“They came through the gate with my boy’s body more than six hours later”
By Gerry Georgatos – “They took my boy’s body away. I wanted to go with my son. They left us behind. They didn’t care to listen.” “They just looked at us. They flew off, right in our faces.” “They left us behind.” “They just left us,” said mother, Gwen Sturt. Through the night, with torrid rainsRead More →
The suicide prevention space is immature and inauthentic
The suicide prevention space is still raw and immature. There is a lot of work to be achieved in understanding the extensiveness of the space and its multifactorial issues. There is quite a bit of ground to travel in order to unveil the various ways forward. It’s a space vulnerable to exploiters, carpetbaggers and snakeRead More →
Three youth suicides, buried next to each other – we were not put on this earth to bury our children
Three young people took their lives within a fortnight. They knew each other. There are no words for their loss, no words that can calm the grief of their families. Their community despairs. Three funerals in five days, days shy of Christmas. A fifteen year old girl, a seventeen year old youth, a 25 yearRead More →
“It is not like me to cry…” – no more lies, our children should not see suicide as the solution
18 years young, Phillinka died on October 18 last year. At the time, at her anguished mother’s request I wrote of the loss of Phillinka and of so many others in the Kimberley. I am once again in the Kimberley – surrounded by the most pristine nature and by the loss of so many youngRead More →
It’s ‘Homelessness Week’ but who will house our toddlers, the babies?
The calendar event, Homeless Week, is upon us this week and quite a few parliamentarians and mayoral types will mix it with the big end of town and the homelessness sector at various red ribbon events. But nowhere in sight will there be the homeless. We will not hear from the homeless. These politicalRead More →
The issue of our time – 1 in 3 deaths by suicide
Suicide rates in the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander age group of 15 to 35 years are at horrific rates. Suicide is the leading cause of death in this age group. Thirty per cent of deaths in this vast age group over the five year period 2008 to 2012 have been by suicide. This isRead More →
Australian made racism
When my father left his mortal coil Good Friday last year, my head lay on his chest, I was bereft. I had been by his side 21 days in vigil. My mind raced with memories, many of them were of my childhood, with some of these memories of the racism we had felt from farRead More →
24 year old Saeed’s hunger strike should have stirred the nation, but barely a whisper
Barely a whisper about 24 year old Saeed Hassanloo’s 40 days of hunger striking – willing death rather than spending more time in Australia’s dirty detention system. Mr Hassanloo has been held in detention since he was 19 years old – the bloom of his young adult life bled in Australia’s catastrophic human rights abuseRead More →
Ruthless City of Sydney Council, who do you think you are stealing the tents of the homeless?
The inhumane mercilessness of the City of Sydney Council was on show in February when they had the police muscle up in escorting council workers to remove the tents of the homeless from inner city Wentworth Park. Sydney’s homelessness is extensive and on the increase. Governments – local, State, Federal – are doing next toRead More →
Understanding Australia’s suicide crises
Each day, a suicide is brought to my attention. I have written widely on the suicide crises. I have written about the disproportionate rate of death by suicide for the descendants of the First Peoples and for first and second generation Australians and for LGBQTI Australians. Recently I wrote about the tragic suicide of 18Read More →
8 little children on the streets; youngest less than 30 days old
On New Year’s Day a little girl was born, opening her eyes to the world, but to what kind of a world? Compassionate or merciless? By this Thursday, only 28 days old this little baby will be homeless. It is bullshit a 28 day old baby should be homeless. Not just this little baby but also herRead More →
Shame job Australia – “They came through the gate with my boy’s body more than six hours later”
“They took my boy’s body away. I wanted to go with my son. They left us behind. They didn’t care to listen.” “They just looked at us. They flew off, right in our faces.” “They left us behind.” “They just left us,” said mother, Gwen Sturt. Through the night, with torrid rains pelting the roofRead More →
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Breaking News
Gerry Georgatos – Tragically, 2019, will report the highest ever Australian suicide toll. I estimate in excess of 3,200 Australian lives lost. Alarmingly, Victoria will report its highest ever suicide toll, thereabouts 700 lives lost. NSW and Queensland will each Read More →
