ICNN

The wife of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will represent five Aboriginies seeking compensation for ill health caused by nuclear testing in South Australia’s outback during the 1950s.

The claimants include relatives of people who have died since the nuclear testing at Maralinga.

Neil Gillespie from the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement said the action was against the United Kingdom Government and that Cherie Blair’s appointment was not just good luck.

“It was quite deliberate,” he said.

“We needed somebody of high profile and someone that is as sharp as a samurai sword and you cannot get anyone better in the United Kingdom than Cherie Blair.”

Mr Gillespie has already had written advice about the South Australian compensation claims co-signed by Cherie Blair.

“This certainly confirms that our five claimants have a very very good case of pursuing their claim through the UK courts,” he said.

Last year an English court ruled that military personnel affected by the testing in the 1950s and 60s were entitled to seek compensation from the UK Government.

Mr Gillespie said the claims were no different from those made by former defence force personnel seeking compensation for ill health attributed to exposure to nuclear testing.

The outgoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, is calling for a greater focus on crime prevention in Indigenous communities.

The Commissioner has launched his sixth and final Social Justice and Native Title Report.

The report recommends diverting funds spent on imprisonment to local Indigenous communities where there is a high concentration of offenders.

Commissioner Calma says the justice reinvestment model has proven successful in other countries.

“You get an offender and you put them through the best resources, the most effective rehabilitation programs but if they are returning to the community with few opportunities, their chances of staying out of prison are very limited.”

Other recommendations include protecting Indigenous languages and culture and reforming the native title system.

Tangentyere Council notes the press release by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin of 19 January, 2010 and her article in The Weekend Australian on 19 December 2009, and calls on the Minister to stop the rhetoric, and to start to rebuild her relationship with town camp residents by speaking with truth and honesty. 

“The Minister seems to have decided to use the Town Camps as her political kicking bag. She is representing the residents in the most degrading way & making Aboriginal people feel less Australian and not part of the broader Australian community says Mr. Tilmouth, the Executive Director of Tangentyere Council. The level of violence and alcohol in Town Camps is too high in our communities, however the Ministers constant description of people and their communities as “substandard” “alcohol abusers” “living with hopelessness…despair and horrific violence” seriously misrepresents our people.  Our people are strong and proud and have a long history of fighting against alcoholism and violence.

Our housing needs are high, but our housing is not sub-standard in fact it is independently assessed as “better than the NT average for public housing, and in some categories better than the national average.” 

In 2006 it was Town Camp residents who were seeking stronger alcohol restrictions than the rest of town in an effort to reduce alcohol harm and violence. Town Camp residents fought the system for over 7 years to win the rights to be Alcohol Free well before the government presented this as a imposed solution. The Intervention has seriously disrupted local alcohol management on the camps and has removed our ability to manage unwanted visitors who bring alcohol and violence into the Camps.

It was town camp residents who turned around their camp through strong community development programs – the success of which is never celebrated by the Government.

“One of the ways you control people is to demoralise them.” Says Mr. Tilmouth, “when I speak to the people they say “We want governments to stop rubbishing us”

Town Camp residents are not hopeless abusers of alcohol. They are children, mothers, fathers and grandparents. They are families with aspirations, strength and resilience. They want the lies to stop and the partnership to begin – measures that prevent the damage not just react to it.

We ask the Minister to celebrate the successes and strengths of our people and to cease the abusive and degrading attacks. Public humiliation will simply create social exclusion and despair amongst our people. Town Camp residents are quietly waiting for the partnership to occur so that we can build a united Alice Springs for the future of all.

MOSCOW – Their bodies adorned with ancient symbols and eucalyptus leaves, world ice dancing champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin have captivated audiences and impressed judges with their striking new routine.

There is only one problem, say Aboriginal Australians: the skaters have ripped off one of their cultural dances.

Native Australian groups accused the Russian pair yesterday (Thursday) of “cultural theft” and called on them to apologise for insulting their traditions. Bev Manton, an indigenous leader, called the performance offensive, adding: “Our dance, our ceremony, our image – and, importantly, how they are depicted – are sacred to Aboriginal Australians.”

Domnina, 25, and Shabalin, 27, are favourites to win gold at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month. They won the Russian championships last month with the new routine, and came first with it at the European Championships in Estonia yesterda.

They expressed surprise at the complaints. Domnina said that they had done the same as any other performers in incorporating ideas from other cultures, adding: “Every country should be writing to complain in that case.”

Shabalin said that they never intended to give an authentic representation of Aboriginal dance, but had interpreted something “from many thousands of years ago”.

The dance is certainly a world away from Torvill and Dean, who won gold for Britain at the 1984 Winter Games. Domnina and Shabalin, their faces and dark costumes daubed in white painted symbols, take jagged ceremonial steps across the ice to a haunting soundtrack of Aboriginal voices and instruments, including a didgeridoo.

Risking further injury to Aboriginal feelings, Domnina said that her dog, a Yorkshire terrier named Topi, had chosen the music as they listened to different selections. She told Goldenskate.com: “When we switched on the music for the original dance, my dog started to race around the room like crazy, and we understood that maybe this music is what we need.”

She added: “We did not want to create another Slavic dance and have considered a lot of options. Eventually we settled on this one. I thought it was just crazy, but once we tried it, we immediately fell in love with it.”

Sol Bellear, of the New South Wales state Aboriginal Land Council, said that he would be writing a letter of protest to the Russian Ambassador to Australia. “We see it as stealing Aboriginal culture.”

