Last week here in Perth, three young men went to work but did not come home. Benjamin White, Joe McDermott and Gerry Bradley all died at their place of work. Joe McDermott and Gerry Bradley were crushed to death by a concrete panel that fell off the back of a truck at a building site […]
November 2015
Australia is shamed by a horrific narrative on the disparity marginalised to the descendants of the continent’s First Peoples and it is ugliest in Western Australia. To the west of the continent, First Nations descendants are hit harder than anywhere else in the nation; the more west we journey across the continent the worse the hits and statistical narrative on Aboriginal and Torres Strait […]
Dear Destroy the Joint, Last week, you told us that you apologised for excluding us from your page and from the ongoing conversation about violence against women. This is what you said; Dear Destroyers, Let us begin with a belated and unreserved apology about the way we have handled the comment moderation in this instance. […]
There is nothing as profoundly powerful as forgiveness. The forgiving of others validates self-worth, builds bridges and positive futures. Forgiveness cultivated and understood keeps families and society solid as opposed to the corrosive anger that diminishes people into the darkest places, into effectively being mentally unwell. Anger is a warning sign to becoming unwell. Love […]
When I arrived at the Kabul International Airport on November 4, I was unaware that on the same day the New York Times published an article, “Life Pulls Back in Afghan Capital, as Danger Rises and Troops Recede.” My friends Abdulhai and Ali, 17 years old, young men I have known since my first visit five […]
My friend and colleague Craig Wallace delivered this speech this week at the White Flower memorial. That memorial in Sydney was significantly organised by powerful disability activists Samantha Connor and Suzy Keene with assistance from some others. I commend Craig’s speech to all who weren’t aware of the level of death and violence perpetrated to people with disability. Thank you to all […]
“I wish she (Lange) hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.” Florence Thompson How could it be that someone could take a photograph of someone else, which photograph […]
Dr Adele Kubein works at Oregon State University in Corvallis, USA and in the letters below over the past three years, she becomes vulnerable with the Afghan Peace Volunteers in Kabul, expressing her love with tears. From the Afghan Peace Volunteers, “Thank you, Dr Adele!” Letter on 11th October, 2012 I hope others are listening. […]
It is so frustrating. Destroy the Joint are counting dead women, mostly women who are killed by men. Destroy the Narrative are counting dead men, only those who have been killed by women. For both those groups, they are counting the people who have been killed ‘this year’. But for many people with disability, nobody […]
I have attended nearly three of the four days thus far of the coronial inquest into the police watch house death of 22-year-old Ms Dhu. I walked away today somewhat disenchanted at the prospect of substantive systemic changes. Yes, hopefully the long awaited end to the jailing of fine defaulters will come and we will also […]
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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