Radschool Association Inc Magazine

The referendum has been run and lost and we can now all get on with our lives. The whole business was a sick joke from the start brought on by the pony-tailed laté sipping left wing lot. Why should a small group of people enjoy exclusive access to Parliament at the expense of the vast majority just because their forebears once lived here. Does it mean that as most of us are descendants from people who were transported from the UK and dragged halfway around the world to Australia, we’ve now got the right to a voice in the UK Parliament?

Give me a break.

I think we should have another referendum. I think we should all vote to reverse that Mabo decision of the High Court and make every Australian access to Australia’s wealth and assets equally. I think the powers of the Hight Court should be reigned in too – why should we be “controlled” by a body that is un-representative and absolutely no way answerable to any of us – but that’s another story.

And what’s all this reconciliation business? None of us can be blamed for the “sins” of our fathers so what have we got to be sorry for? I didn’t do anything so for what have I got to apologise? There’s not an Aborigine alive today that has suffered as a result of what happened when the first fleet landed, so an apology to him/her is a nonsense. Since 1788 I’d say the vast majority have benefited considerably, they have full access to a health system, a welfare system, housing, education, can travel anywhere and everywhere, they have the same rights as everyone else.

I’m glad I’m nearly 80 years old because if they don’t reverse all this crap, Australia will be a divided county and it won’t be nice living here. Thankfully I’ll be dead and won’t see it.

And don’t get me started on that ridiculous “Welcome to Country” crap! - tb.

Geoffrey Blaney wrote brilliantly about this, it’s too long to reproduce here but you can read it HERE. It’s worth a read.

Bronwyn Bishop also spoke about The Voice. I think she absolutely nailed it, see HERE.

ADF Captain's choice to wear female army uniform overhauls gender-diverse policy.

When Captain Jesse Noble realised they (ABC refers to him as they – tb ??) were gender diverse, it "was kind of like getting hit in the face with a truck. I really associate with both genders," he said. "It's this middle ground of the two."

At 35 years old, they had spent their entire life in the Pentecostal Church. They had a career as a captain in the Australian Army. Their life seemed completely at odds with a genuine expression of their gender identity. "I was very closeted about it," Captain Noble said, "and I thought that I was basically going to tell maybe three people in my whole life."

Despite that, in February 2023, Captain Noble took their heart in their hands and fronted up to their boss at Darwin's First Combat Signals Regiment. "I said, 'Hey, so I'm going to be putting some paperwork up to you,'" they said. "I'm gender diverse. I'm non-binary, and I am going to be opting for the female uniform."

Male dress standards in the army are stringent: hair must be cut shorter than 4 centimetres. No piercing, make-up or fingernail polish is permitted. Captain Noble told their boss the female dress standards provided a greater range of gender expression in terms of who they were as a person. According to army rules, non-binary and intersex people are not entitled to choose their uniforms.

Not knowing how the request would be received, Captain Noble pushed on. "That's a really important step for me," they said. "and I think it's an important step for the army as well."

Confronting change

It wasn't just the army Captain Noble had to confront. "I was in a relationship that I really cared about," they said "I knew it was going to be really, really challenging." Captain Noble approached their partner: "I don't really know how to go through this with you, but I love you, and I still want to be with you. Can we go on that journey?"

Rewriting defence policy

Captain Noble's boss gave immediate interim approval to wear the female uniform and the request was then escalated up the chain of command. In April, the forces command issued a new directive stipulating that gender-fluid, non-binary and intersex people could choose the uniform, grooming, physical standards and accommodation that best aligned with their gender identity.

The new policy impacts forces command, which makes up about 85 per cent of Australian Army personnel, and a similar policy is in place across the Royal Australian Air Force.

The navy is yet to adopt the changes, although wider change may be on the horizon.

