It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned — and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems […]
April 2015 – Page 2
Pushing Aboriginal people off their land for mining interests is nothing new in Western Australia, but Premier Barnett’s plans to close 150 communities and gut the Aboriginal Heritage Act takes it to a new level, reports Mia Pepper You’d be forgiven for thinking West Australia was the Wild West. The announcement from the WA Government […]
‘Wog’, ‘dago’, ‘coon’, ‘Abo’ – it goes to the very being of a person. Our very being is diminished. Many are hurt by these comments. There was a time when these derogatory terms were part of the everyday Australian lingo. Even then they were hurtful, just as hurtful as they remain today. I know that as […]
Lightning flashed across Kentucky skies a few nights ago. “I love storms,” said my roommate, Gypsi, her eyes bright with excitement. Thunder boomed over the Kentucky hills and Atwood Hall, here in Lexington, KY’s federal prison. I fell asleep thinking of the gentle, haunting song our gospel choir sings: “It’s over now, It’s over now. […]
The plight of Saeed Hassanloo should not be forgotten. Through-care journalism insists on sustaining the coverage. The refugee rights movement will always be by his side however we need the nation to come together and take on the Federal Government’s Kafkaesque behaviour and silence over Saeed’s hunger strike. A legal challenge may soon be mounted […]
Yesterday, the Northern Territory Government released another near useless policy plan in the hope that it can reduce rates of suicide, self-harm and the impacts of self-harm. It will not achieve any of this because it does not go to the heart of the problems. It does not go to overall social health, does not […]
Afghanistan – On February 22nd, unknown militants, more than likely followers of either Daesh or the Taliban, stopped two buses travelling through Zabul province to Qandahar. 31 Hazaras were removed from the two buses – 11 from one and 20 from the other. They are still missing. At one time for several years Hazaras were one […]
Greece’s SYRIZA, much attributed as a left wing party but which is predominately an anti-austerity party, is at odds as to whether to honour pensions and wages at the levels they should be paid at this time or pay the crap debts that in part were brought on by corruption and other improprieties. It is […]
All had seemed lost for 24 year old Saeed Hassanloo – 44 days into a hunger strike. A compassion-less Government prepared to let him die. He had been willing death rather than continue on in the inhumanity that is Australia’s mandatory detention. Six years in detention. The medical staff at Royal Perth Hospital were devastated […]
By the time I leave Kentucky’s federal prison center, where I’m an inmate with a 3 month sentence, the world’s 12th-largest city may be without water. Estimates put the water reserve of Sao Paulo, a city of 20 million people, at sixty days. Sporadic outages have already begun, the wealthy are pooling money to receive […]
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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