Tony Abbott's plan to silence NGO’s

Just a few days in and the Abbott government has announced plans to make green boycotts illegal.

Parliamentary secretary for agriculture Richard Colbeck says he wants to “prevent green groups from holding companies to ransom”

Abbott Government's first actions: trash climate change education, carbon pricing

On September 7 Australia elected the Liberal National parties - the Coalition - to Federal Government, with Tony Abbott as our new Prime Minister. It is a Government firmly in climate denial, intent on winding back carbon pricing; undermining renewables; and closing down the Climate Commission setup to communicate and engage the public on climate science and its impacts.

Related: Early start to bushfires, record temperatures

How many more suicides will it take?

by Gerry Georgatos of The Stringer, The National Indigenous Times, the National Indigenous Radio Service - September 20th, 2013 - Two years ago, as part of my academic research into the prevalence of suicides in Australia, particularly among Aboriginal youth, to my horror I discovered that Aboriginal youth suicides are tragically at record high levels – that spates of Aboriginal youth suicides are proportionately the world’s highest rates. Aboriginal youth is suiciding at the world’s highest rates.

The downside of democracy for Indigenous Australians

By Chris Graham in The Tracker

One of the features of a modern democracy is that apart from getting the government we deserve, we're also supposed to get the government that the majority of us want.

Like Communism, it's great in theory. But also like Communism, it's often not so good in practice.

At least, it's not if you happen to be a minority group who has long been denied the right to elect your own leaders.

Cuts to indigenous legal aid a backwards step

The Coalition’s planned cuts to indigenous legal services will lead to increased prison costs and a shift in demand to already stretched legal aid bodies, critics have argued.

The Coalition plans to cut $42 million from the Indigenous Policy Reform Program, which funds legal services for indigenous people across Australia, over the next four years.

Warren Mundine: The white sheep of the family?

By Gary Foley, September 9, 2013

Prime Minister elect Tony Abbott and Warren Mundine

It would seem at the present time that the former National President of the ALP, Mr Warren Mundine, has momentarily eclipsed the Cape York Crusader Noel Pearson as the Aboriginal Man of the Moment.

Whilst Mr Mundine may lack the intellectual firepower of Noel Pearson, he has nevertheless elbowed his way to the front of the pack with his dazzling late-life conversion to the cause of all things Tony Abbott.

Whistleblowers needed when cultures of wrong-doing rule

Gerry Georgatos - I stand alongside those who let nothing get in the way of what is right, what is in the common good. I stand alongside those who will let no injustice go unheard, untold. I stand alongside Private Chelsea Manning who has been sentenced up to 35 years in prison for serving humanity's interests. Manning's decision to report to humanity was out of concern for humanity.

Manning should be relieved of the cruel and unfair burden of her prison sentence with a presidential pardon, and she should be acknowledged as both a patriot and as a true citizen of the world.

Christians label Rudd’s asylum policy morally bankrupt

Christian churches say The Rudd Government’s so called “PNG Solution” is morally bankrupt and unworthy of a civilized community.

“Nauru riot was inevitable”

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Anyone who has worked in Nauru will see them as the desperate souls they are,' Salvation Army workers said in a statement after the recent riots at the Nauru island detention centre.

CLIMATE of DEATH – Justice denied means more will die

Gerry Georgatos - courtesy of The Stringer - http://thestringer.com.au/ - July 18th, 2013 - Photo: Mother Mavis Pat at her son’s Fremantle Prison (museum) memorial, September 28, 2011 – Photo, Gerry Georgatos - “We have to get rid of racist cops. I don’t want to dwell on the past but I have grown up bitter,” said Whadjuk Noongar Elder Ben Taylor. Mr Taylor said of colonial and post-colonial Australia, “They have been killing our people for two hundred years.”