A “disgrace” and custody conditions “not fit for humans” were among the June 12 findings of Western Australian state coroner Alistair Hope on the January 27, 2008, death of 46-year-old Warburton Aboriginal elder Ian Ward.

Whenever Australian capitalist politicians have talked about protection, welfare and reconciliation in relation to Aboriginal people they have actually meant dispossession, forced cultural assimilation and racial oppression. The capitalist class knows that much of its wealth has been gained at the expense of Aboriginal people through the takeover of their lands.

The tragic April 16 explosion on a boat carrying Afghan asylum seekers from Indonesia has refocused public attention on the Australian government’s refugee and “border protection” policies. The explosion – which killed 5 of the 47 asylum seekers on the boat – occurred while an Australian navy vessel was taking the boat to Christmas Island.

The Australian Labor government joined the all-white boycott of the UN’s Durban Review Conference held in Geneva on April 20-24.

In the small community of Mona Mona, just north of Cairns, some 150 people met last December 9 with Linda Aplet, the director-general of the Queensland government’s Department of Communities.

On January 20, a boat carrying 20 asylum seekers was intercepted by Australian navy patrol boat HMAS Maryborough, 39 kilometres from Ashmore Island in Australia’s far north-west. The asylum seekers were taken nearly 2000 km to the immigration detention prison on Christmas Island.

Conflict in Palestine

Unfortunately the present ceasefire in Gaza is no real solution to the conflict in Palestine. As long as the Israeli occupation continues and Palestinians have no homeland, the resistance and violence will go on.

After PM Kevin Rudd’s February 13 official apology to the Stolen Generations, media outlets around the world hailed him as a great humanitarian friend of Aboriginal people.

In a media release on November 20, Edmund Rice Centre director Phil Glendenning said the response to a November 19 SBS broadcast of the new documentary A Well-Founded Fear had been overwhelming. The documentary, by Anne Delaney, highlighted the centre’s research into the fate of more than 400 asylum seekers deported from Australia.

Violent attacks by Jewish residents in the Israeli city of Acre last month have left 14 Palestinian families, a total of 72 people, homeless. All 72 are Israeli citizens who had their homes destroyed.

A 400-strong rally was held in Brisbane on November 1 as part of the campaign to free Lex Wotton, an Indigenous community leader from Palm Island, who was found guilty on October 24 of “rioting with destruction” by an all-white jury in Brisbane’s District Court.

On September 29, the Rudd government announced that it would give a 2-week extension to the review board and panel of experts handpicked to look at the federal government’s intervention into remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Protest actions are being planned for Brisbane in October when Lex Wotton faces court. Wotton has been portrayed by the Queensland police, government and establishment media as the leader of the “riot” that occurred on Palm Island on November 26, 2004.

In a July 29 speech, Labor immigration minister Chris Evans announced an end to the previous Howard Coalition government’s costly “Pacific Solution” to “illegal” asylum seekers – closing the offshore processing centres on Nauru and PNG’s Manus Island.

The first anniversary of the federal government’s racist “emergency” intervention into 73 remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory was marked by protests in Australia’s major cities by Aboriginal people and their supporters. The protests called attention to the real intent of the intervention, which is to continue stealing Aboriginal land.