“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 →
“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 →
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 →
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 →
A nation shamed when the solution for its children is homelessness
It is not often I am brought to tears but this morning I was bereft as I left behind a beautiful family of five who have been homeless for 9 months. They have been living in a single tent in bush on the northern outskirts of Perth. Four beautiful girls are homeless but in theirRead More →
“It is racism killing our people – suicides born of racism”
The Commonwealth Government has no choice but to prioritise above all else the suicide crisis shaming this nation. If it is not abated, the maddening crisis is the starkest portrayal of a racist nation. There are no excuses to hide behind, no justifications, other than heartlessness. Today, I bring to you the story of anotherRead More →
Kimberley suicide rate, one of the world’s highest – Yiriman is the way to go
I pay my respects to the Traditional Custodians and acknowledge Elders past, present and future across the lands in which I work and live. “We are now picking up the pieces of our loves ones.” “How many suicides, how many more deaths will it take to open our eyes, and open our ears to theRead More →
My Country – but look how I am forced to live
One Mile Community reminds me of South Africa’s town camps, where people were, and many still are, corralled in acute poverty. The apartheid-like, third-world-akin One Mile Community is only one mile from the town centre of Broome. The contrast between this shanty town and the predominance of tourist mecca Broome is disturbing. There is noRead 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 →
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 →
From 2008 to 2012, and even thereafter, Indonesian children were jailed in Australian adult prisons. They were cooks and deckhands on boats providing passage to asylum seeks who had languished in Indonesia. Lawyer Lisa Hariej is acting on their behalf Read More →
General News
Australia’s governments must end health discrimination in its prisons. An incarcerated child must not be a second-class citizen. Nor any adult. We must ask, why are our governments dishing the vulnerable jailed, second-class healthcare? When evaluating the nation’s carceral system, we are Read More →
When will the cries of the homeless be heard? Is there some sort of grotesque caste system in Western Australia? The anti-humanism is a brutal public spectacle. On the last day of January, the Western Australian Government actuated five days Read More →
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West Australia is the nation’s backwater. It is the mother of injustices, inequalities and the draconian. West Australia and the Northern Territory leave the have-nots that far behind, for many their lot appears irreparable. If there is a Mason-Dixon line Read More →
Politics
Bill Shorten had his time as a government minister and we saw his wares. We experienced what he was about. He sold himself as someone from within a union championing minimum standards for the worker. But he sold out this 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
Al Jazeera’s 101 East – As the Black Lives Matter movement spreads across the globe, we investigate Australia’s Indigenous incarceration crisis. Across Australia, Indigenous people are disproportionately arrested and locked up – some as young as 10 years old. In Read More →
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 →
Human Rights
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West Australia is the nation’s backwater. It is the mother of injustices, inequalities and the draconian. West Australia and the Northern Territory leave the have-nots that far behind, for many their lot appears irreparable. If there is a Mason-Dixon line Read More →
Gerry Georgatos writes we should examine the oppressor, not the oppressed, otherwise all hope is lost. Oppression is not a phenomena of modernity but a deliberation through the human ages. We are born with inherent rights to live in ways 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 →
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
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There is an under-reporting of poverty and homelessness. The horrendous lie of our generation is the one that poverty is being reduced right around the world. In fact it is increasing but there are diabolical efforts to mask this. Poverty Read More →
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