"Defence is in the process of developing a new policy in relation to supporting transgender, gender-affirming, non-binary and all gender-diverse defence members," an Australian Defence Force spokesperson said. Changes to uniform and gender requirements are taking place across other industries, such as aviation, where Qantas and Jetstar scrapped male and female uniform categories in June 2023. "It should be non-controversial to do something like this," said Lisa Annese, chief executive of Diversity Council Australia, but, she said, creating a genuinely inclusive workplace required broader structural and cultural change.”

"Creating inclusive policies for gender diverse people, that's just one aspect of a more complex approach to diversity and inclusion, which focuses on safe workplaces, getting women represented in leadership, on equal pay, workplace flexibility, anti-racism."

Decades of fighting for ADF inclusion

Until 1992, openly gay people were banned from serving in the ADF. When Chief Petty Officer Anita van der Meer was threatened with dismissal for being in a lesbian relationship, she took her case to the Australian Human Rights Commission. That led to then-prime minister Paul Keating lifting the ban on people in same-sex relationships serving in defence forces.

Eighteen years later, in 2010, Captain Bridget Clinch (right) was served a discharge notice when she informed her chain of command she planned to transition. Challenging the decision, Captain Clinch ultimately won the right for transgender and gender-diverse people to serve in the ADF.

Female fashion every day

In Captain Noble's personal life, their gender expression is fluid, including some masculine elements and a new and joyful exploration of female fashion. In the army, dress standards are not to be mixed; individuals must choose one uniform and stick to it. Even though Captain Noble often wears camouflage in their daily duties, their options have expanded. "I can wear make-up now. My ears are pierced at work. I have longer hair than most male-presenting people do at work. My fingernails are painted," they said.

"I can choose how I present myself."

Captain Noble's relationship ultimately ended but some aspects of their gender journey have been easier than they anticipated. "When I look at how much struggle and challenge queer people before me have gone through in terms of work, it's almost embarrassing how easy it's been,"Captain Noble said.

"I guess that's where it's our responsibility to use the platform and the privilege we have to make change for others who may not have the same voice, who may not have had the same opportunities."

Yep – I’m glad I’m old!!! tb

Fluid Gender.

I might be old fashioned but I find this just that little bit different to the norm. See HERE.

Australia Day

Facts about Australia Day.

Ray Payne. OAM

Australia Day does not celebrate the arrival of the first fleet or the invasion of anything. Captain Cook did not arrive in Australia on the 26th of January. The Landing of Captain Cook in Sydney happened on the 29th of April 1770 - not on the 26th of January 1770.

The First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay on the 18th of January 1788 but moved to Sydney Cove on the 26^th January. The 26th was chosen as Australia Day for that reason. Captain Cook's landing has been included in some Australia Day celebrations as a reminder of a significant historical event.

Since the extravagant bicentenary celebrations of 1988, when Sydney-siders decided Captain Cook's landing should become the focus of the Australia Day commemoration, the importance of this date for all Australians has begun to fade.

Now, a generation later, it's all but lost.

This is because our politicians and educators have not been doing a good job promoting the day. Our politicians have not been advertising the real reason for Australia Day and our educators have not been teaching our children the importance of the 26th of January to all Australians.

The media, as usual, is happy to twist the truth for the sake of controversy.

In recent years, the media has helped fan the flames of discontent among the Aboriginal community. Many are now so offended by what they see as a celebration of the beginning of the darkest days of Aboriginal history, they want the date changed. Various local Councils are seeking to remove themselves from Australia Day celebrations, even refusing to participate in citizenship ceremonies and calls are going out to have Australia Day on a different day.

The big question is, why has the Government allowed this misconception to continue?

Captain Cook didn't land on the 26th of January so changing the date of any celebration of Captain Cook's landing would not have any impact on Australia Day, but maybe it would clear the way for the truth about Australia Day. Aborigines in this country suffered terribly under the hands of British colonialism. This is as much Australia's history as the landing of the first fleet, and both should be remembered, equally. Both should be taught, side by side, in our schools.

Australians of today abhor what was done under British governance to the Aborigines. We abhor what was done under British governance to the Irish and many other cultures around the world. So, after the horrors of WWII, we decided to fix it.

