#Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XVIII (NSW 2023): Indigenous­–Aboriginal Party of Australia

Prior reviews: federal 2022, VIC 2022

What I said before: “Their policy platform is really simple stuff: a community that wants to be taken seriously and not treated paternalistically. They seek the space to address their own issues on their own terms.”

What I think this year: The IAPA is not registered at state level in NSW but it is endorsing two candidates. One, Brett Duroux, is standing in the Legislative Assembly electoral district of Clarence. The other, Aunty Colleen Fuller, is running for the Legislative Council as an ungrouped independent—this means she appears in the column at furthest right of the big ballot for the upper house. Her name is second in the list of 11 ungrouped indies. Neither Duroux nor Fuller will get to specify a party affiliation on ballots. Note that Colleen Fuller is not the woman of the same name who is a Gunnedah shire councillor.

The party retains the purpose and goals described in my previous reviews to promote Indigenous communities, provide them with political representation, stop Indigenous deaths in custody, and improve services for Indigenous peoples. The very existence of some of these challenges and unmet needs should shame Australia.

All NSW voters can express a preference for Fuller, but only if you vote below the line. Fuller’s leading goal is to protect the Kariong sacred lands near Gosford. She also wants to protect the right to protest, stop child removals (she is a descendant of the Stolen Generations), and provide more affordable housing. She and two other independents were profiled as the Three Sisters of the Sacred Sites and Environment. I’m a little confused why the other two—Gab McIntosh in the seat of Terrigal and Lisa Bellamy in Gosford—do not have IAPA endorsements, particularly McIntosh because she is featured on the IAPA’s About Us page as their education spokesperson! But both the IAPA homepage and Facebook only feature Fuller and Duroux as endorsed independents.

As for Duroux in Clarence, he has a mix of local policies and statewide goals. The statewide goals concern things such as sacred site protection, better relationships between land councils and traditional owners, better housing for Aboriginal communities, no children in jail, and healthy rivers and forests. His local goals include no mining or fracking in the Clarence Valley, better mental health services in Clarence hospitals, and restoring local swimming pools and allowing kids to swim for free. It all seems positive.

Recommendation: Give independents affiliated with the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia a good preference.

Website: https://www.indigenouspartyofaustralia.com/ and Duroux’s HTV is here

[whats-in-a-sentence]

At night, the domestic groups were spatially segmented into clusters for sleeping as either nuclear families, single men or single women (see Figure 4).

"Design: Building on Country" - Alison Page and Paul Memmott

[girl-mercury]

i just went to see furiosa, it was fun as ridiculous car chases tend to be (i will watch fast and furious 1–98) and had good worldbuilding, but there was something i was wondering the whole time

it’s made very clear that this takes place specifically in central australia after the nuclear apocalypse; it’s specifically about conflict between several violent groups attempting to hold control over scarce resources. white guys, almost exclusively. but where are the aboriginal people? indigenous people have been in australia for a very long time, and after surviving colonization i’m honestly not sure another apocalypse is going to be that overwhelming

so what i’m wondering is, assuming they’re there but not seen while the car enthusiasts battle it out, is this like a donner party situation? are there indigenous people watching these idiots explode themselves over food and water and gas from behind a rock and going “you dumb pieces of shit. if you could put down the guns for a second we’d show you where the food is. or… no? you’re just going to eat each other instead? cool cool cool. have fun. yikes.”

[fatehbaz]

In September 2022, the Australian High Court upheld a law that effectively allows “preventative incarceration,” or the imprisonment of people even after their sentence has been served, based on whether or not a court thinks the prisoner might be at risk of committing a future crime.

Indigenous people make up 4% of the population of Western Australia, but 40% of the state’s prisoners are Indigenous.

At Western Australia’s Banksia youth prison, 75% of incarcerated youth are Indigenous.

Australia allows for the imprisonment of children as young as 10 years old.

---

Excerpt:

Casuarina prison is a sprawling, concrete jungle on the southern outskirts of Perth, Western Australia (WA). It is a maximum-security, adult facility, home to people who may never leave its confines. However, on July 20, the penitentiary “welcomed” a new cohort of prisoners: 17 kids under the age of 18, who had been moved from the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Center to Casuarina [...].

When current WA Premier Mark McGowan was elected in 2017, his Labor party promised to lower the rate of Indigenous incarceration in the state, which is the highest in the nation. First Nations people are 16 times more likely to be incarcerated in WA than non-Indigenous people, a number that has only risen despite the promise of the government.

Dr. Hannah McGlade, a Noongar academic and human rights lawyer, isn’t surprised by the state’s failure to uphold its promise. “Our government cares little for Aboriginal lives,” McGlade told The Diplomat. [...]

In the past month, the Australian High Court upheld a law designed to keep the worst offenders in prison indefinitely, even after their sentences have been complete.

Known as the High Risk Serious Offenders Act (HRSOA), the legislation was challenged in Australia’s apex court when Peter Garlett, a 23-year-old Noongar man, was imprisoned after stealing AU$20 and a necklace while pretending to be armed. Despite this being his first adult offense, when his sentence was up, the Western Australian government asked the High Court to keep Garlett, now 28, in prison.

The court agreed, effectively paving the way for preventative incarceration in Australia.

