Culture

Aboriginal leaders and advocates are warning the "chaos and dysfunction" caused by closing down remote Indigenous communities will cost the West Australian Government far more than addressing existing issues. Amnesty International's indigenous peoples' rights manager Tammy Solonec said there was no plan to help people when Ooombulgurri community was closed down and people were required to integrate into Wyndham or other towns, leaving them "highly traumatised".

By now we know that traditional Indigenous languages are losing speakers rapidly and tragically. Of the 250 languages once spoken in Australia, only 40 remain and just 18 of these are still learnt by children. But if children in remote Indigenous communities aren't still learning traditional languages, then what are they learning? It is generally assumed they are shifting to English, but this is not the case. - Article by Felicity Meakins from The University of Queensland

Be careful what you pray for. By proposing to strip away protection for Aboriginal people's heritage across the board, and throughout the State, the Barnett Government appears to have unwittingly conjured up a strong, united and angry Aboriginal coalition which is now mobilising against the AHA amendments.

Written Dr Stephen Bennetts, who is a consultant anthropologist that has worked with Aboriginal people in Northern Australia since 1994.

Half the country's rock paintings – some dating back 30,000 years – could disappear within 50 years, experts warn. Oliver Milman meets the Indigenous rangers and researchers working to protect delicate sandstone from the triple threat of mining, graffiti and feral animals.

It's a race to protect Australia's most ancient treasures. For the traditional owners of land near the remote town of Laura, a four-hour drive north-west of Cairns, Far North Queensland, the job is essential – and urgent.

Jane Simpson writes that Indigenous languages won't survive if First Nations kids don't have the opportunity to speak their native languages at school. Ms Simpson is the Chair of Indigenous Linguistics and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at Australian National University asks the question of what language(s) to teach Indigenous students, what languages to teach them in, and how to go about it has been generating a little political heat (but not quite so much light) of late.

The First Nations peoples of the continent now called Australia were not ignorant savages stagnating in their primitive inadequacies and laziness, as the British invaders have been maintaining and indeed teaching for the past 230 years.

Archaeologist's findings together with scientific analogy is now pointing towards the history of these people as the beginning of what is known as 'modern man' in this region, at least.

Further damage by vandals has been discovered at the site of some of the world's oldest and largest Aboriginal carvings, which have laid undisturbed for centuries on the Burrup Peninsula. Not only is the site vulnerable to the destruction of country meted out some of Australia's biggest mining projects, but there is also a total failure of governments to protect the site from grand theft and casual vandals.

The true owners say they do not want to have to close off areas to the public.

The book argues the idea that the first Australians were hunter gatherers has been invented to undermine Aboriginal people.

"My message to my own people," he says, "is the rest of the country's not going to change if we don't stick up for our culture; and our culture was one where we had an agricultural economy. If we stick up for our culture, it'll be useful not just for us but for the whole of Australia, because some of those crops that our people were growing are going to be useful in the future."

A great overview of the proposed changes in the WA heritage Act - The new and the old - the good and the bad by Nicholas Herriman of Latrobe University.

The fast pace of development in WA has destroyed much First Nations heritage. In recognition of this, WA’s parliament passed, in 1972, the Aboriginal Heritage Act. Now they propose an updated model but the revisions will make it easier for developers to disturb heritage sites.

Matt Thistlethwaite MP responds on behalf of his local First Nations community to Tony Abbott's claim that Australia was unsettled prior to British investment. Published on Jul 17, 2014

Matt Thistlethwaite Labor MP - 'Kingsford Smith electorate' covers the South-Eastern corner of the Sydney Inner Metropolitan area. The electorate area covers approximately 127 sq km from La Perouse in the south to Randwick and Coogee in the north.