|
PRESS CUTS
Issue 166 - 13 Nov 2008
ISSUE 166, November 13, 2008: A fortnightly wrap-up of how the media reported Indigenous affairs.
The Advertiser
AUSTRALIA should learn from other countries how to improve the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people, Professor Fiona Stanley said in a speech [last week]. Delivering the annual Hawke Lecture at the Adelaide Town Hall [last week], the former Australian of the Year and advocate for Aboriginal Australians and children said there were comparable situations in Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. but their Indigenous people were faring better. She said that while these countries and their Indigenous populations have different histories and cultural aspects, there are also amazing similarities. Professor Stanley said while the other countries still had problems, life expectancy in Australian Aboriginals was worsening, while theirs were improving. Among her suggestions for improvement, were treaties and a better acknowledgement of history. Professor Stanley is an adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and founded the Institute for Child Health Research. Professor Stanley also emphasised that the effects of the Stolen Generation include mental health problems, substance abuse, social, emotional and other health problems, and these are passed to subsequent generations.
ABC
INDIGENOUS leader Patrick Dodson has delivered the 2008 Sydney Peace prize lecture. The Aboriginal rights advocate has called for Australia to mirror the US President-elect Barack Obama's policies. Mr Dodson used the platform to call for compensation for Aboriginal people and for the ownership of Indigenous land to be recognised in the constitution. He says Indigenous people are headed for an apocalyptic disaster if there are no changes and Australia should be inspired by the United States president-elect's commitment to raise the status of Native Americans. The Sydney Peace Foundation award is Australia's only international peace prize.
A NATIONAL ear health organisation says more than 100 000 people have called a telephone hotline that diagnoses hearing problems. Hearing Australia's new managing director, Steven Grundy says tackling the high level of ear disease in the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory is a priority for the organisation. Mr Grundy says the hotline was set up for people to test their hearing over the phone and has been a successful way to provide a service to people living in remote and regional areas. The level of ear disease in the Aboriginal population is much higher than the general population and Hearing Australia is committed to providing quality health care to Indigenous Australians Mr Grundy said.
SAMOAN leaders will meet Aboriginal elders [today] at Logan City, south of Brisbane, hoping to overcome racial tensions. Pressure has been building since an Aboriginal man was bashed to death in a park at Woodridge late last month. Nine males have been charged with murdering 38-year old Richard Saunders, the uncle of rugby league player Johnathan Thurston. Samoan chiefs from across south-east Queensland initiated [today's] meeting with Aboriginal elders to discuss Mr Saunders' death. More than 500 people, including Thurston, attended Mr Saunders' funeral at Acacia Ridge a fortnight ago. The accused nine males are in custody.
A YORKE Peninsula Aboriginal elder wants Federal Government action to protect and preserve Indigenous heritage and cultural sites. Quenten Agius is the chairman of the Adjahdura Narungga Heritage group. He says on Yorke Peninsula alone, just 5 per cent of important sites remain and the story is similar around the nation. Mr Agius says state heritage laws are ineffective and he has written an open letter to two federal ministers, calling for an action plan to prevent development on sacred lands. He says that "Aboriginal people are too frightened or haven't got the resources to get their point out into the general public, by letting them know that the State Government is actually using the Act against us instead of what it was intended for."
THE SEVENTH Day Adventist Church has lodged a development application to establish a boarding school for young Aboriginal people in western New South Wales. The $6.5 million education centre would be built on a property at Gongolgon near Brewarrina. The church says the school would initially focus on high school and cater for 80 to 90 students. It operates a similar education centre in Western Australia.
INDIGENOUS protesters have gathered in Brisbane, venting their anger on a range of issues. There has been a rally underway in Queen's Park in the CBD over the bashing death of an Aboriginal man just south of Brisbane last weekend, the conviction of Palm Island rioter Lex Wotton and a planned ceremony to recognise police involved in the 2004 riot. The riot was sparked by the death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee. Aboriginal activist Sam Watson says a petition will be delivered to Parliament House this afternoon calling again for a Royal Commission into his death. Police officers will receive bravery awards in Townsville on Monday for their actions in the Palm Island riot, four days before Wotton is due to be sentenced.
