Activists continue to fight bulldozers and corrupted government processes in Perth's southern suburbs

"Protest that endures.. is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success; namely the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence".
Wendell Berry

In Perth's southern suburbs a remarkable community- based campaign and furious community opposition and protest is delaying the controversial Roe 8 Project, an extension to the Roe Highway, which forms part of the Barnett Government's Perth Freight Link. 

The Barnett Government intends to build the Roe highway extension through the internationally recognized Beeliar wetlands and in the lead up to the March 2017 state election the Government began clearing major urban woodlands in the suburb of Coobellup to make way for the Roe 8 extension.

The wetlands and urban woodlands are an important habitat for threatened species, including the Carnaby's Black cockatoo and the forest red- tailed cockatoo. The sites are important heritage, Indigenous heritage, environmental and recreational sites and much loved and cared for by people who live in the southern suburbs.

The clearing is a cynical election ploy, designed to shore up support in a host of southern suburb Liberal- National party held seats that are at serious risk of falling in the March election.

For the last 8 weeks thousands of ordinary citizens have mounted protests to stop the bulldozers. They have sought legal injunctions, protested on site, occupied the site, locked themselves onto machinery, held sit ins and silent vigils, scaled and lived in trees for days to protect trees from bulldozers. 

Still the clearing continues.

Hundreds have been arrested by a police force, acting on behalf of the State Government, who stand accused of  over-reaction, use of excessive and unnecessary force and random arrest of protesters.

The protesters have been demonized by the Premier and his Ministers and by the major newspaper in the City.

The Director of the Conservation Council of WA Piers Verstegen has been one of the high profile public voices of the campaign and has successfully mounted the public case against the Roe 8 extension in daily forays in the media and in speeches on site.

Piers posted this powerful piece on his Facebook site today. He calls for a Commission of Inquiry into this profoundly corrupted and destructive project.

(Piers Verstegen comments printed with permission).

After being away from the Beeliar Wetlands for a few days and with the bulldozer briefly at bay, I took a walk into the site this morning to have look at what was due to be destroyed next. What I found was incredible.

These ancient paperbark (melaluca) trees are the largest and oldest I have ever seen. They would already have towered above the Beeliar Wetland at the time when the Swan River Colony was first settled. Now they are about to be destroyed within days by Colin Barnett's Bulldozer for the Roe 8 highway.

  

The towering paperbarks shading the cool sedges, rushes and and other understory species are part of an endangered ecosystem – the result of the longest continuous evolutionary process on this planet. Centuries ago, this type of woodland would have covered much larger areas, but with the majority of our wetlands having been filled in, drained or used as rubbish tips, this is one of the very few areas we have left in good ecological condition.

The site is a sacred women’s place for Nyoongar people and perhaps hundreds of generations of people would have been born here. This apparently is of no consequence because the State Government has unilaterally de-listed these areas from the Register of Aboriginal Heritage sites.

This is the section of the highway where a ‘bridge’ will be built, supposedly to minimise environmental damage. The trees that will not be bulldozed will be underneath huge sections of concrete which will block all light. Their roots, and the delicate groundwater hydrology beneath their massive trunks will be disturbed by the excavation of giant footings for concrete pylons. Giant cranes, earthmovers and other heavy machinery will compact the soil and further damage what remains of this place. The actual road-building work will not commence here for many months so destroying this place right now, just weeks before the election is totally unnecessary – an act of senseless environmental and cultural vandalism.


The fact that our environmental laws can allow a place like this to be trashed for a toll road which has no business case and no clear economic benefits, shows how deeply inadequate those laws are.

Last week I posted an open letter to the WA Environment Minister regarding failures to comply with conditions leading to the unnecessary death of bandicoots and other wildlife at the clearing sites. After having no response to that letter, the community has had a small win today as the contractors suspended clearing work to allow more trapping for wildlife to take place. Here, the community has managed to uphold the conditions on the project for a single day after weeks of blatant breaches with no response to hundreds of letters, emails and calls to the Minister or the EPA.

