Tag: First Peoples

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Social Impact

Standing together to save Beeliar wetlands

The Roe 8 highway extension has been a controversial issue amongst the local community in Cockburn and surrounding areas for a number of years. The State Government of Western Australia has proposed to extend Roe highway from Kwinana Freeway through the Beeliar Wetlands including around Bibra Lake, in an aim to ease transport for trucks heading to the Fremantle port.

The community, including the City of Cockburn, has shown massive support for the ‘Rethink the Link’ campaign, which opposes the State Government’s proposal and offers an alternative. Supporters of the campaign have recently had success, as plans for construction have been stalled due to the Environmental Protection Authority’s assessment of the area being deemed invalid by the Supreme Court. The State Government of WA have recently announced that they will appeal this decision, meaning the fight is not over yet.

Rev Sealin Garlett, minister at Coolbellup Uniting Church, is well established and respected in the City of Cockburn, and is also a member of the city’s Aboriginal Reference Group. Much of the community campaign against the highway extension has been out of concern for the local ecosystem, which will be hugely impacted under the proposal. Sealin also adds to this conversation that the area is culturally significant for Nyungar people.

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News & Announcements

Survival Day message urges new talks on sovereignty and treaty for First Peoples

 

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia Stuart McMillan has issued a Survival Day message, calling for a new national conversation about sovereignty for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In a message released to coincide with Australia Day, Stuart has asked Australians to celebrate the resilience of First Peoples and their extraordinary contributions to Australian life.

“Our national day is a good time to see with new clarity the wonderful heritage that is embodied in the nations and clans of this land’s First Peoples,” said Stuart.

“Respect for First Peoples is the hallmark of a great nation, and it’s now time for us to follow through on our unfinished business.

“For Christians, Christ’s love compels us to be truth tellers and ministers of reconciliation.

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News & Announcements

Assembly pauses for Congress ordinations

The 14th Triennial Assembly broke for the evening on Friday 17 July to bear witness as two Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) chaplains, Samuel Dinah and Robert Jetta,  were ordained by moderator of the Uniting Church in WA, Rev Steve Francis, and UAICC WA Regional Committee chairperson, Rev Sealin Garlett.

Rev Robert Jetta and Rev Samual Dinah were prison chaplains and Robert had also been ministering at Waroona Uniting Church, prior to their ordinations. They will both continue in these roles. Waroona Uniting Church is the only joint First and Second Peoples congregation of the Uniting Church.

Sam spent 25 years as a prison liaison officer with the Aboriginal Legal Service prior to beginning his chaplaincy work. During the service, UAICC national chairperson and regular prison visitor,  Rev Dennis Corowa jokingly suggested he had spent more time in prison than many of the men he ministered to behind bars. But, he knew how appreciated by his Aboriginal brothers in Townsville those visits were.

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News & Announcements

Uniting against racism in sport

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) stand as one with AFL player and former Australian of the Year Adam Goodes, who has been subjected to unacceptable racist booing at AFL games.

The Uniting Church and the Congress are two of 150 organisations calling today for renewed efforts to stamp out racism in sport and everyday life.

UCA President, Stuart McMillan, says Australians need to come to terms with the reality of racism in our country.

“People should be cheering Adam Goodes not booing him. He is a magnificent ambassador of the First Peoples of this nation,” said Stuart.

“We applaud his many achievements as an athlete and as a role model for all young Australians.

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News & Announcements

Uniting Church in WA calls for an end to three strikes mandatory sentencing

The Uniting Church in Western Australia and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) WA hold grave concern over the impacts that proposed changes to the Criminal Law Amendment (Home Burglary and Other Offences) Bill 2014 currently before the Western Australian parliament will have on young Aboriginal people.

Chair of the UAICC WA, Rev Sealin Garlett said, “We work every day to give our people, especially our young people, the best opportunities to reach their potential. Locking them up is not going to help. We need the Government to help us reduce the number of Aboriginal people in jail, not increase it with these hard-line mandatory sentencing laws. We invite the Government to sit down with us to discuss the best ways to address some of the challenges facing our communities.”

Moderator of the Uniting Church in WA, Rev Steve Francis questioned the effectiveness of mandatory sentencing laws in contributing towards the long-term safety of the Western Australian community.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Adnyamathanha pilgrimage: Look, listen, there are no straight lines

“You asked about how to approach Aboriginal people,” Aunty Denise Champion picks up our conversation from several days ago. “This is how,” she says as together we step onto a path leading  to a low circular monument.

