organisers said. |
| Tales from the working life of Des Donley 5 November 2003 - The following summarises the hard and eventful early years and working life of Melrose Desmond (Des) Donley who is now retired and lives at Summerland Point in NSW. Des has kindly made his written recollections available to the Guardian and has been interviewed by on several occasions. |
| Aboriginal remains to be returned from Swedish museums 22 October 2003 - Aboriginal remains and thousands of sacred objects held in Swedish museums could be returned to Australia as early as next year. The Swedish government has offered to return the remains and objects, including 13 sets of human remains held in the Swedish Ethnography Museum. |
| Iratiwanti Campaign gains support (throughout the world) 22 October 2003 - The anti-nuclear waste dump campaign, launched by a group of senior women from Cooper Pedy in South Australia, is gaining support throughtout the world. |
| Indigenous Soccer Players Come From All Over Australia 20 October 2003 - Thirty-five highly skilled Indigenous male and female soccer players have been selected for the Historic Indigenous Youth Soccer Tour to Europe and the U.K. |
| Page's great leap into Euroculture 15 October 2003 - The Adelaide Festival's new artistic director has resisted the temptation to put his Aboriginal heritage at centre stage, writes Penelope Debelle. "See, it's not an indigenous program, is it?" says the 2004 Adelaide Festival's artistic director, Stephen Page, at the unveiling of his mainly white and European festival program. |
| Indigenous good governance begins with communities and institutions 13 October 2003 - Communities that make a conscious decision to go back to the beginning and explore where their institutions are out of sync with their cultures - not only traditional culture but the day-to-day culture of how the community actually operates - are the ones that prosper over the long term. |
| We must all act to build on the legacy of Senator Neville Bonner 7 October 2003 - Monday, 8 September marked the 22nd anniversary of the maiden speech of the first Indigenous Australian to take a seat in Federal Parliament. The late Senator Neville Bonner of the Jagera people of south-east Queensland was a distinguished Liberal senator from that state and it is fitting at this time to acknowledge his contributions to the parliament. The similarities between the issues he raised in 1971 and the issues which concern us in 2003 are striking. |
| Giving oxygen to tribal tales 30 September 2003 - Away from the chattering foyer crowd, David Gulpilil laughs and leaps across an empty stage at Belvoir Street Theatre. The actor and Aboriginal elder is gleefully explaining his one-man show, a new collaboration called Gulpilil, written by him and playwright Reg Cribb and directed by Company B artistic director Neil Armfield. It will have its world premiere at next year's Adelaide Festival. |
| Yorta Yorta to take title case to UN 13 September 2003 - The Yorta Yorta people of Victoria and NSW are preparing to lodge a complaint with the United Nations, claiming that the High Court's rejection of their native title bid denied them their inherent cultural rights. |
Greer dreams of Aboriginal republic |
| Greer's civilising force is heading for utopia 9 September 2003 - "The whitefellas", according to Germaine Greer, need to sit down, connect with the country a little, go bush and spend time in it. Then keep on reconsidering its future. |
| Artful Dutch seek to sweet-talk furious Aborigines 7 September 2003 - The Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission has slammed a Dutch confectionery company for depicting indigenous designs on its products without permission. The company, Australian Homemade, which produces ice-cream and chocolates, says its products are "inspired by the Australian indigenous communities". But ATSIC's culture, rights and justice committee commissioner Rodney Dillon has described their use of indigenous-inspired artwork as an "outrageous exploitation of our culture and beliefs". |
| Interview: Germaine Greer 7 September 2003 - Australia's most famous feminist and activist for a myriad of causes, Germaine Greer has taken up the cudgels for Aboriginal Australians in an essay to be published tomorrow. It's called Whitefella Jump Up: the Shortest Way to Nationhood, and makes the controversial suggestion that we become an Aboriginal republic, perhaps known as the Aboriginal Republic of Australia, so that we will all become Aborigines. And living up to her outrageous reputation in this exclusive interview, Germaine Greer also talks to Jana Wendt about her love of good-looking young boys ... |
| Greer's latest: it's time to reclaim our Aboriginality 6 September 2003 - Germaine Greer has a new mission: to get white Australians to embrace their inner Aboriginal. Go ahead, call her barmy, she's ready for it. |
| Queensland government rejects 1 in 4 stolen wages claims 3 September 2003 - One in four Aborigines who applied for compensation under Queensland's "stolen wages" scheme has been knocked back by the state Government. The high rejection rate for the $55 million reparations scheme has concerned Aboriginal lawyers, who want the rules relaxed. |
| Mining companies vow not to mine in world heritage areas 21 August 2003 - In an environmental coup, 15 of the world's biggest mining companies have vowed not to mine in world heritage areas .. such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. While the pledge has been welcomed by most conservationists, some are still sceptical. |
| Stolen Wages an industrial issue 13 August 2003 - On August 8, 300 protesters defied rain to hear Aboriginal leaders and union representatives launch the stolen wages postcard campaign. Chair of the rally, 4AAA Aboriginal community radio manager Tiger Bayles set the scene by stating, "Stolen wages in an industrial issue not a welfare issue". |
| NT okays Jabiluka clean-up 1 August 2003 - The Northern Territory government has given the go-ahead for a clean- up of the controversial Jabiluka uranium mine, ending a long row which pitted conservation groups and Aboriginal people against mining company ERA. |
| Aborigines appeal to Blair for return of remains 1 August 2003 - Australian Aborigines today took their plea for the return of ancestral remains held by British museums to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A delegation from the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA) was due to deliver a letter to 10 Downing St later today, thanking Blair for his past support and asking him for more help. |