The Sydney Morning Herald
AUSTRALIA was trying to strut the international stage, talking about improving the world, when problems needed fixing in our own backyard, the Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson [last week]. Mr Dodson said Australia risked being condemned as a pariah nation unless it ratified the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Rights, passed last year. He said that Australia behaves "schizophrenically" and Internationally it represents itself as a tolerant nation, about mateship and the land of the fair go. But domestically "don't acknowledge that we are swimming in a backwater because we haven't advanced our social discourse on change." Mr Dodson was speaking before his delivery [last week] of the Sydney Peace Prize Lecture and his receipt of the 2008 prize [tomorrow night] from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. He said the nation would lose absolutely if the riches of one of the world's oldest living cultures were squandered, abused or simply denied. On the subject of the intervention he said.
THE mother of NRL superstar Johnathan Thurston delivered a moving eulogy at a packed Brisbane funeral for his uncle, who was bashed to death in a park late last month. Richard Saunders, 38, was farewelled [yesterday] by hundreds of mourners, including his famous nephew, at Acacia Ridge's Church of Our Lady of Fatima. Australian coach Ricky Stuart, North Queensland Cowboys teammate Carl Webb and new coach Neil Henry and Brisbane Bronco Justin Hodges were also there. Sobbing and clinging to family members, Thurston was inconsolable during the one-hour service, where his uncle was described as an "avid football fan" and loving family man. Mr Saunders, a father of nine children - two of whom have died - was killed on October 25 following an alleged dispute with a group of Pacific Islander males. Nine people have been charged with his murder. Police have conceded simmering racial tensions between indigenous groups and the area's Pacific Islander community may have contributed to the incident. Mr Saunders's brother, Robert, used the service to call for calm.
INDIGENOUS students will be as common as blazers and boaters at Australia's most prestigious private schools after the Federal Government announced it would back a tenfold increase in the size of the nation's largest boarding school scholarship scheme. The scheme, which began with a few Aboriginal boys from Walgett at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill a decade ago, will now extend to more than 2000 Indigenous teenagers nationwide at scores of boarding schools, paid for by both private donors and the Government. The Government will fund an extra 2000 scholarships to attend top secondary schools in addition to the few hundred already planned by the scheme's founders this year, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced [last night]. Mr Rudd said the Government would contribute $20 million to the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and said it would be matched by business.
The Age
AUSTRALIA was trying to strut the international stage, talking about improving the world, when problems needed fixing in our backyard, Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson said [yesterday]. Australia risked being condemned as a pariah nation unless it ratified the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights, passed last year, he said. Mr Dodson was speaking before his delivery [tonight] of the Sydney Peace Prize Lecture and his receipt of the 2008 prize tomorrow night from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. He said the nation would lose absolutely if the riches of one of the world's oldest living cultures were squandered, abused or simply denied. He said that Australia have had opportunities to address [issues] such as "Mabo, Wik, the report of the stolen generations, the royal commission into deaths in custody, the reconciliation process itself, the national apology in Canberra". But it "keeps dropping the ball."
