The Redfern Community Centre in Sydney brought straight to your living room.
Don't miss this important discussion about #Treaty.Opinion Piece | NITV (Ch 34) 7.30PM
Posted by NITV on Thursday, 26 March 2015
Treaty, yeah! Change the last letter and remove the punctuation
and it could read
TREATY YEAR.
Much discussion is about Recognise and hats off to those involved. However, the Recognise campaign is putting the cart before the horse in a major way. Because the Abbott Government are actively promoting this it becomes, on reflection, evidence that Recognise may not be a positive thing ---- but a palm off. You see, what needs to happen and what, so it seems, our politicians refuse to deal with is the question of #Sovereignty. Our governments, ourselves - new and old settlers - need to acknowledge that we stole land from people who were sovereign self-governing nations. And how do sovereign self-governing nations settle their affairs - particularly after wars of which there were plenty in the whitefella's time even up to modern times? They sit down and discuss a treaty. This has never happened on this country, in this country. There can only be true, honest and clear recognition in Australia's constitution after treaty and all the discussion and actions that go with it. So please let us postpone the #Recognition effort and put our energies, intellects, and fellow-felling into a Treaty process. It will take a long time - particularly if we use Aboriginal methodology. And what is Aboriginal methodology? It means sitting down with, speaking with, every one who needs to be spoken with. The talking takes as long as it needs to take. It's not a rushed whitefella meeting with a limited agenda, time allocated to each bullet point, and an ayes and nays vote which can sometimes, even in white society, result in some people feeling left out, gob-smacked, puzzled and dissatisfied. It certainly would not be carried out in the fashion as both Lib Nat and Labor Governments conducted discussions with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory regarding the NT Intervention.
Rally from Aboriginal Tent Embassy to Parliament House,
Thursday 19 March.
Assemble at Tent Embassy 11.30am
for a 12.00pm march to Parliament.
12.30 - 2.00pm
speakers.
Kimberley Aboriginal communities have declared a GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION to stop the forced closure of Aboriginal communities in Western Australia amidst the growing campaign by State and Federal Governments to withdraw their support and remove Aboriginal people from their traditional homelands.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has whipped up a great amount of fear, anxiety and doubt amongst the already marginalised First Peoples, when he said that:
“What we can’t do, is endlessly subsidise choices, if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have”.
Editorial Note: Please see this ABC 7.30 Report for video, transcript, and discussion.
Abbott’s statement was in support of the declarations made by Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, in a press statement released 12 November 2014, suggesting that the State could no longer support 150 Aboriginal Communities, flagging the prospective removal by the end of 2015.
We who live in the remoter areas of Australia do not believe it is a lifestyle choice but an intrinsic fundamental human right to live in our own communities and our own country. We hold significant cultural obligations to our Ancestors to maintain Sovereign ties to our lands. After successive breaches of Human Rights conventions and the forced removal of the Aboriginal Community of Oombulgurri in 2014, we maintain a vote of no confidence in both the incumbent State and Federal Governments in their actions toward Aboriginal people.
On Thursday 19 March 2015, Australians across the Nation are being asked by governments to acknowledge ‘Close the Gap’ Day – but for many of our countrymen the ‘gap’ has been significantly widened, placing increasing pressure and trauma on our people. Starting in the Kimberley at 10am, we will march not for this Government agenda, but instead to show our objection to the threatened proposed closures to Aboriginal communities.
We stand in solidarity with all other regions in Western Australia and South Australia who have the veil of threatened remote community closures hanging over their lives. We understand that the precedent for a National attack by Government toward Aboriginal people living on their homelands, has already been set in the Oombulgurri closure. We ask the national and international community to stand with us in this action, and the subsequent actions that will ensue as we mobilise effective campaigns to secure our cultural right and entitlement.
For further information see the website: www.wgar.wordpress.com Editors' note
- as well as this, take note of conservative State and Federal Governments
attempts at social control of the mainstream population: Medicare co-payments;
dismissal of the NDIS, treatment of people with disabilities -
particularly those young people who end up in nursing home aged care
because there is no place for them anywhere else;
education policies; cuts to social welfare payments to the elderly and the unemployed.
