Howard's assault into indigenous communities - Land Grab

July 16, 2007: The Howard Government's assault into indigenous communities in the Northern Territory is to access valuable uranium deposits, and not to protect children from abuse, a rally was told in Melbourne last week. More than a hundred community organisations have since criticised the government's plan.

They have described it as a land grab...

Robbie Thorpe, who was also part of the Black GST and Camp Sovereignty protests during the Stolenwealth Games in Melbourne last year, says the Howard is not interested in the welfare of indigenous children.

"It's the only bit of land the commonwealth government hasn't got access to and there are minerals like uranium there," Mr Thorpe told the rally. "That's what it's about. How can you believe Howard? He don't give a f**k about our kids."

He said Indigenous Australians had suffered from 100 years of abuse. "You have taken our people to the brink. "There has been 100 years of human rights' crimes against our people," he said. "Things are not going to change until there is a treaty in this country."

500 people joined the rally. The protest was part of a national day of action being held in capital cities and Alice Springs. In Perth, 120 people rallied. The crowd heard from Ray Jackson from the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Mark Newhouse from the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee and Mark Lawrence from Friends of Australian Rock Art.

About 200 people of all ages and races took part in a demonstration through Canberra to protest against the intervention in Northern Territory communities, likening it to the "Children Overboard" scandal of 2001, or as a land grab or election stunt.

One of the founding members of the Aboriginal tent embassy, Isabell Coe, said the days of Aboriginal people being used as a "political football" had to come to an end. "...what he is doing is disgusting, it is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen," she said about John Howard's invasion of Aboriginal Lands.

In Sydney, protesters were angry about the compulsory acquisition of remote indigenous communities and the abolition of the permit system, which they consider a land grab. Aboriginal leader Pat Turner said a six-month intervention would be acceptable but had to be done in partnership with local Aborigines.

Mick Dobson says the federal government does not need to seize land from indigenous communities to combat child abuse in the Northern Territory. He said today he feared the government's seizure of 73 communities in the NT was a land grab. "That's what I'm worried about," Prof Dodson said.

"I don't for the life of me understand what the connection between child abuse and land tenure is, why the land tenure has to be given up, albeit for a short period of time according to the prime minister. The two things are not connected," he said to corporate media. "Why steal the land to deal with child sexual abuse?"

Prof Dodson said he, like his brother Pat Dodson, was finding it hard to trust the government on indigenous issues.

SOURCES:
News Ltd
GLW
Canberra Times
Sydney Morning Herald

WA Police "brutal" attack on peaceful protesters over nuke dump

From the newswire: On Friday 13th June 2007, around 40 people from across Australia converged in Subiaco, to deliver a letter to Federal Science minister Julie Bishop over her proposed NT nuclear waste dump. During the peaceful action, witnesses say WA Police used "brutal" and "excessive force" to break up the action. Two anonymous witnesses, both veterans of dozens of local NVDA demonstrations, told Perth Indymedia on Friday afternoon that the police action was "horrific", the "worst behaviour by members of the WA Police they had ever seen at any protest in Perth..."


READ MORE: Pepper Spray and Batons Used at Bishop’s Office

After an initial discussion with the Minister outside her office, the group walked into the foyer to deliver their letter. As the group were asked to vacate, without warning police used batons and pepper spray to attack the campaigners inside the minister's office. Witnesses say one officer grabbed a woman by the hair before producing his baton and using it on random people.

Described by witnesses as "brutal" and "disgusting", officers targetted people with cameras including an elderly woman who was pushed to the ground. A young woman was pinned to the ground by an officer, her video camera seized and confiscated by police for evidence. It is understood five people were charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing police and assault - despite the excessive force sisplayed by police. Three people were hospitalised as many others were treated on the scene by paramedics.

The group, representing dozens of environmental and student organisations from around Australia, were delivering a letter to Ms Bishop requesting she visit the communities affected by her Nuclear waste dump.
A participant in the national action, Toby Lee, told corporate media that police launched an "unprovoked attack" on the congregation. "As I was leaving," he said, "I was directly sprayed with capsicum spray into my eyes 10 centimeters from my face without warning". Another activist, Natalie Wasley, told corporate media she was negotiating a peaceful exit with police officers as inside they began using their batons. Read More...

"We didn't get a chance to leave peacefully. The police just started pepper spraying people, hitting them with batons and throwing them to the floor. It was absolutely shameful." Ms Walsey denied the group provoked the violence. Protesters left the office with eyes streaming and burnt faces, after being struck with batons and pepper sprayed...

READ MORE/Comment...

BE THE MEDIA: Publish your media/got photos/video/audio...?

Interviews on Perth Indymedia Radio - Weds 7-8PM RTRFM 92.1

Howard’s NT plans will “demoralise Aborigines”

Goodooga, northwest NSW, 25 June 2007 - - The spokesman for 16 Aboriginal tribes says the Howard government’s seizure of Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory will further demoralise communities of people who no longer understand pride and dignity because it was taken away from them a long time ago.

Michael Anderson, the only surviving founder of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra and elected spokesman for the Gumilaroi nation in northwest NSW and southwest Queensland, writes in a media release that Howard is a past master at finding an emotive matter to disguise his real agenda.

“The Australian voting public cannot permit itself to believe that this is in the ‘best interest’ of the Aboriginal people, in particular the children. The Australian community cannot accept what is planned and what has been said as gospel. The people of Australia must ask questions and not accept the spins blindly. Wake up Australia.”

Anderson writes that Howard’s intentions re-visit the 1930s assimilation policy.

“This was the ploy in 1937 when the Australian government convened a national conference of the Aboriginal Protectors from each of the Australian states which decided that the ‘best interest’ of the Aboriginal people was to assimilate them into the Australian community, forcing us to have the same beliefs and customs as all other Australians.

“Think hard, this move by this little man is nothing but a snow job for another agenda. The real agenda is what was said in that 1937 conference. We, the Australian governments, cannot permit the Northern Territory to be overpopulated by half-castes.

“The governments in the 1930s said children had to be taken away from their parents because the influence of their own communities was immoral and they were in danger of abuse and neglect, but the real agenda then was to de-Aboriginalise them. It is about to happen again.”

Anderson’s statement in full follows below. He can be reached at landline 02 68296355, mobile 04272 92 492, fax 02 68296375, ngurampaa@bigpond.com.au.

MEDIA RELEASE : Goodooga, northwest NSW, 25 June 2007

Wake up Australia. This is a re-visit to the 1930s assimilation policy. The Australian voting public cannot permit itself to believe that this is in the “best interest” of the Aboriginal people, in particular the children.

This was the ploy in 1937 when the Australian government convened a national conference of the Aboriginal Protectors from each of the Australian States which decided that the “best interest” of the Aboriginal people was to assimilate them into the Australian community, forcing us to have the same beliefs and customs as all other Australians.

Think hard, this move by this little man is nothing but a snow job for another agenda. The real agenda is what was said in that 1937 conference. We, the Australian governments cannot permit the Northern Territory to be overpopulated by half-castes.

In the 1970s the Black Power players argued that what we experienced down here in the south with the expansion of the white male population in the grazing industry will also happen to the people of the Northern Territory.

What the sheep industry brought to the west of NSW and southwest Queensland, the mining industry and service industries are now bringing to the people of those isolated communities in the Northern Territory: white men looking for the young and innocent, and with the aid of alcohol and drugs the people are sitting ducks just as we experienced down here. The governments in the 1930s said children had to be taken away from their parents because the influence of their own communities was immoral and they were in danger of abuse and neglect, but the real agenda then was to de-Aboriginalise them. It is about to happen again.

Read the report that triggered this knee-jerk emotive and political response. No one condones abuse of any kind but the report does not come right out and say it but between the lines the white men of influence are also held responsible for an unknown amount of the child abuse. And let us not overlook the negative influences the mines may be having as well. Maybe the workers need to be policed not our people. By opening up the reserves to people without the need for permits gives more people access than already exists.

Our people are like fish in a bowl. No way out and nowhere to go. Give our people access to their traditional lands and build their communities with the same amenities as all other Australians with the correct infrastructures. The Report does not say that this is a law and order issue, it is a social issue that will not be addressed by massive numbers of police and army.

John Howard must retract and refrain from his chosen course. This is not right and we all know it. He is a past master at finding an emotive matter to disguise his real agenda. What he is about to do will further demoralise communities of people who no longer understand pride and dignity because this was taken away from us a long time ago. The Australian community cannot accept what is planned and what has been said as gospel. The people of Australia must ask questions and not accept the spins blindly.

What if what is being done to us was planned for you, what would your response be? Just for one minute try and put yourself in my people’s shoes, would you agree to this?

Child abuse is acceptable to no one, but what John Howard is doing is also wrong. He argues that Aboriginal customary has not worked – that is because white law will not let it work.

