Western Australia

Nigel Scullion acknowledges there may be no future for some remote indigenous communities in WA as Premier Colin Barnett yesterday revealed he plans to close up to 150 of the state's 274 tiny settlements. Fred Chaney has sent an open letter to Mr Barnett, Senator Scullion and Tony Abbott warning that if governments simply "let things rip" by withdrawing services and driving people out of remote communities without careful preparation, the outcomes for indigenous Australians "will be shameful". [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

Ancient rock paintings, standing stones and scattered artefacts had once been protected by their remote location, but mining activity that ramped up in the early 1960s had triggered "fears for the safety of sites of importance". Today the landscapes of the Pilbara and Kimberley regions are being extensively reconfigured in the era of GPS, aerial exploration and fly-in, fly-out workforces. Evidence of Aboriginal occupation is still scattered across those landscapes, lying in the path of planned roads, railways and mines. One mining tenement can hold thousands of such artefacts. The only plan the gov't has is to water down existing legislation. [node:read-more:link]

The Federal Government has struck a $100 million deal with Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria for the provision of basic services in remote Aboriginal communities. Under the deal, the states would take permanent responsibility to provide services like power, water and roads - areas the Commonwealth managed in the past. Nigel Scullion set up the deal but South Australian Government won't agree and the WA government said they agreed under great pressure. [node:read-more:link]

Lois Olney was always told her mother had put her up for adoption, but a note scrawled on a pie wrapper and passed to her while singing on stage gave the first inkling she was stolen as a baby. Lois discovered her extended family in Roebourne Western Australia.

Lois had been adopted by the Olney family, with her adoptive father being Howard Olney who went on to become a state Labor politician, and then a Justice of the Supreme Court. [node:read-more:link]

Joseph Roe, First Nations Activist from Broome in Western Australia defied money, arrests, threats and compulsory acquisition of his people's land to maintain integrity of First Nations culture and the environment.

"The law and song cycles of Walmadan are not ancient dreamtime history." Joseph Rowe said "This law has been kept alive through my grandfather Paddy Roe and now through me

"Remove law boss Joe Roe ... from history, and the massive gas factory planned by Woodside Petroleum for north of Broome would by now be wrecking the Kimberley coastline," Dr Bob Brown said. [node:read-more:link]

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.

This is another appalling example of a young person in her prime, murdered by a system where justice means disrespect, punishment and torture to harmless people and billions to the rich. [node:read-more:link]