How representative is our parliament?
While many Australians may think Australia is a healthy democracy, a closer examination of our parliamentary representation tells a different story. Rose Hunter asks how representative our Parliament really is.
First Nations and Indigenous People – Page 11
Life in the long grass
Each night, around 1000 people sleep out in the long grass around Darwin. Sienna Merope explores the issues behind Darwin’s homeless population.
With bars, without walls
Chloe Potvin sheds light on the housing challenges female Indigenous prisoners face post-release.
“Subversive” by Pataphysics – Mid-week Review
Music offers a powerful medium for dealing with human rights issues, and Melbourne-based hip hop trio Pataphysics tap into a mood of discontent through beats, bass and hypnotic tracks on their album Subversive, writes Sonia Nair.
Mother Courage – Mid-Week Review
By Maya Borom. Warwick Thornton’s Mother Courage is an installation co-commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the five-yearly modern and contemporary art exhibition dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. Thornton is best known as the winner of the Camera d’Or for best first feature at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for Samson […]
Witness to our journey
Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian artist specialising in glass-blowing. Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art in 2004 her work has given a voice to a number of Indigenous issues
Water Rights in the Murray-Darling Basin
By Will Mooney. The concept of land rights is well entrenched in contemporary understandings of Indigenous people’s struggle for sovereignty and respect, but how many of us understand the importance of water rights to Aboriginal communities? In 2013, the International Year of Water Cooperation, it is vital that we address the exclusion of Indigenous needs […]
A Decision to Discriminate – Mid-Week Review
By Sam Ryan. Almost 70 years ago Albert Camus wrote that “goodwill can cause almost as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened” – a sentiment it seems that could well apply to the Australian government’s approach to Indigenous affairs. Reading A Decision to Discriminate: Aboriginal Disempowerment in the Northern Territory, published by Concerned […]
Human Rights Oration by Ron Merkel QC – Mid-Week Review
By Athena Rogers. Filing in to Federation Square’s riverside function room among hundreds of well-dressed professionals, it was clear that the expectations were high for this International Human Rights Day event. The speaker for the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s Annual Human Rights Oration was Ron Merkel QC, presenting a talk entitled “Human […]
Koorie Pathways Schools: a teacher’s perspective
By Felicity James “Where would our teenagers be if that school wasn’t there? They would probably be on the streets. So I’d be very upset and sad, as you can hear in my voice, I’d be very devastated and upset if it ever closed down.” – Ronald Edwards, former student, Woolum Bellum College, Morwell Lynnette Solomon-Dent’s […]
The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – The Mid Week Review
By Vaughn Rogers The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Australia, along with the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, opposed the Declaration at the time of its adoption, but Australia subsequently endorsed it in April 2009. […]
Racial profiling, violence against women and income management: the human rights wrap up
Police accused of racial profiling Concerns are mounting over African and Muslim communities being unfairly targeted by police in street patrols. Tamar Hopkins, a lawyer from the Flemington and Kensington Legal Centre in Melbourne’s inner-west, says that the police may actually be breaking the law themselves if they are in fact racial profiling. Sydney based […]