What John Howard has done here is to criminalise all Aboriginal men and the Australian public knows nothing else. This is not acceptable in a democratic country where law and order is the main theme. Are my people to forget their right to fairness and due process?

Now we have John Howard arguing that he has the constitutional powers to pass laws for any race for whom he deems it necessary, but it seems it is always against the people and not for the people.

John Howard would be better served by making it possible to repatriate our people to their traditional homelands instead of maintaining a program forcing us to live in country where we are already refugees. I do hope that he does not repeat the NSW failed resettlement program of the 1970s for the people of the communities in the Northern Territory.

I appeal to my people and the fair-minded Australian public, DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN. Let us address the real issues, government neglect to de-colonising Aboriginal people and to establish programs that address the horror of the past. Our people still think that we must do it the white way and that does not compute for many. Our history is being obliterated and wiped from our memories. We are always asked to forget about the past but white Australia has monuments to their past and clubs whose motto it is to not forget. From the past we learn but Aboriginal people do not have this right, and white Australia will never learn because the truth is being hidden.

We could not control and manage our own affairs because the government bureaucrats had too much power and control. We had to do things the way they wanted. The truth is not being told here and the public cannot permit the perpetuation of lies and denial.

If John Howard is fair dinkum then let’s have a Royal Commission into the administration of Aboriginal affairs and let my people have their say about what is the truth. Why not, Mr Howard, maybe you and the rest of Australia can learn what is really going on instead of blaming the victim of Australia’s brutal treatment of my people.

Elders speak out: "the dog of white supremacy returns to its vomit"

The dog of “white supremacy” returns to its vomit. In a media statement on the 26th June the National Sorry Day Committee says there is now a real danger of the creation by the Howard government of another Stolen Generation.

"We are deeply concerned about the policy being articulated by the Prime Minister, and being implemented the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, for Federal Government ‘emergency measures’ relating to Aboriginal child safety within Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory," say the Committee in a statement. The NSDC is the long established premier National Advocate for the Stolen Generations.

MEDIA RELEASE 26 June 2007

It is with great sorrow that the National Sorry Day Committee condemns the Howard Government’s cherry picking of recommendations of previous Royal Commissions and National and State Inquiries into Aboriginal Affairs concerning the state of Indigenous Health, Education, Child Safety and Family Support with a complete disregard for the Human Rights of Indigenous Australia in the pursuit of an inadequate response to a decade of Federal Government neglect in the Indigenous Affairs portfolio.

The National Sorry Day Committee expresses its strong regret, and with the greatest of reproach, that this blind disregard for the Human Rights of Indigenous Australia continues to be the shameful reality under the Howard Government’s continuation of a destructive policy in Indigenous Affairs.

We call on the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, to address the following facts:

- there are the 339 Recommendations from the Deaths in Custody Report, released in 1990.
- there are the 54 Recommendations from Bringing Them Home Report, released in 1997.
- now there are another 97 Recommendations from the Little Children are Sacred Report, released in June 2007. This makes a grand a total of 490 recommendations.

It is agreed amongst commentators that most of the earlier 393 recommendations until June 2007 either have been absolutely ignored, or implemented in an ineffectual manner through inadequate funding, limited resources and insufficient service providers and staff.

The 54 Recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report, released in 1997 have been stonewalled for the ten years in which John Howard has led this nation.

There is still no apology.

Were the Howard Government to have initiated responsible action based on these recommendations, including a national apology, then the issues facing the Stolen Generations and the consequential trans-generational issues which now so damagingly impact on all Aboriginal communities would have been addressed, and some definite positive change to the Human Rights and the living conditions of all Aboriginal people, and especially Aboriginal children, would have been brought about by now.

Instead Prime Minister Howard has refused any adequate response to the recommendations from the Bringing Them Home Report report, with the ongoing damage to human lives we see today.

The current realisation by the Federal Government of this National Emergency is a manifestation of the decade of inadequate Child Protection by the Federal Government in Indigenous communities.

However, and quite reprehensively, Prime Minister Howard is using this tragic reality to deflect public attention away from the fact that it has been his government that has consistently denied the affected Aboriginal children any adequate access to their basic human rights in: health, housing, education, personal security, safety and well being.

But more than that, and in the absence of a genuine national apology from him for his involvement in fostering these vicious circumstances afflicting Aboriginal people across Australia, the Prime Minister is proving himself patently to be insincere.

He knows that he has much to answer for his own neglect and indifference to Aboriginal people.

Both during his time in the Fraser Government as the Nation’s Treasurer and now as the Nation’s Prime Minister, John Howard has had the power and the financial capacity under the constitution to remove, alleviate and redress the deprivation and chronically deteriorated living conditions Aboriginal children, their families and communities have had to endure, especially under Liberal administration.

The Little Children are Sacred Report thoroughly examines the issue of Aboriginal child sexual abuse.

The report recognises the issue as one of urgent national significance, recommending that both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments establish an immediate collaborative partnership with a Memorandum of Understanding to specifically address the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse.

Most significantly, the report asserts it is critical that both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.

Recommendations 4, 5, 40 a, b

4. That the government develop a Child Impact Analysis for all major policy and practice proposals across Government.

5. That the government develop a whole of- government approach in respect of child sexual abuse. Protocols should be developed as a matter of urgency to enhance information sharing between agencies and the development of a coordinated approach in which all agencies acknowledge a responsibility for child protection.. The approach might build on the work of the Strategic Management Group and Child Abuse Taskforce but needs to extend well beyond those initiatives.

40. That the Northern Territory Government work with the Australian Government in consultation with Aboriginal communities to:
a. develop a comprehensive long-term strategy to build a strong and equitable core service platform in Aboriginal communities, to address the underlying risk factors for child sexual abuse and to develop functional communities in which children are safe

b. through this strategy, address the delivery of core educational and Primary Health Care (PHC) services to Aboriginal people including home visitation and early years services (see Chapter on Health).

We call on the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, to provide the Australian people with justifiable answers at a minimum to the following pressing questions that arise from the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred Report:

- What consultations and plans have been made in regard to this newest policy for reform that will ensure that it is implemented with and not against the Indigenous population?
- What assistance and support if any is there in the areas of detoxification, rehabilitation, counselling, and education?
- What resources and services are there to support Indigenous people once these changes are made?
- How will people be assisted safely to come off their alcohol or substance addiction?
- Where are the rehabilitation services to be established and to what degree will they be effective?
- Where are the trauma counselling and support services for families to be instituted?

But there is another question that cannot be suppressed regarding the motives behind John Howard’s sweeping policy and the significance of the timing to impose such a draconian plan on the run and without prior departmental analysis and comprehensive costings, which relates to the influence it will have on the polls and voting in the next federal election:

- Have the opinion polls scared John Howard to the point where he is scrambling to influence votes with the Race Card, at the expense of Australia’s Aboriginal Community?

With one of the first Aboriginal communities targeted for the immediate introduction of Australia’s armed forces in a support role with conscripted police enforcement from all around the country being Mutitjulu Community (a dry Community) at the base of Uluru, not only just Aboriginal people are seeing this as proof of the intention to use “Martial Law”.

Mutitjulu Community is one of the many Aboriginal Communities that have been directly affected by Deaths in Custody, previous Government Removal Policies and continual trans-generational abuse and neglect through government policy and control.

There are three significant interrelated events that have occurred in the Northern Territory since June 15, 2007 and which are of substantial concern to the National Sorry Day Committee:

1) The public release on 15 June 2007 of the Northern Territory Government's report from its Board of Inquiry into Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse.

2) The winning by Mutitjulu Community of its Federal Court challenge to the appointment of a Perth-based administrator by the Federal Government. This means that the community's former governing committee will soon resume its role. In 2006 the Registrar had given only one day's notice, after the federal government said the community's funding would cease unless an administrator was appointed. The federal appeal court judges said that: "There was no evidence of any particular threatened unlawful or imprudent transaction on the part of the (Mutitjulu) Corporation that needed to be urgently prevented".

3) The Howard Government’s announcement of a new policy of intended measures against the Indigenous communities through out the Northern Territory claiming it to be “in the best interest of the children”.

Highly respected Mutitjulu Elder and Stolen Generations Survivor, Bob Randall, producer of the newly released film Kanyini, revealed to the National Sorry Day Committee that following the accusations presented on ABC TV’s Lateline in July 2006 by a staffer in the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough’s, office that members of the Mutitjulu Community were sexually abusing and prostituting children, a full investigation by both local and territory police found nothing to substantiate the accusations. There have been no arrests nor have any charges been brought against any of the 95 community members.

Bob Randall further identified that since the policy of self-determination came into practice in the Mutitjulu Community back in 1972, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs removed the staff that were then working there and have starved the community of the competent staff and resources that the community needed to operate effectively. Instead, the government left untrained people to take over.