Though five of the seven High Court judges upheld the constitutional validity of the HRSOA, many academics, lawyers, and activists who deal with the lives of First Nations people inside the legal system on a regular basis, note that this will only further trap Indigenous Australians in the carceral system. Garlett had been in near-continuous detention since he was 12, and this became the rationale for keeping him in prison beyond his criminal sentence.

One of the judges even hypothesized that the law could “potentially lead to the imprisonment of one seventh of the entire prison population of Western Australia for offenses that they have not committed.” [...]

“This is a crystal-clear example of an indirectly discriminatory law: one that is not discriminatory in its express terms but is discriminatory in its practical effect.” [...]

Though Indigenous people make up less than 4 percent of the state population, nearly 40 percent of Western Australia’s prison population is Indigenous. That is particularly troubling given the horrific record of Australian prisons. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, over 500 First Nations people have died while imprisoned in Australia. In 2020-2021 alone, 13 prisoners died in custody in WA – five of them Aboriginal.

No custodial or police officer has ever been found criminally responsible for any of these deaths.

The structural forces pushing Indigenous people into Australia’s prisons start early. In the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Center, three-quarters of the inmates are Indigenous. Despite its mandate to rehabilitate people for their eventual release, reports show some of the prisoners receiving as little as five hours of education a month. In April, the state’s prison watchdog outlined a series of “cruel, inhumane, and degrading” treatments in the facility’s Intensive Support Unit. Children have reportedly made suicide pacts due to their treatment, with some being kept in isolation for 23 hours a day. [...]

Penglis and McGlade point to the age of imprisonment in Australia being only 10 years old as devastating. [...]

---

Text by: Dechlan Brennan. “How Western Australia Criminalizes Indigenous Children.” The Diplomat. 7 October 2022. [Italicized first lines/heading in this post added by me.]

[post-futurism]

Australia NEEDS to be paying attention to this. In essence the Liberal party is going to use the tears of a massive gold mining company not being able to get their way with destroying a significant Aboriginal area to stir up racist and classist aligned votes under a new Liberal Party banner somehow claiming that the party is speaking for the working class.

ICYMI McPhillamy's Gold Mine has gone through the planning process and received development approval for their site near Blayney, NSW, on Wiradjuri land. The mine would be facilitated by the construction of a tailings dam on the Belubula River around which are identified Aboriginal archaeology. Because the dam would have required the destruction of these objects, the planning process included consultation with Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAPs), including the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council (Orange LALC), and Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation (WTOCWAC).

Despite having planning approval, Tanya Plibersek, Labor's Environmental Minister, made a rare approval of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act Section 10 application which enables the protection of an area provided that the minister can be satisfied that the land is a significant Aboriginal area and is under threat of injury or desecration. This Act is separate to the planning process and is available to Aboriginal people to use where they consider that the planning system has failed to protect cultural sites.

This is exactly what the WTOCWAC did. During the assessment process, the WTOCWAC gave advice to the Orange LALC who were the identified Aboriginal persons to comment on the project in Blayney (because Blayney does not have a LALC). It originally did not support the proposal, the same as the WTOCWAC, however, the Orange LALC changed its final position to neutral. Despite the WTOCWAC being a registered RAP that had written it did not support the proposal, the planning system favours LALCs over traditional custodians who are not part of LALCs and therefore the state government was able to ignore the WTOCWAC's opposition and approve the development anyway.

The area where the tailings dam would be constructed is part of a significant Wiradyuri cultural story that is, at this time, only known to cultural knowledge holders, the Orange LALC and Tanya Plibersek. The cultural significance was clearly enough to 'satisfy' Plibersek that the identified area should be protected under Section 10.

The day that the section 10 application approval was announced was just two days after the 200th anniversary of the Bathurst Wars on August 14 1824, the day on which Governor Brisbane issued a proclamation of martial law which gave rise to a war against Wiradjuri people and colonisers. The war was indiscriminately a war of extermination, with Wiradjuri people fighting back but ultimately forcing to surrender after their population was significantly annihilated and the survivors having dispersed. 200 years later, the elders in the WTOCWAC are some of the many Wiradyuri survivors of the Bathurst Wars. It was during a week long of commemorating and conserving culture that the immensely great news of the Section 10 approval came through.

However, since the announcement, the WTOCWAC group have faced significant backlash from the mining sector and communities at large. In addition, the media has focused on the tears of the McPhillamy gold mine company not being able to get it exactly their way even though their shares have increased by about 16%.

Here are multiple articles weighted toward the mining sector's tears.

I have only seen one (1) mainstream article that actually gives an indigenous voice to the backlash they've been getting for daring to use the coloniser's laws to protect their cultural heritage.

Make a donation to the WTOWAC here. (They are a registered charity and your donation is tax deductible)

Wait, wasn't this post meant to be about the Liberal Party?

Yeah, so remember when The Voice referendum was going up and Peter Dutton said that he would give The Voice another go if it failed, and then when it DID fail, he said he would never give it a shot again? Did you also read the first linked article and read this horrific quote:

“This is not the Australian Labor party of the worker,” Dutton told the Minerals Council’s annual conference this week. “Its members are committed to waging environmental and social crusades, especially against certain industries.” .... The Coalition has carefully analysed the different reasons people had for voting no in last year’s defeated referendum on enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution, and especially those self-identified Labor voters who call themselves working people. Dutton wants to turn that opposition to the voice into disillusionment with the government, and ultimately, votes for the Coalition at the federal election. He reckons the McPhillamys decision helps him do it.

