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DECEMBER 2019 ISSUE Kimberley Community Legal Services acknowledges that it works on Aboriginal land, traditionally the home of the Miriwoong people of the East Kimberley, and the Yawuru people of the West Kimberley. The KCLS Hotdesk is at the Australian National University in Canberra, on Aboriginal land traditionally the home of the Ngunnawal people. We pay our respects to all elders past, present and emerging. Aboriginal readers are advised that the newsletter may mention deceased persons. What’s On at KCLS DEADLY JUSTICE ON RADIO GOOLARRI Tallulah and Sarouche continued to cover social justice issues on their podcast, Deadly Justice. Tallulah is a Community Outreach and Education Officer for the West Kimberley and Sarouche is the Director of the ANU Aboriginal Justice Partnership. Both Tallulah and Sarouche work out of the Broome office, in their podcast they discuss, “current justice issues that affect Aboriginal people, with close relevance to people in the Kimberley”. Listen to Deadly Justice on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/goolarri-media/tracks) and keep up to date via the Facebook page. Below are some details of the December episodes: Episode number 5 discussed the issues of food security and access to good quality food in the Kimberley with Daryl Wright from the Aboriginal Medical Service - listen at: https://soundcloud.com/goolarri- media/deadly-justice-ep5-151119 (Part 1); https://soundcloud.com/goolarri-media/deadle-justice-ep5- 141119 (Part 2) Episode number 6 covered the implementation of Cashless Debit Cards and the effects of income management in the Kimberley – listen at: https://soundcloud.com/goolarri-media/deadly-justice-ep6-061219 Local News Updates MARCH AGAINST FAMILY VIOLENCE AND #SAVEFVLPS KCLS staff were proud to be part of the March Against Family Violence on 25 November 2019, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The March was in support of the White Ribbon Campaign which works with men and boys to end violence against women. You can take action to protect federal funding for family violence prevention advocacy by supporting the #SaveFVPLS campaign. This is an effort to protect and increase federal funding for the secretariat of the National Indigenous Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum. The Forum consists of state and territory FVPLS around Australia. The members include the Aboriginal Family Law Services WA, which has offices in Broome and Kununurra and Marninwarnitkura Family Violence Prevention Unit in Fitzroy Crossing. Link up with the #SaveFVPLS campaign on Twitter and Facebook and follow the National FVPLS Forum web page for updates: https://www.nationalfvpls.org/ GUBINGE SUCCESS FOR ABORIGINAL BUSH FOOD On 27 and 28 of November, Pat Torres, a Jabirr Jabirr, Nyul Nyul and Yawuru woman from Broome, presented at the first ever National Indigenous Bush Food Symposium in Sydney on behalf of the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance (NAAKPA). NAAKPA is a traditional-owner led bush food company that harvested 20 tonnes of gubinge (Kakadu plums), with an estimated value of $600,000, in its first year. The Kimberley Wild Gubinge (KWG) business is part of NAAKPA and harvests wild gubinge on the Dampier Peninsula. Although NAAKPA is a success story for Aboriginal bush food, there is a long way to go to achieving economic justice as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people only make up 1-2% of the market in the bush food industry. More about the Gubinge’s success from Pat Torres here: https://www.kimberleyecho.com.au/news/broome- advertiser/gubinge-group-successinsights-ripe-for-picking-ng-b881382397z . Information on how to purchase the gubinge can be found at: https://naakpa.com.au/buy-kakadu-plum AARNJA STOPS OPERATING AS WEST KIMBERLEY EMPOWERED COMMUNITIES (WKEC) BACKBONE ORGANISATION Aarnja will cease operations as the WKEC backbone organisation from 31 December 2019. In a meeting on 1 November, 2019, Aarnja, WKEC Leaders, the National Indigenous Australians Agency and Empowered Communities National decided that it was time of WKEC to become its own entity. The Kimberley Land Council will take over as the WKEC backbone organisation in the six-month transition phase until the new organisation is established. Read the statement from Aarnja here: https://aarnja.org.au/news Get to Know KCLS AMANDA GREGORY: KCLS OFFICE MANAGER (BROOME) Amanda is a Karajarri and Yawuru woman, born and bred in Broome. She says the best element of her job is getting to work alongside her Community and help inform while empowering others to access Legal advice and support services in the Kimberley. Before she started with KCLS as Office Manager, she held positions at KRED and Arma Legal as an Executive Assistant to the CEO and Legal Secretary, Kimberley Renal Services and Broome Regional Aboriginal Medical Service. Outside the nine to five, Amanda is part of the Cable Beach Netball Club and Broome Netball Association. Law Reform and Policy Watch ABORIGINAL LEGAL SERVICES WA (ALSWA): WA’S CUSTODY NOTIFICATION SERVICE & POLICE