Over the last decade the Howard Government has further withdrawn and reduced funding and resources, with a total neglect of the basic needs of the Community, which was then forced into an unnecessarily bureaucratic form of over-administration and is now being bullied into signing 99 year lease agreements.

The plight of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory expresses the plight of all Indigenous Australians who have been crying out for initiatives and actions that the Howard Government has and continues to ignore.

The 1967 Referendum may have recognised Aboriginal people as Citizens of Australia to be counted in the Census, but in reality the present Government’s attitude and intent is to continue to enact the “white” culturally dominated Liberal view of administration in disguise for the same old racist implementation of the life threatening and soul destroying manipulation of Indigenous Australian’s basic human needs that had characterised the federal view of the constitution up to 1967.

This current policy to undertake the drastic measures imposed by the Prime Minister, comes from the same racist and draconian political manoeuvres of past governments stretching back beyond federation that encompass the forceful displacement of Indigenous people using the Policies of Forced Removal of Aboriginal Child as they were progressively implemented under the equally inhumane and discredited Policies of Martial Law, Protection, Assimilation, Integration and now Absorption.

All of these policies fomented and implemented national acts of Genocide and it appears the intent for the dog of “white supremacy” to return to its vomit is relentless.

The National Sorry Day Committee is horrified that the Prime Minister is apparently intent on unashamedly and deliberately using Aboriginal children in the same way that past governments, through the Removal Policies that created the Stolen Generations, used Aboriginal children to control the lives, lands and rights of Indigenous Australia.

The National Sorry Day Committee calls upon each right thinking and fair-minded Australians with a sense of just decency to assume the responsibility to prevent such an outrage from happening again.

Helen Moran – Indigenous Co-Chair - 0413 246 470
Tiffany McComsey Non-Indigenous Co-Chair - 0412 391 746

ABC REPORT: AFP team arrives in NT for Indigenous plan

All WA police to carry stun guns

June 26, 2007: The West Australian Police Commissioner, Karl O'Callaghan, says all officers on duty will be equipped with stun guns. The WA police force has purchased another 1,100 Tasers. Shaped like a gun but battery-operated, a Taser fires two fishhooklike barbs into a person's skin and disrupts a person's muscle control for five seconds.

The darts have a range of up to 21 feet; the tool also can be pressed directly against a person to use in stun mode. The pain can be excruciating, "freezing" someone on the spot

The Commissioner says officers will have a one-day training course on how to use the guns during the next six months. In the USA, 2000 approximately 5000 officers were been issued with tasers. By 2004 about 100,000 officers in over 5500 police forces across the United states have been issued with them.

Over 60 people have died in the United States after being tasered...

Tasers are powerful electrical weapons used by over 7,000 of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the USA. They are designed to incapacitate by conducting 50,000 volts of electricity into your body. The electrical pulses induce skeletal muscle spasms that immobilise and incapacitate, causing you to collapse to the ground.

More than 150 people have died in the US after being struck by tasers since June 2001 - 61 in 2005 alone - and numbers are continuing to rise. Most who died were subjected to multiple or prolonged shocks. In 2006, Nickolos Cyrus, a 29-year-old man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was shocked 12 times with a Taser stun gun after a Wisconsin police officer caught him trespassing on a construction site.

Also in 2006, an American teenager carrying a Bible who shouted "I want Jesus" was killed after being shot twice by a police stun gun. Police in Missouri said 17-year-old Roger Holyfield would not acknowledge officers who approached him and he continued yelling.

In Seattle in 2004, deputies pulled over Valinda Otis, who told them she was 3 months pregnant and needed to use the bathroom. When police wouldn't let her go to a nearby restroom, she walked toward it anyway, and was quickly handcuffed and placed in a patrol car. She screamed and kicked the car door. That's when a deputy with the King County Sheriff's Office pulled out a Taser, pressed it against her thigh and jolted her with 50,000 volts of electricity.

"It was a sharp pain," said Otis, 24, who was three months pregnant at the time of the incident. "I kept asking, 'Is it gonna mess up my baby?'"

As well, deputies fired Tasers at a teenager who ran after not paying a $1 bus fare, a 71-year-old man who refused to get into a police car, and a partially deaf man who couldn't hear deputies ordering him to stop, reports show. About three out of four of those shocked by Seattle police were unarmed.

Civil rights advocates in the United States argue Tasers are being drawn too quickly and in cases in which such extreme force isn't necessary. They worry about potential abuses as more officers rely on the tool to subdue people who they say pose no serious threat to themselves or others.

In November 2004 Amnesty International published a comprehensive report detailing it's concerns over the use of tasers in the USA, calling for a suspension on their use and transfer pending an independent, rigorous and impartial inquiry into their use.




---

Arguments Against Tasers Being Issued To All Operational Police

* Expense including costs of training is better used for training about handling people in mentally affected states, in particular people with mental illness.

* Accountability while advocates argue that the tasers have inbuilt chips which record use, details of police use of weaponry is not made available to the public and as no organisation is funded to routinely obtain these detail, they remain hidden from the public.

* Threats: There is no way of keeping track of how often or in what circumstances a taser has been used to obtain compliance without being fired ('threatened use'). It is one of Taser's strengths that it can defuse a situation without actually being used, but also one of its weaknesses. The threat of a being shocked can and will be used to obtain compliance when violence was not an issue.

* Safety: 150 people in the United States have died since 2001 after being tasered and concerns are mounting as the number of deaths increases. After 6 deaths in Canada, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, in August this year, requested a "unique and comprehensive review of scientific research, field reports, and data on the use of Tasers in police work in Canada and around the World" (RCMP News Report 18/8/04).

* Lack of scientific research: There is a paucity of independent and rigorous research into the effects and safety of the tasers. There have been no tests published in scholarly peer-review scientific journals. Taser relies on two studies, one of a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999 conducted by company paid researchers. They also cite many examples of police voluntarily being tasered as evidence of safety, but for the most part they receive a shock one tenth that given to suspects. Medical experts warn to be wary of labelling tasers safe.

* Vulnerable groups: There are people who are particularly at risk when tasered. These are pregnant women and those with cardiovascular disease, people who are drug affected, young people, older people and those with mental illness. Some of these people such as those drug affected and with a mental illness are more likely to be tasered.

* Increased use: As the use of tasers become more accepted their use will increase, so that they are used in situations where they are not an alternative to deadly force but to ensure compliance. A 2002 study found 85% of people shocked with tasers were unarmed.

* Abuse: Reports of abuse of tasers when issued to all police are growing along with deaths.

o In Canada an officer has been charges with tasering a man while police handcuffed him; a peaceful protester was tasered as he lay on the ground in passive resistance; in May 2003 10 Algerians facing deportation from Canada were repeatedly tasered for refusing to leave the immigration ministers office.

o In the United States, suspects already in custody are tasered; a hand cuffed 9 year old girl was tasered; a 66 year old woman was tasered; in at least three dozen cases from Denver, police tasered the person multiple times in one incident; one man was tasered twice after he was handcuffed and in the car.

* Logistics: the weight of police belts exceeds 4 kg causing back problems and slowing police down. Another piece of kit will obviously add to this...

--

Sources:
News.com.au
Lawyers warn against Taser guns
ABC NEWS
Police are too quick to grab for Taser
USA: Taser-related deaths pass 150 mark
2004 Amnesty International
Taser death a cause for alarm
Death by Taser: The Killer Alternative to Guns
taser.com/

Fuck off Pell - Go to hell!

June 7, 2007: It is against the law to coerce a member of parliament! Sydney's Catholic Archbishop George Pell is under attack after interferring in a New South Wales parliamentary vote. He's also been likened to outspoken Mufti, Sheikh Taj El Din Al Hilali. Cardinal Pell warned MPs that if they voted to allow therapeutic cloning there would be consequences for their life in the Church...

Cardinal Pell has urged all members of the NSW parliament to vote against the bill that would scrap the current ban on stem cell research, also known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown is warning Archbishop Pell against threatening federal members of parliament.

"Cardinal Pell's threats that there would be religious 'consequences' for Catholic MPs who voted for the stem cell legislation are completely unacceptable," Senator Brown said.

"Attempting to coerce Catholic members of the NSW state parliament is a serious matter. Cardinal Pell should understand that it could be a criminal matter if similar remarks were used to coerce federal politicians," said Senator Brown.

The Criminal Code Act 1995 provides a penalty of up to 12 years imprisonment for threatening commonwealth public officials and for both the giver and receiver of inducements for commonwealth public officials (including federal politicians) to change their behaviour.

"I urge Cardinal Pell to refrain from bullying Catholic MPs with religious 'consequences' when the Senate votes on my voluntary euthanasia bill, or any other matter of conscience," Senator Brown said.

