news index: 2005-4 |
| The
Long Walk in London 2005 16 November 2005 - ENIAR (UK) - This year's event follows on from indigenous AFL legend Michael Long's walk in 2004. This year there are events happening all across Australia, with the main one taking place in Melbourne. |
| Make
Indigenous Poverty History by 2015 9 November 2005 - "Make Indigenous Poverty History" by 2015" challenged Graeme Mundine, Executive Secretary of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission, speaking about NATSIEC's new campaign aimed at the reduction of poverty experienced by Australia's Indigenous Peoples. |
| Mansell
Sees Anti Terror Laws Being Used to Quell Aboriginal Protests 8 November 2005 - Aboriginal lawyer and activist Michael Mansell believes Aboriginal protestors will be targeted by the new anti terror laws as a new way to discredit Aboriginal leaders. |
| Australia's
racial conflict exposed to wider audience 27 October 2005 - The Times (UK) - A VIOLENT “bushranger western” has broken new ground with its depiction of the ethnic conflicts that underpinned the creation of modern Australia. |
| Launch
of national campaign to help stop petrol sniffing 20 October 2005 - Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) and The Australian Greens today launched a national campaign to help stop petrol sniffing in remote Aboriginal communities. |
| Palm
Island Housing Crisis 7 October 2005 - Shocking poverty and overcrowding in a part of Queensland many of us would rather forget. In tropical north Queensland is a community with no industry, no agriculture, and an unemployment rate of at least 90 per cent. To make matters worse, this a poor and rarely visited town suffers an acute housing shortage. |
| DCMS
publishes guidelines on care of human remains 6 October 2005 - (Museums Association UK) - Guidelines are now available for museums in England and Wales that hold human remains. The publication of the guidelines also heralds a change in law allowing national museums to deaccession human remains… |
| Negligence,
malpractice and stolen wages 28 September 2005 - From 1900 until as late as the 1980s, governments around Australia controlled wages, savings and benefits belonging to Aboriginal people who were under their care and protection. |
| Inside
Australia's third world 15 September 2005 -Children begging for food, chronic health problems, overcrowded houses - this is not some basket-case nation but the reality of Aboriginal communities in northern Australia. As world leaders gather in New York to discuss poverty, Lindsay Murdoch looks at the distress in our own backyard. |
| View
on the Seine is Aboriginal 8 September 2005 -It seems to be an era of reverse imperialism on the banks of the River Seine. At the bustling construction site of the Musee du Quai Branly, Jacques Chirac's expansive dream of a museum in the heart of Paris dedicated to non-Western art from Oceania, Africa, Asia and the Americas, Australian Aborigines are conquering the Europeans. |
| Aborigines
dying faster than white Australians 26 August 2005 - Aborigines are dying at almost three times the rate of other Australians and have a life expectancy 17 years lower than the rest of the population, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said in a report on Friday. |
| Embassy
protestors to defy report findings 25 August 2005 - Protestors at the long-running Aboriginal Tent Embassy say they will ignore any directive to move on while there is still widespread Indigenous disadvantage. |
| Friar
rides for reconciliation 16 August 2005 - A 65-year-old Dominican friar has left on a 2,700 kilometre-long bicycle journey from Canberra to Alice Springs bearing a message of reconciliation to Aboriginal communities along the way. |
| Shameful
secret in the shadow of Uluru 13 August 2005 - The Daily Telegraph (UK) - It symbolises the harsh grandeur of the Outback and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, but the great red rock of Uluru hides a shameful secret that Australia's tourism promoters would rather the world did not see. |
| Out
of sight, out of their minds: sniffing's tragic toll 11 August 2005 - They speak with a stammer and walk with a shuffle. They are boys and girls as young as 11 but they are also adults, some of them in their 30s. And they are the outback's growing number of chronic petrol sniffers whose brains are damaged. |
| Aboriginal
culture next big tourist drawcard 6 August 2005 - When Manny Pamkal walks tourists into remote cattle country south of Arnhem Land he tells them how proud his people are of their ancient Aboriginal culture. |
| Ladder
of Obligation vs Clash of Culture 6 August 2005 - Noel Pearson and Lowitja O'Donoghue on indigenous affairs. |
| The
PM, football and reconciliation 2 August 2005 - JOHN Howard would not claim a close affinity with Aussie rules and he has never been too keen on symbols when it comes to reconciliation. But it was the Prime Minister who articulated the significance of the naming of the indigenous team of the century yesterday. |
| Bye
Bye, Sweet Bay 16 July 2005 - When French explorers met a group of 48 Aborigines at the southernmost tip of Australia in the early 1790s, the contrast with other early contacts could not have been more stark. |
| Lives
swamped by the riches of uranium 14 July 2005 - Yvonne Margarula doesn't care that she is blocking development of Jabiluka, one of the world's biggest known deposits of uranium worth an estimated $10.5 billion as world prices soar. |
| Aboriginal
voices break through on film 14 June 2005 - Jerusalem Post (Israel) - 'It's only in the last 20 years that we've started making movies about ourselves," says Erica Glynn, an Australian director of aboriginal descent who's visiting Israel this week to introduce her films at the Australian Film Festival, which is playing at cinematheques around the country. |
| Homeguard
in Australia's outback 11 June 2005 - BBC Radio 4 (UK) - Australia's armed forces are scattered far and wide, from Iraq to the South Pacific. But there is one regiment which specialises in protecting the vast wilderness regions found much closer to home, in the Northern Territory. |
| Aboriginal
boy locked up for taking ice-cream 8 June 2005 - The Independent (UK) - A 15-year-old Aboriginal boy was held in custody for 12 days and flown nearly 1,000 miles to face court for trying to steal an ice-cream. |
| Book
review: 'The N Word by Stephen Hagan' 8 June 2005 - The first thing that struck me on reading this book is that Stephen Hagan comes from a long line of troublemakers. And I mean that in the most complimentary way! |
| Australia's
shame: report to UN raises plight of children 6 June 2005 - A report on Australia's children that highlights the "shame" of indigenous children's welfare and the plight of children in immigration detention will be handed to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva this week. |
| A
new breed of centres for art for Aborigines 4 June 2005 - International Herald Tribune (France) - MELBOURNE To talk with Rammey Ramsay is to enter a 40,000-year-old world. It is a place of death, of nature's redemptive power and of communion with one of the world's oldest surviving cultures. But it is also a world of four-wheel drives and satellite television. |
| Australian
Christians focus on reconciliation between white and Aboriginal communities
2 June 2005 - Ekklesia (UK) - The Catholic Church in Australia is concluding a series of events for National Reconciliation Week, (May 29-June 3) focussing on healing relations between the white community and the Aborigines, reports the Fides news agency. |
| Howard
urges Aborigine patience 30 May 2005 - BBC (UK) - Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has warned the process of combating disadvantage within the country's Aboriginal community could take years. |
| Didgeridoo
echoes around Red Square 30 May 2005 - MOSCOW: It’s not quite Pitjantjatjara meets Putin, but it’s close. Muscovites have been astounded by the sights and sounds of an Aboriginal dance group performing to help publicise an Australian trade expo. |
| Island's
name is now truwana 29 May 2005 - CAPE Barren Island will be known by its Aboriginal name, says the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. |
| Moving
forward 28 May 2005 - More than 160 indigenous, political, and community leaders will gather in Canberra on Monday for the National Reconciliation Workshop. |
| Australia's
'Sorry Day' marked 26 May 2005 - BBC (UK) - Ceremonies across Australia have marked National Sorry Day, which remembers the government's removal of Aboriginal children from their families. |
| Stolen
forever: Tamara, 14, gives dead mother's speech 25 May 2005 - Tamara Jacobs speaking in place of her mother Christine at the National Healing Day launch in Canberra today. |
| No
longer your usual suspect 25 May 2005 - WHEN Gabriel Byrne packed his bags in February to begin filming Ray Lawrence's new feature film, Jindabyne, his daughter asked him morosely why he had to go to Australia. |
| Call
for govts to stop 'Indigenous genocide' 23 May 2005 - A Darwin church leader says governments must take radical action to halt what he calls a slow genocide of Indigenous people. |
| Aboriginal
party looks to land rights 22 May 2005 - An Aboriginal elder will launch the state's only indigenous political party within weeks, drawing grassroots support from 120 land councils across NSW. |
| Australian
Medical Association Indigenous Health Report Card focuses on low birth weight
babies 22 May 2005 - Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, Dr Bill Glasson, has launched Lifting the Weight, the AMA's fourth report card on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. |
| Poor
Aboriginal health traced back to birth 20 May 2005 - Rueters (UK) - Chronic health problems suffered by Australia's Aborigines can be traced to birth, a new report found on Friday, saying indigenous babies were twice as likely as others to be born underweight. |
| Sorry
in London 20 May 2005 - TNT (UK) - Australian day of reconciliation spreads north. When the first Sorry Day was held in Australia in 1998, thousands of people took to the streets in an act of protest, in solidarity with the stolen generations and in the spirit of reconciliation. |
