Indigenous affairs
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Nova Peris’ apologism for colonialism and genocide
In repeating blatant Zionist propaganda to justify her support for Israel, Nova Peris erroneously and harmfully conflates Jewish identity with support for the Zionist project in Palestine, which in effect depicts all Jews as complicit in Israel’s criminality. Her abject apologism also betrays all indigenous peoples’ struggles against colonial oppression. Continue reading »
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The liberation of Kanaky: resisting France’s brutal colonial overlordships in the Pacific
“Only the struggle counts … death is nothing.” Eloi Machoro – ‘the Che Guevara of the Pacific’ – shortly before he was gunned down by a French sniper on 12 January 1985. Continue reading »
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Another road for “Made in Australia”
In spruiking their coming “Future Made in Australia” policies PM Albanese and Treasurer Chalmers have singled out for a possible government “helping hand” projects designed to promote our role in their hoped-for future renewable, green economy. But if government “helping hands” are thinkable they could be applied in other areas as well. One area crying Continue reading »
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Australian politicians lock more people up, for longer
Criminal justice is an area of public policy where the disconnect between evidence based solutions and political responses is depressingly wide. And it is getting worse as both the ALP and the conservative parties respond to what is fast becoming saturation media about, in particular, family or domestic violence and youth crime. Continue reading »
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Terra nullius 2.0 – what AUKUS means for First Nations peoples
Australia will essentially become America’s military launch-pad into Asia. However, Ben Abbatangelo writes, little has been said or written about the drastic and disproportionate impacts it will have on First Nations communities in Australia. Continue reading »
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The Voice and Australia’s democracy crisis
The dire state of truth in Australia’s civic space crystallised in 2023. We had seen the waning influence of News Corp’s impact on our elections and assumed it meant that enough of us were becoming inoculated against the propaganda. The defeat of the notoriously mendacious Coalition government might have signalled a ceasefire, a moment for Continue reading »
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The crimson thread of racism festers in the darker interstices of Australian culture
In 1890 Henry Parkes spoke of “The crimson thread of kinship running through us all.” He believed this “crimson thread” – evocative of blood – united all white people in the Australian colonies and bound them to Britain. The federation he was advocating for Australia was to be exclusively white and eternally British. Continue reading »
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After the (failed) referendum dust settles
David Marr’s recent book, Killing for Country, confronts the reality of the dispossession of Aboriginal lands in Queensland by the Native Police Force. It is a recounting of wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of “natives” in order to settle the land that never was Terra Nullius. Continue reading »
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Australia’s First Nations still looking over the 1788 chasm
More than four months after a crushing defeat in the Voice referendum, and soon after the Closing the Gap report confirmed that there was almost no progress in improving Aboriginal lives last year, Aboriginal players in the yes case are moving towards an inquest into how their case went so terribly wrong. Continue reading »
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Is China repeating Australia’s mistake on Indigenous Affairs?