We became our own people.

On the 26th of January 1949, the Australian nationality came into existence when the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 was enacted. That was the day we were first called Australians and allowed to travel with Passports as Australians. Under the Nationality Act 1920 (Cth), all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after January 1, 1921, gained the status of British subjects. In 1949, therefore, they automatically became Australian citizens under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948.

Before that special date, all people living in Australia, including Aborigines born after 1921, were called 'British Subjects' and forced to travel on British Passports and fight in British wars.

We all became Australians on the same day! This is another reason why we celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January!

This was the day Australians became free to make our own decisions about which wars we would fight and how our citizens would be treated. It was the day Aborigines were declared Australians. Until this date, Aborigines were not protected by law. For the first time since Cook's landing, this new Act gave Aboriginal Australians by inference and precedent the full protection of Australian law.

Because of this Act, the government became free to help Aborigines and since that day much has been done to assist Aboriginal Australians, including saying 'sorry' for the previous atrocities done before this law came into being.

This was a great day for all Australians!

This is why the 26th of January is the day new Australians receive their citizenship. It is a day which celebrates the implementation of the Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948 - the Act which gave freedom and protection to the first Australians and gives all Australians, old and new, the right to live under the protection of Australian Law, united as one nation.

Now, isn't that cause for celebration?

Education is key! There is a great need for education on the real reason we celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January. This reason needs to be advertised and taught in schools. We all need to remember this one very special day in Australia's history, when freedom came to all Australians.

What was achieved that day is something for which all Australians can be proud!

We need to remember both the good and the bad in our history, but the emphasis must be the freedom and unity all Australians now have, because of what was done on the 26th of January 1949, to allow all of us to live without fear in a land of peace.

This is how doctors worked until 1816

and then some idiot invented the stethoscope.

Net Zero.

Terry McCrann writes about the stupidity of expecting Australia to be net zero in CO₂ emissions by 2050. You can read it HERE.

Solar Panels?

In July this year, a large solar panel farm in Scottsbluff in the USA was severely damaged by a hail storm. The farm was built in 2019 and supplied 5.2 megawatt to the local grid. That’s enough power to service about 3,750 homes. (See HERE)

There were 14,000 panels in the farm and each had a life expectancy of 25 years but now they have become land fill.

Although the panels are supposed to withstand hail, the storm that passed through Scottsbluff was unusually severe and the stones that fell were between 2.5 and 3 inches (7 to 7.5cm) in diameter. The same thing could happen here in Australia.

Although storms like the one that hit Scottsbluff are rare, they can and do happen. Queensland has multiple solar panel farms (see HERE) most of which began operating in 2018 with many more planned in the near future. As the climate is changing, some day in the future some could be put out of action by the weather – and as most coal fired stations would be shut down, what do we do?

Bit scary really.

So let me get this straight. I go to the supermarket and buy half a kilo of sliced ham wrapped in plastic, a loaf of bread wrapped in plastic, 2 litres of milk in a plastic container, some tomato sauce in a plastic bottle, a dozen bottles of water in plastic bottles - but they won’t give me a plastic bag to carry it all home because a plastic bag is bad for the environment?

The Common debt of Australia.

Gary Matthews.

About 40 short years ago everyone had Jobs everywhere, in fact Mums used to stay home and families all lived happily just on Dad's wages.

We had Iron Ore and great steel industries, we had shipbuilding, car manufacturing, Holden, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, Ford even Lightburn made a Zeta, we built TV’s, radio’s, washing machines, Victa lawnmowers, hills hoists & fine furniture. We built car parts and we even made our own tyres at Bridgestone! We had fishing ports all over Australia from Port Lincoln to Brunswick Heads. We made our own cheap petrol that was refined at Stanvac Oil refinery in SA, Bulimba Refinery in Brisbane. Mortlake Sydney Refinery’s from oil brought in from the Bass Strait, North West Shelf and the Timor Sea.

