Victoria police (Disco enforcers) crack down on outdoor fun.

Below is a statement from a party goer, cracked down on by the Victoria police for the crime of public gathering.

So it turned out to be an eye opening weekend. I went to work at a party that was going to be held illegally under the west gate bridge. Due to some silly stuff ups the rangers found out about the party and it was shut down before it began. A fleet of police cars arrived and informed the crew that the party was not going to go ahead. However they decided to relocate and so set up began at a new site in Richmond down near the Yarra. After a few hours of setting up during which there was only one fly over by the police in a chopper the site was almost ready for the party to begin. That’s when the next police response began that escalated to some of the most drastic police activity I have witnessed in Melbourne outside of protests. Initially two squad cars arrived and there was the usual banter between ‘organisers’ and officers that of course led to the party once more being told it could not go ahead. However instead of following the usual sort of track of this sort of conversation followed by some fines or just a ‘clear off’ please they decided to call in ‘back up’.

Over the next 20 minutes a large number of squad cars arrived and the road was blocked so no one new could get in but those of us down on site could not get out. Then one of the large ‘brawler’ vans arrived and a number of officers began to climb out and kit up including the black jumpsuit clad ones that tend to roam as paramilitaries amongst our police these days. At that point a dog squad also arrived. Not a drug sniffing dog squad but Alsatian attack dogs purely there for ‘crowd dispersal’. After intimidating the site like this for about half an hour the majority of the stages began packing up and so the cops eventually left. One stage however had remained set up and after about an hour as we packed up they switched on and obviously word got out that the party was still going as hundreds of punters began to roll in. The police returned about an half an hour into this and informed everyone that they would come back in force if the paddock was not cleared immediately. They left and as I was stuck in the paddock waiting for a car to return I had an inkling that things would turn sour.

But the other stage now had there backs up and in hindsight it was a bit stupid of them but they fired up there system again and quite a nice little party gathered for the next 50 minutes. Now in the past such an action would have incurred fines and further discussion but this night it was all about brutality. The police arrived about 50 minutes later once more sealed off the site so no one could get in and out and came in hard. They formed a cordon and swept the area punching at people as they aggressively cleansed the site. There was at least one arrest as they dragged a tripper in Halloween costume off to the divvy van. The system was shut off and much of the crowd fled. I was lucky enough to talk my way out of being arrested so I could remain with gear that was still left in the paddock and make sure it was not impounded. As one car drove out it was stopped and I saw one of the commanding officers lean in and have words with the driver before letting him go. As the car sped off he turned back to the line of men under his control and yelled out “That one was a Lebbo I think. He was one of those Lebanese”. The dripping hatred in his voice as he said it was astonishing. Finally they cleared out leaving me and a skeleton crew packing down the last system.

I was finally picked up and we headed over to a friends in Collingwood. He lives on Easey street just off Smith Street. A warehouse there about two doors down was having a Halloween party. They claimed in the media that they were expecting 25 people but 500 turned up. Now whether this was because the other party was shut down and now there were hundreds of people looking for somewhere to go is I guess speculation but it may have been a contributing factor. It was once again a lovely crowd albeit large but your standard Northcote hippie type crowd all jolly and happy. As we drove into the street they were milling across the entire street and they happily moved aside to let our vehicle through. About half an hour after arriving we heard a disturbance had begun outside. It turned out that the entire RIOT SQUAD in full kit shields and batons and all had arrived and was sweeping the street. They declared that Easey street was a cleared area. I raced out of course to watch and witnessed people who lived on Easey street trying to get back into the homes being brutally thrown to the ground and told by the police that as this was now a cleared area they had to disperse to Smith street and were not allowed back into there homes until some hours later. So now apparently Victoria Police has the power to stop you from entering your own premises. Meanwhile inside the warehouse the party had been happening in which was now also sealed off (same tactic they had used up in Richmond) the brutal beatings were continuing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me-JruDzxmg

So it’s good to know that Victoria police is continuing its slide into complete depravity. And still no one in government calls for or allows a royal commission. So you can be a banker and take part in the worlds largest bank heist and you get a bonus. You can be a minimum wage earner who just wants to go out for a drink with your fellow slave after a hard week working for the bankers and there Militia WILL come and beat on you now.

Natural remedies on their way to being outlaws.