| A
didgeridoo for Lincoln's Inn Fields 20 May 2005 - An annual day when Australians remember the 'stolen generations' of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families will be commemorated in London for the first time next week. |
| Aboriginal
outcry over noose case 18 May 2005 - The Journal of Turkish Weekly (Turkey) - Australian indigenous leaders have reacted angrily after two white men found guilty of assaulting an Aboriginal boy were fined A$800 ($605). |
| A
decleration by Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Stolen
Generations 18 May 2005 - We, Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stolen Generations, our families and communities, still experience grief and trauma as a result of Government policies and practices. We remember those who have passed on without receiving justice. |
| Aborigines
miss out on heart surgery 16 May 2005 - Aborigines are much less likely than other Australians to undergo artery surgery after a heart attack, despite being at higher risk of dying early from heart disease, a study has found. |
|
Federal budget ignores Indigenous
suffering |
| No
Black Faces on the Block? 12 May 2005 - Signature (UK) - The Carr Government’s plans for the rundown suburb of Redfern are yet to be realised, but anyone taking a white brush to the black heart of Sydney is surely in for a fight. |
| Yorta
Yorta remains on the way home 12 May 2005 - The ancestral remains of four Aboriginal people held by a Sydney University museum for 50 years are headed back to their traditional lands. |
| Indigenous
Australians miss out 11 May 2005 - Once in a generation opportunity missed for Indigenous health The Federal Government's budget has failed to take advantage of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the Third World health standards of Indigenous Australians, according to Australian aid agency Oxfam Australia. |
| Australia's
Shame - Eddie Gilbert 4 May 2005 - He was the cricketer who could have brought the English tourists to their knees during the Bodyline tests over the summer of 1932-33. |
| Yellow
Fella on a Journey to Cannes 1 May 2005 - An Australian documentary about Tom E Lewis’ search for identity will become the first Indigenous (documentary) film to be shown at Cannes Film Festival. |
| Catching
the secret new wave 30 April 2005 - The land rights movement gave Aborigines places to call their own. Samantha Selinger-Morris discovers a guide book that takes you to them. |
| Priest
taking Aboriginal Madonna to France 29 April 2005 - Catholic Mission National Director Fr Terry Bell is taking a copy of a painting of the Aboriginal Madonna to Lyon in France as part of celebrations to mark the restoration of the home of the founder of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith. |
| Blacks
join bay fight 24 April 2005 - TASMANIA'S Aboriginal community has joined the fight to protect the Recherche Bay historic site from logging. A French expedition, led by Bruny d'Entrecastreaux, had friendly meetings with Tasmanian Aborigines at Recherche Bay in 1792 and 1793. |
| Freeman's
Family 50 year old debt 23 April 2005 - THE family of Olympic hero Cathy Freeman has been forced to pay a 50-year-old debt of two pounds and five shillings for a pauper's grave left unpaid by the Queensland Protector of Aborigines before they were allowed to bury a relative yesterday. |
| Pope
John Paul II’s Indigenous legacy 17 April 2005 - Pope John Paul II visited Australia three times in his lifetime. The first, in the 70’s, as a Cardinal, during the Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne. In 1986 he visited all states and territories in his first visit as Pontiff and he came again in the 1990s to beautify Mary Mackillop, Australia’s first saint. |
| Turning
back the clock for Aborigines 11 April 2005 - In the early 1960s, as a young man, I saw bulldozers rip through our Gumatj country in north-east Arnhem Land to mine bauxite at Gove. |
| Still
waiting for the call to stardom that never came 10 April 2005 - Three years ago Dannielle Hall's wistful face captured hearts - and the world's attention - in the Australian road movie Beneath Clouds. |
| Commissioner
puts government on notice 8 April 2005 - Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has used his first Social Justice Report to put the federal Government on notice |
| Aborigines
fear land law changes 8 April 2005 - A push by the Prime Minister, John Howard, to radically overhaul Aboriginal land rights could run into constitutional difficulties and lead to massive compensation payouts, the Federal Government has been warned. |
| New
opportunity for native title to achieve sustainable goals 8 April 2005 - Native title needs to move beyond the current legal framework towards achieving the economic and social development goals of Indigenous peoples. |
| New
autopsy casts doubt over death 7 April 2005 - A grieving Aboriginal widow buried her husband for the second time in 20 years yesterday, after a new autopsy threw doubt on his cause of death. |
| Rugby tackles
Aboriginal violence 31 March 2005 - BBC (UK) - Aboriginal leaders in Australia say rugby is helping to battle the domestic violence blighting their community. Statistics show Aboriginal women are 45 times more likely to suffer domestic violence than white Australians. |
| Island
of Distress 29 March 2005 - MULRUNJIE (Cameron) Doomadgee, 36, bled to death in a police cell on Palm Island after an incident that left him with four broken ribs and a crushed liver. |
| Geneva vs Canberra
28 March 2005 - The UN has again attacked the Howard Government's record on race. But this time the politicians are shutting up and news of the verdict isn't getting out. |
| Kidney crisis
hits rural areas 28 March 2005 - AN outbreak of kidney disease in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands in South Australia is tearing people out of their communities and forcing them to live hundreds of kilometres away so they can be treated. |
| International
award winners to visit Redfern 26 March 2005 - International guest speakers at the Globalise Justice Asia-Pacific conference in Sydney this weekend will be visiting the Redfern Block at the invitation of the family of 17-year-old T J Hickey, whose controversial death during an alleged police pursuit sparked riots in Redfern on February 14, 2004. |
| Damning UN
verdict on race relations 22 March 2005 - The United Nations has raised serious concerns about race relations in Australia and has called on the Federal Government to work towards a "meaningful" reconciliation. |
| Riding
the freedom bus 21 March 2005 - Take a handful of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, put them together on a bus for two weeks discussing the affairs of the nation and what do you get? Well, besides 20-something sausage sizzles, sleep deprivation and a wave of cultural and sexual tension, you get a very different take on Howard’s notion of “Practical reconciliation” that’s for sure |
| United Nations
Committee issues observations on Australia 18 March 2005 - The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has issued its concluding observations on Australia. This follows consideration of Australia's 13th and 14th periodic reports in Geneva on 1 and 2 March 2005. |
| Sorry Day
26 May 2005 A National Day of Healing 18 March 2005 - The National Sorry Day Committee has decided that Sorry Day, 26 May, should become a National Day of Healing - for all Australians. |
| Bob Bellear
1944-2005 17 March 2005 - Australia is called a classless society. But Bob Bellear, who has died at 60, did what few other Australians have done: he rose from the very bottom rung to the very top. Not just from working-class and rural origins but from Aboriginal deprivation to become Australia's first indigenous judge. |
| Indigenous
leaders lament ATSIC's demise 17 March 2005 - Indigenous leaders say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have lost their voice with the formal scrapping of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). |
| Projecting
its own image 9 March 2005 - ADVENTUROUSLY programmed and well organised, the Adelaide Film Festival, which finished last Thursday, has earned its place within the ranks of the country's significant film events. |
| Govt. will
ignore UN predicts ANTaR 4 March 2005 - Key Indigenous lobbyists predicted the Australian government will ignore UN concerns over abuses of Aboriginals expected to be raised yesterday in the European headquarters of the human rights watchdog. |
| Charles has
a grubby encounter downunder 3 March 2005 - Hello Magazine ( UK) - The Prince of Wales had an encounter with some bare-chested ladies on Wednesday, before being presented with a witchetty grub, by way of a tasty snack. |
| Senior officials
to front UN Committee 1 March 2005 - Senior government officials due to front the UN in Geneva tomorrow are likely to be quizzed over Sydney's Redfern riots and the death in custody of a Palm Islander. |
| Pope inspires
Ecumenical Indigenous Commission 28 February 2005 - The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC) has referred to Pope John Paul II's landmark 1986 speech to indigenous Australians as a source of inspiration at a time when setbacks in reconciliation demand "rebirth". |
| Aborigines
win veto on Kakudu uranium mining 25 February 2005 - Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia will be allowed to further explore the valuable Jabiluka lease in Kakadu, but traditional Aboriginal landowners have the right to veto any future mining. |
| Bribe
row overshadows Palm inquest 25 February 2005 - A bribery scandal is threatening to overshadow a long-awaited investigation into the death of an Aboriginal man in custody on Palm Island off Queensland. |
| Berlin Film
festival Shine Spotlight on Indigenous Films 25 February 2005 - Writer and director Wayne Blair has hailed Australian film-makers for winning two major awards at the Berlin Film Festival in Germany as "amazing". |
| Tourists
guided on respect of country 17 February 2005 - A new Welcome to Country guide will give every traveller in Australia an opportunity to learn more about Australia's many Indigenous groups and cultures, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell said earlier this month. |