NSW Shadow Health Minister Jillian Skinner feels very strongly about the importance of separation of Church and State. She says Members of Parliament should be able to make up their mind according to their conscience. Liberal Frontbencher Chris Hartcher says the Cardinal's comments are unambiguous and he's critical of practising Catholics dipping in and out of the Church.

Emergency Services Minister Nathan Rees today called Cardinal Pell a hypocrite, saying a politician would not interfere with the teachings of the church in exchange for funding. He said the cardinal was out of step and owed Catholic MPs an apology. Mr Rees says he considers Cardinal Pell's incursion a "clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into the deliberations of the elected members of this Parliament. And I think he's got three options; he can apologise, he can run for Parliament; or he can invite further comparisons with that serial boofhead Sheikh Hilali," said Mr Rees.

Sheik Alhilali's friend and confidant Keysar Trad said it was a "disgrace" the mufti had been dragged into the debate on stem cell research. The mufti was shocked at the insult and thought it showed great disrespect to Mr Rees' electorate of Toongabbie, he said. "Muslims are sick of being used as an example of ridicule. It is shameful," he said.

"I would like to see the premier show leadership on this issue and come out strongly condemning these remarks and to discipline this person. If he's (Rees) big enough then I would expect to see him at the mufti's office delivering an apology in person over the next few days."

"Oddly enough, if he was to research the mufti's opinion on this issue, he might be pleasantly surprised," Mr Trad said. "His fatwa (ruling) on this is that if it is for scientific research and does not risk the life of another human being and does not harm another living thing then it's fine."

George Pell's suggestion to in some way exclude Catholic politicians who vote for the legislation is nothing short of reprehensible, says Dom Knight. "It is fundamentally undemocratic for elected representatives to make judgements of this nature on the basis of their individual religious beliefs, rather than the position of the voters that elected them and the broader society that they represent," said Mr Knoght on his SMH blog. "If he wants to live in a state that's run according to his church's principles, I would strongly encourage him to move to the Vatican City."

NSW Labor MP Tony Stewart said he would risk his shot at the afterlife before he voted against the Bill. "Maybe I'll go to hell but if I go to hell I'm going to do so by saving a lot of lives, because that's what this Bill is about," the Catholic MP said. Mr Stewart said Cardinal Pell was entitled to his views but should keep out of politics saying the bill will make a difference to people with life-threatening diseases. "We don't need a religious leader telling members of parliament what should be done," he said.

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey also object to the Cardinal's threat. Mr Hockey, also a Catholic, said Cardinal Pell should use his position to educate Catholics, not threaten them. "I don't object to him expressing that opinion, but I do object to any suggestion that there are consequences," Mr Hockey said.

The Bill would bring NSW into line with the Commonwealth, which has already approved therapeutic cloning. The bill is currently being debated in the Legislative Assembly, with a conscience vote now expected later this week.

Cardinal Pell refused to say whether Catholic MPs would be excommunicated from the church if they voted in favour of the legislation. The church would deal with that issue if it arose, he said.

"Cloning is not quite the same as abortion and the legislation for such a thing as cloning is different from actually performing cloning," Cardinal Pell told reporters. "But it is a serious moral matter and Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church." Cardinal Pell said the legislation had been rushed into parliament, with the public and MPs given little or no information about the issue.

Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey also came under fire after saying Catholics who did not condemn the cloning of human embryos for medical research were acting against the teachings of the Catholic faith and may face excommunication.

Prime Minister John Howard says he did not believe either man was trying to direct MPs on political matters. "I think that Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Hickey are both church leaders, they are entitled to express their views and I respect both of them."

--

UPDATE: The Stem cell research legislation passed its first stages in NSW Parliament with MPs exercising their conscience vote this morning. On Thurday the MPs voted 65 to 26 for the Bill to overturn a ban on therapeutic cloning.
The Bill is not expected to be finally passed until the next sitting of Parliament in a week’s time.

--

SOURCES:
PM - ABC
Village Voice
News Limited
SMH
The Age
The Australian
Herald Sun
Sunday Times
Dom Knight

Australia not ready for nuclear; WA to ban uranium mining/power plants

June 5, 2007 - The head of ANSTO, Australia's peak nuclear science body, Dr Ziggy Switkowski, says Australians are not yet convinced of the need for a nuclear energy industry. He says building a nuclear energy industry in Australia would take at least 15 years to implement. Despite 50 years into the best funded development of any energy technology - nuclear energy is still beset with problems.

WA Premier Alan Carpenter has said the WA Government’s position is very clear: "we are against uranium mining and nuclear energy. I will do all I can to ensure WA remains free of nuclear power facilities."
Dr Ziggy Switkowski says building a nuclear energy industry in Australia would take at least 15 years to set up a regulatory regime, do the appropriate environmental checks and vendor selection process - "getting into the queue, ordering reactors and building them, which we know takes a number of years... 10 at the earliest, 15 more likely," he told ABC television.

Dr Switkowski - chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), reported to Prime Minister Howard last year on the viability of a nuclear industry in Australia. He also cast doubt on the effectiveness of a planned government advertising campaign to push nuclear power.

"It would be unprecedented to take a national community, such as we have in Australia, that starts out feeling wary about nuclear power and making them positive about nuclear power within a year or two," Dr Switkowski said. "This is a journey that countries usually take over several years and I think it will take more than one electoral cycle..."

As the nuclear power issue radiates across the country, some say Howard is deliberately diverting funds and attention away from real solutions - by insisting that Australia consider domestic nuclear power generation.

Mr Howard seems intent on pushing something currently illegal, inordinately expensive, reliant on massive government subsidies and far too slow to respond to the immediate challenges of climate change. Indeed, the Federal Government continues to force the issue of nuclear power into the States and Territories, having recently claimed it could override the States on the development of nuclear reactors.

However, the WA Premier says nuclear power stations will be banned in Western Australia under new legislation to be introduced. The Premier said the legislation would also include a referendum trigger if the Commonwealth Government ever tried to override the new State laws. Premier Carpenter said the "anti-nuclear legislation", to be introduced when Parliament resumes in June, would:

"prohibit the construction or operation of a nuclear facility in WA; prohibit the transportation of certain material to a nuclear facility site; and prohibit the connecting of nuclear generation works to an electricity transmission or distribution system..."

"To thwart any attempt by John Howard to override WA, there will be a trigger in the new laws which will see a referendum held if the Commonwealth tries to override the State’s anti-nuclear stance," he said. "“The people of WA will then be able to have their say on the issue if the Commonwealth moves to develop nuclear power facilities in this State. In other words, it could be at the Commonwealth’s political peril if they ever proceeded with such a move."

Mr Carpenter said the State Government is committed to developing natural gas, clean coal and renewable energy sources including geothermal, solar, wave and wind as future energy sources.

Elsewhere in Australia, the possibility of nuclear power is hindered. In Victoria the Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act 1983 prohibits the construction or operation of any nuclear reactor, and consequential amendments to other Acts reinforce this. In NSW the Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 is similar. In 2007 the Queensland government enacted the Nuclear Facilities Prohibition Act 2006, which is similar (but allows uranium mining).

Other countries using nuclear energy are discovering problems with the industry. In the USA, direct subsidies to nuclear energy totalled $115 billion between 1947 and 1999, with a further $145 billion in indirect subsidies.

In contrast, subsidies to wind/solar combined during the same period amounted to only $5.5 billion. During the first 15 years of development, nuclear subsidies amounted to $15.30 per kWh generated. The comparable figure for wind energy was 46 cents per kWh during its first 15 years of development.

Professor Ian Lowe - Australian Consevation Foundation President - says that despite being 50 years into the best funded development of any energy technology, nuclear energy is still beset with problems.

"Reactors go over budget by billions, decommissioning plants is so difficult and expensive that power stations are kept operating past their useful life, and there is still no solution for radioactive waste. So there is no economic case for nuclear power," said Professor Lowe in 2005.

Dr Jim Green - national nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth - says the problem of radioactive waste management is nowhere near resolution. "Not a single repository exists for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste, which is produced at an annual rate of about 10,000 tonnes in nuclear power reactors worldwide," says Dr Green.

"Technologies exist to encapsulate or immobilise radionuclides to a greater or lesser degree, but encapsulated radioactive waste still represents a potential public health and environmental threat that will last for millennia," says Dr Green.

A recent study, conducted by a research team from Georgetown University, Stanford University and UC Berkeley, analysed the costs of electricity from existing US nuclear reactors. It reports that no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in nearly 30 years years, in part because they've proved to be poor investments, producing far more expensive electricity than originally promised.

The US nuclear industry provides a direct link to the perils of nuclear weapons. "During my eight years in the White House, every nuclear weapons proliferation issue we dealt with was connected to a nuclear reactor program," says former US Vice President, Al Gore. In 2005, about 19 percent of U.S. electricity generation was produced by 104 nuclear reactors.

