Women in uniform -  by Anne Summers in The Monthly (Dec 2011 – Jan 2012). Anne’s essay looks at some of the work women already undertake in Australia’s Defence Force and, in light of the Federal Government’s decision to remove the remaining restrictions on women in combat roles, she discusses the already-blurred lines between combat and non-combat activities.

Young Victorian of the Year crusades for disabled youth - by Michelle Griffin in The Age (28 Dec). Michelle profiles Georgia Retallick, the 2011 Young Victorian of the Year. At just 20 she is already working hard to establish the country’s first nursing home for young people. After setting up her own charitable foundation (Y House) she already has the design for a 25-bed centre and a list of builders, carpenters and disability specialists ready to donate labour and materials. Now she is pursuing the funds to embark on the next stage.

Women’s freedom after the Arab revolutions - by Or Avi-Guy in The Age National Times (27 December). Women were a vital part of the protest movements during the Arab Spring uprisings. Or discusses whether women can expect any greater freedoms in the aftermath of those revolutions. And for a more detailed examination of the threats to women’s rights in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, read Or’s essay (here) from last month on the AIJAC website.

Women’s boxing vs the skirt -by Sam Derrick in The Punch (30 December). Sam draws on the recent controversy in women’s boxing, which makes its debut at the 2012 London Olympics, to discuss how women in sport are portrayed and valued. She also reminds us of some of the strong sporting performances by Australian women over the year.

Body image and women’s magazines - by Mia Freedman on mamamia website (29 December). Mia, a former editor of Cosmo, Cleo and Dolly magazines, tried to highlight the positives of the unusual occurrence of an older woman (50 year-old Deborah Hutton) as the naked cover girl on a a recent issue of Women’s Weekly, but found herself having to justify her acceptance of the ‘minimal’ airbrushing used on the image. She does also make some worthwhile observations about the realities of publishing women’s magazines.

The Lawrence Creative Prize recognises outstanding creativity in biomedical research undertaken by young scientists and was established to encourage the country’s best researchers to build their careers in Australia, rather than leave for overseas.

‘Exceptional young scientists can be hard to keep in Australia and we hope this award will not only celebrate their achievements but also encourage a domestic culture of brilliance in this truly important field,’ said Centenary Institute Executive Director Professor Matthew Vadas.

Applications were received from 33 early-career scientists in Australian universities and medical research institutes. Dr Asselin-Labat was one of three chosen finalists, alongside Greg Neely from Sydney’s Garvan Institute and fellow WEHI researcher Marc Pellegrini. Her prize win was announced in Sydney on 19 October and recognised her creative approach to her breast stem cell research and her willingness to apply knowledge from her previous research to a new field.

’When I came here seven years ago I was attracted to the science in Australia. It’s fantastic for young scientists to be given the chance to win an award like this and gives you the confidence to give your own creativity a go,’ she said after receiving the award. ‘The prize is an honour and a great boost for my confidence.’

The French-born researcher’s early interest in biology led to a pharmacy degree, then a Doctorate in molecular and cellular biology. She left France in 2004 to join Jane Visvader and Geoff Lindeman’s team at WEHI where she contributed to the breast stem cell discovery (published in Nature journal in 2006). As part of the team’s research, Asselin-Labat examined how breast stem cells contributed to breast cancer development, including any link between female hormones and the cells. She looked at how breast stem cells developed into normal breast tissue and how some cells were more likely to become aggressive cancer cells. Her ongoing research revealed that breast stem cells had no receptors for the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone, but were still highly sensitive to their effects and the findings went some way to explaining why there was considerable evidence linking sustained exposure to oestrogen and progesterone and increased risk of breast cancer.

Early in 2010 Asselin-Labat published this new research in Nature journal (showing that oestrogen and other steroids can control breast stem cell function) and her work earned her a 2010 L’Oreal Australia For Women in Science Fellowship worth $20,000. Drugs that exploit one of the pathways she identified in that research are now in clinical trials to help maintain bone strength and treat breast cancer that has spread to the bones.

In 2011 she established her own laboratory in the Stem Cells and Cancer division at WEHI where she changed her research focus to a new field – understanding the origins of lung cancers. Drawing on the techniques and knowledge developed in her breast cancer research, she is now looking at how lung stem cells are regulated and what drives tumour initiation.

‘Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer and is very difficult to treat. We want to apply the knowledge we’ve acquired on breast cancer to the lung,’ she explained. ‘We suspect stem cells exist in the lung and we want to find them and see if they have a role in lung cancer.’

The Lawrence Creative Prize honours Neil Lawrence, the first Chair of The Centenary Institute Foundation set up by Lawrence and his wife Caroline. The Centenary Institute was established in 1985 to commemorate the centenaries of the University of Sydney Medical School and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and provide opportunities to co-operate on research and translating discoveries into clinical practice.

