Wednesday 30 January 2013

Nova Peris lashes 'failed' intervention


Nova Peris lashes 'failed' intervention

  • From:The Australian 
  • January 30, 2013 12:00AM



  • LABOR'S star recruit Nova Peris has attacked the Northern Territory intervention in remote indigenous communities as a "failed policy" after Labor's national executive endorsed her as the party's Senate candidate.
    But Ms Peris said she endorsed Labor's replacement Stronger Futures legislation to improve conditions in indigenous communities.
    Julia Gillard yesterday hailed the ALP national executive endorsement of her call for Ms Peris to be placed at the top of Labor's Territory Senate ticket a week after the Prime Minister intervened to have the Olympic gold medallist admitted to the party and granted eligibility to run.
    The vote has sparked a backlash in the Territory branch, which was excluded from the preselection, and has angered elements of the Left faction.
    Yesterday, Victorian senator Kim Carr and Tasmanian senator Carol Brown voted for dumped senator Trish Crossin, denying Ms Gillard a unanimous endorsement in a 19-2 national executive ballot in favour of Ms Peris.
    Senator Crossin said she would not leave the party and would campaign for the ALP.
    She called for Ms Gillard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin to financially compensate NT members of the Stolen Generations. Senator Crossin estimated compensation would cost $30 million and would affect 1000 people, of which 380 were living.
    The preselection has sparked speculation within the Labor Party that Ms Gillard will bring forward a $1.4 billion injection into childcare to improve workers' wages. The move is being backed by the United Voice union, which supported Ms Peris's preselection.
    Accepting the nomination yesterday, Ms Peris said the Prime Minister had put faith in her because of her "great understanding of the problems that Aboriginal people are confronted with day in day out".
    Labor ran the NT emergency response for almost five years after the Coalition lost the 2007 election, but Ms Peris described the NTER, launched be the Howard government, as a failure.
    "I was there at the forefront of the intervention," she said. "I've worked in government in Canberra and I've seen how policies come about. I've seen failed policies, and I've seen billions of dollars get wasted down the drain."
    One of Ms Peris's preselection opponents, indigenous former NT deputy chief minister Marion Scrymgour, claimed last week that Ms Gillard had overlooked her nomination because she had spoken out on issues such as the intervention.
    Asked about Ms Peris's comments on the NT intervention, Ms Macklin said: "I know that the way the intervention started under the Howard government, without consultation, caused people hurt.
    "The government has been clear that we want to work with Aboriginal people in the NT as part of Stronger Futures to make sure local people are getting the local services they want and need to overcome the disadvantage too many Aboriginal people still face.
    "This is my priority, and I look forward to working with Nova Peris to continue our work to improve the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory."
    Ms Peris said she was aware of widespread discontent within the NT Labor Party branch over the manner of her preselection and pledged to work hard to rebuild relationships.
    She repeated her denial of rumours she mishandled funds during her time at the NT Education Department, denied knowledge of an investigation into the matter and said she would consent to the release of employment records to prove her statements were accurate.
    The national executive vote capped a week of division in Labor with Territory members outraged they were excluded from the preselection contest and supporters of Kevin Rudd questioning Ms Gillard's judgment in intervening to dump a sitting candidate via the national executive.
    Senior Labor sources remain concerned about the divisions the preselection has caused in the Territory branch. Some are worried Ms Peris will face further attacks on her character and credibility.
    Senator Crossin has been a senator for 15 years, making her eligible, under the old defined benefit scheme that was replaced in 2004, for a pension of $129,000, equivalent to 67.5 per cent of her parliamentary salary.




    News for nova peris intervention

    Sydney Morning Herald
    1. Peris lashes 'failed' intervention
      The Australian ‎- 8 hours ago
      LABOR'S star recruit Nova Peris has attacked the Northern Territoryintervention in remote indigenous communities as a "failed policy" after...