The question to be asked is why is it that Australian governments are still unable
to treat Aboriginal people as citizens with equal rights to the goods and services
which other citizens receive.
This is the 21st Century after all - we put people in space -
we have more money awash in Australia than at any time in our history.
But we still can't meet the needs of our original inhabitants
whose land we stole.
Malcolm Fraser. Photograph: Tess Peni/Rex Features
The former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has launched a wide-ranging attack on Australia’s “complacent” foreign policy, accusing the government of being harmfully dependent on the US.
In a speech delivered at MelbourneUniversity, Fraser said he was “ashamed” that Australia was led into theIraq war on “falsehoods” and criticised the current deployment of American troops in Darwin.
Around 2,500 American troops began rotating through Darwin for training last year, with US marines set to bring equipment such as amphibious assault craft, jets and helicopters to Australia, in a bid to enhance the USmilitary position in the region.
Fraser, who was Liberal prime minister between 1975 and 1983, said this was an example of a damaging imbalance in the US-Australian relationship.
He said Australia was “hostage to the decisions of a country 10,000 miles away”.
He added: “And they aren’t going to say ‘Canberra, we don’t like what people are doing here and we want to attack them and we want to use those forces you’ve so conveniently housed in Darwin.’
“They’ll do it and we’ll read about it in the newspapers. Our prime minister will be told about it after the attack is made. Because that’s the way these things work. That, for me, is a total denial of Australian sovereignty and if we were ever independent, it’s a denial of Australian independence.”
Fraser said that Australia should be wary of “not very good” US foreign policy in the Middle East and northern Africa being replicated in the Asia-Pacific region, urging the government to forge an independent identity forAustralia that focused more on engaging with neighbouring nations.
“We are a complacent nation when it comes to foreign affairs,” he said. “Since the end of the cold war and the failure of the Soviet Union, our ties to the US have become closer and closer than ever before.
“Today, the United States has influence over our armed forces. Influence might be the wrong word – the right word may be control. Our armed forces could only operate if the United States approved, because otherwise we’d have no communications. I don’t think that’s very comfortable.”
Fraser warned that Australia risked being marginalised, rather than strengthened, by being enmeshed in US foreign policy goals, with regional powers such as Indonesia becoming increasingly important to Washington.
“The largest Islamic country in the world would rate highly in the priorities of the United States,” said Fraser. “20 million Australians? Not so highly.”
“I know of three occasions where the United States has chosen Indonesia over Australia, which no Australian government will ever proclaim because they think we have a special relationship. Special relationships with great powers just don’t exist. Great powers have their own interests.
“It’s time Australia stood up and learned to be independent. To have no external entanglements that would stop it making up its own mind.”
In recent years Fraser has become an outspoken critic of both the government and the Liberal party, which he quit in 2009, on issues such as the treatment of asylum seekers and Australia’s military involvement in Iraq andAfghanistan.
He reiterated this stance in his Melbourne University speech, saying: “In the second Iraq war there were three nations involved and I’m ashamed to say Australia was one of them. And they went to war on a falsehood.
“[Chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix wasn’t allowed to finish his job, because if he had, he would’ve shown there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
He also took aim at the Australian mainstream media for not highlighting the Australian army general Richard Burr’s recent appointment as the second in command of US Pacific operations.
“The announcement was made by the [US] secretary for the army, John McHughand wasn’t published in the Australian - but it was by the Guardian, in England,” he said.
He said the appointment was “another way of tying us into decisions that they make and makes us complicit in whatever they do”.
“The senior American military people, as the British before them, are very good at making people feel important. It flatters lesser powers and some people are not immune to the consequences of that,” Fraser said.
Fraser was speaking at the launch of the Melbourne Globalist, a magazine focused on international affairs that is based jointly at the universities of Melbourne, Monash, RMIT and La Trobe.
The article below is by Tess Lawrence and is re-posted, with permission, from the Independent Australia website. I hope Networkers will pop over there to follow up on the comments to Tess's article. Tess has kindly published my previous post in the comments section as well. And I hope you too will become a regular reader of IA.