Images:  Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat from The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne (photos by Sam D’Agostino, SDP Photo)

The Women in Business Poll is available through the AWCCI website at:

www.awcci.org.au

It takes about 10 minutes to complete the survey and it is open to any woman who owns an Australian registered business – whether they run it alone or with a partner, family, board or advisory committee. Size of the business is irrelevant, as is its location (it can be rural, regional or urban). The survey will be available until 19 December and a final report is expected in February 2012.

According to the recently-released 2011 Bankwest Business Trends Report, women launched nearly twice as many new businesses in the past year as men, and over a five year period women’s business growth rates (7%) more than tripled men’s (1.9%). Although more men than women run their own organisations, women still represent a third of small to medium business owners (446,000 women out of 1.3 million SME owners) and therefore provide important economic and community benefits. An investigation into their specific business needs and challenges would seem warranted.

women launched nearly twice as many new businesses in the past year as men … and women represent a third of all small to medium business owners

The AWCCI believes a comprehensive national research project such as the Women in Business Poll will help identify issues that are important to this growing sector. Survey results will offer state-by-state breakdowns, providing industries and governments with useful information to shape future policies, practice and programs that support women in business and female entrepreneurs.

The independent, non-profit research centre The Reibey Institute (The Australian Research Institute for Women’s Leadership) is leading the research project. It has received financial support from the Federal and NSW Governments and a range of support sponsors.

The Australian Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AWCCI) was launched this year on International Women’s Day (8 March) to give women in business a voice in shaping policy and to promote women’s participation in the business sector. It is chartered to instigate research, promote trade and commerce, and advocate for gender equality in business. More information can be found at the AWCCI website.

Kate Ellis, the Federal Minister for the Status of Women, announced the appointments.

‘I am delighted that Ms Turley and Ms Norman-Hill have been selected from such a strong field of community applicants and the Australian Government’s Indigenous Leadership Program chose to support Ms Rawlings Hunter’s participation as an Advanced Leadership Opportunity. I am confident they will be excellent representatives for Australia at the CSW 56,’ she said.

The CSW is the major global policy-making organisation dedicated to gender equality and advancing and empowering women. Member State representatives meet each year to to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate policies. The commission also prepares resolutions on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, social, civil and educational fields, which are then considered by the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

The theme for the 56th session, to be held between 27 February and 9 March 2012, is rural women’s empowerment and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.

NSW’s Darriea Turley is one of two community sector delegates to attend the CSW. She is the Deputy Mayor of Broken Hill City Council and National President of the Australian Local Government Women’s Association. She has been a councillor since 1995 and is also a board member and former Chair of the National Rural Women’s Coalition and Network. In 2008 she was nominated as NSW Woman of the Year and named Broken Hill Executive Woman of the Year. Her 30-plus years working in health and welfare in regional areas has given her extensive knowledge and experience of issues affecting rural and remote women. She has also been involved in international conferences on health and economic development, including the Regional Development Australia National Forum, National Regional Women’s Convention and the International Conferencing of Women Engineers and Scientists on rural women’s issues.

The other community sector delegate is Rosemary Norman-Hill from Queensland. She is the Director of Kirrawe Indigenous Corporation, which provides health and community services to the indigenous community at Labrador on the Gold Coast. She has participated in a number of forums and conferences targeting issues affecting rural women and has personally experienced the difficulties rural women and their families have endured during natural disasters. She was also a Delegate at the first National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples Meeting in June 2011.

Victorian Kaylene Rawlings Hunter will attend the CSW56 as Australia’s Indigenous delegate. She is from the Bardi tribe of the north-west of Western Australia and has lived and worked in rural WA and Victoria as well as Melbourne, where she is currently completing her law training. She is Acting President of Melbourne-based Tarwirri – the Indigenous Law Students Association of Victoria – and is also a member of the Indigenous Human Rights Network Australia and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance. Her work experience has included roles at the Gunditjmara Aboriginal Cooperative in Warnambool and project officer in the Koori Courts Division of Victoria’s Magistrates’ Court. She also has a strong interest in media and arts law and spent several years at the Broome-based Goolarri Media Enterprises.

About the Commission on the Status of Women

The Commission on the Status of Women was established in 1946 and was dedicated to ensuring women’s equality and promoting women’s rights. Jessie Mary Grey Street, Australia’s representative, was one of the 15 original members of the Commission at its session in New York in February 1947. Since then, representatives from member states as well as other UN organisation representatives and government and non-government organisations have met regularly at the UN’s headquarters in New York (biennially until 1987 and annually since then).

Some of the major issues the CSW has tackled over the last five decades include providing women universal access to political rights, removing discrimination in marriage, increasing women’s literacy and equality in education access, promoting women’s participation in development, drafting a declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, announcing 1975 as the International Women’s Year, drafting the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which the General Assembly adopted in 1979 and the Declaration for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (adopted by the General Assembly in 1993), and contributing to the work that led to the Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security being adopted.

