Friday 29th of March 2024

loud and clear...

loud

The Turnbull Government dismisses the suggestion First Nations people should be involved in decisions which affect them as "undesirable" and has no intention to negotiate on an equal footing, writes Indigenous affairs editor Natalie Cromb.

OVER 230 YEARS of violent brutality, paternalism and ethnocentric contempt and the Government – in its infinite wisdom – suggests the way forward is through constitutional recognition and seeks the input of First Nations people on how this can be achieved.

Years of work, consultation and dialogues, and a report is released which recommends a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and an extra-constitutional declaration.

Those familiar with my writing and politics know that my personal suggestion for a way forward is far more radical than what is being reasonably suggested by the Referendum Council. Clearly, the Referendum Council has given great thought to how White Australia would receive any suggestions and decided on something very uncontroversial, reasonable and underwhelming to those of us who seek a more dramatic change — but even so, the Coalition has rejected the options outright.

 

Loud and clear, Malcolm, loud and clear.

The elders and community members who input into the consultations and dialogues are made to experience further indignity at the hands of the Coalition as they lay the boot in with a resounding rejection. The grace of the First Nations people is once again being taken for granted and being spat upon.

As if there was ever any doubt about how elitist former investment banker Malcolm Turnbull viewed Indigenous Australians, he has made it abundantly clear with this latest response. Moreover, his "Indigenous Affairs Minister", Nigel Scullion, even went so far as to state to the media that the downfall was speaking to First Nations people.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/turnbulls-l...

 

 

 

bugger off !...

 

please respect !

Board members of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park unanimously voted Wednesday to officially ban trekkers from climbing Australia's infamous Uluru site out of respect for the Anangu indigenous community.

"This decision has been a very long time coming and our thoughts are with the elders who have longed for this day but are no longer with us to celebrate it," David Ross, director of the Central Land Council, said in a statement.

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is considered by Aboriginal Australians to be a sacred men's site that marks the traditional route ancestral Mala men took during the "creation time."

— Anthony Stewart (@anthonystewart) November 1, 2017

​"Some people, in tourism and government for example, might have been saying we need to keep it open, but it's not their law that lies in this land," Sammy Wilson, a member of the council, said in a statement. "It is an extremely important place, not a playground or theme park like Disneyland."

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201711021058742070-australia-to-ban-climbing-uluru-rock-in-2019/

 

See toon at top...

 

he means...

Indigenous leaders say Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's latest remarks on constitutional recognition are offensive.

Mr Turnbull said constitutional recognition of a Voice to Parliament would be "contrary to the principles of equality and citizenship".

The former co-chair of the Referendum Council, Pat Anderson, is deeply disappointed with the Prime Minister's choice of words.

"Well, you know, what the hell does that mean?"

She is worried that Mr Turnbull is trying to shut down discussion about Indigenous recognition.

"It's such a poor, crude level of conversation and discussion," Ms Anderson said.

Mr Turnbull is under pressure to revisit the idea of a referendum to establish an Indigenous body to advise parliament.

Ms Anderson said the advisory body, which was therecommendation of the Referendum Council and the landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart, would help inform policy to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

She said it is essential if the problems facing Indigenous Australians are to be addressed.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-06/turnbull-backlash-for-indigenous-v...

In simple terms, Malcolm means: "bugger off"...

lying? malcolm? nothing new...

Malcolm Turnbull has been accused of lying by the Indigenous leader Noel Pearson over his rejection of a proposed Indigenous voice to parliament.

The prime minister had “lied” because he had previously suggested he supported the proposal back in 2015 and encouraged him on the issue, Pearson was quoted as saying.

The Uluru statement was drafted after a three-day summit of more than 300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders and legal experts in May, which followed a year of consultation.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/06/noel-pearson-says...

targeting blacks...

More than half the people on a secretive New South Wales police blacklist are Aboriginal, the state’s top law enforcement officer has revealed.

The NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, says about 55% of people who are currently the subject of a Suspect Target Management Plan are Indigenous, prompting accusations that police are using a “racially biased program” to combat crime.

The Suspect Target Management Plan – or STMP – is a “predictive style of policing” that uses “disruption and prevention” to identify people who police believe are a high risk of committing crimes.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/11/more-than-50-of-t...

of nationality...

 

 

In an attempt to end the continuing parliamentary chaos over breaches of section 44 of the constitution, all parliamentarians have been required to lodge declarations and evidence of their citizenship. The forms request the date and place of birth for parliamentarians, their parents and their grandparents, as well as any evidence required to show any citizenships to other nations were renounced.

“I have been made to feel quite angry about what I had to go through to find out about my father and his parents,” said Burney. “The only way that we could find out anything was to go to what was left of the old Aboriginal Protection Board records, and there was a document written by my grandfather to the mission manager on Brungle reserve, requesting permission to build a home.

“To go and have to do that, to go to the old Protection Board records, to realise the best they could do was a letter requesting permission to build a roof over their heads, it really stirred up a lot of deep emotions. Some of that was just disgust and an understanding of the way our people were treated.”

Burney said she understood there had to be a “circuit breaker” in the citizenship crisis and she hoped this process would achieve it. “Somehow or other this issue needs to be dealt with, intelligently and sensitivity, because I suspect there are people – not just Aboriginal people – who are going to find out some very difficult family histories.”

The NT Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy told Guardian Australia there were “moments of outrage” as she sat in her office trying to complete the questionnaire. “Because just a simple act of filling out this document reminded me of how far our country still has to go in recognising First Nations people in our country, and the legacy of previous policies and the impact they still have today,” she said.

“It brings up a lot of hurt, the legacy of hurt and pain, because we reflect on very real circumstances on the past that impact on the present.”

McCarthy was born on Yanyuwa country, near Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria, to an Indigenous mother and a father of Irish descent. She is a traditional owner of Yanyuwa land, and uniquely has declared as much on the parliamentary registry.

“The difficulty for my maternal side of the family is that we don’t know the dates of when my grandparents were born on Yanyuwa country and Garawa country, or even the dates of my mother’s birth, although we’ve always guessed it was around 1950. My maternal grandmother we guessed around 1930,” she said.

“I don’t know my maternal grandfather and that’s largely because statistics and birth certificates were just not part of the way of Australia and the policies of the time didn’t include us.”

McCarthy said she had no concerns about an unknown second citizenship in her background, but added the Labor party’s vetting was strict.

Other parties appeared to be more lax. Among those to have been found ineligible is Jacqui Lambie. The former Tasmanian senator is Indigenous, but her father’s Scottish heritage bestowed upon her dual citizenship, overriding her place as a First Nations Australian.

 

Western Australian senator and Yawuru man Pat Dodson declined to be interviewed but in a speech to farewell Lambie he decried the system which “put to one side” her Indigenous heritage. “It’s an absolute tragedy that our constitution was written by all these white folks that never bothered to consider and incorporate the First Peoples in it,” he told the Senate.

McCarthy said: “This is what the non-Indigenous men of the day, when they wrote this constitution, this is what they determined for this country.

“The question is do we want to change that?”

To change it would require a referendum. Referendums are difficult to win – something Malcolm Turnbull recently cited to justify his total rejection of an Indigenous voice to parliament.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/05/australias-citize...

 

Read from top...

 

caught in a mixed cultural heritage...

From Stan Grant...

I am Australian. I have Australian memories: sun scorched days at the pool; sticky orange ice blocks; backyard cricket; broken bicycle chains; hot chips and vinegar; warm milk at recess; ink wells; wet wool jumpers; frost-cracked fingers.

I am Australian. I have Australian history: Captain Cook; the first fleet; convicts; Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth; Burke and Wills; merino sheep; the gold rush; Gallipoli; the Great Depression; Menzies and Gough.