| Aborigines to picket British museum 31 July 2003 - A group of Aborigines will picket Britain's prestigious Museum of Natural History in protest at its refusal to hand back the skulls, skins and organs of 450 of their ancestors. |
| Aboriginal art auction record 30 July 2003 - Foreign buyers have ensured that Sotheby's annual auction of Aboriginal art will be a record one. Before the second session began at the Museum of Contemporary Art last night, the sale had already attracted bids worth $6.08 million, against last year's total sales of $5.2 million. |
| Museum defends Aboriginal remains 30 July 2003 - A British museum director today denied having a "nasty attitude" towards Aborigines but refused to hand over the remains of about 450 indigenous Australians to tribal elders. |
| Aborigines call for Britons' support in battle for remains 30 July 2003 - Aboriginal leaders today stepped up their battle with London's Museum of Natural History, calling on Britons to back their fight for the return of Aboriginal remains. The museum is refusing to hand over its collection of remains to Australia for burial or safekeeping, saying it is not allowed to do so under British law. |
| English museum gives Aboriginal skulls back to tribal elders 29 July 2003 - Throughout Britain there are thousands of Aboriginal body parts still kept in institutions like museums or universities. Some museums have repatriated the human remains, but others – like the British Natural History Museum – have said they won't. It was an angry Aboriginal delegation that emerged from Britain's Natural History Museum today, after being told they must identify the provenance of any Aboriginal human remains that they want repatriated. |
| Aborigines threaten legal action over right to remains 29 July 2003 - An Aboriginal group seeking the return of Aboriginal human remains in British museums says it will sue the British Natural History Museum if it refuses to return indigenous body parts in its collection. |
| Whole new ball-game for Tiwis 23 July 2003 - Melville Island. They're not the faces on Yabba's Hill, nor the voices in the Great Southern Stand. They're not the hands applauding at the Gabba, nor the Mexican Wave participants at the Adelaide Oval. They're Tiwi Islanders - indigenous Australians residing on a small cluster of islands in the Timor Sea. And, as Test captain Steve Waugh learned yesterday, they're as much a part of Australian cricket's fan base as any ticket-holding city dweller. |
| A spirit that touches us all 17 July 2003 - Cathy Freeman said late on that night of nights, day of days, September 25, 2000, well after the race but while the Australian nation remained breathless with the excitement of it all: "I know I have made a lot of people happy, from a lot of different backgrounds, who call Australia home." She made a lot of people happy, all right. There cannot have been many happier days in Australian history, outside the ending of a world war. |
| Cathy's agonising decision: why I quit 16 July 2003 - Cathy Freeman, Australia's greatest athlete in recent history and arguably its greatest ever, has quit the sport. Saying simply - "my heart's not in it" - Freeman told Australian athletics head coach Keith Connor of her decision in London on Tuesday. "I've lost that want, that desire, that passion, that drive," Freeman said. "I don't care any more." |
| Cradle of culture but stories boring: museum review 16 July 2003 - The National Museum of Australia had a firm grip on our indigenous history and culture, but when it came to story-telling, particularly of post-European settlement, the new institution was often just plain boring. That was the conclusion of the long-awaited review of the museum carried out by Melbourne academic John Carroll and a team of three other experts from around the country. |
| Greater fairness needed in opening up Indigenous medical knowledge 15 July 2003 - In part, Aboriginal reluctance to share traditional knowledge is a reaction to the wider injustices they have been subject to and to their desire to retain cultural identity. Critics, however, say moves to lock up useful knowledge denies it to those who are suffering. |
| Mailman's message: it's still a secret life for us 12 July 2003 - Deborah Mailman is television's young face of Aboriginal Australia. A good thing? Not at all, says the actress, who laments the scarcity of black faces on screen. "It's appalling," said The Secret Life of Us star yesterday, as she was named Aborigine of the Year. "Still. In 2003. In commercial television it's ridiculous representation. It's still only Ernie Dingo and I. Two actors." |
| Black veto on buried Jabiluka 9 July 2003 - Rio Tinto has decided to bury its controversial Jabiluka uranium mine and also plans to sign an agreement to give the traditional owners an unprecedented right to veto any future development at the site. |
| PM approves stolen generations memorial 30 June 2003 - A memorial to the stolen generations has been agreed on by the Federal Government and National Sorry Day Committee after more than a year's delay. The memorial is the centrepiece of Reconciliation Place, a national landmark that was opened by Prime Minister John Howard last July |
| Beware of Australians bearing gifts 28 June 2003 - The Greeks sent us a model of a horse-drawn chariot, an ancient discus and, beamed over in virtual reality, a priceless statue of the god Zeus. We are sending them a surfboard adorned with dot art, the torch Cathy Freeman used to light the Olympic flame at Homebush and the sounds of Aboriginal language. |
| Darren Godwell - Give white patronising heave-ho 27 June 2003 - Indigenous affairs are killing my people. Women and children are copping the brunt of it. Kids are killing themselves because of sexual abuse and because they see little hope for a better future. Yet black men and women struggle to get real help to confront their demons. And the best John Howard's Government can offer is to hand out more welfare payments. |
| Emily Kngwarreye and Barbara Weir 20 June 2003 - The desert community of Utopia has become closely associated with some spectacular indigenous women artists. This former cattle station north-east of Alice Springs was placed squarely on the art map by the phenomenal success of the late Emily Kngwarreye, the traditional elder who in the 1980s became the first "superstar" of contemporary Aboriginal painting. |