A more detailed history of the CSW’s achievements are available here on the CSW website.

Smith advised that on 26 September Federal Cabinet, with the military service chiefs’ full support, formally agreed to remove the discrimination against women from frontline combat roles. A staged implementation will take place over a maximum of five years.

‘We have an Australian Army that’s been going for 110 years, an Australian Navy that’s been going formally for 100 years, and an Australian Air Force that’s been going for 90 years, and last night we resolved to remove the final restrictions on the capacity of women to serve in frontline combat roles,’ he said. ‘So the last of the sex discrimination against women in frontline or combat roles will now be removed.’

The Defence Force is currently exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act (1984, Section 43), allowing it to discriminate on the basis of gender against women performing ‘combat duties’ (which are defined as those ‘requiring a person to commit, or to participate directly in the commission of an act of violence against an adversary in time of war’ *). Because of this exemption, Australia also has a ‘reservation’ in its ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) **.  According to Smith the UN Convention reservation and the Section 43 exemption will be removed once the reform is fully implemented.

The five year implementation timeframe is intended to ensure the changes are successfully completed. Smith acknowledged the reform was ‘a significant and major cultural change’ and would require careful management.

‘There will be different views. There will be strong support in some quarters and there will be questioning in others,’ he said. ‘One of the reasons we want to ensure that we’ve got a well-managed, well-ordered, carefully calibrated implementation program is to make sure that there is no diminution of standards so far as roles are concerned.’

A joint study by the University of Wollongong and the Defence, Science and Technology Organisation is currently determining the physical employment standards for combat trades. According to Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Warren Snowden, this research will determine what particular physical and mental attributes and capacities will be required to do the work.

’That’s how people will be judged – their physical and psychological capacity to do the work, not on their gender,’ Snowdon said.

Asked if allowing women into combat roles would reduce a unit’s effectiveness, Smith replied: ‘the only thing that will reduce our capacity will be by making choices other than on merit.’ He and Snowdon cited examples of women who were prevented from taking up gender-restricted roles despite having the necessary desire and skill.

‘A member of my staff has a relative who is currently in a platoon,’ said Smith. ‘The best shot in the platoon is a woman. Currently, she would be prohibited and prevented from being a sniper in Afghanistan. Why would we take away the chance of the best shot in the platoon from playing that role?’

Snowdon recalled attending a graduation ceremony at Cerberus a few years earlier where the top recruit was a female sailor. Asked what trade she wanted to do, she answered ‘clearance diver’ – a role she was unable to pursue.

Removing the gender discrimination will also open up all senior positions to women – including the Chief of Defence or Head of Services, whose roles require having previous frontline service.

‘We’ve seen over the years a slow, but nonetheless progressive increase in the number of women in senior positions, and there are some notable senior women in the service at the moment,’ Smith said. ‘But this change will effectively enable into the future women to fall for consideration for all of the positions, including the highest.’

A full transcript of the joint press conference by Stephen Smith and Warren Snowdon can be found at the Defence Minister’s website.

You can read an earlier GirlsGerms story here about women breaking through the gender defences.

Photo: Leading Aircraftwoman Shannan Turley on patrol with military working dog King and members from No. 2 Airfield Defence Squadron (courtesy of Australian Defence Force – photo by LACW Kylie Gibson )

* Sex Discrimination Regulations 1984 (Reg 3)

** The reservation (reworded in August 2000) states: ‘The Government of Australia advises that it does not accept the application of the Convention in so far as it would require alteration of Defence Force policy which excludes women from combat duties.’

‘I’m delighted to join the ACA Executive,’ she said of her appointment. ‘Having served on the ACA’s Women’s Executive for a number of years, this role is a great opportunity to expand my involvement in a broad range of areas for all players. It’s exciting that doors are opening for female players to influence the game and I look forward to making a strong contribution to not just women’s cricket, but for players right across the board.’

ACA Chief Executive Paul Marsh also noted the significance of Sthalekar’s appointment.

‘In Lisa’s case, her appointment reflects not only the skills she brings to the table, but also the evolving cricket landscape and the importance that all of the ACA’s membership categories are represented on the Executive.’

Sthalekar is a current member of the Southern Stars Australian women’s cricket team, playing Test, One Day International and Twenty20 matches. The batter/bowler joined the domestic Women’s National Cricket League in the 1997-98 season playing for the NSW Breakers and now captains the side. She made her international debut in the women’s One Day International side in 2001 and her Test and Twenty20 debuts in 2003 and 2005 respectively. She was also part of the Australian team that won the 2005 Women’s World Cup. She was named Australia’s Women’s Cricketer of the Year in 2007 and 2008 and is recognised as the first player to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in women’s One Day Internationals.

