Black Pearls

With special guests:

• Colin & Paul Tatz
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Black Pearls: The Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame is a celebratory book about the earth shattering sporting performances of our Aboriginal and Islander Australians since the arrival of the white man in 1788. The launch of this book joins the other celebrations around the country for NAIDOC Week 2018.

This handsome work is presented by the Aboriginal Studies Press. As our guest Colin Tatz explains, the book is also a Hall of Fame that unlike bricks and mortar halls can be on display in our own homes and carried around with us.

With its beautiful pictures and stories about its 276 members covering 36 sports this is a project that began in the Bi-Centenary year of 1988 after Colin spoke to some communities about the absence of recognition for these sports stars.

The book is however not just a catalogue of sporting triumphs. It tells how the Aboriginal and Islander peoples had to overcome enormous obstacles in order to be accepted as the champions they are. It is important to see the performances in that context in order to really appreciate the scale of the achievements.

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Moment of Truth

With special guest:

• Prof Mark McKenna
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In the Quarterly Essay Moment of Truth: History and Australia’s Future Professor Mark McKenna presents a significant contribution to the general debate and he is our respected guest in today’s program. At a time when Australians are searching for their national identity on Anzac Day and there is talk of a Republic once again Professor McKenna asks why has a dispute arisen regarding Australia Day?

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SHINE for Kids

With special guest:

• Dennis van Someren
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Dennis van Someren is getting the word out that we have a crisis in the community, a crisis involving some of our most vulnerable children that impacts on all of us.

Governments have responded to concerns about crime rates by building more jails with there being nearly 40,000 inmates in overcrowded jails around the country. This is up from 21,000 inmates only 10 years ago. At a cost of $292 per inmate per day the numbers are frightening. But when you consider that these inmates have in the order of 60,000 children and that the children of prisoners are 6 times more likely to end up in prison themselves you can see the problem.

Dennis van Someren decided some 9 years ago that he could no longer stand by and watch the situation worsen. He realised that he had something special to offer to the children with a parent or both parents in jail after hearing by chance a radio interview with a representative from SHINE for Kids. Dennis offered his services and was welcomed by the charity that has operations in NSW, Queensland, the ACT and Victoria.

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Didge Group Connection to Culture

With special guest:

• Stuart McMinn

Stuart McMinn is working in a program that draws on tens of thousands of years of culture to benefit our youth, in particular our young Indigenous men.

Following on from the vision of local Indigenous man, Uncle Bob Williams from the Mingaletta Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders Corporation, Interrelate Central Coast supported the establishment of the Young Boys Didgeridoo and Cultural Group, ‘Didge’, in mid-2011. This new group offered cultural and other supports which had an immediate and significant impact.

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How You Can STOP MALE SUICIDE in 7 simple steps

With special guest:

• Glen Poole

Step one if we are going to stop male suicide is to know the facts. This is when it hits home just how appalling the current situation is in Australia and around the world. Eight people a day die by suicide in Australia and six of them are men and boys.

Our guest today is Glen Poole who presented at the National Men’s Health Gatherings in Brisbane (2013) and the Central Coast of NSW (2015) before travelling around Australia presenting seminars and finding out first-hand what is driving men and boys to this level of despair.

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Still a Pygmy

With special guest:

• Isaac Bacirongo

When you are born and raised in Australia you know little about life as a refugee despite it being a frequent topic for conversation and opinion. Most of us have never spoken to a refugee.

Our guest today is Isaac Bacirongo who arrived in Sydney in 2003 with his wife and ten children as refugees after surviving the effects of Rwanda’s civil war in his own country, Congo.

In his book Still a Pygmy Isaac tells us about his struggles to save his identity as a Pygmy from extinction. In Africa Pygmies are regarded by some other groups as less than human. Against that background Isaac fought to go to school and get an education. He went on to establish successful businesses, owned several properties and a fleet of cars but all that was lost when the invading army arrived.