CODEX IN A NUTSHELL
: Codex have declared that nutrients are now illegal toxins which is a main factor which will allow Codex to devastate the health AND Organic food industries globally, in a move to make only pharmaceutical drugs and petrochemical pesticides the only option for humans in the 21 cebntury.

This will be implemented on DECEMBER 21st 2009 unless we convince our governments to not become CODEX COMPLIANT known as CA compliant. unless activists worldwide create resistance against this we will lose the freedom to use alternative medicine, nutritional suppliments, organic food AND they are proposing to re-legalise nine very harmful pesticides which have been banned for 60 years in 176 countries. AS you read remember American corporations dictate agri-business pesticides and food biotech products worldwise and ...
SO THIS AFFECTS YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW
Please FORWARD THIS MESSAGE / TELL FRIENDS / INFORM LOCAL MEDIA PUBLICATIONS / COMMUNITY RADIO there is little over 12 weeks left.
to find out how to help in other ways than already suggested visit
www.healthfreedomusa.org

CODEX IN DETAIL

Codex Alimentarius (World Food Code)
Summarized in 7 Points

HealthFreedomUSA.org, the website of the Natural Solutions Foundation, is beholden to no one: our only interest is health freedom. Rima E. Laibow, MD, successful natural medicine physician since the 1970s, has studied 16,000 pages of Codex documentation. Her conclusion is that people who say that Codex is “consumer protection”, “voluntary”, or “harmless” are, at best, seriously mistaken.

Codex in Depth: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=161
1) Started in 1962 by UN, Imposed by WTO Sanctions

Codex Alimentarius was created in 1962 as a trade Commission by the UN to control the international trade of food. Its initial intentions may have been altruistic but it has been taken over by corporate interests, most notably the pharmaceutical, pesticide, biotechnology and chemical industries.

Codex Alimentarius is backed up by the crippling trade sanctions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Any non Codex-compliant nation would face huge economic punishment since they would automatically lose in any food-trade dispute with a Codex compliant country.
2) “Nutrients are Toxins” Is Junk Science

Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) has two committees which impact nutrition.

One of them, the “Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses” (CCNFSDU), is chaired by Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, a physician who believes that nutrition has no role in health. This is the “top-guy” for Codex nutritional policy, and he has stated that “nutrition is not relevant to health”.

As unbelievable as it may sound, Dr. Grossklaus actually declared nutrients to be toxins in 1994 and instituted the use of toxicology (Risk Assessment) to prevent nutrients from having any impact on humans who take supplements! It is worth mentioning that Dr. Grossklaus happens to own the Risk Assessment company advising CCNFSDU and Codex on this issue. This company makes money when its toxicology services are used for the “assessment” of nutrients. Here in the U.S. we call that a “conflict of interest”.

Codex is made up of thousands of standards and guidelines. One of them, the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG), is designed to permit only ultra low doses of vitamins and minerals (and make clinically effective nutrients illegal). How can the VMG restrict dosages of vitamins and minerals? By using Risk Assessment (toxicology) to assess nutrients.

While Risk Assessment is a legitimate science (it is a branch of toxicology), it is the wrong science for assessing nutrients! In fact, in this context, it is actually junk science. Biochemistry, the science of life processes, is the correct science for assessing nutrients. Codex Alimentarius treats nutrients as toxins, which is literally insane.

Nutrients are not toxins – they are essential for life.

No matter what Codex Alimentarius officials say to convince you that Risk Assessment is a “science-based” approach to nutrients, it is not.

And it is worth repeating that Dr. Grossklaus, the head of Codex Alimentarius, owns the Risk Assessment company advising CCNFSDU and Codex on the “benefit” of using Risk Assessment to assess nutrients.
3) Not Consumer Protection – That’s Propaganda

Contrary to the propaganda, Codex Alimentarius has nothing to do with consumer protection. Nothing! Codex is about the economic ambitions of multi-national corporations, in particular, the pharmaceutical industry.

Using their multi billion-dollar marketing budgets, these industries have launched a massive media propaganda campaign to paint Codex Alimentarius as a benevolent tool of “consumer protection”, as well as to negatively taint the image of natural health options and mislead people to fear them as “dangerous”, so they will take drugs (which really are dangerous). Natural health products and options have an amazing safety record and are remarkably effective, especially when compared to pharmaceutical drugs.

Unfortunately, one-time defenders of health freedom such as National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA) and Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) have joined the propaganda bandwagon and are spreading false information saying that Codex Alimentarius is either “harmless” or benevolent “consumer protection”. Neither is true.

