Gross Abuse

As elections loom in Victoria and New South Wales, their governments' focus on tough law-and-order policies and prison populations are beyond capacity, but reports state that the crime statistics in these states are falling. A lot of people will shrug their shoulders and wonder what the fuss is about. People who commit crimes go to prison and this makes the community safer. What they fail to consider is the very real downside: a bigger drain on the public purse and a bad social outcome.

In a situation where there is just too much raw evidence against the Police who brutally pack attacked a man in the Ballina lock-up, there has finally been some charges laid against 4 police officers, but the issue has the massive task of getting past the pro-establishment court system, that is well known for watering down abuses against our First Nations people.
All four entered not guilty pleas and waived their right to a committal hearing and two more are due to appear in the Downing Centre Local Court.

It takes a unique country to name a century-long former internment camp as its favourite holiday destination. Such a country would either have to be one with rather macabre fascinations or a genuine interest in acknowledging historical injustices as a way of moving towards a better future. Or it could just be Australia.

The hundreds of Aboriginal men buried in unmarked graves probably aren’t an island drawcard for most tourists.

In a submission to the Indigenous Jobs and Training Review, headed by billionaire mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, the National Welfare Rights Network has argued many of Forrest’s recommendations would have devastating impacts and do little to improve employment outcomes for Indigenous people.

A central recommendation is the creation of a “Healthy Welfare Card” - article by Max Chalmers, 'New Matilda'.

The Woolwonga were said to have been exterminated in 1884 at Burrundie about 200 kilometres south of Darwin in reprisal for spearing non-Aboriginal miners.

But about four years ago an 1899 census document was found showing at least one had survived. Exactly how the girl known as Jennie survived the massacre of her people - the Woolwonga of the Alligator River near Katherine - is not known.

The Abbott government has opened up the first funding round of its streamlined $4.8bn Indigenous Advancement Strategy, with tough new guidelines for organisations wishing to access the money.

In other words the real owners of this continent are forced to go cap in hand to the missionaries as The Abbott amalgamates 150 First Nations programs into five broad areas

Welcome to the age of the Abbott Chain Gangs

Unlike Australia where police investigate deaths in custody, Deborah Coles says the UK moved to independent investigations in 2004.

In a tragedy that has again ­invoked the shameful record of black deaths in custody in Western Australia, the Aboriginal woman — about to see a doctor for a suspected leg infection when arrested earlier this month — had begged to be hospitalised instead of kept in jail ...

Representatives from Pilbara Aboriginal communities are calling on the Western Australian Government to rethink proposed changes to the Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Around 200 people met on the banks of the Yule River, south of Port Hedland, last Friday, to raise their concerns about a lack of community consultation around planned amendments to section 18 of the legislation.

Around 80 people attended a rally in Alice Springs calling for the removal of a four metre high statue of explorer John McDouall Stuart, the first European to traverse the continent from south to north in 1862.
A letter was also distributed, written by the elders directly to John McDouall Stuart, accusing him of not asking permission to enter the land and of killing Arrernte people. "You came to Mount Hay and you killed our mob," it stated.

Ray Jackson's Media release covers the NSW Attorney-General, Brad Hazzard, as to his decision on the 33 year old death in custody of Eddie Murray, the brutal assault by Redfern police to Ms Kathryne Fisher when they forced their way into her home, and the related Kings Cross incident when the Kings Cross police had wilfully and recklessly fired six shots into the car, the Un-gagged Lex Wotten, and more to the Palm Island cover-ups and lack of justice and the successful Aboriginal Passport Ceremony in Sydney.