Neverhteless, renewable energy is a growing industry. According to Dr Jim Green, renewable energy, mostly hydroelectricity, already supplies 19 per cent of world electricity - compared to nuclear's 16 per cent.

"The share of renewables is increasing," he says, "while nuclear's share is decreasing. Wind power and solar power are growing by 20-30 per cent every year.
In 2004, renewable energy added nearly three times as much net generating capacity as nuclear power," says Dr Green. "In Australia, only 8 per cent of electricity is from renewable energy - down from 10 per cent in 1999."

SOURCES:
WA Premier Media Release
The Age
Sunday Times
The Australian
Lateline - ABC
UIC - Briefing Paper 44
ACF
Azom
Beyond Nuclear - PDFNuclear power: no solution to climate change

Stolen Wages taskforce a win for WA Aboriginals

Stolen Wages taskforce a win for WA Aboriginals

May 31, 2007 - The WA Government has announced that it will establish a taskforce to investigate wages and Commonwealth benefits stolen from Aboriginal people. In some cases, up to 75 per cent of their income was held in Government managed trust funds but never repaid. Brian Wyatt from the Goldfields Land and Sea Council says the compensation owed to Indigenous workers in the Goldfields alone could be up to $150 million...

The announcement coincided with the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum that changed the Commonwealth Constitution to allow the Commonwealth Parliament to make special laws regarding indigenous people and enable indigenous people to be included in the national census.

The term 'stolen wages' refers to entitlements and other moneys that should have been paid to indigenous workers but were not. Regulations allowed the Government of the day to hold in trust up to 75 per cent of an indigenous person's wages. There is evidence that some of the workers did not receive their full entitlements.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert welcomed the announcement having pushed hard for the state to act on the findings of a Senate inquiry: "The West Australian economy was built on the back of the unpaid and under-paid labour of our Aboriginal people," Senator Siewert said. "They were systematically excluded from the benefits of the wealth they created."

"The Senate inquiry found ample evidence of monies being withheld, monies diverted in WA to missions and station coffers, and widespread rorting of trust funds by trustees," said Senator Siewert.

But there is concerned by the announced timeframe as many of the people affected are now elderly and another year of delay will see more of them passing away before justice is achieved.

Brian Wyatt from the Goldfields Land and Sea Council says justice must be done for the people who suffered. "Indications are that the annual indigenous payroll for Goldfields pastoral properties in the 1960s was in the order of $9 million, said Mr Wyatt.

"There were curfews in towns, you know. You had to be out of town by six o'clock, you had to live on designated areas outside of towns and, on top of that, you worked for next to nothing, particularly in the pastoral industry. So it was very, very demeaning I would have thought," he said. "At one mission, in return for a ten shilling a week government accommodation subsidy, Aboriginal people were provided bush shelters and tents with no toilet facilities, and were expected to hunt their own food."

Indigenous Affairs Minister Michelle Roberts said the task force would investigate and make recommendations to try and correct some of the injustices of the past. Mrs Roberts said many of the people affected were likely to have died and a broad repayment scheme, potentially encompassing the families of deceased workers.

The NSW Government set up a trust fund scheme in 2005 to repay wages which were lost between 1900 and 1968 to living claimants and their descendants. In Queensland, Aboriginal people lodged a multi-milliondollar claim for lost wages and entitlements in 2002 and the Government set up a $55.5 million fund which capped claims at $4000 a person.

Mrs Roberts said stolen wages remained an issue for indigenous people. “This is not a report we would be setting up unless we were prepared to take some action and prepared to extend some money at the end of the process,” she said.

Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington said the inquiry was overdue and the Government needed to provide meaningful relief by acting on its findings.

----

Recommendation 4 of the Senate Unfinished business inquiry

The committee recommends that:
(a) the Western Australian Government:
(i) urgently consult with Indigenous people in relation to the stolen wages issue; and
(ii) establish a compensation scheme in relation to withholding, underpayment and non-payment of Indigenous wages and welfare entitlements using the New South Wales scheme as a model, and
(b) the Commonwealth Government conduct preliminary research of its archival material in relation to the stolen wages issues in Western Australia.

---

Sources:
Greens Media
GLSC Media
Inquiry into Stolen Wages - Senate
Sunday Times
The West
ABC
PERTH INDYMEDIA

Secret NT nuke waste deal cuts into dreaming

May 29, 2007: Northern Territorians should feel let down by the consultation process for a nuclear waste site at Muckaty Station - eight kilometres from where people live at the station homestead. The Northern Land Council has nominated the site, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, as a national nuclear waste repository.

"Our dreamings cross right into that land where they want to put that dump...

If the Federal Government approves the site, the site's traditional owners will hand over control of the land for about 200 years and receive a one-off $12 million payment. Only a handful of people were consulted and the voices of the overwhelming majority are not being listened too.

The only way in which a modern government like the Howard Government should be addressing this issue is to ensure that it has the full consent of communities involved in every way when it comes to the location of a facility, like a radioactive waste dump.

This process has still got a very long way to travel and we haven't seen the details of what has actually been agreed between the NLC, the relevant traditional owners and the Minister - we've only got the reports that we've seen on the wire and heard on the radio.

The secretly negotiated deal has bitterly divided traditional owners of the 2241- square-kilometre Muckaty Station, where the Government wants to build a dump storing 5000 cubic metres of nuclear waste.

Bindi Jakamarra Martin, a Warlmanpa man from the Ngapa clan, said building the dump on a 1.5-square-kilometre would "poison our beautiful land" and "change our dreamings". "Our dreamings cross right into that land where they want to put that dump," he said.

The deal was revealed on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the landmark 1967 referendum granting Aboriginal citizenship rights. The agreement allows the Federal Government to take the Ngapa clan's land for up to 200 years to store nuclear waste from all the states and territories.

Truckloads of radioactive material would be driven from Sydney's Lucas Heights and Woomera in South Australia to the site, which is 10 kilometres from the busy Stuart Highway and eight kilometres from where people live at the station homestead.

Experts will now study the sparsely vegetated site to see if it is scientifically suitable to store nuclear waste.

The Muckaty deal has angered the Northern Territory Government, whose legislation against developing a dump in the territory can be overridden by Canberra. "This potential facility could compromise the social, cultural and traditional ties of Aboriginal people to their country," said Elliott McAdam, a minister in the NT Labor Government. Environmentalists have called on federal Science Minister Julie Bishop to reject the site.

A traditional owner of another site under consideration for a nuclear waste dump has questioned whether all residents of Muckaty Station agree with the nomination. Kathleen Martin from Mount Everard, north-west of Alice Springs, says there was some division over the proposal in the community.

"I'm asking, was that in agreeance with everybody on Muckaty?" she said. "Because the message that came down a couple of weeks ago was that the older people - the older men - had told some of the people there, you sell the land, you sell your soul."

Martin said they decided to vote against the dump after attending several meetings with the Northern Land Council and elders were taken to Sydney to tour Lucas Heights.

William Jakamarra Graham, another traditional owner, said: "We don't care about the money — $12 million is nothing to us. But we care about our land and what will happen to the children of the future. We don't want to leave them a nuclear dump."

Natalie Wasley from the Arid Lands Environement Centre, who has been campaigning against all of the sites proposed, says many of the traditional owners do not support the proposal. "I've spoken with a Ngapa elder this morning, Bindi Martin from the Muckaty area, and he said he still has strong opposition to the dump proposal," she said. "I believe this is a view held by other elders as well.

"I think the Science Minister Julie Bishop will have a hard time showing that there is consent within the Ngapa group let alone the whole Muckaty community for this nomination for the waste dump."

Dave Sweeney, nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Muckaty Station was not selected on a scientific basis and turning it into a dump would be "environmentally irresponsible and socially divisive".

The Northern Land Council says it has all 70 traditional owners' support.

SOURCES:
The Age
ABC NEWS
ABC
The Age

Police Violence Report: G20 Protestors attacked "unnecessary" and "unprovoked" by cops

Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - Police used unnecessary force during G20: legal study

A report into the G20 actions in Melbourne in November 2006, has found police used an "excessive amount of force." Victoria's Federation of Community Legal Centres released the study, finding only a small proportion of protesters were acting provocatively over the three-day event. The study found a police baton charge on protesters outside the Melbourne Museum was "unnecessary" and "unprovoked"...

Victoria’s Federation of Community Legal Centres (FCLC) today called for improved police responses to future protests, following the release of the Federation’s Human Rights Observer Team’s Final Report on the protests surrounding the G20 Meeting.

Much of the violence was directed at protesters who posed little or no perceptible threat to officers' safety, the report says.