The interests of the mining sector, racism and anti-aboriginal rhetoric goes hand in hand with Peter Dutton's platform. Not only will we never see another attempt at The Voice under a federal Liberal Party, we COULD see an abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act, the mechanism that has protected the waters of the Belubula River from being destroyed by the McPhillamy gold mine. The mining sector has been so shaken up by this 'sudden' and 'unprecedented' decision, and with them lining Dutton's pockets it's not unreasonable to predict that abolishing the act could be one of the first things Dutton does if elected.

This would be absolutely devastating for current and any future Aboriginal sites that need to be protected where the planning system has failed to protect them. And this is going to continue to be the case until the planning system can better identify and protect intangible cultural heritage.

We need to stand up for Aboriginal rights, we need to stand up for the protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage, we need to ensure there are pathways for the protection of culture and we need to believe traditional custodians when they walk their truth.

[saotome-michi]

Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.

Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.

To succeed, the yes campaign – advocating for the voice – needed to secure a double majority, meaning it needed both a majority of the national vote, as well majorities in four of Australia’s six states.

The defeat will be seen by Indigenous advocates as a blow to what has been a hard fought struggle to progress reconciliation and recognition in modern Australia, with First Nations people continuing to suffer discrimination, poorer health and economic outcomes.

More than 17 million Australians were enrolled for the compulsory vote, with many expats visiting embassies around the world in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s poll.

The vote occurred 235 years on from British settlement, 61 years after Aboriginal Australians were granted the right to vote, and 15 years since a landmark prime ministerial apology for harm caused by decades of government policies including the forced removal of children from Indigenous families.

The referendum had been a key promise that Labor party took to the federal election in 2022, when it returned to power after years of conservative rule.

Support for the voice to parliament had been strong in the early months of 2023, polling showed, but subsequently began a slow and steady decline.

[luthienebonyx]

What a truly progressive government looks like

The man in this photo is Gough (pronounced Goff) Whitlam, the 21st prime minister of Australia. Fifty years ago, on 2 December 1972, Gough Whitlam’s Australian Labor Party won the federal election, and ushered in easily the most progressive government Australia has ever had. It was a government that truly changed Australia, and set it on the path towards being the country it is today.

Gough (he was one of those rare politicians who was widely known simply by his first name. There was truly only one Gough) was tall and imposing, with silver hair and dark eyebrows, and a booming voice that delivered his razor sharp wit. When he led the ALP to victory in 1972, the party had been out of government for 23 long years, and were determined to make a difference when at last they were back in power. As you’ve probably worked out from the glorious 1970s t-shirts in the picture, the election campaign slogan was It’s Time. It featured in a famous election ad jingle, performed by Alison McCallum and accompanied by many famous faces of the time.

After winning the 1972 election, Gough wasted no time in implementing his election promises. Not willing to wait until the final results of the election were confirmed and the full ministry could be appointed, he and his deputy, Lance Barnard, were sworn in as prime minister and deputy prime minister on 5 December. Between the two of them, they held all 27 government portfolios for two weeks until the rest of the ministry was sworn in. The duumvirate, as it was known:

ordered negotiations to establish full relations with China

ended conscription in the Vietnam War

freed the conscientious objectors who had been jailed for refusing conscription

ordered home all remaining Australian troops in Vietnam

re-opened the equal pay case (for women, who were at that time by law paid less than men for doing the same job) and appointed a woman, Elizabeth Evatt, to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the body that made the decision

abolished sales tax on the contraceptive pill

announced major grants for the arts

appointed an interim schools commission

barred racially discriminatory sport teams from Australia, and instructed the Australian delegation at the United Nations to vote in favour of sanctions on apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia

And that was just the first two weeks.

In the three years that followed, the Whitlam government:

introduced a national universal health scheme

abolished university fees

abolished the death penalty for federal crimes

established Legal Aid

replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem

replaced the British honours system with the Order of Australia

created the family court and introduced no fault divorce, the first country in the world to do so

ended the White Australia policy

introduced the racial discrimination act

advocated for Indigenous rights, including creating the Aboriginal Land Fund and the Aboriginal Loans Commission, and returned some of their traditional lands to the Gurunji people in the Northern Territory. This was the first time that any Australian government had returned land to its original custodians. Here’s a famous photograph by Mervyn Bishop of Gough pouring a handful of red earth into the hands of Gurunji leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘as a sign that this land will be in the possession of you and your children forever‘:

I’m sure there are more achievements of the Whitlam government that I’m forgetting. There were a lot.

Of course, the Whitlam government will always be seen through the lens of the way it ended, but I’m not going to talk about the constitutional crisis of 1975 - plenty of books have been written about that, including one by Gough himself - or about the various dysfunctions of the Whitlam government, particularly once the international oil crisis hit in 1973.

I just really want to point out that truly progressive governments can change their countries profoundly, and for the lasting betterment of their people. Not everything that the Whitlam government achieved withstood the assaults of the conservative government that followed it, but some did and are still with us, half a century later, while other aspects, like universal healthcare, were resurrected by the Hawke Labor government a decade later, and endure to this day.

Gough died in 2014 at the age of 98, not quite making his personal century. Tonight I’m raising a glass to his memory. Thanks, Gough, for all the things you did to make this country a better, fairer, more inclusive place.