| Australia's
Aboriginal Debate 16 February 2005 - BBC website (UK) - Improving the lives of Australia's Aboriginals is an important challenge, with no easy answers. The BBC News website asked two prominent members of the Aboriginal community to debate the issues by email. This is the conversation they had over the last few weeks. |
| Growing
Indigenous Tourism will help address Future Challenges 7 February 2005 - Australia's burgeoning Indigenous tourism industry represents a new opportunity to meet environmental challenges, as well as the cultural needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Federal Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Warren Entsch said on Saturday (5 February 2005) at the inaugural Indigenous Tourism Expo in Sydney. |
| Australia:
The Sickening of Democracy 4 February 2005 - National myths are usually partly true. In Australia, the myth of an egalitarian society, or "fair go", has an extraordinary history. Long before most of the world, Australia had a minimum wage, a 35-hour working week, child benefits and the vote for women. |
| Dodson says
government ATSIC plan 'deplorable' 3 February 2005 - Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson has described the federal government's plan to kill-off Australia's peak indigenous body while failing to replace it as deplorable. |
| Camera
'off' during Palm Island beating 1 February 2005 - Video surveillance cameras in the Palm Island police station were turned off during the assault of a man who later died in custody, a leader from the tiny North Queensland community alleged yesterday. |
| Committee
told not to abolish ATSIC 31 January 2005 - The abolition of peak indigenous body ATSIC would leave Aborigines as the only native people in the democratic world without a voice, a Senate committee was told. |
| Aboriginal
massacre memorial defaced 31 January 2005 - Vandals who defaced a memorial commemorating the mass slaughter of Aboriginal people had committed an appalling and insulting crime, the New South Wales Government said today. |
| Expert says
Aboriginal infant mortality can be reduced with Government help 31 January 2005 - China Post (Taiwan) - The government must do more to combat infant mortality among Aborigines, whose babies die of unexplained causes at a rate six times higher than other Australian children, an expert on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) said Monday. |
| Call for
election focus on Indigenous health 28 January 2005 - A peak body representing Aboriginal medical services (AMSs) across Western Australia has called for Indigenous health to be made a priority in the election campaign. |
| Self respect
and changing attitudes boost Australia's Aboriginal population 23 January 2005 - The Scotsman (Scotland) - The aboriginal population is booming as more Australians identify themselves as indigenous. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2005 snapshot of Australia shows the indigenous population has grown at twice the rate of the overall population since 1996. |
| Survival
Day: What's on around the nation 21 January 2005 - Since 1992 Aboriginal people around the country have been celebrating their survival; the first official concert was held at La Perouse in Sydney and had hundreds of people in attendance. |
| Politics Meets
Art On Maori Television 21 January 2005 - The year is 1990 and Australia is two years’ out from its bicentenary celebrations. For the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia, the year 1990 marks two centuries of dispossession and maltreatment. |
| Government's
whitewash of black affairs 20 January 2005 - NATIONAL: The Howard government’s brand new black bureaucracy - launched in June last year amid attempts to abolish ATSIC - is managed almost exclusively by white bureaucrats, NIT inquiries have revealed. |
| UN submission
reveals Government failure on Indigenous employment 20 January 2005 - A submission to the UN Race Discrimination (CERD)* Committee by Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) highlights an alarming decrease in Indigenous employment in Indigenous administration, particularly at a senior management level, in the Australian Public Service (APS). |
| Rivalling the
dots 17 January 2005 - Exciting changes in art are sweeping the Anangu-Pitjantjatjara lands. It is as if the traditional Aboriginal country of South Australia's Far North West has had its arts blinkers removed. |
| A tale of two
histories 17 January 2005 - There will be no official celebration for tomorrow's 217th anniversary of the First Fleet's arrival at Botany Bay. But the story will be remembered by at least one Aboriginal family. |
| A bone to
pick with museums 16 January 2005 - The Times (Scotland) - Returning collections of human remains to their home countries may sound noble, but science will suffer as a result. |
| Tovey or not
Tovey 16 January 2005 - Noel Tovey has spent most of his 71 years denying who he is. Now he's embraced his identity, and wants to share it with the world. He spoke with Luke Benedictus. |
| Pearson named
Australian of the Year 15 January 2005 - In the early '90s, Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson was in tune with the times when he passionately argued that ownership of land was the basis of future Aboriginal advancement. In 2004, he was equally in tune with his times in promoting a greater self-reliance among Aboriginal people and encouraging practical measures to further the lot of Australia's indigenous people. |
| Aboriginal
art shows creator snake 14 January 2005 - Philadelphia Daily News (USA) - "Track of the Rainbow Serpent" at the University of Pennsylvania Museum presents Australian aboriginal art as the handmaiden of anthropology. |
| Aboriginal
skulls to return home 13 January 2005 - BBC (UK) - Representatives from the Australian High Commission are in Devon to take back a collection of Aboriginal skulls held at a museum since the 1870s. |
| Museums face
court if they keep remains 13 January 2005 - Aboriginal groups were on the brink of taking legal action against some of Britain's great museums which could cost them huge and historic international collections unless they return the remains of generations of Aborigines to Australia. |
| Film
stars send their sympathy 12 January 2005 - International celebrities Brad Pitt, Steven Segal, Tina Turner, Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Claude Van Damme have sent their condolences to the Palm Island family of Cameron Doomadgee, who died in police custody. |
| Queensland
racial abuse claims resurface 5 January 2005 - More claims of racial abuse have emerged in far north Queensland following the arrest of one of the accused Palm Island rioters yesterday. |
| Uluru to host
Australia Day launch 4 January 2005 - The Australia Day Council says it will use Uluru in central Australia as a backdrop to launch the country's official Australia Day celebrations later this month. |
| Ku Klux Klan
threaten 'shanty town' 1 January 2005 - Police are investigating an alleged lynching-style raid on an Aboriginal shanty town near Townsville by white men claiming to be members of the Ku Klux Klan. |
| Pupils
to salute Aboriginal custodians 1 January 2005 - NSW public school students are to acknowledge Aborigines as the original custodians of the land, under new Department of Education guidelines. |
| Australia
honours Aboriginal team 27 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - Australia have honoured a group of Aboriginal cricketers who undertook a tour to England in 1868. |
| Grinch
Steals Christmas From Palm Island Community 24 December 2004 - At a time when Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson was inviting the community to join the Queensland Police Service in celebrating the "festive season in song" at the Suncorp Piazza in South Bank, Brisbane. The Palm Island community is not celebrating this festive season. |
| Aboriginal
originals woo French 20 December 2004 - Financial Times (UK) - The prominent French social anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, is quoted approvingly in a 1962 book for his general rule: "One cannot modify societies based on so rigid a social system without destroying them." |
| United Nations
proclaims second International Decade of the worlds' Indigenous Peoples 20 December 2004 - The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. The Decade will commence on 1 January 2005. |
| Aboriginal
policy raises storm 18 December 2004 - The Japan Times (Japan) - Aborigines in the remote Australian Outback are going blind amid filthy conditions while white Australians luxuriate in some of the world's most sophisticated cities. It's a disaster waiting to happen, and that day looks close. |
| A National
Day of Healing Newsletter from the National Sorry Day Committee 17 December 2004 - December 2004 - The National Sorry Day Committee asks that Sorry Day 2005, on 26 May, be a National Day of Healing. We invite everyone to celebrate the achievements of the past seven years, and to commit ourselves to all that still needs to be done. Australia now knows the story of the stolen generations. |
| Aborigines
offered smaller stolen wages payout 16 December 2004 - An estimated $15 million in stolen wages will be paid to elderly Aborigines or their descendants in NSW to compensate them for money placed in trust earlier last century and never repaid. |
| Freedom
ride to expose racism again 15 December 2004 - In February 1965, a group of Sydney University students called Students for Aboriginal Rights, led by Aboriginal students Charles Perkins and Gary Williams, set out in a bus across regional Australia to expose and confront segregation and colour bars against Aboriginal people. |
| Petrol for
face washing? Thanks but no thanks 12 December 2004 - (Khaleej Times) - Almost out of sight, out of mind, in the far-flung corners of Australia, people are living in utter squalor. It’s a familiar story in First World countries the indigenous people are pushed aside and do not benefit as their country experiences economic progress. |
| Uneasy
