Indigenous

"We don't want oil or gas mining in our country,” Aboriginal traditional owner Eddie Mason, based in Maningrida, a community in eastern Arnhem Land, told a rally in Sydney on July 19. “We are protecting our land and sea rights." About 100 people rallied with visiting Arnhem Land residents outside the offices of US-based oil exploration company Paltar Petroleum. "We are saying no to Paltar,” Mason said. “We don't want exploration destroying our land and waters. You are welcome to visit our country, but don't destroy it.

Aboriginal traditional owners and the Protect Arnhem Land community campaign, based in the town of Maningrida, Northern Territory, are seeking the assistance of environment groups and Indigenous networks in Sydney to help raise awareness of the threat to Arnhem Land from oil and gas exploration.

This statement was released by Gomeroi traditional owners of north-west NSW on July 8. *** More than 50 Gomeroi traditional owners, senior elders, elders, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members and families have formed a picket line at Whitehaven Coal near Gunnedah in north-west NSW [on July 9] amid a stopwork action in protest against the Maules Creek coalmine and the incomplete and disrespectful cultural heritage process.

More than 100 people attended a lively forum at Glebe Town Hall on July 9 on the topic of "Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution." The forum was organised by RECOGNISE and the Glebe NAIDOC Committee, as part of the National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Commemoration (NAIDOC) Week celebrations.

The Nyoongar Tent Embassy has rejected an updated offer by the state government to extinguish native title, reiterating that recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty is the goal of their campaign. The South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC) and the state government had negotiated a $1 billion package. Premier Colin Barnett upped the offer to a $1.3 billion package on July 5.

The United States government hopes that negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will reach a final agreement this year. If completed, it will create the world’s largest “free trade agreement” — with serious consequences for the hundreds of millions of people living in the affected countries. The 18th round of TPP negotiations will take place in Malaysia on July 15-25. This will be the first time Japan has taken part, joining the US, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, Brunei, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam.

After days of non-stop rain, blue sky peeked out for a moment in Sydney. My partner and I grabbed the lead and took our dog for a much-needed walk in the park. But we hadn't gone two blocks down the road when to our shock we saw the front door of a long-time resident of our street covered with foul anti-Semitic graffiti. "Fuck Jews," it read, "Heil Hitler". It featured three Nazi swastikas. We were standing there in shock — even more so when we saw other people walking past without as much as batting an eyelid.

I was browsing the “Recognise” site recently – the hip, new rebranded “You Me Unity” organisation tasked with promoting constitutional recognition of First Nations Australians – when I came across this curious fact: “Research by Auspoll in late 2012 found strong Indigenous support for constitutional recognition. “Three-quarters of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people surveyed were in favour of recognition, and only 8% opposed it. The same overwhelming majority felt recognition would help protect against a loss of culture for future generations.”

The Northern Territory’s new mandatory alcohol treatment law came into effect on July 1. Now, anyone taken into protective custody for drunkenness three times in two months can be referred to three months’ mandatory rehabilitation in a secure facility.

This year marks 100 years since the opening of the Kahlin compound in Darwin, a place where Aboriginal children, stolen from their families, were forced to live and work. The compound was closed in 1938, but lives on in the memory of many who were held there — many of whom are still in Darwin today, and would like the site to be recognised and protected as part of their heritage.

This is part two of an interview Green Left Weekly journalist Linda Seaborn conducted with Dr Bob Boughton who helped initiate a Cuban supported literacy program in the NSW town of Wilcannia.

Nearly 60 years have passed since Totem 1, a British nuclear test in the Australian desert, was recklessly conducted in unfavourable meteorological conditions. Nuclear testing of any sort, even in the most “controlled” of circumstances, is inherently abusive, a crime against the environment and humanity for countless generations to come. Yet the effects of Totem 1 were particularly bad, even by the warped standards of the era.