~~~~~~~~~~
AUSTRALIA DAY IN BLACK AND WHITE
by contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence
“Many of our people call it invasion day,” said Mr Mick Dodson, a professor of law at the Australian National University. “To many indigenous Australians, in fact, most indigenous Australians, it really reflects the day in which our world came crashing down.”
When Mick Dodson uttered those words in 2009, after being named Australian of the Year, he addressed the echidna in the outback room. I’m not the only Australian that empathises with him and like thinkers.
We have become so used to having a moribund Federal Parliament that has long divested itself of any concern, or even affection, for its people, but instead has morphed into a wasteland of toxic factions and fetid egos whose venal pursuit of power for power’s sake has reduced our nation’s governance to political squalor and hypocrisy.
This year we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy set up on the grounds of the old Parliament House in Canberra. It is a sacred vigil.
The Tent Embassy has a nobility, patriotic passion and sense of purpose that is completely lacking in The Big House.
Its Coat of Arms and Constitution has no need for royal decree, since the people themselves have decreed it and declared it.
It does not buy and sell speakers and squelchers of the House. Its Ambassadors do not sit in high chairs or high dudgeon.
The Tent Embassy seeks equality not superiority. It seeks recognition that this nation was occupied by aborigines when the first white boat people arrived in their tens, then hundreds, then thousands and now millions and became the master race through brute and gentler force, imposing their language, their religion and their diseases — and whatever else…
It is a disgrace that we have yet to acknowledge the original inhabitants of our Great Southern Land in our Constitution. I say that, as I write, in the midst of much back patting and back stabbing and nonsensical puffery surrounding the issue.
It is more than a disgrace that we have no Treaty in place and I have long felt this.
I feel we will remain an illegitimate nation until we are honourable enough to do the right thing.
In February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote himself indelibly into Australian history when he said Sorry. Perhaps we will have to wait for the Gillard FM (Faceless Men) Coup to be reversed for him to negotiate a Treaty.
Certainly, of all the big noters and the big notaries in the Labor Party – the big talkers and the big hawkers – Kevin Rudd came the closest to effecting a Treaty. He might yet get the chance to extend his historical paragraph.
Today, Independent Australia republishes an article I wrote for Planet Oz Media in 2009 about the Dodson Affair. Tragically, so little has changed in the years since. Dodson was seen by some to be ungrateful and ungracious when he made his comments — and yet, I rejoice that other Australians of the Year have since voiced their passions and beliefs and told it like it is, without marinating in spin or ingratiation.
It’s the Australia that I once knew and still love. Our Governments can reduce us to political Shamocracy, but We the People can still act on behalf of, and with, our communities and refuse to be threatened into silence or brutalised by corporations into submission.
AUSTRALIA DAY OR LOSTRALIA DAY?
G’day Australia. Do most of us really believe that it’s the right thing to celebrate Australia Day on the anniversary of a date when a bunch of whiteys preposterously plonked a Union Jackboot in the sand and declared the land unoccupied, when they had clearly seen a bunch of black fellows peeping through the gum leaves.
Smacks of a rip-off to me. Come off it, sport, how UNaustralian is that, mate?! Fair suck of the saveloy our gracious king.
And what’s up with ‘lil Kev. When he was Kevin 007 he said ‘Sorry’ for Gawd’s sake. Now he’s morphed into Kevin 09, long lost blue blood brother to one John Winston Howard, hogging the mike and telling us all the answer is an emphatic ‘ NO! ‘to any thought of moving the date for
Australia Day to a more appropriate ‘time of the month’ or year.
I was rather disturbed at his attitude and his nobody language. How can Kev go on about democracy and freedom of speech and in the same breath dictate to that big black upstart, the man with the hat, and his like, that the date WILL NOT be moved. Who said? You’re an elected servant of the people, Kev. The Great Unwashed. You might be removed at the next election, mate, for all you know. And what’s up with the drongo Supposition agreeing with him?
Not a good thing to say ‘never’ in politics, Kev. We of the never never reckon you could find yourself eating someone else’s turds. I’m with Professor Mick Dodson, Australian of the Year – and
Ron Barassi and the apparent minority to which I belong, that believes in Australia Day – but not its date.