| Be fair on wages - Ridgeway 18 June 2003 - The Australian Democrats have called on the NSW Government to reach a just solution - not a politically expedient - solution when considering its compensation package, for the stolen wages of NSW Aboriginal people. |
| Suspected arson attack on Tent Embassy 14 June 2003 - Police are investigating a suspected arson attack which destroyed an education building at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in the early hours of Saturday morning. The blaze, at the site outside Old Parliament House, followed another suspicious incident about a month ago. |
| Harry 'Set for Australia' 13 June 2003 - Prince Harry packed up his room at Eton on his last day of school on Thursday and is expected to head to Australia on the traditional English teenager's gap year. |
| The German connection ... taking the brolgas to Berlin 12 June 2003 - Ten Australian poets are soon to take part in an unusual festival, writes Susan Wyndham. It's hard to imagine what a German translator will make of the work of the indigenous poet Samuel Wagan Watson, with its lines about "the lark of the min-min lights" and "a front window necropolis of stonefish in vegemitejars". |
Professor Mick Dodson -11 June 2003 |
| Tribal Warrior returns triumphant 10 June 2003 - Five years ago Craig Timbery was cutting grass and painting houses on a work-for-the-dole scheme. Yesterday he sailed through Sydney heads as part of the first Aboriginal crew to circumnavigate Australia, exactly 200 years after Matthew Flinders also returned triumphant. |
| Former stockman 'saddles up' for lousy offer 2 June 2003 - In his 64th year with a heart condition, asthma and diabetes, former Gulf Country cattleman and ranger Fred Edwards has to 'saddle up the horse again' in 2003 if he hopes to keep his car on the road to enjoy during his retirement. He figured he had some money owing to him, in fact he's been waiting for this money for quite some time and living on its promise since he placed a claim for it in the late 1990s. But things just haven¹t quite turned out as he'd hoped. |
| Fabricating Aboriginal History (Transcript) May 25 2003 - Whatever happened to the Socratic dialogue, you may well ask, as you ponder the war of words between Australian academics over Aboriginal history. There are seemingly no questions, just assertions, as the two sides argue vociferously over how many Aborigines were massacred by white settlers before Federation. |
| Black rights: the taboo subject that Nova says has cost her dearly 22 May 2003 - She has won gold three times, captained Australia and was Young Australian of the Year. But when it comes to corporate recognition, Nova Peris is no success story. She believes it is because of her strong stand on indigenous rights. |
| Aboriginal culture to get greater protection 19 May 2003 - Aboriginal communities will be given extensive new rights over the artworks and stories of their members in legislation to be announced today by Communications Minister Richard Alston. |
| Stolen Wages National Situation Round-up May 2003 - Strong anecdotal evidence exists that wages and savings were controlled and are now missing. Stolen Wages Update ANTaR Qld Newsletter March 2003 - Our struggle is now being fought on several fronts as well as nationally. |
| Aboriginal art to invade Paris 15 May 2003 - Parisians are bracing for a cultural invasion, with Aboriginal art to cover the ceilings of a new museum in the French capital planned as the legacy of President Jacques Chirac. |
| Sad history of Aboriginal remains nears its conclusion 11 May 2003 - The return, and reinterment, in recent weeks, of hundreds of sets of skeletal remains of Aboriginal Australians collected, mainly in the 19th century, by doctors and scientists about the world brings us close to the end of a distasteful chapter of our Australian history. But it is only a symbolic closure, of which far too much can be made. |
| Across a bridge of lies 10 May 2003 - In a new book about the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair, Margaret Simons uncovers evidence that black women did not lie, but some white men behaved dishonourably. |
| Victors wrote the history in the first battle of our culture wars 9 May 2003 - The Hindmarsh Island bridge affair was the starting point for the new tide in Aboriginal affairs, particularly the pro-assimilationist approach that has characterised the Howard Government's policy agenda. It was the start of the still-raging "culture wars". I came to think of it as one of those big, even archetypal stories that tell us something about who we are, the way we connect to land, and how we exist in this continent. |
| Dead Aborigines returned home 9 May 2003 - As the remains of 300 Ngarrindjeri people were returned to their lands yesterday, a century after they were first taken, Aboriginal community leaders believed there were “thousands” more ancestors still to be handed back from museums around the world. |
| Unsustainable hunting practices in the spotlight 8 May 2003 - Leaders in the Torres Strait, in far north Queensland, have unveiled plans to tackle unsustainable hunting practices of protected species under native title legislation. |
| Aborigines look to discourage Uluru climbers 4 May 2003 - The traditional owners of Uluru in central Australia hope a proposal to move a car park at the base of the rock will discourage people from climbing the icon. |
| 'Stolen Wages, Stolen Lives' 29 April 2003 - Speech by Alfred Lacey, Deputy Chair Palm Island Council. When I was a young man on Palm Island in the early 1980s the phrase 'stolen wages', was used in my community by those who knew they had worked, knew they had been paid and wanted to know where it had gone ... My people want ... an honest settlement which acknowledges the value of their work and the pain of their deprivation. |
| Noel Pearson: Don't disempower blacks 28 April 2003 - Philip Ruddock's decision to remove the power to make decisions about grants and loans from the elected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission board and Liberal backbencher Christopher Pyne's more radical proposals show the determination of the Coalition to reform ATSIC. |
| Islander soldiers no longer our forgotten heroes 25 April 2003 - They were not citizens of Australia, nor did they have the right to vote. But in 1942, when enemy forces were on Australia's doorstep and the government looked to the Torres Strait for help, the islanders answered in their hundreds, leaving families and jobs to protect the country's vulnerable northern gateway. |
