"Where ever I roam, I always call Australia HOME!""A true leader will remember it is the people who vote for them, not big business, not the unions, mining, agricultural sector or any other special interest group. They will think first of the welfare of the people. They will think about the long term good of Australia and not their popularity at the next election, they will be a statesman and diplomat. Gough was probably the closest, Menzies may have started well, but was in office too long and the rot set in. Keating was ok and Hawke was a popular larrikin but too much so to be a statesman. Fraser was a statesman but not the greatest PM. Looking about the best PM to come is either not born yet, or not preselected to stand as a candidate. I think there is more talent in the Senate than the House of Reps." ~Barbara Easthope, FB, 9 September 2015
"A year after the bush fires nature fought back: green leaves started to sprout, dead trees gave way for new ones to grow, charred bodies of dead animals were all over, but life as they say, goes on." ~Jun Acculador, Awesome Australia, July 11, 2021 (Blackheath, Blue Mountains)
"Australia cannot be an innovation unless it is an education nation." ~Bill Shorten, ALP PM Candidate 2 July 2016 Election Campaign
"Australia does not have to choose between a growing economy and great schools." ~Bill Shorten, ALP
"Australia is a land of contrasting weather condition of floods droughts and bush fires and recently snow and ice up in the blue mountains." ~Frank Cavar
"Australia isn't just a place you see, it's a place you feel." ~Chris Hemsworth
"Australians read more books per capita than any other nation and the Australian book industry is one of the most vibrant in the English-speaking world." ~Jon Page, Australian Booksellers Association president
"Being able to be a free and critical thinker, who wants to share my views with others to prevent further sufferering in the world without being silenced." ~Farcue R Sole/Understand the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth May 2020
"Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first." ~Steve Irwin
"Every person must find their own song." ~Australian Aborigine Philosophy
"Even if Turnbull wins, he loses. And even if Shorten loses, he wins." ~Lenore Taylor on July 2, 2016 Election
"Australia cannot be an innovation unless it is an education nation." ~Bill Shorten, ALP PM Candidate 2 July 2016 Election Campaign
"Australia does not have to choose between a growing economy and great schools." ~Bill Shorten, ALP
"Australia is a land of contrasting weather condition of floods droughts and bush fires and recently snow and ice up in the blue mountains." ~Frank Cavar
"Australia isn't just a place you see, it's a place you feel." ~Chris Hemsworth
"Australians read more books per capita than any other nation and the Australian book industry is one of the most vibrant in the English-speaking world." ~Jon Page, Australian Booksellers Association president
"Being able to be a free and critical thinker, who wants to share my views with others to prevent further sufferering in the world without being silenced." ~Farcue R Sole/Understand the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth May 2020
"Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first." ~Steve Irwin
"Every person must find their own song." ~Australian Aborigine Philosophy
"Even if Turnbull wins, he loses. And even if Shorten loses, he wins." ~Lenore Taylor on July 2, 2016 Election
"Explore a place where nature and culture collide like nowhere else on earth. A place to feel inspired. To feel alive. And most of all, to feel new again." ~Visit NSW
"If an idea is worth fighting for, no matter what the penalty, fight for the right and truth and justice will prevail." ~Joseph Benedict Chiefly
"If we close the borders to the East what will happen to our markets of products and supply chains for important goods." ~Mark McGowan
"If we get a vaccine, that will be wonderful, but I still think it's not going to be a silver bullet." ~Mark Coulton, Federal Minister for Regional Health, September 2020
"If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country that accepted you." ~Julia Gillard
"IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT... Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians." ~Julia Gillard
"Invigorate and involve Parliament in scrutinising the use of emergency and disaster powers." ~Michael Kirby (Alan Jones, Sky News, September 9, 2020 on Truth about Covid 19)
"Islam has no place in Australia if we are to live in a cohesive society" ~Pauline Hanson
"It was worse than being out droving … I was treated like an equal on the floor of the chamber, neither giving nor asking quarter, but there were hours just sitting in my office and I went home alone to my unit at night. There was never one night when anyone said, ‘Hey, let’s go out tonight’." ~Neville Bonner
"John Howard wanted a cashless society years ago. Covid is his wet dream come true. In the meantime, Paul Keatings prophesy of a banana Republic has arrived. What a pair of happy little Vegemites they might be." ~MsRobyne Dudley-Jones, FB thread of Ozzie poli-sci on covid19 July 2020
"Safety and security is Australian tourism’s main strength in an uncertain world." ~Robyn Ironside, News Corp Australia Network, July 26, 2016
"Sometimes all you need is red dirt and to sit under the stars of the Outback." ~Our Outback, Our Story
"South Australia is a charming state of surprises. It is home to quiet nooks and crannies that emerge into a kind of magnificence at spring, cheery brilliance at summer and then turn enigmatic at autumn and mysterious at winter." ~Norma Hennessy
"Surely Australia can use this Paris climate agreement to finally end the barren, wasted years of climate policy war." ~Lenore Taylor
"Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or coldi. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull." ~Baz Luhrmann
"The idea that public art can only be aesthetically pleasing and non-offensive to everyone waters down creativity and enables corporations, the powerful and rich to gag free speech." ~Anon (artist who painted a political mural of S. Morrison shaking hands with D. Trump in Marrickville), published by ABC Sydney, August 27, 2020)
"The laws politicians tell us are there to protect our environment can seem as pointless as the cheap Christmas giftwrap covering that bottle of wine you just bought for your least favourite uncle." ~Graham Readfearn
"… there is no task in any business… that should be beneath him. Dignity resides in the way you do your work… To be above your business is to be beneath contempt." ~Sir James Joynton Smith
Photo Credit to Miemie Verdida Cohan
"Governments should avoid the temptation to cherry pick from a highly interconnected suite of recommendations." ~Professor Graeme Samuel
"Grass trees (Xanthorrhoea) epitomise the Australian bush: they’re beautiful, ancient, hardy, thrive in nutrient-poor soils and respond to wildfire by flowering profusely. They're iconic plants, recognisable even to budding botanists. The length of the skirt is a good indication of the time since the last fire – the longer the skirt, the longer the duration without fire.