The membership of these one-time defenders of health freedom has become permeated by people from the pharmaceutical industry (for example, CRN counts as its members corporations such as Monsanto® and Bayer®).
4) Codex: Serious Threat to Health and Health Freedom

If Codex Alimentarius is implemented in the United States of America, therapeutic dosages of vitamins and minerals (and all other nutrients soon to follow) will become unavailable because they will literally become illegal.

Here’s how it would work, in a nut-shell:

Due to the junk science use of Risk Assessment (toxicology) to assess supposedly toxic nutrients, a false belief is being engineered saying that “nutritional supplements are dangerous to people’s health”.

Using this false belief generates calls to “protect” people from these “toxic” nutrients. After the calls come the bills to set ultra low permissible dosages (remember, nutrients are deemed “dangerous toxins” under this false belief). If enough of us and our Congressional delegates buy this nonsense, we and Congress would blindly comply with Codex Alimentarius’ VMG. And blind compliance is what the industries behind Codex Alimentarius intend.

Blind compliance goes hand-in-hand with lack of activism. This lack of activism allows our protective laws, classifying nutrients as foods with no upper limits (such as DSHEA), to be easily repealed and replaced with draconian laws to classify nutrients as toxins. And “harmonization” with the pro-illness, pro-pharmaceutical industry Vitamin and Mineral Guideline is there to fill the void.

Only intentionally ineffective, ultra low dose supplements would be legal, with or without a prescription, on the VMG list. If enough people do not take action, we can expect to watch nutritional supplement manufacturers and, thus health food stores, to go out of business, in a domino effect. The only player left standing would be Big Pharma.

Therapeutic grade vitamins, minerals, and amino acids would be eliminated from the marketplace (although a few low-dose supplements would be allowed by Codex, as a symbolic measure to avoid suspicion about their ulterior motive).

Natural health professionals would lose the tools of their trade (nutritional supplements) and health conscious people would be unable to choose natural health options for health promotion and disease treatment.

And that is, in a nutshell, how Codex Alimentarius is poised to make Natural and Nutritional Medicine (NNM) disappear from the legal health world and go underground. Who benefits? Big Pharma.

It would take a few years for the above scenarios to be feasible (Codex Alimentarius is meant to go into full global effect by 2010). The slower the process takes, the less alarmed people will be. That’s probably the logic of the architects of Codex Alimentarius.
5) Serves Economic Interests of Sickness Industries Through WTO and Napoleonic Code

More and more people are turning to natural health products globally. The “wellness” trend is a major trend in today’s society. The more natural health products people use, the fewer drugs they buy. The pharmaceutical industry, which is part of the “Sickness Industry”, fears the inevitable shift toward natural health care.

Instead of accepting the will of the people and rethinking the future of the pharmaceutical industry, the industry has decided upon an unethical course of action: the use of deception and deceit to eliminate natural health products completely.

Codex Alimentarius is a shrewd vehicle for protecting the pharmaceutical industry from the loss of income it stands to suffer due to the inevitable growth of natural healthcare.

Codex Alimentarius is the resistance of the dinosaurs to inevitability: the burgeoning desire of humanity for a healthier, saner, and more sustainable way of life.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) intends to force Codex Alimentarius upon the nations of the world, including the U.S. This would be done under the threat of massive economic sanctions if WTO-countries do not comply with Codex Alimentarius.

Furthermore, Codex is based in the Napoleonic Code, not Common Law. That means that under Codex Alimentarius, anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden. Under Common Law, we hold that anything not explicitly forbidden is permitted. The difference is the difference between health freedom and health tyranny. Codex Alimentarius would be able to ban supplements by default.
6) DSHEA Protects America From Codex Alimentarius

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA, 1994), an American law classifying our supplements and herbs as foods (which can have no upper limit set on their use), was passed by unanimous Congressional consent following massive grass-roots support organized by health food stores. Millions of American activists told Congress, in no uncertain terms:

“Protect nutritional supplements as foods or we will remove you from office”.

Congress listened and carried out the will of the people.

DSHEA appropriately classifies nutritional supplements as foods which can have no upper limits set on their use. DSHEA recognizes that people use nutrients safely to deal with their individually differing needs for nutrients. The concept of biochemical individuality means that people have different needs for nutrients at different times. Are nutrients toxins? No, they are not toxins. They are substances essential to prevent, treat and cure any chronic condition, in differing doses at different times in different people.