    Crown Prosecutor speaks out about abuse in Central Australia






    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1639127.htm


    Australian Broadcasting Corporation
    TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
    LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1639127.htm
    Broadcast: 15/05/2006

    Crown Prosecutor speaks out about abuse in Central Australia

    Reporter: Tony Jones
    TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Well, as we've said, Nanette Rogers has been Crown Prosecutor in Alice Springs for more than 12 years. Her paper, and her comments are specifically drawn from her experience of the Aboriginal community in central Australia during those years and should not be considered a general critique of Indigenous Australians. And to repeat our earlier warnings, her accounts of violence against children and babies are extremely graphic and may offend some viewers. I spoke to Dr Rogers in Alice Springs. Annette Rogers, welcome to the program. Why do you think there's been such a long silence about this particular issue in central Australia?

    NANETTE ROGERS, ALICE SPRINGS PROSECUTOR: I think there are a number of reasons for that. The first is that violence is entrenched in a lot of aspects of Aboriginal society here. Secondly, Aboriginal people choose not to take responsibility for their own actions. Thirdly, Aboriginal society is very punitive so that if a report is made or a statement is made implicating an offender then that potential witness is subject to harassment, intimidation and sometimes physical assault if the offender gets into trouble because of that report or police statement.

    TONY JONES: Now the Federal Minister Mal Brough has told us that Australians may not be ready to hear about children being raped. You obviously think differently?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, I do. I feel very strongly that everybody needs to know about it.

    TONY JONES: Can we talk in detail about some of the cases. One of them in 2004. They're all shocking, in fact. But one of them in 2004 was the case of a two-year-old child who was raped. Can you explain the circumstances?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, the two-year-old was playing outside with some other children. Her mother was away from the house, drunk in a small town. The offender woke up, took the small child, carried it out bush, had the child out bush for some hours. Undressed the child and inserted, simultaneously, two fingers in her vagina and two fingers in her anus and moved his fingers up and down a number of times causing injuries. He then - I'm sorry, he had his trousers off while this was happening. Then he placed the child on his lap and had his penis next to the child's vagina and tried to masturbate and so on. And eventually returned the child back to his father's camp. He was carrying the child with its legs on the side. The child was crying throughout the assault. The child was still crying and bleeding. He handed the child to his drunken father. He himself had been drinking. The father then took the child back to the area that the child had been removed from and when the mother returned from town, where she'd been drinking, the child was crying and the other children indicated that the offender had taken her away some time before and it was then that the bleeding and so on was noticed in her nappy.

    TONY JONES: In this case, the offender was drunk, the father of the offender was drunk and the mother of the child who was raped was also drunk.

    NANETTE ROGERS: That's so.

    TONY JONES: How did that play across the events?

    NANETTE JONES: Well, one of the things, of course, is that there's an issue about why was the two-year-old girl left unaccompanied without some kind of supervisory aspect there with the mother being away in town drinking, because it meant then that the offender had an ease of access to that small two-year-old and was able, basically, to do with her what he wanted.

    TONY JONES: Let's go to another case. In 2003 there was perhaps even a worse case. It involved a much younger baby - seven-months-old. Can you tell us about that?

    NANETTE ROGERS: That was in a remote community. The child or the baby was asleep with other adults in a room in the house. The offender came along and removed the sleeping baby and was in the process of taking it outside the house. One of the adult women woke up and took the baby back and put it back into bed with her and they went back to sleep. Unbeknownst to the sleeping adults, he came back again and removed the child. A man in the house was - saw someone on the verandah at some point, he went out, and he found the offender with this baby and the baby was naked from the waist down. He didn't know anything untoward had happened. He persuaded the man to relinquish the baby because it was cold and all the rest of it. So the offender relinquished the baby after some talking and the man then put it back inside and they went to sleep. In the morning, the mother of the baby - she'd been drinking, she was still drunk - she came back to the house. She changed the clothes of the baby. There was blood on the clothing. The mother then went - left the house.

    TONY JONES: She didn't notice? Is the evidence, in fact, that she was too drunk to realise what had happened to her own baby?

    NANETTE ROGERS: That's one way of looking at it. The...when the mother left the house, one of the other adult women went and got the child, changed the baby's nappy, noticed the blood and so on and that baby, the seven-month-old baby and the two-year-old both required surgery for external and internal injuries under general anaesthetic.