For now, these incredible ancient paperbarks stand. But together with so many others I am struggling to contain my anger and despair at the realisation that unless a miracle occurs, they will be destroyed forever within days. A permanent ugly scar will be left in the heart of this incredible place as a constant reminder of a heartless and misguided government desperate to regain popular support by taking a tough line on the environment.

One thing that gives me hope is that I believe that what has happened here with the Beeliar Wetlands will one day be the subject of a major Commission of Inquiry with far reaching consequences. All of this evidence will be examined – right from the beginning of the flawed EPA assessment (where EPA board members had conflicts of interest and the government failed to follow its own policies), to the last few heartbreaking weeks of constant blatant breaches of environmental conditions, to the history of corrupt and improper dealings by the companies involved, and to the misuse of police resources and well over 100 arrests of peaceful community members trying to uphold our environmental laws when the government and courts fails to do so. I believe all of this evidence will provide the platform for a future government to strengthen our environmental laws so that something like this can never happen again. And while the wetlands are trashed, those reforms will happen because people stood up for what they believed in.

Environmental crisis and massive fish kill in Cockburn Sound

An environmental crisis is unfolding in Perth's Cockburn Sound and no one seems to know the cause.

A massive fish kill, or localized die off of fish populations is occurring.

 

Over recent weeks, more than 2000 fish, mainly pink snapper and blowfish, as well as  marine life up the food chain, including pelicans, seabirds and fairy penguins have been found dead in Cockburn Sound and along its beaches. (Although the Department of Fisheries disputed that penguins were dying as result of the kill and said that a dead penguin found had died of starvation).

 

There are also reports that people swimming in Cockburn Sound have had adverse reactions, including skin irritations and rashes and that the water was stinging.

 

Cockburn Sound is an open ocean inlet off the Perth coast that lies between Garden Island, Carnac Island and the Perth coastline and stretches from the mouth of the Swan River at Fremantle, south to Cockburn, Kwinana and Rockingham. The Sound is a vital and fragile marine environment used for commercial and recreational fishing and is the breeding ground for pink snapper.

 

Cockburn Sound is WA's major industrial zone for heavy industry, petroleum and chemical industries and Garden Island is a major naval base. The Sound contains numerous popular beaches.

 

Cockburn Sound has been under severe pressure for some time. There has long been concern about environmental and water quality and the health of Cockburn Sound, due to the presence of heavy industry along the Kwinana Industrial Strip and the naval base at Garden Island. Large beachside residential developments along the coast have added to pressure on the Sound.

A 2014 Report on the State of Cockburn Sound found it was under severe environmental pressure, including ongoing concerns about the health of seagrass; signs of declining water quality, particularly in southern sections showing signs of nutrient enrichment and problems with dissolved oxygen concentration and poor water circulation; very poor water quality in some smaller areas and seafood was generally safe for consumption.

 

The WA Department of Fisheries has been unable to pinpoint the cause of the deaths and claims that microscopic examination of gill samples have shown the fish may have suffered respiratory stress, probably due to water quality. The Department said that respiratory stress can be caused by physical irritants or chemical contaminants.

Fish kills like this are the first visible sign of environmental stress. Many fish species have a low tolerance for variations in environmental conditions and mass deaths are often an indicator of problems in the environment that may affect other animals and plants and may have a direct impact on other uses of the water.

Reduced oxygen in the water is the most common cause of kills and this may be due to factors such as sustained increases in water temperature, drought, algal bloom, overpopulation, infectious disease and parasites  Toxicity is a real, but less common cause of fish kill.

 

The Department claims it has been testing for algal toxins, hydrocarbons, ammonia and pesticides. But the exact cause of the problem is still unknown. A Departmental spokesperson said:

 

"Test results received to date indicate no evidence of either natural algal or industrial toxin involvement and point towards an as yet unknown natural event as the cause of this incident."

In the WA Parliament, Minister Helen Morton said that a canola grain spill at the CBH Kwinana Grain Jetty  between November 18-22 may have resulted in some grain entering into the Sound. The Department of Environment Regulation is investigating the spill from the Kwinana grain jetty, as it matches the timeframe for the reports of dead fish.