| The bastard who lived to tell his tale 23 April 2003 - The ghosts of his early years have haunted him, and it is only at close to 70 he feels able to exorcise them. He is about to do so in his play Little Black Bastard, which tells of his harrowing early life. "Emotionally, I couldn't have done it if I was any younger," says Tovey. "I'm quite happy with myself now." |
| Rio vowes to seek approval 19 April 2003 - Global mining group Rio Tinto plc has confirmed it won't proceed with the Jabiluka uranium mine without the consent of the region's traditional land owners. |
| World award for elders fighting nuclear dump 15 April 2003 - Two South Australian Aboriginal elders have won a prestigious international prize for their campaign against a proposed radioactive waste dump. Eileen Kampakuta Brown and Eileen Wani Wingfield will today be presented with the $US125,000 ($A207,097) 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize dubbed the Nobel Prize for the environment. |
| Bring Indigenous remains home: elders 10 April 2003 - The remains of an estimated 8000 Aboriginal people are scattered across Europe in boxes, drawers and plastic bags, and Indigenous Affairs Minister Philip Ruddock was urged yesterday to do more to bring them home to rest. |
| Government objects to tests on remains 10 April 2003 - Australia will formally protest to Britain over its museums' ongoing experimentation on the remains of indigenous Australians. |
| Australia will remain diminished until the reconciliation process has been finished 8 April 2003 - The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation delivered its final report in December 2000. It came at the end of a year made remarkable by its popular commitment to reconciliation between indigenous people and the wider Australian community. |
| Lost and stolen wages compensation offer a "sick joke": O'Gorman 8 April 2003 - The President of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties has labelled the Queensland Government's offer to Indigenous people for lost and stolen wages a "sick joke" compared to compensation payouts to Jews who were persecuted during the Second World War. |
| From the outside looking in 5 April 2003 - As with her key dreaming subject, the mountain devil lizard - a tiny reptile that changes its skin colours in the shifting desert environment - Gloria Petyarre reinvents herself like a chameleon. |
| Melbourne’s first Aboriginal court opens 30 March 2003 - Melbourne’s inaugural Aboriginal court sits for the first time this week at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court as part of the Victorian Government’s statewide initiative to reduce the number of Aborigines filing through the criminal justice system. Staffed by a magistrate and an Aboriginal elder, the court aims to provide an informal environment for Aboriginal offenders. |
| We can cut black death rate: expert 26 March 2003 - The death rate among indigenous Australians could be cut by as much as 30 per cent in 10 years with an adequate level of investment in health services, ANU Professor Ian Ring said yesterday. |
| Aboriginal Candidate makes NSW history 23 March 2003 - The first Aboriginal Australian to be voted into the 147-year-old NSW Parliament was elected last night |
| World Heritage Committee Rejects Australian Push To Water Down Heritage Protections 23 March 2003 - "I welcome the rejection by the World Heritage Committee of a push by the Australian Government to diminish the protection of World Heritage listed sites. |
| Aboriginal treatment is racism: Professor Stanley 22 March 2003 - The appalling health and living conditions endured by many indigenous Australians was a denial of their human rights, says Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley |
| Running costs dispute stalls Maralinga return 22 March 2003 - Three years after the Federal Government spent $108 million cleaning up the contaminated British atomic test site at Maralinga in South Australia, negotiations to hand the land back to its traditional owners have stalled. |
| Native title in chaos: report 21 March 2003 - Reconciliation and native title have dropped off the national agenda and been replaced with an antagonistic and adversarial approach to indigenous policy, according to the national watchdog for social justice. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner William Jonas, who tabled his annual reports on native title and social justice in Canberra yesterday, called on the Federal Government to lift its game. |
| Alarm over jailing of indigenous women 21 March 2003 - The imprisonment rate of indigenous women is unacceptably high and rising, with a greater proportion in NSW being jailed for minor offences, says the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commissioner, William Jonas. In NSW, indigenous women represent 30 per cent of women in prison, 15 times the population rate, Dr Jonas says in his annual report. |
| There are plenty of medical problems, but only one real crisis 20 March 2003 - Fixing the disgraceful state of indigenous health conditions would benefit us all in the long-term, writes Professor Jim Hyde. |
| Secrets of the Stones 13 March 2003 - Far from being wandering hunter-gatherers, some Aborigines lived in villages, traded and farmed. Graham Phillips reports on remarkable archaeological findings that have unearthed a society more sophisticated than anyone imagined. |
| Boxer fights from grave for prize purses 12 March 2003 - Relatives of an Aboriginal boxer of the 1940s and ‘50s are suing the State Government for $18 million in “stolen wages”. They claim Elley Bennett, who won 40 fights by knockout, earned a fortune as a boxer but died a pauper after his money was apparently dissipated by a government agency supposedly protecting him. |
| Project aims to save Indigenous stories 11 March 2003 - A project has been launched in the Kimberley, in north-west Western Australia, to ensure Aboriginal stories are preserved for the future. |
| Veto plan for World Heritage sites fuels fears of development 10 March 2003 - Large scale development could proceed unchecked in Australia's World Heritage sites, including the Kakadu National Park and the Blue Mountains, under changes to guidelines proposed by the Federal Government. |
| Black Lives Government Lies 13 February 2003 -The launch of the second edition of 'Black lives, government lies' by Dr Rosalind Kidd. |
| Investigators to report on national stolen wages case 22 January 2003 - A national team of investigators have commenced work on a report into the lost and stolen wages and savings issue. But the probe will go much further than the Queensland border, with the team setting its sights on determining whether Governments controlled and then lost or stole Indigenous money in all states and territories. |