As it stands, it’s a day for dancing alright; dancing on the collective grave of the inhabitants of the First Nation. You’ve lost me on this one Kev. Australia Day is invasion day — Lostralia.
What’s more, Kev, and this is neither threat nor prophecy (in case you’re thinking of issuing any ridgydidge fridge magnets to report any Australia Day insurgents), if you keep this up you could get a pair of thongs thrown at you at your next press conference.
A.D. or B.C.?
Should A.D. (Australia Day) better reflect B.C. (before Cook)? I say yes. I say change — not the short change that keeps coming to indigenous Australians.
Tough if it’s an inconvenience to change the date, or to seriously think about what we are doing to our indigenous brethren. All the platitudes in the gin-joints of the world mean nothing if we are incapable of empathy on this matter.
In truth this country was ‘founded’ on a lie. It was not ‘terra nullius’; but to a people that considered itself the master race of the universe, blacks were not humans. Bungs didn’t count.
Do they now, Kev? Not really. Neither in fact; nor in law. Not the white man’s lore. Not the King’s Law. Nor the white Queen’s Law. Nor, it seems, do we want them contributing to public debate and impacting upon the outcomes of those debates.
A bit of shiny bling…
…to pin on their diseased and diabetic chests
We orchestrated their past and we’ll orchestrate their future. We know what’s good for them.
Say ‘Sorry’, keep them happy, give them a bit of shiny bling to pin on their diseased diabetic chests.
Better hold on the toxic sugar. And the rabid 100% alcohol-proof fences.
Even if they are on the dole forever, their life span is not as long as ours, so whiteys on the dole forever can still enjoy the dole life plan for much longer. In a way, their early deaths represent considerable saving to the public purse. Come to think of it, then, this means it is not economically viable for us to improve their health.
They wouldn’t work in an iron ore lung…
They wouldn’t work in an iron-ore lung anyway.
There are two types of black deaths in custody. There are your traditional black deaths in custody: go alive into a prison cell, come out dead — Aunties wailing and tearing their hearts and hair out.
You know the scenario. They make such a bloody songline and dance about it.
Then there’s the other black deaths in custody. They now run into their thousands.
They’re the black deaths that have taken place since they’ve been in custody of the wider community. Our community. In our political custody and all that entails. That is, the sum total of all of us since white foot first trod heavy upon this Great Southern Land.
Once, in 1967, white and whiteish folks voted for aborigines to be counted in the national census.
What if we turned the tablelands on that? Do you think we could ask indigenous Australians to participate in a referendum about the date on which we should celebrate Australia Day? Could they be trusted with such political gravitas? Is that too big a word for them, Kev?
You probably want to keep them away from the political gravy train. Look at what happened to ATSICK. I mean, you wouldn’t want them handling a Wheat Board or, say, be Victoria’s Minister for Transport, Lynne Kosky, or anything like that.
Reckonciliation — Reconciliation
And you’d have to keep them away from plonk, glue and petrol wouldn’t you, Kev? Thenthey might be able to handle it. You’d have to keep them away from parliamentary dining rooms otherwise all their rellies would be eating there and complaining theirservings weren’t big enough.
Have you seen how they scoff their tucker? As if there’s no tomorrow. A short tomorrow, granted — but, look, they do get everything just handed to them on a platter. They get handouts and handsup and handshakes — and then they paint all those hands and plant them in the ground. And then have the cheek to give us their hand in wreckonciliation … oops! Reconciliation, I mean.
But that’s not all. They might have altercations on a night out with the iguanas, which they like to bake over an open fire. And you’d have to ban them from going overseas and representing us as diplomats because they’ll just get on the booze — they could also lose their daks, gawd love’em; but they do wear those red nappy things when they’re dancing, so it would probably be alright in the long run.
Better still Uncle Kev, keep them away from any real participation in political change. No, I like
the way you stood up to Professor Mick — have you done a bio authenticity check on him? What’s he profess to be a Professor of, ’eh?
We stole this land. Dress it up in laws and legislation as much as you like. We all continue to collude in this theft. As long as we delay Reconciliation and a Treaty, we remain accomplices.
It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s not justice. We can’t undo the past. But we should be honest enough to acknowledge it.