calm at Aborigine funeral 11 December 2004 - BBC ( UK) - The funeral has taken place of an aboriginal man in northern Australia whose death last month in police custody sparked violent disturbances. |
| First International
Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples comes to an end 10 December 2004 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said the end of the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous People today (10 December) is a timely occasion to reflect on the progress made on Indigenous issues during the last decade and an appropriate juncture to recommit to the challenges that lay ahead. |
| Australia
set for Aborigine march 8 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - Aborigines across Australia complain of prejudice and lack of opportunity. Thousands of Australians are expected to take part in a march on Thursday to protest at the treatment of Aborigines. |
| Aborigines'
dark island home. 4 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - Aboriginal residents of Palm Island in northern Australia are preparing for another depressing chapter in the story of their isolated home. The funeral of Cameron Doomagee is expected to take place in the coming day. |
| Aboriginal
death in custody triggers Palm Island riot 3 December 2004 - World Socialist Web Site - For the second time this year, anger over the death of an Australian Aborigine in highly suspicious circumstances involving police has boiled over into a riot. |
| Indigenous
roots with a touch of the blues 3 December 2004 - In sharp suits, mirrored shades and inky black hats, they might have been a couple of old blues artists. But touring the Art Gallery of NSW yesterday, Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford and his friend and relative Rammy Ramsey were in town to see the future of Australian contemporary indigenous art in Paris. |
| The anger
of the Aborigines 3 December 2004 - The Independent (UK) - A teenager's claim that he was dragged naked through the dirt with a noose around his neck has inflamed racial tensions in Australia. |
| Howard
meets Aboriginal Star 3 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - Aboriginal sports star Michael Long has met Australia's Prime Minister John Howard to highlight discrimination against indigenous groups and poverty. |
| La declaration
des peuples indigenes bloquee par l occident 29 November 2004 - AFP - Trois représentants de peuples autochtones ont accusé jeudi le gouvernement britannique de bloquer le projet de "Déclaration des droits des populations indigènes" aux Nations unies, alors que les débats sur le texte doivent prendre fin la semaine prochaine. |
| On the road
with a champion of his people 27 December 2004 - Last week Mr Long went to one funeral too many. He decided to walk from Melbourne to Sydney to see the Prime Minister about his people's problems. He set out on Sunday with his cousin, John Cusack, walking 30 kilometres to Wallan. They sat down and had a think on Monday. |
| Long walk
to freedom starts with a single man 27 December 2004 - A man on a mission, Michael Long is proudly Aboriginal and is challenging thinking and beliefs as he marches towards his past, writes Martin Flanagan. |
| Anger
reaches boiling point after death in custody on Palm Island 27 December 2004 - Two police officers have been transferred off Palm Island in north Queensland as community anger threatens to boil over in the wake of the death of an Aboriginal man in custody. |
| Protest rocks
Aboriginal island 26 December 2004 - BBC - Hundreds of protesters on an Aboriginal island off Australia's northern coast have stormed the local police station, after the death of a man in custody. One resident said there was smoke everywhere and that the building had almost been burnt to the ground. |
| Carr fails
again on wage theft 27 December 2004 - In March this year, NSW Premier Bob Carr gave his personal commitment that wages and savings stolen from Aboriginal people throughout much of the last century would be returned quickly and that those most in need would be moved to the front of the queue. Eight months down the track and seven years after the government first became aware of the thefts, Bob Carr - who earns around $200,000 a year - has still not repaid one single cent. |
| Row over Aboriginal
Idol send-up 25 December 2004 - An Internet parody of Australian Idol lampooning Aborigines has been blasted as racist garbage and is the subject of a complaint to an anti-discrimination tribunal. The material was published on an American-based website and has been picked up and distributed widely via e-mail. · Casey wins Idol's riches · Would the 'Real' Casey Donovan stand up? · Touchdown! |
| Tribal
Peoples Journey to UK: Government under attack 22 December 2004 - Survival Internationa (UK) - Three indigenous representatives arrive in London on 24 November to target the UK government for blocking an historic UN declaration on indigenous rights. |
| A carrot and
stick for Aborigines 13 December 2004 - New Zealand Herald (NZ) - In all the clamour of the election campaign that last month swept Prime Minister John Howard to his fourth term in office, there was one thundering silence: the continuing grim future for indigenous Australians. |
| Chief of army
to investigate KKK scandal 13 December 2004 - The image of soldiers dressed as the Ku Klux Klan betrayed the Australian Army's commitment to a "fair go" and destroyed the memory of black and white soldiers who fought together in war, the Department of Defence said yesterday. |
| Australian Aborigines
denounce welfare changes plan 12 December 2004 - Taipei Times (Taiwan) - Prominent Aborigines lashed out yesterday at a planned government overhaul of welfare payments to indigenous Australians that reportedly include punishing parents whose children cut classes. |
| Aboriginal welfare
plans cause stir 12 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - The Australian government is planning a controversial new welfare system for its indigenous Aboriginal population. The proposals, which were leaked to the media, are reported to include financial sanctions for parents who do not send their children to school. |
| Klan photo not
racism: local MP 11 December 2004 - There was no racism involved in a photograph of Australian soldiers wearing Ku Klux Klan-style hoods, federal MP Peter Lindsay said today. Mr Lindsay, whose Queensland seat of Herbert takes in Townsville's Lavarack barracks where the photograph was taken, said it was in poor taste. |
| Australian military
probes Ku Klux Klan stunt on black recruits 11 December 2004 - AFP - Australia's military chief said an investigation was under way after a leading newspaper published a photo showing black recruits hounded in a Ku Klux Klan-style stunt. Racism alleged in Australian Army - UPI |
| Sorry is an
attitude say committee 10 December 2004 - Two members of the National Indigenous Council have said that an apology to the stolen generations is not a priority. The stolen generations have no wish to be used as a political football, and the National Sorry Day Committee has no intention of getting worked up about a word. It is the attitude that concerns us. |
| Australia unveils
Aboriginal body 6 December 2004 - BBC (UK) - Aborigines are Australia's most disadvantaged community. The Australian government has unveiled a new Aboriginal advisory body that will help shape its policy towards disadvantaged native communities. |
| Aboriginal Groups
Receive Sydney Peace Prize from Arundhati Roy 5 December 2004 - Representatives from Mudgingal Aboriginal Women's Group in Redfern, ACT's Youth support service, The Connection and the Ceduna Aboriginal Women's Group, Weena Mooga Gu Gudba Incorporated received their controversial donations of the Sydney Peace Prize funding of $50,000 from Indian writer, Arundhati Roy last night in a glitzy black tie dinner at the University of Sydney. |
| Australia's
Aborigines lose political voice 5 December 2004 - Reuters (UK) - Australia's Aborigines have lost their only voice in parliament. Although 23 indigenous candidates ran in Australia's October 9 national elections, none was successful and the only sitting black senator, Aden Ridgeway, lost his seat, electoral officials announced this week. |
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World's indigenous people
slam UK government |
|
Competent Indigenous leadership
crucial to change |
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How do Indigenous people vote? |
| A mission
for the family 20 October 2004 - Andrea Mason, the Aboriginal leader of Family First, hopes reconciliation will be back on the political agenda. Andrea Mason is the first Aboriginal woman to be endorsed as the head of an Australian political party. |
| Haute Outback 16 October 2004 - The Globe and Mail (Canada) - The art of Australia's Aborigines is garnering awards, selling for six figures at Sotheby's auctions and drawing travellers to city galleries and dusty villages in search of rising talent. Not bad for paintings recently dismissed as 'folk art.' LASZLO BUHASZ explores the appeal of this bold and intricate work, and offers a guide on where to start hunting |
| Australia's
Indigenous Peoples Face On-going Crisis: After Election 2004 15 October 2004 - David Cooper/ENIAR - The situation of Australia’s Indigenous peoples is desperate with no relief in sight. Unchecked social and economic disadvantage means that Indigenous life expectancy remains 20 years less than other Australians. |
| Wik People win
back their land 14 October 2004 - After 10 years locked in the courts, a political battle that threatened to split the Coalition and landmark legislation limiting native title, the Wik and Wik-Way people yesterday formally settled their claim over a huge tract of land in western Cape York. |
|
Indian writer to donate Sydney Peace
Prize to Aborigines |
| Signs of
a shift over bones of contention 9 October 2004 - Nearly 100 years after Swedish scientists raided Aboriginal burial sites and smuggled out the skeletons saying they were kangaroo bones, indigenous men fought back tears as they brought the remains back to Australia. |
| Australia
