ICNN

A number of articles have appeared in the media lately, asking questions about the treatment of members of the Pioneer Football Club in Alice Springs, who, according to one Crikey.com writer, have been at the receiving end of racial slurs and mistreatment at the hands of police, following a brawl at this year’s grand final.

The fight broke out at the end of the game between West and Pioneer. All but one of the people charged are involved with the Pioneer Club.

Crikey.com wrote, "It is becoming an annual event. For four Years Wests have won the grand final. This club has less than 5 "A" grade Indigenous players.

Souths and Pioneers may have 5 non-Indigenous players between them. Two years ago Wests defeated Souths. Souths spectators were aroused by Wests spectators and a brawl ensued.

It was the Souths club that was banished for twelve months. This year only Pioneer players have been charged with various offences that occurred during the fracas. I watched an insulting video of the action on YouTube.

I cannot understand why there have been no charges of racism or vilification against the on air commentators and then those who put utter filthy comments to the site. Then one of our local papers printed those same comments."

(more…)

National Indigenous Television (NITV) today announced it will sign an agreement with AUSTAR which will see, the digital service re-transmitted to regional Australian’s from 1 November 2007.
 
AUSTAR will provide access to NITV to its satellite customers across AUSTAR’s regional and rural footprint, greatly enhancing existing terrestrial services, in Queensland, Northern Territory, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania from 1 November.
 
In addition, AUSTAR is making a significant investment to ensure that Darwin cable customers will also be able to view the service. AUSTAR has commenced upgrade work on its cable head-end and cable customers can expect to see NITV from early December.
 
As a not-for-profit company, NITV will be a part of AUSTAR’s Basic package so the service will be available to satellite and cable subscribers on Channel 180 at no additional cost. Viewers will have access to NITV’s program schedule and program details via AUSTAR’s electronic program guide (EPG). 

(more…)

A national day of protest has been organized on November 18, a week before the national election, calling for Aboriginal rights to be put back on the agenda.

A Councillor for the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, Roy Ah See, announced the national day of protest in an exclusive interview with CAAMA Radio.

Hundreds of people who attended a meeting in Redfern in support of the National Aboriginal Alliance on Monday are calling for greater consultation between governments and Aboriginal people.

Listen to the interview here

(more…)

Aboriginal people and environmentalists have responded with dismay to the Federal Government decision to allow gas giant Woodside’s Pluto gas development in Western Australia to proceed, paving the way for the removal and/or destruction of some of the world’s most important rock art.

The development involves the construction of a gas processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula near Karratha and will necessitate the removal of up to 200 examples of Aboriginal rock art, some of it up to 30,000 years old.

Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull approved the further development on 12 October under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 but attached ‘strict environmental conditions’. 

(more…)

Four months after the declaration of the ‘national emergency’ intervention there is little evidence that despite military assistance and allocation of significant additional funding much has changed at prescribed communities.

Jon Altman, Professor and the Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at ANU, published the following article on Australians All.

It is difficult to know how to interpret John Howard’s campaign eve confession on 11 October 2007 that he may have gotten it all wrong on reconciliation—that the symbolic as well as the practical will be essential if some meaningful accommodation between Indigenous and non-indigenous people is ever to eventuate in Australia.

I have argued previously that a very positive feature of Indigenous affairs in the modern policy era since the 1967 referendum has been political bipartisanship that probably reached its zenith when Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation legislation was passed unanimously and without any rancor by the Australian Parliament in 1991. That bipartisanship was slowly strangled by successive Howard governments from 1996 with a long string of antis: anti native title, anti land rights, anti ATSIC, anti Indigenous specific programs, anti saying sorry for the stolen generations, anti the many institutions of Indigenous Australia.

(more…)

MAL BROUGH has backed down under pressure from tourism operators and lifted restrictions on tourists drinking alcohol at four places overlooking Uluru and one at Katherine Gorge, two of Australia’s top tourism destinations.

But the Indigenous Affairs Minister is refusing to change alcohol restrictions imposed in the Territory under Indigenous intervention, which many drinkers in the Top End and Alice Springs regard as farcical.

Drinkers have come up with ways of beating the restrictions, which require them to show photographic identification and declare where they will drink their purchases of more than $100 of alcohol.

The other day I went to my local bottle shop, having forgotten to bring any identification. I arrived at the counter with a trolley loaded with wine totalling $170.

Sorry, I don’t have ID, I told the cashier, offering to return the bottles to the shelves. But he simply split the purchase into two transactions under $100.

(more…)

The former heavyweight boxer Joe Bugner has called on all levels of government to provide urgent assistance to Aboriginal people living in the Mid West Shire of Wiluna.

Bugner toured the shire last week in conjunction with Golden West Resources, which has an iron ore exploration project in the region.

Mr Bugner told the ABC that living and housing standards in the shire are shockingly sub-standard.
He says he was upset by the plight of the Wongi people.

"We have our Prime Minister John Howard saying that we are one of the most well to do and one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and yet we have a situation here in our country that I saw in the last three days, four days, that shocked me because I think that the Indigenous Australians are not getting a fair go," he said.

(more…)

ABORIGINAL owners of land surrounding the proposed site of Australia’s first national nuclear dump have changed their minds about allowing trucks carrying waste to enter, as bitter argument rages among Indigenous groups in the area about the Federal Government’s plans.

"I won’t sign any agreement because my mob disagree with building the dump there," says Sammy Sambo, senior elder of the Milwayi clan, which owns the only road to the site on Muckaty cattle station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.

"We are upset about the way those government fellas have gone about trying to convince us and are confused and worried about what to do next."

Senior elders of two Aboriginal clans owning parts of Muckaty have told The Age they have not been properly consulted, contradicting federal Science Minister Julie Bishop who said last month that potentially affected Aboriginal groups had had "adequate opportunity to express their views".

Ms Bishop also said that nomination of the site "accords with the wishes of the traditional Aboriginal owners of that land".

(more…)

ATHLETICS organizers are seeking the next Cathy Freeman in a new generation of Aboriginal athletes.

About 30 students from the state’s north swapped dirt roads and dusty ovals for the athletics track at Santos Stadium for the All Schools Track and Field championships yesterday. Leigh Creek Area School teacher Rob Love said it was a "huge thing" for the students from Marree, Leigh Creek and Oodnadatta.
 
"Marree’s got 80 people when they are all there. As far as you can see it’s the horizon and desert," he said. "There’d be more people inside this stadium than there are in Marree."

(more…)

ATHLETICS organizers are seeking the next Cathy Freeman in a new generation of Aboriginal athletes.

About 30 students from the state’s north swapped dirt roads and dusty ovals for the athletics track at Santos Stadium for the All Schools Track and Field championships yesterday. Leigh Creek Area School teacher Rob Love said it was a "huge thing" for the students from Marree, Leigh Creek and Oodnadatta.
 
"Marree’s got 80 people when they are all there. As far as you can see it’s the horizon and desert," he said. "There’d be more people inside this stadium than there are in Marree."

(more…)