The ACA is the representative organisation of past and present first class cricketers in Australia. It is governed by a seven-member Executive committee that is voted in for a two-year term. Sthalekar was selected in September to fill one of two casual vacancies created by recent resignations and will have to stand in the next election on 23 November to retain her position.

Image: Lisa Sthalekar at the Adelaide Oval nets in February 2010 (photo by YellowMonkey – used under Creative Commons licence)

The industry-judged iAwards have been presented for the last 17 years to showcase the innovation quality of Australia’s leading ICT companies and individuals in government, community and business sectors. The 2011 awards, supported by peak industry bodies the Australian Computer Society, Australian Information Industry Association, and the non-profit Pearcey Foundation, saw four new individual award categories introduced alongside sixteen company categories, two distinguished achievement awards and two Hall of Fame inductees.

Jo Stewart-Rattray – ICT Professional of the Year

The Professional of the Year honour is awarded for an individual’s outstanding innovation, commitment and achievement in their field and dedication to promoting the profession. They must demonstrate personal excellence in using information communication technologies, show outstanding industry leadership and be a ‘superior advocate’ for developing and advancing the profession.

South Australia’s Jo Stewart-Rattray has spent 24 years in the IT field and consults on information security issues, particularly on governance in businesses’ commercial and operational areas. In her role as Director of Information Security for chartered accountants RSM Bird Cameron she provides strategic advice to organisations in a wide range of industry sectors, including banking and finance, utilities, automotive manufacturing, tertiary education, retail and government. She is highly qualified in management and education, holding a Master of Education Studies degree and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and Manager. She is also a highly-regarded international speaker on IT and security issues.

Stewart-Rattray holds leadership positions in several international and Australian security organisations, including International Vice President of the International Systems Audit and Control Association, Chair of its International Leadership Development Committee and Security Culture Taskforce, and as a member of one of the International Council on Large Electrical Systems international working groups. She is also a a co-opted member of the ACS South Australian Branch Executive Committee.

Jane Treadwell – ICT Woman of the Year Award

The Woman of the Year award recognises an inspiring woman who has made a consistent and significant contribution to the ICT industry. Judges look for individual excellence, being a role model for women through extensive service as a practitioner, and an outstanding contribution to advancing women’s recognition in the industry.

Jane Treadwell spent 25 years working in state and federal governments and held leadership, board and executive positions across health, public sector reform, correctional services, welfare, innovation, planning and community development. She was Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Centrelink and was Victoria’s Government CIO – all roles that earned her the National CIO of the Year award in 2005.

Now based in Victoria she runs her own business (Jane Treadwell Consulting) as an independent adviser on strategy, service transformation and e-governance to client governments and companies. She is also a Senior Consultant with the World Bank’s Global ICT Unit which advises developing countries on strategy, governance and service delivery. She also moderates the organisation’s Leaders for Transformation Network – a key element of its Global Government Transformation Initiative.

Earlier this year she chaired the volunteer Melbourne Steering Group of the Random Hacks of Kindness – a global community of software engineers who collaborate on projects designed to identify and solve critical development problems using digital solutions (e.g. optimising water and sewerage operations or using webcams to monitor water flows). She has a Master of Business Administration, Bachelor of Science and Graduate Diploma in Nutrition & Dietetics and is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration of Australia.

Ann Moffatt – Pearcey Hall of Fame inductee and IT pioneer

Each year up to two nominees are inducted into the prestigious Pearcey Hall of Fame, based on their distinguished lifetime achievements or contributions in ICT research, industry or professional development. Over the last ten years, 23 outstanding industry figures have been inducted. This is the first year a woman – Ann Moffatt – has joined the honour list and the achievement recognises her leadership as a woman in ICT.

Ann Moffatt first entered the IT industry in 1959. Five decades later, with a succession of groundbreaking firsts to her name, she is enjoying retirement in Queensland. As a working mother during the 1960s she helped spearhead the idea of ‘teleworking’ when she joined UK company FI Group (originally called Freelance Programmers) – a consortium of female programmers who worked from home while raising their children. By early 1970 she was heading the group’s technical division supervising 400 staff.

She moved to Australia in 1974 (by then a single mother of a 6 and 9 year old) to join Computer Sciences Australia and worked on database developments for insurer AMP. In 1975 she became AMP’s first female executive and remained its only one until 1986. She had a key role as the organisation’s ‘IT futurist’ ensuring the company kept ahead of technology developments in the decades ahead. In 1987 she led the IT strategy for the newly established Australian Stock Exchange, pulling together the disparate state exchanges and implementing one of the few robust systems to handle the October stock market crash (the New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong exchanges all failed).