[thesorryboys-updates]

gotta love a... certain party,,, (starts with lib, ends with eral) using their one token diversity hire to be like "this will divide us" as if those spoilt fuckers won't cast this out of their minds the second it's over,, this reminds me when they were talking about gay rights "there are few other situations where, in discussing abuse, it is reasonable to consult the ones perpetrating that abuse on their opinions on the matter" like,,, 80% of indigenous people say yes that should be enough???

Tones the Aussie here; liberal in Australia is the BAD CONSERVATIVE party not the good guys ok? Don’t freak out Americans

Agreed and I don’t understand the reasons a few aboriginal people have for saying no? Like it is your life and your people so do what you want but what do you mean “I want to unite the (mods? Family’s? Parts?) first” like??? This will help that???

Honestly don’t know why anyone would vote no, voting no is admitting your racist. And don’t do the “well I didn’t know” bs THEY MADE THE EASIEST FUCKING PAMPHLET TO READ EVER? it’s so simple???

Here’s the link to it actually for anyone who wants it /Americans : here

[psychotrenny]

Also fuck Albanese. Like I wasn't expecting to hear anything different from an Imperial Core Left Lib (especially the one in charge of a pathetically loyal vassal state of the US) but still it was so fucking infuriating hearing him go on and on about how awful and terrible Hamas was and how we stand with Israel with not even a single mention (not even in an offhanded or downplaying way) of the fucking hideous Israeli atrocities that led to this situation. I'd say that this is a classic case of how Settler states have gotta stick together but as soon as he was done talking about Israel he went on to talk about the importance of this referendum for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

And like obviously recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution and granting them some level of political representation is a good thing. It's not going to change all that much (definitely not undoing the violence at the very core of a settler state like Australia, nor will it make up for the long and ongoing history of both physically, culturally and environmentally genocidal policies or end their terrible poverty and discrimination overnight) but it's not a terrible half-step towards restoring some level of dignity and respect to Australian Aboriginals and possibly easing the path towards future improvements in their material conditions. At the very least it'll force people to recognise the immeasurable rift between the indigenous and the settler populations of this nation which appears to be where so much of the opposition to it is coming from; people from the "Vote No" campaign won't shut up about how this will divide the country but what they really mean is that they don't want to think about the divide that's existed for as long as European settlement.

And like there's something so infuriating to me about a politician calling for tepid reconciliation (although at this point it's arguably just appeasement and concession) with one group of indigenous peoples while essentially condoning the ongoing violence and impoverishment of another. I guess the difference here is that the Australian Aboriginals have to resist colonialism from a much weaker position then the Palestinians do; Australia's policies of dispossession and genocide have been going on for much longer and been much more "successful" than those of Israel. They're currently not a credible threat to state security and so don't have to be taken all that seriously, so certain concessions can be considered and even given without real risk of weakening the settler establishment. The sort of unrelenting violence as displayed by Israel just isn't all that necessary. Not to say that it isn't happening over here, but it's at a lower intensity and scale and many participants in mainstream politics are willing to condemn it and pursue measures to lessen it. Like if this referendum does pass then I'm sure various Left Lib* Aussies will go on and on about how it's a sign of how progressive we all are and how we can all come together and close "old wounds" together. But like I know for sure the Australian political establishment wouldn't be feeling so conciliatory if there was a real risk of Aboriginals mounting their own Intifada

(*as in Liberalism the ideology, which essentially describes all the major parties in Australian and really the rest of the Imperial core)

[talenlee]

So tumblr won’t let me scroll through your blog without destroying my phone right now, and I can’t remember if I saw you post about it, but what’s your take on the Voice referendum that happened recently?

So the Voice referendum, for anyone not familiar, was a simple referendum about amending the constitution in order to create an advisory body that would be required to exist, which would advise and advocate for the needs of indigenous and first nation Australians. It failed.

The reason this was a good idea is that we have this problem that keeps up happening where our modestly-left party gets into power, and funds the support network for the indigenous population that we did a lot of genocides to. Then, the right-wing party gets into power and makes a big deal out of defunding them, because get a load of these assholes, fuck that, deserving support after we spent literally centuries depriving them of shit and then also, the uh, colonialism and murder. Basically, we wanted to set up a political body that wasn't from either of those parties that could stand outside the government and give an official, clear advocated position for these people that recognised their importance and their place.

Anyway, it failed, and it's hard to say why it failed. There's a legitimately true case to be made about how much of the no campaign was literally based on total lies. Like, completely fanciful and nonsensical untruths that could be easily shown to be false. But that conversation is trying to examine a giraffe by looking at the spots, because the real problem is that these obvious pieces of bullshit being peddled by bullshit merchants were things that people heard and didn't just dismiss as meaningless. Even if people were being lied to, the lies are so obvious you only accept them, in my opinion, if they sound legit to you. And if 'the Aboriginals want to use this position to claim all the rent in Australia' sounds legit to you, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about and probably have never met a single Indigenous person.

There was some hope that things would be okay, because the plebiscite, the gay marriage ruling, went through. But that doesn't really say anything, because all this really means is we're not as homophobic as we are racist.

The simplest way is that I'm pleasantly shocked that we, as a country, voted 40% in favour of a baseline, simple, anti-racist measure. Like, I didn't expect it to succeed at all.

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXIV (Victoria 2022): Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia

Prior review: federal 2022

What I said before: “This is a party that simply wants an opportunity for their people to thrive.”

