Australian Aboriginal woman to graduate with a medical degree

I have been present when Aboriginals have been awarded professional qualifications which I knew to be unearned.  And like the lady below they went on to use their defective skills in the service of other Aborigines. So the upshot of the do-gooding is inferior services for Aborigines. That is kind??  Aborigines should have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else

The first doctor from Deakin University Medical School’s Indigenous entry scheme will graduate this week.

Laura English, a proud Yamatji woman with strong ties to the Wathaurong community in her hometown of Geelong, will be among 1100 students graduating from Deakin at the University’s Geelong Waterfront Campus on Thursday and Friday.

“I want to use what I’ve learnt at Deakin to give back to my community, whether that’s my community here in Geelong, or the wider community,” Laura said.

“Indigenous health and closing the gap is such a huge area, and we desperately need more doctors, nurses and health professionals from our community.”

Deakin Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander AO said nurturing and encouraging students to make a difference in their communities was a fundamental goal of the University.

“We especially recognise that as places of learning, universities are powerful agents for social change and have a key role to play in promoting social justice and human rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples,” Professor den Hollander said.

“Currently there are fewer than 300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors working in Australia. That means medical schools like ours must meet the challenge of building greater representation, by recruiting and retaining more Indigenous students.

“Our alumni are our most effective ambassadors and the best evidence of our success, making an ongoing contribution to the intellectual, social and economic life of the communities we serve.”

The medical school’s Indigenous entry scheme began in 2015, setting aside five per cent of domestic places in Deakin's Doctor of Medicine course for Indigenous Australian applicants, with a special application and interview process and extra support available throughout the course.

Laura, who will graduate at Thursday afternoon’s ceremony, said it was a surreal feeling to be Deakin’s first Indigenous doctor.

“I always wanted to work in health and had medicine in the back of my mind, but never thought I could get there,” she said.

Laura first studied nursing at Deakin’s Institute of Koorie Education, graduating in 2012. She worked as nurse for two years before her parents encouraged her to apply for the medical school’s Indigenous entry scheme.

The scheme began in 2015, setting aside five per cent of domestic places in Deakin's Doctor of Medicine course for Indigenous Australian applicants, with a special application and interview process and extra support available throughout the course. There are now nine students studying at Deakin as part of this group.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, it’s been an absolute emotional rollercoaster, but it was definitely worth it standing here and looking back,” Laura said.

As part of her studies Laura also completed a six-week placement with the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-Operative, working with the doctors and health practitioners there, developing a particular interest in women’s health.

Media release: Contact: Elise Snashall-Woodhams. E: e.snashallwoodhams@deakin.edu.au






Australia is set to follow the US in formally recognising West Jerusalem as Israel's capital

Australia is on track to follow in the footsteps of the US and formally recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will deliver a speech to the Sydney Institute on Saturday to throw his support behind Israeli government, The Weekend Australian reported.

Mr Morrison will support the push to name the contested city as Israel's capital on the belief it will progress peace talks in the Middle East.

'The Australian government has decided that Australia now recognises West Jerusalem, as the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of government, is the capital of Israel,' Mr Morrison is expected to say.

He will also take aim at the United Nations and accuse them of anti-Semitism. 

Mr Morrison will hit back at the UN's refusal to acknowledge Israel's claims of self-defence as the militant Palestinian group Hamas continues to hurl attacks at the country.

The Morrison government will also seek to recognise a future Palestinian state.

Mr Morrison first made his view on West Jerusalem public days before the Wentworth by-election in October. At the time he openly aired his support of moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He is expected to put the move on ice, at least until a peace settlement determines the final status of the city.

'And we look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after, final-status determination,' Mr Morrison will say in his speech.

In the meantime, a defence and trade office will be set up in Jerusalem. The symbolic gesture is intended to reflect the bilateral relationship between the two sides.

Mr Morrison's comments about recognising West Jerusalem have also sparked severe blowback from the international community, and placed Australia and Indonesia on rocky ground.

Head of the Palestinian delegation in Canberra Izzat Abdulhadi also warned the decision could strain Australia's relationship with Middle Eastern countries.

Mr Morrison is also expected to support the Iran Nuclear deal, a u-turn on his previous desire to scrap it. He will also look to bring in 'autonomous sanctions' against Iran, a response to the country's role in sponsoring terrorism in the Middle East.

Mr Morrison will also draw on the settlement activity in the Palestinian territories and say the current settlements 'undermine peace'.

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Carols turn green as some Australian Christians sing out to save the planet

Hundreds of Christians in church choirs across the country will be singing Christmas carols with ­lyrics altered to protest about the burning of coal in a bid to change federal government policy on renewable energy.

The community organisation Australian Religious Response to Climate Change has facilitated the rewriting of 16 traditional Christmas carols — including We Wish You A Steady Climate and ­Silent Night, Smoky Night — and is encouraging community groups and choirs to sing them.

Darebin Council in Melbourne’s north, which has four Greens councillors among its nine members, hosted an event last week featuring many of the Carols Against Coal, and the Pitt Street Uniting Church Choir in Sydney has recently sung the altered Joy To The World — “Cool down the world, the time has come, for targets tight and fair”.

The ARRCC intends to upload a video of groups singing the carols to social media today ahead of tomorrow’s opening of the ALP’s national conference.

“We believe the Liberal Party has been in a long-term relationship with coal but we have slightly more hope that the Labor Party will be encouraged to take a bolder stance,” said ARRCC community organiser Tejopala Rawls.

“We want them to step down off the fence and gain the moral courage to do something about climate change.”

A dozen carollers from St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane will take to Brisbane Square today to sing the carols, led by Dean Peter Catt. “It shows that there’s a broad cross-section of the community that have concern for the environment,” Dean Catt said.

He said it was not anti-­Christian to politicise Christmas, nor would this detract from the spirit of the season. “Life is political and the gospel itself is political,” he said.

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Federal Government vows to keep gender on birth certificates

The Morrison Government has vowed gender will remain on birth certificates as it plans to override states that wish to make it optional.

The Morrison Government is planning to override state laws to prevent a person’s gender from being stripped from their birth certificate.

Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert said the “identity wars” now posed serious risks to planning for hospitals and schools, and would destroy the function of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

“This identity war now poses some pretty serious risks. I can’t allow states to do it (remove gender),” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“This data is essential for sensible planning across Australia. Governments at all levels use it for planning including where hospitals and schools go. It’s used by housing developers.

“It will make planning exceptionally difficult for the Department of Health which has to make decisions about where obstetrics wards go and fertility services.

“We provide cervical cancer vaccines for free. How will we know how many to order? “Cervical cancer doesn’t care about how you identify, it cares about whether you have a cervix.”

The decision follows landmark reforms in Tasmania which could make it a crime not to call a person by their preferred gender pronoun.

The proposed law would also give parents in Tasmania the authority to decide whether their child’s gender is recorded on birth certificates, and allow people aged 16 or over to legally change their gender.

Last week, the Western Australia Government abandoned its plans to remove a baby’s gender from birth certificates.

Under growing pressure from church groups and with questions about how proposed changes would affect West Australians applying for documents such as passports, the government confirmed earlier this month it would not take gender off birth certificates.

It had been considering the idea as part of a raft of changes around gender reassignment laws.

SOURCE 

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