Muruwari and Budjiti man Bruce Shillingsworth appeared on the ABC’s Q&A program on October 28, but not as a panellist. He was allowed to be a part of the audience, but only after what he described as a “struggle”. The show, ostensibly about “drought”, did not include a single First Nations activist.
Muruwari and Budjiti man Bruce Shillingsworth
“The problem is mismanagement of the Barwon-Darling rivers” activist Fleur Thompson told the Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroboree Festival bus tour, as it passed through the western New South Wales town of Bourke on September 30.
“The federal and state governments could step in anytime and fix it, but they don’t and won’t. To do that the governments would have to admit fault.”
Well-documented corruption on a huge scale has dried out the Murray-Darling river system. Aboriginal communities along the rivers and its tributaries are calling it genocide. From September 28 to October 4, Aboriginal activist Bruce Shillingsworth helped those communities hold the Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroboree Festival. Green Left Weekly's Mat Ward, who took his nine-year-old son on the second bus, gives a blow-by-blow account of the trip.
Day 1: Sydney to Brewarrina
Bruce Shillingsworth, the Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroboree Festival tour organiser, said on October 1 that First Nations people need to be given back the power to make key decisions about water flow and the rivers.
More than 200 people are set to tour north-western New South Wales to bear witness to some of the state’s driest rivers and bring back solutions for the water crisis affecting local communities. The tour has been organised by Muruwari and Budjiti man Bruce Shillingsworth who spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Rachel Evans about its purpose and aims.
“I believe the numbers will change the game,” said First Nations activist and artist Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth in an interview with Green Left Weekly about the global climate emergency and the water crisis in the Murray-Darling river system.
Aboriginal rights activists rallied on July 12 as part of the NAIDOC celebrations.
The National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee emerged in the 1920s as part of the struggle by Indigenous Australians for their rights.
The Socialist Alliance is encouraging members and supporters to put motions to their trade unions and other community-based organisations to help build the September 20 student climate strike.