Signal Boost: women being prosecuted for retracting domestic violence allegations
From Destroy the Joint, a call for action at NSW state level: call upon the Attorney General Greg Smith to issue a direction to the NSW DPP under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act to ensure that no one is prosecuted solely for retracting an allegation of domestic or sexual violence without the approval of a senior lawyer within the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Update: Attorney-General Greg Smith has made a statement that he has no plans to revise the existing laws relating to this matter. Now is the time to up the pressure.
Thoughts on Australia Day / Invasion Day
Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company, and always a wise voice from the Aboriginal community, wrote this about the significance of what we have chosen to commemorate today. I found it both insightful and moving, and (with his permission) wanted to share it:
BTW: “invasion”
I put up a post on LP about it yesterday. The discussion is mostly better than I feared.
Quick Hit – Oh really?
The hanging suicide of a transgender Aboriginal woman in a male jail could not have been prevented by the Department of Corrective Services, a coroner has found.
Namatjira at Belvoir Street Theatre
If, like me, you are interested in seeing more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories, you will be delighted to hear that the Belvoir Street Theatre’s collaboration with Big hARTto produce Namatjira has resulted in the best play I’ve seen for a long, long time.
Quickhit: Icedancers with a new twist on blackface.
Via baby_elvis, this ice-dancing routine. From the news: Russian world ice-skating champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin have danced around the controversy surrounding their Aboriginal-themed routine, insisting they will still use it at the Winter Olympics. Aboriginal elders say the pair’s two-and-a-half minute routine causes serious cultural offence. But Domnina and Shabalin, favourites to win [...]
Tom Calma: Indigenous Advisory Body to have Full Gender Equality at All Levels
Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, announced today at the National Press Club the proposed formation of a new national advisory body to bring the voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to the Minister, Parliament, and bureaucrats. Tom Calma is lder from the Kungarakan tribal group and a member [...]
11 August 2009: Yolngu Nation Federation
Edited to add 11 Aug 2136(+8): The Indigenous people of north-eastern Arnhem Land have formed a federation and declared self-government — and nobody noticed. There is almost complete radio silence in the media, blogs, twitter… everywhere. It’s rather eerie. SMH: “Yolngu clans decide on self-government” Sixty Yolngu clans of East Arnhem Land representing at least [...]
United Nations: Elder’s heatstroke death in police van possible torture or inhuman punishment
Today, a senior chemist who assisted in a re-enactment of the incident in similar conditions told the inquiry the air temperature in the back of the van reached 50.4C [123 F]. He also told the court the surface temperature of the metal floor in the back peaked at 56.6C [134 F] during the re-enactment.
A women’s safe house in Ngukurr and feelings of inadequacy
It looks like a move towards safety for women and children in NT…But while domestic violence is increasing, its refuges for women and children receive about one-third of the average funding for other similar services in NSW, the Orana Far West Women’s Safe Houses Project report says….So, particularly with regard to violence, the intervention and safe houses, what am I missing here and what would you like to add?
Quick hit: Aboriginal languages are like Deafness, and condoning either is “criminally insane”
Eric Brodrick from Alice Springs has a piece in Crikey this week titled “What’s the Pitjantjatjara word for computer?” His argument boils down to this paragraph: Not being able to speak the major language of a country is a disability equivalent to being profoundly deaf. Limiting a person’s access to and knowledge of, the major [...]
Quick Hit: Perth MRA group says men’s “disadvantage” = Aboriginal disadvantage
The Lazy Aussie, of The Worst Of Perth has grabbed a screenshot from Perth MRA group the “Men’s Confraternity” today: If you’ve ever read the West letters page, you will often have seen someone called Mark Ward boo hooing about how downtrodden men are by their evil feminist overlords. He is the convener for the [...]
Call to activism: oppose infant formula promotion in Qld Indigenous communities
“Use my picture if it will help” said the woman in this photograph. The babies are twins: the child with the bottle is a girl – she died the next day – but her brother was breastfed and is thriving. The mother was told that she wouldn’t have enough milk for both children, and so [...]
More complacent denigration
crossposted at LP Last year Paul Norton wrote with some sadness and much asperity “Is David Burchell brain-dead?” Referring to the particular column which prompted the post, Paul contrasted ex-communist Burchell’s stance with the positions taken by anti-communist Robert Manne thusly: David Burchell’s column, by contrast, repeatedly trivialises left-liberal positions on those issues and complacently [...]
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