Gerry Georgatos – A Robodebt contributed to the death by suicide of a 19 year-old-mother. Stressors and suicide are always the story. Society is defined by the sum of its relationships, and many relationships are that classist, racist, sexist, ableist, ageist Read More →
Gerry Georgatos – Children evicted onto the streets… It is a reprehension that occurs throughout the nation but the more west we journey across the continent the worse it gets – with the rate of evictions from social housing highest Read More →
Public rental homes – ‘social housing’ – surprisingly to many only account for 4 percent of Australia’s 9 1/2 million households. There are only 400,000 public rental homes nationwide. Within these homes, after the homeless, live the poorest Australians. Only Read More →
General News
There are many faces to homelessness. A 51-year-old woman walked into my Perth office. She has lived thirteen consecutive years street-homeless. Not long ago, she spent eighteen months sleeping her nights in the same park. She is weary, harrowed by Read More →
Often beleaguered by international aid work I have lifelong been involved in; the increasing unmet needs, the mongrel injustices, I have argued the horrendous lie of our generation is that poverty is being reduced around the world. There are countries Read More →
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I worked extensively in suicide prevention and in improving the wellbeing of people living below the poverty line. I reflect on a funeral I attended, of a 19-year-old lost to suicide. Our time on this earth is a short stretch. Read More →
Politics
When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ordered the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Australia over the Dubai passports impropriety, Kevin Rudd’s days as prime minister would be numbered. The first two years of the Rudd/Gillard government were remarkable for their Read More →
Education
In recent days the Twitterverse of the Premier Mark McGowan and his Education Minister Sue Ellery have been extolling the advantages that we stand to gain from the sales pitch that they have undertaken in China to attract foreign students Read More →
Arts & Letters
Sleeping from trees, mouths of graveyards wait Low lying fruit idly by, Pray for heaven’s door Pale light, last sight The hangman quivers And the Medes build gallows, Snares And gilded cages Barons and conquerors, conquistadors salute Bloody Read More →
Aboriginal News
Gerry Georgatos – In the 1970s and 1980s, the various Offices of Multicultural Interests did not majorly employ migrant born Australians nor Australian born children of culturally and language diverse migrant Australians. A sea of White privilege, two decades long, was Read More →
In the fog of my memories the deep cut through the mist is the connectedness, the meeting of people. One community I have had much to do with but had not been to until only several years ago is Beagle Read More →
Gerry Georgatos – Lena Andrews thinks of her daughter, Phillinka, every day. Phillinka, eighteen years old, died by suicide in the Kimberley’s Fitzroy. The services failed Phillinka. No-one but her family was there for her. Phillinka ended it all by Read More →
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Gerry Georgatos – A Robodebt contributed to the death by suicide of a 19 year-old-mother. Stressors and suicide are always the story. Society is defined by the sum of its relationships, and many relationships are that classist, racist, sexist, ableist, ageist Read More →
Human Rights
For the majority of people, racism is difficult to understand. Our world is one of diverse cultures, – polycultural narratives – but when we come to bordered nations, culturally diverse regions are devastated to the threadbare by a rapacious inherent Read More →
Gerry Georgatos – The road of social justice is one with no end in sight and it is one without cobble, faithful only in its tribulations and headwinds. It is one that does not speak of the future but of Read More →
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Gerry Georgatos – Careless assumptions, predicated by unconscious and conscious biases and prejudices, when dished prematurely into public domains, particularly through the media, can lead to vilification of the vulnerable. Classism as an -ism may seemingly endure into the ages, Read More →
Aboriginal – World
Gerry Georgatos (The Stringer, 17 November 2017) argues that we should not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and dominated by trauma, that we should get back on our feet, strengthened by our scars. He is right, of course, that trauma Read More →
Environment
“Protest that endures.. is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success; namely the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence”. Wendell Berry In Perth’s southern suburbs Read More →
Features
We’re at the end of 2019’s first quarter and tragically the Australian suicide toll stands at 750 thus far. Suicide is the leading cause of unnatural deaths, yet suicide prevention is not a national priority. The Australian suicide toll is: Read More →
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