Here is a draft alternative media release for Jenny Macklin — what she should have said as a response to the current consultation rather than harping on about truancy and grog.
Indigenous communities
Census 2011: finding and counting 2.3% of the population
Thanks to $20 million from the government to address the undercount of indigenous people this time around, a significant amount of census resources have been allocated to ensure indigenous communities are counted accurately, reports Amber Jamieson and Crikey intern Sophie Malcolm.
Reconciliation lecture: avoiding ‘roads to hell’
Reconciliation and Closing the Gap require not so much a choice between symbolism and practical measures, but both, sayss Andrew Podger, professor of public policy, Australian National University, in the Reconciliation Australia lecture he gave today.
Danger in not recognising carbon carrying capacity in wild landscapes
The remote location of Aboriginal communities combined with their local knowledge becomes an economic advantage rather than a liability when controlling feral animals, writes Crikey naturalist Lionel Elmore, who worked on east coast of Cape York in the early 1990s.
Falling through the gaps: indigenous community left behind after Yasi
Cyclone Yasi hit Australia more than a month ago, but one town that wasn’t even damaged by the storm is still suffering the consequences of a mass evacuation.
Big Ideas Larissa Behrendt: indigenous policy — three fixes in three minutes
There have been claims that plenty of money has been spent on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with little impact. Here are three targeted policy initiatives that would give guaranteed good results, writes Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law and director of research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology.
Workers say they’re being ripped off under indigenous housing program
Aboriginal people say they are working for the BasicsCard on the federal Government’s $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) in Northern Territory communities, writes Paddy Gibson, senior researcher, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, UTS.
Beyond the despair part III: closing the gap, at the coalface
Journalism student Clare Negus writes about the fight for true reconciliation and the individuals taking ‘closing the gap’ into their own hands in indigenous WA townships.
Beyond the despair part II: the communications barrier in black Australia
Yesterday in Crikey, journalism student Clare Negus reported from aboriginal townships in mid-west Western Australia. In the second chapter of a three-part series, Negus looks at the communications barrier.
Beyond the despair: just another white fella with a notepad
A pervasive and profound sense of hopelessness has settled over much of indigenous Australia. Journalism student Clare Negus visited townships in Western Australia to report on how communities keep the faith.
Video of the Day: The jig is up: Peter Sutton and Marcia Langton
Author and anthropologist Peter Sutton talks to Marcia Langton about the declining standards of health and education in remote indigenous communities, and what needs to be done to address it.
Up to their ankles in sewage, a remote community’s patience runs out
The NT community of Ampilatwatja is overrun with raw sewage, and with complete inaction from the government, the residents have finally cracked.
Intervention tension festers in the Territory
The postponement of the NTER Review Board report is characteristic of the whole unhappy intervention adventure, writes Graham Ring.
Indigenous broadcasters pin Peter Garrett to the wall
Forget the paintings minister, and start by giving broadcasters some walls, writes Ellie Rennie.
Mungatopi up on drug charges
Northern Territory Country Liberal Party candidate and prominent indigenous Catholic Tristan Mungatopi has been charged with drug possession, writes Bernard Keane.
Crikey Policy Comparison Pt 4: Indigenous affairs
The government’s 500 page bill on the Indigenous intervention raced through the lower house of federal parliament and stopped to catch its breath — albeit fleetingly — in a senate committee before becoming law. So how do the two major parties differ on the issue?
Scrapping CDEP is just dumb, dumb, dumb
Ministers Joe Hockey and Mal Brough’s decision to abolish the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme in remote Indigenous communities in the NT will have marked impacts on the arts industry, the management of Indigenous Protected Areas, and community based Caring for Country ranger projects. And it’s not just these success stories that will suffer; it’s likely that there will be wider local, regional and national costs from this myopic ill-considered policy shift, writes Jon Altman.
Chaney and Calma: Let’s tackle the invisible gorilla of indigenous affairs
Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Fred Chaney, Director of Reconciliation Australia, addressed the National Press Club yesterday. Their message: let’s talk long term.
How to overcome indigenous disadvantage: Productivity Commission chairman tells
This evening, Gary Banks, chairman of the Productivity Commission, will deliver a speech entitled ‘Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage in Australia’ to the Second OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy”, in Istanbul, Turkey. To follow are some timely extracts.
The Tuesday Top Twenty
Peter Costello has been toppled. The Treasurer has tumbled down the charts in this week’s Crikey/Media Monitors Top Twenty, pushed out by a trio of premiers – Peter Beattie, Morris Iemma and Steve Bracks.
Save the children, yes, but what’s with the land grab?
One of the most worrying aspects of the Government’s proposal is the plan to further amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) so as to scrap the permit system to enter Aboriginal land and to allow the Federal Government to acquire whichever Aboriginal townships it chooses under five-year leases, writes Sam de Silva.
Tom Calma: More questions than answers
My concern with the Federal Government’s proposal is that it doesn’t put in place the preventative measures that indigenous people need to stop the violence, and then prevent it from reoccurring, writes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Crikey Says – 22 June, 2007
Rudd does a Beazley.