 

But a Fisheries spokesman said the examination of the dead fish stomach contents found no evidence of canola or any other unnatural food source.

The Barnett Government and the  Fisheries Minister have come under severe criticism for their haphazard and shambolic handing of the crisis and their failure to act with a sense of urgency.

Recreational fishers are so outraged about the Government's response they crowd sourced and initiated their own investigation. In addition to an organised protest, they are urging fishers to take their boats out into Cockburn Sound to locate dead fish to understand more about the problem.

The WA Fisheries Minister Ken Bastian contradicted his own Department after saying he would  not recommend people eat fish from Cockburn Sound. His comments came after his Department had said  that fishing or swimming in the Sound were safe. The Minister was not aware that his own Department had issued an all clear for people to go fishing.

The ALP Opposition points to the abolition of the Cockburn Sound Management Authority, which existed to monitor water quality, as a contributing factor.

 

Many of the fish kills are in area known as Mangles Bay, which is the site for  a proposed Mangles Bay Inland Marina and private canal estate, a development opposed by many groups.

 

Green groups, environmental groups and local citizens oppose the development and a major development at Point Peron which they argue threaten the health of Cockburn Sound. They argue the Barnett Government's plans for major beachside marina, private canal estates and residential developments along pristine parts of the Sound are putting more pressure on an already fragile ecosystem.

 

Greens MP and spokeswoman Lynn MacLaren said fish kills in Cockburn Sound were further proof the Barnett Government should rethink proceeding with the Mangles Bay Inland Marina:

 

"The latest kills were near the Garden Island Causeway and Point Peron boat ramp, which is adjacent to Mangles Bay. Mangles Bay is known to be a thriving fish nursery of state importance and it also has the healthiest seagrass beds in the Sound. It is irrational to destroy the one area in the Sound that is in really good health while we are still struggling to manage overall water quality and health."

 

Who said poetry serves no useful purpose? Samantha Connor's poem of complaint

Samantha Connor's poem of complaint has had the desired effect, yielding a refund and a response from the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre and a promise to address the problem.

Earlier in the week I wrote this piece (and published here in the online publication The Stringer) about Samantha's  response to her attempt to book a ticket for a Stephen Fry gig at the Perth Exhibition and Convention Centre, only to be told that as a wheelchair user she would be charged an extra $20 because, apparently, the wheelchair bays are in premium spots.

Tired of writing complaint letters to agencies who discriminate against people with disabilities she tried something different.

She wrote them a poem.

Within days this response was sent to the editor of The Stringer, an online publication that ran my piece and also publishes Samantha's writings on disability.

Hello,

My name is Meg Coffey and I am the marketing consultant for PCEC. In regards to your post today, I wish to advise you that PCEC have worked together with Ticketek in resolving the ticketing structure/pricing for Stephen Fry: Telling Tales, to be held in the Riverside Theatre.

PCEC have arranged reimbursements to wheelchair patrons that have been disadvantaged by the ticketing pricing structure set for the show.

Moving forward, PCEC and Ticketek will work together with concert promoters, to ensure wheelchair and carer seats are all priced within the same pricing category for shows to ensure no-one is disadvantaged by demand.

We want to ensure the experience of patrons in the venue is an enjoyable one and not marred by their experience when purchasing tickets for in-house shows.

Many thanks,
Meg

The Convention and Exhibition Centre are to be commended for taking action, however their reply is admission that they were knowingly gouging and discriminating against people living with a disability by applying an additional charge. 

Many people were outraged by the Convention Centre's gall in the first place to think they could rip people off and then try to extricate themselves. One person described the PCEC's reply as lame and 'as weak as  piss':

'In other words, we tried to rip people off, got caught and now we are exposed to be being "rip off" merchants! and because this lady is on to us!! we better lift our game' 

Samantha also appeared on Perth ABC morning radio and ABC News (here) where she said:

'I wrote the poem because sometimes something with an amusing twist is a better way to go, it keeps it light hearted. You can write letters until the cows come home and you don't always get the response that you want.'

As Samantha pointed out to the ABC, the problem of access and pricing to sports and entertainment venues is common for people living with disabilities in Perth and she called for more venues to look at ways to improve access, seating, ticketing and amenity for wheelchair users and people living with disability.