BACKGROUND - PERTH INDYMEDIA NOVEMBER 19, 2006:
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=default&featureview=432

"At the barricades, a police officer took his baton all the way behind his back... and with a full swing hit a protester on the right of his temple," wrote one observer of an incident on Saturday afternoon at the corner of Collins Street and Alfred Place. "The protester was bleeding significantly... he fell back onto a woman and as a result she suffered a sprained ankle."

In the lead up to the G20 Meeting held in Melbourne from 17-19 November 2006, the FCLC established a Human Rights Observer (HRO) Team to critically monitor the response of Victoria Police to the protests. The HRO Team was an independent and non-partisan project with trained volunteer observers present over the 3 day meeting to monitor the police response to the protests and promote rights to peaceful protest and democracy.

The observer team wrote that "police authorities cannot justify or rationalise abuses by pointing to the poor conduct of some protesters". The Report found that there were numerous observed incidents of inappropriate use of force and potentially unlawful police behaviour towards some protesters.

These included dangerous overhead baton strikes, arbitrary arrests and the reported failure by police to issue warnings prior to a baton charge on a peaceful group of protesters.

Another observer reported seeing a man standing alone in Exhibition Street after protesters had vandalised a police truck. "This man was not threatening to the police in any way," the observer wrote. "The man was struck on the legs with a baton by a police officer. He was knocked to the ground. The police officer hit him about once more … members of the public who were clearly not demonstrators began screaming in distress and asking the officers to stop."

The Report notes several key improvements in Victoria Police’s response to the protests and commends Victoria Police on its willingness to review and improve its practices. It also makes recommendations as to how police responses to future protests may be improved.

Federation of Community Legal Centres’ Executive Officer Hugh de Kretser said the project was an important tool in protecting basic human rights: "This report contains analysis and recommendations about improving policing practices. We look forward to working constructively with Victoria Police to promote greater safety for police, protesters and the community and to better protect our rights to peaceful protest and democracy."

Police should also provide assistance to injured persons as soon as possible during protest events, even if the person has been injured as a result of police action, the team says. "Rights to democracy and peaceful protest are fundamental to our society. The police response to protests can either undermine or strengthen our democracy," said Hugh de Kretser.

In March, it was revealed that people allegedly injured by police in the November violence had received confidential sums. Recipients included bystanders, tourists and elderly protesters.

Download the Full Report as a PDF here:
http://www.communitylaw.org.au/community/files/news/fD00768_01.pdf

---

Further information:
Anthony Kelly - Author of report and co-ordinator of HRO team - 0407 815 333
Hugh de Kretser - Executive Officer - 0403 965 340

SOURCES:
Media Release - PDF
Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic.) Inc
ABC
Final Report: G20 Protests - PDF
The Age
Coverage of the G20 actions in Melbourne - Engage Media
G20 Activist Forum
Solidarity with g20 arrestees - Melbourne Indymedia
A Space Outside - interactions with radical thinkers
Police attack G20 protesters at Melbourne Museum - November 19, 2006

Deaths in Custody – the silence and complicity must be challenged

Deaths in Custody - Justice for Karl Woods

11th April, 2007 marks the first anniversary of the terrible death of Karl Woods in police custody. Karl was arrested at the scene of a home invasion on April 11th, 2006. Police report that he struggled and had to be ‘subdued’. Once arrested he was placed in the back of a police van. According to initial reports when checked ‘a short time later’ - Karl was dead. What happened?

Mr Woods' family members – and others who have seen post-mortem photos – are horrified by the obvious physical injuries he appears to have sustained. Yet it seems the WA police admit no fault, and no officers have been stood down.

INTERVIEW APRIL 10 2007 - Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, Marc Newhouse - MP3

Nearly a year on, and the WA police have still not finalised reports into Mr Woods' death for the Coroners office. And no Coronial Inquest has been carried out. Why?

This has many parallels to the Palm Island case and the silence, inaction and injustice must be challenged, say the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee. [2004 Palm Island death in custody.]

Deaths In Custody Watch say that deaths such as these must never occur. 99 Indigenous deaths in custody around the 1980’s led to the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custodywhich took nearly four years with hundreds of recommendations - yet carries no real legal weight. Most of the recommendations were never properly implemented.

In WA where Indigenous people make up around 3% of the general population, our prisoner population is over 40% Indigenous, and a new report indicates that in juvenile detention centres this figure rises to a staggering 74%.
The Woods' family and many other concerned West Australians will mount a public rally and letter of demand to the Premier this Black Friday. "Support the call for justice - for Karl, the Woods’ family, and all those who have died in custody..."

We must change the systemic racism and inequality which imprisons so many indigenous people. We must hold to account all those involved in deaths in custody. We must stop deaths in custody... JUSTICE FOR KARL WOODS

DEATH IN CUSTODY RALLY – CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR KARL WOODS - BLACK FRIDAY, 13TH APRIL, 12 NOON, CORNER OF ST GEORGES TCE AND BARRACK ST. Rally and speakers, followed by a march on the Premiers office... READ MORE/Contact/Comment...

Land carve up won't deliver Aboriginal home ownership

MARCH 15, 2007: Land carve up won't deliver Aboriginal home ownership

"Mal Brough's plan to overturn Aboriginal community ownership of their land is not about private home ownership on remote communities. It is just a foot in the door strategy to overturn community land tenure," said Senator Rachel Siewert today.

"This is not the way to tackle the Aboriginal housing crisis."
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough is intensifying pressure on the West Australian and Queensland governments to reform land management to force indigenous people to buy their own homes - despite widespread poverty in their communities. The Federal Government argues that promoting private ownership can break the poverty cycle, and predicts families may one day be able to buy homes.

Mr Brough said he was tired of waiting for the Territory Government to create a system under which indigenous communities could sell their land. Mr Brough said said he wanted states to change their laws to fast-track home ownership across the country.

But Senator Racheal Siewart disagrees: "For a government that promotes itself on its economic credentials, this plan is an embarrassment. The Minister has failed home economics 101. Private home ownership is not the economic panacea, nor is it realistic," said Senator Siewert. "Any Australian family wanting to buy its own home does the maths to see what mortgage they can afford."

"Aboriginal families on these remote communities have the lowest disposable incomes in the country, and houses in remote communities are the most expensive to build," she said. "Which bank would loan a family $400 000 to build a house, knowing that they couldn't meet the payments and the resale value of the asset is so poor?"

"The government is not putting on the table the $2-3 billion needed to address the Aboriginal housing crisis," said Senator Siewert. "How is it that overturning community tenure suddenly fixes this problem? Research clearly shows that land tenure is not the major obstacle to Aboriginal home ownership," said Senator Siewert.

"In the absence of a major investment to back it up, it is clear that the push for private ownership of community lands is purely ideological and will not deliver an end to the housing crisis," she concluded.

Under the existing arrangements, home ownership is only legally possible on collectively owned indigenous land in the Northern Territory. But it cannot be delivered without a body to manage buying and selling 99-year leases which confer title over housing blocks to individuals.

The Federal Government can effectively seize control of the Top End process because it is a territory, but it cannot enforce changes in other states, which would have to introduce their own legislation.

Tangentyere Council day patrol worker Creed Joseph yesterday was sceptical about whether indigenous Australians should be encouraged to buy their own houses. "It's hard enough for Aboriginal people to get jobs," he said. "And those that do work can't afford a loan, so how can people be expected to pay for it?"

Senator Rachel Siewert
NT land seize plan - The Sunday Times

Coal lobby censors climate change website

5 March 2007: MINING INDUSTRY SILENCING DISSENT: A satirical website created by climate action group Rising Tide Newcastle has twice been shut down this fortnight by powerful coal industry lobby group, the NSW Minerals Council...
The website is a parody of the NSW Minerals Council's big-budget spin-doctor campaign to promote the 'virtues' of the coal industry.

Climate activist group Rising Tide built the site to highlight the growing contribution coal exports make to climate change.

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has criticised the powerful coal industry lobby group, the NSW Minerals Council, for attempting to censor the climate change debate by getting their lawyers to shut down a community based climate change website.

"This is an extraordinary case of censorship by the powerful coal industry," said Ms Rhiannon. "The NSW Minerals Council is pulling out all stops to censor public debate on the deadly impact of coal on our climate at a time when robust open debate on the future of coal is urgently needed."

"A recent Hunter survey that showed more than half of people in the Hunter now feel the negative impacts of coal far outweigh the positive benefits, has pushed the powerful coal lobby to this desperate measure."

After lawyers for the NSW Minerals Council complained to the website hosting company that Rising Tide's content was in breach of copyright, the website was shut down. Rising Tide contested this claim and hit back by re-designing the website to ensure it was not subject to copyright, but the lawyers moved in a second time and had the website shut down again. Rising Tide has now filed a counter claim that the NSW Mineral Council's grounds were spurious, and have re-launched their website today using an overseas internet service provider to protect the site from further attack.