What I think this time: Here I was, thinking I had successfully reviewed every micro-party fielding candidates in Victoria’s state election, whether registered or not. It was only on the final stretch of my entry about independents running for the Legislative Council that I discovered two ungrouped independents endorsed by the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (IAPA). Let me know if I've missed any others!

The IAPA ran candidates in NSW and Queensland back at the federal election, and in the lead-up to Victoria’s state election they tried to expand into Victoria and gain registration with the VEC. They weren't able to be registered, but they have endorsed three candidates. Two are standing for the Legislative Council: ungrouped independent Colin Mancell for Northern Metropolitan and ungrouped independent Storm Hellmuth in Western Victoria. These two men will only appear below the line in the furthest-right column on the ballot and you cannot vote for them above the line. A third candidate is standing in the Legislative Assembly: IAPA endorses Laylah Al Saimary, independent candidate for the electorate of Melbourne, and if you live in this electorate you will have to include her somewhere in your preferences to cast a valid vote.

The IAPA remain as I described them in my federal review. Their goal is more Indigenous representation in government and for Indigenous perspectives to be heard. I was a little surprised to not see some specific content about Victoria’s Treaty process. It predates the Uluṟu Statement: Victoria had already begun the Treaty process when the Uluṟu Statement settled on the order of Voice, Treaty, Truth. But I think we can safely assume that whether it’s Voice at federal level or Treaty at state level, the IAPA simply want Indigenous people to thrive. Their policy platform is really simple stuff: a community that wants to be taken seriously and not treated paternalistically. They seek the space to address their own issues on their own terms.

Since the IAPA has had to resort to endorsing independents in the absence of registration, let’s have a quick look at the candidates. The IAPA's website doesn’t give much specific info on the two upper house candidates, so we can take it as read that Colin Mancell (Northern Metropolitan) and Storm Hellmuth (Western Victoria) support the IAPA’s policy platform. The blurb about Hellmuth emphasises that he wants systemic change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policies (he also has the best name on the ballot in the entire state).

Laylah Al Saimary might well be the youngest candidate in the state. She’s 18 and her goal is to represent Indigenous youth, particularly so-called “school refusers” such as herself. She wants to provide Indigenous-controlled schools that have a curriculum for Indigenous youth who struggle in the mainstream system. She also wants Indigenous drop-in centres where kids can receive help with homework and reading and writing skills—and eat some fresh fruit. Come on, how are we in a position as a country where an Indigenous candidate has to campaign for something as simple as fresh fruit for marginalised youth.

My recommendation: Give the candidates endorsed by the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australiaa good preferences. To vote for their Legislative Council candidates, you must vote below the line; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.indigenouspartyofaustralia.com/

[incrediblysincere]

man it's tough seeing americans make posts about australia's voice referendum 'no' result being caused by australia being horrendously racist bc. on the one hand, it is (racist, i mean). but i feel like most non australians don't know that the voice was far more complicated than just "are you racist yes/no". like a LOT of indigenous organisations including the canberr tent embassy wanted people to vote no. lidia thorpe, a prominent indigenous politician, quit the greens party over her support for a no vote (among other problems such as the greens being a racist trashfire of a party). many indigenous activists who support indigenous sovereignty see the voice as an impediment to sovereignty and indigenous liberation more than anything. like, don't get me wrong, a lot of white australians voted no for purely racist reasons, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth seeing people just leave it at that without understanding the wider context of the no vote or the circumstances surrounding it.

Black Peoples Union

Lidia Thorpe

Aboriginal Tent Embassy

[bopinion]

2023 / 41

Aperçu of the Week:

"They say in the Middle East: a pessimist is simply an optimist with experience."

(Ehud Barak, former General and Prime Minister of the State of Israel)

Bad News of the Week:

It was always such a thing when a new country was "discovered." Because that always applied only to the usually white seafarer from Europe, because - surprise! - there were, after all, in 99% of the cases already inhabitants on the spot. And in many of these places, unfortunately, the First Nations are still second-class citizens. For example in Australia. But that was about to change. At least that was the plan of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one to be bitterly disappointed. His idea was to give Australia's indigenous people more political influence with a constitutional amendment. They were to be heard only on matters that directly affect them ("voice to parliament"). Only heard - because everything would still be decided in the almost purely white parliament. So, if you want to see it that way, rather a symbolic gesture of respect. And yet a clear majority voted against the project in the corresponding referendum.

"For Prime Minister Albanese it is a heavy defeat," write the newspapers. What then is it for the Aborigines? Indigenous Australians are considered the oldest surviving culture in the world and have populated the continent for more than 60,000 years. They were there first. And yet only come last. Sad.

Good News of the Week:

Germany has a long checkered history with Poland. With dark and light chapters. One would like to speak of a community of fate. First the fall of the Iron Curtain, then accession to the European Union, all will be well. But then strange developments began in our neighbor to the east. Which can be associated with one name: Kaczynski.

The two brothers Lech and Jaroslaw with their PiS party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc / Law and Justice) have had a decisive influence on Poland's last 20 years. With their programmatic emphasis on nationalism, EU skepticism, social conservatism, right-wing populism, etc., they were a reliable partner of Hungary's omnipotent Viktor Orban and a declared opponent of Brussels and Berlin. This is also how they campaigned: they did not want to be told anything more from the European Union and especially (by name!) from Germany. A ridiculous distortion of reality. Or a bad joke.