SHOOTINGS On the latest episode (14th November 2019) of Law Matters from the Aboriginal Legal Services WA (ALSWA) on Digital Noongar Radio, Jodi Hoffmann and Dennis Eggington, ASLWA CEO, discuss the custody notification service operated by the ALSWA and launched on 2 October 2019. The service has received 600 calls per week, which raises concern about the over-policing of Aboriginal communities. The service notifies a lawyer and a welfare advocate when an Aboriginal person is arrested. The ultimate goal of the custody notification service is to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody. The show also discussed the fatal police shootings of Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu, NT, and Joyce Clarke in Geraldton, WA. ALSWA is supporting NAAJA’s call for an ‘immediate and exhaustive’ coronial investigation into the Yuendumu shooting. You can listen to ALSWA’s radio program here: https://tinyurl.com/qrp54xv HIGH COURT CITIZENSHIP CASE ON DEPORTING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE On Thursday, 5 December 2019, the High Court heard the High Court heard submissions in two cases to decide whether the Australian Government can deport Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons as aliens if they do not have Australian citizenship. The two cases were brought by Daniel Love, a Kamileroi man born in PNG to an Aboriginal father and a Papua New Guinean mother, and Brendan Thoms, a Gungarri man and native title holder born in New Zealand to an Aboriginal mother and New Zealander father. The Australian Government has cancelled their visas and is trying to deport them under the controversial character test provisions in the Migration Act as Love and Thoms have been convicted of “serious” crimes and jailed for 12 months or more. Lawyers for Love and Thoms argue that Aboriginal people ‘cannot be alien to Australia’ and are therefore beyond the Commonwealth power to deport aliens. You can read the submissions by the lawyers for Love and Thoms here: http://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/case_b43-2018 TANYA DAY’S CHILDREN WIN TIM MCCOY AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Belinda, Warren, Apryl and Kimberly Day have won the Tim McCoy Award for outstanding achievement in advocacy of human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victoria. The family of Tanya Day, a Yorta Yorta woman who died in December 2017 from a serious head injury while in the custody of Victoria Police, have been fighting for action to stop deaths in custody since her death. They have pushed for the abolition of public drunkenness as an offense in Victoria. Thanks to Tanya Day’s family’s efforts, the Victorian Government has announced that it is abolishing the offense more than thirty years after The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended abolishing it because it disproportionately targets Aboriginal people. Read more here: https://tinyurl.com/skt99e9 Justice and the Law KIMBERLEY LAND COUNCIL AT THE HIGH COURT The Kimberley Land Council (KLC) represented the Bindunbur and Jabirr Jabirr/Ngumbarl people in the High Court in Canberra on 3 and 4 December in a Native Title case. The case is an appeal by the State of Western Australia from the Federal Court which ruled in favour of the Native Title holders. The High Court will rule on ‘whether public access to beaches and waterways should be recognized as an interest in the Bidunbur and Jabirr Jabirr/Ngumbarls native title determinations’. The decision will affect public access to coasts adjacent to Aboriginal reserves in Beagle Bay and the middle-Dampier Peninsula. https://tinyurl.com/tlajd9 FIRST PEOPLES WITH DISABILITY AND THE DISABILITY ROYAL COMMISSION The Disability Royal Commission held a public hearing in Melbourne on 2 December, 2019. Witnesses at the hearing gave evidence about the challenges of finding a home and the causes of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of residents of group homes in Victoria. Damian Griffis from the First Peoples Disability Network, a descendant of the Worimi people of the Manning Valley in NSW, has said that the Royal Commission ‘is likely to expose… for the very first time, the serious abuse and neglect of First Peoples with a disability’. Griffis highlighted that First Peoples with a disability live in poverty and there is a crisis of indefinite detention of First Peoples with disabilities in prison, especially in the Northern Territory. Read Damian Griffis’ article in The Guardian’s Indigenous X here: https://tinyurl.com/vo9dx27 CALL FOR SENATE INQUIRY INTO VIOLENCE AGAINST ABORIGINAL WOMEN Linda Burney MP and fellow advocates have called for a Senate inquiry to deal with the ‘rate of missing and murdered’ Aboriginal women in Australia. Burney says there is a ‘lack of urgency’ in dealing with violence against women and such an issue demands the recognition of a formal investigation into domestic violence in Australia. According to exclusive data obtained by the ABC, ‘Aboriginal women account for 10% of unsolved missing person cases’.
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