Samantha noted how she had been contacted by many people raising concerns about discrimination against people with disabilities by venues in Perth. She wrote:

'It's amazing how much discrimination goes on every day, unnoticed by most. We start talking about this issue, which was raised by another wheelchair user. 

Prue tells us that she can't go into the licensed area when she sees a show at another area because there's a step, and the downstairs is unlicensed - a friend can't bring her a drink downstairs. Bronwyn tells us that she has to pay eighty bucks more to attend a concert with her daughter (who is a wheelchair user) and fights for the right to sit with her kids Darren says that there is no gold season ticket at the rugby, and you can only choose between diamond (at exorbitant prices) or crappy silver. Crispin tells us that two grandstands are unavailable (no lift access) at the NIB stadium and that sports fans can't get in to see a game. Someone else, I forget who, said that going to see the cricket was impossible because the shaded seats were inaccessible and your choices were left of field in full sun. 

It's pretty interesting that the stuff we work on at systemic and policy level is all about 'increasing participation' but people literally can't get in the door, to work as well as to play or just do the things ordinary Australians do. I'm not off to Stephen Fry, for a number of reasons - one of them is that no matter what the price is, I'm still not able to go to the event unless I go alone - the wheelchair spaces are in the premium area, which have been booked out by others. My family/friends would have to sit in the bottom bit whilst I sat up the top. Yeah, nah.

I really liked that the user group and the access group for the new Stadium were and are listened to and involved all the way through. I really hope it won't be another disastrous Perth Arena in terms of access. We live in hope!'

Two tumultous years but little real progress for adult victims of child sexual abuse

“Victims and their families have been fighting for recognition and justice for decades and great victories were achieved when the Victorian Inquiry and the Royal Commission were established. But ‘for what’ they say.”

Judy Courtin

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is after 2 years, at its halfway mark. The Commission is focused on systemic issues and institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse. Public hearings have been the main way the Commission does its work.

 

Although the Royal Commission’s brief is overwhelming, the hearings have been revelatory and harrowing. The Commission has heard evidence of horrific and horrendous systematic and institutional physical and sexual abuse and rape of children within religious, faith and welfare organisations. 

 

Evidence to the Commission shows that both low and high level officials in institutions supposed to protect children actively conspired to abuse and rape them. In many cases these were highly sophisticated, organized institutional crimes committed against children.
 

 The Commission has exposed the breadth of institutional settings - churches, schools, hospitals, out-of-homecare, children's homes, juvenile centres, NFPs and charities- where abuse occurred.

Hearings have demonstrated that the impact of the abuse has been profound and multi-dimensional and the damage compounds year after year and that suicides and premature deaths of victims are widespread. Evidence presented to the Commission shows that the impact and trauma resulting from the abuse is intergenerational, affecting victims, extended family, partners, wives, husbands, children, parents and grandchildren.

But two years into the Royal Commission, progress has been slow for victims, who still suffer at the hands of the churches and institutions responsible for the abuse, as well as the legal system and the inaction of Federal and State Governments.

Lawyer and campaigner Judy Courtin argues that many survivors who have been fighting for justice for decades, particularly for adequate financial compensation and support, have had enough.

Worn out by having to fight institutions and government, and despite taking serious personal risks by giving evidence in public hearings to the Commission, Courtin argues that many victims and families have had their hopes for justice dashed by the failure of the Federal Government and the responsible institutions.

Courtin writes that many continue to be victimized by the system and by institutions and are shattered that justice has not prevailed. 

There is also growing concern that recommendations of the Royal Commission are likely to be cast aside, particularly where they are costly, difficult to implement and/or where they are too much of a threat to powerful institutions, such as the churches, Governments, government agencies and Police. 

Earlier this year the Abbott Government bluntly rejected the Royal Commission’s call for a National Redress scheme. The Abbott Government scoffed at suggestions that it be the ‘funder of last resort’ for people abused within and by institutions that no longer exist.