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Connect, Communicate, Care

With special guest:

• Kim Borrowdale

The World Health Organisation estimates that over 800,000 people die by suicide every year - that’s one every 40 seconds. In Australia the latest figures show that 2,684 Australians took their own life in 2014. And what is worse is that the official figures are undoubtedly conservative because of the method of reporting and the desire by survivors to avoid the stigma of having a family member dying in that way.

Against this desire to keep the facts quiet, communication is a primary way of raising awareness in the community. Communication is the driver of R U OK?, an Australian group doing great work to help reduce suicide. We also hear how the Connect Communicate Care messages of World Suicide Prevention Day are important ways of responding to the unacceptably high suicide rate in Australia.

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Father’s Day is Special

With special guest:

• Warwick Marsh

Today we welcome Warwick Marsh as we approach Father’s Day in 2016. Warwick started the Dads4 Kids Fatherhood Foundation not long after Dads on the Air first hit the airwaves and has been one of our most frequent guests over the years.

Warwick brings enormous enthusiasm to everything he does and he does a lot. To get the message out about what it can mean to be a father Warwick has through the Dads4 Kids Foundation produced Community Service Announcements which have been taken up by network television stations. We urge everyone to see these vignettes, if not on your local TV station then on Dads4Kids YouTube channel. In the 2016 edition it tears at your heartstrings to hear a range of children from many different backgrounds provide a script with the simple word “Dad” or sometimes “Daddy”.

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Male Health in Australia - Men’s Health Week 2016

With special guest:

• Dr Gary Misan

The health of Australians in terms of life expectancy is good by world standards.

However when we examine life expectancy it is often forgotten in these times of women demanding greater empowerment that males in Australia die more frequently than females in all age groups. Male life expectancy is 4.6 years less than females and the gap has increased not declined since 1900. In remote and very remote areas average male life expectancy is 4 years lower than in more populated areas. For Aboriginal males the average life expectancy is only 59 years a full 6 years less than for Aboriginal females. Furthermore male health extends beyond the purely biological aspects and encompasses a range of issues affecting the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

Against this background the Government introduced Australia’s first Men’s Health Policy in 2010, some 30 years after the Women’s Health Policy appeared. We ask our guest today Dr Gary Misan what changes have we seen since the 2010 introduction of the Policy and to what extent has it been picked up at the state and regional level.

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Didge Group Connection to Culture

With special guest:

• Stuart McMinn

Our National Close the Gap Day program

Stuart McMinn is working in a program that draws on tens of thousands of years of culture to benefit our youth, in particular our young Indigenous men.

Following on from the vision of local Indigenous man, Uncle Bob Williams from the Mingaletta Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders Corporation, Interrelate Central Coast supported the establishment of the Young Boys Didgeridoo and Cultural Group, ‘Didge’, in mid-2011. This new group offered cultural and other supports which had an immediate and significant impact.

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Dads on the Inside

With special guest:

• Edward Mosby

Ed Mosby is in the words of the Queensland Premier a “well-renowned Psychologist”. Ed has a background working as the Therapeutic Team Leader for Helem Yumba a Central Queensland Healing Centre located in Rockhampton.

Using all his expertise and experience in the area of behaviour change Ed developed the Dads on the Inside program to help the inmates at the Capricorn Correctional Centre to turn their lives around.

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NAIDOC Week 2015

With special guest:

• Dale Huddleston

We hear a lot about “the Intervention”, Aboriginal incarceration rates, and problems in Aboriginal communities. Not so much about the positive stories relating to the original inhabitants of Australia.

In today’s program we have an opportunity to listen to Dale Huddleston who is a renowned Aboriginal artist and musician, Chairman of the Burrunju Aboriginal Corporation and Outreach Worker for the Gugan Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation in Canberra.

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Still a Pygmy

With special guest:

• Isaac Bacirongo

When you are born and raised in Australia you know little about life as a refugee despite it being a frequent topic for conversation and opinion. Most of us have never spoken to a refugee.

Our guest today is Isaac Bacirongo who arrived in Sydney in 2003 with his wife and ten children as refugees after surviving the effects of Rwanda’s civil war in his own country, Congo.

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Australia's First Peoples

With special guest:

• Jeff McMullen

For National Close the Gap Day we speak to Jeff McMullen.

