An eleven year child died last year, but by suicide. Nine months later, only days ago, his 37 year old mother took her life. In the last year I have had to look into the eyes of parents who have buried a child aged 11 years, 12 years, 13 years, 14 years, 15 years, 16 years and 17 […]
July 2015
Racism in general is a convenient excuse – manufactured consent – for the economic exploitation and deprivation of peoples. Slavery is the purest form of the exploitation of people however it also occurs in other ways, of sexual, domestic and economic content. Slavery has often been disguised – whether by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, […]
I have thus far refused to make comment on the Adam Goodes affair. For all of those people who aren’t aware of the issue, Adam Goodes, who is a champion footballer for the Sydney Swans (he won the Brownlow medal for the “fairest and best” player in the Australian Football League twice, was the Australian […]
The record-high suicide rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the result of the racist policies of one government after another. Government after government have degraded the majority of their communities to the most abominable social health quotients. They have denied Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities an equivalency of social wealth enjoyed by […]
Jessica’s plight is an indictment of the affluent city of Perth, an indictment of the Western Australian government, an indictment of far too many. Jessica, is an amputee who gets around in a wheelchair but who is homeless and for the last six weeks has been sleeping in a city carpark. “It is dangerous on the streets, […]
“In essence, the leitmotif of his work is about power and the abuse of power as well as the resilience of ordinary working people to this abuse… It is an art of engagement – engagement for change.” (John Green, from the Introduction to Ken Sprague – People’s Artist.) People continue to ask about this powerful […]
This photo from 1953 shows four-year-old Ross Munro and his neighbour Phillip Noble playing in an asbestos sandpit in a residential backyard in Wittenoom in WA’s northwest. Residents purchased the deadly tailings which were commonly used as sandpits in backyards for the purposes of children’s play and also to reduce dust around houses. When I read Chris Hedges […]
Sunday 19th July 2015,…a date that I will remember vividly for some considerable time. After 40 years of living in Perth, that was the date on which I came closest to making a decision to leave this country permanently. Why? Over the years I have steadfastly not wanted to attend rallies of any kind. Yes, […]
This month, about 100 U.S. Veterans for Peace gathered in Red Wing, Minnesota, for a statewide annual meeting. In my experience, Veterans for Peace chapters hold “no-nonsense” events. Whether coming together for local, statewide, regional or national work, the Veterans project a strong sense of purpose. They want to dismantle war economies and work to […]
“Here I have a voice impassioned, here I have a life embattled and angered, here I have a rumor, but here I have a life” Miguel Fernandez Gather This Voice/Take up this Cry “Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends. Let me take my leave of the sun and fields” The last words of Miguel Hernandez scribbled on […]
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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