 Judy Courtin writes that the Federal Government not only showed contempt for child victims of sexual abuse, but its response further abuses victims of child sexual abuse. Further, she argues that the Abbott Government abandoned the 65,000 survivors of child sex crimes who now have to fight the institutions where the crimes occurred.

Evidence to the Commission shows that officials in institutions supposed to protect children actively conspired to abuse and rape them, however, more than 80% of alleged clergy sex offenders have evaded criminal accountability.

Many of the victims gave evidence that they tried to tell people in authority of the horrors they suffered, only to be severely punished, dismissed or forgotten.

Victims have provided evidence implicating influential Church, religious and community leaders in cover up of abuse. Crimes were actively denied, ignored or covered up. 

 

Cover ups were reliant on the abuse of institutional power. In addition, authoritarian leadership and toxic power structures and cultures, enabled and extended sexual abuse and its subsequent cover up. Evidence presented to the Commission showed that perpetrators often had a profound sense of entitlement and that the authoritarian nature of the institutions and their cultures aided the abuse and cover up.

The hierarchy and leadership of many churches, faith groups and institutions, as well as public authorities, knew about the abuse as far back as the 1950’s and 1960’s, but acted to protect their own interests, image and credibility at the expense of victims. The response by most institutions to victims has been hostile, dismissive, legalistic and victim blaming.

Judy Courtin argues that survivors want the whole truth to come out and that should go further than what the offenders themselves did, arguing that :

'It was much more important to have accountability of the hierarchy on the concealing than accountability of the offender'

Courtin believes the lack of convictions for concealing abuse means church figures and leaders enjoy impunity. Her research shows that there has not been one conviction for the crime of concealing sex crimes and a serious lack of accountability and impunity by the institutions involved.  She writes:

 

The only legal entity for the church that can be sued is a property trust, the trustees of which cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of the offending priests. Victims do not have access to the civil courts and instead have had little choice but to return to the very church that protected their offenders. Based on my research, these hostile and legalistic processes deliver very little. Victims feel silenced by these processes and are forced to sign a deed of release preventing them from ever suing the church or any of its clergy.

The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide  has been charged with the concealment of an allegation of child sexual abuse by a convicted paedophile priest as part of NSW Police investigations arising from the NSW Inquiry.

Cardinal George Pell (formerly Australia’s highest rank Catholic leader) has been accused of knowing of serious sexual abuse and rape and doing nothing; of trying to bribe victims to keep quiet; of ignoring or dismissing complaints; of colluding to protect perpetrators; and of transferring known offenders.

 

Evidence presented at the hearings has shown that Government departments, police, welfare authorities, community leaders, public agencies, NFPs and ordinary citizens also did nothing or were complicit in the abuse.  The Commission hearings have shown that those who experienced child sexual abuse in institutions were ignored and disbelieved by the adults and institutions who were supposed to protect them.

 

Judy Courtin has written that some Police investigations tried to silence and discredit victims.

Many charitable organizations made it possible for powerful and influential people to engage in and conceal highly sophisticated and organized criminal activities. Victims and victim groups have made a serious critique of behaviour by churches, faith and charitable organizations who benefit from significant public funding and support and in some cases tax exempt status.

Some victims and victim groups have called for churches and charities involved in abuse to have their tax free status withdrawn.

Given the power and influence of the churches, it is unlikely that such a recommendation would be supported by Governments. 

The Royal Commission has recently published a Research Paper suggesting that organizations be held criminally responsible when their negligence results in harms to children. 

 

The Paper proposes the creation of offences of criminal negligence to hold organisations criminally responsible for the creation and/or management of risk of harm and for their response when harm is done to a child.  This would require state governments to create new offences to cover such conduct.

 

It is difficult to see State Governments supporting this recommendation and no doubt charities and NFPs, as well as corporate and business lobbies who see the risks this recommendation presents to corporations and business involved in profiting from the care and welfare of children, would mobilise to oppose such a recommendation. 

In recent years there has been a plethora of State and now Federal Inquiries into child sexual abuse and child protection. The Royal Commission commissioned a study of the extent to which recommendations from those inquiries had been implemented which found that less than half (48%) of the recommendations had been implemented fully.

