The Other Side of the Coin

Brisbane Sovereignty & Land Rights Conference


Enlarge group photgraph x 2
Brisbane Sovereignty & Land Rights Conference 25 November 2012

Blacktown Council stops Darug nation acknowledgement


Aunty Sandra Lee (Archive image)

Blacktown Council in Western Sydney has officially amended its Acknowledgement to Country, leaving out the Darug Nation as traditional owners.

For many generations, the Darug Nation has been recognised as the traditional owners of a large part of the area now known as Western Sydney.

They were originally large groups of clans united by the common language, Darug.

Darug country extends from the Sydney area north to Darkinjung country, west to the foothills of the Blue Mountains and Wiradjuri country, southwest to Gandangara country in the Southern Highlands and south to Thrawal in the Illawarra.

listen to ‘Blacktown Council stops recognition of Darug peoples as traditional owners’ on Audioboo

Fortescue using legal system to destroy Yindjibarndi, says Barrister

Native Title threatened by miner's "war of attrition"

Fortescue Metals Group has embarked upon a "war of attrition" using the legal system against the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation and initiating 25 separate actions through the courts and tribunals of Australia and engaging seven firms of solicitors and seven barristers in a strategy designed to destroy the Yindjibarndi's ability to continue resisting the mining giant's demands for an agreement to mine on their land, one of Western Australia's leading barristers has claimed.

Australia's response to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - UN Questionnaire

Does the state have an overarching national implementation strategy to attain the goals of the Declaration?

The Australian Government announced its support for the Declaration on 3 April 2009. Along with the National Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples, and in particular, the Stolen Generations, the announcement demonstrated the Government's commitment to strengthening the relationship and ensuring genuine engagement with Indigenous Australians.

The Australian Government's overarching approach to addressing Indigenous disadvantage is through the Closing the Gap strategy. The Government is accountable to the Australian people through the Prime Minister's Closing the Gap report which is tabled in Parliament annually ...

Aboriginal death in Katherine after release from custody sparks calls for inquiry, justice


Ray Jackson, President
Indigenous Social Justice Association

Ray Jackson: Yet another tragedy coming from police intervention in the Northern Territory but this time in Katherine where Mr. Lewis, an Aboriginal man and an amputee with major health problems, was arrested at a card game and held for 24 hours in the Katherine police cells.

Join our protest outside of the NSW coroners court at Parramatta Road, Glebe at 12.30 on Thursday, 1 November, 2012, to raise our support and solidarity with the families of Mr. Briscoe, Mr. Curti and Mr. Lewis. All three, in our opinion, have been badly treated at the hands of the justice system in the NT and NSW.

It is up to us to make that happen and I call on all readers of this post to make contact with the list (attached to article) to make your concerns and wishes known to those who run the system - But we need to do more than that - We need to become active and protest that the unnecessary deaths must stop.

Making the world a more dangerous place: the eager role of Julia Gillard

Australia has 40% of the world's uranium, all of it on indigenous land. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just been to India to sell uranium to a government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and whose enemy, Pakistan, is also a non-signatory. The threat of nuclear war between them is constant.

Uranium is an essential ingredient of nuclear weapons. Gillard's deal in Delhi formally ends the Australian Labor Party's long-standing policy of denying uranium to countries that reject the NPT's obligation "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament". - John Pilger writes ...

Murray-Darling plan: Indigenous nations 'not consulted'


SBS News Report Video

The chairman of the Northern Murray Darling Basin and delegate for 'Sovereign Union', Fred Hooper, says First Nations people were not consulted in the lead-up to the Murray-Darling Basin plan announcement.

"If you're a blackfella today you should be very disappointed in the announcement today and left out of the whole consultation process. The minister said that he spoke to the peak bodies last night. We're a peak body. We didn't get a call from the minister and we're being treated like mushrooms".

Fighting for justice when your skin's black

Illustration: John Spooner
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Illustration: John Spooner

Arthur Murray was an Australian hero who spent his life pursuing the truth of his son's death in custody. But does anyone know his name?

Arthur Murray passed away recently but when John Pilger went to to Google Australia for tributes, and there was a 1991 obituary of an American ballroom instructor of the same name.

There was nothing in the Australian media. The Australian newspaper published a large, rictal image of its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, handing out awards to his employees. Arthur would have understood the silence. - John Pilger writes

A brief history of recent Government attacks: Remote Indigenous Homelands, NT.

This is a story about the remote Indigenous Homelands in the NT and how successive governments have tried to shut them down.

There are approximately 60,000 Indigenous people that live in the NT with 100 Indigenous languages and dialects spoken, with many people speaking English as their third or fourth language.

This brief story outlines the withdrawing, rescinding and withholding of economic opportunities, social and political representation, basic services, basic civil rights, the widespread and sweeping measures that comprise the NT Intervention and more.

By Bree Blakeman, PhD student of Anthropology

F8CK! Another Death In Custody! From the NT ...

Another death of an Aboriginal man potentially involving police in the Northern Territory has sparked calls for an inquiry and urgent action to stop police harassment and brutality.

Mr E Lewis, a Warlpiri man living in Katherine, passed away shortly after being released from police custody on September 23.

Mr Lewis was a diabetic amputee, who was held in custody for more than 24 hours. He died in his sleep shortly after being released.

Family of Mr Lewis say there are many witnesses alleging he was treated roughly during his arrest, which occurred during a large card game in Katherine.

listen to ‘Deaths in Custody - Gerry Georgatos, Darren Axtell, Tiga Bayles 98.9FM’ on Audioboo