This morning, on the wireless, I heard the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, say the government wasn’t making cuts to the ABC.

The day before, I heard the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, say Tony Abbott hadn’t actually promised before last September’s election not to cut the budgets of the ABC and SBS. If Abbott had said something like that, then he didn’t mean it; and more likely, we’d all just misunderstood what the prime minister had said.

Also on Wednesday, I heard the prime minister tell the French president, Francois Hollande, that part of the Australian government’s policy arsenal to combat the risks associated with climate change involved funding an agency called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

What he didn’t tell the French president was the government intends to abolish the CEFC.

In politics at the present time, we are drowning in nonsense. The nonsense waves are not only lapping, elegantly, at our ankles, they are picking us all up and dumping us head first into the sand.

The Abbott government is performing so many contortions, and running so rhetorically ragged, it’s hard to see if anything coherent is actually going on.

The maximum self-harm you can inflict on yourself in politics is to obscure your substance with abject nonsense, and yet federal politics has been seemingly locked in this cycle for the past couple of terms. Labor deadweighted itself with kindergarten intrigues and dysfunctional personality conflicts.

This government is seemingly intent on deadweighting itself with evasions and too-clever-by-half constructions that can be ripped apart comprehensively in about a minute-and-a-half.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/20/abc-climate-change-the-coalition-is-drowning-us-in-nonsense

After experiencing first-hand for a month the harsh realities that Aboriginal people face, I couldn’t wait to return back home to Melbourne. I was exhausted and emotionally troubled at the realisations I had made over the past few weeks and couldn’t wait to be supported and be able to share my journey with my husband. It was the furthest thought from my mind to find out that my house was half-empty when I got back, and that he had left me while I was away. My world fell around my feet and I just stood there looking at my now life-less house, which I'd fantasised about returning to during the most challenging parts of the previous weeks. My outlook on life had changed, and it seemed too that my life had changed without me even having a say in it.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/uk-tories-slam-tony-abbott-on-climate-policy-20141120-11qos6.html

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The head of the Pastoralists and Graziers' Association (PGA) has backed the possible closure of remote Aboriginal communities, describing residents' circumstances as "miserable".

WA Premier Colin Barnett signalled the closure of the state's least populated Aboriginal communities last week, after the Federal Government handballed the responsibility of funding their essential services to the state.

Mr Barnett revealed plans to close between 100 and 150 of the 274 remote communities in WA, telling Parliament the state could no longer continue to service them.

The move sparked a backlash in parts of the Indigenous community, with Aboriginal elders leading a protest outside State Parliament.

PGA president Tony Seabrook said it was time for a "frank and open discussion about the future of those communities without fear of incrimination".

Mr Seabrook said it was foolish for people to remain in the communities with no job prospects and poor health outcomes.

"The situation that a lot of the Aborigines in this country find themselves in is absolutely miserable," he said.

"There's no future, it's not integrating them into our society and we're too frightened to step up and help them.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-19/head-of-wa-pastoralists-and-graziers-backs-closure-of-remote-co/5902724

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One can already see the ultra right-wing vultures flying over... Lands will be confiscated or acquired as a down payment for "caring"... I can smell it from 2000 miles (3100 kms) away... One has to realise that these communities were never helped or encouraged to help themselves but have always been under a format in which the white administrators control the life of people, including cash and activities, including resolve of "disputes"... I know. I have been there.

After almost two decades, the Ngadju people from WA's Goldfields have had their native title claim formally recognised.

On Friday, the Federal Court of Australia convened in Norseman to officially recognise more than 100,000 square kilometres of land as Ngadju native title.

About 40 per cent of the area, east of Norseman, has been named as exclusive possession which is the highest form of native title.

Sonny Graham is one of the few remaining Ngadju elders who started the claim for native title 18 years ago.

He said the recognition had secured the Ngadju culture and traditions for years to come.

"It is exciting, it's been a long hard road but when you have something worthwhile, the challenges make it more precious to you," he said.

Mr Graham said the recognition had come too late for many Ngadju elders who had since passed on.

"One of the oldest ladies was granny Mable Wilson and the other one was uncle Arthur Dimer," he said.

"They were the two that originated the first claim and signed the papers, but sad to say they're not with us today, but they would be pleased that this has happened.

