Colonialism

The United Nations has described Australia's lack of progress on Closing the Gap as "woefully inadequate", saying the over-incarceration of Indigenous people is a major human rights concern. Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Ms Tauli-Corpuz said it was unacceptable that despite two decades of economic growth, Australia had not been able to improve the social disadvantage of its Indigenous population. She urged the Federal Government to establish a treaties and truth-telling commission. [node:read-more:link]

'Aboriginal Peak Organisations of the Northern Territory', and their members have received widespread concerns about the debilitating impacts that CDP is having on its participants, their families and communities.

Onerous and discriminatory obligations applied to remote CDP work for the dole participants mean they have to do significantly more work than those in non-remote, mainly non-Indigenous majority areas, up to 670 hours more per year [node:read-more:link]

In the April issue of Land Rights News I celebrated the 30th anniversary of the progressive and supportive Blanchard report 'Return to Country': the Aboriginal Homelands Movement in Australia. And I wondered what celebration or reproach the 10th anniversary of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response, the Intervention that was militaristically launched with extraordinary media fanfare on 21 June 2007 might elicit.

The answers to this question are threefold. [node:read-more:link]

Response to the Referendum Council's so-called modest and substantive recommendation of a referendum to have an advisory-only 'Indigenous Voice' in parliament. $800 million plus has now gone down the gurgler, but then this is what happens when a government meets resistance, a resistance that has been going since 1770. It must be an enormous disappointment for the Turnbull government and Shorten's expectations that Leibler and his First Nations cohorts have failed miserably to deliver the goods, that is to assimilate First Nations Peoples in to the colonial constitution. Turnbull is clearly aware of a looming 'heroic failure'. [node:read-more:link]

Aboriginal Embassy Statement from the Sacred Fire
'WALKOUT STATEMENT' Opposing Constitutional Recognition and Manufactured Consent
- We, the First Nations People who gathered at the Sacred Fire of the Aboriginal Embassy on 24-25 June 2017, reject the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’ and its’ Guiding Principles. The ‘Uluru Statement’ is a reflection of the corrupt proceedings of the Referendum Council’s Regional Dialogues and the National Constitutional Convention. [node:read-more:link]