Bartlett's Blog

A few weeks ago I interviewed author Anita Heiss about her new book Am I Black Enough For You?  The book is partly a personal memoir and partly explores the issue of Aboriginal identity.  You can listen to the interview at this link. Anita Heiss was one of a number of people who took columnist Andrew Bolt to court for making a range of false claims which in effect ...

It's hard to know what to say on this issue that hasn't already been said, but the blithely blatant injustice is still hard to stomach - I can only imagine the fury many Aboriginal must feel about this. Almost five years ago I wrote here about the report of the Senate Committee Inquiry I helped establish in 2006  into wages and other entitlements stolen from Aboriginal people. I also ...

In my very First Speech to the Senate back in 1997, I praised the Native Title negotiations then taking place between the Quandamooka people, the Traditional Owners of Stradbroke Island, and what was then the Redland Shire Council.  I mentioned it as a positive example of what Native Title could deliver for our entire community, as those negotiations seemed to be progressing well at the time.  I never ...

The moves to recognise Australia's First Peoples in our nation's Constitution are starting to gather pace.  The federal government has pledged to hold a referendum on this by the time of the next election - that is, within 2 years - which is not a lot of time to build community awareness and understanding of the issues. The Panel established to engage and seek community views has set up ...

Contention over Queensland's  Wild Rivers legislation has been bubbling along for quite a while now. Unfortunately, as with many issues which become polarised, each "side" is focused on defending their position, which has meant that some important underlying issues are not getting the attention they deserve. I've just had a piece on this topic published at The Drum on the ABC's website.  It's fairly long, so they published it ...

The latest inquest into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody on Palm Island – now well over five years ago - has concluded.  Once again Mulrunji’s family and the wider community will wait for findings to be published – just as they still await the publication of the report by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) in the flaws in the Police investigation into the death.  The ...

It is well over five years since Mulrunji Doomagee died in police custody on Palm Island, his ribs broken and his liver nearly sliced in two.  Previous coronial inquests and trials have wound a tortuous path, with various assertions about the cause of death ranging from the consequences of a “complicated fall” to suggestions Mulrunji’s injuries were inflicted by a more direct methods. Despite past coroner’s investigations, a trial, ...

One of the benefits for me of not being in Parliament has been the chance to get more directly involved in community based organisations.  One of those I have got more involved in over the past year or so is the Queensland branch of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (usually known as ANTaR). ANTaR started in the 1990s and has maintained a continuing role in promoting better community ...

Last night I attended the public forum I wrote about here, featuring Pacific Island peoples speaknig about the impacts of climate change on their homelands, health and cultures. It was very well attended and the speakers were engaging and enlightening. I've published a piece about it over at Crikey at this link. If for some reaon you want to see my efforts at live-Tweeting the forum, ...

The calls by Australian of the Year Mick Dodson, supported by many others, for a debate on whether to shift Australia Day away from 26th January, has produced some predictable howls of outrage and abuse. But it is not only Indigenous Australians who feel that 26th January is not the best day to celebrate our unity as a nation, as Ron Barassi’s views make clear. Many of the millions of ...

Last week I attended the launch in Melbourne of a report released by the organisation Stolen Generations Victoria.  The report is called Unfinished Business, which is the same name given to a report from a Senate Committee I initiated into the Stolen Wages issue.  This is a reminder that all these injustices are interlinked.  To me, all these reports and the evidence and experiences they draw on are a ...

The headlines after COAG focused on health and education and the overall size of the money handed out (with the usual uncertainty about how much was ‘new’ money and how much had already been promised or committed).  Jon Altman from ANU has written a good rundown on the various COAG agreements which relate to Indigenous Australians (or at least those in discrete remote communities, who seem to have ...

I’ve written about the Aboriginal Stolen Wages issue here many times.  There is a very good article by Marg Wenham in The Courier-Mail outlining this disgraceful situation – it’s worth a read.  More here too.  Sadly, the injustice continues.

November 19 marks four years since the notorious wrongful arrest and death in police custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. Many Aboriginal men have been arrested, charged, exiled from their homes and jailed in the four years since.  Meanwhile, investigations into allegations regarding actions and investigations by police have yet to be completed and no disciplinary action of any sort against police has occurred. As this article from the ...

Palm Island man Lex Wotton has been handed a seven year jail sentence (less one year for time previously served) as a result of being found guilty by a jury of rioting with destruction. Although I’ve spoken with people who were present on the day which led t the charges, I wasn’t there, so I won’t give a view on who did what. If you want to see a ...

On Wednesday I attended a rally outside the Brisbane District Court, held to show support for Palm Island man, Lex Wotton, whose trial had been going for two weeks. The jury started deliberating on the Thursday. When I saw news that they were still going on the Friday afternoon, I decided to go to the court to bear witness with Lex and his family and supporters as they ...

There are lots of coverage and comment about the report by the independent group reviewing the Northern Territory intervention.  This is one of the more important amongst the many reviews set in train by the federal government. I hope the government is able to ignore the politics and focus on the substance of the report. As I said many times in the various pieces I have written about the ...

Everyone knows that billions of dollars are needed to address the third world conditions many Indigenous Australians live in, including horrendously overcrowded housing, poor road access and other infrastructure problems.  But I haven’t seen any mention so far of spending money to address these problems in the flurry of bidding that has started following the federal government’s announcement they are looking at spending $20 billion on infrastructure to ...

Last week I attended a funeral in Townsville for Yvonne Butler, who was one of the state’s most dedicated campaigners on the Stolen Wages issue.  I have written a number of times on this blog about the issue and the  poor record of the Queensland state government. Whilst the response from government has been far short of what still needs to be done, much of the credit for ...

The Federal Opposition's Indigenous Affairs shadow minister, Tony Abbott, is spending three weeks in a community on Cape York in far-north Queensland. He highlights one of the real difficulties for parliamentarians in meaningfully engaging with Indigenous (and to some extent also other) communities.  The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the 'seagull syndrome' — we fly ...