We built aircraft, boats, submarines and battlecruisers, ships, warships. buses. locomotives, diesel-electric trains, as well as the tracks and you can add hundreds more to that list.

And everything was “PROUDLY MADE IN AUSTRALIA”

We had corner stores and milk bars and deli's, and hardware shops all over the city and country. Our rural towns were a hive of activity as they were very strong communities and were linked by a vast rail network that now lies dormant forever all across the country.

Flea Markets everywhere on the weekends. All our food was fresh and local. Our milk and bread were delivered every morning fresh to our doorstep in recyclable glass bottles. We paid our rates to the local council to maintain our streets and remove our rubbish. and we use to dump our extra rubbish free at the local tips.

We had work available as driveway attendants at all our local Service Stations, that was when we had Australian owned Service Stations like GOLDEN FLEECE that even had restaurants owned by H.C. Sleigh... and AMPOL. I even remember good old STANLEY who checked your tyres, checked your oils and washes your windscreen. And at ALL these places you could always find a JOB!!!

I remember going to Myers, David Jones and Waltons etc to buy clothes and there was always someone with a tape measure to measure me up and all my NEW clothes fitted perfectly... Today I have to take clothes off the shelves, get them out of the packets, take them to the fitting room and try them on... If they don't fit, put them back and keep trying till you get some that do fit. 2 Hours later take them to the checkout if it is not a self serve checkout. They are scanned and the operator tells me the price... Oh, I say... Can you tell me the second-hand price, please???? These are new she replies... No, they are not! These shirts smell under the armpits... These are not new at all... How many people before me have tried them on??? I don't know what diseases people have. This is a public health issue.

We had public utilities like power stations, water and gas which would employ thousand around the country and it was always so cheap, it would sustain thousands of Industries all over the nation, this was how thousands of jobs were created.

We were all taught respect for others and ourselves at school.

Then the bloody Government started selling out our very souls !!!! It started to corporatise itself and began to compete against private enterprise instead of Governing. Local Councils started to buy up Caravan and Tourist Parks in all the major tourist spots and build shopping hubs and rented them out and at the same time dictate to all others what you can and can not do......

Then we started going downhill.

All our companies and manufacturers started going offshore or closed down because this new corporate government did deals with other countries under free trade agreements that allowed them to totally wipe out our business and manufacturing by allowing the foreign business to start flooding our once great nation with their cheap crap.

We as Australians used to all watch each other's backs and respect each other and all say G'day with a smile because we were all happy with our freedom and our wonderful democracy. Children could safely go anywhere as long as they were home before dark. Now we just watch each other through security screens and burglar alarms and live in constant fear and stress.

These Foreign Countries were allowed to just march in and start taking over and rape and pillage all our resources. They started driving our farmers off their lands and then sold it to these foreign countries. They cut back funding to our education system and slowed down teaching trade skills to our youth and set up 457 visas to replace our trade workers with poor quality cheap workers from overseas. These things left our once beautiful Country in tatters! Politicians allowed foreign countries to buy our power stations and guaranteed them that they would always make a profit at our expense no matter what.

Now because we have lost so much the Government then realised they don't get much income anymore and have to find new ways to make money so it hits its own people further in the pocket. They invented things like GST, Excise Taxes, Levies by the hundreds on everything. They cut funding to our Emergency Services and forced us to all pay an Emergency Services Levy, they cut funding to our Police and Public housing.

All our Public owned Forests were sold off to foreign ownership.

These new Corporate Government Politicians laughed in our faces and gave themselves MASSIVE pay rises and they all pat themselves on the back knowing that WE are so DUMB and STUPID we would not know what is going on!

Now they tell us we have to tighten our belts and lose what little we have left to pay back the MASSIVE DEBT they left us all in after giving other countries billions in foreign aid setting up their countries at the peril of our own... Everywhere I shop today just about everything is "MADE IN CHINA" and it dawned on me that every time I buy something made in China I am actually funding China to buy up my own country out from under my feet. We are making China so much profit they can now afford to buy us right out which is exactly what they are doing and our Government is helping them do so.

