Indigenous

"We're back for justice. Demand justice for TJ." was the theme of a rally outside the New South Wales parliament on March 19. Protesters demanded police accountability over the death of Aboriginal teenager TJ Hickey, which occurred more than 10 years ago. Hickey died after being impaled on an iron fence in inner-city Waterloo, while being chased on his bike by a police van.

The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aboriginal people made Australia Bill Gammage 434pps, $40 Allen & Unwin, 2012 This is an extraordinary book that details how Australian Aboriginal people cared for the land, or as Bill Gammage calls it the “Biggest Estate on Earth”. Gammage describes, with many examples, how Aboriginal people looked after the land. No corner was ignored, from deserts and rainforests to rocky outcrops, across the entire continent for at least 60,000 years until British colonisers began to destroy all this work after their arrival in 1788.

About 30 Aboriginal people with intellectual impairments are locked up in Australian prisons without charges, ABC’s Lateline reported on March 12. The report highlighted the case of Rosie Anne Fulton who has spent 18 months in a prison in Kalgoorlie without facing trial or being convicted of a crime. There is no specialist accommodation for people with disabilities in the Northern Territory. Fulton wants to move to Alice Springs to be closer to her family, but an application to house her in specialist accommodation has been rejected.

Aboriginal footballer and Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes, has given high praise to John Pilger’s new film Utopia at the same time as condemning the mainstream media for their silence in reviewing the film or mentioning the large crowds that have come out to watch free screenings. In an http://www.theage.com.au/comment/hostility-to-john-pilgers-film-a-denial-of-nations-brutal-past-20140302-33ttx.html#ixzz2v92Xz4G0

Police have not responded to a petition Taser victim Sheila Oakley handed to them a week ago. In response, a community assembly was held outside Logan police station on February 22. Oakley was in hospital and could not attend the rally. Paul Butterworth, an Aboriginal elder who had called the assembly, told the crowd: “We will keep coming back until something’s done about this.” He also said harassment of the local community continued, including children in Oakley’s family. Oakley’s brother expressed his thanks for the support they were receiving.

Many see Australia as a small power dependent on British and then US power for protection, but it is important to note that Australia has its own imperialist agenda it pushes the Pacific region.

About 150 people rallied outside the home of Sheila Oakley in the Brisbane suburb of Logan on February 15.

"February 14 is celebrated as a day of of love by many people, but for us it is a day of grief" said one of the Aboriginal speakers at the start of the rally and march to mark the 10th anniversary of the killing of Aboriginal youth TJ Hickey in a police pursuit in Redfern. The protest began at the spot in where TJ was impaled on a fence after being thrown off his bicycle. The Hickey family, including mother Gail, where out in force. "Its been 10 long years but I am not giving up the fight," she said. Photos below by Peter Boyle

At a major speech in parliament on February 12, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the government was “serious about Aboriginal policy … no less serious than it is about stopping the boats”. He pledged to close the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous outcomes in health, education and employment.

The Northern Territory government released the draft report of the independent Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory on February 7.  The government’s website says the review aimed to “get an informed understanding of the impact of current programs and initiatives”. If the report’s recommendations are indicative of government intent, education for remote Aboriginal children in the NT looks set to suffer more blows.

Since their founding in 1896, every Olympics has arrived with the promise to unite the world. One can still hear the lyrical words of the man who presided over the 1936 Berlin games, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who said that he hoped his Nazi Olympics could help “knit the bonds of peace between nations”. Hitler’s dreams of using the vessel of what is known as “the Olympic Movement” to create a harmonious world has tragically never come to pass, despite the best efforts of the aristocrats in the International Olympic Committee.

When the Black Power movement emerged in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the late 60s, thousands of Aboriginal people took to the streets demanding national uniform land rights legislation and recognition of our right to self-determination. The establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 further galvanised this groundswell of Black activism. Thousands of Aboriginal people converged on Brisbane to protest the ’82 Commonwealth Games, and then came the call for a Treaty.