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 →
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 →
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Breaking News
- 27 Feb 2017
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
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Read More → - 10 Jan 2017
On August 4, 2014 I was phoned by family members of Ms Dhu. Only hours before the phone call, Ms Dhu had passed away at the unnatural hand of racism. Some will argue racism did not kill Ms Dhu but
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Read More → - 28 Oct 2016
One in 9 of Perth’s Aboriginal children are in the care of the state, removed by child protection authorities but an unfunded advocacy service is leading the way with a thus far 100 per cent track record of keeping children
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Read More → - 9 May 2016
“There’s something fundamentally threatening to the capitalist economic order in a ruling like this- the idea that a person is not personally responsible for any action they take out of economic necessity- because capitalism is based on creating that necessity
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General News
- 1 Jan 2019
We rail against homogeneity while beneath it all, the ambience and veils of the eclectic, we long for homogeneity, at least in the name and form of equality. Critical class and race theories abound but all remain manifestations. Windows into
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Read More → - 1 Jan 2019
There is more homelessness than is reported. Youth homelessness is on the increase. It’s complex in terms of the spectrum of issues; complex life circumstance dynamics that led to homelessness, including family violence and/or neglect of the needs of children,
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Read More → - 30 Aug 2018
The death of a child is always heartbreaking but when it is by suicide it is as devastating as it gets, with long term negative psychosocial effects for those left behind. There is a whole different level of anguish and
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Politics
- 17 Mar 2018
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
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Education
- 18 Nov 2017
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
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Arts & Letters
- 5 Aug 2018
In the interests of proper disclosure it must be said that I am a big fan of Dr Anne Aly and I have been a friend of hers for the better part of 20+ years. And I was also grateful
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Aboriginal News
- 1 Jan 2019
Ms Dhu lost her life on August 4, 2014 in a Western Australian police watch house. Ms Dhu must never be forgotten. On that fateful day I received distressing phone calls from her family. In listening to the family, I
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Read More → - 10 Dec 2018
Steven Caruana writes on the prevention of abuses in detention through the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. Today, December 10, is International Human Rights Day. The infamous Don Dale Youth Detention Centre has in recent times come back
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Read More → - 18 Jun 2018
The Noongar peoples of Western Australia as a distinct population group are the nation’s most at risk population group to suicide. The suicide toll among Noongar people has tragically reached the highest number of suicides of any Aboriginal and/or Torres
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Read More → - 14 May 2018
It’s half a century of words on Australia’s world record high rates of jailing of its First Nations descendants. One in four of this continent’s First Nations adult males have been to prison. More than 100,000 First Nations persons have
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Human Rights
- 1 Jan 2019
Ms Dhu lost her life on August 4, 2014 in a Western Australian police watch house. Ms Dhu must never be forgotten. On that fateful day I received distressing phone calls from her family. In listening to the family, I
(0)
Read More → - 1 Jan 2019
We rail against homogeneity while beneath it all, the ambience and veils of the eclectic, we long for homogeneity, at least in the name and form of equality. Critical class and race theories abound but all remain manifestations. Windows into
(0)
Read More → - 10 Dec 2018
Steven Caruana writes on the prevention of abuses in detention through the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. Today, December 10, is International Human Rights Day. The infamous Don Dale Youth Detention Centre has in recent times come back
(0)
Read More →
Aboriginal – World
- 27 Nov 2017
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
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Environment
- 8 Feb 2017
“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
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Features
- 14 Apr 2018
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
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