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Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Green Left Weekly Activist Calendar - 2015-04-08
Fair Food - the film - showing in Ballarat at the Rural Lifestyle Expo at the Ballarat Showgrounds this Saturday 11 April
Fair Food - The Trailer from The Field Institute on Vimeo.
Anybody curious about our food system in Australia and the issues impacting it must see Fair Food the documentary.
Screening this Saturday at midday
at the Rural Lifestyle Expo
at the Ballarat Showgrounds.
http://www.ballaratfood.com/…/ballarat-fair-food-screening-…
Posted by Ballarat Food on Tuesday, 7 April 2015
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Support those who are supporting women & their children experiencing Family Violence
Cross Posted, with permission, from Advocacy @ St Paul's
For
anyone in or around Melbourne on the 6th of May,
please go along to Federation
Square for a candlelight vigil
being held by Victoria's statewide DV
Crisis Line.
They're doing fantastic work in Victoria
speaking up for
the need for specialist women's services
and against violence against
women.
They're even speaking up about their considerable concerns
about
what's been happening to women's refuges north of the border in NSW.
They definitely deserve support.
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Monday, 6 April 2015
Sunday, 5 April 2015
Anti-Islam rallies : Anti-Racism rallies across Australia yesterday. Islamophobia has hit the mainstream? Will those against bigotry, racism xenophobia be able to stem the tide?
UPDATE - 15-04-07
Miss Eagles' comment:
Last Saturday, Australia hosted the grown-up version
of Cronulla.
Pauline Hanson strutted her stuff in Brisbane.
In Melbourne, it appears that Danny Nalliah couldn't be heard!
Actually, Australia doesn't seem to listen much to
either Hanson or Nalliah.
Hanson's day as a member of the Federal Parliament and
Leader of One Nation are long past.
Nalliah keeps trying to get political traction, but his
Rise Up Australia party can't get enough votes to get
a voice in any Parliament.
because it hasn't spoken out against the vilification
that took place at these "rallies".
The video above and the text immediately below are from the Melbourne rally.
Violent clashes at anti-Islam protests in Melbourne
Thousands of anti-Muslim and anti-racism protesters have clashed in cities and towns across the country after Reclaim Australia group organised rallies
Violent clashes have marred anti-Islam demonstrations in Australia.
Thousands of anti-Islam and anti-racism protesters clashed today after the Reclaim Australia group organised rallies in 16 cities and towns across the country.
The group claims to oppose Islamic extremism, the "Islamisation" of Australian society, Sharia law and the Halal-certification of most meats sold in Australia.
But counter-rallies were organised by other groups, who claim Reclaim Australia is anti-Muslim.
The most violent clashes were in Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, where police struggled to hold back opposing demonstrators.
Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Bentley said the Victoria state ambulance service treated four people, three for minor injuries, due to assaults in Melbourne.
The fourth was treated for chest pains.
Police arrested three people after groups clashed in the city's Federation Square.
A man at the Reclaim Australia rally in Hobart was arrested and charged with assault after his group clashed with the counter-rally supporting multiculturalism.
A large rally was held in Sydney, where police were forced to remove opposition protesters who stormed the Reclaim Australia stage.
Clare Fester, who organised a counter-rally in Sydney, said Reclaim Australia was racist and divisive.
"It's quite clearly an attack on Muslims and Muslim communities in this country," she told ABC News.
"It's all about halal food, sharia law, banning the burka."
But Reclaim Australia's John Oliver said it was wrong to label the group racist.
"We're not against any particular race or any particular religion," he said.
"We're against the extremists of one particular religion."
One Nation's Pauline Hanson addressed supporters in Brisbane telling them she was a "proud Australian" who wanted to fight for "our democracy, culture and way of life".
Other rallies were held in Adelaide, Hobart and Perth.
Violent clashes at anti-Islam protests in Melbourne
Thousands of anti-Muslim and anti-racism protesters have clashed in cities and towns across the country after Reclaim Australia group organised rallies
Violent clashes have marred anti-Islam demonstrations in Australia.
Thousands of anti-Islam and anti-racism protesters clashed today after the Reclaim Australia group organised rallies in 16 cities and towns across the country.
The group claims to oppose Islamic extremism, the "Islamisation" of Australian society, Sharia law and the Halal-certification of most meats sold in Australia.
But counter-rallies were organised by other groups, who claim Reclaim Australia is anti-Muslim.
The most violent clashes were in Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, where police struggled to hold back opposing demonstrators.
Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Bentley said the Victoria state ambulance service treated four people, three for minor injuries, due to assaults in Melbourne.