is now a damaged and divided land 8 October 2004 - The Independent (UK) - Howard has built his electoral success by appealing to a darker side of our character.These days, television footage of young children and pregnant women behind razor wire in detention centres is as familiar an image of Australia as its golden surf beaches. |
| Aborigines
seek voice at election 7 October 2004 - Reuters - Aborigine Maisie Austin sits in the dirt under a tree hearing the grievances of aboriginal elders who have invited her to their "country" as she campaigns in the Northern Territory outback for Saturday's Australian elections. |
| Indigenous
Health Neglected in Health Policy Funding Frenzy, Australia 5 October 2004 - AMA (Australian Medical Association) President, Dr Bill Glasson, said today Indigenous Australians have been the big losers in the Federal election funding frenzy with the major parties failing to make the necessary leap of faith to turn around the parlous state of health of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. |
| Les Aborigines 1 October 2004 - Agency Francias Press - Les Aborigenes s'estiment une nouvelle fois les laisses-pour-compte des legislatives australiennes de samedi, ne nourrissant que peu d'espoir de changement dans leurs conditions de vie difficiles, peu importe le resultat du scrutin. |
| Reconciliation
in peril over museum dispute 1 October 2004 - Peter Lewis, Chairperson of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (Victoria), has called for Museum Victoria's Board and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in Victoria, The Hon Gavin Jennings, to immediately move to find a just resolution to the dispute over the two bark etchings and emu figure. The Dja Dja Wurrung community is seeking to prevent these cultural objects being returned to the British Museum. |
| Impaled
Redfern teen 'rammed' 24 September 2004 - A Redfern police Aboriginal liaison officer today accused police of covering up the cause of a wild riot and said officers had rammed teenager "TJ" Hickey before his impaling death. |
| International
protection for indigenous peoples' human rights long overdue 10 September 2004 - Amnesty International News - The end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People is now less than four months away. The Working Group on the Draft United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples meets in its 10th session in Geneva next week (13-24 September), but the prospect of achieving one of the decade's principle goals -- the adoption of an international declaration for the protection and promotion of indigenous peoples' human rights -- seems increasingly at risk |
| Capital idea
for Aboriginal business 10 September 2004 - Kevin Fong laughs at the memory of an older brother persuading him to do a chore. "I can remember him saying to me, 'Jeez, you've got wonderful fingers. I'll teach you how to play the guitar'." |
| International
pressure on Indigenous issues sought 9 September 2004 - Indigenous identity Lowitja O'Donoghue has appealed to the international community to keep up the pressure on human rights issues affecting Australia's Indigenous population. |
Stolen remains coming home |
| Indigenous
Affairs Policy is Central to Australia's Future 6 September 2004 - The Australian Democrats have called for Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation to be put back on the Federal policy agenda at the Democrat's policy and candidate launch at the Old Telegraph Station in Alice Springs today. Democrats Leader, Senator Andrew Bartlett, said the Democrats were the first political party to formally apologise to the stolen generations and will continue to push whoever forms Government after October 9 to issue a formal apology. |
Appeal: Help Australian Aborigines
keep their etchings |
Why I've fallen out of love with Australia |
Aboriginals urged to
enrol to vote |
Warrior Gillesppie Deserves Some
Luck |
| Local communities
in Australia relive history and organise online 3 September 2004 - Internet & ICTs for Social Justice and Development News - Rowville-Lysterfield History Project (RLHP) is an archive of photos and stories told by the eldest members of the Rowville-Lysterfield community (Victoria, Australia) of their memories of the oldest people they remember when they were children. It is a rich telling of anecdotal histories that would otherwise be lost; of Aboriginal mounted police, the Bunerong and the Wawoorung clans of the Kulin nation, the little known prisoner of war camp, the stories of both women and men, many who would live their lives over again. |
| Killer Faces
Tribal Justice 3 September 2004 - Daily Record (UK) - An Aboriginal woman convicted of stabbing her cheating lover to death has walked free because she faces severe punishment by her tribe. • Woman sentenced to tribal justice, not jail |
Ranger mine under threat |
Man leapt to death after police chase |
| TV show digs
up old wounds 30 August 2004 - When SBS called for indigenous families to take part in a new reality-style television show where people live off the land as if it was the 1800s, the response was lacklustre. The show's indigenous consultant and associate producer Darrin Ballingary told The Australian there was initial concern among the Aboriginal community about appearing on a show that focused on a tragic time for indigenous people. • Family Wanted For Australia's First 'Living History' Series |
| Grappling On Stage
With the Issue of Land Rights 29 August 2004 - The Nation (Kenya) - Whether in Kenya or in Australia, the issue of land continues to be a political, social and economic hot potato. This was made perfectly clear during the staged readings, from August 20 to August 24, in Nairobi, of the play, Yanagai! Yanagai! by Australian playwright Andrea James. Coming at a time when the issue of land ownership is at the top of the news agenda, the readings could not have been more topical had they tried. |
Democrats seek Ridgeway backing |
| From the Outback
to Bagshot in one leap 29 August 2004 - The Observer (UK) - The deep, vibrating drone of the didgeridoo ebbs and flows as the Smudging Ceremony, an ancient Aboriginal ritual to mark special occasions, begins. I inhale the smoke from burning herbs and mosses handpicked by Aborigines and concentrate hard on trying not to laugh. |
| FECCA, ATSIC Push
For Strong Campaign Policy 29 August 2004 - Australia's ethnic and Indigenous communities say both parties need to do more to promote harmony and reduce discrimination during an election campaign. |
| Zeitgeist 28 August 2004 - Scotsman - When the first white settlers arrived in the countries we now call Australia and the United States, preserving the art and culture of indigenous peoples wasn’t very high up on their list of priorities. After all, there were claims to stake, wars to fight and fortunes to be made. But now, finally, there is evidence that the white men who currently rule these two nations are starting to think about the creative output of the people who lived there before them. |
| Australia's perilous
conservative path 27 August 2004 - International Herald Tribune - MELBOURNE: Amid all the talk about free trade agreements, the cultural imperialism of Hollywood or the wonders of the Internet, the untold story of globalization has been the globalization of conservatism. Since the mid-1970s, conservatives around the globe have become keen students of U.S.-$ style attack politics - and none more so than Australian conservatives. |
| Australia considers
croc trophy hunting 27 August 2004 - BBC - The authorities want to introduce these crocodile safaris to boost tourism and to help impoverished Aboriginal communities. The Northern Territory's Environment Minister, Marion Scrymgour, told the BBC that the idea of allowing big-game hunters to shoot crocodiles on traditional tribal lands was a good one. |
| Indigenous
DNA testing in doubt 26 August 2004 - KERRY O'BRIEN: A landmark case in Western Australia has been testing, not only the reputation of one of the State's most prominent Aboriginal leaders, but also the use of DNA against Aboriginal suspects. |
| Melbourne
- ein gigantischer Ameisenhaufen 26 August 2004 - Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland) - Ameisen geben derzeit zu reden in Australien. Während in und um Melbourne eine zusammenhängende Kolonie entdeckt wurde, die sich über hundert Kilometer erstreckt, bereitet im tropischen Norden Australiens die Gelbe Spinnerameise der lokalen Aborigines-Bevölkerung und den Naturschützern Sorgen. |
| Redfern
inquest findings a sham 25 August 2004 - Family and friends were angry and in tears on August 14 after hearing the NSW coroner’s findings on the death of the 17-year-old son of Gail Hickey. Coroner John Abernathy described the February 14 fatality in Redfern as a “freak accident”, and exonerated the police who were pursuing him at the time. • Police cleared in Hickey death • Redfern, rioting and police - EDITORIAL • Stopping the next riot before it starts - EDITORIAL • The Block's still seething • Wrong path leads to fiery requiem |
| Tudo sobre
o país dos coalas no Festival da Austrália 25 August 2004 - Agência Estado (Brazil) - São Paulo - Quem está pensando em arrumar as malas para conhecer a Austrália ou simplesmente gosta de saber mais sobre outras culturas tem um encontro marcado neste sábado e domingo no Hotel Renaissance, em São Paulo. É lá o palco do Australia Festival, evento que vai divulgar os atrativos do país dos cangurus e coalas em termos de turismo, cursos e viagens de negócios, sem falar do surfe, da música aborígine e dos vinhos, já que a Austrália é o quinto maior produtor da bebida no mundo. |
|
Australia’s medical schools
launch Indigenous health curriculum |
| A Painful Life
Sentence: Hundreds of Thousands Abused as Children in Care 24 August 2004 - With the third of three major inquiries into institutionalised children due to report on Monday 30 August, Australian Democrat Senator Andrew Murray, who initiated the latest Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, said today that the Committee has taken graphic and disturbing evidence that has revealed a litany of abuse, criminal assaults and general neglect that was widespread across government, charitable and religious institutions across all States. |
| Dja Dja Wurrung
