Friday, March 27, 2009

1% of a threat

Recent efforts by a coalition of OMCGs, rallying against SA legislation that prohibits assembly by known associates and members, have been thwarted by a violent death at Sydney airport after which authorities ducked & weaved from responsibility, and immediately claimed the draconian legislation should be introduced in NSW as well.

In the media today the arrival of a group of gang members from Melbourne was blamed as the catalyst for the assault, although the last few days have seen a variety of scenarios proffered by a range of well manicured police sources.

Four men have been charged but doubt has been cast over the arrests, with prosecutors and police unable to even locate the CCTV footage of the melee from the airport check-in area.

Local police and the AFP are in the hot seat for a slow response and no response, respectively, and before the boys in blue got there, one man had suffered fatal injuries while bystanders checking in at the Qantas desk watched on.

It has been alleged that local police only attended the domestic airport after frightened travellers called 000, and that the AFP who are constantly in attendence at all Australian airports, including Sydney's, did not respond to the CCTV live-streaming the fight from the front area of the domestic airport.

The reactionary response by posturing pollies who have hopped on the fear of crime vilification bandwagon, rings of such big media/big brother spin classics as the weapons of mass deception, kiddies overboard, and the 'terror' threat that now apparently justifies the substantial erosion of Australian citizens' privacy and civil liberties by our own authorities.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Sorry, what was that you said, Kevin?






It's one year on from the national apology delivered by the new-age sensitive prime minister that was set to put everything right - that is, apparently,(Kevvy pic c/o SMH blog) far right.

Over the last year Federal IA Minister Jenny Macklin and her Heritage counterpart Peter Garrett have had some tough sells, but since the beginning of this year they've had to try to market completely unpalatable policies that seem to hark from decades of neglect of Indigenous living standards and blatantly inequitable policies that existed under the Howard government.

The latest move sees a step up from the 99 year leases of the NT, to a swap of native title claims in remote areas in exchange for acceptable housing that isn't 3rd world standard.

It will be interesting to see what the international arena think of K.Rudd's new uber-right wing swing which flies in the face of the push to Close the Gap & improve health, education and housing for the First Nation People of Australia.

It's difficult to believe Mr Rudd & his band of merry policy makers would live in the accommodation that many Aboriginal people will have to live in(such as unairconditioned sea containers in the red hot Kimberley) if they wish to retain the basic freedom to fight in court to be acknowledged as the spiritual custodians of the land.

Apart from rendering native title legislation virtually redundant, the policy seems to indicate a massive oversight by the Federal Government of how the land is intrinsically linked to Indigenous people's religious beliefs, and their freedom to practice that religion as stated in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration which "is a recognised influence on common law."



In many states of Australia long term prisoners have no right to vote,
under the various states' Prison Acts they have no access to the media to voice human rights or transparency concerns nor do the media have a right to access them,
and current incarceration rates(in West Australia for men it's around 44% predominantly for trivial offences such as traffic notices or 'disorderly' conduct; for women about 70% & for kids around 95%; in the North-West almost 100% of prisoners are Indigenous) prevent adequate representation of Aboriginal beliefs in the public sphere, thus grossly limiting objections to unfair policy decisions.