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Don't Apologise, Just Stop the Killing
Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Saturday, 2 February 2008
To the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Government.
We the Aboriginal People of the Swan Coastal Plains call on the Federal Government and the Prime Minster and his Government to immediately have a Royal Commission into the death of Aboriginal man Ian Ward who was locked up and died on the weekend.
Travelling the distance in a sealed compartment from Laverton and Kalgoorlie is an atrocious long distance drive at this time of year.
With no airconditioning or fresh air this is murder.
It is a rule travelling long distance from one prison to another that if you have a heart attack if you have any sickness the rule is that the prison transport system is not to stop until it gets to its destination. You can be laying there dying and nobody will help you.
This same company, Global Solutions Limited, has a known history of this sort of thing. On New Years Day this year 8 prisoners were being transported from Broome to Roebourne and they was made to sit for over 4 hours in a van with no airconditioning. Over the last few years they have paid $700,000 in fines after being found guilty of other abuses.
So why did the Alan Carpenter Government give this $70 million contract - without a proper tendering process - to a company with a known history of abusing prisoners?
We’ve had enough of this neglect. Persons responsible have gotta be charged.
Will this death be swept under the carpet like all the other ones? They say in the paper that the cause of death from the autopsy report won’t come out for another year. What are they trying to hide?
We call on you Kevin Rudd and your Government for an immediate Royal Commission into the deaths of all Aborignal People and all other white prisoners while being imprisoned and transported in Western Australia.
We are sick and tired of waiting on the State Government of Carpenter that deaths do occur very regular and we demand that you Kevin Rudd take immediate action.
And we don’t want you Kevin Rudd and your Government saying it’s a State matter because it’s a Australia matter and you as Prime Minister you have a Duty of Care to every living Human Being whether you Aboriginal, white, Muslim, Italian, Englishman or whatever.
Neglect of Duty of Care of prisoners being locked in a van, in the desert and in the hottest part of the year, that has no fresh air or airconditioning is a sentence of death for no reason at all.
We call on you to drop all your immediate concerns now about Sorry Days and apologies and spend the money on the crucial things that are here and now, and that’s the killing of Aboriginal people by Government neglect.
We demand once again that you act accordingly and not to listen to what Alan Carpenter and what his Government says over this incident. The Carpenter Government has done nothing about the third world living conditions of Aboriginal People in Western Australia. We want immediate action from you as Prime Minister.
If we go back thrugh the rotation of the years of the Howard era we had no satisfaction with the death of the small boy in Redfern, no satisfaction for the Palm Island death in custody.
We mustn’t talk about sorry and apologising and stolen generations until we clean up all this mess, in ways of getting satisfaction of Justice done for us. It is our Sovereign Right and Sovereignty and that falls under the Law of Duty of Care.
We need a Royal Commission on the whole of what’s happened in the past.
And we call on you Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, to stop these deaths in custody of us the Aboriginal People.
And we quoted you Kevin Rudd about what you the Prime Minister said on Australia Day, that it was not necessary for people to be homeless in a rich country.
We don’t want this rush job of running through on the Sorry and the apologising while Aboriginal People are still homeless, still getting killed in custody, still abused on a daily basis. See - Pro-'symbolic sorry' appeal from Get-up Also - Sorry' is not enough: Aboriginal Alliance _______________________________________________________________________
Jenny Macklin the Minister for Aborignal Affaris says she has consulted largely and widely with Indigenous people and she’s even mentioned that she’s consulted with Malcom Fraser. Now Malcom Fraser is not of our kind and he doesn’t live our lifestyle.
She’s consulted with Lois O’Donoghue. Lois O’Donohue is Lois O’Donoghue. She’s not the voice of the Nation of Aboriginal People. Fred Chaney is not the voice of the Nation of Aboriginal People. She’s mentioned a few others. All the people that she’s mentioned they are not the voices of the whole of the Aboriginal People of Australia.
Now one Liberal went so far as to mention the figure of 300,000 Aboriginals. Surely the Rudd Government and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs have not consulted with 300,000 Aboriginal People up to now. No way. Jenny Macklin is a liar for what she’s saying in the papers out to the public in general and she has not consulted with Aboriginal People in the Western Seaboard of Australia that’s from the south-west area and Perth Metropolitan area to our knowledge.
We the people that have not been consulted call on Wilson Tuckey and the unnamed 5 Liberal politicians of Western Australia who claimed through the media that they are going to oppose this apologising and saying sorry.
We call on them to support the voice of all the Aboriginal People to say unto the Rudd Government: you have gotta consult with each and every Community and Family Clan on the basis of this making final decisions on stolen generations, sorry and apologising because we the Aboriginal Nation have gone through all the stolen generations. We’ve gone through all the threat, the slaughter, the rape, the massacres and the murders of us the Aboriginal Nation of People since the beginning of the coming of the white man.
And we say unto Kevin Rudd and his Government to solve this problem, if you are prepared to spend billions and billions of dollars on one thing then you must spend billions and billions of dollars of bringing all the Aborignal People Australia-wide to Ayers Rock for that Huge Meeting to ask and see what the Aborignal People really want.
That’s why we are calling on all Federal Government politicians who oppose this sorry and apologising to the Aboriginal Nation
And also we call on the Federal Minister for Aboriginal affairs who said there will be a celebration from one small group somewhere in the Eastern Seaboard and that will benefit all the Aborignal People Australia-wide and we say ‘No’. You’re wrong. You cannot interpretate on what we want without talking to us.
We warned you about Sue Gordon - we don’t trust what she did when she was employed by the Howard Government. She doesn’t live our life.
We warned you Jenny Macklin as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and we warned you Kevin Rudd the Prime Minister and the Government.
You’re failing us, the people you’re supposed to represent, because you’re not listening to us.
Robert C Bropho
for THE COMBINED SWAN RIVER AND SWAN COASTAL PLAINS
NATIVE TITLE HOLDERS AND TRADITIONAL OWNERS ________________________________________________________________ Pro-'symbolic sorry' appeal from Get-up See 'Mythbusters' - www.getup.org.au/campaign/Mythbusters Dear friends,
Last October, GetUp members united to demand an apology to the Stolen Generations - as the first act of the new Parliament. We won that battle. Then together we sent over 20,000 emails to our politicians calling for unity - yesterday it appears we helped win that struggle too with the Coalition announcing support for the apology. Now for the next hurdle - removing the remaining misconceptions our fellow Australians have about saying sorry. You see, today GetUp released a poll* conducted by an independent pollster which found that a worrying 36% of Australians still disagree with the decision to say 'sorry'. We reckon if those people had the facts which dispel the myths about an apology then that figure would be a lot lower, and we'd have the national unity to make the Government's gesture a real springboard for further change. That's why we're building a team of 'mythbusters' over the next few days. Click here now to join and start us down a path of true reconciliation: If this apology is to begin the journey to Indigenous equality, the whole nation must be behind it. The power to do that lies in your neighbours, colleagues, brothers, mothers and lovers and the conversations that take place around dinner tables this week. You can turn that 36% into a unified nation by becoming a 'mythbuster' today - we only have a few days left to create conditions ripe for an all nation apology: Having the people and the Parliament united behind this apology will create the momentum needed to make it the first step in eradicating Indigenous disadvantage and ensuring, after a truly sorry history, that Indigenous Australians finally enjoy the rights and privileges of a modern nation. Spread the word today to make next Wednesday's historic moment the beginning of a brighter future. Thanks for being a part of the solution. The GetUp team PS - We've asked a member of the Stolen Generations to tell us exactly what 'sorry' will mean for her. Read her story here. * Click here to see the full 'sorry' poll results. __________________________
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