Culture

Indigenous land and sea rangers have called on the government to expand what they say is one of the most successful Indigenous jobs programs, caring for the huge swaths of protected land across the country. However, it falls on the deaf ears of racist and greedy governments who prefer to destroy the land with mining and sell the rest to China.
In doing so, they further damage the climate for everyone's children and grandchildren's future, including their own descendants. [node:read-more:link]

Sydney's current city is probably the largest urban system ever built from, and upon, an existing city framework and it was built in an unholy silence. - What if our present historical city was not the first urban structure to occupy the coastal region extending from Port Stephens to Kiama? What would this primordial city reveal, what lessons of history could we learn; just what of this first, pre-invasion Sydney was admitted, and what was denied in the making of our second metropolis? [node:read-more:link]

Penny Bidd, 52, from the Kimberley says the only hope for the five children her daughter left behind, who are now in her care, is to escape even further into the bush, to her homeland on the remote Charnley River Station. She's not the only one, many First Nations people in Western Australia are opting to live "on country" in remote settlements. They see that as the safest and healthiest way of beating grog, drugs and violence, both physical and sexual, that stalks the townships. However, Premier, Colin Barnett has placed a cloud over the viability of the communities. [node:read-more:link]

For over two centuries, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia have had to endure brutal agression against their societies. Every year on Australia Day, Australians celebrate the arrival of the First British Fleet, on 26 January 1788, on the coast of Eora Country. But today, the first peoples of Australia still call it « Invasion Day ». This difference in perceptions bears witness to the political and cultural gap which separates Aboriginal people from other Australians. [node:read-more:link]

The Barnett govt's power to remove Aboriginal sites from the state's heritage register has been thrown into doubt by a landmark test case handed down in the Supreme Court. The court has quashed a decision by the WA Liberal government’s powerful Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee to de-register the land and sea surrounding the iron ore export hub of Port Hedland as an Aboriginal sacred site, in a test case that creates uncertainty about the toughening stance on sacred sites. [node:read-more:link]