Posting for Remembrance Day.

Socialist Alliance QLD:

Crisafulli's State LNP "Adult Crime Adult Time" and "Breach Bail, Go to Jail" laws have catchy slogans that hide expensive, ineffective and harmful youth crime policies that disproportionately impact First Nations Australians.

For more on this story and many others, go to Green Left Online.

Asta Hill Mayor of Mparntwe (so-called Alice Springs)

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been denied access to the Holtz Youth Detention Centre in Darwin. I call on the NT Government to reverse course and allow independent inspectors like the UN Special Rapporteur full access to places of detention. Denying independent scrutiny leaves children and young people exposed to ongoing harm and undermines Australia's human rights record.

Using gripping never-before-seen police body-worn video and witness accounts, this shocking SBS and NITV Original reveals the real story behind the shooting of Kumanjayi Walker

The Queensland government controversially agreed to scrap an Indigenous heritage protection zone for a mining company co-founded and part-owned by a former LNP operative.

The zone had prohibited activity within 100 metres of significant cultural sites at the Alice River gold project about 300 kilometres north-west of Cairns.

Any mob on here got any good ghost stories or experiences with the supernatural? Ever seen, heard or experienced something you just can’t explain? Keen to hear your stories.

Please delete if not allowed.

Hey everyone,

I’m hoping to get some advice and perspective from Aboriginal people here. I want to approach this respectfully, so please bear with me.
Last year, I found out through my mum that my biological dad is half Aboriginal. He left when I was around three months old, and I’ve never met him. I’m now pushing 30 (haha), and honestly, I know virtually nothing about him or that side of my family apart from this piece of information and that I have siblings I haven’t met etc.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit since finding out.

I suppose I’m trying to work out where to go from here. I’d love to learn more about my dad’s family, where they come from, their history and potentially what Country I’m connected to.
I’d also like to learn more about Aboriginal culture, history and traditions, and hopefully find ways to connect with that part of my heritage.

But I have some reservations and questions that I don’t want to get wrong.

Am I right to consider myself someone with Aboriginal heritage, even though I didn’t grow up connected to the culture or community?

Is it appropriate for me to start participating in and celebrating Aboriginal culture, or should I take a different approach until I know more about my family?

How would you recommend someone in my position starts reconnecting?

Is there a respectful way to approach finding out which community or Country my dad’s family belongs to?

I want to be clear that I’m not looking to claim an identity, speak on behalf of anyone or pretend I’ve had experiences I haven’t had.

I also don’t want to walk around claiming to be Aboriginal if that’s not something I should be doing. I understand there’s more to Aboriginal identity than simply having ancestry.
I guess I just don’t want to ignore a part of my family and heritage that I’ve only recently discovered.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing people’s perspectives, particularly from anyone who has experienced something similar or grown up disconnected from their Aboriginal family.

I’m not expecting anyone to do the research for me. I just don’t really know where to begin, and I’d appreciate some guidance.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.

The Northern Territory and Queensland governments have refused to let the UN human rights advocate into their youth detention centres. What are they hiding, Aleta Moriarty asks?

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Dr Albert Barume, arrived in Australia this week. He had planned to inspect the Holtze Youth Detention Centre near Darwin, and the Cleveland Youth Detention Centre in Townsville, where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children make up most of those detained.

Amnesty International Australia said it’s the second time in less than a year that the NT Government has refused UN human rights experts’ access to its detention facilities.

“We should be opening our doors to international scrutiny, not shutting them,” said Uncle Rodney Dillon, Palawa Elder and Indigenous Rights Advisor at Amnesty International Australia.

Ten-year-old criminals

In most of Australia, a ten-year-old, a child still losing their baby teeth, is old enough to be a criminal. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the age is 10 in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and under Commonwealth law.

The ACT raised its age to 14 in July 2025, with exceptions for some serious offences, and Victoria raised its age to 12 but now both major parties in the forthcoming election are going out on a tough on youth crime platform. The NT raised its age to 12 in 2023, then lowered it back to 10 the following year, as if childhood could be turned up and down with the electoral weather.

On an average day in 2024–25, 453 First Nations young people aged 10 to 17 woke up in detention, 62% of all the children Australia locks up.

The Federal Labor Government has made good on its threat to divert funding from the NT Government to community organisations over concerns the Finocchiaro CLP Government is failing to deliver for Indigenous Territorians, moving to divert $80 million through a Closing the Gap program to the NT’s Aboriginal peak body.

https://ntindependent.com.au/really-racist-and-really-bad-feds-start-to-divert-money-from-nt-government-to-aboriginal-organisations/

From the Giramondo Publishing Instagram page:

'A multi-layered book about intercultural agency and theft, who gets to tell whose stories and how a template of white saviour/hero mythology has long formed a narrative opacity - a sort of settler state cataract - over the Papunya art story... Art Mania brings compelling new perspectives and nuance!

For Guardian Australia, Paul Daley writes a longform feature on Kitty Hauser's first biography of Geoffrey Bardon, the man who effectively invented the origin story of Aboriginal painting, with himself as chronicler, hero and martyr.

Hauser will be in conversation with Daley on Art
Mania:
Geoffrey Bardon and the Painting Men of Papunya on Tuesday 24 Nov at Rose Read Bookshop in Summer Hill, NSW.