"The NSW Minerals Council must be prepared to face open debate about coal instead of censoring community opinions that they are uncomfortable with," said Ms Rhiannon.

- NSW Mineral Council's coal public relations website – www.nswmining.com.au
- Rising Tide's parody website – www.miningnsw.com.au

The website was conceived as a response to the Minerals Council's “Life. Brought to you by Mining” advertising campaign.

The Minerals Council campaign, which argues that mining is inextricable from modern luxury can be viewed at www.nswmining.com.au. Rising Tide members created a parody website at www.miningnsw.com.au in order to present the other side of the story and address the damage wrought by mining to the local and global environment and to the local community.

Steve Phillips, spokesperson for Rising Tide Newcastle said, “The coal export industry constitutes NSW's biggest single contribution to global climate change. There is also growing public awareness of the terrible impacts of coal mining on biodiversity, water and air quality. The Minerals Council want people to know that luxury is dependent on mining: All we want is for the public to be fully informed about the consequences of that luxury, and to realise that while we can have jobs without coal, and we can have energy without coal, we cannot have a coal industry without climate change.”

Rising Tide has now moved the site to an off-shore host in order that the information contained within it can remain in the public domain.

“The Minerals Council is abusing legal process to ensure that its public-relations spin is unquestioned and that community criticism of its methods or message is quashed as quickly as possible” said Ned Haughton, the site’s graphical designer.

Mr. Phillips continued, "We have issued a counter-notice rejecting the Minerals Council's spurious claims. The Minerals Council now has ten days in which to take the matter further."

“The Minerals Council say they want a “balanced debate” on the impacts of coal mining on local, regional, and global environments – we welcome that wholeheartedly. Their rhetoric however, is sharply at odds with their attempts to silence legitimate criticism from community groups.”

For more information:

Ned Haughton on 0417 484 735
Steve Phillips on 0437 275 119.

Background:
* On February 19th this year, the NSW Minerals Council (NSWMC) launched an expensive public relations campaign with the slogan “Life: Brought to you by mining.” The campaign includes billboards, television, and newspaper advertisements, and the website www.nswmining.com.au

* Shortly after the launch of the NSWMC website, Rising Tide Newcastle (RTN)set up a satirical and critical website at www.miningnsw.com.au. This website was a mirror image of the NSWMC website, except that the text was different, describing the negative social and environmental effects of the mining industry.

* The hosts of the RTN website were contacted by NSWMC lawyers within 24 hours of the launch of the site. The NSWMC lawyers abused a clause of the Commonwealth Copyright Regulations to forced the website hosts to remove the site. RTN created the original website as a satirical imitation of the NSWMC site, with rewritten commentary. While this was most probably legal under the Copyright Act's Fair Dealing clause as a parody, the hosts were legally required to remove the site pending a response to the Minerals Council's claim of copyright infringement, which did not specify the articles of alleged copyright.

* RTN then completely re-made the site, with original layout and images that were either original or used with permission, in order to remove all possibility of copyright infringement. The NSWMC lawyers nevertheless contacted the new website hosts within 24 hours, with a similar claim letter, and again had the site removed under Regulation 20J of the Copyright Regulations.

* While the site had not contravened any copyright laws, as the lawyers for the NSWMC may well have known, the host was again legally obliged to remove the site.

* RTN have submitted a counter-notice, rejecting the allegations of the NSWMC. The NSWMC now have a 10 period in which they can take the matter further, which would require taking RTN to court over the incident.

* In the meantime, the RTN website has been relaunched with an offshore host. International copyright law does not have the same automatic take-down clause of Australian copyright law.

SOURCES:
melbourne.indymedia.org/news...
Parody Site: miningnsw.com.au
risingtide.org.au
Sydney Indymedia - Climate Mining

WA government let Woodside's bulldozers destroy Burrup rock art

February 28, 2007: Bulldozers turned loose on the Burrup rock art - The Western Australian Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Michelle Roberts, has given her approval for energy giant WOODSIDE to clear a large expanse of land on the Burrup Peninsula, in the WA's north-west, as part of its massive Pluto gas development. Mrs Roberts says the project is too significant to be abandoned. But critics of the plan to detroy some of the 30,000 year-old rock art say Minister Roberts is "bloody-minded" and "Orwellian" in her refusal to discuss the simple alternative of relocating the site, not the rock art...
"The Western Australian Government is treating Aboriginal heritage with contempt," says WA Greens Senator Rachael Siewert. "Traditional Owners opposed development in this area... the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee opposed development in this area," said Senator Siewert. "But through sheer bloody-mindedness and refusal to consider alternate locations, Woodside has been given approvals to destroy the area."

Mrs Roberts approval ignores calls for the project to be moved to protect its ancient rock art, with Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull refusing to safeguard the site by giving it a national heritage listing. Roberts' approval will almost certainly cause even more damage to the already descrated Burrup Peninsula rock art province. It seems WOODSIDE and the WA Government are acting against the wishes of hindreds of thousands of people across the planet, as well as the site`s Aboriginal custodians and the scientific community.

"It is ironic that Woodside will have to 'provide a comprehensive cultural management plan' for the areas that have been spared from the bulldozers," said Senator Siewert. "This kind of Orwellian language would not be necessary if the Government was properly upholding its responsibilities to look after cultural heritage."

Indigenous Affairs Minister Michelle Roberts gave Woodside the green light to develop Site B on its $10 billion Pluto gas project on the Burrup Peninsula, arguing the dollar value of the controversial development was too great to ignore - despite the potential solution of shifting the site.

But Mrs Roberts claims there were no economically viable alternative sites to Pluto site B. The project is still awaiting further environmental approvals and a final investment decision by Woodside is not expected until the middle of the year, but its LNG exports are set to start in 2010.

According to The West Australian Newspaper, Woodside welcomed Mrs Roberts’ decision but said it was one of several approvals it required for the project to proceed. Liberal MP Colin Barnett — who has been campaigning to move the project to a cleared, adjacent site leased by the North-West Shelf Venture Partners — said he was disappointed with the decision. Mr Barnett said Woodside could face legal ramifications because Pluto had not been subject to a State agreement.

The Burrup Peninsula is the world's largest outdoor rock engraving site, containing rock art of world importance possibly dating back to 30,000 years ago, including possibly the first ever representation of the human face in history.

Pictures of rock art removal on the Burrup peninsula show hundreds of boulders lying in piles amid red dust and rubble, after being bulldozed in recent weeks to make way for Woodside Petroleum's Pluto gas processing plant. The secretly taken photographs show the extent of removal of rocks containing ancient Aboriginal carvings dating back as far as 10-20,000 years. Scraped and smashed rocks, with carvings visible on some surfaces, lie in piles several metres high.

The National Trust of Australia, says the government has effectively sanctioned the continued destruction of one of the world's great rock art galleries. "It's an absolute disgrace and there will be outrage internationally," state National Trust executive director Tom Perrigo said, describing the government as having
"utter contempt for this national treasure."

Senator Siewart says: "This is a unique place that meets the criteria for heritage listing. He is making Australia an international laughing stock. Following delays by both WA and Federal for heratige listing, Site A of the Woodside development has been bulldozed, resulting in the removal of hundreds of pieces of rock art and loss of their cultural value."

No moves had been made by the Commonwealth or State governments to discuss the possible co-location of the Woodside development.

"I ask once again - why hasn't the Commonwealth used its influence to try and facilitate such discussions? Mr Turnbull is failing Australia's heritage, and one can only presume the reason for delay is to let development proceed without heritage listing," Senator Siewert said.

Friends of Burrup Rock Art convenor Robin Chapple said the federal and West Australian governments should halt further clearing and direct Woodside to relocate its Pluto plant to a cleared site owned by the North West Shelf joint venturers. "Otherwise we'll end up as international pariahs viewed in the same light as the Taliban when they blew up the Bamiyan statues," he said.

Burrup rock art vigils held in recent weeks in several countries, including at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, have intensified international coverage of the Burrup's fate. More vigils are planned at the mouth of France's rock art-decorated Lascaux Caves, in Rio de Janeiro and in Canberra.

SOURCES:
ABC News
The West
standupfortheburrup.com
Media Release
The Australian
burrup.org.au/

Protesters defy police, walk into Weld Valley

February 18, 2007: Weld Valley protesters ignore police caution - About 50 protesters have entered a Forestry Tasmania exclusion zone in the Weld Valley, south-west of Hobart. The protesters are trying to stop the logging of two coupes of temperate rainforest, next to a World Heritage Area. In the past week, behind locked gates, wilderness forests in The Lower Weld Valley have been attacked, and their world heritage qualities devalued at an alarming rate. This Sunday people are bearing witness to the beauty and the sad loss of these threatened ancient forests.