The fourth was treated for chest pains.
Police arrested three people after groups clashed in the city's Federation Square.
A man at the Reclaim Australia rally in Hobart was arrested and charged with assault after his group clashed with the counter-rally supporting multiculturalism.
A large rally was held in Sydney, where police were forced to remove opposition protesters who stormed the Reclaim Australia stage.
Clare Fester, who organised a counter-rally in Sydney, said Reclaim Australia was racist and divisive.
"It's quite clearly an attack on Muslims and Muslim communities in this country," she told ABC News.
"It's all about halal food, sharia law, banning the burka."
But Reclaim Australia's John Oliver said it was wrong to label the group racist.
"We're not against any particular race or any particular religion," he said.
"We're against the extremists of one particular religion."
One Nation's Pauline Hanson addressed supporters in Brisbane telling them she was a "proud Australian" who wanted to fight for "our democracy, culture and way of life".
Other rallies were held in Adelaide, Hobart and Perth.
On April 4th an organisation named Reclaim Australia has called racist anti-Muslim rallies across the country. Their core demands include banning the burqa, opposition to halal food and stopping sharia law. It has attracted support from far right organisations such as the Australian Defence League.
Unlike previous far right events this rally has attracted a large number of attendees on Facebook. Reclaim Australia is trying to win credibility by claiming it is not racist to be anti-Muslim. Our counter-protest aims to challenge this and make clear the racist nature of their event. We hope this will stop the hard core racists behind this event from building any greater support.
In Sydney they have called their rally outside the Lindt Café, where the Martin Place siege took place in December. But Man Haron Monis, an unstable individual with a history of bizarre actions, had no connection to any terrorist organisation. Even Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin has stated the siege had nothing to do with Islam. But Reclaim Australia is attempting to make a political link between terrorism, Islam and Martin Place.
MAINSTREAM ISLAMOPHOBIA
Islamophobia is already being peddled in the political mainstream. Tony Abbott and the mainstream media have labelled the entire Muslim community as responsible for terrorism.
Abbott has effectively accused Muslim leaders of sympathising with violence and terrorism, saying, “I've often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a 'religion of peace'. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it.”
Abbott launched a scare campaign about terrorism following police raids in the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, despite there being no evidence of any terror attack planned. Just one person was charged on terror-related crimes as a result.
The raids served to whip up fear and division in the community and allow the government to pass a raft of new and invasive anti-terror laws that curb civil liberties. The result has been a spate of violent attacks on Muslims around the country, especially visibly Muslim women who wear the hijab.
It is not a coincidence that Abbott has ramped up the Islamophobia while he keeps sinking in the polls. Across the world governments are using fear of Muslims, refugees and migrants to get away with budget cuts and austerity.
This is a desperate government trying to sow fear and xenophobia in the community as a distraction.
WHY WE ARE RALLYING
We are holding a rally on April 4th in solidarity with Muslim communities all over the country who are currently under attack.
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Saturday, 4 April 2015
Unethical mining corporations? Take a look at FreeportMcMorRan and Barrick Gold.
Australian miners overseas are no angels.
Think polluted watercourses, damaged food lands.
Australian miner wants to mine close to a world heritage site.
However, North America seems to provide a particularly nasty brood of miners. Think Freeport McMoRan in West Papua/Irian Jaya. And think this doozie of Barrick Gold's irresponsibility on the other side of the border in Porgera, Papua New Guinea. Clearly, Barrick has ways and means of achieving its published goals of disciplined, profitable production.
Huffington Post has done us a great service. It has compiled a list of thirteen corporations who are the most unethical in the whole wide world. And you will find a surprise - well, no surprise actually - in who came in No.1 --- and it wasn't a mining corporation!
Clearly, the governments on our planet
are doing a poor job of keeping corporations honest and ethical.
Just send these major corporations abroad
and you will lose friends and fail to influence the locals -
but then my guess is that there are handouts
to governments and other international influencers, aren't there?
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Monday, 30 March 2015
Women's refuges in NSW: destroyed last year - restored this year?
Call For Inquiry Into Women's Refuge Changes
Problems
have continued to emerge since NSW handed a number of refuges over to
faith-based organisations. Wendy Bacon and Elise Dalley report.
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As more evidence emerges of crises in women’s refuges around NSW, campaigning group Save Our Women’s Services (SOS) has called for an independent inquiry.
“When the Premier Mike Baird became leader in April last year, he
said one of his three key commitments was protecting the vulnerable.
Unfortunately, the devastation of women’s services in NSW has failed to
live up to that commitment,” SOS said.