Obama spells a Mabo backwards
I love this country. Like many of us who travel overseas, I am perplexed at the nostalgia and sentiment that intoxicate the brain when away from her. It is surely a spiritual bond and not the privilege of one skin colour alone. The power comes from her — and not those who walk upon her; sometimes walk all over her.
People keep asking if there’s an Obama type of fellow out there amongst our indigenous folk. Fat chance. You wouldn’t consider Mick or Noel would you? Don’t even think about a black sheila.
Unless it’s that Catherine the Great sprinter, the one who’s got ‘Salome’ as one of her middle names,
strewth! That’s a bible name. Cheek of it. She must be well up herself, with a surname like
Freeman. I reckon she could be a closet Muslim. Think about it, Salome………
She was given a bogong wasn’t she — an OAM I think. It’s that bling thing again with them.
And she won a gold medal in the Olympics desperately trying to ingratiate herself to us.
Trying to be whiter than white. As for her draping their flag around herself like that, well, with a middle name like Salome what do you expect ?
I thought she’d breakdance into the dance of the Five Veils, it being the Olympics and all. It was different when our Dawn nicked the Aussie flag — that’s more in keeping with our tradition and idiom; plus our Dawn’s got the advantage of being white. But look, getting back to skin colour, of course it matters. For a start, some of them are that white they only claim to be black so they can get the benefits.
Funny that Obama spells A Mabo backwards. I reckon that’s a sign. Black Magic. Also, some of them blacks are muslims like Obama. Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous. What’s wrong with The Dreamtime? Their own culture not good enough for them? Rainbow serpents and Muslims. Didge in one hand — Koran in the other. What’s going on there? They should be facing Uluru, not Mecca; the Southern Cross, not Saudi Arabia.
I dunno, Kev, I think I’ve just about talked myself out of it now. Yeah, keep Invasion Day as Australia Day. After all, there’s more of us than them. Yo, whiteys rule! And don’t forget, they’re a dying race. As long as we go on as we are, soon there won’t be a race problem. They’ll die out. They’ve brought it upon themselves.
Geezus, they didn’t even put up a decent fight. And when you think about it, they may have lost their country but look at all they’ve gained. We brought them Civilisation! We took them out of the
Stone age. They put themselves into the Stoned age. We give them voting rights. They want Land Rights. They want equal rights. They make us feel like guests in our own country.
You can’t build a dunny on a dung heap without them claiming it’s sacred land and demanding billions of Australia Day medals. The only mistake we made was when we didn’t follow the example of our own white European ancestors. We didn’t learn from our own history. After all, did not the Dutch buy Manhattan for 60 guilders, if not baubles and beads, from the local red Indian savages. After all, our mob couldn’t read or write — still can’t. Anyway, even if we had’ve given them a few bob, where were they going to spend it ? They hadn’t even invented money. No shops. No milkbars. No malls.
Festival:Share the Spirit Festival 2012. Celebrating Survival Day.
Indigenous music, dance and culture as part of Melbourne’s official Survival Day celebrations. 1-7pm.
Treasury Gardens.
Festival:2012 Belgrave Survival Day.
This event acknowledges the indigenous perspective on the 230 years of European occupation of Australia, and celebrates the survival of the oldest living culture on the globe through live music, storytelling, traditional dance and craft.
Speakers will include
Elder Aunty Dot Peters from Healesville,
Gary Presland and Rodney Augustine from the Save the Kimberley campaign.
Featuring
Yung Warriors and Lou Bennett;
traditional stories by Gnarnayarrahe Waitairie and the Jindi Worobak Dance Troupe;
Wurundjeri elders will be undertaking a smoking ceremony.
12 noon-4pm. Borthwick Park (next to the Belgrave Pool), Benson St, Belgrave.
Solidarity
candelight vigil for hunger strikers at Broadmeadows.See display advertisement above.
7-10pm. Melbourne Immigration Transit Accomodation, 120-150 Camp Road,
Broadmeadows (behind Maygar army Barracks). Bring a candle. Organised by
Refugee Action Collective. For more info ph Daniella Olea 0404 189 272 or Sue Bolton
0413 377 978.