DSHEA protects the US from Codex Alimentarius’ deadly Vitamin and Mineral Guideline. We must reach our Congressional members, educate them about the facts on Codex Alimentarius and direct them to vote against anything that would threaten DSHEA.

Congress holds the keys to our health freedom. And it is their job to listen to us. Let’s not allow cynicism to tell us otherwise. We did it for DSHEA in 1994. We can do it again this year.
7) Your Action is Needed Now!

DSHEA is under significant legislative attack right now. Your letter-writing is crucial: if the members of Congress know that voting against health freedom means losing their jobs come election time, they will listen. Our job is to make sure they get the message loud and clear. Take action via our 3 easy steps and send personalized emails to Congress right now.

After taking action on HealthFreedomUSA.org, consider getting together with others in your area and visit your Congressional members in their home offices. If we wait, we lose our health freedoms. Once we “HARMonize” with Codex, by the way, we no longer have the right, while we belong to the WTO, to repeal or change that “HARMonization”!
Conclusion

The objective of the pro-Codex Alimentarius multi nationals is to “boil the frog slowly” so that we do not wake up to it in time to avoid Codex.

Once we have “HARMonize” to Codex Alimentarius, as long as we are in the WTO, we cannot amend or change what we’ve been “HARMonize” to.

Codex Alimentarius will go into global implementation by December 31, 2009, unless We, the People, avert it. We must act now because right now, with $758 Million spent on declared Congressional lobbying by Big Pharma last year, there are members of Congress who are trying to overturn DSHEA and allow Pharma-friendly free reign for Codex. If protective laws like DSHEA are destroyed, the sanctioning power of the autocratic WTO kicks in, and it will be impossible to get out from under Codex Alimentarius. We can protect our access to high potency nutrients and stave off an adulterated food supply only by putting pressure on Congress.

If you would like more in-depth information about Codex Alimentarius before taking action, please click here.

DID YOU KNOW:

The Natural Solutions Foundation meets regularly with foreign Heads of State, Ministers of Health, National Codex Committee members, journalists and health freedom/consumer advocates to alert them to their options in dealing with the threat Codex represents to their food security and safety and educate them about the power and protection inherent in implementing the protective Codex Two Step Process.

Taking back the power

Friday, 4 September By Chris Graham

NATIONAL, September 18, 2009: SICK of having your welfare entitlements compulsorily controlled by the Rudd government?

Tired of being treated like a third class citizen with no human rights?

Frustrated that you no longer enjoy the protection of the Racial Discrimination Act?

Well, why not do what Richard Downs and about 200 of his countrymen and women have done. Walk off your community, and start a new one... outside the reach of the racist Northern Territory intervention.

Two months ago, the residents of Ampilatwatja (pronounced 'Um-blood-a-watch') - a small Aboriginal community 300 kilometres north west of Alice Springs in a region known as Utopia - had had enough of the NT intervention and the Rudd government's refusal to consult with community leaders, or meet its many promises.

Raw sewage was seeping into their streets. Toilets in houses were backing up. New homes were promised, but never built (a feature of Rudd government inaction across the Northern Territory - the NT intervention emergency housing program has still not built a single home, two years after it was launched).

And no-one from the federal government was listening.

So, inspired by the actions of Gurindji leader Vincent Lingiari four decades ago, almost 200 residents of the Ampilatwatja community simply abandoned the town and walked off into the scrub. They set up a semi-permanent protest camp outside the boundaries of the NT intervention ('prescribed areas' take in Aboriginal towns), about three kilometres north of the main township.

And today, that's where they remain.

Elders are living under tarpaulins and in tents. One Aboriginal woman is living on the back tray of a ute.

The temporary protest camp has now become the roots of a permanent community. A new Utopia, free of control by Kevin Rudd's government.

"The government is playing a waiting game. They think we'll get sick of it and go back to the community," Mr Downs told NIT.

"But we're saying no, we're never ever going to go back to that community to live under your controls and measures.

"We'll stay out here till we die."

As soon as sufficient money is raised, construction will begin on a new Ampilatwatja.

"Once we've got enough funds we'll sink a new bore, and build some toilets and showers," he said.

"We're going to build tin shacks, tin sheds. We can make them into nice liveable homes. And we're not going to get any grants from the government to build government housing.

