The Prescribed Area People’s Alliance is a group of Aboriginal people from communities affected by the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER.) On Friday November 7, 2008, the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance held its second meeting in Alice Springs and issued this statement. We are outraged that, today, Lex Wotton, an Indigenous man from Palm Island,… Read more »
Posts in: indigenous struggles
Apology to the Stolen Generations: Don’t stop at “Sorry,” Pay compensation!
On February 13, 2008 the country stood still. That morning, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an apology in Parliament for Australia’s Indigenous Stolen Generations. Indigenous people from across the country went to Canberra to witness it. Everywhere else, people sat in front of TVs and radios. At my workplace, all the staff gathered around the… Read more »
Resistance is not a crime: Lex Wotton must not do time!
Support continues to swell for the campaign to force the dropping of all charges against Lex Wotton, the respected Aboriginal community member accused of leading a riot on Palm Island in 2004, following the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee. To the streets. On 5 April 2008 nearly 200 people marched through the streets of… Read more »
After the Howard disaster: Indigenous leaders look to the future
Many Australians were jubilant to see former Prime Minister John Howard lose his own seat of Bennelong at the 24 November federal election. But for the Indigenous rights activists holding a sovereignty vigil outside the old Victorian Aboriginal Health Service building in Fitzroy on election night, the news that Mal Brough — architect of the… Read more »
April 2008 national day of protest demands: Drop the Charges Against Lex Wotton Now!
A campaign to throw out all charges against Palm Island Aboriginal leader, Lex Wotton, is gaining momentum. Wotton participated in the November 2004 protest against the killing of his friend Mulrunji, a respected community member and father, while in police custody. Singled out in the crackdown that followed, Wotton faces charges of “riot with destruction”… Read more »
Liyarn Ngarn: A journey of oppression, resistance and hope
Liyarn Ngarn is a road movie. British actor, Pete Postlethwaite, renowned for his roles in Brassed Off and In The Name of the Father, takes an outback trip through Western Australia with singer songwriter, Archie Roach. Roach’s haunting melodies, combined with Postlethwaite’s journey to learn about the oppression of Aboriginal Australians, makes for a dynamite… Read more »
Farewell Veronica Brodie
Campaigners for Aboriginal justice lost a champion with the death of Veronica Brodie on the 3rd of May. Veronica, a respected elder, was a tireless freedom fighter from Ngarrindjeri-Kaurna nations. She was born Veronica Wilson at Point McLeay Mission, South Australia (SA) in 1941. Until the mid 1960s, her life was completely controlled by the… Read more »
Koorijack Speaks
Koori Jack performs at the launch of his CD John Walker records and performs as Koorijack. In April, he launched a CD, A Place We Call Our Own. Alison Thorne caught up with him to discuss life, music and the struggle. I was born in Echuca, from the Yorta Yorta clan. When I was about… Read more »
Troops out of Indigenous Communities! Military invasion is no solution to poverty and violence
As this magazine goes to print, a military takeover of Indigenous lands in the Northern Territory (NT) is in progress. The Howard Government, citing violence and child sexual abuse, is attempting to seize Indigenous country by force and to complete the dispossession of the first Nations of central and northern Australia. The federal government has… Read more »
Queensland DPP fails Palm Island Community
“The whole system is rotten and needs to be changed,” said Ray Jackson, President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, after hearing about the decision of Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to charge Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley for his role in the 19 November 2004 death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. DPP… Read more »