Facing them in the election this Sunday were several opposition parties. And increasingly critical voters, who in some places took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands to take a stand for the independence of the judiciary, for example. Their figurehead, Donald Tusk, can in many ways be seen as the antipode of the Kaczynskis. Among other things, he is an avowed pro-European. Of course, after all, he served for five years as president of the European Council and another three as chairman of the European People's Party.

Tusk is now the real winner. Even if he only came in second place with his Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform) party. This is because, unlike the PiS, which is still the strongest party but suffered significant losses, he has the realistic prospect of being able to form a solid parliamentary majority with programmatically compatible coalition partners. "This is an epochal event, comparable to Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump," writes the news magazine Der Spiegel. Good prospects for Poland. For its neighbor Germany. And for all of Europe.

Personal happy moment of the week:

My son is going to do more sports. And I don't mean esports. But basketball. In the coming week he will do his first workouts. With physical movement. And sweat. I also like the fact that he has already ridden his bike to school 90% of the time this school year, rather than taking the bus. Even if, I suspect, the main reason is that he doesn't have to get up until fifteen minutes later. Anyway, physical exercise is important for a 15-year-old. So I try to pay attention to that. Let's go!

PS: Now he has already been to basketball training for two hours for the first time. And seems to like it. And I like it too.

I couldn't care less...

...that families can now get a low-interest loan from the government to buy a house. For most of us (and especially in the Munich area) it is utopian to be able to afford home ownership either way.

As I write this...

...I am waiting for the new album of The Rolling Stones. For 18 years the probably longest active rock'n'rollers of all times haven't released any new songs. But next Friday the time has come: "Hackney Diamonds" will be released. I'm curious.

Post Scriptum

In the times of the Gaza war, you have to weigh your words carefully. Unlike the Ukraine war, there is no clear assignment of perpetrator and victim roles of two states here. Rather, the line must be drawn here between rulers who act irresponsibly and peoples who endure the consequences of their actions. Have to endure, there is no choice.

On the one hand, there are the terrorists of Hamas (not the Palestinians!), who, ideologically blinded, are causing inconceivable carnage among innocent civilians. On the other hand, there is an increasingly right-wing radical regime in the Knesset that denies the Palestinian people their right to exist and their territorial integrity (keyword: settlement policy in the West Bank). In between are two peoples who are experiencing unbelievable suffering.

Rarely do the EU and China agree, but their joint appeal for a two-state solution will once again go unheard. In this conflict, I cannot take sides with either side. I simply wish that the killing would stop. And that the rulers on both sides can agree on a sustainable peace in the interest of their peoples. But my hope will probably prove to be quite naive once again...

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 6.21

Holidays

Alzheimer’s Awareness Day

Atheist Solidarity Day

Baby Boomer Recognition Day

Banjo Lesson Day

Bill Murray Day

Create a New National Day Day

Day of the Martyrs (Togo)

Father’s Day (Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Syria, UAE)

Ferris Wheel Day

Flag Day (Greenland)

Flag Burning Day

Global MND / ALS Awareness Day

Go Skateboarding Day

Het Meetjesland Day (Belgium)

International Climate Change Day

International Flower Day

International Anirida Day

International Music Day (f.k.a. World Music Day)

International T-Shirt Day

International Yoga Day (UN)

LP Day

Martyrs' Day (Togo)

Migraine Solidarity Day

Naked Hiking Day

National Aboriginal Day (a.k.a. First Nations Day or Indigenous Peoples Day; Canada)

National Arizona Day

National ASK Day

National Create a New National Holiday Day

National Day of the Gong

National Dog Party Day

National eGiving Day

National Heroes’ Day (Bermuda)

National Jimmy Day

National Professional Medical Coder Day

National River Tubing Day

National Seashell Day

National Selfie Day

National Wedding Day

National Yard Games Day

Obscenity Day

Onion Day (French Republic)

Reaping Machine Day

Reserves Day (UK)

Shades for Migraine Day

Short Story Day (Africa)

Show Your Stripes Day

Stock Up On Antiperspirant Day

Suffolk Day (UK)

SYNGAP1 International Awareness Day

T-Shirt Day

Turner Syndrome Awareness Day (UK)

Ulloortuneq (Greenland)

World Day Against ELA (Spain)

World Giraffe Day

World Handshake Day

World Hydrography Day

World Kamasutra Day (India)

World Motorcycle Day

World Music Day (Paris, France)

Food & Drink Celebrations

Gin and Tonic Season begins

Johnnie Walker Day

Lambrusco Day

National Cookie Dough Day

National Smoothie Day

Peaches and Cream Day

Red Apple Day (Australia)

3rd Wednesday in June

National Healthcare Estates & Facilities Day (UK) [3rd Wednesday]

Independence Days

Greenland (Assumed Self-Rule; 2009)

New Hampshire Statehood Day (#9; 1788)

Principality of Aigues-Mortes (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Aaron of Brittany (Christian; Saint)

Alban of Mainz (Christian; Saint)

Aloysius Gonzaga (Christian; Saint)

Day of the Crab (Pagan)

Engelmund of Velsen (Christian; Saint)

Eusebius of Samosata (Christian; Saint)

St. Henry (Positivist; Saint)

Henry Ossawa Tanner (Artology)

Leufredus (a.k.a. Keufroi; Christian; Saint)

Martin of Tongres (Christian; Saint)

Meen (a.k.a. Mevenus or Melanus; Christian; Saint)

Onesimos Nesib (Lutheran)

Ralph (Christian; Saint)

Sam Kinison Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Skateboarding Day (Pastafarian)

Solstice [1st Day of Summer in Northern Hemisphere] (a.k.a. ... 