"We just don't want to have anything to do with governments. If we do that, it gives them an opportunity to control us and put leases over our land."

Mr Downs said his community had still not heard from the Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin, despite walking off two months ago.

He also confirmed that Macklin had still not made any attempt to visit residents or see for herself how Aboriginal citizens are living.

"I don't even know what she looks like, other than photos of her I've seen through the media," Mr Downs said.

But if Macklin or the Prime Minister now wanted to meet, it would not be in Canberra.

"We will meet with [Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin] in our community, on our terms and our conditions."

Mr Downs said the community was aiming to raise about $40,000 through donations - $20,000 to sink the bore, and then another $20,000 to build the toilets and showers.

"Donations of $10, $20, $50 from individuals would be really appreciated."


• Cash donations can be made to:
Alyawarr Inkerr-Wenh Aboriginal Corporation
BSB 085995 , Account number 821104317

• You can get details on the Utopia Walk-off in the related links section below.

Related Links

http://www.interventionwalkoff.wordpress.com
http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=18573
http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=18378

Law is good for Business

It's only a matter of time before they come for you, Blue.
Take the Red Pill.

Palestine, a renovators dream.

Genocide, the debate goes on.

Ian Thopre on the Northern Territory intervention

In a speech given at the “Beyond Sport Summit” in London on Thursday July 9, 2009, Australian Olympic legend Ian Thorpe dove head first into Australia’s failure to address the problems in its indigenous communities.

Ladies and Gentlemen, first may I thank you all for participating in this wonderful event. I am incredibly excited to be able to address you in regards to Beyond Sport.

For me this is an ambiguous topic.

As you may or may not be aware I am indeed an Olympian, I am no longer competing as a swimmer. I do take pride in my achievements in the pool and the valuable insight and education it has allowed me to take on, as I travelled the globe throughout my career.

When we speak of athletes there is a great deal that we know, like what is required of them, for me that meant 30 hours of training a week. We do this training just so we have a sporting chance to fulfil our life long dreams.

My travels with my sport since I was a very young and shy 14 year old opened the world to me, I didn’t realise at the time that this adventure would turn into a career beyond my wildest dreams.

I was the youngest male to ever represent Australia in swimming. By 15 I was the youngest ever male world champion. At 16 I broke four world records in four days and at 17 I was Olympic Champion, I had fulfilled my life long ambition as a child. I quickly realised I was a child in an adult world.

It was the child in me that throughout my career questioned why? Why is it so? Why is it done that way and why is the world the way it is?

In my travels, competition took me to places where sometimes I was met with abject poverty, whilst I simply swum. Why was my life so blessed when others just by fate had less opportunity than I? I guess I witnessed at a very young age how sport is an international language, a language that transcended borders, boundaries, cultural ideology, politics and even socio economic disadvantage.

I have only discussed my career up to when I was seventeen. It is because when I was 18 I established my charity, “Fountain for youth”. I didn’t realise at the time that this may be my biggest accomplishment. An achievement not in the sense of doing something right, rather a stepping stone where my values that I had gained from sport could be transferred to something that is bigger than sport and in my opinion far more important.

That said, sport was what has made me who I am today and has afforded me the privilege to work beyond sport. My charity work didn’t begin at 18, I was just 15 when I began working with those less fortunate then myself. It was those years that shaped my understanding of what charity was. It gave me an insight into the power of celebrity and sport, especially in sport mad Australia.

I realised my value to organisations trying to bring positive change lent enormous weight to these causes. I must say though this should be an outrage, because as an athlete I am not as qualified to comment on health or education as the health professionals and educators who daily tackle the big issues. In fact it is a bit disappointing that a teenager’s opinion garnered more attention than those who had been working on their chosen causes before I was even born. This realisation of the opportunity that my voice and name could lend to an excellent cause was the simple foundation laid, for my very own charity.

I continued to win medals, breaking world records and continued travelling around the world recognising the needs of people, particularly children, in many places I visited. By this time my charity had enough money raised to commit to larger projects, I sat at a board meeting and stated that I wanted to help the world’s neediest children.

I started to think of what impact my effort could have in places like Africa or South East Asia. I then visited some of the worlds neediest communities, places without access to planes and cars that seemed to be a world away … but now they were truly at my back door.

The communities that I visited had illiteracy levels at 93% … that was staggering only seven percent of a populous being able to read and write. Up to 80% of the children in these communities have serious hearing impairments because of “glue ear”; middle ear infections neglected from infancy. These kids will never hear the teacher in front of them in a classroom … that is, if there is a teacher and indeed a classroom.