Friday,
January 20
Rally:Honour freedom
fighters Tunnerminnerwait & Maulboyheener.Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner
were among five Tasmanian Aborigines who conducted a campaign of resistance to
European settlement in 1841 around Western Port and South Gippsland near
Melbourne. After three military expeditions they were finally captured and
brought back to Melbourne for trial. They were not allowed to give evidence
themselves. The two men were found guilty of murder, with the jury saying due
to the circumstances mercy should be granted. No mercy was given and
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were the first judicial executions to take
place in Melbourne on January 20, 1842 before a crowd of 5000, a quarter of the
population of Melbourne at the time. 12 noon. RMIT entrance, cnr Bowen &
Franklin Sts, City.
Rally:Occupy Melbourne:
Occupy Fridays!Contributors
to Occupy Melbourne have organised a recurring occupation of City Square held
every Friday. Occupy Fridays is our chance to reclaim our voice and our square!
Organised events include Q & A sessions, debates, guest speakers, spoken
word, bands/music, skills training sessions, discussion groups and Working
Group meetings! The aim of this is to get people involved in their community, meet
like-minded people, learn some new skills and feel empowered to take action for
a better world today! 10am-10pm. City Square, cnr Collins & Swanston Sts,
City. For more info visit Occupy Melbourne.
Saturday,
January 21
Public
meeting:The
war on the internet.The
response of governments and corporations to Wikileaks, Anonymous, the Occupy
movement and the Arab Spring has been defensive and warlike. The internet and
social media were declared tools of agitation. Behaviour that sought peaceful
democratic reform was characterised as treasonous or even terrorist.Speakers:Jacob Applebaum (core member of the
Tor project for online anonymity, based at the University of Washington, he has
been repeatedly targeted by US law enforcement); Bernard Keane (Crikeyjournalist, author ofWar on the Internet);
Scott Ludlam ( Australian Greens senator); Suelette Dreyfus (author &
researcher on whistleblowing). A message from Julian Assange will kick off the
event. Entry free. 3pm. New Council Chambers, Trades Hall, cnr Victoria &
Lygon Sts, Carlton South. Organised by Electronic Frontiers Australia & the
Greens.
Public
meeting:Global
day of solidarity with the ongoing Egyptian revolution.Speakers:Alaa Abdul-Fattah (activist), Said
Sadek (academic), Fatima Naout (writer), Nawwara Negm (writer). 6:30pm.
Brunswick Town Hall, 233 Sydney Rd, Brunswick. For more info ph Hani 0421 370
501 or Reham 0425 743 375.
Saturday,
January 21-Sunday January 22
Festival:Wominjeka Festival.Footscray Community Arts Centre and
Maribyrnong City Council present a celebration of Koorie culture featuring: The
Black Arm Band Company performing Murundak. Wominjeka means welcome in the
language of the Kulin Nation and you are invited to welcome in 2012 with this
free celebration of Koorie culture. Entry free. 6-10pm Saturday; 11am–4.30pm
Sunday. River Lawn, Footscray Community Arts Centre, 45 Moreland St, Footscray.
Thursday,
January 26
CanberraRally:Stand up & be
counted on Sovereignty Day.Invitation
to the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. For more info visitSovereignty Day.
Festival:Share the Spirit
Festival 2012. Celebrating Survival Day.Indigenous
music, dance and culture as part of Melbourne’s official Survival Day
celebrations. 1-7pm. Treasury Gardens.
Festival:2012 Belgrave
Survival Day.This
event acknowledges the indigenous perspective on the 230 years of European
occupation of Australia, and celebrates the survival of the oldest living
culture on the globe through live music, storytelling, traditional dance and
craft. Speakers will include in Elder Aunty Dot Peters from Healesville, Gary
Presland and Rodney Augustine from the Save the Kimberley campaign. Featuring
Yung Warriors and Lou Bennett; traditional stories by Gnarnayarrahe Waitairie
and the Jindi Worobak Dance Troupe; Wurundjeri elders will be undertaking a
smoking ceremony. 12 noon-4pm. Borthwick Park (next to the Belgrave Pool),
Benson St, Belgrave.
