Advance Australia Fair?

Darwin’s Lee brothers win NAIDOC art award

Advance Australia Fair? is the theme for this year’s NAIDOC Week — the annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and achievement — which will run from 6 to 13 July. Darwin artists DUWUN (TONY) LEE and LANIYUK (IAN) LEE have won the prestigious National NAIDOC Art Award for 2008. Their artwork is reproduced on the NAIDOC Week poster being distributed across Australia. The brothers’ artwork was judged best in a field of 100 entries from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

Look after country and country will look after you

We all know what our old people used to say: We have to look after country. It is our responsibility to protect the environment and cultural values because for us land is an integral part of who we are. It is central to our culture and well being. She has always been there for us so we have to be there for her. It is a symbiotic relationship where one is connected to the other.

KATHLEEN COX travelled across Australia in June from the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley region of Western Australia to The Dreaming Festival at Woodford, Queensland with this message and the story of Goombaragin.

ORAL HISTORIES : REVEALING HIDDEN HISTORIES

Conference and Workshops
Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th July 2008

with Introductory and Master Workshops Monday 21st July

Notre Dame University Campus, Broome, Western Australia

Philippine Working Group on GFMD and Migrants’ Rights International: Global Call To Action

Join the “Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights” 22-30 October 2008, Manila, Philippines

Migrant Workers in Australia: our responsibility as a global citizen

A Pastoral Letter for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, 1 May 2008

On this Feast Day of St Joseph the Worker we celebrate the value of work in fostering the dignity of the worker, the life of families and the well-being of the community. At a time when Australia is facing great skills shortages and many communities are struggling to fill job vacancies, it is worth considering the circumstances of migrant workers who come to our nation to help ‘fill the gap’. Despite their great contribution, some of these people are among our most vulnerable workers.

Cries From The Workplace: Stories of migrant women workers in Sydney

Excerpts from 20 WOMEN, 20 STORIES

We are Asian women workers. We are skilled and dedicated. We work very hard but we are never treated as we deserve. Our hard working efforts are not recognised. We are bullied and harassed. Often we are not paid even the minimum wage, or our other entitlements.

Valuing and Protecting Diversity

April 9, 2008

The following are excerpts taken from a speech presented on April 9, 2008 by TOM CALMA, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner for Australia’s Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission.

Read more...

2008 Amnesty International Report

May 28, 2008

Launched on May 28th, Amnesty International’s Report for 2008 looks back on key events in 2007 and ahead to major human rights challenges for 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The report covers human rights abuses across 150 countries, revealing governments’ failures to deliver on human rights, peoples’ growing impatience with their leaders’ lack of action and the challenges world leaders have to meet in order to make a fresh commitment to the UDHR 60 years on.

Reprinted here are the country reports for The Philippines and Australia.

Focus on Gender in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction

The Third Global Congress of Women in Politics and Governance

October 19-22, 2008, Dusit Thani Hotel, Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
Organized by the Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP) in partnership with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UN/ISDR)

Trafficking and the Need for Global Justice

by Fr. Shay Cullen

Joanna, 15, sat in the dim restaurant weeping and crying, her shoulders shook, she dabbed her eyes to wipe away the flowing tears with tissues. Were they tears of joy at being rescued from her cruel and vicious captors or was it emotional release of pent up fear and stress that she endured in the dark room at the back of a sex bar in Angeles City, Philippines. She sobbed out her story, it was her time and place, late at night and no one there.

Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines

by Nathan Gilbert Quimpo

New Publication

When “people power” toppled the dictator Marcos, the Philippines was considered a shining example of the restoration of democracy. Since 1986, however, the Philippines has endured continuing political and social unrest and encountered tremendous obstacles to the consolidation and deepening of democracy. Scholars have called post-Marcos Philippines an “elite democracy,” a “cacique democracy,” or a “patrimonial oligarchic state.”

Hearing The Voices Of Filipino Women:
Violence, Media Representation And Contested Realities

Dr. Cleonicki Saroca
University of Newcastle, 2002

The whole of Nicki Saroca’s doctoral thesis is now online at the Australian Digital Theses Program website.

From: Center for Migrant Advocacy Philippines

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Please be advised of the resumption of the continuing registration/certification of qualified Filipino overseas absentee voters for purposes of the May 10, 2010 national elections. The period for filing of applications shall be from December 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009.