Grass trees are even more interesting below the soil surface! They have a root system, where microbes called mycorrhiza surround the roots in a symbiotic relationship, which helps the plant take up nutrients." ~from Bush Heritage dot org
"I'm a positive thinker who believes in the integrity of my own immune system. I won't be getting the jab. However, I'm quite happy to mask up, wash hands regularly, do whatever else makes others feel safe." ~Linda Ede, 2021
"I was living in Thailand this time last year, when the Australian PM warned its citizens to get home asap i left. There were a lot of ex-pats telling me that i was a fool and that it would all be over in a few months, that they were not going to be 'spooked' into rushing home. Now those same people are "crying out to be repatriated" blaming the government for not helping them. What can i say." ~David Langdown, on Covid2021 mass infection in India, May 2, 2021 via Council of Indian Australians
"If we get a vaccine, that will be wonderful, but I still think it's not going to be a silver bullet." ~Mark Coulton, Federal Minister for Regional Health, September 2020
"If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country that accepted you." ~Julia Gillard
"IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT... Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians." ~Julia Gillard
"Invigorate and involve Parliament in scrutinising the use of emergency and disaster powers." ~Michael Kirby (Alan Jones, Sky News, September 9, 2020 on Truth about Covid 19)
"Islam has no place in Australia if we are to live in a cohesive society" ~Pauline Hanson
"It was worse than being out droving … I was treated like an equal on the floor of the chamber, neither giving nor asking quarter, but there were hours just sitting in my office and I went home alone to my unit at night. There was never one night when anyone said, ‘Hey, let’s go out tonight’." ~Neville Bonner
"John Howard wanted a cashless society years ago. Covid is his wet dream come true. In the meantime, Paul Keatings prophesy of a banana Republic has arrived. What a pair of happy little Vegemites they might be." ~MsRobyne Dudley-Jones, FB thread of Ozzie poli-sci on covid19 July 2020
"Just watched Australian Story. Took me back an earlier time when we had compassion and heart. That’s the Australia I want. We have lost our way. I am feeling very sad." ~Robyn Lee, Women Over 60, August 2021
"Language and culture are our identities. Keeping our languages strong helps to keep us strong." ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson (Australian Geographic)
"Miss your radiant sunrises and sunsets, fragrant Jacaranda, bloom of the warratah, the koalas and the kingfishers, the kookaburras and the kangaroos. Miss the magical places like Taree, Old Bar, the wide Manning River, Wingham. And north to Brisbane and Kangaroo Point, Cairns, and Kuranda. My heart
belongs to Australia!" ~Adrienne Parks, FB via Sydney dot com, May 31, 2017
"Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you,then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture." ~Julia Gillard
"Mother Nature really runs the roost and will restore if we stop ravaging everything in sight, but unfortunately, we need a leader in Government and we don't have that at present. Far from it." ~Ernest Markham, Australia Day, January 26, 2020
‘My whole political life was under scrutiny. The way I walked, the way I talked … everything I did was being judged, and the whole race was being judged on it’.” ~Neville Bonner
"Parliament needs to be questioning in its role so that it doesn't become a tame servant of the executive arm of Government." ~Michael Kirby (Alan Jones Sky News, September 9, 2020 on the Truth about Covid 19)
"Language and culture are our identities. Keeping our languages strong helps to keep us strong." ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson (Australian Geographic)
"Miss your radiant sunrises and sunsets, fragrant Jacaranda, bloom of the warratah, the koalas and the kingfishers, the kookaburras and the kangaroos. Miss the magical places like Taree, Old Bar, the wide Manning River, Wingham. And north to Brisbane and Kangaroo Point, Cairns, and Kuranda. My heart
belongs to Australia!" ~Adrienne Parks, FB via Sydney dot com, May 31, 2017
"Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you,then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture." ~Julia Gillard
"Mother Nature really runs the roost and will restore if we stop ravaging everything in sight, but unfortunately, we need a leader in Government and we don't have that at present. Far from it." ~Ernest Markham, Australia Day, January 26, 2020
‘My whole political life was under scrutiny. The way I walked, the way I talked … everything I did was being judged, and the whole race was being judged on it’.” ~Neville Bonner
"One thing is a definite - we are all of the magical brown land and we must protect our Mother Earth if we are to protect our children.
Our land and water is not for sale. So why and how have we lost control to the 'Beast'?
How do we stop the greed?
The answer is simple: COLLABORATION. We work shoulder to shoulder to protect our land, our water and our children.
Protect Mother Earth against the 'Beast'." ~Dr. Dale Kerwin, a Worimi Man on AUSTRALIA DAY - INVASION DAY - SURVIVAL DAY
"National-level protection of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Australians is a long way out of step with community expectations. As a nation, we must do better." ~Professor Graeme Samuel
"Our flag doesn't move by the wind moving it. It flies from the last breath of every soldier that died defending it. Lest we forget." ~Ashleigh Rachael Maw on ANZAC DAY, April 25, 2020"Parliament needs to be questioning in its role so that it doesn't become a tame servant of the executive arm of Government." ~Michael Kirby (Alan Jones Sky News, September 9, 2020 on the Truth about Covid 19)
"Produce brings people together." ~ Vanessa Harcourt, Executive Chef at the Parliament of NSW.
