Indigenous Rights/Australia - Green Left Weekly Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: Green Left Weekly #304 2/4/98 INDIGENOUS RIGHTS/AUSTRALIA Watch Committee for Victoria MELBOURNE - Around 50 people attended a January 28 meeting to establish an Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee for Victoria. Late last year, five men and one woman died in private prisons. The usual standard of issuing a press release after a death was not followed after three of the five men's deaths. Speakers at the meeting included Ray Jackson, who represented the NSW Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee in a 1996 speaking tour of Victoria; Debbie Brennan, a member of Radical Women and coordinator of the speaking tour; Bridget Riggs from Campaign Against Racism; and Catherine Gow, representing People's Justice Alliance, a group campaigning against prison privatisation. Important recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody have not been followed in the new private prisons. * Anniversary of Day of Mourning challenges Howard By Jennifer Thompson Four hundred Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered in Sydney on January 26, the 60th anniversary of the 1938 Day of Mourning and Protest by Aboriginal people at the sesquicentenary celebrations of European colonisation of Australia. The re-enactment, organised by the National Aboriginal History and Heritage Council, of the 1938 gathering included a silent march on the original route from Town Hall to the Australian Hall (now the Mandolin Cinema), readings of the original speeches by the organisers' descendants and presentation of the 10 points in the conference manifesto, with a 1998 update answering John Howard's 10-point scam. Australian Hall is the current focus of a campaign to preserve post-1788 Aboriginal history. The 1938 conference drew more than 100 Aboriginal men and women, who travelled at great personal risk from NSW, Victoria and Queensland to draw up a manifesto for Aboriginal civil rights. One of the main organisers, Jack Patten, president of the Aborigines' Progressive Association, opened the 1938 conference and moved the resolution: ``We, representing the Aborigines of Australia, assembled in conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th anniversary of the white man's seizure of our country, hereby make protest against the callous treatment of our people by the white man during the past 150 years, and we appeal to the Australian nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, and we ask for a new policy which will raise our people to full citizen status and equality within the community.'' Jack Patten's son John and grandsons Jardyn and Jonathan read his speech: ``On this day, the white people are rejoicing, but we as Aborigines have no reason to rejoice ... Our purpose on meeting today is to bring home to the white people of Australia the frightful conditions in which the native Aborigines of this continent live. This land belonged to our forefathers 150 years ago, but today we are pushed further and further into the background.'' Patten went on to demand ``full citizen's rights, including old age pensions, maternity bonus, relief work when unemployed, and the right to a full Australian education for our children. We do not wish to be herded like cattle, and treated as a special class.'' He slammed the Aborigines Protection Board of NSW, which oversaw the conditions of slavery, starvation and poor education on Aboriginal stations, as ``the greatest handicap put upon us'', and demanded its abolition. Another of the conference organisers, William (Bill) Ferguson, secretary of the Aborigines' Progressive Association, seconded the resolution. His speech was read by his daughter June Barker and grandson Bill Ferguson: ``The Aborigines Protection Act applies to any person having `apparently a mixture of Aboriginal blood'. We have been waiting and waiting all our lives for the white people of Australia to better our conditions, but we have waited in vain ... I have travelled outback and seen for myself the dreadful sufferings of our people on the Aboriginal reserves. Ferguson argued against demanding an Aboriginal member of parliament in favour of ordinary citizens' rights, including the right to own land, land grants such as were given to immigrants, the right to have money, for government education, including of Aboriginal teachers and nurses, and the end to the Aboriginal Protection Board system of apprenticing Aboriginal girls for domestic labour, which was ``nothing but slavery''. Other descendants and representatives from the same area as the original activists read their speeches, and NAHHC chair Jenny Munro presented ``our 10 points''. Redfern activist Lyall Munro spoke about continuing black deaths in custody. He gave a fiery response to the Howard government's Wik bill and to the black leaders who had made concessions during the 1993 negotiations on the Native Title Act, promising that Aboriginal people and their supporters would take the struggle to the international arena, including the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Jenny Munro said that the NAHHC was hopeful of an announcement by state planning minister Craig Knowles to revoke the exemptions on the permanent conservation order covering the Australian Hall, which permit demolition of all but its facade. In October, the Heritage Council of NSW recommended that the exemption be lifted. The NAHHC's Land and Environment Court action to have the exemption declared void is continuing. ****** Today's tasks: ten-point justice ``Our ten points: a long-range policy for Aborigines'' was adopted at the 1938 Day of Mourning and Protest held in Australian Hall, and published in the first edition of the Australian Abo Call newspaper in April 1938. The January 24, 1998, annual general meeting of the National Aboriginal History and Heritage Council adopted an update of the original 10 points, which were displayed on placards and read out by NAHHC chairperson Jenny Munro during the reenactment, as a response to John Howard's ``10-point torture''. 1. Aboriginal representatives in control of policy. (1998 plan) Commonwealth responsibility for Aboriginal affairs. (1938 plan) 2. Aboriginal minister in Commonwealth cabinet. Commonwealth minister with full cabinet rank. 3. Administrative accountability to Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal advisory board nominated from the grassroots. 4. Equal access to employment and long life for aged pension. Full citizen rights and equality without delay. 5. Respect for traditional marriage and kinship in family law. Free choice in marriage without mission approval. 6. Equality of housing and access to clean water. Equal access to housing privileges. 7. Recognise sovereign land rights of each Aboriginal nation. Special settlements for Aborigines to be self-supporting. 8. Genuine elimination of racism with whites training whites. Genuine Aboriginal protection with Aborigines training Aborigines. 9. Full and free health care available to every child. Free and equal maternity and child-care. 10. Compensation to overcome genocide and stop oppression. Freedom from oppression. * Survival day MELBOURNE - Around 200 people snubbed official Australia Day festivities and came to the Invasion Day concert, called Survival '98, at Brunswick Town Hall on January 26. Speakers highlighted Australia Day festivities' denial of the white invasion of Aboriginal land, culture and spirituality. Speakers included Ray Jackson, Aboriginal deaths in custody activist, Manrico Mouro from the Campaign Against the Nazis and Campaign Against Racism's Bridget Riggs. Entertainers included lesbian thrash band Tuff Muff, the Trade Union Choir, Peter Rotumah, Dave Arden and an acoustic presentation by film-maker and former Miriambiak CEO Richard Frankland. The concert was organised by Campaign Against the Nazis, with proceeds going to Miriambiak Nations, Aboriginal Advancement League and Campaign Against the Nazis. >From Canberra, Liam Hazell reports that hundreds of people braved cold weather to attend the first day of the ``Corroboree for Sovereignty'' at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on January 26. Representatives from a wide range of Aboriginal communities spoke about the history of the Tent Embassy, the role of trade unions in building solidarity and the struggle for land rights, and said that true reconciliation can be achieved only through recognition of the rights of Aboriginal peoples. Awards were presented to Aboriginal activists fighting for justice for their communities. -30- Six-month airmail subscriptions (22 issues) to Green Left Weekly are available for A$80 (North America) and A$90 (South America, Europe & Africa) from PO Box 394, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia http://www.peg.apc.org/~greenleft/ e-mail: greenleft@peg.apc.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytpac-02.04.98-23:45:44-4625