Sovereign Union

Joining CAAMA radio is Mitch Torres from the Kimberley, Western Australia Remote Aboriginal Communities in Western Australia’s Kimberley region have announced a global call to action to stop the forced closure of Aboriginal communities which are causing people to leave their homelands due to state and federal governments withdrawal of support of basic essential services. People all over Australia...

Campers at the Nyoongar Tent Embassy on Perth’s Heirisson Island has been given until midday today (Thursday) to pack up and leave. Last week the Embassy declared the site a refuge for homeless people being displaced from their communities… but W.A. Today reports the City of Perth has arranged for welfare support agencies to visit the camp and offer support to homeless individuals. The paper repor...

In his new book, The Story of Australia's People, Geoffrey Blainey writes that one of the reasons aboriginal tribes didn’t effectively resist European settlement was that they were militarily weak. Indigenous tribes often fought with each other rather than launch coordinated attacks against settlers. An alternative view comes from expert in indigenous history, Dr Ray Kerkhove, who has done new res...

Castlemaine State Festival: John Romeril and Jack Charles Radio National - Arts Today 12 March 2015 Going Through is a new production by playwright John Romeril, starring veteran actor; indigenous elder and activist, Uncle Jack Charles. Based on a true story from Jack Charles' time as an inmate at 'Old Castlemaine Gaol,' it premieres at the Castlemaine State Festival on the grounds of the goal its...

National Indigenous Radio 98.9fm - Warren Barnsley The Noongar Tent Embassy in Perth say they want to bring International attention to the Western Australian Government's plans to defund remote communities. The Embassy on Matagarup, or Heirisson Island, has set up a 'refugee camp' to take in displaced Indigenous peoples if communities are closed and people forced off their land. Noongar advocate M...

ABC Radio - Radio National - Late Night Live While our current criminal justice system is determined to treat everyone 'equally', it does not take into account often enough the disadvantages that may have led the offender to commit the crime in the first place. Russell Marks argues that it is important to ask some fundamental questions about punishment if the reduction of crime and a safer communi...

ABC Radio National Law Report Addiction, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, loss of culture, a sense of hopelessness, mental health issues. How can we keep indigenous people with these sorts of complex needs out of prison? In our third part of a series the Law Report looks at programs that help keep people out of the criminal justice treadmill in the Kimberleys in Western Australia. Transcript http...

Gerry Georgatos National Indigenous Radio 3 March 2015 The Nyungah Tent Embassy on Perth's Heirisson Island has been re-established. More than 70 Nyungahs gathered to rebuild the camp site which was demolished by police two years ago. A small delegation from the Embassy has informed police they've reclaimed the Embassy's grounds and also stated they'll use the site as a refuge for the homeless. It...

– Ray Jackson (CAAMA) 26 September, 2014 Social Services and the NSW Police force have been criticised after footage was supplied to Australia’s National Indigenous TV (NITV) showing officers dressed in riot gear, raiding a home to remove multiple children from one family. The President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Ray Jackson, joins CAAMA Radio broadcaster Mikaela Simpson on the...

ABC Radio National 'Arts Today' Michael Aird Guests: Photographic historian. Curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland Anthropology Museum Mandana Mapar and Photo media artist and curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland's Anthropology Museum In the 1890s a ‘troupe’ of Aboriginal people travelled Australia to perform a so...

ABC RN Phillip Adams 'Late Night Live' Thursday 19 February 2015 In 1961, young married couple Robert and Helen Singleton, joined the Freedom rides to protest against racial segregation in America's south. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on public buses and interstate transport, including at transit stops, was unconstitutional but southern states had ignored this ruling. As soon...

Pacific Islanders in Australia are angry over a federal government move to ban kava. Stefan Armbruster SBS World News 18 FEB 2015 (Transcript from World News Radio) Claims organised gangs of Pacific Islanders are smuggling kava into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities will see the federal government ban the traditional drink in Australia. Existing import limits will be abolished, a move that...