    TONY JONES: There are other cases. One of them is almost too depraved to talk about, but one feels you have to, in a way, get these things out in the open. But this is of an 18-year-old petrol sniffer who actually drowns a young girl while he's raping her?

    NANETTE ROGERS: That happened several years ago. A number of children aged about four, five, six and eight, or something like that, were playing in a water hole, maybe a kilometre or more from the community. They were swimming or paddling and he had followed them, going from tree to tree as they walked down to the water hole. While she was playing in the water, he pulled her under and anally penetrated her and drowned her, probably simultaneously. And the matter proceeded to - first of all, there was a committal hearing before a magistrate and the children gave very graphic evidence. Heart-wrenching evidence.

    TONY JONES: What was their evidence?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Well, their evidence was that they saw him pulling her in the water. They saw bubbles coming up. They tried to throw rocks at him in an effort to get him to desist. And then they ran back to the community to alert, you know, the grandparents.

    TONY JONES: It's almost incomprehensible. I mean, they were throwing rocks at him, they were yelling at him - he didn't stop?

    NANETTE ROGERS: No, it was awful, absolutely dreadful.

    TONY JONES: Is there any way of explaining something like that? I mean apart from the fact he was sniffing petrol?

    NANETTE ROGERS: No, I think that cases like this and the sexual assaults of the two-year-old and the seven-month-old baby are really beyond the range of our comprehension. In normal behaviour, we expect people to be, say, murdered or sexually assaulted or, you know, maybe stabbed, but not on a constant basis - not in relation to horrible offences committed on really small children. It's beyond most people's comprehension and range of human experience.

    TONY JONES: You might expect these kind of incidents to literally tear apart a community, but it's my understanding from what you've written, that there is a kind of a malaise in these communities that prevents that from happening. These incidents are taken as facts of life rather than things which would, in a way, cause the entire place to look at itself and change?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes. And I think the reason for that malaise is mostly because of the entrenchment of violence in the whole of the community. But there is also a second aspect and that is that Aboriginal people here are overwhelmed time and time again by a fresh new tragedy. It might be the suicide, it might be the fatal car accident, it might be the premature death of the 20-year-old from renal heart disease, because of diet, failure to thrive, lots of grog, petrol or whatever. All of those tragedies kind of overtake a community. So, yes, it was a dreadful thing that the six-year-old was anally penetrated and killed in the process but then something new takes its place within a very short time.

    TONY JONES: How much more do you think, in these communities, are young children exposed to violence than in the community at large and what effect does that have moving on from generation to generation?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Well, in my experience, a number of children are assaulted as part of being a child. So, for example, I got a case the other day where the very small baby was stabbed twice in the leg because the husband was trying to stab the wife in the chest and she was holding the baby to the chest so he stabbed the baby twice to the leg. Violence happens to children. Children are punched or hit in the face, punched to various parts of the body. They witness acts of violence, so in a matter that I had last year, the four-year-old witnessed his grandfather being killed - he was stabbed repeatedly to the throat and the four-year-old witnessed it. So, all of those features then mean that the child grows up seeing violence all around him or her and having violence done to him or her and so they become an adult and it's the - then they become violent themselves. But the interesting thing is that I've seen siblings in a family grow up. There might be two brothers and two sisters. The boys grow up to become men. They take wives and then they beat the wives very badly. Their sisters grow up, they get married and they are beaten by their husbands. So it's a real - there's a gender difference between how the violence happens to a large extent, the serious violence.

    TONY JONES: It sounds from what you are saying that women and young girls really get the worst of this?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, they do.

    TONY JONES: In your paper, you cite a particularly awful case of 2001, in an outstation where a man was raping his own very young daughter and at the same time, threatening his wife and his other children with a boning knife.

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, he was married to a woman - They had three children together - and from a reasonably early age, he started having sexual intercourse with his elder biological daughter. He slept on the mattress with her and his wife and the two smaller children slept on a separate mattress.

    TONY JONES: In the same room?