Native Title Group appeal 23 August 2004 - ANTAR Victoria - Gary Murray, Secretary of the Dja Dja Wurrung Native Title Group has approached ANTaR to request we distribute as widely as possible information about their current dispute with the British Museum over ownership of two bark etchings and an emu figure and gather support. Please help! See below. |
| Viewfinder:
Aboriginal burial poles 23 August 2004 - Daily Telegraph (UK) - The aboriginal Yolngu people believe they are the tongue of the land: inseparable from the tropical swamps of north-eastern Australia that are their home. |
| Aborigines rediscover
their past in desert jail 22 August 2004 - Sunday Times (UK) - When Dale Walsh, a 23-year-old Aborigine, was jailed for theft he expected to be incarcerated in a grim urban prison run by whites. Instead he was sent to Australia’s first “outback jail”, an Aboriginal prison run by Aborigines, where the boundary is the desert and the inmates sleep in dormitories or under the stars. They also move about unrestrained by razor wire, searchlights, locks or electric fences. |
| Avoiding another
stolen generation 22 August 2004 - EDITORIAL - The words of Lowitja O'Donoghue, a Yankunytjatjara woman from South Australia's far north and a distinguished Australian, have found new echoes. "Nothing, absolutely nothing could ever compensate for taking me away from my mother, family, culture and belonging," she once said. The mere suggestion that Victoria is fostering another stolen generation of Aboriginal children is cause for genuine alarm. That a reprise of such a divisive social injustice is being played out in this state in the 21st century - albeit with good intentions - seems astounding. Yet even more disturbing is the reason: a spiralling crisis in indigenous child abuse and neglect. • Seeds of another stolen generation • Young deaths a backdrop to bitter power play • An inter-racial success story • Neglect of Aboriginal children shames us all |
| Sold on the dream
of a better deal 20 August 2004 - The Aboriginal art market is a paradox of profit and poverty. As the outgoing director of the National Gallery of Australia, Brian Kennedy, put it: "We cannot with clear conscience buy Aboriginal art without being concerned about the circumstances of the people who make it." Suddenly such conscience is manifest in several plans - complementary, competing, or controversial, depending on your view - initiated by dealers, auction houses, artists, and government. |
Rosella Namok UK Debut Show at The
October Gallery |
| Liberals represented
by Indigenous Australian in the Federal Seat of Fraser 20 August 2004 - ACT Liberals - The Canberra Liberals have announced their candidates to contest the upcoming Federal election. Adam Giles, a Gamillaroi man from NSW will contest the Federal seat of Fraser. Adam, aged 31, grew up in the Blue Mountains in NSW. His Indigenous heritage originates from the Pillaga scrub in North Western NSW. |
| 'Sorry Books'
registered as historic documents 19 August 2004 - UNESCO - A collection of 461 Sorry Books recording the thoughts of thousands of Australians on the unfolding history of the Stolen Generations has been formally recognized as having powerful historical and social significance. The books are among nine significant documentary heritage items recently inscribed on the Australian Memory of the World Register – part of UNESCO’s Programme to protect and promote documentary material- that records or reflects significant milestones and events in Australia’s history. |
No resolution of Aboriginal ownership |
| Third fire bomb
attack at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy Canberra 17 August 2004 - Aboriginal Tent Embassy - Monday night, at 9pm the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, on the lawns opposite Old Parliament House was a boom and a blast with the third firebomb attack in just over 12 months. "This is an attack within the Parliamentary precinct, if any other embassy was firebombed there would be serious repercussions. If the American Embassy was firebombed there would be a state of emergency, but the Aboriginal Embassy barely gets a mention." • In defence of the tent embassy |
| The Silent Victory For Aboriginal Sovereignty 13 August 2004 - On Friday 6th August, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy at Victoria Park staged a historical breakthrough by winning the support of the Sydney City Council. Aunt Isobel Coe and Mayor Clover Moore agreed to workout a plan to push the agenda of Aboriginal Sovereignty ahead on State and Federal levels. • Tent Embassy Resolved Peacefully - Clover Moore, Sydney Lord Mayor • Sydney City Council recognises tent embassy • Sydney mayor blames 'hysterical' media for racist phone calls • Tent Embassy evicted • News Ltd on Tent Embassy, image choice as racist inspired villification • Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Sydney |
| French Dreaming as artists head to Paris 12 August 2004 - It's a sort of Sistine Dreaming: Australian indigenous artists will spend next year painting the ceilings of a new museum in Paris, the French embassy has confirmed. Two indigenous curators - Brenda Croft, of the National Gallery of Australia, and Hetti Perkins, from the Art Gallery of NSW - have been working on the project for more than a year, following an approach by the French Government. |
| Floundering force 12 August 2004 - The riot helmets fell off, the bulletproof vests were too long or too short and the lines of communication simply fell apart. Police were totally unprepared for the Redfern riot and even "under-appreciated the seriousness" of it as the streets were burning, a damning internal report reveals. |
| Call for autonomy for Aboriginal community 9 August 2004 - A prominent Northern Territory indigenous leader says ATSIC must be replaced by Aboriginal autonomy. The chair of the Northern Land Council Galarrwuy Yunupingu has addressed a forum on the future of indigenous affairs at the Garma festival in north east Arnhem Land. Mr Yunupingu says he is sick and tired of governments using indigenous Australia as a political football. He says Aborigines should be left to shape their own policies and future. • Mine stand comes full circle • 'Black Prince' Yunupingu to leave politics • Survival in song and dance • Garma Opening • National Indigenous Recording Project Launch |
| Aborigines intimidated and falsely accused
of cruelty 8 August 2004 - The RSPCA (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has a bad name in Queensland. Many of the staff are genuine people, but some of the heirarchy have let their power go to their head and turned into little 'Hitlers'. Bruce Little of the Wakka Wakka Tribe/People has been accused of killing a dugong (sea cow is another name) cruelly. • RSPCA chief inspector steals Aborigine's property as supposed 'evidence' of 'alleged' cruelty to a dugong - SHAME • RSPCA probes dugong cruelty • Dugong eating cruelty investigation continues |
| Aboriginal Elders to Speak in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki 6 August 2004 - Uncle Speedy McGinness, Kungarakan/Gurindji elder (Northern Territory) and Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna Elder (South Australia) have begun a week long speaking tour and cultural exchange in Japan. The visit coincides with the 59th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and both elders will be addressing the impacts of the nuclear industry in Australia and calling for a united effort to create a nuclear free future worldwide. |
| Germaine Greer tells half the story: Australian
society is British too 5 August 2004 - Greer and I are from different generations and our trajectories seem like odd reflections of each other. She grew up in an Australia that sold her the myth that we were simply British and nothing else, then went to live in the UK and discovered that she was actually nowhere near as British as she had imagined. She is evidently marked by that experience. |
| A colonial hangover 5 August 2004 - If there were any prizes for good, honourable white guys in the emotional, guilt-ridden debate about the return of Aboriginal remains, then the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University would have a fair claim to a podium position. The museum, home to one of the top six anthropological collections in the world, was among the first to hand back material — five skulls and a penis in mid-1990 — to Australia. It later attempted to return an Aboriginal woman collected by D. J Fitzgibbon and Dr Guy L'Estrange 160 kilometres south of Cooktown in 1914. Attempted? |
| Indigenous Knowledge Recognised 4 August 2004 - An international conference titled “Indigenous Knowledge and Bioprospecting”, held from 21-24 April at Macquarie University in Sydney, attracted more than 150 participants from around the world. Sponsored jointly by the Association for Baha’I Studies and the University’s Centre for Environmental Law and Department of Indigenous Studies, along with five other university departments and centres, the conference was called to mark the close of the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Peoples and to contribute towards social and economic development and the protection of the environment. |
| Elders celebrate as their memories
go online 4 August 2004 - Children would light bits of rubber in empty jam tins found in rubbish tips to use in the darkness during a curfew adults imposed on the Aboriginal mission station where Uncle Sandy Atkinson was raised. He can laugh now recalling his pain and outrage when an elder among the many sharing responsibility for both discipline and care of children at Cummeragunja, on the Murray River (or Dunghala), took his "pin light" lamp with wire handle and beat him. |
| Call to monitor Redfern violence 3 August 2004 - An inquiry into February's Redfern riot has recommended violence against police in the area be strictly recorded to help determine police numbers and a minimum experience requirement for officers stationed there. It also says a controversial needle and syringe van should be moved out of the Block, and calls for stronger government commitment to closer consultation with community leaders over the area's redevelopment. • Second Redfern Riot Possible |