Acophony (G’BroagFran of Anti-Music; Church of the SubGenius)

Alban Hefin (a.k.a. Litha or Midsummer; Celtic, Pagan) [4 of 8 Festivals of the Natural Year]

Aimless Wandering Day

Anne and Samantha Day

Aymara New Year (Año Nuevo Aymara; Bolivia)

Cuckoo Warning Day (it will be a wet summer if the cuckoo is heard today)

Daylight Appreciation Day

Day of Private Reflection

Day of the Martyrs (Togo)

Feast of the Great Spirit (Native American)

Fête de la Musique

Finally Summer Day/Finally Winter Day

Hump Day (Tasmania)

Indigenous New Year (We Tripantu; Año Nuevo Indígena; Chile)

International Day of the Celebration of the Solstice

Into Raymi (Incan Sun God Festival; Sacsayhuamán Andes Mountain Natives)

Jaanipäev (Estonia)

Jāņi (Latvia)

Juhannus Day (Finland)

Kupala (fertility rite)

Kupala Night (Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Russia)

Litha (Wiccan/Pagan; northern hemisphere)

Midnight Sun Festival (Nome, Alaska)

Midsomarsblog (Norse celebration of fishing, trading & raiding)

Midsummer

Midsummer Baal (Celtic)

National Celluma Light Therapy Day

National Daylight Appreciation Day

National Day of Greenland

National Energy Shopping Day

Polar Bear Swim (Nome, Alaska)

Saint Jonas' Festival (Lithuania)

Solsticio de Invierno (Bolivia)

Sommar Börjar (Sweden)

Tall Girl Appreciation Day

33-1/3 Day

Tiregān (Iran)

Wadjet (Ancient Egypt)

We Tripantu (winter solstice festival in the southern hemisphere; Chile)

Wianki (Poland)

Willkakuti (Andean-Amazonic New Year; Aymara)

World Humanist Day

World Peace and Prayer Day

Yule (Wiccan/Pagan; southern hemisphere)

Sub-Human Cannonball (Muppetism)

World Humanist Day (Pastafarian)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 29 of 60)

Premieres

Ain’t She Sweet (WB LT Cartoon; 1952)

Alpocalypse, by Weird Al Yankovic (Album; 2011)

Anna (Film; 2019)

The Bling Ring (Film; 2013)

The Blue Umbrella (Pixar Cartoon; 2013)

Bon Ives, by Bon Iver (Album; 2011)

Chinatown (Film; 1974)

Cocoon (Film; 1985)

Creepin on ah Come Up, by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (EP; 1994)

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1868)

Donald and the Wheel (Disney Cartoon; 1961)

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, by Elton John and Kiki Dee (Song; 1976)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Animated Disney Film; 1996)

Impact is Imminent, by Exodus (Album; 1990)

Lifeforce (Film; 1985)

Lilo & Stitch (Animated Disney Film; 2002)

The Litterbug (Disney Cartoon; 1961)

Minority Report (Film; 2002)

Mr. Tambourine Man, by The Byrds (Album; 1965)

Monsters University (Animated Pixar Film; 2013)

Moves Like Jagger, by Maroon 5 (Song; 2011)

The Parent Trap (Film; 1961)

The Promise of Joy, by Allen Drury (Novel; 1975)

Return to Oz (Film; 1985)

The Rocketeer (Film; 1991)

Smoking: The Choice is Yours (Disney Educational Cartoon; 1981)

Sweet Child o’ Mine, by Guns n’ Roses (Song; 1988)

The Te of Piglet, by Benjamin Hoff (Spiritual Book; 1993)

Toy Story 4 (Animated Pixar Film; 2019)

A Walk on the Wild Side, by Nelson Algren (Novel; 1956)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Film; 1966)

World War Z (Film; 2013)

Today’s Name Days

Adalbert, Florentina (Austria)

Margareta, Naum (Croatia)

Květa (Czech Republic)

Sylverius (Denmark)

Kaari, Karlotte, Karola, Karoliine, Karolin, Lota (Estonia)

Into (Finland)

Silvère (France)

Adalbert, Florentina, Margot (Germany)

Methodios (Greece)

Rafael (Hungary)

Ettore, Silverio (Italy)

Imula, Maira, Rasa, Rasma (Latvia)

Silverijus, Žadvainas, Žintautė (Lithuania)

Salve, Sølve, Sølvi (Norway)

Bogna, Bogumiła, Bożena, Florentyna, Franciszek, Michał, Rafaela, Rafał, Sylwery (Poland)

Metodie (România)

Maria, Valeria (Russia)

Valéria (Slovakia)

Florentina, Silverio (Spain)

Flora, Linda (Sweden)

Earl, Earline, Errol, Fatima, Ofelia, Omar, Omarion, Ophelia (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 173 of 2024; 193 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 25 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Duir (Oak) [Day 10 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Wu-Wu), Day 4 (Geng-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 2 Tammuz 5783

Islamic: 2 Dhu al-Hijjah 1444

J Cal: 22 Sol; Oneday [22 of 30]

Julian: 8 June 2023

Moon: 11%: Waxing Crescent

Positivist: 4 Charlemagne (7th Month) [St. Henry]

Runic Half Month: Dag (Day) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 1 of 94)

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 1 of 31)

Calendar Changes

Cancer (The Crab) begins [Zodiac Sign 4; thru 7.22]

Summer [Season 3 of 4; thru 9.23]

[warningsine]

SYDNEY, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Australia on Saturday decisively rejected a proposal to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution, in a major setback to the country's efforts for reconciliation with its First Peoples.