Friday,
January 27
Rally:Occupy Melbourne:
Occupy Fridays!See
January 20 entry. 10am-10pm. City Square, cnr Collins & Swanston Sts, City.
For more info visitOccupy Melbourne.
Saturday,
January 28
Public
meeting:Melbourne
Sexuality, Sex & Gender Collective campaign launch.MSSGC is a campaign collective
which has specifically been set up as a broad, inclusive group with the goal of
campaigning around issues that will target homophobia, transphobia & sexism
among young people. 3pm. Resistance Centre, level 5, 407 Swanston St, City
(opposite RMIT). For more info ph 9639 8622 or 0432 719 335.
Film
screening:Backroads.Phillip Noyce's legendary first
featurette, a gritty hybrid of B-noir, 1970s road movie and black-white race
relations allegory, stars Bill Hunter and Aboriginal actor/activist Gary Foley
as a pair of petty criminals on the run in a big yellow Pontiac along the dusty
roads of western NSW. Presented in collaboration with the National Film and
Sound Archive of Australia. 4pm. ACMI Cinemas, Federation Square, City. $8
(ACMI members $6).
Thursday,
February 2
Public
meeting:After
'Homosexual'. The legacies of gay liberation.Speakers:Dennis Altman; Alice Echols;
Jeffrey Weeks; hosted by Helen Razer. 6pm. ACMI, Federation Square, City.
Presented by La Trobe University & the Australian Lesbian & Gay
Archives. $17/14. For more info visitMidsumma.
Friday,
February 3
Rally:Occupy Melbourne:
Occupy Fridays!See
January 20 entry. 10am-10pm. City Square, cnr Collins & Swanston Sts, City.
For more info visitOccupy Melbourne.
Booklaunch:Life Without Money.
Building Fair and Sustainable Economies.This
book engages with today's big economic, environmental, democratic and social
challenges; edited by Anitra Nelson & Frans Timmerman.Speaker:Jeff Sparrow (editorOverland).
Entry free. 6:30pm. Readings Bookshop, 309 Lygon St, Carlton.
Saturday,
February 4
Booklaunch:Life Without Money.
Building Fair and Sustainable Economies.Speakers:Moss Cass, (former Whitlam
government minister) & Julia Dehm (Occupy Melbourne activist) in
conversation with Anitra Nelson and Frans Timmerman (co-editors ofLife Without Money).
3pm. New International Book Shop, Trades Hall, Carlton South.
Sunday,
February 5
Rally:Pride march.Gather from 12 noon for march at
2pm Sharp. Cnr Lakeside Dr & Fitzroy St, St Kilda. For more info visitPride march.
Tuesday,
February 7
Film
screening:The
end of the line.Where
have all the fish gone? The first major feature documentary film revealing the
impact of overfishing on our oceans; we see firsthand the effects of our global
love affair with fish as food. Talk with Sea Shepherd after the film. 7pm.
Level 4, Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, City. Entry by donation. The Big
Picture at Ross House is a monthly film series showing films for the
environment and social justice. This month we're supporting Sea Shepherd.
Friday,
February 10
Rally:Israeli Apartheid
Inc. Corporate criminals BDS tour.As
part of the global Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign, Students for
Palestine is taking on corporations in Melbourne's CBD that support the theft
of Palestinian land and the brutality of the Israeli military. 6pm. Bourke St,
Mall. For more info visitStudents
for Palestineor
ph 0410 513 302.
Rally:Occupy Melbourne:
Occupy Fridays!See
January 20 entry. 10am-10pm. City Square, cnr Collins & Swanston Sts, City.
For more info visitOccupy Melbourne.
Saturday,
February 11
Rally:Stop Aboriginal
deaths in custody.Death
in custody of Terrance Briscoe, Alice Springs (January 5, 2012); 4th
anniversary of the death of Mr Ward (January 27); 5th anniversary of Queensland
Police officer, Chris Hurley, being forced to front the Supreme Court charged
with manslaughter and assault (February 5); 8th anniversary of the death of TJ
Hickey (February 14). Stop Aboriginal deaths in custody: implement all 339
recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. End
privatisation of custodial services: cancel all contracts with G4S, SERCO and
other profiteers from incarceration. 11am. Old GPO, cnr Bourke & Elizabeth
Sts, City. Organised by Indigenous Social Justice Association. For more info ph
9388 0062.