Malnourished mothers are giving birth to babies that are seriously underweight and this only gets worse throughout a life born into poverty. Here diabetes affects one in every two adults. Kidney disease is in epidemic proportions in communities where living conditions; primary healthcare and infrastructure are truly appalling.

In this part of the world even the community leaders are afflicted by clusters of chronic illness. Syndrome X, the doctors call it, diabetes, renal disease, strokes, hypertension, cancer and heart disease. Some people die with four or five of these chronic illnesses.

Rheumatic heart disease among the children in these places is higher than in most of the developing world. But I was not visiting communities in the developing world, I was in the middle of Australia, remote, yes, but this is Australia, a country that can boast some of the highest standards of living of any nation in the world. How shocked I was that Syndrome X was afflicting so many of the 460, 000 Indigenous people of my country. As a result of these chronic illnesses and conditions Aboriginal life expectancy has fallen twenty years behind the rest of Australia. For some of my fellow countrymen life expectancy had plunged to just 46 years.

Australia’s grim record on health care for Indigenous people is by far the worst of any developed nation. Developed? How can a country be “developed” when it leaves so many of its children behind? Australia has not provided its citizens with an equal opportunity for primary health care, education, housing, employment, let alone recognition and a life of dignity.

Now I don’t expect you to just take my word for it. I am not a Doctor, I am simply an athlete. But ask Australian health professionals like Doctor Jim Hyde who says that while our nation has plenty of medical problems, only Indigenous Australians are facing a genuine health crisis.

The Governor of NSW, my home State, Professor Marie Bashir, an eminent Child Psychiatrist, has repeatedly pointed out the national disgrace of allowing the forty per cent of Indigenous children under the age of fifteen to put up with health problems found in no other developed nation. Patrick Dodson, winner of the Sydney Peace Prize and one of out greatest Statesmen, identifies health as a human right for Indigenous Australians.

“Only the most urgent government action”, said Australia’s “Father of Reconciliation”, “could change the inequality that has created this health tragedy in our own backyard.”

How could citizens with the greatest need be so under funded? If we were to indeed recognise the severity of this gross neglect, funding to these communities should be extradited.

A commitment to the first Australians is well within the means of my country, and this is what I find inexcusable. I am talking about an issue with a solution. For Australia to heal its wounds that have been weeping for 200 years we must not ignore the issue, we must start the healing.

Like many people in Australia I was completely unaware of the huge gap in health and education outcomes let alone the differences of life expectancy. I, as many had, made an assumption; Australia is a rich country, don’t we throw a lot of money at that problem? It disgusts me to speak those words now but that was what I thought. This was not just my lack of knowledge of this area but it is echoed throughout my nation.

An Aboriginal health expert, Shane Houston says:

Aboriginal people are viewed by too many in the Australian community as an unwelcome burden on the nation. Governments say they have spent a lot of money on Aborigines but where do you see the results in this squalor? So the mainstream concludes that Aboriginal health is a waste of money. It is all the fault of the poor blacks.

My people are somehow expected to just extricate themselves from this maze of life-threatening conditions. And if we can’t manage to do that, then many white people will shrug and say our end is inevitable.

Visiting Aboriginal people, in their homes, their communities, on their land, has allowed me to listen and given me some idea of the problems that Aboriginal people face. I listened to the concerns of mothers and fathers for the betterment of their children. This unwavering strength, in the face of social injustice. Within these communities I witness poverty, despair and pain … but I also see hope … hope from those men and woman who want more for their children.

With the words of these people in my head, I became part of a campaign in Australia called; “Close the Gap”, it is quite simply a program that recognises the difference between Indigenous and non Indigenous life expectancy in Australia and the huge gaps in all of the factors like education, jobs and housing that leave Aboriginal people so deeply disadvantaged.

Close the Gap is a commitment that this difference is unacceptable. It was supported by the Government and also the opposition. This is the kind of action that is required in Australia. The issue of Indigenous health and education goes beyond government, it is a fundamental right. I hope all sides of government continue to commit to this policy as a starting point and it is not another hollow promise that falls short.

