This morning I was awake past midnight as eight human beings were executed in Indonesia. Fourteen people have been executed by judicial decree in Indonesia this year. In the United States thirteen people have been executed by judicial decree this year. More than 1,400 inmates are on death row in the United States. The only […]
April 2015
Just past midnight eight death row inmates were executed in Indonesia. In January six death row inmates were executed in Indonesia. Most of them were executed for drug related offences. The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo rejected clemency calls and argued that there is a pernicious crisis of drug trafficking and abuse in Indonesia and that […]
These are the comments of a variety of people on issues such as Charlie Hebdo, Section 18c Amendments and Free speech in Australia: “GEORGE BRANDIS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL (March, 2014): Well, Mr President, people do have a right to be bigots, you know. In a free country, people do have rights to say things that other people […]
The day is overcast and grey, the air humid and oppressive. The smell of smoke mixes with the thick air, making the atmosphere even heavier. The Noongar Elders gather around the fire they have built among the gum trees and talk. Some are “painted-up” in white, so that they appear ghost-like. The fire is the […]
Seven per cent of the Kimberley is homeless and for years this has not raised a word or whisper in our national media. I have been the only person in the nation writing about the Kimberley’s endemic and pernicious homelessness. How is this possible? Nearly half the population of the Kimberley is comprised of First […]
Several years ago I wrote about the West Australian Government, in collusion with the mining industry and the Federal Government, slating between 30 to 40 uranium mines for Western Australia over the next couple of decades. Stalwart activists who have been honourably fighting the struggle to prevent the prospect of radiation sickness did not want to […]
It is not often I write about the passing of anyone – each day millions of us pass from this world – our souls roll over. This morning, 74 year old Wiradjuri social justice warrior, Ray Jackson passed away. He was a soldier of peace, a warrior to the end. Ray and I talked regularly. He […]
One in 13 of Western Australia’s Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander adult males are in prison today. From a racialised lens this is the world’s highest jailing rate. But before you get jailed you must be arrested. Western Australia has less than 30,000 Aboriginal adult males, less than 80,000 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders period, […]
“This is not about politics; it is about saving vulnerable children from the severe harm done to them in detention, which is proven and undisputable” Nick Talley (Royal Australian College of Physicians) In March 2015 an organisation I chair (National Ethnic Disability Alliance) released a report entitled “Demonised, Detained and Disowned”. The sub-title of that […]
Too often Australian political debates and tussles are scripted as a battle between the left and right of politics – when indeed there is no left and right dichotomy. The validity of any political dialogue should be substantiated by the lived experience. I am a left winger in the true sense – egalitarianism – working […]
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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