"Safety and security is Australian tourism’s main strength in an uncertain world." ~Robyn Ironside, News Corp Australia Network, July 26, 2016
"Sometimes all you need is red dirt and to sit under the stars of the Outback." ~Our Outback, Our Story
"South Australia is a charming state of surprises. It is home to quiet nooks and crannies that emerge into a kind of magnificence at spring, cheery brilliance at summer and then turn enigmatic at autumn and mysterious at winter." ~Norma Hennessy
"Surely Australia can use this Paris climate agreement to finally end the barren, wasted years of climate policy war." ~Lenore Taylor
"Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or coldi. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull." ~Baz Luhrmann
"Take in the beauty of Melbourne from land, sea, and air. Wander historic laneways transformed with lively street art. Take to the skies on a helicopter to see the Melbourne Cricket Grounds in all its glory. Then glide through the Yarra river and explore the vibrant Docklands." ~Melbourne Marriott Hotels Docklands.
"Tears are how our heart speaks when our lips cannot describe how much we've been hurt." ~Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE
"The country is much the poorer for Bob Hawke’s passing." ~Paul Keating on the death of Bob Hawke. May 16, 2019
'... the fact is that we are in a unique time, it is the first time since the Second World War when there is not one outstanding leader in the world.' ~Bob Hawke
“The first duty of leaders is to keep their people safe.” - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
"The flora, fauna and landscaping of a nation contributes to the identification of a national soul." ~1918-1999, landscape designer
"The country is much the poorer for Bob Hawke’s passing." ~Paul Keating on the death of Bob Hawke. May 16, 2019
'... the fact is that we are in a unique time, it is the first time since the Second World War when there is not one outstanding leader in the world.' ~Bob Hawke
“The first duty of leaders is to keep their people safe.” - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
"The flora, fauna and landscaping of a nation contributes to the identification of a national soul." ~1918-1999, landscape designer
"… the function and purpose of a library has changed throughout the history of humanity to meet the needs and requirement of the people at time." ~Kylie Wardell, QLD, excerpted from The Diary Files
"The laws politicians tell us are there to protect our environment can seem as pointless as the cheap Christmas giftwrap covering that bottle of wine you just bought for your least favourite uncle." ~Graham Readfearn
"The out back has a beauty that defies description!" ~Daniel Hewitt
"… there is no task in any business… that should be beneath him. Dignity resides in the way you do your work… To be above your business is to be beneath contempt." ~Sir James Joynton Smith
April 25, 2021
"To be informed about the past is not a threat, being ignorant about it, or ignoring it, though, is a risk." ~Governor of New South Wales (2018)
"We're all living under the weight of our history." ~Stan Grant, The Australian Dream in cinemas August 22, 2019
"We are now seeing 'people who want to destroy the very fabric of our society' and if the populace is going to bow down before them, then 'we are finished'." ~Bronwyn Bishop, Former Speaker of the House, FB/Sky News Australia, June 12, 2020
“We are people of the land and our language expresses this. Our knowledge is held in our languages and our languages express our cultures.” ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson, Alice Springs-based educator, author and Arrernte senior (Australian Geographic)
"We've been travelling around Australia for close to 3 years now and have spent a good 18 months exploring beautiful Western Australia, with still more to explore. The thing we loved the most is there are still plenty of places and beautiful stretches of coastline where you can pull up and have it all to yourself. From the incredible colours of Australia's North West to the stunning coastline of Australia's South West, we have enjoyed every minute touring Western Australia and recommend everyone put it on their bucket list." ~Wheres Wally, FB
“We know that literacy is the key to choice, to income security, to developing potential – and it is the key to an enriching and rewarding life. That is why the work of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation is so important.” ~The Honourable Quentin Bryce, AD CVO Patron.
"We live in a beautiful wild patch of the world!" ~Paloma Saldivia
“We really have little knowledge of what it is like to live in a remote part of Australia. I think this will be an eye opener for my son as he has spent his life to date enjoying all modern comforts. I am hoping he will come away with an appreciation of how lucky and privileged he is and that, in the future, he will remember and reflect on his time in the Kimberley and Kakadu.” ~Lea-ann Kelly, Parent
"We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!" ~Julia Gillard
"We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us." ~Julia Gillard
"Well there is this little thing called constitution. I think we should be limiting and minimising non-essential travel in Australia, but we cannot turn around and say, one Australian cannot meet and visit another Australia." ~Roger Cook
"When you’re dealing with intelligence it’s very, very hard to find a situation where advice is beyond doubt. Sometimes if you wait for advice that is beyond doubt you can end up with very disastrous consequences.” ~John Howard on the Iraq War from The Guardian, 7 July 2016
"Whole world has been invaded at some stage every inch. Build a bridge and enjoy Australia Day as a whole population. Enough has been done to say sorry for others people mistakes to a generation that doesn't exist anymore. We all Australians and indigenous Australians have every opportunity in the world now to make themselves the best life possible. Stop complaining and live." ~Gary Heath on changing Australia Day from January 26 to.... Other date?
ON INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA
"This Anzac Day let us remember the courage of people and their virtue of duty, teamwork, self-sacrifice, and mateship. We honour those who served, those who died for us, and acknowledge those who still suffer from the effects of war. Lest we forget." ~Eastgate Bondi Junction, FB, April 25, 2021
"This Country is losing identity and culture and turning into a pack of dogs. What's the point of people visiting Australia as a tourist now? To see a Rock and the weather?" ~ Cathy Myors on current events (FB Nov 2015 related to Paris attack)
"This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom." ~Julia Gillard
"This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'." ~Julia Gillard
"This is the way the media works nowadays .. the media knows their target audience, the emotive junkies .. feed them a click-bait headline, an emotive pic captured just at the right time, add comments from minority groups, flavour it with their own special homemade sauce and hey presto they’ve got you hook line sinker. Works all the time.…The media no longer reports news .. rather it creates news by sensationalising it in any way to sell newspapers .. they use social media to get a reaction from as many as possible. Once one person clicks on an article it’s mayhem bringing the worst possible out of normally intelligent people. People comment in ways they would not normally do, often breaking friendships and often participating in just plain bullying. …
The media seems shows little concern ... their main motive is to sell newspapers and increase advertising revenue." ~Robert Azzopardi ,January 10, 2020 on Canberra Time's "Why the bloody hell would you think Scott Morrison is a good tourism ambassador? Tourism Australia should have known its now-pulled Matesong campaign was going to be out of touch, writes Jenna Price.