| Indigenous works on show 14 January 2003 - A collection of indigenous pieces from Museum Victoria will feature in a cultural exhibition during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. |
| Rendering the past less unpalatable 13 January 2003 - Keith Windschuttle's The Fabrication of Aboriginal History has caused a greater sensation than any work on the Australian past since Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore in 1986. It is not because he is the first to write on genocide. When Alison Palmer and Henry Reynolds published carefully argued books on the subject recently, they barely caused a ripple. |
| Look back in anger 4 January 2003 - Faced with a government review, the National Museum of Australia may be forced to reinterpret its controversial portrayal of the nation's colonial history, writes Joyce Morgan. The federal Arts Minister, Richard Alston, made a curious qualification when he referred to the National Museum of Australia last month. He told Parliament the establishment of the museum had been a good outcome, "certainly in terms of the structure of the building". |
| Why it's (almost) not worth lodging a native title claim 2 January 2003 - Native title has been called many names, but High Court Justice Ian Callinan has found the perfect metaphor for it: the badly treated, culturally misunderstood, 'foster child'. |
| Bridging whitefella law and clan justice 30 December 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - Australians wonder if traditional Aboriginal customs can be allied to European notions of human rights and due process. |
| Fears for health of Aborigine children 26 December 2002 - BBC (UK) - Doctors in Australia's rugged Northern Territory say the number of malnourished Aboriginal children is rising sharply. Figures released by the Royal Darwin Hospital show a 25% increase in those diagnosed with malnutrition and diarrhoea in the past three years. |
| Rewriting history over the death of a people 26 December 2002 - Sunday Herald (Scotland) - Claims that Aborigines in Tasmania were wiped out by disease and prostitution, not white settlers, have ignited a fierce debate in Australia, reports Nick Squires from Sydney. |
| Aborigines re-elect controversial leader 19 December 2002 - BBC (UK) - Controversial Aboriginal leader Geoff Clark has narrowly been re-elected chairman of Australia's most powerful indigenous body. |
| Danish Photos to British archive 19 December 2002 - Copenhagen Post (Denmark) - A remarkable bequest was made in London yesterday as veteran Danish travel writer and photographer Jens Bjerre donated nearly 1000 of his prized photographs to the archive of the Royal Geographical Society. |
| Chirac plan to visit Australia 18 December 2002 - Jacques Chirac is expected to become the first French president to visit Australia next year - possibly on a mission to gather Aboriginal art. |
| Aboriginal protest of Nazis marked 15 December 2002 - Cleveland Jewish News (USA) - An Australian Holocaust museum is dedicating a plaque to commemorate a protest staged by Aborigines against the mistreatment of Jews in prewar Nazi Germany. |
| New films shine spotlight on the humanity of Aborigines 15 December 2002 - Miami Herald - Most know them only from tourist ads, in which they appear almost as totems, evoking Outback exotica. A smaller number know some of their art, the colorful dot paintings of a strange, sunburned landscape. Yet there are few images that convey the humanity of Australia's struggling Aboriginal population, who - numbering just under 400,000 out of the country's 19.7 million people - can seem invisible even at home. |
| Australia Revisits a 'Black and White' Murder Case 14 December 2002 - New York Times (USA) - A celebrated murder case involving race and sexual assault, in which the young Rupert Murdoch and his feisty editor saved a semiliterate Aboriginal man from execution, has sprung back to life here. |
| Land case dashes Aboriginal hopes 13 December 2002 - The Guardian - Australia's longest-running Aboriginal land rights claim collapsed yesterday when the high court delivered a judgment regarded as the death-knell of the native title system. |
| Aboriginal case founders 13 December 2002 - The Financial Times -Australia's longest-running Aboriginal land claim has been dismissed by the country's top court in a judgment expected to have far-reaching consequences for other native title disputes working their way through the legal system. |
| Aborigines lose land battle 12 December 2002 - BBC (UK) - Australia's High Court has rejected an appeal by an indigenous group for possession of a vast swathe of land, ending the country's longest-running Aboriginal land dispute. |
| Lost in the tide 12 December 2002 - Radio Netherlands (NL) - Australia's Aboriginal people have suffered a blow with the highest court in the country dismissing a long-running land claim in the fertile south-east of the continent. The Yorta Yorta claim, made in the hope of establishing native title over 2000 square kilometres of grazing land, was dismissed on the basis that the claimants had not maintained traditional links to the area. |
| Digital salvation for Aboriginal art 10 December 2002 - BBC (UK) - Australia's aborigines have turned to digital technology to preserve their unique rock art for future generations, as Sharon Mascall reports from Melbourne. |
| Rabbit-Proof Fence triumphs at last Down Under 9 December 2002 - Screen International - Rabbit-Proof Fence has at last been voted best film in its country of origin. |
| Museums unite against return of imperial 'loot' 8 December 2002 - The Sunday Times (UK) - Forty of the world's top museums have issued a landmark statement firmly opposing the repatriation of precious artefacts seized in colonial times. |
| Tearing down the fence 13 November 2002 - BBC (UK) - The Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence, which tells the true story of three Aboriginal girls forcibly taken away from their families, has opened in London. It is both a devastating comment on Australian colonial history, and a beautiful portrayal of a universal fable - the journey home. |
| Exploring the pain of the 'Stolen Generations' 10 November 2002 - Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) - Stolen tells the stories of five members of these "Stolen Generations." The work, which is to be performed in Tokyo next month, draws attention to the different forms the removal took and highlights the disastrous emotional impact on indigenous people's lives, particularly in adulthood. |