Just this week Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd said that it was “devastating” that a new report by our productivity commission showed that Aboriginal people had made little progress to close those gaps since 2000. He said this was “unacceptable” and “decisive action” had to be taken. The truth is that none of the problems I have mentioned can truly be rectified until our government and my fellow Australians recognise the injustice faced by Aboriginal Australians and how they are denied so many human rights.

This has been highlighted once again by what is called in Australia “The Intervention”, the Federal Government’s takeover of 73 remote Aboriginal communities.

The Intervention was constructed by the previous government and has since been reported to have been assembled in the space of just one day. The irony is that Aboriginal people had been campaigning for decades about the living conditions and the neglect of their children within their communities. The programs to protect and nurture the children, had been grossly neglected and under funded by government over the last decade. What appears to be a political stunt and a grab for government control over Aboriginal people continues to this day under the new government.

Once more an Australian government has claimed it is doing its best for Aboriginal Australians by taking over their communities, appointing white managers, more government bureaucrats, promising all kinds of things, if Aboriginal people will just sign over their communities under forty year leases to the Federal Government. And politicians wonder why Aboriginal people do not trust them.

The truth is for over 200 years Australian governments have neglected and patronized Aboriginal people.

The Intervention is unlikely to provide any lasting benefit to Aboriginal people because it tries to push and punish them, to take over their lives, rather than work with them. One of Australia’s oldest and wisest Aboriginal leaders, Galawuy Yunupingu says the only way forward is for Aboriginal communities in these remote areas to be led and organised by their own organisations. Assimilation will not work.

So in the work I do, the way I try to contribute through my organisation, Fountain for Youth, we work with Aboriginal teachers, health workers, parents and children, with the health services and the schools, to encourage people to believe that we can move forward together. We support pre-schooling, health education, literacy backpacks that let kids carry home reading for the whole family. And we use sport where we can to make a difference.

As a swimmer, who would have thought I would have ended up supporting Flipper Ball, junior water polo for little Aboriginal kids in the mining communities of Western Australia. As a swimmer, who would have thought I would be back at university studying psychology and at the same time working with young Aboriginal university graduates on a mentoring program to help get more kids to complete High School and go on with their studies. As a swimmer, maybe I was expected to just be satisfied with the gleam of those gold medals. But all sportsmen and women know the truth — there is something beyond sport.

There is the challenge of playing a part in the human family … to contribute and make a difference. We can use sport and use our sporting status to improve the lives of children and whole communities in so many places. We can make it a fairer, safer playing field for everyone.

In twenty remote Australian communities and with thousands of Aboriginal children I know life will have some extra opportunities if I commit to work hard on this.

I do intend to work hard at this for the rest of my life.

That is my promise to you — beyond sport!

A is for the Letter A

Letter A from blu on Vimeo.

Freedom Happens.

Rational commentary on Hawaii liberation from the imperialists.

Dead Perez Police state

Will Australia get a slap on the wrist, or a kick in the crutch?...

United Nations to query Australia on possible human rights breaches

PARTS of Australia's immigration and indigenous policies have been named potential human rights violations by the United Nations.

The UN also has concerns about Australia's anti-terror laws and will ask the Federal Government to explain how it is ensuring they don't contravene international law.

The listing of potential international law breaches comes as the UN Human Rights Committee prepares to hold a review into Australia's human rights record in New York over the next fortnight.

The UN panel has made particular note of the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act for the indigenous intervention in the Northern Territory and whether there is any plan to close the Christmas Island detention centre, which has recently been reactivated.

The Government's preliminary response to the UN's concerns said asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island now had access to legal rights and their visa application would be processed within 90 days.

The Government has also defended its anti-terror laws, saying there was sufficient supervision to ensure human rights conventions were met.

Lawyers from the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Resource Centre flew to New York yesterday and will meet UN officials on Monday for a formal briefing.

One of the lawyers, Ben Schokman, told The Age that he would present concerns in eight areas of government policy.

Mr Schokman said the Christmas Island detention centre and the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act were likely to be the subject of criticism by the UN when the report was handed down at the end of March.

"But we will get a better picture of where the UN is likely to really criticise Australia's human rights record after Monday because they will be asking us questions in those areas," Mr Schokman said.

The Government will send members of the Attorney-General's Department to present its case, but Attorney-General Robert McClelland will not attend.

Mr Schokman said former Howard government attorney-general Philip Ruddock went over for the review of the racial discrimination tribunal.

"That didn't go so well, so ever since they haven't sent ministers."

Government officials will brief the UN in two meetings on March 23 and 24 in what has been called a "constructive dialogue".