| Repay the stolen wages! 2 August 2004 -The July 17 Courier Mail exposed the staggering depth of the state Labor government’s handouts of taxpayers’ money to some of Australia’s largest corporations conducting business in Queensland. A total of $21.5 million was handed out to 42 companies in “investment and incentive” grants last financial year. |
| Retrieving a stolen legacy 2 August 2004 - EDITORIAL - The Aborigines who want to keep bark etchings in Australia have a strong moral case. The senior curator of anthropology at the South Australian Museum, Philip Jones, spent a portion of 2001 identifying Aboriginal artefacts stored in the basements of European museums. He estimated about 40,000 artefacts were held overseas and that they comprised earlier artefacts than those held in Australian collections. He has written: "For the most part, objects in our museums were gathered after the 1880s. By that time the Aboriginal populations of the Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide areas had diminished by as much as 90 per cent. Their material culture traditions were effectively ended. Today much of the fragile evidence for those traditions exists in European museums." |
| Dozens arrested during police swoop on the
Block's drug-dealing houses 31 July 2004 - More than 200 police descended on the Block at Redfern yesterday, hauling out heroin dealers in raids on established drug houses which would be "bricked up". The action was followed by tough talk. Redfern's police commander, Superintendent Dennis Smith, said the raids could mark the beginning of the end of organised dealing on the Block. |
| Don't return Aboriginal 'stolen goods': lobby
group 31 July 2004 - Museum Victoria came under increased pressure yesterday when prominent lobby group Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation demanded that three Aboriginal artefacts on loan from British institutions be allowed to stay in Australia. The chairman of the group, Peter Lewis, said the items were stolen goods and it was important they remained in Australia. • Taking aim at hunter-gatherer England • Museum and Aborigines to meet in stand-off over heritage items • A Victorian Treasure Overseas: The recent rediscovery of a rare South-Eastern Australian bark drawing in London's Kew Gardens leads to an investigation • Joint Statement issued by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the British Museum |
| Minding the language: students give voice
to endangered words 30 July 2004 - It's little lunch at Darlington Public School, and between mouthfuls of bread and peanut butter Mikaela Welsh is trying out her newly acquired skills in the Wiradjuri language. "Nyan," she says, pointing to her shy, sticky grin. "Nyan - that's mouth." • Aboriginal languages for curriculum |
| The Young Man From Kamilaroi 28 July 2004 - On St. Valentines Day, 14 February 2004, the Young Man from Kamilaroi, the 17 year old son of Gail Hickey became impaled upon a metal fence at the back of 1 Philip Street, Waterloo. He died the next morning of his horrific injuries. There is embedded within a Coronial Inquest the sure evidence of Power. There is the Power of the Coroner and the Power of the Laws that provide that Power. There is, of course, also the Power of the Police in their control of what is presented to the Coroner - The Brief of Evidence. |
| Maori unite in new party 28 July 2004 - The task of organising a national Maori party was a daunting and enormous challenge. However, despite the differences and divisions within Maoridom, the process of getting everyone together was made easier by the months and months of daily anti-Maori sentiment and comments. This created a common threat that everyone could unite against, which encouraged rather than discouraged our merger as a political party. |
| How the goss is dimming the gloss 22 July 2004 - For a country so hungry for praise, it stings if tourists stop visiting because of the perception that Australia is racist. Trekking in Nepal, "up endless hills" the Lonely Planet travel publishing company's co-founder, Tony Wheeler, was walking behind a group of young British tourists. "A woman in the group was saying what a racist country Australia was and they all agreed," he says. |
| Liberation, word for word 22 July 2004 - Some called the institution a social experiment, others a training school. Playwright Alana Valentine believes it was “a house of horrors”, a place of consistent “mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse” for the girls who were forced to live there. The “house” is the Parramatta Girls Training School, which operated from the early 1900s to the late 1970s, and is now the subject of a new play by Valentine. Like her last play Run, Rabbit, Run, the work is “verbatim theatre” – a drama based on interviews with those involved. |
| Doubts over tour boomerang's origin 21 July 2004 - Serious doubts have been cast over whether a boomerang which cost the National Museum $13,200 at a Sydney auction on Saturday belonged to famous Aboriginal cricketer Twopenny. • Museum defends boomerang buy • Historic boomerang sells for Aus$11,000 - Wisden Cricinfo • Bowler's boomerang could fetch a high return |
| War waged on black workers: Queensland Government
reconciles ... its bank balance 21 July 2004 - The Queensland Beattie government knew it owed Aboriginal workers more than $70 million in under-award wage reparations but kept the figure secret and instead offered to repay just $25.4 million which it branded a step towards reconciliation, a leaked cabinet document has revealed. The 1999 cabinet submission, obtained by NIT, also reveals the government's real motives in engaging a prominent Aboriginal organisation to put the government's offer to Indigenous Queenslanders - it was to ensure widespread publicity for the government's offer and, in the process, make it impossible for future under-award wage claims to succeed in court. |
| Task force hoping for quick payment of Aboriginal
wages 20 July 2004 - The New South Wales Government task force working on repayment of wages and payments withheld from Aboriginal workers and state wards says it hopes for quick payouts of monies due. • Aborigines to seek wage justice • Indigenous community may be owed millions |
| The root cause of TJ Hickey's death 17 July 2004 - Editorial, The Sydney Morning Herald - The State Coroner, John Abernethy, has delayed his verdict on the Hickey death, sensibly acknowledging that "rushed justice is no justice". The evidence, however, has so far persuaded his counsel, Elizabeth Fullerton, SC, that police did not contribute directly or indirectly to TJ's death. Who or what, then, was responsible? |
| TJ's mother urges police charges 17 July 2004 - Two officers who "chased" Thomas "TJ" Hickey should be charged under the Police Service Act with giving untrue statements and wrongfully pursuing the boy, counsel for TJ's mother has urged the NSW State Coroner. • More police plan for Redfern • Don't let me die: TJ's desperate plea • No adviser for TJ's mother • Conflicting police reports emerge at Hickey inquest |
| Reconciliation victories to be found: Ridgeway 10 July 2004 - Aden Ridgeway accused the Howard Government yesterday of a "morally indecent act" in writing reconciliation out of its objectives, but took pleasure from victories for reconciliation won across the nation, such as in the old theatre and cinema at Bowraville. Senator Ridgeway was named yesterday as the National Aboriginal Islander Day Observance Committee person of the year. |
| Australia condemned for `racist tendencies' 10 July 2004 - The World Council of Churches has condemned Australia as a nation it says has "racist tendencies". General Secretary of the council Dr Samuel Kobia made the comment in Adelaide yesterday following his visit to the Baxter Detention Centre and Aboriginal communities near Port Augusta. |
| Lois adds jazz to her exotic mix 10 July 2004 - Nedlands blues singer Lois Olney wants to combine one of the world's rarest languages with one of its best known musical styles - setting lyrics in Yindjibarndi to jazz. It's a project with added challenges. Though Yindjibarndi is her traditional language, it's not her first. • George Negus Tonight: Lois Olney • Refugees in Australia • My name is Lois Olney |
| Officer mistook TJ's body for clothing 6 July 2004 - One of the first police officers to see teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey impaled on a fence in Redfern said he originally thought the slumped body was hung clothing. Constable Alan Rimell told the inquest into the 17-year-old's death that when he first saw TJ's body slumped over the fence "like a rag doll", he thought it was a jacket and a backpack. • TJ not chased, followed, court told • Redfern rioters to elude charges |
| Police admit: we were following TJ 6 July 2004 - For five months police have insisted they had nothing to do with the horrific death of Aboriginal teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey. Yesterday they admitted officers in a caged truck had been "following him" moments before the 17-year-old lost control of his bicycle and became impaled on a fence on February 14. • Coroner's inquest into death of TJ Hickey • TJ truth surrounded by police |
| Facing the lure of white society 5 July 2004 - Young indigenous people must not give in to the attractions of status in mainstream Australia, writes Patrick Dodson |
| A different flame for Athens 5 July 2004 - A major exhibition of Australian indigenous art, which opened in Athens last week, will give visitors to the summer Olympics a confronting insight into Aboriginal art, culture and history. |
| Past shrouded in polemics 5 July 2004 - During the row that followed last year's publication of my book The History Wars and Robert Manne's Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History, many people suggested that I must be pleased that history was so much in the news. The media controversy certainly helped sales, but I am not sure that it assisted informed discussion of the issues. |
| Museum to consign 'bias' to history 3 July 2004 - The new director of the National Museum of Australia will overhaul two contentious galleries, scrap blockbuster exhibitions in favour of shows that can tour shire halls, and create a million- dollar acquisitions fund. |