| The skeletons of colonialism may get a decent burial at last 10 November 2002 - The Independent (UK) - Body parts trundled back from all corners of the globe and displayed like mere ornaments are among the exhibits most popular with visitors to British collections. James Morrison reports on moves to give other cultures' ancestors a more dignified end. |
| A secret history in the Outback 7 November 2002 - London Times (UK) - Director Phillip Noyce used his hollywood clout to make a hit film about Aborigines - his film has reopened a fierce debate in Australia about the treatment of Aborigines |
| Phillip Noyce sails from dead calm to the centre of a political storm 3 November 2002 - The Scotsman - When Phillip Noyce received a phone call from screenwriter Christine Olsen at 3am one July morning in 1999, announcing she had the perfect script for him, it was the start of a journey that would force him to face up to the decisions he had made for the sake of his film career. |
| Australian judge rules against Aboriginal land claim 2 November 2002 - South China Morning Post - Aborigines yesterday lost their first attempt in court to regain control over part of the state of South Australia, as a judge ruled they had lost their spiritual connection to the land. |
| A right good didgeridoo 30 October 2002 - Rochdale Observer (UK) - Dust off your didgeridoos, get a Sheila on your arm, and take a walkabout to Spotland Stadium on Sunday for a fair dinkum rugby league match. The Aboriginal Development squad, which flew into England on Thursday, take on the pride of Lancashire. |
| The stolen ones 25 October 2002 - Guardian (UK) - A film dealing with the government's 'kidnapping' of part-Aboriginal children has caused fury in Australia. David Fickling reports from Sydney. |
| The Native Born: Contemporary Original Art From Ramingining, Australia: ART REVIEW 25 October 2002 - The New York Times - When the Australian government changed its currency from the Australian pound to the dollar in the 1960's, it used a design made from a bark painting by an Aboriginal artist, David Daymirringu, on the back of the new dollar note. But it neglected to ask the artist's permission, or even to notify him of its interest in his work. |
| John Howard: The dispiriting face of Middle Australia 19 October 2002 - Independent (UK) - Many people, particularly outside Australia, make the mistake of underestimating Howard. He has scant charisma and no commanding presence; his eyebrows are unruly, his voice an irritating whine. Visitors seduced by images of a diverse, progressive nation are startled to find it run by a grey man who belongs in the 1950s. |
| The lost tribe 14 October 2002 - Guardian (UK) - Only a handful of native Tasmanians escaped being slaughtered by the English in the 19th century. Now a bitter row has broken out between the many people - some black, some white - who claim to be their descendants. Acclaimed author Richard Flanagan asks what it really means to be an Aborigine. Tasmanian Aboriginal leader and lawyer Michael Mansell says Flanagan is "too distant for his account of the issues to be at all reliable". |
| Aborigines struggle to find a voice 7 October 2002 - Guardian (UK) - Australia's native languages have drifted towards extinction and it could take generations to revive them, writes David Fickling |
| Aborigines recover vast territory 27 September 2002 - BBC (UK) - In a remote desert ceremony, an Australian judge on Friday handed over rights to a huge swathe of land to the Martu Aboriginal tribe. |
| When these two sisters die, a whole language will die with them 27 September 2002 - The Scotsman - What follows is about wombats. How to catch and cook them, to be more precise. It contains probably every piece of information you will ever want to hear on the subject of hairy-nosed wombats. |
| Australian Aborigines Return Home 26 September 2002 - Pravda - Australian aborigines will be granted property rights to a large section of a desert, the area of which is about 130 thousand kilometers. This territory makes up almost two percent of Australia. It is the largest territory ever given back to the native population after 50 years of expulsion. |
| Racism and small-town bigotry 19 September 2002 - World Socialist Review - Australian Rules, directed by Paul Goldman and based on Phillip Gwynne’s semi-autobiographical novel Deadly, Unna? is a compassionate exposure of racism and small-town bigotry and its tragic consequences. |
| “A cause worth fighting for” 19 September 2002 - World Socialist Review - Lisa Flanagan, who plays Clarence in Australian Rules, and Phillip Gwynne, scriptwriter and author of Deadly, Unna?, on which the movie is based, spoke this week with the World Socialist Web Site. |
| Aborigines halt Rio Tinto project 15 September 2002 - Independent (UK) - Mining giant Rio Tinto has indicated it is about to abandon plans to develop a giant uranium mine in northern Australia in the teeth of opposition from the local Aboriginal people. |
| Starring Rupert Murdoch: the crusader returns 8 September 2002 - The Daily Telegraph (UK) - A new film about a notorious miscarriage of justice in the Australian Outback in the 1950s casts the media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the unlikely role of a crusader for the rights of the underdog. |
| Aboriginals sue Crown over loss of their land 3 September 2002 - Telegraph (UK) - Aboriginals have asked lawyers to challenge the Crown and Parliament over the way Australia's indigenous people were deprived of land more than 200 years ago. |
| Transcript: Interview with Sir Robert Wilson 27 August 2002 - BBC WORLD: HARDtalk with Tim Sebastian |
| The business of caring 27 August 2002 - BBC (UK) - The boss of one of the world's biggest mining companies has denied that big business is the enemy of the environment. Robert Wilson, chairman of the multi-national mining company, Rio Tinto, said that everyone must work together to protect the planet. |
| Film Festival star united with Scots family 20 August 2002 - The Scotsman - When Everlyn Sampi was told that she was going to travel to a different hemisphere to appear at a film festival, the teenage Australian actress could have been forgiven for feeling a little apprehensive. |