Nothing would have kept me from walking directly to the sinuous rust stone carving that mimicked the two snakes of Ikara (Wilpena Pound), the vast geological monument that surrounds us.  There were no barriers, no instructions, no protocols, just a stone marker at the mouth of the path announcing, “Ngarlparlaru yata”.

“This is our country,” Denise translates as we walk the two-toned gravel walk that wound its way to the centre. In the Aboriginal world, nothing is direct, the subtleties confound.

I am saved by the saying ‘relationship before stories before questions’, a way so counter-intuitive to the journalist in me. At the brown centre of the monument, however, on a grim grid, no  words were minced, “We lost our traditional way of life to pastoralism and our land to pastoralism–and adapted to an alien culture, a new language and religion.” “My dad couldn’t vote, he was  under the Dog Act. I felt so bad.” “If the missionaries heard us kids speaking our language, they would refuse to sell our mother groceries at the store. She would have to wait for the next week  or travel to the next town to buy flour and sugar.” “After years of pastoral settlement, our traditional life has disappeared.”

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Stories & Feature Articles

Concern for WA’s remote Indigenous communities

As the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary on 29 May this year, its members and supporters enter, yet again, an emotional  struggle to protect their human rights.

On Close the Gap Day, 19 March, hundreds of people marched from Forrest Place in Perth’s CBD to Parliament House in West Perth, to voice their concerns over the planned closure of 150  remote Aboriginal communities around Western Australia. Last year, the Federal Government announced it would pass on the responsibility of funding remote Aboriginal communities to the  states. In turn, this led to an announcement from the State Government that it could no longer afford funding to these WA communities, and that it would be cut.

The announcements have caused anger, frustration and devastation amongst Indigenous Australians and the wider community. Even more hurt was caused when Prime Minister Tony Abbott  suggested living in an Aboriginal community was a lifestyle choice, and that Australia could no longer afford to fund those choices.

Rev Sealin Garlett, chair of the WA Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, disagrees.

“Indigenous people have a deep connection to our land. This is not just a ‘lifestyle choice’, but part of our cultural and spiritual identity. We need to be on country to look after it,” he said.

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Education & Training

Diaconal ministry: Faith at work in the everyday

While kangaroo tails are cooked and smoke billows above an inner city church courtyard on a balmy summer’s evening, stories are told by indigenous people. During morning worship, chairs are stacked in a haphazard pile to express sorrow over injustices experienced by the marginalized. Encouragement is given through Biblical stories of women and men who show their faith in Christ by listening, serving and forming new worshipping communities.

These are a few examples of the diverse and enriching experiences of the Deacon Intensive (for candidates) and the national DUCA (Diakonia in the Uniting Church in Australia) Conference that was held in February in Adelaide over two weeks.

The candidates were a diverse group, including two indigenous leaders, an Irish pastor, a Filipino journalist and an African-American woman, as well as several Australians, all with long experience of diaconal ministry. The candidates in the first week participated in worship, Bible studies, discussions, and immersion visits to a prison, refugee place of welcome and a community garden. Evening sessions, facilitated by Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal of Uniting College and Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, further extended their engagement with mission and community service.

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News & Announcements

Call for a new approach to remote Indigenous communities

The Uniting Church in Australia, Western Australia and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress WA (Congress) are deeply troubled by the planned closure of remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. They are concerned about the ramifications this will have on individuals and communities affected and believe it displays a concerning lack of understanding about Aboriginal culture and the rights of Indigenous people.

“We call on the Federal and State Government to reconsider their approach to remote settlements, and engage upon a consultation with remote communities about the best way to deliver services to them,” said Moderator of the Uniting Church, Rev Steve Francis.

“We need to act sensitively with Indigenous people who have suffered so much dispossession and trauma during the history of European settlement of Western Australia. Making decisions to remove services to remote Indigenous settlements could increase the sense of Indigenous dispossession and displacement.”

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News & Announcements

New leadership for the UAICC

The National Conference of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress has made two new leadership appointments.

Rev Dennis Corowa is the new National UAICC Chairperson. Dennis is also currently Chairperson of the Queensland UAICC Regional Committee (Calvary Presbytery), Dennis has been involved with Congress since 1985, working in congregational ministry and school and prison chaplaincy. He is one of the authors of Rainbow Spirit Theology. He has a vision for First Peoples to claim their strength and dignity, and life in all its fullness, and to struggle against all that stops people claiming that life.

A new Deputy Chairperson was also appointed – Rev Garry Dronfield of NSW-ACT Congress. Garry is a Bundjalung man, presently ministering at Sylvania Uniting Church.

Tributes were paid to outgoing Chairperson Rev Rronang Garrawurra of the Northern Regional Council of Congress whose work in the last three years has been widely acknowledged across the Uniting Church.

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