Huon Valley Environment Centre Spokesperson Jenny Weber says: "Forestry Tasmania’s unprecedented eleventh hour attempt to put an injunction on the Huon Valley Environment Centre is merely a distraction from their accelerated detruction of wilderness forest. Heavy machinery and chainsaws have been working on overdrive to rapidly devalue this precious landscape..."
Meanwhile Forestry Tasmania has failed in a court bid to stop the protest action. Today, police about inside the Weld "exclusion zone," formally cautioned the protesters, saying they would be charged with trespass if they continued walking into the forest. However, the caution was ignored by all but a couple of the protesters.

Jenny Weber says all that separates the Weld Valley logging coupes from neighbouring World Heritage forest is a line on a map. She says 95 per cent of the trees cut down by Forestry Tasmania will be woodchipped and the practice must stop.

Earlier, a conservationist who protested in the Weld Valley has escaped a conviction for locking himself in a forestry vehicle. Thirty-five-year-old Adam Burling of Lucaston was arrested in the Valley late last year. In the Hobart Magistrates Court, Burling pleaded guilty to trespassing while campaigning against logging in the Weld Valley.

The court heard he sat in the driver's seat of a forestry vehicle and refused to leave. When police used the electronic key to unlock the car, Burling continued to lock it again, but police eventually pulled him out of the car. Defence lawyer Cassandra Gregg said Burling was a former Huon Valley councillor, part-time employee of Greens Senator Bob Brown and a dedicated forest campaigner. The magistrate told Burling actions like his did not tend to further the cause. Burling was not convicted on condition of six months' good behaviour.

Previously, Forestry Tasmania failed dismally in an unprecendented 11th-hour legal attempt to stop a protest march going ahead in the Weld Valley. Three of the protest organisers were served with writs from Forestry Tasmania at their Huonville homes. Forestry Tasmania was seeking an injunction to stop the Huon Valley Environment Centre and six of its members from emailing, texting, handing out pamphlets or posting information on the internet about the "walk-in" rally into the out-of-bounds Weld Valley. It would also have prevented the centre from allowing protesters to sleep at its Huonville headquarters or at any of its named office-bearers' homes.

"It was a shock to get that delivered to your doorstep," said HVEC treasurer and spokeswoman Jenny Weber. "I felt scared and overwhelmed that Forestry Tasmania was prepared to go so far as to engage individuals trying to stop logging in the Weld in court proceedings."

In an embarrassing bungle, Forestry Tasmania was forced to withdraw its application for an immediate injunction. The backdown came after nearly two hours of legal debate, after Tasmania's Chief Justice Peter Underwood ruled the key evidence on which Forestry Tasmania was basing its injunction claim was inadmissible. Justice Underwood also ordered Forestry Tasmania to pay all legal costs of the Huon Valley Environment Centre and its co-defendants, estimated to be between $7000 and $10,000.

Weld Valley protester and president of the Huon Valley Environment Centre, Adam Burling, said he had no doubt the latest legal action was an attempt by Forestry Tasmania to demonstrate a new hardline approach toward protesters.

"We believe there are enough existing laws, such as the exclusion-zones powers at Forestry Tasmania's fingertips. Why do they need to crackdown even more?" Mr Burling asked. But Forestry Tasmania's Huon Valley district manager, Steve Davis, said trespassing protesters had become increasingly reckless in their attempts to impede logging, compromising safety at the site and risking injury to workers.

Forestry Tasmania was supported in its legal action by the Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association. Most of the evidence backing its case presented by Forestry Tasmania was obtained from websites associated with recent protest actions in the Weld Valley near Geeveston, which Justice Underwood ruled could not be accepted by the court as fact since the authorship of internet material was uncertain and unprovable.

Justice Underwood also ruled inadmissible parts of the sworn statement made by Mr Davis and presented to the court, stating that he expected protesters tomorrow to lock themselves to logging machinery, to conduct tree-sits and to "otherwise interfere with forest operations". The judge ruled these were Mr Davis' beliefs and not facts, and as such could not be accepted as evidence by the court.

A victorious Mr Burling, also one of the individuals named in the injunction, described the case's dismissal as a triumph for democracy and free speech. He said the attempted injunction was part of the new "heavy-handed" tactics being employed by Forestry Tasmania and the Lennon Government in the ongoing dispute about the logging of Tasmania's native forests. Forestry Tasmania withdrew not just its injunction application, but an associated longer-term writ based on a conspiracy charge against the named Weld Valley defendants.

"This is a desperate act from the State Labor Government to silence its critics of the unpopular forest industry and to do the biding of Gunns ltd," said Mr Burling. "Forestry Tasmania should be taking note of the Federal court's December decision in the Wielangta case and cease their illegal logging operations, not trying to start new legal case against community groups."

SEE ALSO:
Weld Valley Campaign's Online Home
http://www.huon.org/weldvalley/

Sources:
ABC NEWS
Mercury Conservationist avoids trespassing conviction
Weld Valley Campaign's Online Home
Forestry Tasmania launches legal attack against community walk

Local Government applaud WA Prostitution laws

February 17, 2007: The Local Government Association says the Western Australian Government has struck the right balance with its proposed new prostitution laws. The state government plans to decriminalise prostitution as part of a bid to regulate the industry. WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty says he will introduce legislation into state parliament this year which would allow brothels to operate legally...
Friday, February 16, 2007: The Local Government Association says the Western Australian Government has struck the right balance with its proposed new prostitution laws. Attorney-General Jim McGinty is preparing legislation to decriminalise and regulate the industry, saying the current laws are a mess.

The new arrangements would introduce regular health and safety checks for sex workers. The association's Bill Mitchell says the new laws will clarify the role of local government in controlling the location of brothels, without placing too much onus on brothel operators.

"It's not that proscriptive as in other states as to force the industry underground," he said. "Our recent experience with eastern states legislation is that very few brothels actually applied for licensing, it was all too hard and it forced the industry underground and that's exactly what we don't want."

Brothels in Western Australia will be able to operate legally under proposed new laws to be introduced into State Parliament this year. Attorney General and Health Minister Jim McGinty said the State Government planned to decriminalise and regulate the world’s oldest profession in order to protect the health and safety of sex workers and provide clarity for police.

“It is time we sorted out the prostitution laws in WA to deal properly with the sex industry, which has been a reality of life for a long, long time,” Mr McGinty said. The Attorney General said the State Government had begun drafting legislation based on the recommendations of the Prostitution Law Reform Working Group, which had studied prostitution legislation in other Australian States and New Zealand.

The working group recommended adopting a minimalist, decriminalised model, where approved operators and managers of brothels and escort agencies would be regulated under a certification system run by the Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor.

All operators and managers would need to be of good character to be certified and not have any serious convictions or charges pending related to sexual crimes, organised crime, drugs or violence.

Operator/manager certificates would be required for premises with two or more sex workers and certification would need to be renewed annually. Penalties would apply for brothels found operating without being certified. Brothels would then be subject to local government planning approvals and controls which governed the operation of other businesses.

“This will mean that for the first time, local councils and the WA Planning Commission can control where brothels are located and ensure they are not operating in inappropriate areas,” Mr McGinty said.

The working group recommended that new prostitution legislation also include:

- minimum health and safety requirements for sex workers;
- creating a new offence for sex workers and clients who engage in sexual activities while infected with a sexually transmissible infection or blood-borne virus;
- provisions to protect children from being involved in prostitution and from being exploited in relation to prostitution;
- requiring brothel and escort agency operators to employ sex workers under contracts of service; and
- giving police the power to enter brothels to ensure that all operators are certified.

Under current laws, prostitution in itself is not prohibited but it is illegal to manage a brothel and live off the earnings of prostitution.

Streetwalking and kerb crawling are also offences and will remain illegal under the new laws. “The current prostitution laws are a mess and we have brothels operating the length and breadth of the State without any proper checks or balances,” Mr McGinty said.

“The Police Royal Commission report of 2004 found that the lack of clear prostitution legislation also created a high risk for police corruption and although there was no specific evidence of wrongdoing, we need to remove that temptation.”

The working group recommended that existing brothels be automatically certified unless they were not well-managed or were causing problems in the neighbourhood. The Attorney General said the working group’s recommendations would enable the State Government to develop laws that would be acceptable to the Parliament after the Prostitution Control Bill 2003 failed to receive majority support in the Legislative Council.

The working group, which was established in September 2006, consulted with numerous stakeholders including representatives from the sex industry, local government, public health groups, churches and legal bodies. The working group comprised Parliamentary Secretary to the Health Minister, Sue Ellery; Labor MLA John Hyde; Greens MLC Giz Watson; Health Department sexual health program director Lisa Bastion; Detective Superintendent Kim Porter from Western Australia Police; and Caroline Wright from the Office of the Attorney General.

SOURCES:
Media Release: New laws to put on the red light - McGinty
ABC - LGA praises McGinty's proposed prostitution laws
The Australian: State to decriminalise brothels