Australians had to vote "Yes" or "No" in the referendum, the first in almost a quarter of a century, on the question of whether to alter the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people through the creation of an Indigenous advisory body, the "Voice to Parliament".

Nationwide, with almost 70% of the vote counted, the "No" vote led "Yes" 60% to 40%. Australian broadcaster ABC and other TV networks have projected that a majority of voters in all six of Australia's states would vote against altering the 122-year-old constitution.

A successful referendum requires at least four of the six to vote in favour, along with a national majority.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged it was not the outcome he had hoped for but said the country would have to seek a new way forward for reconciliation.

"Our nation's road to reconciliation has often been hard going," Albanese said in a televised news conference.

"Tonight is not the end of the road and is certainly not the end of our efforts to bring people together."

Academics and human rights advocates fear the win by the "No" camp could set back reconciliation efforts by years.

The Voice to Parliament was proposed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a 2017 document crafted by Indigenous leaders that set out a roadmap for reconciliation with wider Australia.

Australia's Indigenous citizens, who make up 3.8% of the country's 26 million population, have inhabited the land for about 60,000 years but are not mentioned in the constitution and are, by most socio-economic measures, the most disadvantaged people in the country.

Supporters of the proposal believed entrenching an Indigenous Voice into the constitution would unite Australia and usher in a new era with its Indigenous people.

Many Indigenous people favoured the change, but some said it was a distraction from achieving practical and positive outcomes.

The political opposition has criticised the measure, saying it is divisive, would be ineffective, and would slow government decision-making.

"I'm devastated," Indigenous leader and prominent "Yes" campaigner Thomas Mayo said on ABC News.

"We need a Voice. We need that structural change."

SETBACK FOR ALBANESE

Referendums are difficult to pass in Australia, with only eight of 44 succeeding since the country's founding in 1901. This is the first referendum in Australia since voters rejected a proposal to become a republic almost a quarter of a century ago.

In 1967, a referendum to count Indigenous people as part of the Australian population was a resounding success with bipartisan political support.

This year's referendum, however, has not garnered unified support, with leaders of the major conservative parties campaigning for a "No" vote.

No referendum has passed in Australia without bipartisan backing.

The Voice has been a key feature of Prime Minister Albanese's term in office, and a referendum loss would stand out, political analysts say, as his biggest setback since coming to power in May last year.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton criticised Albanese for holding a referendum "that Australia did not need to have".

"The proposal and the process should have been designed to unite Australians, not to divide us," he told a news conference after the result was known on Saturday.

A misinformation campaign that spread through social media also sparked fear that the Voice - a purely advisory body - would become a third chamber of parliament, resulting in more federal aid to Aboriginal people, and more disputes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Albanese also criticised some sections of the media that he said had steered the referendum debate away from the core issues.

"We have had, including in outlets represented in this room, discussions about a range of things that were nothing to do with what was on the ballot paper tonight," Albanese said.

[optikes]

Joseph Lycett (1774-1825) born in England, transported to New South Wales 1814

1 Aborigines spearing fish, others diving for crayfish, a party seated beside a fire cooking Fish (1817)  watercolour

2 Fishing by Torchlight (1819) watercolour

A     abc.net.au     For years, an album of remarkable Australian paintings languished in a second-hand book shop in London. It was the work of Joseph Lycett—a convicted English forger who was transported to New South Wales in the early nineteenth century.

The National Library of Australia stepped in and bought the book. It's now been given the highest priority in the National Archives.

On his arrival in Sydney in 1814, Joseph Lycett was seconded by Captain James Wallis in Newcastle to illustrate the new settlement with the hope of attracting migrants. Lycett also closely observed the Indigenous people.

The Lycett Album, consisting of 20 watercolours, observes in detail the cultural practices of the Awabakal people of the Newcastle region. It depicts activities, daily life and interactions that had not previously been recorded, and have since disappeared.

 B    Linda Groom      nla.gov.au

One of the items of considerable significance in the National Library’s Pictures Collection is the bound volume commonly referred to as ‘the Lycett Album’. It contains twenty watercolours painted prior to 1828 by Joseph Lycett (c. 1775-1828).

Although a number of European artists of the early colonial period, such as Nicolas Martin-Petit and Richard Browne, made portraits of Aborigines, it is rare to find paintings that show the daily life of Aborigines. Among Lycett’s watercolours are the only known depictions from the period of Aborigines engaged in activities such as spearing eels and eating meat from beached whales.

Early colonial Australia did not attract many professional artists; most paintings prior to the 1820s were made by convicts or naval officers. Joseph Lycett was a convict, transported for forgery. During his time in Australia from 1814 to 1822, he was given freedom to work as a clerk and as an artist, except for one year of hard labour in the coal mines at Newcastle . He came into contact with Aborigines on at least one documented occasion when he was wounded in an attack by them.

Lycett’s skills as a forger carried over into his art. Two of the watercolours in the Lycett album appear to have been partly copied by Lycett from other works.