"This morning we rose with the sun to celebrate the world's oldest living culture.
We cleansed the way for new beginnings by taking part in the WugulOra 'One Mob' smoking ceremony at Walumil Lawns at Barangaroo Reserve." ~AUSTRALIA-FB, #AusDaySyd, #australiaday2020, January 26, 2020
"This Country is losing identity and culture and turning into a pack of dogs. What's the point of people visiting Australia as a tourist now? To see a Rock and the weather?" ~ Cathy Myors on current events (FB Nov 2015 related to Paris attack)
"This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom." ~Julia Gillard
"This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'." ~Julia Gillard
"This is the way the media works nowadays .. the media knows their target audience, the emotive junkies .. feed them a click-bait headline, an emotive pic captured just at the right time, add comments from minority groups, flavour it with their own special homemade sauce and hey presto they’ve got you hook line sinker. Works all the time.…The media no longer reports news .. rather it creates news by sensationalising it in any way to sell newspapers .. they use social media to get a reaction from as many as possible. Once one person clicks on an article it’s mayhem bringing the worst possible out of normally intelligent people. People comment in ways they would not normally do, often breaking friendships and often participating in just plain bullying. …
The media seems shows little concern ... their main motive is to sell newspapers and increase advertising revenue." ~Robert Azzopardi ,January 10, 2020 on Canberra Time's "Why the bloody hell would you think Scott Morrison is a good tourism ambassador? Tourism Australia should have known its now-pulled Matesong campaign was going to be out of touch, writes Jenna Price.
"This morning we rose with the sun to celebrate the world's oldest living culture.
We cleansed the way for new beginnings by taking part in the WugulOra 'One Mob' smoking ceremony at Walumil Lawns at Barangaroo Reserve." ~AUSTRALIA-FB, #AusDaySyd, #australiaday2020, January 26, 2020
"To be incredible by nature is to be born with a natural gift ..." ~Port Stephens dot org, Australia
"To be informed about the past is not a threat, being ignorant about it, or ignoring it, though, is a risk." ~Governor of New South Wales (2018)
"We're all living under the weight of our history." ~Stan Grant, The Australian Dream in cinemas August 22, 2019
"We are now seeing 'people who want to destroy the very fabric of our society' and if the populace is going to bow down before them, then 'we are finished'." ~Bronwyn Bishop, Former Speaker of the House, FB/Sky News Australia, June 12, 2020
“We are people of the land and our language expresses this. Our knowledge is held in our languages and our languages express our cultures.” ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson, Alice Springs-based educator, author and Arrernte senior (Australian Geographic)
"We've been travelling around Australia for close to 3 years now and have spent a good 18 months exploring beautiful Western Australia, with still more to explore. The thing we loved the most is there are still plenty of places and beautiful stretches of coastline where you can pull up and have it all to yourself. From the incredible colours of Australia's North West to the stunning coastline of Australia's South West, we have enjoyed every minute touring Western Australia and recommend everyone put it on their bucket list." ~Wheres Wally, FB
“We know that literacy is the key to choice, to income security, to developing potential – and it is the key to an enriching and rewarding life. That is why the work of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation is so important.” ~The Honourable Quentin Bryce, AD CVO Patron.
"We live in a beautiful wild patch of the world!" ~Paloma Saldivia
“We really have little knowledge of what it is like to live in a remote part of Australia. I think this will be an eye opener for my son as he has spent his life to date enjoying all modern comforts. I am hoping he will come away with an appreciation of how lucky and privileged he is and that, in the future, he will remember and reflect on his time in the Kimberley and Kakadu.” ~Lea-ann Kelly, Parent
"We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!" ~Julia Gillard
"We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us." ~Julia Gillard
"Well there is this little thing called constitution. I think we should be limiting and minimising non-essential travel in Australia, but we cannot turn around and say, one Australian cannot meet and visit another Australia." ~Roger Cook
"When you’re dealing with intelligence it’s very, very hard to find a situation where advice is beyond doubt. Sometimes if you wait for advice that is beyond doubt you can end up with very disastrous consequences.” ~John Howard on the Iraq War from The Guardian, 7 July 2016
"Whole world has been invaded at some stage every inch. Build a bridge and enjoy Australia Day as a whole population. Enough has been done to say sorry for others people mistakes to a generation that doesn't exist anymore. We all Australians and indigenous Australians have every opportunity in the world now to make themselves the best life possible. Stop complaining and live." ~Gary Heath on changing Australia Day from January 26 to.... Other date?
♥*✿*•♥═════════════♥*✿*•♥
ON INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA
“Belonging to country you have to know the four elements … Air brings winds that provide seasonal food, seasonal animals and seasonal plant life.” ~Flora Au < ‘Belonging: Stories from Far North Queensland’.
"You've got to slow down and listen. Dadirri gives us the opportunity to walk together in peace." ~ Miriam-Rose.