From 1989 to 1992 she was the director of the University of NSW’s Institute of Information Technology where she expanded its role (and income stream) to include training and metrics research for big emerging corporations such as Digital, IBM and Apple. In her first year of tenure she also invited 25 senior IT women to join a new Women in IT support network. Twelve took up the invitation and began regular meetings. The group changed its name later to the Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications (FITT) and continues operating today with over 2,250 members.

In 1993, in a move reminiscent of her earlier teleworking days, Moffatt established her own ICT services company – Technology Solutions – creating a virtual office for over 100 industry professionals working from home to deliver systems development, support, consultancy and education. She managed the company until she retired in 2000.

Moffatt was the first woman elected to the British Computer Society Council (1973) and, in 1996, became a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society (ACS). She was a Founding Director (and first female director) of the society’s higher education and research sponsorship initiative – the ACS Foundation – holding the position from 2001-2009. She was also a board member of the NSW TAFE Commission. Recognising her distinguished career and significant achievements in the ICT industry, the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) conferred on her an honorary Doctorate of Engineering in 2006.

For an extensive biography of Ann Moffatt, read Aileen Cater-Steel’s 2006 article ‘Ann Moffatt: succeeding in a man’s world’. It is available in PDF format at the USQ website here.

More details about the iAwards can be found at the website.

Images: (top) ICT Woman of the Year Winner Jane Treadwell (at left) with presenter Cynthia Balogh from Women in Global Business; (centre) Ann Moffatt alongside fellow Pearcey Hall of Fame inductee Dennis Moore (photos by Richard Jupe)

‘Many people … have said to me they feel we are no longer relevant,’ she said in an ABC radio interview shortly after the election. ‘The reason I stood now was so that the association could make a definite decision to do something different and I think we need to show that we can do that – to members who have left … and people who might be considering joining.’

Those differences, she said, included renewing the organisation, making it more inclusive and relevant, and striving for excellence.

Simpson runs a mixed grain farm with her husband and his family on their 5,500 hectare property at Premer just west of Tamworth. As chair of the association’s mining taskforce, she spent much of the past year raising farmers’ concerns about the pace of mining expansion (particularly coal seam gas exploration) and access rights to agricultural land. As vice-president, she led the board’s call for a moratorium on new gas extraction and mining projects in NSW.

For twelve months Simpson has been the only female on the association’s nine-member board of directors, but she downplays the personal significance of being the first female President.

‘It certainly does indicate how involved women are now in farming businesses and that women can be farmers and not necessarily drive tractors and operate headers and machinery. It’s all very well if they do that, but … this is really an acknowledgement of the important part women play in a farm business and the agricultural industry and I think that is very important and very significant.’

[photo courtesy of the NSW Farmers' Association]

Stosur’s straight sets final win on 12 September took just one hour and 13 minutes – a stark contrast to her record setting third round match against Nadia Petrova. That 7-6, 6-7, 7-5 match took three hours 16 minutes, making it the longest women’s singles match in US Open history. Two days later Stosur set another record, this time for the longest tiebreak in a women’s Grand Slam singles match when she played a 32-point tiebreak in her three-set win over Maria Kirilenko.

The Queenslander now has three singles and 23 doubles women’s titles and two mixed doubles titles to her credit. She is currently seventh in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings, although she reached no. 4 in February this year after a successful 2010 season that included her French Open final debut against eventual winner Francesca Schiavone.

Stosur’s first taste of international tennis came at age 13 with a World Youth Cup team trip to Indonesia. She joined the Queensland Academy of Sport the following year in 1998 and also played her first two International Tennis Federation (ITF) Circuit events (the entry level tournaments for WTA Tour hopefuls). She turned professional in 1999 and by 2000 played her first WTA qualifying tournament (for the Australian Open) and earned her first singles ranking of 682. The following year, the 16 year-old entered the Australian Institute of Sport’s tennis program and by year end had more than halved her ranking (to 276).

After joining the Federation Cup Team in 2003, Stosur became entrenched as a leading Australian player. She broke into the women’s singles Top 100 in 2004 (at no. 65) and represented Australia at the 2004 Olympics. By 2005 she had reached no. 46 in singles and 2006 saw her consolidate her supremacy as a doubles player alongside American partner Lisa Raymond. They won several titles including the 2005 US Open and 2006 French Open and took the world number one doubles spot that year.

However, by the end of her 2007 season Stosur had dropped out of the Top 150 singles rankings after contracting Lyme disease. The resultant viral meningitis took her off the WTA Tour for eight months. She went back to the ITF Circuit to rebuild her career and, as well as representing Australia in another Olympics, by the end of 2008 worked her way back to no. 52. Her upward climb continued, reaching 13th spot in 2009 and a Top 10 finish in 2010 (at no. 6). She is currently ranked 7th, after her US Open win.