    NANETTE ROGERS: In the same room. The wife tried to remonstrate, tried to stop it from happening, tried to protect the daughter, to no avail. This man had a violent history. In fact, he'd been acquitted of a murder in the late 1990s. The offences occurred at outstations, which are often highly dangerous places to be for women and children, because they are unable to escape any of the violence. That's one aspect. But the second aspect is that nobody, no-one talks about the kinds of things that are happening. So in this particular case, how it came to a head was she was taken to the health clinic for a check-up because she was putting on weight and it turned out that she was pregnant to her father.

    TONY JONES: Was that ultimately proven in any way?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes. She had - the young girl had a termination and the DNA from the foetus - the profile meant that the father was, in effect, the father of the child.

    TONY JONES: How did other family members in this particular case - I know there was a grandmother involved and presumably other members of the community must have been aware that something was going on?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Well, the mother of the girl definitely knew that something was going on but she herself was subject to repeated acts of violence by the husband. So she was, in effect, was unable to do anything. Her mother, that is, the grandmother of the child, was an important woman ceremonially for the area as well as being a well-known painter. She didn't get to really know about it until late in the piece when her own brother mentioned something about it in a low-key way. But she was instrumental when the pregnancy was discovered at the local health clinic about bringing the girl into town and reporting it to the police. And in her statement that she made to police, she said that in olden times, Aboriginal law meant that she wouldn't have been able to talk to anybody about the matter and that he would have - he, the father, would have been punished, but that there were constraints around her talking to anybody about the continued sexual assault, which is really quite mind-boggling.

    TONY JONES: So there is a sort of propensity to silence on this these issues built into the culture, as you said?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, that's exactly right.

    TONY JONES: Which must be very troubling for young women who are educated in modern Australia and have to confront traditional practices in their own communities. Because one of the issues that arises is promised marriages where much older men are promised younger women. A number of cases have arisen out of that. Can you tell us about the one involving the person known as GJ?

    NANETTE ROGERS: That was a matter involving a young girl, aged about 14, who had some schooling in Darwin. She was at Yarralin, which is in the Victoria River Downs district and she was promised to a much older man. He came and took her - to take her physically and her grandmother instead - and the young girl didn't want to go. Instead of supporting her, her grandmother basically forced her into the car and assisted the older promised man in removing her physically from the community, where he then had sexual intercourse with her and kept her for a number of days at his outstation. And she's an example of - she was not complicit. She did not want to go. She - you know, it's that kind of new breed of young women hopefully coming through who see the choices that they've got and also, importantly, see the choices that non-Indigenous young women have in the broader society.

    TONY JONES: She gave some quite heartbreaking evidence. She said, "I told that old man I'm too young for sex, "but he didn't listen."

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes.

    TONY JONES: Are these cases common?

    NANETTE ROGERS: They are common in an anecdotal sense. They're not common in terms of us getting prosecution files through the office.

    TONY JONES: So, you mean you know that these sorts of things are happening but they don't often come to trial?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes.

    TONY JONES: Are they happening much more commonly than we know of?

    NANETTE ROGERS: All child sexual assault in central Australia is happening at much higher rates than are currently being reported to police, as is violence on Aboriginal women and children.

    TONY JONES: Let me ask you this - It's an almost impossible question to ask a prosecutor and I appreciate that before I start - but how do you actually deal with this without pulling apart the traditional culture which is sustaining it?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Well, I think it's important to recognise that sometimes Aboriginal culture practices do not benefit the victim. They benefit, more often than not, the offender, and if it means criticising those Aboriginal practices that constrain victims or witnesses from giving evidence and ensure the ability of the offender to keep behaving in exactly that same way then why should there be an Aboriginal cultural practice that sustains that?

    TONY JONES: When you came to central Australia more than 15 years ago, you began your work, your career as a defender. You've moved on to become a prosecutor. Did that happen because of a particular case, or did it happen because of what you saw over a period of time?

    NANETTE ROGERS: It was an accumulated effect. I ended up getting sick of acting for violent Aboriginal men and putting up the same old excuses when I was appearing for them and then when I had time out to do my thesis and standing back and analysing the cases and how various matters proceeded in the Supreme Court I was really taken aback at how much emphasis was placed on Aboriginal customary law in terms of placing the offender in the best light and it really closed off the voices of Aboriginal women, their viewpoints about how customary law impacted on the offence or the offender.