 

In light of the implementation gap concerning the failure of State and Federal governments to take up recommendations from previous Inquiries and Commissions, there are serious questions as to whether the Royal Commission's work will make a  significant difference for victims or for children.

 

The signs so far are not overly encouraging.

Poem by Jack Davis: the Writers

 Jack Davis
The Writers

They say
we are the makers of history
we inspire others
to laugh and to cry and to kill
They say
we are the sages
we write the pages
and out of the figment
of what they imagine
men come steel clad
over the brow of the hill.

Jack Davis  (1917-2000) was a distinguished Noongar playwright, poet, author and campaigner for Aboriginal rights and is arguably Western Australia's finest poet. 

Other blog pieces featuring his poetry are here.

His poetry calls out to us to remember the unwritten and forgotten history of Western Australia (and Australia).

Davis's poem John Pat  is perhaps WA's most renowned poem and was written about the death in 1983 in a Roebourne police cell of John Pat, a 16 year old Aboriginal boy who died of head injuries caused in a disturbance between Aboriginal people and Police.

Four police were charged with manslaughter but acquitted. John Pat's death was the catalyst for the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

'Nothing about us without us': The Barnett Government and social policy making that excludes end users

photo of Samantha Connor courtesy of ABC

My colleague and friend Samantha Connor is a renowned and fearsome Western Australian disability activist, advocate, writer and campaigner. (You can read about Samantha here and here). Her writings on disability issues on The Stringer are here.)

 

Today she has a letter in the West Australian newspaper in response to a recent story and statement by the Disability Minister Helen Morton who claimed the WA had the best disability system in Australia and that WA's system of providing support and services to people living with disabilities called My Way, was far better than the Federal Government's pilot NDIS system currently being trialled in WA. 

 

Samantha writes:

 

'"It’s unfortunate that Minister Helen Morton and the WA Government has decided that it’s to be ‘My Way or the Highway’ (WA’s own services best for disabled, 2.9.15). Announcing that WA has the best scheme might be in the best interests of both government and providers, but what about people with disability themselves?

 

The evaluation for the two disability schemes, the Commonwealth National Disability Insurance Scheme, and the State based My Way scheme, will not be completed for many months. Preliminary feedback indicates that the jury is still out, with many end users critical of aspects of the State based scheme and others finding the Commonwealth scheme difficult to engage with.

 WA has a regrettable track record of declaring ourselves ‘the best’ when it comes to disability care and support. That flies in the face of the commentary of many people with disability and their families who have found our State system not only lacking, but appalling.'

 

As a disability advocate, a person with a disability and a parent of children with a disability, I ask our State Government to think carefully about making decisions for us and speaking upon our behalf. We understand that this is about your carefully built State systems and your individual interests – but for we people with disability of Western Australia, this is about our lives."

 

As Samantha rightly notes, politicians and State Governments are using the roll out of the NDIS for their own political purposes, as much as they aspire to assist people with disabilities.

The WA Government's is actively using the NDIS to serve its own political and policy agenda. 

The Barnett government presents an idealised picture of a disability system that they claim effectively serves the needs of people living with disabilities, despite evidence to the contrary and is using the opportunities presented by the NDIS to extend its agenda of privatisation and outsourcing of government funded and provided health, social and community services.

 

The Minister has come to rely on West Australian parochialism, spin, overinflated political rhetoric and dismissal of her critics as a way to conceal major policy failures across a number of her portfolio responsibilities, including disability, child protection and children's services, mental health and suicide prevention.

 

The Disability Services Commission, who is fighting to protect and maintain its position of power and influence over WA's disability sector, has also shown itself willing to engage in political manoeuvrings in its support for the Barnett Government's agenda. It released this statement yesterday

 

" Getting additional resources is important, but what the WA State Government is focussed on, is making sure WA gets the best NDIS in the nation - a system that will provide the best supports and services to people with disability, their families and carers. The supports that people with disability need to live good lives in their local communities. The individual packages costs in the Lower South West may be lower than the national average, but this may not be the case when the Cockburn-Kwinana area rolls in.