The Federal Government will spend $2.5 million to combat a fatal heart disease that is predominantly found in Indigenous Australians.

Rheumatic heart disease has been virtually wiped out in the developed world but it affects about 3 per cent of Aborigines.

Federal Indigenous Health Minister Warren Snowdon says the money will be used to set up a new body called RHD Australia, which will coordinate efforts to eradicate the disease.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are eight times more likely than non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be hospitalised for rheumatic heart disease, and nearly 20 times as likely to die from it,” he said.

“So what we need to do is address the issues as they are currently, and that means treating the people who currently have the disease and, at the same time, putting in the processes to prevent them getting the disease.”

The body will be established under the Menzies School of Health Research.

The school’s director, Jonathan Carapetis, says rheumatic heart disease is preventable.

“Three per cent is actually a pretty high figure if you think about diabetes affecting 5 to 6 per cent of people – we consider that an epidemic,” he said.

“So 3 per cent of people – and probably the figure is higher in some communities – having a disease that is preventable and that is exclusively linked to living conditions and poverty, I think, is appalling.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continue to be over-represented in the child protection system.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) survey shows Indigenous children are eight times more likely to be placed on a protection order than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

AIHW spokeswoman Kate Valentine says they are also nine times more likely to be cared for by people outside their immediate family.

“The reasons are quite complex but they involve factors such as the intergenerational effects of previous separations and poorer socio-economic status.”

Ms Valentine says the number of children needing protection has increased across the population by almost 10 per cent in the past year.

“The number of children on care and protection orders increased to almost 35,500 since last year, an increase of 8.5 per cent,” she said.

“And the number of children in out-of-home care also increased to over 34,000, a 9 per cent increase since 2008.”

New figures show the number of children in the care and protection system has increased by nearly 10 per cent since 2008.

Nearly 35,500 children were placed under protection orders last year and more than 34,000 were placed in out-of-home care.

New South Wales saw a 12 per cent rise in the number of children placed in care – the biggest increase in the country.

The state’s government says it is due to improved reporting through the childrens helpline.

Kate Valentine from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continue to be over-represented in the child protection system.

She says Indigenous children are eight times more likely to be placed on a protection order than their non-indigenous counterparts.

They are also nine times more likely to be cared for by people outside their immediate family.

“The reasons are quite complex but they involve factors such as the intergenerational effects of previous separations and poorer socio-economic status,” Ms Valentine said.

Child advocacy groups say more research is needed to work out the reasons behind the rise.

Cathy Baker from the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) says it is difficult to pinpoint the causes.

“We think it might be a number of factors like greater community awareness, an increase possibly in harm to children or maybe a change in definition of what is harm, that is resulting in these figures,” she said.

Ms Baker says people need to make sure they report any concerns about the mistreatment of children.

“NAPCAN encourages people to speak out whenever they see this type of thing taking place and for the whole of community to look out for our children by taking a stand when this kind of thing is taking place,” she said.

Members of an Aboriginal corporation in Mount Isa are looking at different opportunities after the Supreme Court of Queensland ordered that the corporation be wound up earlier this month.

The court has appointed two liquidators to the Mitakoodi Juhnjlar Aboriginal Corporation, who will investigate the reasons for its failure.

Registrar Anthony Beven says the corporation had been active in the city for a number of years but became insolvent.

“They said that the financial position of the corporation was too bad and couldn’t be turned around and their preferred option was to liquidate the corporation,” he said.

“As a result, the special administrator made an application of the court of an audit of winding up the corporation.”

The lawyer for an Aboriginal Alice Springs man says his client wants internet giant Google to attend mediation with him and produce a racism policy.

Aboriginal broadcaster Steve Hodder-Watt complained to the Human Rights Commission about Google’s listing of a racist website in its search results.

The website, Encyclopedia Dramatica, used racist descriptions of Aboriginal people and Google has since taken down its listing.

But Mr Hodder-Watt’s lawyer George Newhouse says the search engine needs to come back with a more comprehensive response.

“Google needs to respond to Steve,” Mr Newhouse said.

“They need to set up a proper system of dealing with these complaints and taking down racism.

“And I also think the Government needs to address this issue.

“It shouldn’t take Steve Hodder-Watt to chase every rat down every drain to remove racist material from the internet.”

Google says it has a policy of removing sites when it receives a legal request.

“We respond to complaints and review them by reference to applicable law and in this case, we removed the URLs identified to us from the search results on google.com.au,” a Google spokeswoman said.

“In the interest of transparency, the search results now provide notice that pages have been removed in response to a legal request and in their place is a link to chillingeffects.org, which catalogues these removals as well as the legal ground for the removal.”

Some residents in an Alice Springs town camp are concerned they have not been given enough notice about having to relocate while their housing is upgraded.

Some of the renovations are being completed by Tangentyere Council as part of its deal with the Commonwealth over camp leases.

Renee Larkins, 16, has been living in the Hoppy’s Camp area and says her household was only given one day’s notice that work was starting.

She says seven people living in the house had only 24 hours to move all of their belongings and furniture and find somewhere else to live.

“It just made all of us feel like we were no-one and we had nothing,” she said.

“It was like they didn’t even care who we [were].”

“They just wanted to get the job over and done with and that’s that.”

However, she says she is looking forward to the improvements.

“I can’t wait to see the new house, what it looks like and stuff like that,” she said.

“I’m very excited for that to happen but then again I’m a bit disappointed in how they’ve done it.”

A Tangentyere Council spokesman says residents have known for months that work would start in January and they were offered assistance to relocate.