| Landmark Victory 30 June 2004 - A small, dedicated group of Aboriginal people fighting to have their traditional ownership of land around Port Augusta recognised have scored an unlikely victory, helping defeat the federal government's plans to build a nuclear waste facility near Arcoona station. |
| Black health and wealth still behind 24 June 2004 - More aborigines are working, studying and shrugging off welfare dependency than ever before, but their health has seen no improvement over the past decade. |
| Art unites a land divided 23 June 2004 - Think of an Aboriginal artwork, and chances are you are picturing a dot painting of an outback tribal scene, rendered in traditional ochres. But indigenous artist Julie Gough has used cushions covered in the Australian flag, garden tools and a pogo stick to express her anger at exploitation of her ancestors' land. |
| Greer calls for a 'black republic' 20 June 2004 - Expatriate academic Germaine Greer has mounted a campaign in Britain for Australia to become an "Aboriginal republic". Writing a lengthy piece in yesterday's Guardian newspaper, the British resident argued that Australia needed to break links with the UK. • Greer given enough rope |
| Qld Govt in 'stolen wages' talks 18 June 2004 - A Queensland "stolen wages" advocacy group has met state Indigenous Affairs Minister Liddy Clark. Last weekend, state Labor Party members unanimously passed a resolution to reconsider compensation for wages stolen from Indigenous workers. |
| Legal action taken to stop Indigenous art
leaving Australia 18 June 2004 - Indigenous groups in Victoria's north-west say they have taken legal action to prevent three pieces of Aboriginal bark art being returned to Britain. |
| Two worlds, one vision 17 June 2004 - David Unaipon (1872-1967) was a Ngarrindjeri man who spoke Latin and Greek and endorsed assimilation, yet insisted Aboriginal culture was as rich and complex as any other ancient culture. Unaipon was a scientist, a dandy, an historian, an inventor and a Christian. He was, according to choreographer Frances Rings, an “in-between”, a man “brave enough to walk in a land that had no track”. • Breathless and bold in vibrant creativity |
| Aborigines rally over ATSIC bill 15 June 2004 - Indigenous Australians were on Tuesday promised a say in a parliamentary inquiry set to be convened by the Senate on ATSIC's future. • ATSIC set for reprieve pending Senate inquiry • An Opportunity to Tell the Whole Story - Media Statement by ATSIC |
| Aboriginal wage claims need evidence 15 June 2004 - Aborigines seeking to claim back wages and payments stolen or lost by the NSW government could miss out if they don't have documentary evidence. This is despite the government having lost or destroyed their records. |
| Howard's memory of burning beds June 14 2004 - Wondering why the Prime Minister said that his favourite Midnight Oil song was 'Beds are Burning' (from 'Diesel & Dust')? Webdiarist Mark Hayes in Brisbane does. |
| Indigenous communities criticise 'grog bans'
as racist 12 June 2004 - Several remote Aboriginal communities on Cape York are banding together to challenge the Queensland government's alcohol management plan - claiming that the so called "grog bans" are racist. At least nine communities say they plan to use international human rights laws - as well as the federal racial discrimination act - as part of their case. |
| Historic Yorta Yorta deal signed 11 June 2004 -The Victorian Government has signed a historic agreement with the Yorta Yorta people that formally acknowledges land management rights for indigenous people. • Historic accord on land control |
| Elders paving the way to reconciliation
at Myall Creek 11 June 2004 - Reconciliation will be the main objective of the annual memorial service for those who died in the Myall Creek massacre. |
| Stolen Generations case may go before UN 7 June 2004 - Legal avenues are being explored to take the case of the Stolen Generations to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. |
| An ancient society emerges 5 June 2004 - When the fury of the 2003 bushfires was finally spent, much was lost - one human life, thousands of forest animals, 1.1 million blackened hectares and 41 houses. It was a grim toll. But something has emerged from the ashes that is cause for celebration: one of Australia's most significant archaeological discoveries of recent times. |
| Letty Scott fights for the truth 4 June 2004 - On June 18, the Northern Territory Supreme Court will hear an appeal to re-open the coronial inquest into the death in custody of Douglas Bruce Scott. The case has been lodged by his widow Letty Scott, who has been fighting for nearly two decades for the truth about her husband's death. • Black death in custody - The real story |
| New bureau helps reunite the stolen generations 4 June 2004 - Cheers to a radio institution. Imagine reaching your 70s and finding out the man you called 'dad' was not your real father. That happens to the many Aboriginal people who are currently tracing their family history. Using old official documents, the Family Information Records Bureau is piecing together lost details about people's lives. Some have discovered siblings they never knew they had. But as Jonathan Beal discovered, the revelations are not always pleasant. |
| Support for reconciliation 2 June 2004 - Community leaders and representatives from more than a dozen faiths came together in support of indigenous Australians at a National Reconciliation Week event in Brisbane yesterday. Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and Baha'i were among those at the Multi-Faith Centre at the Griffith University's Nathan campus to lend their spiritual "witness" to reconciliation. |
| First Aboriginal Art Museum in Europe 31 May 2004 - The Aboriginal Art Museum is the first and so far only museum specifically for Aboriginal art in Europe, and funnily enough it is situated in a small town – Utrecht – in a small northern country – The Netherlands. This story began in 1994 – with a Dutch import company for Aboriginal art, which bought Aboriginal art directly at the many art centres in the desert and in Arnhem Land. However conscience and culture started doing battle with profit, because the owners of the company kept discovering artworks they felt should not be sold. |
| Aborigines win land recognition 30 May 2004 - Victoria's Aborigines will be recognised as the original custodians of the land in constitutional amendments to be introduced by the State Government. Premier Steve Bracks, announcing the plan at the ALP state conference in Melbo |
| Travelling a road paved with tears 28 May 2004 - Australia is a shared land. Aborigines accept this. It's time governments did too, says Patrick Dodson. Almost in a line that intersects the country of the Gooniyandi and the Walmatjarri is the ribbon of Highway 1 known in that part of Australia as the Great Northern Highway. On that road travelled thousands of the stolen Aboriginal children of the Kimberley - from their homes in the East Kimberley to the missions at Forrest River, Sunday Island, Beagle Bay and, in some sad instances, all the way to Moore River. We were assured it was "for their own good". But it was their road of tears. For many the journey back down that highway to their families and their birthright was never to eventuate. |
| Indigenous art 'better understood in Europe' 28 May 2004 - The Frenchman's interest in art started in childhood, when he was fascinated by his father's collection of tribal artefacts. After coming across an exhibition of Aboriginal art in Paris, he was hooked. Despallieres was shocked by the general lack of understanding in Australia of Aboriginal art and culture. |
| Beyond axing ATSIC, there is no plan 28 May 2004 - The Federal Government has introduced its legislation to scrap Australia's main indigenous organisation with no immediate plans to appoint a replacement. This is amid boycott calls from Aboriginal leaders and Opposition claims that the changeover is a shambles. |
| Djerrkura educated Howard 27 May 2004 - One event more than any other crystalised the relationship between Djerrkura and John Howard. It was February 1998 and Djerrkura had invited Mr Howard to his traditional country at Yirrkala in Arnhem Land in what many believed was a vain attempt to engage with a Prime Minister who was bent on winding back an imaginary pendulum he said had swung too far towards Aboriginal rights. • Reconciliation pioneer Djerrkura dead at 54 • Towering figure in Australian reconciliation |
| Aboriginal health needs $300m: AMA 26 May 2004 - The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has used the annual Sorry Day to renew its call for increased indigenous funding. The AMA is calling for an injection of an extra $300 million into Aboriginal health, with the government having committed just $10 million a year over four years in this year's budget. |
| Song fest star raves 25 May 2004 - What does Bulgarian and Aboriginal music have in common? Edwina Harrison. It was with Bulgarian and Aboriginal songs that Ms Harrison won first prize in the Third International Youth Festival Competition Folklore Without Borders. |
| Police defend Redfern riot strategies 25 May 2004 - To police matters in NSW now, and in Sydney, the officer in charge of the inner city suburb of Redfern has defended his handling of the nine hour riot there in February. At a Parliamentary inquiry today, Superintendent Dennis Smith, said that his officers had no intelligence to indicate the riot would take place, and that when it did take hold they tried several strategies to end it, including negotiation. |
| Black Voice catches ear of world 23 May 2004 - The initiative by Aboriginal writer, director and musician Richard Frankland to form a political party for indigenous Australians has attracted international attention. |
| Rock painting one in a million 22 May 2004 - Rover Thomas's only known painting of Uluru is expected to set a new auction record for Aboriginal art. "It's a painting of Australia's most iconic landmark by one of our greatest painters |