As a signatory to the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Australia's human rights record is reviewed every four years.

Animal Lovers

Handy hints on whale removal...

What a cute Panda.

Did you get that warm fuzzy feeling?!!!

Yolngu man describes the Australian apartheid.

Yingiya is a Yolngu man from North East Arnhem Land. His family is based in Millinginbi and Gapuwiyak.

His statement Reads:

My name is Yingiya Guyula from Liya-dhalinymirr clan of the Djambarrpuyŋu People.

I am a Yolngu Studies lecturer at University in Darwin

The intervention has only created problems in East Arnhemland communities as well remote homeland centres. The Intervention has made our people more frustrated and confused, the white man's way of thinking is forced on us, and forcing us to abandon our culture.

Government Ministers have flown into Arnhemland communities just for few hours on the ground to gather a little bit of information, then they fly back into cities thinking they know how to fix the problems in the communities, thinking they know what's best for us.

Governments only looked at the fringe camps and towns and wet areas where people drink alcohol in places such as Nhulunbuy, Katharine, Tenant creek, Jabiru Alice Spring and Darwin.

White people see Aboriginal people in these places and think that these people that don't care about life, who don't care about living. But who are they to judge them. They class all Aborigines the same, but they are wrong.

These white people and those bureaucrats do not go out to the East Arnhemland communities, where my people live, where there has never been alcohol, and these is no child abuse. There are Aboriginal people living on remote communities of Arnhemland, in homeland centres, away from towns, away from the binge drinking areas, poker machine and gambling venues.

These are people that are able to manage their funds and work, or want work, educate, discipline, and practice ceremonies.

Quarantining of centrelink payments should be optional and not compulsory. Quarantining might be ok for people living in town camps and cities, where alcohol and gambling is a problem, but it doesn't work for my people living on remote Arnhemland homelands where there is no gambling, no alcohol and no child abuse.

We are asking simply for understanding that in life, their needs to be an understanding between two cultures. There needs to be respect between cultures.

Mapuru homeland has a Coop store which won a National award for selling healthy food. Centrelink won't approve it to accept quarantined money.

This means an aircraft charter fight from the mainland homeland at Mapuru to the closest shop on Elcho Island costs 560 dollars return. This means it's costing $560 return flight just to buy 150 dollars worth of food, where's the sense in that?

Arnhemland is like the European Union, made up of many different nations, each clan-nation with their own language, each with it own national estate. Bringing everybody in from the homeland centres into the major settlements is not the right thing to do because people do not feel secure or happy living in another mans land. Children are forced to go to school, but really they do not feel safe and unsecure on other peoples' land.

There are about 40 children who willingly run to school every day at Mapuru homeland because it's their home and they feel secure. Yet the N.T. Government wants to close down the homeland schools and bring everyone in to the major communities.

They think it's not worth spending money on homeland schools who have 40 or more children freely, and with their own will attending school, but is providing internet services, facilities and technology to white schools with attendances as low as 5. The Education department provides computers and internet and distance learning for hundreds of cattle station and small schools, across the Northern Territory, but homeland schools are neglected.

Further more I would like say that these homelands are our homes. There is no violence in the remote homeland communities, no child abuse happens, no alcohol, no pornography, because out there in the bush is where the cultural ceremonial grounds are, and from it is where strong discipline comes through spirits of our fathers talking through the land.

Both the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory Governments hasn't given equal opportunity to us the First Australians to be able to exercise our rights.

Through the intervention white man police stations have been put in the major communities for dealing mostly with cultural conflict issues (problems that can only be solved through traditional cultural justice), but instead the white policeman force white man law onto us, disrespecting our black fella law. They think they've done the right think. But often they're only making it much worst by locking up senior leaders, the very ones who are wise and keeping our Indigenous Law strong.

This time we are taking the case further where it can be heard loud and clear by people whose ears, brains, feelings have a heart for Indigenous Australians. It is now being taken further where there is an ear that will listen.

We are taking it further, to the United Nations and will talk about the intervention, about how income management in the Northern Territory has had a devastating and debilitating impact on remote communities in Arnhemland.

Finally, we need you to support us. We need you to tell governments that we want the same opportunities as white people, to live and enjoy our own cultural life, but they must stop trying to make us like whiteman, we have our own cultural identity. Let us be who we are, and together we will have hope for the future.

Thank you

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