    TONY JONES: There have been a number of cases recently in which young women have actually killed their own boyfriends or husbands. Is that something we can talk about?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, it's an interesting phenomenon and it's something that has started coming through in the last 12 months in our office in Alice Springs. There are a number of cases where young women, maybe 19, 20, have stabbed their boyfriends with fatal consequences. And it's interesting because it's almost like a new breed of young women coming through. Their mothers and grandmothers would not have done that. They would have just been - not a willing victim, but they wouldn't have taken kind of preventative action, if you like. Whereas these young women are armed with knives and do, if you like, the pre-emptive stabbing. Or because they're so acculturated with violence that's the way that they behave in any event. So it might be the pre-emptive strike because they're in a violent relationship, or it might be that that's the way that you react when you're angry.

    TONY JONES: Lynette Rogers, it's sometimes said of both policemen and prosecutors that they only ever see, because of their work, the very worst of the worst. And that changes the way they look at communities. Are you worried at all that may have happened to you?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Well, I hope not. When my enthusiasm and eagerness goes out the window then I know it will be time to give up the job.

    TONY JONES: It's another tough question for you, but given what's in your paper and what you've told us here tonight, are you worried that the information itself may be abused by tabloids and racists even, shock jocks - the sort of people who will take information like this and exploit it?

    NANETTE ROGERS: Yes, because one of the features of the paper is that I say that Aboriginal people in central Australia must take more responsibility for not only talking about the general issues surrounding Aboriginal male violence and the violence of men in remote communities, but also taking responsibility for following through if they're a witness to a matter, following through and giving the correct evidence in court. When I say "correct evidence", the evidence that's contained in their police stories. Because often what we get is that Aboriginal people will provide a statement about a particular offence and then refuse to come to court or when they're in court, refuse to give the evidence because they say, "No, I didn't see it. "No, it's not my responsibility".

    TONY JONES: Is that a very common problem that you face?

    NANETTE ROGERS: It is quite common and it is extremely frustrating, because sometimes we're unable to continue with prosecutions because there's no evidence as such. So Aboriginal people in central Australia have to take responsibility for the kinds of violence that is happening in and around themselves and their communities and they must follow through with it, stand up and be counted and not just say, "Oh well, the policeman knows the story, "the nurse knows the story, it's not my responsibility". An aspect of that, about why they don't at the present time is because Aboriginal society here tends to be very punitive. So if a witness goes into court and tells the story about what they saw the offender do or whatever it happens to be, they're liable to get physically punished by the offender's family for telling the story and getting the offender into trouble. So it's kind of like - it's a punitive culture, you know, at every turn.

    TONY JONES: Nanette Rogers, we've put you through the mill here. We thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us tonight, and I'm sure this debate will continue.

    NANETTE ROGERS: You're welcome.

    Monday 28 January 2013

    Q& A March 8 2010 Burke / Dawkins

    RICHARD DAWKINS: But I just stated it. I didn't ridicule it. I simply stated it.

    TONY BURKE: No. No. No. No. Sorry, if you go back over the words you used, once you're stating it you did then ridicule it. You did. And if you want to look at the challenges and the conflicts and making a community around the world work together, then the level of respect that so many religions have not shown for each other absolutely needs to be lifted and your level of respect and tolerance could probably be a bit better too.

    RICHARD DAWKINS: Let me answer that. Let me answer that. I did not more than state the Christian doctrine and Tony then said, "That is the Christian doctrine. Isn't it admirable." People said, "Yes, it's admirable." So how is it disrespectful if I simply state what it is and half the audience think it's admirable? What's disrespectful about stating it?

    TONY BURKE: Press rewind, hear your own words. You have changed them.