But I have other memories — Australian memories: a dirt road on the outskirts of town; mangy dogs and broken glass; my father's wounds; my mother's poems of stolen kids and welfare men; too many funerals.

I have another history — an Australian history too: Bennelong, Pemulwuy and Windradyne; Truganini and the black line in Tasmania; the Appin massacre; martial law in Bathurst; segregated missions; the day of mourning; no blacks allowed and the Freedom Road.

This is me. All of it. We are all of this. It just is.

But then, it isn't. Now it feels like a battleground. 

It is as if this day — Australia Day — must pit my ancestors white and black in some conflict without end.

It is a fight with myself, I can't possibly win.

What am I supposed to forget? What part of my story am I expected to embrace and what part do I reject?

The age of anger

Australia Day feels angrier. It is a defiant flag in a window and a flag on fire at a protest.

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-26/stan-grant-australia-day-in-the-ag...

 

Gus: coming from afar, from Europe in a moment of distress, I have come to build my thoughts to recognise that history isn't my future determinant. But I understand how the past and the injustices past can influence what we feel and how we live. Here, It is a brave sentiment expressed by Stan Grant to acknowledge he cannot win this battle of cultural heritage.

It would be insensitive of us not to acknowledge this (his) battle and go flippantly into our next day, after a glorious night of celebrations on Sydney Harbour. The illusion of unity and peace was magnificent on channel ten, between adverts for Harvey Norman, pills to prevent headaches, and a glorious grand finale fireworks — far better than the massive new year's eve's which lacked the intimacy that was on offer tonight — celebrations which should make any other cities on this planet jealous of our magnificent setting. This illusion should drive us better, as long as our government tries not to be petty — while it plays the "limited" game of recognition for popularism, and does not give a shit about the needs of those who have suffered through their heritage, in humiliation and unsung slavery.

Illusions have a cost. They hide well the real pain of some people. We should listen and atone.

change the date,,,

 

Writing this is hard. That is because Australia Day is hard. It’s been hard for me ever since I can remember. I’ve marched every year since I was a child. I’ve worn my Aboriginal flag shirt with pride and been sneered at. I’ve written about it for the past three years.

But this year seems different.

It feels more aggressive: more racial slurs and rallying cries, more vitriolic posts and opportunistic media. For the most part I want to turn off. I could use the full length of this piece talking about the slurs and abuse thrown at me. The website bandwidth wouldn’t be big enough if I went into what is thrown at my peers and other vocal Aboriginal people. But here is the thing: if I didn’t choose to, I wouldn’t have to engage in this debate. I have fair skin, an education and a safe roof over my head. Many Aboriginal people don’t have that. I’m one of the lucky ones.

TO STEAL FROM MARGARET ATWOOD, A WAR BETWEEN THE BLACKS IS AS GOOD AS A WAR ON THEM. DIVIDE AND CONQUER, AS THE OLD SAYING GOES.

I’m writing this because it fucking scares me to think that if people are saying such things, what are they actually doing? What are their actions? And how does that affect the people in the Aboriginal community who don’t have my privilege?

I’m writing this because even with the privilege I have, as a young, Aboriginal woman I’m worn down and confused. You can only get called “Abo” so many times. You can only have people tell you that Aboriginal people should be thankful for colonisation so many times. There is a limit to your capacity to have your cultural identity politicised. There is a limit to hearing everybody else talk about you and then being told you’re hijacking the conversation when you dare to speak.

I don’t know what happens when you hit the limit, but I know I’m close and other members of my community must be. This year feels like a tipping point and I’m scared because I don’t know what happens
after it tips.

January 26 represents the beginning of the colonisation of Australia. Colonisation that included genocide, land thievery and systematic oppression. January 26 represents the beginning of the abuse of Aboriginal people and their freedom being taken away under paternalistic colonial rule. January 26 is the reason Kevin Rudd said “Sorry” – because of all the children who were stolen from their families. It’s the reason we had Mabo. It’s the reason we have the Northern Territory intervention. It’s the reason we’ve had stolen wages funds around the country, because it’s not just that we all live in a country built on stolen Aboriginal land, it is about the lives of Aboriginal people that built it.