After the LNP government announced its ‘Going Home Staying Home’
policy in 2012 women’s refuges, including those that had operated
successfully for years, were required to tender for funds to deliver
their services. The result was that many refuges were handed over from
feminist or community control to faith-based organisations.
“Faith-based organisations do a lot of important work but women’s
refuges were set up separately from church-based organisations more than
40 years ago to provide choice in the system, and gendered expertise,”
SOS said.
The coalition of women and women’s services has released a set of
five requests for the incoming Parliament to help improve on the ground
services for women and children.
These include:
1. A Parliamentary Inquiry to be held into the impact of Going Home Staying Home on women and children.
Further reading:
Long-term women's advocate Eva Cox is not convinced the large providers will be able to replicate the intensive support offered by the smaller operators.
''The big agencies are the Walmarts of the welfare sector,'' she said. ''They are doing exactly the same thing to the smaller agencies as Walmart does to the high-street shops. They just absorb them. I think the government is playing into that idea that you can take a cookie-cutter approach to welfare when all the evidence shows it doesn't work.''
She points out that the women's refuge movement was established in the 1970s because large providers could not offer the specialist support required by women and children leaving abusive homes.
''The reason we set these refuges up in the first place is because they don't fit under a generalist homelessness model,'' she said. ''These women and their children need much more than just a roof over their heads.''
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Friday, 27 March 2015
TREATY YEAR! BE WATCHING #NITV TONIGHT AS JEFF MCMULLEN LEADS AN ALL FEMALE PANEL
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.
So get out the Yothu Yindi music and go for it
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
The Homelands Closures - videos by Eleanor Gilbert
150319-StopHomelandsClosure-Nova Peris from Eleanor Gilbert on Vimeo.
Eli Gilbert has uploaded a stack of videos.
You can find them here.
For those of you who don't know of Eli Gilbert and her work,
just a few words.
Eli Gilbert is the widow of Kevin Gilbert -
the great creative activist, Kevin Gilbert.
Kevin Gilbert was the first published Aboriginal writer and printmaker.
For more about Kevin please follow this link.
Eli follows in the footsteps of Kevin's work.
Eli and her trusty video camera, that is.
Eli has been a trusty and trusted recorder of Aboriginal strivings and protest.
Following the heartbreaking incidents of the NT Intervention,
Eli was there in many communities in the NT recording
their voice, their objections, the real happenings
of the whitefella's ignorance and intervention yet again in Aboriginal life.
Please follow the video above to vimeo
and there you will find many more of Eleanor Gilbert's work.
To me, Eleanor Gilbert is a black woman.
She just happens to have a white skin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Kevin Gilbert:
We
Will Not Forget
We will Not Go Away
We Will Not Be Silent
We Will Not Die
WE WILL FIGHT
AND WE WILL SURVIVE
ABORIGINAL SOVEREIGNTY
ALWAYS WAS ALWAYS WILL BE.
We will Not Go Away
We Will Not Be Silent
We Will Not Die
WE WILL FIGHT
AND WE WILL SURVIVE
ABORIGINAL SOVEREIGNTY
ALWAYS WAS ALWAYS WILL BE.
This Aboriginal Sovereign Position, Legal
Entitlement and Draft Treaty
was written after consultation with Aboriginal
Members of the
Sovereign Aboriginal Coalition attended at Alice Springs
on 19th
to 21st June 1987
and incorporating the advice of the Aboriginal Sovereign
Communities
throughout these our Sovereign Domains.
First published by Treaty '88 in 1987
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Tuesday, 24 March 2015
The cheque's in the mail for selected Aboriginal communities ... but we don't know who yet!!! #Scullion
Nigel Scullion speaks, releasing details of the lucky ones under his 'cut them off at the knees' model of funding Aboriginal communities, programs and services. The document issued by Scullion to-day says:
The list of organisations recommended for funding under the IAS grant funding round is available on the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website.
That's what it says. Have been to the website and cannot locate the list. If you have much more success in locating this, let me know and I will publish it. Otherwise, till then, I think it may be a bit like the cheque is in the mail --- along with the Prime Minister's oft spruiked pension rise which has either not occurred or is indiscernible. Are Tony Abbott's cheques bouncing?
Anyway, good luck to those who are included in the Indigenous Advancement Strategy of the LibNat Government. Commiserations to the excluded.
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Friday, 20 March 2015
Tuesday, 17 March 2015
A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION - STOP THE FORCED CLOSURE OF ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES IN AUSTRALIA
Aboriginal communities in Australia announcea global call to action.
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:
Editorial Note: Please see this ABC 7.30 Report“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”.
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.