Jeff McMullen is a household name in Australia with a major presence as a recognised international current affairs journalist. Throughout his distinguished 50 year career our guest today has written filmed and campaigned around the world to improve the health, education and human rights of Indigenous people.

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Let's Prevent Diabetes

With special guests:

• Helen Edwards
• David Gillespie

Our show today is dedicated to National Diabetes Awareness Week and its theme Let’s Prevent Diabetes. Type II Diabetes accounts for about 85% of all cases of Diabetes and is the focus of the week. The overall rates of Type II Diabetes in the Australian population have led to it being described as an epidemic by Diabetes Australia and the rate in Indigenous population is seven to eight times higher than in other segments of society.  And it affects men much more than it does pre-menopausal women which may be due to the effect of the female hormone oestrogen.

In Australia the number of people with Diabetes II has increased from just over 200,000 in 1981 to over 1.2million in 2005 and the curve is getting steeper. With Type II Diabetes set to become the leading burden of disease in Australia by 2017 it is time for governments in Australia to make diabetes prevention a priority.

The sound file for the show will be up on our website next week. In the meantime you can catch the interviews on our station 89.3FM 2GLF’s On Demand system here.

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NAIDOC Week

With special guests:

• Rick Welsh
• Uncle Gerald Brown

We have a great music selection in our program today, starting with the Jimmy Cliff song Many Rivers to Cross as featured recently in the award winning MABO telemovie on the ABC. This is followed by a song from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu from his Rrakala album. Translated this song refers to the Salt Water People and that describes our second guest today. The songs selected by our guests reflect some important messages that they pass on to us.

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Our Closing the Gap Special

With special guests:

• Aaron Stuart
• Craig Hammond

We cross today to the frontline when we speak to Aaron Stuart who is the Manager of Aboriginal Projects at Centacare in Port Augusta South Australia. It is hard for many of us to imagine what it would be like to be the first person called after a suicide by one of our people. And then for it to happen again and again. Aaron is facing an endemic where the Aboriginal rate of suicide is four times greater than for non-Indigenous Australians and with children sometimes as young as 8 succumbing. Aaron provides some inspiring lessons about the positive action he is taking and tells us how he copes with the terrible stresses that go with his job.

Next we speak to Craig “Bourkie” Hammond who is the Leader Indigenous Programs, Family Action Centre, University of Newcastle. Craig is involved with a number of projects including the Nar-un-bah and Thou Walla engaging Aboriginal Fathers project. Fathering roles in the Aboriginal community extend to grandparents, uncles and older brothers. As one of eleven children himself and with a background as a youth worker Bourkie brings his skills and reputation to provide guidance and assistance in strengthening the relationship between Indigenous fathers and their children.

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Promoting Gender And Race Equality

With Special Guests:

• Dr. Warren Farrell and
• Lee-Anne Smith.

At a time when changing slogans and spin, bombard us at an incredible rate, it is difficult to keep up with what is propaganda and what is real. Just to name a few examples of a growing list of deceptive, manipulative blurring of the facts, to which the community is exposed daily, consider the following.

Global Warming has become Climate Change, Equal Rights for Women, has become Women’s Rights, Domestic Violence has turned into Violence Against Women, conveniently ignoring the fact that at least one third of the victims are Men.

 

Equal Pay For Equal Work, has morphed into Equal Pay For Women, never mind that women often work less hours, thereby earning less pay. Never mind also, that it is already illegal to pay someone less pay for the same hours worked, doing the same work, on the basis of age,race or gender.

 

It is refreshing therefore, to listen to the genuine and informed, as they speak passionately about real gender and racial equality. No sloganeering here, just the facts and a passion to promote equality. This week we speak with two such people, who represent the genuine article, and present a well balanced enthusiasm for their cause. 

 

Our first guest is Dr Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power, who’s understanding of both sexes is symbolized by his being, on the one hand, on the boards of four national men’s organizations, and on the other hand, being the only man in the US to be elected three times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women in New York City.  Similarly, he has started over 600 men’s and women’s groups, and over 200,000 women and men have attended his workshops worldwide.  

