On October 12, PM John Howard announced his plan to hold a referendum to alter the preamble to the Australian constitution to include an acknowledgment of the original inhabitants of Australia. This is a departure from Howard’s historic position against “symbolic” gestures of reconciliation — a position that in the past has earned him the ire of Indigenous groups, who in 2000 literally turned their backs on Howard when he refused to apologise for previous governments’ complicity in the horrendous policies that led to the Stolen Generations.
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On October 6, 40 people attended a public meeting on the Howard government's "emergency" intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and the development of independent political voices for Indigenous people to aid the defence of their rights. Sam Watson, Brisbane-based Aboriginal activist and lead Socialist Alliance Queensland Senate candidate was the guest speaker.
Resistance is an active, campaigning organisation. Were in there where the struggle is. We dont just talk about standing up for the oppressed. We actually do it. Recently, we met members of the Burmese community in Canberra at a series of protests outside the Burmese embassy. When we met them, we naturally wanted to jump into the struggle right there alongside them. We were involved in the first meeting of the Canberra Network for Democracy in Burma (CNDB), and helped organise the protest on October 13 for the international day of solidarity with the Burmese struggle.
Writing in an Age of Silence
By Sara Paretsky
Verso, 2007
138 pages, $39.95 (hb)
By Sara Paretsky
Verso, 2007
138 pages, $39.95 (hb)
#151; A special convention of Western Australian Civil Service Association delegates voted unanimously on October 17 to serve a claim for a 23% wage increase over three years on the WA government. The claim, known as GA4, would begin with a 9% rise in February 2008, when the current general agreement 3 expires.
@body intro = My name is Ayi Layah Mon and I am a member of the Mon Youth Group.
Sustainable Living for Dummies
By Michael Grosvenor
Wiley Publishing Australia, 2007
320 pages, $39.95 (pb)
By Michael Grosvenor
Wiley Publishing Australia, 2007
320 pages, $39.95 (pb)
The NSW Teachers Federation will hold a public forum on October 31 at the Parramatta Town Hall with ACTU president Sharan Burrow as the guest speaker. In a media release announcing the forum, Jenny Diamond, the unions acting assistant general secretary (schools), said it would be final salvo for public education before the federal election.
The Howard governments changes to electoral legislation, passed last year, will mean a large portion of young people who are of voting age will be left off the electoral roll for the November 24 federal election. This legislation an obvious move to bar certain voters from the political process affects mainly those who are statistically more likely to vote against the government, such as the young, homeless people, house-renters and those who speak English as a second language.
Radioactive racism
If the Howard government is serious about reconciliation, it should repeal blatantly racist legislation. A case in point is the government's attempt to impose a nuclear waste dump on unwilling Aboriginal communities in the
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