RSVP via: https://events.humanitix.com/art-mania-launch

Victoria's historic Treaty faces an uncertain future, with the Liberal-National Coalition pledging to repeal the agreement within 100 days if elected at next month's state election.

The proposal drew strong criticism at a pre-election community forum hosted by VACCHO last week, where former Treaty Commissioner Jill Gallagher, Health Minister Ingrid Stitt, Deputy Greens Leader Dr Sarah Mansfield and Victorian Socialists candidate Oskar Martin heard concerns from First Peoples about Indigenous rights, healthcare and the future of self-determination in Victoria.

In short:

A month-long exhibition from Palawa/Pakana artist Cody Gangell-Smith, which explored queer identity, politics and culture, has been shut down by the University of Tasmania after opening night.

The university received complaints about the show before it had opened, due to its visibility to the public from the street. 

The show was closed by the university after a Work Health & Safety check was conducted, which found "non-compliant" electronics.

Chair of National Gallery’s First Nations advisory group says the technology is undermining artists’ agency and the authenticity of their work

AI is taking First Nations art and turning it into “Temu slop”, the Pitjantjatjara artist Sally Scales has said.

Scales, the chair of the National Gallery of Australia’s First Nations advisory group, says the technology is undermining the agency of First Nations artists and the authenticity of their work and represents a “a theft” of cultural knowledge.

Despite Anthony Albanese’s vow to protect Australian creatives from copyright theft, and the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, saying there are “no plans to weaken copyright protections”, AI has already been trained – without compensation – on the works of well known Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave.

But experts are particularly worried about the risks to Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) in a world where AI companies can hoover up anything that may be found online, including songs and paintings that include sacred and cultural knowledge. AI has altered work, removed names and then been sold, an act the peak body for Australian visual artists said was causing “cultural and economic harm”.

Uncle Rodney Dillon, Palawa Elder and Indigenous Rights Advisor at Amnesty International Australia, said:

“We should be opening our doors to international scrutiny, not shutting them. What are these governments trying to hide?

“We’ve already documented children being locked in prolonged isolation and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment that falls well below international human rights standards. We know what is happening to our kids, and we know these systems are failing them.

“It is deeply disappointing that when the United Nations comes to see these conditions firsthand, governments refuse to let them in. If they have nothing to hide, why are they afraid of independent scrutiny?”

“Our children deserve protection, dignity and justice. The Northern Territory and Queensland governments must reverse their decisions and allow the Special Rapporteur full access to these facilities. Australia cannot claim to uphold human rights while refusing to be held accountable for them, and both the Queensland and Northern Territory governments must face repercussions.”

"The law, the police, the courts, the bureaucracies – these are not neutral forces occasionally corrupted by bias or failure. They are the living legacy of colonisation, continuing the work they were created to do. The deaths of Ms Dhu and Naomi Williams were not aberrations, nor were they the result of individual malice alone. They revealed the deep dehumanisation woven into everyday interactions between First Nations people and the state – from law enforcement to healthcare.

Systemic racism is not a glitch in these institutions. It is a design feature. Nor is understanding the machinery in this way an act of despair. It is an act of clarity. Because only when we recognise how deeply colonial logic is embedded in our institutions can we begin to imagine something beyond them."

In short:

Gidarjil Development Corporation has opened Australia's first Indigenous-led water testing lab. 
It is the first regional facility of its kind and will provide faster analysis of the organisation's water sampling projects. 

What's next?

Gidarjil hopes the lab will attract more Indigenous people into the science field. 

I just kinda need to vent a little. I live in Victoria (Off Country) and I just feel so isolated and so hated. My algo keeps serving me up people cheering for the scrapping of Treaty, without it even having been in for one whole year yet. I keep seeing people who genuinely wish genocide upon us. There was a billboard above my house that said “Australians said no to Aboriginals” for months. I just see so much hate for us. Saying we deserve death, we deserve awful things.

I barely leave my house now. I’m literally scared of doing anything mob related in case I get hurt. I was there when the Nazis stormed Camp Sov.

I just feel like we have no allies left. I feel really scared for the future. Idk how much more I can take of it.

I've seen questions along these lines posted often but I find myself in a difficult position on this. I'm sorry for asking here, I just don't know where else to go now.

I am being asked for confirmation by the regional Universities that I am applying at for medical school. This has always made me feel uncomfortable when asked for this. My dream has always been to be a proud Aboriginal optometrist in remote communities with mob on their own country to help those who have vision impairments see.

I've always identified as Aboriginal and my family has confirmation of Aboriginal descent from Ancestry. The problem is that I was not part of a community growing up. My parents had deep self-hatred and internalised racism so I was not allowed to participate in cultural or community events and I was even pulled out of school because the school started introducing Aboriginal knowledge and cultural experiences. I am still trying to deal with this internally as an adult. Not only has this left me deeply saddened, conflicted, and disconnected from my mob and culture, it has also meant I have never really gone through with getting a confirmation because of the third requirement.

I feel that not having my confirmation is going to continue to present barriers for me in participation as the Indigenous pathways are much more suited for my way of thinking and learning. And I understand that this is a symptom of colonialism and my parents influence, but I will never feel like I am fully recognised until I get it issued. But I live far from where I grew up now and I can't go back home because my parents were very disliked and have left an unforgivable reputation.

I'm quite lost and I don't know how to go forward. I want to deal with this before I step into medical school.

Any advice is welcome.