Black-white divide greatest in city
The widest opportunity gaps between black and white exist in the heart of the nation’s largest city, not the bush or even remote communities, new research shows. Only 40.1 per cent of indigenous people in inner Sydney have completed Year 12 compared with 79.3 per cent for their non-indigenous neighbours – a gap of 39.2 percentage points.

The Australian, July 2, 2007

ALP pledges $30m for teachers in NT
A Labor government would spend $30 million to provide teachers for indigenous children not enrolled in school in the Northern Territory, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd says.

Herald Sun, July 1, 2007

Govt rejects ‘land grab’ accusations
The Federal Government says claims its emergency action to protect Aboriginal children from sexual abuse is a land grab for mining companies are completely off the mark.

2GB News, July 1, 2007

Don’t expect many child abuse prosecutions: task force
The chairwoman of the emergency response task force overseeing the Northern Territory intervention plan doubts many child sex abusers in Indigenous communities will be brought to justice.

ABC Online, June 30, 2007

Aborigines facing army intervention to tackle child abuse, violence and alcoholism
It is a shocking indictment of the dysfunction and despair to be found lurking around the rust-red deserts and sun-baked savannah woodlands of the outback. Australian soldiers - accustomed to fighting vicious ethnic militia in East Timor and battling the Taliban in Afghanistan - were last week deployed to their own backyard. In an unprecedented move, troops fanned out to more than 60 isolated townships to support police reinforcements as they try to tackle an epidemic of child sex abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence.

The Sunday Herald, UK, July 1, 2007

Suspect motivations behind stark Government rhetoric
“The Prime Minister has said, ‘We are dealing with children of the tenderest age who have been exposed to the most terrible abuse’. He asks, ‘What matters more: the constitutional niceties, or the care and protection of young children?’ It is not a choice of one or the other. There are grounds for suspecting the complex motivations of government which puts the choice that starkly. Canberra cannot care for and protect these children if it rides rough shod over the constitutional niceties of relations with Darwin. Canberra must co-operate with Darwin. In the end, Canberra cannot deliver helpful paternalism to these terrified, huddled children without Darwin’s co-operation.” Frank Brennan SJ

Eureka Street, June 28, 2007

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education website (NATSIEW) is a collection of over 2000 internet resources related to Indigenous culture history and education of Australia’s first peoples.

www.natsiew.nexus.edu.au

The Barunga Festival 2007
Every year the Barunga Festival draws thousands of visitors from all over Australia to this small community south of Katherine in the Northern Territory, to catch some of the NT’s favourite bands, plus didge workshops and performances, traditional dance, arts and crafts, bush tucker tasting and spear throwing, and a full sports program attracting participants from remote communities throughout the Territory. Join us for the highlights of this fantastic event – an Aurora premiere to mark NAIDOC Week which celebrates indigenous culture and achievements.

Aurora TV, Sunday July 8 @ 8:30pm, Monday July 9 @ 4:30pm and Wednesday July 11 @ 7:00pm.

“Aboriginal Charter of Rights”
We want hope, not racialism,
Brotherhood, not ostracism,
Black advance, not white ascendance.
Make us equals, not dependants.
We need help, not exploitation,
We want freedom, not frustration;
Not control, but self-reliance,
Independence, not compliance,
Not rebuff, but education,
Self-respect, not resignation.
Free us from mean subjection,
From a bureaucrat Protection.

Excerpt from “Aboriginal Charter of Rights” (1962) by Oodgeroo Noonuccal. To read the entire poem click here.

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