Photos: (top) Sam Stosur & Kim Clijsters on court for their match at the 2010 US Open (by The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas); (centre) Sam Stosur at the 2009 US Open (by Charlie Cowins) [Photos used under Creative Commons Licence]

The app requires internet access to download the relevant information and, while the health service finder is limited to Victorian locations, the health information fact sheets and most of the help and advice contacts are relevant to all Australians.

There is an extensive collection of fact sheets. The Health Conditions tab lists several conditions that can be viewed by category, body part or alphabetically. More detailed information is provided within each condition or topic. For example, searching the ‘female reproductive system’ under the body part tab reveals over 60 topics from general introductory information to specific conditions under headings such as menopause, infertility, or uterus (see the screenshot at right).

More fact sheets are provided under the Treatments & First Aid tab offering information about first aid procedures for a wide range of common injuries, such as bites and stings, bleeding, choking, heat stress, sprains and strains. There are also explanations of medical procedures, tests and surgery and additional information on allied health therapies and complementary medicines.

The app also includes a facility to email any of the Fact Sheet information to friends or family (a link to the relevant Better Health Channel website page is automatically included in the email).

Users can also input a suburb or postcode or use their current location to search for local services in the Find a Health Service function. Services include pharmacies, hospitals and emergency medical contacts as well as a wide range of health professionals such as GPs, dentists, optometrists, and psychologists, and other services such as pathology, family planning, support groups, and aged care facilities. Providers’ locations can be viewed on a map, via the app’s Google maps link (shown in the screenshot at left) or as a list with contact details (including addresses, phone numbers, websites and email information). Preferred providers can also be added as ‘favourites’.

The Help and Advice facility provides users with a quick list of important health contacts including emergency (000), Gamblers Help, Nurse on Call, Lifeline and Women’s Information Referral Exchange. Details include phone numbers, hours of operation and websites. Most contacts can be accessed Australia-wide, although some are Victoria-specific.

The Victorian Government established the Better Health Channel website in May 1999 and it is maintained by the Department of Health. It does not rely on any advertising or corporate sponsorship.

The Better Health Channel mobile app is available for free through the iPhone or iPad App Store. The web-based Better Health Channel can be found here.

[images are screenshots taken from the Better Health Channel iPad app]

‘We know negative body image can affect general wellbeing and lead to serious health issues and social isolation,’ explained the Minister for Youth Peter Garrett. ‘The Awards will recognise the positive steps taken by the media, fashion and advertising industries to adopt the principles outlined in the Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct, as well as the Government’s Positive Body Image strategy.’

The Body Image awards will focus on initiatives targeting young people and will recognise organisations demonstrating an ongoing commitment to body image friendly practices as well as acknowledging specific body image friendly products or initiatives (such as raising awareness of digital photo retouching or a special body image event).

Journalist Helen McCabe became editor-in-chief at the Australian Women’s Weekly in August 2009 after spending three years as The Sunday Telegraph’s Deputy Editor. She also held senior editorial positions at The Australian newspaper, including Night Editor. She began her career as a broadcast journalist for the Seven Network in Adelaide and spent much of the following decade in television, particularly as the network’s Canberra press gallery reporter.

Six other panel members will sit alongside McCabe. They are university professors Susan Paxton (LaTrobe) and Phillipa Hay (Western Sydney), industry union federal secretary Christopher Warren (Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance), Australian Association of National Advertisers CEO Scott McClellan, associate professor and RMIT fashion program director Karen Webster, and Australian Youth Forum chair Tahlia Azaria.

Panel members will develop the eligibility criteria for the awards, which are expected to open later in the year, and recommend winners to the government. Award winners will have the right to use a Body Image Award Winner symbol, which the government expects will help consumers identify and support those organisations making real efforts to embrace positive body image.

The awards complement other Federal Government initiatives to encourage positive body image messages and to build resilience to negative body image pressures, including its Respect Every Body schools resource pack and the Butterfly Foundation’s Free to BE body esteem resources.

In 2009 the government appointed a National Advisory Group on Body Image in response to concerns about body image pressures on young people resulting from the beauty ideals often portrayed in magazines and on television. The group’s task was to develop a Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct to promote long-term cultural change within the fashion, media and advertising industries – three professions believed to strongly influence and shape society’s cultural ideals. The code outlines seven ‘good practice principles’ that encourage diversity in selecting models, wide clothing-size ranges, realistic and natural images of people, and disclosure of digitally manipulated images.

More information on the government’s initiatives can be found at its body image website.

Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct – Good Practice Principles

Positive content and messaging: Use positive content and messaging to support the development of a positive body image and realistic and healthy physical goals and aspirations among consumers.

Diversity: Use a diverse range of people that are appropriate to their target audience. When considering diversity, particular focus should be given to including a range of body shapes, sizes and ethnicities.