 The learnings from the two trials of the NDIS in WA will help inform how the NDIS will operate in WA into the future. But, the State Government can’t wait until the trials are over to start the conversation with the Commonwealth about rolling out an NDIS for all people with disability in WA. The Minister for Disability Services wants to start the conversation now. She has been told by many people that WA NDIS My Way works – they like the support provided by My Way Coordinators who know them, their family and their community.

 The Minister wants to make sure we have an NDIS in WA that is local, builds on the best of our current system and includes the additional State and Commonwealth funding required to meet the needs of all people with disability. This is what is most important."

As Samantha rightly points out the people whose lives are directly affected by all this political posturing- people living with disabilities, their families and carers- are actively excluded from these debates and decisions.

Similar comments were made today by Women With Disabilities WA Inc (WWDWA), an organisation run by and for people with disabilities, who released the following statement:

The organisation believes that it is counter to the original principle of self management to have able-bodied professionals and politicians who don’t personally use the services under trial speaking on behalf of people with disabilities.

There is little evidence in any of the articles that promote the WA My Way scheme that the real experts were interviewed - people with disabilities who are actually using the My Way scheme.

Chair of WWDWA Inc, Ms Zeliha Iscel, said: “One of the central tenets of the disability rights movement is “nothing about us without us”. The current WA My Way and National NDIS schemes both fail to embody this principle and therefore are at risk of failing people with disabilities and our families.”

Ms Iscel stressed that the reality of the My Way and NDIS trials is a lot more complex than the current media reports and government spokespeople have made it out to be. She further emphasised, “It is far too early to be making definite statements about which trial is the best for Western Australia.”

Coordinator of WWDWA Inc, Ms Rayna Lamb says there is a risk of people with disabilities being steamrolled into the NDIS My Way scheme because of the WA government's insistence on WA exceptionalism, regardless of what is actually best for people with disabilities.

Women With Disabilities WA Inc strongly urges the media and government spokespeople to go directly to the people with disabilities and those who support us to get real experience and knowledge on how both trials are running so far. Ms Iscel said: “To do anything less is to treat people with disabilities as perpetual children who are not permitted a voice in our own lives. In 2015, this is unacceptable”.

WWDWA Inc is run by women with disabilities and provides systemic advocacy and peer support for women with disabilities. http://wwdwa.org.au/
 

Another tale of WA's forgotten and hidden history: Don McLeod and the 1946 Pilbara strike

"He basically waged war against the West Australian government. He collected an enormous cache of documentation; he was going to run this huge High Court case based on legislation back in the late 1800s to try to achieve land rights for Aboriginal people. Pretty much to his dying day he was in there boots and all fighting for Aboriginal people."
Deborah Wilson on Don McLeod

Since  2010  I have been writing about the historical silences and the hidden and forgotten history of Western Australia.

 

This includes blog pieces on Aboriginal deaths in custody, Aboriginal poet Jack Davis on Aboriginal history, and the death of John Pat, the Wagerup community taking on Alcoa, the Esperance lead scandal, the scandal of asbestos and Wittenoom, the Atlas oil spill, corporate money and political parties, the imprisonment of an 8 year old Aboriginal boy for stealing a Freddo Frog, the long history of internment camps, the significance of the citizen sector and civil society protest movements, nuclear industry and the corporate stranglehold on NFPs,  

A number of blog pieces here and here were about the 1946 Pilbara strike by Aboriginal pastoral workers for fair pay and better working conditions  in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

 

The strike was a historic event in Australian history. It was the first major strike by Aboriginal people and one of the longest strikes in Australian history. Sadly, the Pilbara strike is largely a footnote  in the 'official' view of Western  Australian history. A recent history of WA since 1826 gives the strike scant attention.

 

A key figure in the 1946 strike was Don McLeod, a white miner, activist, trade unionist and communist who had been initiated into Aboriginal society and culture. McLeod, along with Aboriginal lawmen Dooley Bin Bin and Clancy McKenna  were the coordinators and leaders of the strike.

Don Mcleod was chosen as the key negotiator. At the time he was  a delegate for the Australian Workers Union in Port Hedland.

