OnDusk

The public's interest in the unfolding tragic events around the deaths of eight children earlier this week in Cairns is reflected in the trending topics and expressions of disbelief and shock on social media.  Yesterday was another shocking installment when news spread that the mother of seven and aunt of one was expected to be charged with having caused the death of all eight children. I've seen the annual notices of the need for self care and reminders that for many people, the Christmas period is a difficult time of the year. For many of us however, we still can't understand and want to know how and why this dreadful event occured.   I had decided not to watch TV over the past 24 hours because there is a limit to what I want to see while I process this overwhelmingly sad and horrifying incident. But I was not prepared - and was quickly deeply concerned -  to see photos appear in the media, of the neighbourhood children, some of whom it's not unreasonable to ...

“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.” ― W.B. Yeats , The Collected Poems The sound of muffled gunshots and distant explosions woke me. It was just after 2am on Monday night and I’d fallen asleep on the lounge and left the tv on.  I’d watched the broadcast of the siege in the Lindt chocolate café in Sydney for hours so I was fairly sure what was happening from the angle of the camera.  I’d kept watching once I’d heard that family members of hostages had gathered around Martin Place. I'd made mental lists of what I would have taken down to the site. I could have volunteered for coffee runs or offered some fold up chairs or just sat in silence, or moved back and not got in the way. I could have done something. Hundreds of kilometers away, all I could do was watch. This is what ...

So, I'll tell you a story. Where I come from, we say our voices are on the wind. Old people told me this, so it must be true. #tweetyarn — Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014 This yarn, it begins and ends where all things do. On my country. We say we are murrdi... 'one people'. So this yarn, it also includes you. — Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014 I've been asked more than once where I come from, so I'll let you know now, I am from the black soil country, of North West New South Wales. — Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014 That black soil is clean, the rivers were rich, there was plenty of tucker before the ration sheds came to gave us the flour, sugar and tea. — Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014 My mother lived in a little wooden house with her mother and father. With brothers and sisters, it was a little bit tight, eighteen and all. — Siv Parker (@SivParker) June 28, 2014 [Grandfather Bob Lamb, and his wife Mais...

I could have written why some people didn’t like the SBS/NITV event  First Contact before I watched the three-part series, the talk shows, the news and read hours and hours of Twitter. I could have beaten every one to the punchline: when people think like racists, it is harmful and in the right circumstances people will educate themselves. What happens when Aboriginal people are removed from their lands? There are vast areas of land in the Western Australian inland that are classed as uninhabitable because there is no water. That’s not quite right. There is water, it’s just deep underground and you need to know where to look. How Aboriginal people survived in these places without access to rivers and regular rainfall was by maintaining soaks, the ‘native water wells’. Without the knowledge that has been passed down for generations, you would probably never find a soak.   They were covered over to protect them from contamination, and in that heat with ...

In case you weren’t aware, please know there’s a campaign to have Indigenous people recognized in the Australian Constitution.  It’s been going for a while now. It has a lot of support from people from all walks of life. If also has it’s detractors. They come in all shapes and sizes too. So there are two other campaigns. One is to throw out some alternative ideas to recognition. A Treaty is one idea.  The other is to derail the Constitutional Recognition campaign. This goal splinters again into even more objectives. Confused? If you think that is confusing, then you are some way to understanding why some Aboriginal people do not like #FirstContactSBS.   Politics. Conflict. Suspicion. Blackout. If you are not aware that a writer or a spokesperson or a media identity is opposed to the Constitutional Recognition campaign then you wouldn’t get that because First Contact has some links – be they ever so faint – to the governme...

The first episode of the three-part documentary series First Contact  was a profoundly challenging event for a number of viewers, both black and white. Some of the reasons for discomfiture were plain to see, if like me, you watched the first episode with one eye on Twitter. First, a recap of Tuesday night’s explosive first episode : The three-episode documentary series was ' inspired by statistics showing six of 10 Australians had no contact with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people '. If we are to build better relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-Indigenous Australians we must first understand the underlying values and perceptions that shape this relationship. Australian Reconciliation Barometer 2012 So began the quest to find 6 participants to film over four weeks in situations that would expose them to a diversity of Indigenous Australia lifestyles and perspectives. The p...