“I'm a Nauiyu Elder. I want you to walk with me. Dadirri is our greatest gift. We're all part of the story.” ~Miriam-Rose
From Magnolia Maymuru:
"I want to do it for young people all over Australia. That means black and white." ~Magnolia Maymaru
From Magnolia Maymuru:
"I want to do it for young people all over Australia. That means black and white." ~Magnolia Maymaru
"Our 'blackness' does not derive purely from physical appearance but a constellation of factors: family, kinship, traditions, history and country among them. In any Indigenous family there will be the full range of complexions but we are all united in a deep sense of belonging." ~Stan Grant
"The main reason why I agreed to do it is that I don't want to do it just for myself, I want to do it for young people all over Australia. That means black or white. I grew up both ways, the Yolngu way, and the balanda way, which is the white man's way, the western way."'~Magnolia Maymuru (Maminydjama Maymuru is set to make history this year when she becomes the first Aboriginal woman to represent the Northern Territory at Miss World Australia 2016)
"The idea of bringing life into the world is amazing, and I'd wanted to be apart of that." ~Muriel from Broken Hill found school tough but now she's following her nursing dream to become a midwife. (ABC Indigenous, June 25, 2020)
"The main reason why I agreed to do it is that I don't want to do it just for myself, I want to do it for young people all over Australia. That means black or white. I grew up both ways, the Yolngu way, and the balanda way, which is the white man's way, the western way."'~Magnolia Maymuru (Maminydjama Maymuru is set to make history this year when she becomes the first Aboriginal woman to represent the Northern Territory at Miss World Australia 2016)
"The idea of bringing life into the world is amazing, and I'd wanted to be apart of that." ~Muriel from Broken Hill found school tough but now she's following her nursing dream to become a midwife. (ABC Indigenous, June 25, 2020)
"Respect is something I always give whether I get it or not. Because after a while, they'll start to respect me. Kill 'em with kindness." ~Preston Campbell, Gold Coast Titans, National Rugby League Player
“We are people of the land and our language expresses this. Our knowledge is held in our languages and our languages express our cultures.” ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson, educator, author (Australian Geographic) on Aboriginal Languages
"We are trapped in the imaginations of white Australians. These are attitudes shaped and hardened by history, racism and discrimination; to many we remain remote if not invisible. Like everything this is changing as our voices are heard and the rest of Australia becomes more familiar with us, but the process is slow." ~Stan Grant
“We live on the veranda of the world's greatest island. It's our birthright to have a clean ocean, to catch a feed, to interact with nature. And, like any birthright, we have to safeguard it.” ~Tim Winton, Australian author and Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society (SEA AND ME BY BLUEBOTTLE FILMS CHANNEL)
“We sit around and tell little ones stories in the sand." ~April Pengart Campbell (Australian Geographic on Aboriginal Languages
"We use leaves to represent people, and sticks, rocks and, sometimes, small animals like witchety grubs. We show the kids how to do body painting and signs connected to our country.” ~April Pengart Campbell (Australian Geographic)On Aboriginal Languages
“When I started talking and remembering again, it was like turning back the hands of time. Once you learn a language, it stays with you always.” ~Gladys Miller, Scotdesco elder (Australian Geographic) on Aboriginal Languages
DEAR ANCESTORS
When I'm tired and
weary, give me rest…
When I'm weak, You
be my strength;
When I'm disappointed,
help me to put my trust
in You,
When I'm hurting,
please heal me,
When I lost sight of life,
restore your spirit within
me; and
When things seem
impossible, Let Your
will be done.
~Muja Mundu Creations
RACISM and THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM
By Stan Grant on IQ2 Racism Debate 2015
“Thank you so much for coming along this evening and I would also like to extend my respects to my Gadigal brothers and sisters from my people, the Wiradjuri people.
In the winter of 2015, Australia turned to face itself. It looked into its soul and it had to ask this question. Who are we? What sort of country do we want to be? And this happened in a place that is most holy, most sacred to Australians. It happened in the sporting field, it happened on the football field. Suddenly the front page was on the back page, it was in the grandstands.
Thousands of voices rose to hound an Indigenous man. A man who was told he wasn’t Australian. A man who was told he wasn’t Australian of the Year. And they hounded that man into submission.
I can’t speak for what lay in the hearts of the people who booed Adam Goodes. But I can tell you what we heard when we heard those boos. We heard a sound that was very familiar to us.
We heard a howl. We heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival. We heard the howl of the Australian dream and it said to us again, you’re not welcome.
The Australian Dream.
We sing of it, and we recite it in verse. Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free.
My people die young in this country. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free. We are fewer than three percent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 percent, a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons and if you are a juvenile, it is worse, it is 50 percent. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school.
I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges.
It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains.
I come from those plains. I come from a people west of the Blue Mountains, the Wiradjuri people, where in the 1820’s, the soldiers and settlers waged a war of extermination against my people. Yes, a war of extermination! That was the language used at the time. Go to the Sydney Gazette and look it up and read about it. Martial law was declared and my people could be shot on sight. Those rugged mountain ranges, my people, women and children were herded over those ranges to their deaths.
The Australian Dream.
The Australian Dream is rooted in racism. It is the very foundation of the dream. It is there at the birth of the nation. It is there in terra nullius. An empty land. A land for the taking. Sixty thousand years of occupation. A people who made the first seafaring journey in the history of mankind. A people of law, a people of lore, a people of music and art and dance and politics. None of it mattered because our rights were extinguished because we were not here according to British law.
And when British people looked at us, they saw something sub-human, and if we were human at all, we occupied the lowest rung on civilisation’s ladder. We were fly-blown, stone age savages and that was the language that was used. Charles Dickens, the great writer of the age, when referring to the noble savage of which we were counted among, said “it would be better that they be wiped off the face of the earth.” Captain Arthur Phillip, a man of enlightenment, a man who was instructed to make peace with the so-called natives in a matter of years, was sending out raiding parties with the instruction, “Bring back the severed heads of the black troublemakers.”