The South China Morning Post recently published an illuminating article on China’s policy towards ethnic minorities, with a particular focus on Inner Mongolia that has strived hardest to assimilate its Mongols with the rest of the Chinese population to promote a single national identity. But does China’s policy reflect the assimilation policies towards First Nations Continue reading »
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Indigenous incarceration
More than a quarter of Canberra’s daily average prison population is Indigenous but only 2 per cent of people in the ACT identify as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person. Continue reading »
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Closing the Gap: Governments must modernise their approach to Indigenous corporations
How governments approach Indigenous governance is crucial to addressing the reform task set by the Productivity Commission’s recent report. Continue reading »
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How labelling is concealing common ground on climate, COVID and indigenous issues
You’re either a climate realist or you’re a climate sceptic. You’re either pro COVID vaccines or you’re a vaccine sceptic. You either voted ‘no’ in the recent ‘indigenous voice to parliament’ or ‘yes’. On too many issues, the labels that Australians are using are confrontational. Australians are being led to see just two camps and Continue reading »
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The social contract and The Voice
Now that the dust has begun to settle, we can look at the referendum result with a little more clarity. Those of us who supported the Voice saw with some dismay how the initial widespread support in favour of a yes vote began to wither away. yet we should not be fooled by the headlines Continue reading »
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Under the facade of journalism
How News Corp used fear, manipulation and division to campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Continue reading »
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Decolonisation is our safeguard against genocide
To ensure Aboriginal Peoples’ freedom from genocide and ecocide, we need decolonisation. Continue reading »
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Defending Country campaign exposes the truth about Australia’s longest war
For decades the Australian War Memorial Council denied the need for the full recognition of Australia’s first and longest wars – the Frontier Wars – despite the overwhelming evidence of actions which today would be regarded not only as crimes but also in many cases war crimes. Continue reading »
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We are the custodians of the future, you and I
In the 1990s, in an Aboriginal community near Alice Springs a young boy, aged about nine, and I stood looking at some soft, waving, light-filled spinifex, seemingly floating over the deep red earth. See? he said. I shook my head. I was blind to the possibilities right in front of me. Continue reading »
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Cruel and mendacious: It’s not the Voice that “failed”
No one who cares about basic human rights, or a sense of honour and of honouring, should be remotely intimidated by the sickening “success” of Dutton’s typically self-serving, cruel and mendacious campaign. The Voice did not fail. Australians failed the Voice. Continue reading »
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Racism: The unstated Australian agenda?
In the wake of the failed Voice referendum several topics are still attracting contentious debate. How significant was racism for the no case? Does the decisive defeat suggest that Australia remains chained to its heritage of White Australia? Many people think so. Continue reading »
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What happened to Indigenous Rights? The world will judge Australia harshly
The prolonged debate about the Voice to Parliament was dominated by the question about what rights should be accorded to our First Nations communities. It was, without doubt, the most potent argument advanced by proponents of the no case. By enshrining the Voice in the constitution, it was said, Aborigines and Islanders were to be Continue reading »
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The racial contract of settler colonialism
On 20 October 2023, an Aboriginal teenager died in custody in Perth, Western Australia. Cleveland Dodd, 16-years-old, was found unresponsive in his cell in Casurina maximum security prison security prison. On 21 October 2023, a Palestinian mother, Alaa, and her three children, Eman (6), Faiz (5) and 7-month-old Sara, were killed by an Israeli strike Continue reading »
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This country has witnessed a counter-revolution against First Nations rights
The turn of events we have seen in the defeat of the Voice referendum is what appears to be a successful counter-revolution in Australia steered by the right wing think-tanks and the Murdoch press. The arguments which were mobilised in opposition to the Voice to Parliament has transported the nation back 60 years to Paul Continue reading »
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A statement for our people and our country
Australia is our country. We accept that the majority of non-Indigenous voting Australians have rejected recognition in the Australian Constitution. We do not for one moment accept that this country is not ours. Always was. Always will be. It is the legitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country that requires recognition, not the other Continue reading »
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It’s time to tell the truth
The past few months, as Australia debated the Voice proposal, have been incredibly challenging for First Peoples. Now we must find ways to move forward together. Continue reading »
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Australia has shown itself to be a selfish nation that lacks empathy
As an Australian with First Nations and coloniser blood running through my veins, I’ve always believed in the promise of a fair and just Australia, one that can celebrate our 65,000 years of history, reconcile our colonial past and build a better future for all. But the Voice referendum has cast a shadow on that Continue reading »
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The Voice: what the world heard
On Saturday, 14 October, Australians did themselves no favours. Again. Continue reading »
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The Voice: caught between a socio-economic hammer and anvil
As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of Continue reading »
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Another day in the colony
The deputy prime minister Richard Marles was asked by Insider’s host David Speers if the voters of Australia were right to roundly reject the constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples and the Voice to parliament. Of course they were right, said Marles, they’re always right. In a press conference and later during question time in parliament, Continue reading »
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Is the No victory another signal of voters’ distrust of democratic reps?
The high levels of loss of Yes voters to the No camp during the referendum campaign add indicators that the once social democratic contributions to governance are in trouble. Where once policies for fairness were seen as integral parts of good democracies, these have been replaced by neo liberal market models. This shows up too Continue reading »
