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About LinkBacksWe've (here at the office) always been very impressed with Australian firms.
Macquarie Bank, BHP Billiton and WorleyParsons immediately come to mind.
We've (here at the office) always been very impressed with Australian firms.
Macquarie Bank, BHP Billiton and WorleyParsons immediately come to mind.
Life is too short to remove my USB safely.
@Baron LaCroix or any other Aussies. I read about the protests on Australian day that had the PM evacuated.
What's the deal with this? From what I understand there is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy which isn't recognized officially by the country. The Aboriginal people are seeking land, compensation and rights to some of the materials that they feel are stolen from them. They want the Constitution modified to better recognize them. Do they want to be consider another nation within Australia? Or is it something else?
Australian PM escorted out of building amid protest - CNN.com
Sydney (CNN) -- Security officers dragged Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard out of a Canberra restaurant Thursday after an angry mob of protesters surrounded the building during a luncheon ceremony, police said.
Gillard and federal opposition leader Tony Abbott were taken out of the building after a group of between 50 and 100 protesters from a nearby ceremony gathered around the building, bashing windows and brandishing sticks and rocks, according to federal police.
The prime minister was presenting medals to emergency service workers during an Australia Day celebration. In a nearby venue, a spontaneous protest erupted with an Aboriginal rights group. The group was commemorating the 40th anniversary of an Aboriginal "tent embassy."
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported the protesters were chanting "shame" and "racist" as they banged on the restaurant's three glass sides.
Gillard and Abbott were taken out a side door, the ABC said. At least 50 police were called to help escort them from the restaurant.
Local media reported Gillard was visibly shaken, and stumbled during the encounter.
Photographs showed her being dragged to a waiting vehicle by a group of at least seven security officers, losing a shoe in the process.
Video showed her being hustled into the vehicle, surrounded by security officers, some carrying shields, as protesters shouted, "Shame on you."
The shoe was collected by protesters, who proclaimed it a trophy. On the tent embassy's Facebook page, according to the ABC, there was a picture of Gillard losing her shoe with the caption: "What is losing a shoe compared to losing an entire continent?"
Australia's Nine Network captured the conversation inside the restaurant as the two were being escorted out.
"OK, what about Mr. Abbott? Have you got him? We'd better help him through too, hadn't we?" Gillard asks her security guard after he told her it was not safe to stay much longer.
There were no injuries, and no arrests were made, Australian Federal Police said. Video from the ABC showed some minor struggles breaking out between authorities and protesters.
As Gillard and Abbott left, the protesters chased her vehicle down the street, banging on its roof, the broadcasting corporation reported.
The protesters apparently were angry about remarks made by Abbott earlier Thursday, in which he suggested it may be time to reconsider the tent embassy's relevance.
The establishment of the embassy was a symbolic protest against then-Prime Minister Billy McMahon's refusal to acknowledge land rights for indigenous Australians, the ABC said. Over the years, it has been a controversial site and the scene of clashes, the broadcasting corporation said.
"I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian," Abbott said earlier Thursday, according to the ABC. "But I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that."
Activist Sean Gordon told the ABC, "We have no economic base for who we are as Aboriginal people. We have title to land we aren't able to do anything with. How have we moved on?'
Following the incident, Gillard put on a "brave face" as she held a function for international ambassadors, the ABC said.
"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine," the prime minister told the network. "The only thing that really kind of angers me about it is that it disrupted such a wonderful event for great people, emergency services medals, just amazing people."
"I am made of pretty tough stuff and the police did a great job," she said.
Last week, an Australian panel suggested changes to the nation's constitution to give better recognition to indigenous Australians, often referred to as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The groups have suffered at the hands of later settlers and the government they established. Australian politicians have since apologized for the past mistreatment, but Aborigines remain disadvantaged socially and economically compared with the overall population.
Explicit references to Aborigines in the original Constitution, drafted in the late 19th century, were subsequently deemed to be negative. Australians voted overwhelmingly to remove those points in a 1967 referendum, but many people say the document can be further improved to acknowledge the role of the country's indigenous population.
The panel -- which included Aboriginal leaders, business executives, legal experts and members of the main political parties -- handed over its report to Gillard, whose government has promised to hold a referendum on the matter by the next general election.
Australia has interested the shit out of me recently. I was just looking at Google Earth and I looked at Australia and saw how crazy it looks. It looks like Mars. It's so deserty and hot, I love it. Honestly... I couldn't find one city on the continent that had high temps lower than the mid-50's in the dead of winter. I'm kind of a geography and climate nerd, so that shit interests me.
But honestly... if it wasn't so far away I would definitely consider living there. Things definitely seem like they're on the up & up for Australia. But IDK.. there's probably a TON of fucking spiders in Australia and I read sometimes that it's more like the UK than the US. Fuck that. I don't want to live in some quasi-socialist big brother police state...
Spoiler:
Horns, I actually used to work at Parliament House a couple of years ago so I'd drive past the Tent Embassy every day on the way to work. The history behind the its origins is quite interesting...
It was established 40 years ago in protest over aboriginal inequality and land rights issues. While there have been large improvements over the last 40 years (particularly the introduction of the Native Title Act, which provides land rights to aboriginal communities that can establish history with the land), living conditions are still well below what someone in a 1st world country would find acceptable... in fact, in some communities it's a disgrace.
As for what the Aboriginal people want, it depends on who you ask. However, there is a push now to have the constitution changed to reflect the Aboriginal people as the traditional owners of the land. There was also a 'formal apology' when Kevin Rudd took office, which was a move in the right direction... however, they are still just words and nothing is likely to change until real improvements are seen in Aboriginal communities. Unfortunately, however, this won't be a quick fix.
Interesting. An apology really means nothing IMO, but I understand why it is done.
In the US we have some similar concerns from Native Americans. Some tribes have been given land, reservations, where they can do a lot of things outside of local laws. The big thing is Indian casinos in states that don't allow gambling. I don't have a problem with the casinos, but it's been a big topic for the last 20 years. It's interesting how some Indian reservations have there own laws, jails, local facilities and generally act as an independent communities. I'm not sure how far it can go. I often wondered if Native Americans could grow/sell/trade drugs on their reservations, but I don't honestly know.
There are still some problems. Some tribes are trying to be federally recognized and compensated by the government. There are cases in the court system now to determine who is recognized by the feds. Then there are a lot of federal programs dealing with Native American people with the goal of trying to make everything as fair as possible. Indians are often disadvantaged people who have disproportionate healthcare, education, wealth. Grants and research on education, mental health, alcohol use etc are all studied by the government. There is the Bureau of Indian Affairs that spearheads a lot of these programs.
Indian Affairs | Home
Not sure how this all compares to Australia, but it's interesting how two countries who's early settlers displaced native people deal with it hundreds of years later.
I think on grounds of religion and tradition Native Americans are allowed to legally make and use peyote.
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