The strike was planned as far back as 1942 at an Aboriginal law meeting attended by  200 senior Aboriginal law men representing twenty three language groups from much of the remote north west of Western Australia. The meeting lasted six weeks. 

The decision was  taken to postpone the strike until after the Second World War had ended. 

 

At the time Aboriginal workers were paid for their work with supplies such as tobacco and flour instead of cash. The situation in the Pilbara was akin to slavery: if Aboriginal people left a job they could be pursued by the police and forcibly brought back.

 

On May 1 1946, after years of planning, 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers walked off the large pastoral stations in the Pilbara  and from employment in the two major towns of Port Hedland and Marble Bar.

 

Despite constant harassment the strikers sustained themselves using a method of surface mining for tin, and trading skins and pearl shells. The strike continued until August 1949 when the striker's determination and tenacity were rewarded with improvements to pay and conditions for Indigenous people.

 

At the end of the strike many Aboriginal people refused to  work for white station owners. 

         

The strikers also realised a dream of economic independence. They established a number of successful cottage industries and mining concerns and in 1951 they registered Pindan,  the first Indigenous-owned company in Western Australia which went on to own several pastoral stations, including the Strelley station near Port Hedland and establish an independent community school.

 

In 2012, Anne Scrimgour argued that the community and political activism that resulted from the activities of the strikers and particularly from Pindan, the indigenous corporation they created, continued for decades after the strike and was largely overlooked in studies of Aboriginal and social justice activism in Australia.

 

The ABC website has posted a recent story about Don McLeod, which draws from Deborah Wilson's book Different White People: Radical Activism for Aboriginal People 1946-1973 published by the University of WA Press.

Wilson argues that the Pilbara strike was a trigger point that led to the modern Aboriginal rights movement.

Jack Davis and WA's forgotten history

"Write of life
the pious said
forget the past
the past is dead.
But all I see
in front of me
is a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat."

Jack Davis
John Pat

Jack Davis  (1917-2000) was a distinguished Noongar playwright, poet, author and campaigner for Aboriginal rights and is arguably Western Australia's finest poet.

His poetry calls out to us to remember the unwritten and forgotten history of Western Australia.

Davis's poem John Pat  is perhaps WA's most renowned poem and was written about the death in 1983 in a Roebourne police cell of John Pat, a 16 year old Aboriginal boy who died of head injuries alleged to have been caused in a disturbance between Aboriginal people and Police.

Four police were charged with manslaughter but acquitted. The death was the catalyst for the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

Davis’s poem One Hundred and Fifty Years was written in protest at the non-inclusion of Aboriginal people in the celebration of 150 years of European settlement in Western Australia 1829-1979.

One Hundred and Fifty Years
by Jack Davis[1]

I walked slowly along the river.
Old iron, broken concrete, rusted cans
scattered stark along the shore,
plastic strewn by man and tide
littered loudly mute on sparse growth
struggling to survive.
A flock of gulls quarrelled over debris,
a lone shag looked hopefully down at turgid water
and juggernauts of steel and stone made jigsaw
patterns against the city sky.

So now that the banners have fluttered,
the eulogies ended and the tattoos have rendered
the rattle of spears,
look back and remember the end of December
and one hundred and fifty years.

Three boys crackled past on trailbikes
long blond hair waving in the wind,
speedboats erupted power
while lesser craft surged along behind.
The breeze rustled a patch of bull-oak
reminding me of swan, bittern, wild duck winging-
now all alien to the river.
Sir John Forrest stood tall in stone
in St George’s Terrace,
gun across shoulder,
symbolic of what had removed
the river’s first children.

And that other river, the Murray,
where Western Australia’s
first mass murderer Captain Stirling,
trappings flashing, rode gaily
at the head of twenty-four men.
For an hour they fired
and bodies black, mutilated,
floated down the blood-stained stream.

So now that the banners have fluttered,
the eulogies ended and the tattoos have rendered
the rattle of spears,
look back and remember the end of December
and one hundred and fifty years.
 [1] Davis, J (1988) John Pat and Other Poems, DENT, Melbourne 1988.