Today I drive the main roads around Adelaide and all I see is the empty buildings that once housed all these great manufacturing companies and when I drive past the Holden Plant at Elizabeth totally empty I begin to literally cry for what has happened to my once great nation.

This overpaid government needs more taxes to live on so they are now going to force our elderly (God bless them, for they were the ones that helped build this Nation in the first place) back into the workforce until they are 70. and tell everyone to go out and get a JOB!! But this is NOT just South Australia, this has happened all over Australia.

All you had to do was sell the milk Australia... not the whole cow! Today every single thing listed above is now gone, gone, gone and just left to decay!!!!

My how this once mighty 100% self-sufficient nation has fallen...

Lies and more lies.

Ernie Gimm

A history built on dishonesty is worthless, yet much of the current public discourse on Aboriginal culture and history has become based on dishonesty, exaggeration and misrepresentation. Like a person who claims credentials and qualifications he does not possess, a culture which is built upon deception or misrepresentation has little merit and is dishonourable. Many of the assertions being made by individuals who proclaim their Aboriginality are being accepted without challenge, yet to question those claims is condemned as racist. As Franklin D. Roosevelt observed, repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. Here is a brief discussion of some of the most obvious statements which are being used frequently, but which have been widely accepted without scrutiny.

Nations.

This term is now being used instead of tribe. It is understandable, because the latter has a negative connotation, conveying a sense of primitiveness. The word nation and the term First Nations convey a certain grandeur and a sense of dignity, both having been copied from North America, however, the indigenous people of Australia were never nations in the sense that they comprised large, united communities. Indeed, as William Buckley (who lived for decades with indigenous families in the early 1800s) explained, the families were small in number and constantly quarrelling, the quarrels often erupting into deadly fights.

Unlike the indigenous people of Canada and the US, who mostly lived in large groups of hundreds or thousands, the indigenous Australians lived in small family units, occasionally gathering in larger numbers for trading or ceremonial purposes. The description of indigenous Australians as comprising nations is an example of exaggeration and misrepresentation; it has become the common term, passively accepted without challenge.

This statement is patently false!!!!.

All people alive today have inherited their respective cultures from unbroken lines of ancestors and so all of us represent continuous living and evolving cultures. This claim should be re-stated as “the world’s oldest unchanged culture”. Aboriginal culture remained quite static for millennia. Thirty thousand years ago and more, all our forebear Homo sapiens were hunter-gatherers, anthropologists today categorising them as paleolithic or stone-age, wood and stone being their main sources of tools. In time, people in some regions developed technologically and culturally, archaeologists describing evolutionary phases as the iron age, bronze age and so on: consider the wheel, writing, musical instruments, houses, clothing, mathematics and forms of engineering.

In the Middle East stonemasons attained levels of skill and sophistication which still astonish us today. In contrast, indigenous Australians never accomplished any of these things. No written language, woven clothing, nor houses consisting of solid walls, a roof, and a doorway. The didgeridoo is today accepted as a musical instrument, but it is very limited in its scope; it cannot be used to play a tune, being confined to droning and barking sounds. Aboriginal numbering systems remained very simple because there was no need for anything more advanced; anyway, without any form of writing or any writing materials it was not possible to perform complicated arithmetic.

Sacred sites.

The word sacred is over-used, often being applied dishonestly to describe particular features of the environment. The word has a general notion of something being spiritual or divine, yet the concept of holiness has little place in indigenous mythology. Certainly there are places that have special importance to local communities, but while they may be of cultural, historical or family interest, in no way can they be categorised as sacred in the religious sense.

To give them special status, they are often described with the over-used term significant. Caves, hills, rivers and rock formations may form parts of song lines, myths and stories, but that does not make then sacred. Similarly, rock engravings and cave art are cultural sites but that does not mean that they should all be considered divine. Too often this term is used to berate non-Aboriginal people who do things that indigenous people may not like.