Radio Australia - 20 February 2015 Claims that organised gangs of Pacific islanders are smuggling kava into Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory could see the traditional Pacific island drink banned. Australia's indigenous affairs minister set on outright kava ban (Credit: ABC) Federal Indigenous Affairs minister and Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion says Australia acce...

Aboriginal woman, Beverley Moore Whyman from Mildura is pleading to the Australian government for her son to be returned home from a US Prison. Beverley's son Russell Moore was taken from her at birth, and she has been fighting for her son to be returned home ever since. Russell was adopted by a missionary couple and renamed James Hudson Savage. He was then taken to America by his adoptive parents...

Aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe talks about the Invasion Day rally and his thoughts on Invasion Day and his pride in the younger generation stepping up to the challenge of fighting for the rights of first nations people. (Source: SBS Living Black)

Lindy Kerin reports for ABC/AM 20 February 2015 - Image: Zona Moore was 14 when the Freedom Riders came to Moree - (Pic:Lindy Kerin) ------TRANSCRIPT------ MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: An ugly chapter in Australia's race relations will be remembered today in the regional New South Wales town of Moree. Fifty years ago a group of university students led by the late Charles Perkins arrived in Moree and expose...

Caitlyn Gribbin ABC AM 18 February 2015 MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: There are fears in some of the most remote parts of the country that a government plan to shut Aboriginal communities is already driving people out of them. The West Australian Government last year announced as many as 150 of the state's 274 communities will be closed in the next three years because of a funding shortfall. No decisions ha...

The First Nations Freedom Summit in Canberra has seen Aboriginal Leaders from across the country have come together to share the First Peoples message with parliament. Timothy Wilkey a Ngarrindjeri from South Australia attended the summit representing Aboriginal youth and he talks to Damien Williams on CAAMA radio about his hope to get more young people to take up the fight.

John Maynard provides an overview of his research project that documents and recognises Aboriginal involvement and service from the Boer war through to Afghanistan. He also explains how the seeds of modern indigenous political activism can be traced back to the First World War. Highlights of Serving our Country presented during History week 2014 at the State Library of NSW ABC RN 'Big Ideas' Wedne...

Alan Parkinson is a mechanical and nuclear engineer who lives in Canberra. He has just written a book about the clean up of the British atomic bomb test site at Maralinga in South Australia. In April 2000 a $108 million clean up of the site was declared a success. However, leaked documents and some experts do not agree and suggest that the legacy of that failed clean up will affect the Australian...

An interview with Duane Hamacher Australian Society of Indigenous Astronomy Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences and there is evidence that the First Nations people in Australia have been looking to the night sky to learn the 'culture of the stars' for at least 60,000 years. The earliest European records of Indigenous astronomy was in an 1857 essay called 'The Astronomy and Mythology of the Abo...

The stunning Northern Flinders Ranges Country belongs to the Adnyamathanha people. 'Adnya' means rock and 'mathana' means people - the Adnyamathana people are ‘the people of the rocks’. Adnyamathanha songs, stories and Law are all part of the Yuramuda. This program is about the journey of one of the major Adnyamathanha Creation Ancestors, Yulu the Kingfisher Man. Yulu’s Coal, explores the travels...

Members of the Freedom Movement have announced they'll return to Canberra when Federal parliament resumes next month. Yesterday, hundreds of the movement's supporters marched from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy past police to stage a sit-in at Parliament House. Freedom Movement delegate Michael Anderson (pictured) says the Aboriginal rights struggle has a new lease of life. Mr Anderson says they'll c...

ABC PM - SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Northern Territory Government is being pressured to address serious concerns about the treatment of teenage prisoners in Darwin. Defence lawyers, youth workers and Amnesty International are angry that underage prisoners have been moved into an old, adult prison. They say the facility is dilapidated and under resourced. Bridget Brennan reports. BRIDGET BRENNAN: Darwin...

The First Nations Soldiers were equals on the battlefield, but when they returned, they were not given the recognition or entitlements that they deserved. Once forgotten, the Aboriginal and Islander people who went off to fight for Australia in the First World War have been getting increasing recognition a hundred years later. But many of the stories of soldiers who had to hide their true identity...