| Raising the sovereignty stakes 19 August 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - When a fire started last Tuesday morning in the heart of Canberra's Aboriginal tent embassy, Australia's federal territories minister, Wilson Tuckey, moved quickly. The National Capital Authority, which administers the city as part of Mr Tuckey's department of transport and regional services, asked local electricity company ActewAGL to cut off power to the site. |
| Aborigine rights damaged by mining verdict 9 August 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - The Australian high court dealt a severe blow to the Aboriginal land rights movement yesterday when it rejected claims by the Miriuwung-Gajerrong people to a 3,050sq mile area of land in the country's remote north-west. |
| Einblicke in die traditionelle Kultur der Aborigines 8 August 2002 - Stuttgarter Zeitung - Auch die moderne Kunst Zentralaustraliens zeugt noch von dieser engen Verbundenheit zum Land und seinen Überlieferungen. |
| Lecturing angels, ignoring villains 8 August 2002 -The National Post (Canada) - Mr. Howard has the right idea. The human rights abuses that require the UN's attention aren't in Australia or Canada, but are taking place in countries such as Zimbabwe. |
| Australian Aborigines: Their future welfare: On This Day in The Times, August 8, 1922 8 August 2002 - The Times (UK) - The most important step taken in recent years to save these wild tribes is the establishment of a sanctuary in the far-away country on the border of South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. |
| Friend of art world 3 August 2002 - Washington Times - After seeing works by aborigine artist Emily Kngwarreye (pronounced "ung-wahr-ay") in galleries all over Australia, he chartered a private plane to get to her home in the heart of the Australian Outback. (The artist lived in a tiny village called — no kidding — "Utopia.") |
| 18 års fengsel for babyvoldtekt 31 July 2002 - VG Nett - En 26 år gammel australsk mann er dømt til 18 års fengsel for å ha voldtatt en åtte måneder gammel baby. |
| Pride in Aboriginal Roots Grows in Australia 31 July 2002 - BBC News (UK) - Australia is experiencing a surge in black pride. Census figures show strong growth in the Aboriginal population, up 16 percent in the last 5 years. One reason for this is that thousands of Australians are now willing to identify themselves as part of the indigenous community. |
| Stimmen aus der Tiefe des Raumes 28 July 2002 - Neue Zürcher Zeitung AG - Warum Peter Bichsel im australischen Busch eher einen Jean-Paul-Leser gefunden hätte als in Berlin - und eine vitalere Literatur auch. Eine Reise durch den literarischen Outback. Von Pia Horlacher |
| Battle of 'last Tasmanians' 25 July 2002 - Telegraph (UK) - An explosive dispute over who is entitled to call himself an Aborigine has engulfed Tasmania, where the native people were all but annihilated by British settlers in the 19th century. |
| Clifford Possum, leading Aboriginal artist in Australia 1 July 2002 - The New York Times - Clifford Possum, who painted some of the masterpieces of Australian Aboriginal art, died June 21 in Alice Springs in the Australian desert, an ancient landscape he depicted in the mythical terms central to his heritage. He was about 70. |
| De transformatie van Australian van Belgisch salon in een trendy vormgegeven multinational 25 June 2002 - NRC Handelsblad - De van oorsprong Belgische ijs- en bonbonwinkel Australian heeft Nederland stormenderhand veroverd en richt zich nu op de rest van Europa. De verandering en schaalvergroting is niet zonder slag of stoot gegaan. De hippe vormgeving is een essentieel onderdeel van het imago, en daarmee van de aantrekkingskracht. |
| Aboriginal schilder sterft anoniem 25 June 2002 - NRC Handelsblad - Een Aboriginal die tijdens zijn leven beroemd was door de schilderingen van zijn thuisland, is anoniem gestorven, omdat zijn geloof verbiedt dat zijn naam bekend wordt gemaakt. |
| Ancient didgeridoo adopted by the digital generation 23 June 2002 - The Japan Times - For aborigines, the music of the didgeridoo is less an art in itself than a conduit to Dreamtime, the ongoing creation story that is the center of Aboriginal ritual and myth. For Goma, the challenge was fitting the ritualistic, transcendent possibilities of the instrument to his own particular background. |
| The fortunes of Aboriginal art outside Australia: ethnographica or art? 23 June 2002 - The Art Newspaper - SYDNEY. When Australians with even the most glancing interest in art meet overseas visitors, Aboriginal art is invariably a pressing topic. Tourists routinely buy Aboriginal work from all sorts of vendors, ranging from airport shops to Aboriginal-owned cooperatives. But many Australians are deluded about the health of the international market for Aboriginal art, according to some experts. Wally Caruana, senior curator of Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Australia, says “the acceptance of contemporary visual indigenous art practice is far from common in European art institutions.” |
| Australia marches backwards on its Aborigine rights 4 June 2002 - Independent (UK) - Reconciliation is off the agenda, the optimism has evaporated and race relations are as polarised as ever. Thanks to John Howard, Keating's successor, the Mabo legacy has been a tale of lost opportunities and crushed aspirations. |
| Museum returns sacred samples: Remains of last Tasmanian Aborigine to be put to rest 31 May 2002 - Guardian (UK) - She was the tragic sole survivor of the "Black War", the last full-blooded Aborigine in Tasmania after British settlers systematically rounded up the island's indigenous population. When she died, to the despair of her mixed race relatives, Truganini's body was exhumed and plundered by scientists and souvenir hunters. |
| Advertising Oz 28 May 2002 - spiked! (UK) - Peter Slipper, an Australian member of parliament ... claims the Miramax angle is 'sensationalising, misleading, and grossly distorting' - but his indignation seems a bit hypocritical. |
| Aboriginal health 'scandalous' 24 May 2002 - BBC - A new report by the main doctors' group in Australia says the country has failed to improve the health of its 400,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. |
| The Cherry Pickers 16 May 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - The history of Aboriginal playwriting begins here, with a compendious piece chronicling the theft of the indigenous Australians' country. |
| The Aussies are coming 1 May 2002 - The Observer (UK) - British audiences rarely get to see drama from Down Under, but now Madonna, star of Up for Grabs, is set to change all of that. Daniel Rosenthal meets its creator, the playwright |