Herald Sun
AN ART auction house spent more than $100,000 moving a sale from Melbourne to Sydney this month after misinterpreting a new law. Sotheby's admits it was confused about a change to the Australian Heritage Act 2006. The Act requires individual permits - costing $143 each - to sell, market, advertise or display Victorian Aboriginal artefacts not made for the purposes of sale in Victoria. The auction house believed the law applied to the sale of artefacts across all states, which is why it moved its October 20 Aboriginal art sale to Sydney. But the State Government says the legislation applies only to Victorian artefacts. "The Victorian Act only applies to objects that are of cultural heritage and significance to Aboriginal people of Victoria and specifically excludes items that are created for the purpose of sale such as contemporary artworks," Aboriginal Affairs Minister Richard Wynne says. Sotheby's head of Aboriginal art Tim Klingender denounces the change as "convoluted and shortsighted". He decided in April to shift the sale, saying then that Sotheby's would not be able to obtain import and export permits for artefacts if the sale were held in Melbourne. Klingender insists "Sotheby's had at no stage been part of the consulting process, yet we handle all of the most significant indigenous artefacts in the country". But Wynne says: "It was the onus of Sotheby's to understand the legislation. But Klingender is adamant Sotheby's was told the legislation applied to the sale of all Aboriginal artefacts from all over Australia. The law was clarified after Sotheby's managing director Lesley Alway discussed the problem with Aboriginal Affairs Victoria executive director Angela Jurjevik in August.
A DEAL to provide tens of thousands of jobs for Aborigines has been hailed as a historic step towards closing the wealth gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The Australian Employment Covenant -- a partnership between industry, the Federal Government and the Indigenous community -- was signed at a gathering of political, Aboriginal and business leaders at Kirribilli House in Sydney [yesterday]. The scheme will start in February and aims to help break the welfare cycle by providing 50,000 jobs for Indigenous Australians. Applicants will be trained to employers' specifications and mentored when they start work. More than 15 major companies already have committed to providing more than 5000 jobs. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the apology he delivered to Indigenous people this year had helped build a bridge of respect, paving the way for efforts to close the gap. Among the guests at the signing were business moguls Rupert Murdoch, James Packer and Kerry Stokes, and Aboriginal leaders Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine. Mining magnate Andrew Forrest, who founded the scheme, said the signing marked a turning point. A number of companies, including Leighton Holdings, Crown Ltd, Fortescue Metals, Santos and Linfox, have pledged support.
The Canberra Times
ONE HUNDRED years ago, West Australian government surveyor Alfred Canning established the longest and most remote stock route in the world. Using Aboriginal guides, he sunk more than 50 wells along the 1800km Canning stock route, which runs from Wiluna to Halls Creek. [Last week], artists and curators from Western Australia joined Canberra-based academics to workshop an exhibition on the stock route's indigenous history. The exhibition is scheduled to open in 2010 at the National Museum. Project manager Carly Davenport Acker, of FORM, the organisation behind the endeavour, said the exhibition would incorporate a variety of artworks, photographs and multimedia exhibits. "We're going to be developing a show that's quite different and has never been done before. We have so much social and cultural context and so much amazing art," she said. Eighty-nine artists from nine Western Australia art centres have contributed works. Curator Terry Murray, of Fitzroy Crossing, said it was time to tell the Aboriginal history of the stock route. An ANU-based anthropologist who is working on the project, John Carty, said the exhibition would be a hybrid of fine art and social history. "This exhibition is saying that behind all these great, beautiful paintings there are extraordinary perspectives on Australian history," he said. "
The Australian
INDIGENOUS leader Warren Mundine has launched a fierce attack on Pat Dodson's Australian Dialogue, saying it presents a vision of Aborigines more suited to 1788 and "dancing around fires" than the 21st century. Ridiculing Mr Dodson's call for Australia to "find love for the Indigenous people", Mr Mundine said: "They need to get off the '60s love train and get on with the business of getting Aboriginal people jobs and education and the tools for living in the 21st century". He said Aboriginal people had suffered "too much love" and not enough hard-nosed economic development. Calls by Mr Dodson for an end to assimilationist policies was a revival of "an old racial stereotype from the 1700s", he added. Mr Mundine said that rather than pondering the power of love, "we've got to deal with the reality of the statistics", which included Aboriginal women being murdered at a rate seven times higher than in mainstream Australia, or children being abused at grossly disproportionate rates. Mr Dodson hit back at Mr Mundine, in comments that drew attention to Mr Mundine's disconnection from traditional life. "The attitudes that he seems to express are the worst aspects of what happens when you become assimilated," Mr Dodson said. "You lose contact with the richness of your Indigenous culture".
 
|