Archive of Indigenous Issues pages

IMAGE: this image of the indigenous candles on the eve of Apology Day 2008, facing Parliament House in Canberra, must surely be counted as a photograph, depicting the theme of Indigenous Parliamentary issues for this year, and perhaps the decade. The image comes with great thanks to Alan Porritt of AAP. Click the image to open a larger version.

14 February 2008: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Motion of Apology - Yesterday, Australia's Federal Parliament reconvened after the resounding win for ALP Leader Kevin Rudd, and the very first motion put by Australia's new Prime Minister under 'government business' was the speech to The Motion Of The Apology. Here's the movie and transcript of Kevin Rudd's speech.

12 February 2008 - The Shock Doctrine in the Northern Territory: Northern Territory Child Protection Minister Marion Scrymgour has retracted her description of of the Commonwealth Government's NT intervention as the "black kids Tampa", writes Crikey while making a link between Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and John Howard's Intervention. Sadly enough, Crikey is right...

2 February 2008: Aboriginal Elder Ian Ward: another GSL Death in Custody - Last weekend's death in custody of an Indigenous offender while in transit by van, an AIMS Van operated under the contract with Global Solutions Limited from the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie was not by any means the first serious incident by this company, the company also charged by the Federal government for the running of Immigration Detention camps...

7 May 2007: Dr Eva Sallis, Australian dream; Australian nightmare: Some thoughts on Multiculturalism and Racism - "...this place is called, with terrible irony, Blackster. It is the other side of town from Baxter, and, although less money is spent here, the echoes are stark, and when I thought about it, almost all generated by the fence." The Dymphna Clark Lecture at the Manning Clark House 6th Weekend of Ideas, "A Fair Go for Refugees?"

6 October 2006: The Palm Island Inquest findings: unacceptable political inertia - This is not an issue that should concern only indigenous people. Police should not be permitted to become a law unto themselves ... We are all diminished if we stand by and tolerate a response which shows such a systemic disregard for basic levels of human decency.

15 July 2006: Twenty-five Reports that line government bookshelves ... on Indigenous Australia - Australia already has a complete roadmap to indigenous well-being. Report after report was written, commissioned by governments. The one aspect jumping out and screaming for answers, is the absolute lack of will on the part of the Howard government to build on that roadmap.

  15 July 2006: Women in Black on Whitefella business: walking to Canberra - On 11 July 2006, three women started on a journey from Perth to Canberra, and this page contains some of the published information, their message to the Prime Minister John Howard and the Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, and an open letter to all Australians.

7 December 2004: Palm Island: will Indigenous people get justice for Doomadgee? - "Cameron Doomadgee was found to have suffered four fractured ribs, a ruptured liver and torn protal vein. He died from these injuries he sustained while in police custody on Palm Island. Apparently he sustained these injuries when he fell off a table. Yeah, sure he did."

11 November 2004: Howard's way with The First Australians: shame, shame, shame - Welfare for showering yourself with soap - today is Howard's day for Howard's way with indigenous people. The PM is quietly, bit by bit, announcing his hardline welfare policy for indigenous people, he raids the only Indigenous newspaper we have, the National Indigenous Times.

30 June 2003: Pathway to Residential Hospitality: Common Journey of Healing - Yazdan Jawshani, a refugee from Afghanistan and Indigenous leader Lowitja O'Donoghue have something in common, and not just something. The Journey of Healing for Australian Indigenous people overlaps in many ways with the journey for refugees in Australia.

12 March 2003: Lowitja O'Donoghue, Return to Afghanistan: resettlement or refoulment? - Giving Ruddock the additional 'Indigenous' portfolio is to recognise the racial agenda in Howard's own mind. Aboriginal people and the Stolen Generation have demanded an apology on the basis of racial injustice. And its very hard to see injustices to refugees to be anything other than race motivated.