Welcome to country.

In recent decades it has become fashionable for public ceremonies to commence with “Welcome to country” ceremonies, but this is a modern contrivance and many indigenous groups have no recollections of such rituals. Indeed, some describe these rites as embarrassing nonsense. The use of smoke in ceremonies has a long history, being used by many religious groups even today, but in Australia it has taken on a new role. Non-indigenous Australians imagining that by tolerating it they are being respectful of Aboriginal people and customs. It has become an industry, some “elders” charging large sums to perform, but this is stone-age behaviour, men in loincloths and painted bodies stamping the dusty ground while others rhythmically clack sticks together. Do men and women of Aboriginal heritage want to be seen by the world as a primitive historical curiosity?

A technologically advanced culture.

Some claims have been made (by writers such as Bruce Pascoe) that indigenous people had long understood and applied scientific methodologies. Such a claim is untrue because until very recently they lived as nomadic (or semi-nomadic) hunter-gatherers. Trial-and-error is not really a scientific method. Men fashioned wooden weapons and implements, some constructed rudimentary canoes and stone was used for spear points and grinding stones. Similarly, the claim that the land was cultivated has little merit. Farming is physically demanding but the earliest inhabitants lacked tools capable of any form of large-scale cropping. Women used digging sticks for uprooting tubers and for excavating insect nests (such as those of ants and bees), but a single-pointed stick is of no use for gardening on a larger scale.

Writers such as Bill Gammage (right) have drawn attention to the use of fire as a means of cultivation. Gammage, a thorough and meticulous researcher, provides considerable evidence to show that fire shaped much of Australia’s natural environment. Moreover, there are photographs and films from the early 1900s depicting indigenous men setting fire to grasslands in the tropical northern regions, however, the use of fire to remove old growth and to stimulate new growth cannot be considered evidence of a distinctively Australian form of advanced land management.

It has often been stated that indigenous people lived in harmony with the environment, but this is an idealised, rose-coloured view of the traditional lifestyle. While this is true insofar as they did not cause widespread damage to the natural features of the landscape, it was due primarily to the numerically small population and to the absence of suitable tools, especially metal tools, with which to work the land. A few traps for fish and eels remain today, but these are the simplest types of construction and did not require special tools.

Truth-telling.

The use of this term has been copied mainly from various overseas bodies (such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission), but it is not really about people telling the truth; rather it is a term that has become politically weaponised, a means for berating white Australians. In the current discussion it entails non-indigenous people admitting the truth about our past, that the continent had been “invaded” and colonised, and that the original inhabitants had been ill-treated. That most Australians now accept that killings, cruelties and injustices occurred was evidenced by the well-attended “Sorry” marches (across Sydney Harbour Bridge and elsewhere) that accompanied the national apology in 2008.

Additionally, since then a great national effort has been made to elevate the quality of life of indigenous people and to achieve reconciliation by righting past wrongs. The “Closing the Gap” programs are an example. Yet, accompanying this commitment to acknowledging historical truths it is reasonable also to require Aboriginal people to admit a fundamental truth: that theirs was a stone-age culture. Instead of misrepresenting their culture as advanced and comparable with others around the world, it would be honest to accept that at the time of the arrival of British settlers their way of life had continued substantially unchanged since the earliest periods of human migration out of Africa.

As evidence of this I cite two events.

A. Some older readers will recall the publicity given to an event in 1957 when a very ill ten-year-old boy was rescued by a helicopter pilot who happened to be flying over the Tanami Desert. The boy (now an elderly man who lives with the nickname of Helicopter Tjungurrayi) was then living with a family of about thirty. Continuing in their traditional lifestyle, it was the first time most had encountered a white person. Later, a similar group was dubbed by the media as the “Pintupi Nine”.