They were smoothing the dying pillow.
My people were rounded up and put on missions from where if you escaped, you were hunted down, you were roped and tied and dragged back, and it happened here. It happened on the mission that my grandmother and my great grandmother are from, the Warrengesda on the Darling Point of the Murrumbidgee River.
Read about it. It happened.
By 1901 when we became a nation, when we federated the colonies, we were nowhere. We’re not in the Constitution, save for ‘race provisions’ which allowed for laws to be made that would take our children, that would invade our privacy, that would tell us who we could marry and tell us where we could live.
The Australian Dream.
By 1963, the year of my birth, the dispossession was continuing. Police came at gunpoint under cover of darkness to Mapoon, an aboriginal community in Queensland, and they ordered people from their homes and they burned those homes to the ground and they gave the land to a bauxite mining company. And today those people remember that as the ‘Night of the Burning’.
In 1963 when I was born, I was counted among the flora and fauna, not among the citizens of this country.
Now, you will hear things tonight. You will hear people say, “But you’ve done well.” Yes, I have and I’m proud of it and why have I done well? I’ve done well because of who has come before me. My father who lost the tips of three fingers working in saw mills to put food on our table because he was denied an education. My grandfather who served to fight wars for this country when he was not yet a citizen and came back to a segregated land where he couldn’t even share a drink with his digger mates in the pub because he was black.
My great grandfather, who was jailed for speaking his language to his grandson (my father). Jailed for it! My grandfather on my mother’s side who married a white woman who reached out to Australia, lived on the fringes of town until the police came, put a gun to his head, bulldozed his tin humpy and ran over the graves of the three children he buried there.
That’s the Australian Dream. I have succeeded in spite of the Australian Dream, not because of it, and I’ve succeeded because of those people.
You might hear tonight, “But you have white blood in you”. And if the white blood in me was here tonight, my grandmother, she would tell you of how she was turned away from a hospital giving birth to her first child because she was giving birth to the child of a black person.
The Australian Dream.
We’re better than this. I have seen the worst of the world as a reporter. I spent a decade in war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We are an extraordinary country. We are in so many respects the envy of the world. If I was sitting here where my friends are tonight, I would be arguing passionately for this country. But I stand here with my ancestors, and the view looks very different from where I stand.
The Australian Dream.
We have our heroes. Albert Namatjira painted the soul of this nation. Vincent Lingiari put his hand out for Gough Whitlam to pour the sand of his country through his fingers and say, “This is my country.” Cathy Freeman lit the torch of the Olympic Games. But every time we are lured into the light, we are mugged by the darkness of this country’s history. Of course racism is killing the Australian Dream. It is self-evident that it’s killing the Australian dream. But we are better than that.
The people who stood up and supported Adam Goodes and said, “No more,” they are better than that. The people who marched across the bridge for reconciliation, they are better than that. The people who supported Kevin Rudd when he said sorry to the Stolen Generations, they are better than that. My children and their non-Indigenous friends are better than that. My wife who is not Indigenous is better than that.
And one day, I want to stand here and be able to say as proudly and sing as loudly as anyone else in this room, Australians all, let us rejoice.
Thank you.”
Source: The Ethics Centre
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
RELATED Quotes
"Many indigenous people have been displaced in colonial societies, their cultures often ignored or written into insignificance. Their history written and interpreted by white man. Australia is a prime example of this. Through this western gaze indigenous culture is often misinterpreted and framed in stereotypical images. Most Australians know very little about Australian indigenous culture. It's quite tragic. Identity and a sense of place is vital for all people and this is what many indigenous people here struggle with." ~Maria Lund Christensen
“For Aboriginal people, resolving who is Aboriginal and who is not, is an uneasy issue, located somewhere between the individual and the state." ~Professor Marcia Langton, Indigenous academic
Source: The Guardian 14 December 2015
"You've got to slow down and listen. Dadirri gives us the opportunity to walk together in peace." ~Miriam-Rose.
VERSES AND SENTIMENTS
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
~Laurence Binyon, FOR THE FALLEN, 1941
🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂
I'M DOING MY PART!!!
G’day Mr Morrison, I trust that you are fine,
Sorry to be bothering you, but there’s something on my mind
I listened to a bloke last week; he had a bit to say
You lot may have heard of him? He delivers all that hay?
He spoke of countless hours and the distances they drive
Feeding starving stock, to keep bush hopes alive
They do not get assistance from your tax funded hat
They do it on their own, all off their own bat
I’m not politically minded and I don’t have any clout
And I know you’ve done a tour, to learn about the drought
But there’s just some burning questions, that have left us feeling beat
Why did we fund a foreign land, to learn to cut up meat?
And what about those soccer boys, who went and got all lost
You pulled out all the bloody stops, plain just showing off
You’ve bigger problems here at home, there’s drought up to our necks
So what does your mob go and do? Give them big fat cheques!
Don’t they have a government to deal with all this stuff?
Why should it be up to us, what’s with all your fuss?
Should we not be reigning in and look after our own
Have you never heard the phrase “charity starts at home”?
I realise there’s many things, that need an allocation
And I also can appreciate, complex trade relations
I’m not sure if you realise, but if our stock all die,
There won’t be any trade you see, your deals will all run dry
As a rule we’re not a whinging lot, our requests are but a few
Most of us who work the land, are tested, tried and true
We respect that we are guardians, and sustain it for the kids
But I often have to wonder, what future will it bring?
I guess all that I’m wondering, is “where’s the Aussie aid”?
Wrapped up in a swag of tape, only then to be repaid!