Fair placement: Use advertising that supports positive and healthy body image behaviour. Advertising that contradicts positive body image messages will not be used.

Realistic and natural images of people: Do not use digital technology in a way that alters images of people so that their body shape and features are unrealistic or unattainable through healthy practices. Make consumers aware of the extent to which images of people have been manipulated.

Healthy weight models: Use models that are clearly of a healthy weight.

Appropriate modelling age: Only use people aged 16 years or older to model adult clothes or to work or model in fashion shows targeting an adult audience.

Fashion retailers supporting positive body image: Stock a wide variety of sizes that reflects demand from customers.

[Rodin sculpture photo by pedrojperez]

Nita May Dobbie instigated the Kibble Literary Awards in memory of her aunt Nita Bernice Kibble, the first female librarian at NSW’s State Library. She hoped the awards, established in 1994, would recognise the country’s leading female writers and encourage them to advance literature for the community’s benefit. Since that time almost $400,000 has been awarded to authors such as Helen Garner, Geraldine Brooks, Drusilla Modjeska, and Jacqueline Kent.

Brenda Walker won the $30,000 2011 Kibble prize ahead of shortlisted authors Delia Falconer (for Sydney) and Annette Stewart (Barbara Hanrahan: A Biography). Lara Fergus (My Sister Chaos) and G.L. Osborne (Come Inside) were shortlisted for $5,000 Dobbie Award won by Kristel Thornell.

Reading by Moonlight

Reading by Moonlight traces Brenda Walker’s journey through her breast cancer treatment and recovery. She describes her five treatment stages – surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, reconstruction and survival – and discusses how different books and authors comforted and helped her deal with the events – Charles Dickens’ Bleak House during her surgery stage, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty during chemotherapy, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward during radiation. Other authors include Dante, Tolstoy, Nabokov and Beckett.

Chair of the judging panel Professor Robert Dixon described the book as ‘a reading diary that reaffirms literature’s power to sustain. Ms Walker’s memoir of surgery and her ultimate recovery is satisfyingly shaped by a pattern of allusions to other writers and to some of the great mythic events of world literature,.’

Walker is a Winthrop Professor in English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. Born in Grafton, NSW, she completed her undergraduate studies at the University of New England and gained her doctorate at the Australian National University for her dissertation on the work of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Samuel Beckett. She has previously published four novels (of which Wing of the Night won the 2006 Kibble Award and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award the same year). As well as winning this year’s Kibble award, her memoir Reading by Moonlight won the 2010 Nettie Palmer Award in the Victorian Premier’s Awards (non-fiction).

Night Street

Kristel Thornell found creative inspiration in the early 1900s paintings of Melbourne landscape artist Clarice Beckett, which the novelist first saw at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2007. In Night Street’s opening pages Thornell acknowledges that Beckett’s ‘art and life drew me into this dream’ and her novel draws on the artist’s name (the main character is Clarice) and her life experience (as a young painter in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs). But rather than providing an historical, biographical account, Thornell offers an alternate, imagined life of the artist.

As Professor Dixon explained: ‘Thornell’s atmospheric writing does a wonderful job of evoking the Melbourne of Beckett’s time, as well as the process of painting and Beckett’s unconventional life.’

As an unpublished manuscript, Night Street was the joint winner of the 2009 Australian/Vogel Literary Award. It is Sydney-born Thornell’s first published novel, having previously published reviews, poetry and fiction in literary journals such as Meanjin and Overland. After studying at the University of Sydney, she has spent most of the last decade in North America where she also completed her Masters degree in English. She is currently working on a doctorate in creative writing through the University of Western Sydney.

Photos:

(top) Brenda Walker (second from left) the 2011 Kibble Literary Award winner with her mother (and last year’s winner) Shirley Walker, Chair of the Kibble judging committee Prof. Robert Dixon (left) and Peter Scott (right) Perpetual Chairman.

(centre) The Kibble Award shortlisted works

[images courtesy of Perpetual]

Tarin Kot is the capital of Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan. The 21-classroom Malalai Girls School was inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in early July and can accommodate up to 700 primary and secondary school students each year. It has more than 20 classrooms, four administrative offices, a gymnasium, conference hall and water reservoir.

At the school’s opening Air Commodore John Oddie, the Acting Commodore of Australia’s military contribution to International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), emphasised a major objective of the Australian Government’s Afghanistan mission was to support the local government’s efforts to improve literacy.

‘For the first time, hundreds of girls in Tarin Kot will have access to quality education, which will open up a new world of opportunity,’ he said. ‘With less than one per cent of Afghan women in Uruzgan being able to read and write, it’s essential for the future of this country that we help provide vital services like education for children,.’