Public
meeting:Melbourne
Climate Action Groups Meeting 2012.(Note
change of date). 9am-5pm. South Melbourne Commons. Entry by donation. For more
info emailBrett.
Indigenous
rights film festival.Featuring:The Coolbaroo Club(about racial apartheid in Perth in
the late 1940s and fifties);The
Tall Man(deals
with the killing of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island in 2004);Ningla A-Na[Hungry for our land] (documentary
about the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972).
Starts 3pm. Further details TBA. Resistance Centre, level 5, 407 Swanston St,
City (opposite RMIT). Organised byGreen
Left Weekly&
Socialist Alliance. For more info ph 9639 8622.
Friday,
February 17
Film
screening:Our
Generation.Outdoor
screening of documentary made by Sinem Saban & Damien Curtis about the NT
Intervention; and a short film about the Kimberley campaign opposing the
proposed gas hub at James Price Point. The screening will be preceded by live
music and speakers including Greens Senator Richard di Natale. The focus is on
making connections between the issues affecting indigenous communities in
northern Australia, and involving us all in finding solutions. Doors open 6pm,
speakers 7pm, and live music until dark, feature starts at 9pm. $20/$16.
BookingsCERES. CERES Village
Green, cnr Roberts & Stewart Sts, Brunswick East. For more info ph 9389
0100.
Friday,
February 17-Sunday, February 19
Festival:Sustainable Living
Festival 2012.Federation
Square & Birrarung Marr Event Park, near cnr Swanston & Flinders Sts,
City. For more info visitSLF.
Sunday,
February 19
The
'Please resist me' poetry slam tour Melbourne launch.Hosted by esteemed poet and rapper
Omar Musa (Moneykat). 6:30pm. Performance Revolt, 12 Elizabeth St, Kensington.
$18/$15. Organised by the Centre for Poetics and Justice. For more info visitCPJ.
Tuesday,
February 28
Rally:India's general
strike: Melbourne supports the world's largest ever strike.On February 28, over 100 million
Indians will join together and walk off the job in what is likely to be the
largest strike of workers the world has ever seen. The different labor unions
have specific demands that they want to achieve with the strike. These include
bringing contract workers up to the same level of employee protections as
permanent workers, extending the minimum wage to cover the entire population,
and countering the attacks on unions. Workers around the world will be standing
in solidarity with those fighting for economic justice in India. 5:30pm.
Federation Square, City. For more info visitWorkers' Solidarity Network.
Thursday,
March 8
Public
meeting:The
Occupy movement: An infantile disorder?Melbourne
University Graduate House, 220 Leicester St, Carlton. For more info visitThe Monthly Argument.
Sunday,
March 11
Rally:Commemoration of
Fukushima nuclear disaster.Part
of international day of action. 1pm. State Library, cnr Swanston & Latrobe
Sts, City. Organised by MAPW, ICAN, Japanese for Peace and others. For more
info visit11 March.
Friday,
April 6
CanberraRally:Easter convergence on
Darwin 2012. Free the refugees, end mandatory detention.Marks 10 years since the refugee
rights movement's first Easter convergence at Woomera 2002, when busloads of
protesters from across the country met magnificent protests by detainees, many
of whom leapt through the fence and literally into the arms of the movement.
Darwin is rapidly becoming Australia's detention capital. Chronic levels of
self-harm and protest have put the Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC)
in a state of perpetual crisis. 341 continue to languish at NIDC, with scores
more at the Darwin Airport Lodge For more info visitRAC.
Campaign committees
Melbourne
Anti-Intervention Collective(MAIC)
meets meets on the first and third Monday of each month, 6.30pm on Level 4 of
the rear building at Trades Hall, Lygon & Victoria Sts Carlton. For info,
ph 0431 311 520 or visitMAI Collective.
Refugee
Action Collective (RAC).For
more info ph 0413 377 978 or visitRAC.
Stop
HRL: No New Coal Power For Victoria meetings.Join
the community campaign against HRL's proposed new coal-fired power station. For
more info visitStop HRLor
call 0402 337 077.