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    1. Monday, 8 March 2010God, Science and Sanity
      Panellists: Richard Dawkins, author, evolutionary biologist and atheist; Patrick McGorry, mental health expert and Australian of the Year; Rabbi Jackie Nino; Family First Senator Steve Fielding; Julie Bishop, Deputy Opposition Leader; and Tony Burke, Minister for Agriculture.more ›
      God, Science and Sanity


    Sunday 27 January 2013

    Hot days are here again



    http://2012.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2012-01-24/201201231327301637618.html


    Hot days are here again

    Rafael Nadal
    Perta Kvitova
    Perta Kvitova of the Czech Republic at the change of ends in her match against Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, Day 8, 23 January 2012.
    Getty Images
    It seems no Australian Open can be complete without a few blazing hot days of summer heat enveloping Melbourne Park, likening the tennis courts to a sizzling pan on the stove. And this year’s tournament is no different.
    With the first few days serving rather tempered temperatures, the heat has settled in on the Australian Open over the weekend, forcing players to take extra precautions to make sure they’re at their best – and stay on their feet – as temperatures continue to climb.
    Temperatures reached as high as 33 on Monday and stayed above 30 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Such figures translate to just around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
    “God it was hot,” exclaimed Martina Navratilova following her Legends’ Doubles match. “Geez, I don't know how they do it. I've just been practicing indoors, and it was brutal. It wasn't hot enough for them to close the roof. I'm like, ‘bloody hell.’ Glad I'm not playing anymore. I don't know how they do it.”
    In the steamy conditions a hat-wearing Serena Williams was bundled out of the Open by unknown Russian Ekaterina Makarova. She contributed part of her lacklustre performance to the boiling temperatures.
    “It was definitely hot out there,” a dejected Williams said after her loss.
    Despite the high temperatures, the Extreme Heat Policy (EHP) was not in effect on Monday. The EHP takes a variety of measurements into consideration, including the humidity on site, as well as the temperature itself using what’s called the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature. To be put into effect, the tournament referee will make a decision once the Wet Bulb reading reaches 28.
    “The weather man gives us what the time is, what the temperature is and what the Wet Bulb Globe reading is every hour,” Tournament Director Craig Tiley said. “The measurement is right on site.”
    “We watch the Wet Bulb all the time, up to the minute,” said tournament meteorologist Bob Leighton. “The Wet Bulb has been around 28 today, but a breeze out there too. It’s only about 31 or 32 degrees”
    Breeze or no breeze, it was a hot day Monday. Few clouds in the sky made the sun ever more powerful as fans around the grounds were encouraged to stay hydrated and apply sunscreen often.
    Over the years, the EHP has been shifted to give players more of a reprieve. In 2009 it was changed from stating that matches that had already started before the policy was put into effect must be finished completely. Now matches that are on court when the EHP is put into effect only have to finish the set they’re currently in.   
    One of the most famous hot-weather matches in recent memory was Maria Sharapova’s epic first-round win over Frenchwoman Camille Pin in Rod Laver Arena. Temperatures that day soared close to 40 degrees as Sharapova eeked out a 9-7 in-the-third win.
    "Sometimes when it's that hot your mind doesn't work properly,” said Sharapova, who admitted to having trouble seeing after the match.
    ““I went out on the court and remember thinking, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know how she is playing out there,’” Tiley said of the Sharapova match. “It was so hot. We had to be careful to make sure and cool the players off – it was fairly extreme.”
    So extreme that the EHP was changed from a stance that matches had to finish in completion to what it is today.
    Players are hyper-aware of the heat in Australia. Tournament doctor Tim Wood said that the fact that most players are coming from the Northern Hemisphere’s winter to a January summer in Melbourne doesn’t help them in the heat.
    “We’ve never had anyone at this tournament that has needed to be taken to the hospital for serious heat stroke,” Wood said. “It takes the body 10 days to acclimatize to the heat. More and more [players] are coming to Australia earlier to acclimatize.”
    Australian upstart Bernard Tomic made his distaste for the heat known earlier in the tournament.
    “I think, you know, during the day [session] you've got to survive.  You're not only playing the player, you're playing the heat as well.”
    Fans did their best to stay out of the sun on Monday, crowds in both Rod Laver and Hisense Arenas populating the shaded seats more than those in the sun. But for the players? There’s little shade on court during a hot afternoon of tennis.