There is no denying this history. Even Malcolm Turnbull has said that Aboriginal people’s relationship to the past is “tragic” and “complex”.

January 26 is a continuation of celebrating British colonisation. It’s a rallying cry of denial that tries to justify colonisation as a good thing for our country, despite all the lives it cost and continues to cost.

The protest against national celebrations has been happening since the late 1800s. Aboriginal people knew what was happening to us was wrong. We knew that to fix a problem, the first step was to acknowledge it.

People make the argument that many of that First Fleet were convicts, that they shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed or denied their right to celebrate Australia when their ancestry here started from forced and violent circumstances as well. These people aren’t wrong. But if the past is damaging for so many of us, why deny it by trying to pretend it was a glorious feat of Western advancement and not just call British colonisation what it was and is – a human rights crime for all of those involved, from the poor people forced into slavery, separated from their families so Britain could create a new colony, to the Aboriginal people who faced a decades-long genocide and war?

As long as we keep celebrating the past, it’s always going to affect the future. When we glorify the same power structures that led to dispossession, when we revere the violence and glorify the white supremacy and harsh imperialism relied upon, then that is who we are and who we are going to be.

 

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2018/01/27/dated-polit...

 

Changing the date would go a long way to acknowledge that this date is hurtful to the original inhabitant of this land. We own them that much for starters...

 

A Tale of Two Truths: What???

A Tale of Two Truths: What Should We Make of Australia Day?


Simon Longstaff 25 Jan 2018


The debate about whether Australia Day should be celebrated on 26 January has turned into a contest between two rival accounts of history, a binary choice between two apparently incommensurate truths

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/01/25/4794608.htm

Fuck you, Simon... You have no idea, have you? Just ask questions and pass the soap... There is no such things as "two truths" or rival accounts of history.

On one hand the invasion of this land was glorified by the white people, mostly the English — while the indigenous people were stuffed around. This is not two truths. It's the same event written and seen by invaders and invadees... Change the date and stop asking these questions that mean nothing more than excuses and self-apologies for a "white"wash.

 

See also:

when a date cannot be changed ...

scaring the crap out of the white fascist elites...

January 26, 1788, the day the British Empire jacked an entire continent; the day that marks the beginning of a 230-year reign of terror on the Indigenous peoples of this land we call Australia, which continues to this day. 

To us non-Indigenous Australians who are woke, "Australia Day" is a day of shame. We recognise the true history of this Invasion Day AKA Survival Day, and no amount of bullshit from Rupert Murdoch’s flunkies is ever going to change that. Despite his best efforts, Murdoch’s dystopian dream will die with him. That’s not to say things won’t get worse before they get better — the oligarchy has the power to unleash horrors on the people on a scale like never before, but in the end the rich get eaten and humanity is freed. Shit happens.

“You can’t have capitalism without racism” 

Malcolm X

Capitalism and racism are intrinsically linked. From the cotton fields of the Deep South, to terra nullius, to the prison industrial complex, to Manus Island, to war in the Levant, systemic racism greases the wheels of capitalism. Late stage capitalism is really just craft fascism. Justice, equality and democracy are to fascism what garlic is to a vampire.

“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

James Baldwin

Perpetuating the myth of the benevolent Christian settlers, who clothed, fed, educated and cared for all those poor Aborigines, is key to maintaining the status quo of the theft and exploitation of Aboriginal lands. Politicians, mining magnates, bankers, media barons and their IPA douche tank work in tandem to stoke the fires of racial hatred to ensure the gravy train never stops. The spread, recognition and acceptance of the so-called Black Armband version of our history (aka the truth) scares the crap out of the white power elites.

 

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australia-day...