There’s Aussie blokes and chicks out there, putting you to shame
Helping fellow Australians, in their time of pain
I’m just a simple farmer, grazier, wife and mum
And even though we’re feeding stock, we’re better off than some
I’ve never had to shoot a cow, who could no longer stand
But many have before me, and I pray, I’m not dealt that hand
So will you take another look; admit that we’re in strife?
And do more than bloody empathise, before another farmer takes their life?
I’d like to think you’ll do what’s right and put Australia first
And help your own damn country, before this drought gets any worse.
Joanna Collett
Wee Waa NSW
If you would like to spread this message wider, please copy it and share it. Don't let those who are doing it tough in rural areas just get forgotten in the news cycle.
Charity starts at home!
Source: FB/Lee Tate
19-20 September 2019
╔═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╗
You've got to slow down and listen. Dadirri gives us the opportunity to walk together in peace. Miriam-Rose.
“We are people of the land and our language expresses this. Our knowledge is held in our languages and our languages express our cultures.” ~Veronica Perrurle Dobson, educator, author (Australian Geographic) on Aboriginal Languages
"We are trapped in the imaginations of white Australians. These are attitudes shaped and hardened by history, racism and discrimination; to many we remain remote if not invisible. Like everything this is changing as our voices are heard and the rest of Australia becomes more familiar with us, but the process is slow." ~Stan Grant
“We live on the veranda of the world's greatest island. It's our birthright to have a clean ocean, to catch a feed, to interact with nature. And, like any birthright, we have to safeguard it.” ~Tim Winton, Australian author and Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society (SEA AND ME BY BLUEBOTTLE FILMS CHANNEL)
“We sit around and tell little ones stories in the sand." ~April Pengart Campbell (Australian Geographic on Aboriginal Languages
"We use leaves to represent people, and sticks, rocks and, sometimes, small animals like witchety grubs. We show the kids how to do body painting and signs connected to our country.” ~April Pengart Campbell (Australian Geographic)On Aboriginal Languages
“When I started talking and remembering again, it was like turning back the hands of time. Once you learn a language, it stays with you always.” ~Gladys Miller, Scotdesco elder (Australian Geographic) on Aboriginal Languages
DEAR ANCESTORS
When I'm tired and
weary, give me rest…
When I'm weak, You
be my strength;
When I'm disappointed,
help me to put my trust
in You,
When I'm hurting,
please heal me,
When I lost sight of life,
restore your spirit within
me; and
When things seem
impossible, Let Your
will be done.
~Muja Mundu Creations
RACISM and THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM
By Stan Grant on IQ2 Racism Debate 2015
“Thank you so much for coming along this evening and I would also like to extend my respects to my Gadigal brothers and sisters from my people, the Wiradjuri people.
In the winter of 2015, Australia turned to face itself. It looked into its soul and it had to ask this question. Who are we? What sort of country do we want to be? And this happened in a place that is most holy, most sacred to Australians. It happened in the sporting field, it happened on the football field. Suddenly the front page was on the back page, it was in the grandstands.
Thousands of voices rose to hound an Indigenous man. A man who was told he wasn’t Australian. A man who was told he wasn’t Australian of the Year. And they hounded that man into submission.
I can’t speak for what lay in the hearts of the people who booed Adam Goodes. But I can tell you what we heard when we heard those boos. We heard a sound that was very familiar to us.
We heard a howl. We heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival. We heard the howl of the Australian dream and it said to us again, you’re not welcome.
The Australian Dream.
We sing of it, and we recite it in verse. Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free.
My people die young in this country. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free. We are fewer than three percent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 percent, a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons and if you are a juvenile, it is worse, it is 50 percent. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school.
I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges.
It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains.
I come from those plains. I come from a people west of the Blue Mountains, the Wiradjuri people, where in the 1820’s, the soldiers and settlers waged a war of extermination against my people. Yes, a war of extermination! That was the language used at the time. Go to the Sydney Gazette and look it up and read about it. Martial law was declared and my people could be shot on sight. Those rugged mountain ranges, my people, women and children were herded over those ranges to their deaths.
The Australian Dream.
The Australian Dream is rooted in racism. It is the very foundation of the dream. It is there at the birth of the nation. It is there in terra nullius. An empty land. A land for the taking. Sixty thousand years of occupation. A people who made the first seafaring journey in the history of mankind. A people of law, a people of lore, a people of music and art and dance and politics. None of it mattered because our rights were extinguished because we were not here according to British law.
And when British people looked at us, they saw something sub-human, and if we were human at all, we occupied the lowest rung on civilisation’s ladder. We were fly-blown, stone age savages and that was the language that was used. Charles Dickens, the great writer of the age, when referring to the noble savage of which we were counted among, said “it would be better that they be wiped off the face of the earth.” Captain Arthur Phillip, a man of enlightenment, a man who was instructed to make peace with the so-called natives in a matter of years, was sending out raiding parties with the instruction, “Bring back the severed heads of the black troublemakers.”
They were smoothing the dying pillow.
My people were rounded up and put on missions from where if you escaped, you were hunted down, you were roped and tied and dragged back, and it happened here. It happened on the mission that my grandmother and my great grandmother are from, the Warrengesda on the Darling Point of the Murrumbidgee River.
Read about it. It happened.
By 1901 when we became a nation, when we federated the colonies, we were nowhere. We’re not in the Constitution, save for ‘race provisions’ which allowed for laws to be made that would take our children, that would invade our privacy, that would tell us who we could marry and tell us where we could live.
The Australian Dream.
By 1963, the year of my birth, the dispossession was continuing. Police came at gunpoint under cover of darkness to Mapoon, an aboriginal community in Queensland, and they ordered people from their homes and they burned those homes to the ground and they gave the land to a bauxite mining company. And today those people remember that as the ‘Night of the Burning’.
