Government neglect is to blame for the COVID-19 crisis disproportionately affecting First Nations communities in regional New South Wales. Rachel Evans, Paul Oboohov, Coral Wynter report.
remote communities
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has launched the First Nations Workers' Alliance to represent the 30,000 participants in the federal government’s Community Development Program (CDP), most of whom are Aboriginal people.
The move followed a resolution adopted by the ACTU executive authorising all means at its disposal to be mobilised towards dismantling the program. The resolution will kick-start the exploration of legal and legislative challenges to the program, as well as the mobilisation of campaign resources.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Particularly when it comes to responsible reporting of Aboriginal poverty.
Last week, Four Corners pointed its lens into a few Aboriginal communities in Western Australia and produced a beautiful piece of promotion for the WA government and its plans for a catastrophic assault on Aboriginal homelands.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s recent comments on the “lifestyle choice” of Aboriginal Australians living in remote areas are troubling, especially given his self-anointed role of “Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”.
I have been privileged to work in Aboriginal health, in a rural centre of South Australia, for a number of years. The simplistic notion that people live in remote regions purely due to a lifestyle choice is far from reality.
Thousands of people rallied in cities and towns around Australia on March 19 in opposition to the planned closure of around 150 remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. The issue was thrust into the spotlight in September when the federal government — without consultation — announced that it would stop providing funding to these homeland communities from July 1 this year.
The Bryte Side Of Life
Bryte
Too Solid / MGM
April 5, 2013
www.brytemc.com
Bryte's new album, The Bryte Side Of Life, may urge his listeners to think positive, but it's not all sweetness and light. The Aboriginal rapper has lost none of the political bite that snarled from his award-winning first album, Full Stop, four years ago.
The Perth-based performing poet kicks off his latest long-player with "World On Strike", a rallying call for global industrial action.