B. In 1984 a family of nine was found to be living in the west of the Northern Territory. They were described as the last people living the traditional way of life. Photos show the nine family members naked but for some hair-string belts, the men carrying spears and boomerangs, the women with wooden dishes and implements. They were nomadic, moving between waterholes and living on bush tucker, goannas and rabbits. They were testament to the traditional, unchanged paleolithic lifestyle of the Aborigines.

The terms and phrases discussed here are just a few that are being repeated in public discussions. They have become accepted without question, and indeed there are many more such claims that need to be scrutinised, such as traditional wisdom, Aborigines as a maritime people and the validity of oral history. These are important issues because increasingly indigenous groups are making allegations, some outrageous, that are supposedly based on historical truths.

All of the claims are for land or money and many are made without any evidence; however, challenges to these claims are swiftly suppressed and branded as racist.

Doug Murray, who is an English author and columnist, nails it, see HERE. It's time to dump all this sorry crap and get on with life! tb.

The next time you dislike your life remember it’s all about perspective. I have a friend who reads 2-3 books a week, works out twice a day, has no financial worries and has people who want to have sex with him all the time and yet he constantly complains about how much he hates prison.

Native Title.

The map below has unveiled that Native Title, a legal recognition of Aboriginal rights over an area, covers nearly half of Australia's landmass. Native title holders can get compensation for things the government has done to stop them from exercising their rights, such as building a bridge or a road.

The map, prepared by the National Native Title Tribunal, shows some 50 per cent of Australia is under Native Title, with the sections divided by dark and light green to distinguish between 'exclusive' and 'non-exclusive' zones.

A further 12 per cent of land is being assessed for Native Title, with these areas coded in blue patches or stripes. It’s important to note that Native Title can only be claimed for Crown land and is not applicable to privately held properties. When a Native Title determination specifies ‘exclusive’ rights, it means the Indigenous group has exclusive ownership and control over the area in question, excluding all others, including government authorities and non-Indigenous individuals or entities.

Non-exclusive Native Title in Australia grants Indigenous groups shared rights and interests in land without exclusive control. It can grant Native Title holders the right to local cultural practices, such as the right to live in the area, hunt, fish, gather food or teach law and custom on country.

Fossil Fuels.

Some people insist we need to stop using fossil fuels and instead generate our energy requirements in a green manner, from air, from sunlight, from hydro or from some other renewable source. But can we? Is it feasible? Have a look HERE and HERE then decide for yourself.

Now that we know the grid will probably struggle to keep up with demand over the coming hot months,

it seems the right time to evaluate the plan to plug in a million electric cars every night!

The Home Front.

Forty-one Australian soldiers died in action over 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan; in that time more than 1400 veterans have taken their own lives. Veterans today are chronically over-represented when it comes to PTSD, depression, homelessness and suicide. Australians rightfully pause on Anzac Day each year to solemnly remember fallen soldiers, but are we forgetting our returned veterans whose personal battles continue every single day, and how did we get to this point?

In this authoritative, compelling and urgent book, bestselling author Patrick Lindsay (The Spirit of the Digger and Fromelles among many) looks at the wide-ranging damage caused by training Australians to be fighting machines and then inadequately supporting them as they re-enter their communities. Featuring moving interviews with veterans and their families as well as a broader analysis of Australian military culture and government responses, Lindsay illustrates both the personal and societal costs of this dereliction of duty.

The Home Front is a fascinating and rousing indictment of the culture of war, the thinking of those who wage it, and the cost to those who experience it.

It costs $24 and you can get a copy HERE.

Current TV shows.

Is it any wonder that more and more people are turning off free to air commercial TV and switching to watching YouTube, NetFlix, Stan and other streaming services.

All you have to do is have a look at a current TV guide to see what is on offer to see why. Apart from sport, the news and weather reports, there isn’t really a lot that’s worth watching. The evening shows on most channels are ‘reality” shows, Big Brother, Sydney Housewives, Love Triangle, Love Island, Married at First Sight etc, etc.

Margaret Pomeranz says it the way most people think. See HERE.

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