In 1963 when I was born, I was counted among the flora and fauna, not among the citizens of this country.
Now, you will hear things tonight. You will hear people say, “But you’ve done well.” Yes, I have and I’m proud of it and why have I done well? I’ve done well because of who has come before me. My father who lost the tips of three fingers working in saw mills to put food on our table because he was denied an education. My grandfather who served to fight wars for this country when he was not yet a citizen and came back to a segregated land where he couldn’t even share a drink with his digger mates in the pub because he was black.
My great grandfather, who was jailed for speaking his language to his grandson (my father). Jailed for it! My grandfather on my mother’s side who married a white woman who reached out to Australia, lived on the fringes of town until the police came, put a gun to his head, bulldozed his tin humpy and ran over the graves of the three children he buried there.
That’s the Australian Dream. I have succeeded in spite of the Australian Dream, not because of it, and I’ve succeeded because of those people.
You might hear tonight, “But you have white blood in you”. And if the white blood in me was here tonight, my grandmother, she would tell you of how she was turned away from a hospital giving birth to her first child because she was giving birth to the child of a black person.
The Australian Dream.
We’re better than this. I have seen the worst of the world as a reporter. I spent a decade in war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We are an extraordinary country. We are in so many respects the envy of the world. If I was sitting here where my friends are tonight, I would be arguing passionately for this country. But I stand here with my ancestors, and the view looks very different from where I stand.
The Australian Dream.
We have our heroes. Albert Namatjira painted the soul of this nation. Vincent Lingiari put his hand out for Gough Whitlam to pour the sand of his country through his fingers and say, “This is my country.” Cathy Freeman lit the torch of the Olympic Games. But every time we are lured into the light, we are mugged by the darkness of this country’s history. Of course racism is killing the Australian Dream. It is self-evident that it’s killing the Australian dream. But we are better than that.
The people who stood up and supported Adam Goodes and said, “No more,” they are better than that. The people who marched across the bridge for reconciliation, they are better than that. The people who supported Kevin Rudd when he said sorry to the Stolen Generations, they are better than that. My children and their non-Indigenous friends are better than that. My wife who is not Indigenous is better than that.
And one day, I want to stand here and be able to say as proudly and sing as loudly as anyone else in this room, Australians all, let us rejoice.
Thank you.”
Source: The Ethics Centre
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
═══════════════
RELATED Quotes
"Many indigenous people have been displaced in colonial societies, their cultures often ignored or written into insignificance. Their history written and interpreted by white man. Australia is a prime example of this. Through this western gaze indigenous culture is often misinterpreted and framed in stereotypical images. Most Australians know very little about Australian indigenous culture. It's quite tragic. Identity and a sense of place is vital for all people and this is what many indigenous people here struggle with." ~Maria Lund Christensen
“For Aboriginal people, resolving who is Aboriginal and who is not, is an uneasy issue, located somewhere between the individual and the state." ~Professor Marcia Langton, Indigenous academic
Source: The Guardian 14 December 2015
"You've got to slow down and listen. Dadirri gives us the opportunity to walk together in peace." ~Miriam-Rose.
VERSES AND SENTIMENTS
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
~Laurence Binyon, FOR THE FALLEN, 1941
🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂
I'M DOING MY PART!!!
Charity starts at home!The poem that's gone viral after NSW farmer Joanna Collett posted it on the Prime Minister's facebook page:
G’day Mr Morrison, I trust that you are fine,
Sorry to be bothering you, but there’s something on my mind
I listened to a bloke last week; he had a bit to say
You lot may have heard of him? He delivers all that hay?
He spoke of countless hours and the distances they drive
Feeding starving stock, to keep bush hopes alive
They do not get assistance from your tax funded hat
They do it on their own, all off their own bat
I’m not politically minded and I don’t have any clout
And I know you’ve done a tour, to learn about the drought
But there’s just some burning questions, that have left us feeling beat
Why did we fund a foreign land, to learn to cut up meat?
And what about those soccer boys, who went and got all lost
You pulled out all the bloody stops, plain just showing off
You’ve bigger problems here at home, there’s drought up to our necks
So what does your mob go and do? Give them big fat cheques!
Don’t they have a government to deal with all this stuff?
Why should it be up to us, what’s with all your fuss?
Should we not be reigning in and look after our own
Have you never heard the phrase “charity starts at home”?
I realise there’s many things, that need an allocation
And I also can appreciate, complex trade relations
I’m not sure if you realise, but if our stock all die,
There won’t be any trade you see, your deals will all run dry
As a rule we’re not a whinging lot, our requests are but a few
Most of us who work the land, are tested, tried and true
We respect that we are guardians, and sustain it for the kids
But I often have to wonder, what future will it bring?
I guess all that I’m wondering, is “where’s the Aussie aid”?
Wrapped up in a swag of tape, only then to be repaid!
There’s Aussie blokes and chicks out there, putting you to shame
Helping fellow Australians, in their time of pain
I’m just a simple farmer, grazier, wife and mum
And even though we’re feeding stock, we’re better off than some
I’ve never had to shoot a cow, who could no longer stand
But many have before me, and I pray, I’m not dealt that hand
So will you take another look; admit that we’re in strife?
And do more than bloody empathise, before another farmer takes their life?
I’d like to think you’ll do what’s right and put Australia first
And help your own damn country, before this drought gets any worse.
Joanna Collett
Wee Waa NSW
If you would like to spread this message wider, please copy it and share it. Don't let those who are doing it tough in rural areas just get forgotten in the news cycle.
Charity starts at home!
Source: FB/Lee Tate
19-20 September 2019
═══════════════
THANK YOU╚═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╝
