Gross Abuse

Aboriginal heritage sites in WA are managed through different channels to non-Indigenous cultural sites, to their detriment. While non-Indigenous heritage is managed by a network of professionals across all levels of government, Aboriginal heritage is managed by a section in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

The United Nations Office of the High Commission on Human Rights has made a rare foray into West Australian politics, calling on the Legislative Council to vote down the Barnett Government’s controversial anti-protest laws.

The laws would create criminal offences punishable by up to two years jail or a $24,000 fine for “physically preventing lawful activity” or possessing any “thing” police suspect was intended to be used for that offence. [node:read-more:link]

Ballarat indigenous artist Aunty Marlene's depiction of the 1842 hanging. Photo: City of Melbourne

Clare Rawlinson ABC 27 November 2015

A swing set reminiscent of the gallows where two Indigenous men were hanged in 1842 will be erected as a memorial to colonial conflict in Melbourne. [node:read-more:link]

The number of doctors working in Western Australia's First Nations Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) will be reduced from 56 to 19 under a policy proposed by the Federal Government, according to the Aboriginal Health Council of WA.

"We currently have 56 doctors working in our sector. With this decision that will severely reduce that back to 19 doctors," the council's chairwoman Michelle Nelson-Cox told ABC Kimberley. [node:read-more:link]

Letters by Noongar people pleading for the return of their stolen children or requesting access to the old age pension after a lifetime's work will come together in a new project aimed at uncovering a hidden side of Indigenous history.

Curtin University researchers are set to collate letters from state archives and correspondence held by families across Western Australia, dating from the 1860s to the 1960s. [node:read-more:link]

Earlier this year South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill announced that a royal commission would be held to consider the feasibility and viability as well as the risks and opportunities associated with four areas of the nuclear fuel cycle, including storage of radioactive waste.

Kevin Buzzacott, an Arabunna Elder puts it this way: 'If we look after this old country, the country will look after us ... How could I cut off my knee or part of my knee? I won't work without parts of me. Same for country. [node:read-more:link]

Apartheid and genocide are utterly evil, whether Israel’s ongoing Palestinian Genocide or Aboriginal Genocide in Australia. There is an ongoing Aboriginal Genocide and Aboriginal Ethnocide that demands international action against a pro-war, pro-Zionist, US lackey, human rights-abusing Apartheid Australia. There are huge differentials between First Nations peoples and non-Indigenous Australians in relation to life expectancy, health, wealth, employment and educational attainment. The so-called “Closing the Gap” has a long way to go in one of the richest countries in the world. [node:read-more:link]

A police officer involved in a confrontation with a journalist from the national Indigenous broadcaster on Anzac Day breached the AFP's Code of Conduct, an inquiry has found. NITV video journalist Myles Morgan was filming a march by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people calling for recognition of Indigenous people killed during the colonisation of Australia, when the incident took place at Anzac Parade in Canberra this year. During the march, which took place behind a traditional Anzac Day parade, a scuffle broke out between protesters and members of ACT Policing, a branch of the Australian Federal Police. One officer drew his taser and gestured at one of the march leaders. [node:read-more:link]