Canberra media inquiries:
Amy McQuire: 0487 427 207
Alice Haines: 0447 097 659
www.facebook.com/sosblakaustralia I
Twitter: @sosblakaust
Official Hashtags:
#SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA
#NOconsent #Lifestylechoice
email: blaksoscanberra@gmail.com 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.
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Friday, 13 March 2015
We are defining the situation and where the problem lies.
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Thursday, 12 March 2015
In the Abbott dictionary we hear of Leaners and Lifters. Look at what the Lifters are doing now ....
How to handle this? We are in strange times of poor governance in Australia (Federal/State/Local and Corporate Governance). We see our Federal Government claiming all sorts of virtue for itself - while embracing the most draconian policies and agendae.
Remote communities at a glance:
- There are 274 remote communities in Western Australia and 12,113 Aboriginal people live in them
- 507 people live in 115 of the smallest communities - an average of 4.4 people per community
- Premier Colin Barnett flagged the closure of up to 150 communities but has not named them
- The last community to shut down was in 2011, when Oombulgurri in the East Kimberley was shut down after a host of social problems
- The state and federal governments contributed $30 million per year to fund services, but the Commonwealth will cease its funding contribution in two years
We are not discussing only Western Australia.
Below is a document displaying the cuts to
Aboriginal programs in the Northern Territory.
The document below can be read in its entirety on this post
by scrolling down the side.
It can also be printed from this post for further perusal.
Please go below this embedded document
for Miss Eagle's response on Facebook.
for Miss Eagle's response on Facebook.
News Feed
The Aboriginal
people of Tennant Creek,
Northern Territory are strong, tough, imaginative and resilient. They have had to be.
The Warumungu fought one of the longest and most fierce legal battles to claimback their lands. The people living at Muckaty Station fought back
against Federal Governments of Liberal Party of Australia, Nationals,
and Australian Labor
Party persuasion who wanted to use their land as a dump for radioactivewaste. The Muckaty mob won the day. Now a Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who said
yesterday that he is quite satisfied with his credentials in regard to
Aboriginal people, has axed funding to Tennant.
Who in their rightmind would axe funding for sport and recreation in an Aboriginal community? I
can only assume that this is yet another policy of politico/social control by
people who haven't a clue. Or --- perhaps, if they do have a clue, their
intention is to force Aboriginal people back on the grog.
Tennant Creek is a very
creative place - both in whitefella and blackfella terms. Black women as
Presidents of BarklyRegionalCouncil - firstly, Rosalie
Kunoth-Monks and, currently, Barkly Regional
Council President Barb Shaw.
This is a place
which has had problems heaped upon problems but has fought to overcome those
problems with energy, steadfastness, organisation, and creativity. This town,
these people are a community worthy of investment - as it has proved time and
again. Yet funding has been axed from the Barkly Regional
Council Community Services Sports and Recreation
Talk about cutting
off a community at its knees! Tony Abbott's Aboriginal credentials, such as
they may be, are now in tatters. If he believes otherwise, then let him turn up
at Tennant Creek and explain himself in person. But then Tennant doesn't have
any black millionaires as Yirrkala does - and
that's where you prefer to go, isn't it Tony? I smiled to hear Warren Mundine and Noel Pearson speaking up
about the "lifestyle choice" statements by Abbott. Would they
intervene on behalf of Tennant Creek, I wonder?
Tennant has a
lovely small museum, Nyinkka Nyunyu. In that museum,
the curators of the museum display statements from leading Tennant Creek
citizens of decades ago in regard to the Warumungu Land Claim. I trust that
Nyinkka Nyunyu will keep an historic and cultural record of Tony Abbott's
"lifestyle choice" statements and governments' undermining of
community attempts to advance the interests of Aboriginal people within the
area of the Barkly Regional Council. Such a record would be just as wonderful
as the whitefella statements in response to the Warumungu Land Claim, methinks,
and would put on display the lack of prescience of those who would govern and
control us.
The Tennant Creek
Community says it has had its heart ripped out - after 25 local workers were
told their positions had been axed under the IAS. The community is angry... and
accuses the Government of waging a war on...
To-morrow, Friday 13 March, the Tennant & District Times will have more on this dreadful setback to Aboriginal life and aspirations. The link to material will be added to-morrow
THE TENNANT & DISTRICT TIMES
Below is a reflection on Tennant Creek and its history by the respected Dean Ashenden. Miss Eagle lived in Tennant Creek from 1993 to 1997 and knows a lot of the people and organisations referred to in the article and in the bibliography. She was also an active member of the organisation managing the Telegraph Station.
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