En Passant

The Australian flag on Invasion Day: To burn or not to burn?

Despite burning the Australian flag not being a crime, a heavy-handed police reaction has helped the authorities and the media to vilify and prosecute peaceful Australia Day protesters in Sydney, I write in Independent Australia​. To read the article click here. The Australian Flag on Invasion Day: To burn or not to burn?

It says much about the state of Australian society today that we have a great footballer very possibly being hounded out of his job because he is black while a sleazy untrustworthy and biased politician who has allegedly abused entitlements for decades will in all probability keep her job of throwing Labor politicians out of Parliament.

She had broken ribs, bleeding on the lungs and was in excruciating pain. Locked up for days without proper medical attention over $1000 in unpaid fines – at just 22 years of age, my granddaughter died in her cell as a result of her injuries. She begged for help.

Justice for Julieka. Sign the petition here.

ANZAC Day, the supposed symbol and celebration of the ‘nation’ denies this most obvious truth – Australian society was founded on the genocide of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and that genocide continues today. Let’s unite and fight to stop the brutal war against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders now.

Dozens of Brisbane Murri community leaders gathered on Tuesday night in the southern suburb of Logan to organise support for Sheila Oakley, who was viciously tasered by police on the doorstep of her home on 6 February write Kaye Broadbent and Sarah Jean in Red Flag. A rally has been called for Saturday 15 February at 11am, assembling at 26 Jacaranda Avenue, Kingston. Speeches will be followed by a march to the Logan police station. After the rally there will be a BBQ fundraiser to support Sheila and her family in their time of need. Everyone who wants to stand in solidarity with Brisbane’s Murri community needs to be there.

Adam, as an Aboriginal Australian and Australian of the Year, you are in a special position to challenge the systemic racism and genocide that is Australian capitalism. Make the most of it.

A treaty, recognising prior ownership and sovereignty, paying the rent to the indigenous owners of the land and allowing Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders to run their own affairs is a set of systemic solutions to the systemic problems of dispossession and disempowerment, systemic solutions to the past and ongoing genocide against the indigenous peoples of this country.

That would require an attack on capital in Australia and its interests. Labor won’t do that. Far better from the point of view of Gillard as the captain of the second level of capital to pick Nova Peris to open the batting in the battle for the Senate than actually take on capital to address the real issues. Nova Peris will be a willing accomplice to Gillard’s anti-Aboriginal agenda.

The Invasion Day protests, the burgeoning Idle No More indigenous peoples’ movement in Canada which is spreading across the globe, the campaigns against the Intervention and deaths in custody, all offer an alternative approach to winning better lives for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. They are movements from below, not machinations from above. That way lies the future, not one bum on one seat for a Gillard puppet in the Senate.

Perhaps the difference in treatment in death is that police protect the profit system, whereas workers don’t. We workers make the profit for the bosses. We are expendable and our deaths at work are nothing to them compared to the death of a police officer.

By their eulogies shall ye know the bosses and their system.

On 4 January 2012, Kwementyaye Daniel Briscoe joined the ranks of hundreds of Aboriginal people who have died in police custody in Australia. Yet with well over 200 deaths in police custody in Australia, in only two cases have police officers been charged with a criminal offence, and none convicted. We the undersigned support the […]