February, 2010

This guest post is a further update from Sue Stanton and her husband Abdelwahab on their travels through his home country of Tunisia and beyond. Sue is a long-time friend of mine from the Top End of the NT and is a a fiercely proud member of the Kungarakan & Gurindji peoples from the north [...]

Last Friday I packed up the Troopie and headed north-west for a few hours to a gorge that I’ve camped at a few times in the past. At this time of year there are quite a few waterholes scattered throughout the ranges that this gorge cuts through. Right now the waterhole near the mouth of the gorge is full and fresh, later in the year the waterhole will be the last “free” water in the area.

I ran into Tim Page at the airport on Horn Island in the Torres Strait a few weeks ago on my way back from my trip to the north-eastern Torres Strait islands of Boigu and Saibai islands that I wrote about here and here. Like a lot of people I was broadly familiar with Tim’s [...]

I’ve been working with really strong community members, people who have been given well-deserved authority and respect by their communities and who have been completely overlooked by governments. I just cannot understand why this government continues an approach that completely disengages communities and individuals. Particularly when you look at the cumulative impact of that continual disengagement and the return to the top-down approach. Eventually the government must finally realise that this approach just isn’t working.

Most of the people working for the intervention are Kardia (non-Aboriginal) – there is not much work for Yapa from the Intervention – most of those jobs go to Kardia people. When they come in with all their flash new cars, flash Toyotas, that makes us feel down. What the Yapa are thinking is that all the Kardia are “moneyfaces” (that they only care about money). And some people think like it was a hundred years ago and is still happening now.

Two years ago Kevin Rudd, in what appears to have now faded into a largely symbolic apology to Aboriginal Australia, told the nation that: …symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment that makes [...]

I wandered downtown earlier today to catch up with some friends & countrymen at the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance Rally outside the John Flynn Church in the middle of the Alice Springs Mall. The main theme of the Rally was to celebrate – in an ironic sense – the second anniversary of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s “Sorry” speech to the Australian Parliament.

Congratulations to Marie – and her family – on winning this richly deserved award. By all accounts at least one of the other authors thought that they had the prize in the bag – and was somewhat crestfallen when Marie walked away with the goods.

In speedway no-one, well no-one that I’ve run into anyway, cares what colour you are. I could push it right to the limit about being an Aboriginal rider and try to get this and that but for me I’m just another speedway rider. I’m proud to be an Aboriginal rider but it doesn’t make my bike go no faster!