I am sitting in the middle of a pristine untouched rainforest that belongs to the Maroon people of Jamaica. With no taxes, no police and hardly any crime, the independent town of Accompong is in western Jamaica. ‘A nation within a nation,’ is the legal status and autonomy of these Indigenous Peoples who helped runaway […]
June 2014
Andrew Bolt started something he may not have expected – a national conversation on identity that is coalescing people, putting to rest once simmering tensions about identity – what it is and what it means. Today at the Opera House award-winning journalist and NITV’s Awaken host Stan Grant will record a panel discussion before a […]
The first ever First Peoples only dedicated human rights and social justice awards were launched on June 24. Finally! They were long overdue and the inaugural awards night went off big time in recognising exclusively the most profound human struggle on this continent – the First Peoples rights struggle. Three awards were established – The […]
The title of the talk was to be “Honour Killings are morally justified”. The name of the man who was to be delivering the session is Uthman Badar. The session was to be held at the Sydney Opera House. Everything appeared to be moving along swimmingly. Friends of mine from the Islamic community were incensed […]
The Western Australian Government has a bent for demolishing the communities and homes of First Peoples, and then sitting idly by, not too fussed about many of them who become homeless. In the Kimberley, the Oombulgurri community was closed down a couple of years ago, with the majority of the population compounding the region’s horrific […]
“We need a balance. We need our old people to come and talk to them in regards to culture. To survive, there has to be balance,” said Derby Elder, Lorna Hudson. “All of our mob has been pulled into town into somebody else’s Country.” “People are being isolated from culture.” “You can empower our people […]
The movie of that title starred Daniel Day-Lewis. The story told was that of the “Guildford Four”. One of that group died this week. His name was Gerry Conlon. What do we know of the Guildford Four and Gerry Conlon? BBC News reported on Conlon as follows: “The Guildford Four were convicted amid the backdrop […]
Perth’s Swan Valley Nyungah Community, closed down eleven years ago, their homes bulldozed by order of the Premier of Western Australia earlier this year, are now grieving the loss of another of their own on the streets, this time a baby. Since the Government closed down the once thriving community, many were made chronically homeless. […]
The ABC promotes itself as ‘democracy’ and the ABC’s Q&A program as “an experiment in democracy” but after its host, Tony Jones’ response to students who unfurled a banner during the program there were observers who questioned the ‘democracy’ that the program touts. Freelance writer and journalist, Clementine Ford defended the democratic right of the […]
Frontline services in First Peoples communities are being slashed or burned. With the build-up of a penal estate across this continent you would imagine that restorative justice and post-release programs would be the way to go. But no, hold on, the Commonwealth is abandoning one program after another. The NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Service has just […]
General News
- March 9, 2021
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 […]
- February 2, 2021
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 […]
- December 3, 2020
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 […]
- September 22, 2020
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 […]
- September 3, 2020
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 […]
- March 10, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – In 2014, I disaggregated to the Kimberley’s First Nations peoples, the nation’s highest suicide rate, one of the world’s highest, at over 70 suicides per 100,000 population (First Nations), thereabouts seven times the national rate. Fortunately, although […]
- February 18, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – More than 51 months ago I wrote an article on the imperatives of forgiveness and redemption. This remains true. We journey together in one form or another, we can either salt the earth or jag the road, […]
- January 29, 2020
By Gerry Georgatos – Trae lost his eleven-year-old brother to suicide. Nine months later he lost his mother to suicide. Trae was the last to see his brother. Half an hour later he went looking for his little brother. In the […]
- January 21, 2020
Gerry Georgatos – Children as young as 9 years have been lost to suicide, three in fact in recent years. Australians should ask, why? Proportionally, more children aged 14 years and less have been lost so far this century compared […]
- December 10, 2019
Gerry Georgatos – A mother suicides, a father suicides, their child was a suicide. Not once has this occurred but untold times. Over the years I have warned of mothers and fathers that would be near certain lost to suicide […]
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