"There's a lot of country there and we know our country, we know there's food there, animals we can hunt.

"We can pass on our cultures, this is the important thing, to our children."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-23/goldfields-native-title-claim-recognised-after-two-decades/5911516

The treatment of criminalised women and girls in Australian prisons is deteriorating rapidly, but it is a whole lot worse if you happen to be Indigenous, writes Debbie Kilroy.

The treatment of criminalised and imprisoned women and girls is deteriorating rapidly in Australia. The Productivity Commission’s updated report on Indigenous disadvantage, which showed a huge jump in the number of Indigenous people being imprisoned and in the numbers self-harming, is an indictment on us all — but the information isn’t new.

The prison system hides behind thousands of pages of law and polices that suggest women prisoners are treated fairly and with dignity, and that they are in prison to protect the community. This is what makes it difficult to expose the raw reality of women and girls’ exposure to systematic breaches of human rights on a daily basis behind bars.

The prison system can cover up, side-step the truth, create smoke and mirrors. The prison system feeds into the rhetoric that we, as advocates, are just misleading the community, hysterical and even liars.

This week's cover up and diversion tactics by the Queensland prison system concerned the access of a newborn baby to his mother's breast milk.

This baby boy was removed from his mother just days after his birth and placed in care. His mother was returned to prison and both were denied the right to spend these vital weeks in the purpose-built cells for mothers and babies. Instead, the system facilitated the removal of this little Aboriginal boy and placed him in foster care. His mother was given a mattress on the cell floor, due to overcrowding.

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/indigenous-women-behind-bars-persecuted-by-the-system,7140

As Reconciliation Australia's Fred Chaney steps down from the organisation he helped create 15 years ago, he reaches into the past to find the word that captures the challenge still ahead for the cause he has long championed.

"We don't use the word any more," 73-year-old Mr Chaney told The World Today.

"But I think that the implication of a lot our [government] policy ... does have a decidedly assimilationist tinge.

"I think there's an enormous challenge in getting us away from a totally assimilationist mindset and understanding that a continuing part of Australia is the Aboriginal tribes and nations that are such an important ongoing part of the fabric of Australia."

In the ongoing national discussion about reconciliation, there are few words as emotionally charged as assimilation.

It broadly refers to the policy framework pursed by successive Australian governments throughout the first half of the 20th Century and well into the 1960s, when it was erroneously assumed that Indigenous Australians would benefit from adopting European customs and beliefs and were absorbed into white society.

It had a devastating impact on Indigenous communities.

Mr Chaney believes the same mindset continues to guide white Australia's response to reconciliation.

"As a nation, I think we're naturally assimilationist," he argues.

"We voted 90 per cent in the referendum in 1967 because it was a referendum in favour of equality.

"We have much more difficulty in coming to grips with the continued existence of Aboriginal polities across the country which, post-Mabo, we're certainly going to have for the foreseeable future and indeed perhaps forever."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-01/reconciliation-australia-head-steps-down/5931350

Tony Abbott will use any excuse to destroy what is decent, correct and fair in favour of expedient economic lies. He lied about the ABC and he lied about more than 50 other policies. 

Instead of the ABC headlines saying "Abbott presses reset after "ragged week" for Coalition" it should have said "Tony lies some more after a self-inflicted wound followed by a hollow mea-culpa"... But then the media is kind to Abbott... He is a nasty idiot with a not very-bruise-able ego, because HE DOES NOT CARE as long as he does damage ! This is typical of school yard bullies! And the kids in the yard are scared...

How did they come to be on the mainland, just seven years after the establishment of the fledgling colony of Port Phillip?

The story of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheneer is, by turns, shocking, exciting, tragic and moving. Their incredible, tumultuous and short lives tell us so much about the early colonial history of Tasmania and Victoria.

The two men were among 16 Tasmanian Aborigines—including Truganini—who were brought to the mainland by George Augustus Robinson.

Six months into their travels through country Victoria with Robinson, they spectacularly abandoned life with the whites and for three months, terrorised the colonial outposts of Victoria. Eventually caught and charged with murder of two seal hunters, the women were sent back to Tasmania but the two men were put to death in a brutally botched execution.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/a-forgotten-war/5902894

Members of Australia's largest Aboriginal land council were left frustrated when the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion failed to attend a full council meeting in Kakadu.