 

Dr. Warren Farrell began his research on gender issues in the ‘60s.  His first book, The Liberated Man, was published in 1974.  It was from the women’s perspective and the feminist perspective.  By the ‘80s, he began noticing that men were feeling misrepresented, and his award-winning national best-seller, Why Men Are The Way They Are, was written to answer women’s questions about men in a way that rings true for men.  

 

Our second guest is Lee-Anne Smith, of the Halo Leadership Agency. Halo is a non-profit incorporated, career and personal development agency, advancing Hopes, Aspirations and Leadership Opportunities for young people. The agency listens to the needs of young people, providing advocacy, programmes, peer mentoring and networking opportunities, that enable individuals to discover who they are, design their own futures and make a difference in their communities.

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Supporting Australian Dads

With special guests:

• Akiva Quinn and

• Darren Atkinson.                                                                          

In an era when fathers are treated as a disposable commodity, there are those in our community who actually care enough about the plight of Australia’s dads, to help them cope with the difficulties of trying to be a dad during this difficult period.

This historically discriminating anti Men/Father era, is also shared by our Indigenous brothers. The only difference is that the dispossession and dis-empowerment of Indigenous men, started long before the wider community turned on its own men, fathers and boys. 

On today’s show we play two interesting interviews, recorded at the last National Men’s Health Convention in Newcastle with two such supporters of our Dads, who speak about the work they are doing in support of Australian Dads. 

 

The first interview is with Akiva Quinn, of Dadslink, a support group for dads in Victoria. He explains in detail the exciting programs made available by his organization, which go some way in helping Dads to better connect and bond with their children.

 

Our second interview is with Darren Atkinson of the support group, I’m an Aboriginal Dad. Darren is an Indigenous leader, with a passion to improve the parenting role of young Indigenous fathers. He explains how the child removal policies, and the prolonged dis-empowerment and persecution of Indigenous males, all but destroyed the fabric of his culture.

 

Many young Aboriginal men, have not benefited from a father figure during their childhood and lacked a good role model to prepare them for fatherhood. Interestingly, now that we have fine tuned this discriminating, government sponsored, child removal policy via our Family Courts, there is no doubt we will inherit the same aftermath as that now experienced by our Indigenous brothers. 

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Department of Child Stealing

With special guest:

• ‘Daniel’
    

This is a week where community alarm bells should have been ringing loudly. It’s a week when the Australian Government released a report showing that in the year 2009, more than 210,000 children were the subject of child protection notifications, in excess of 33,000 were the subject of one or more substantiations, over 35,000 were on care and protection orders and government agencies removed more than 34,000 children from their biological parents.

These figures are especially troubling since on the following day the NT coroner declared the death of a 12 year old girl ,who was under state protection there, as ‘appalling’ and ‘needless’.

Today we speak to one of those biological parents ‘Daniel’, a distraught father who has spent the past 13 years desperately trying to have his son returned to his care and protection, following the boys’ removal from his parents’ care by Docs of NSW,  on the bases of allegations of abuse and neglect, which were subsequently proven to be false.

The desperate emotional trauma of having their son removed on the basis of false allegations, eventually resulted in the marriage breakdown, and this father is almost at the end of his tether at not having had contact with his long lost son for many years.

More questions urgently need to be asked in order to establish the possible underlying causes for such a disturbing high level of government involvement in the child stealing racket that appears to be taking place.

Of particular interest is the fact that the governments’ own reports show that tens of thousands of the nation’s children are removed from one or more of their parents every year with the help of a number of government agencies such as the Family Courts, the Domestic Violence Industry and the departments of community services.

Again our own investigations show the frightening speed and ease by which your biological children can be removed from your care, by any of these government agencies on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence, unsupported hearsay or vindictive false allegations.

‘Daniel’ not his real name for legal reasons joins us today to tell his story in order to warn others about the dangers posed to parent/child relationships by  those government agencies that parade under the nauseating ‘Best Interest of the Children’ Mantra, as they happily remove your children. 

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