| My undercover attempt to court the Duke 29 April 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - There was an embarrassing leak last week; word got out that the Queen had asked me down to Windsor for a tête-à-tête. The person responsible has been disciplined. |
| Genocide, Ethnocide, Or Hyperbole? Australia's "Stolen Generation" and Canada's "Hidden Holocaust" 25 April, 2002 - Cultural Survival - A decade awash in genocide and deadly conflict has passed since Jason Clay lamented that "it is impossible for concerned activists and scholars to agree on which cases constitute genocides, much less how interested people would go about documenting them." (Clay, 1988) While this statement holds true today, a vast array of relevant scholarship on genocide has nonetheless arisen, informed by events in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor, and far too many other "exotic and deadly" locales. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNGC), once thought to be a languishing example of empty political rhetoric, has found purchase in fresh criminal trials. The learning curve when it comes to genocide, however, is conspicuously uneven. The challenge lies not in cultivating and maintaining an awareness of the phenomenon -- a task the mass media has demonstrated itself more than capable of handling -- but in recognizing its universal implications. |
| Aborigines hope for TV Stardom 11 April 2002 - BBC Online - Coming to a screen near you... maybe.. A new push is underway to get more black faces in Australian films and on television. The under-representation of indigenous actors on the silver and small screens is blamed by some on racism and by others on a simple lack of opportunity. |
| Thought-Proof Fence 2 April 2002 - spiked! (UK) - Problem: The film sucks. It uses a hackneyed, conventional narrative, a contrived approach to character, some very bad dialogue, and some acting that is worse. |
| G'bye to G'day 25 March 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - A Blighty-bound Patrick Barkham reflects on the good - and the not so good - aspects of life in Australia. When I tell Australians I am returning to Britain, most react as if I am going to the funeral of a mass murderer. |
| Last post for the rabbit fence king 17 March 2002 - The Scotsman - The last Australian bushman still patrolling the country’s famous rabbit proof fence on horseback is about to hang up his spurs. After 21 years riding the fence in Queensland, Keith Reid and his trusty bay horse Matey have decided to retire. |
| Forgotten Aborigine team who changed cricket forever 8 March 2002 - Guardian (UK) - They were cricket's forgotten heroes - a team of Aborigines who came to England in 1868 viewed as little more than a joke, and ended up changing the face of cricket forever. Now a previously unseen archive of photographs, scorebooks and other memorabilia chronicling the first - and last - tour by native Australians has surfaced after languishing in an attic for more than 80 years. |
| Fenced out 6 March 2002 - The Guardian (UK) - The received wisdom in Australia is that no one really wants to watch films about Aborigines. That has changed in the last month with the blaze of publicity surrounding the release of Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence, starring Kenneth Branagh. |
| Still throwing spears at each other, asks Philip 2 March 2002 - Daily Express (UK) - Blundering Prince Philip sparked outrage with his latest gaffe yesterday when he asked an Aboriginal leader: "Do you still throw spears at each other?" The disaster-prone Duke's question during the royal tour of Australia could not have been worse judged and was last night branded "ignorant". |
| Tracey Moffatt 28 February 2002 - Sammlung Essl (Austria) - Tracey Moffat wird 1960 als Halbaborigine in Brisbane geboren und aufgrund der Assimilationspolitik Australiens ihren Eltern entrissen. Noch als Baby wird sie von einer weissen Arbeiterfamilie adoptiert und wächst mit der Bilderwelt des Fernsehens in einer Arbeitersiedlung auf. 1982 schliesst sie ihre Ausbildung am Queensland College of Art (Brisbane) in Visueller Kommunikation ab und avanciert bald als Fotokünstlerin und Filmemacherin zur derzeit bekanntesten Repräsentantin der Avantgarde Australiens. |
| Seeking the first black face on Ramsay St 13 February 2002 - Teams of youth workers are about to begin scouring the streets of Sydney at the start of a project that could culminate in an Aboriginal family moving into Ramsay Street on television's Neighbours. |
| Film forces Australia to face up to its cruel past 10 February 2002 - The Observer (UK) - A story of Aboriginal girls penned in camps and sent into domestic service echoes present injustices. A new film about the plight of Aborigines is making Australia face its demons. |
| Aborigines claim kangaroo copyright 29 January 2002 - BBC (UK) - In Australia, a group of Aborigines has lodged a high court writ, seeking to stop the government from using the kangaroo and the emu on the national coat of arms. |
| Australia: Apartheid? 29 January 2002 - ZNet - Indigenous Australians were never included. Their extraordinary civilisation, their survivalism and oneness with an ancient land, was not taught, until recently, as a source of national pride; and their inclusion, still to be achieved, may well be the key to what the small liberal elite constantly refers to as "the search for identity" and which means overcoming a legacy of brutal racism. |
| Grand tours: Lawrence's novel view of Down Under 26 January 2002 - Independent (UK) - Eighty years ago, DH Lawrence arrived in Sydney, where Australia Day is celebrated today. The alien land was first to annoy him, then inspire him and, finally, to help him come to terms with his life. Deirdre Coleman finds out what fired his imagination. |
| White and Off-White - Aborigines and Travellers: A shared legacy of discrimination 17 January 2002 - An Phoblacht/Republican News - On Christmas Eve I was at an outdoor cafe in Freemantle, sipping coffee and smoking a fag. It was a savagely hot day. A group of evidently disadvantaged locals were sitting under a tree at the far side of the road. These are the Njunga people, whom whites generically call Aboriginals. |
| Aborigines ask for a Royal apology 7 January 2002 - London Times (UK) - Indigenous leaders in Queensland have asked the Queen to apologise for the way Aborigines were used as human ornaments during a royal visit to Australia in l901. |
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