The Minister would have faced heavy questioning about Indigenous policy and funding arrangements from 78 Northern Land Council (NLC) members.

The members have been meeting all week at the Aurora Resort at Kakadu National Park, about 210 kilometres from Darwin.

The traditional owners said they were deeply disappointed when the Minister failed to appear this morning.

A spokesperson for Senator Scullion said the last-minute cancellation was due to mechanical problems with the Minister's plane.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/nigel-scullion-no-show-angers-northern-land-council-meeting/5961088

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Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Shayne Neumann has demanded a public apology to all Australians for the "deeply disturbing and highly offensive" comments.

"This is a prime minister who doesn't understand the importance of these people to their connectivity to their land," he told AAP.

Mr Neumann said the self-declared prime minister for indigenous affairs had form in this area, referring to Mr Abbott's claim that Australia was unsettled before British "foreign investment".

"He has trashed his reputation, he doesn't deserve that title."

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/lifestyle-choice-tony-abbott-stands-by-controversial-comments-despite-indigenous-leader-backlash-20150310-140mn5.html

See toon at top. Tony is a huge EMBARRASSMENT, an idiot, a deliberate stinker, a sneaky crab — a dangerous human being.

A video game that appears to encourage players to kill Indigenous Australians has been removed from Google Play and iTunes after an online petition attracted more than 60,000 signatures condemning the game.

• Reviews of game in Google Play store blasted the game as "glorifying genocide"
• Game appears to have been removed from the store, not available in Apple iTunes
• Petition calls for game to be pulled and asks the developers to issue an apology

The petition was started by Gadigal woman Georgia Mantle who raised concerns that it required players to survive in the Australian outback and rewarded them with weapons and food for killing Aboriginal people.

"What this is doing is making entertainment out of the murder of people based on their race," Ms Mantle told the ABC.

"Why would you allow an app that is so blatantly racist and promotes racist violence to be hosted on your sites?"

Reviews of the game, Survival Island 3 - Australia Story 3D, in the Google Play store blasted the game as "glorifying genocide" and "horrific and disgustingly racist".

The game appears to have been removed from the Google Play store, but was earlier available to download.

A spokeswoman for Google said it would not comment on individual apps, but added that the company removes applications that violate their policies.

In the petition statement, Ms Mantle said the game promoted racial violence and negative stereotypes of Indigenous Australians.

She told the ABC the game included pop-up "warning" messages.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-16/'racist'-survival-island-3-game-taken-down-from-appstores/7092782

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In a modern legal context, the transferring of the sovereignty of Australia from the Indigenous people seems even more criminal, writes Peter Kemp.

HENRY REYNOLDS POSTED an interesting article on The Conversation website, 27 August 2018. Under British law, private property was sacrosanct, could not be taken without the consent of the subject. So, we might ask, were the First Nations people “subjects of the Crown” when Captain Phillip arrived here in 1788 and proclaimed Australia the property of the Crown under King George III?

But first a fictional story.

Imagine an island off the coast of Australia, the size of Tasmania, outside territorial waters hidden away by some freak of nature up until now. The Australian navy discovers it, the officers go ashore and notice some inhabitants, not unlike Australia’s First Nations people. They report back to Canberra and, under the Morrison Government, a fleet is prepared to colonise this island and proclaim it for Australia. Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce, at a loose end in the House of Representatives, are granted pairs and are selected to be the Government officials or “envoys” leading this fleet. When they land they name it Barnabott; a federal territory of Australia and by proclamation it is declared pretty empty land, resisting Barnaby’s idea of Tooheys Nullius. The Fleet has 500 prisoners from the overcrowded prisons of NSW, they are set to work clearing the land and building the first town — but there are problems.

The First Nations people of Barnabott, armed with spears, resist this intrusion and the naval forces are engaged to shoot them whenever attempting to spear a convict, calling it self-defence. With grudging approval, Tony Abbott finally agrees with the plan to put RU-486 in the waterholes to stifle the birth rates of the First Nations people and, after a while, there are only a few surviving up in the mountains. 

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/unsettled-b...

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