The $1.6 million school was built over 15 months as a partnership between the Uruzgan Provincial Government, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Australian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team – Uruzgan which forms part of the ISAF in Afghanistan. Afghan contractors using local labour – under the direction of Australian Army Engineers – completed most of the construction work. Books, bookshelves, desks, laboratory benches, sports equipment and other school supplies have been provided with the support of several ISAF partners.

Girls face major obstacles to be educated

According to a February 2011 Oxfam report* on girl’s education in Afghanistan, most girls’ schools were shut down under the Taliban regime (who banned women’s education from 1996-2001). Gross enrolments fell from 32 per cent to 6.4 per cent (around 5,000 girls). Since the Taliban’s fall, enrolments have improved and by 2010 it was estimated 2.4 million girls were enrolled to attend school (although it is likely fewer attended regularly).

Despite the improvements, the report points out there are still many barriers to increasing the number of girls attending school. While numbers increase, infrastructure is falling behind. Just under half of Afghanistan’s schools have no building, particularly in rural areas. Poverty was seen as the greatest obstacle to girls attending school – they often needed to work on family farms full time – and this was exacerbated by early or forced marriage. Other factors included a lack of female teachers and distance from home.

Insecurity concerns because of attacks and threats to schools and students (particularly girls) also led to parents’ reluctance to send their children to school. In 2008 there were more than 200 violent incidents at schools including an acid attack on 15 girls walking to school in Kandahar. In May this year the Taliban killed the head teacher of a Kabul girls’ school after he had received threats not to teach girls.

School attendance also reduces as girls get older. In 2007/2008 there were 1.9 million girls enrolled in primary school (grades 1-6) but only 416,000 were in grades 7-9 of secondary school and 122,000 in grades 10-12. By age 18 only 18 per cent of girls were still in school compared to 42 per cent of boys.

Photos:

(top) Classes begin after the official opening of the Malalai Girl’s School in Tarin Kot.

(centre) Development Adviser for AUSAID Jessie Belcher (light blue head dress) cuts the ribbon to mark the opening of the Malalai Girls’ School with the Commander of Combined Team – Uruzgan, US Colonel Bob Akam (third from left) and local dignitaries.

(bottom) DFAT Advisor Deahne Turnbull sits with students at the opening ceremony.

[photography by ABIS Jo Dilorenzo - courtesy of Dept of Defence]

* High Stakes: Girls’ Education in Afghanistan, February 2011 – based on field research conducted in 19 provinces during summer 2010 by Oxfam and 15 partner organisations. The full report is available here.

Dr Kerry Arabena

The J.G. Crawford Prize was first presented in 1973, in honour of Sir John Crawford’s contributions to the university. Each year two prizes (one for natural sciences, another for social sciences/humanities) are awarded to recognise the best intellectual contribution of a doctoral thesis of the preceding year.

Dr Kerry Arabena’s thesis (titled Indigenous to the universe: a discourse of Indigeneity, citizenship and ecological relationships) was completed in 2010 through the university’s College of Medicine, Biology and Environment. It drew on her experiences of living and working in several regional and remote communities in Australia.

‘This work was an exploration of new ways of bringing Indigenous people’s sciences together with environmental and quantum sciences to create alternative ways for people to live in and consider the environment,’ she explained. ‘We have a magnificent country and I want to make sure I do my part to guarantee that it is here for generations to come.’

Dr Arabena was one of the inaugural directors of the national board of the National Congress of Australia’s First People’s. She shared the board’s female co-chair position with Josephine Bourne until April this year when the first elected co-chairs were appointed. She has been Chief Executive at the Lowitja Institute, Australia’s National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research, since early 2010.

Dr Megan Davis graduated from the Canberra university’s College of Asia and the Pacific. Her PhD involved a study of Indigenous women and their right to self-determination – an area of long-time interest for her. She is the Director of the University of NSW’s Indigenous Law Centre and lectures and researches in the field of Indigenous legal issues in public and international law.

Because of this expertise, she was appointed to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues earlier this year- the first Indigenous Australian woman to do so. She is also the co-chair of the Ethics Committee of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples and is on the Federal Government’s expert panel looking at the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

You can read more about Megan Davis’ appointment as a UN representative here.

For some background information on the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, have a look at this earlier GirlsGerms article.

Photo: (L-R)  Peter Radoll (the other Indigenous PhD graduate), Megan Davis, Kerry Arabena and Professor Mick Dodson – Photo by Stuart Hay

The program aims to improve women’s career prospects for moving into senior leadership roles in their chosen sport. Grants and scholarships provide development opportunities and training in coaching, officiating, governance, management and administration, and communications and media marketing. The program has supported more than 16,000 women with $3.7 million funding over its ten year history and is a joint initiative of the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Government Office for Women. Grants provide one-off funding for individuals or organisations to cover course fees, travel costs, etc. while the Sport Leadership Pathway Scholarships provide women with some experience within a sport to follow a three year pathway plan to develop their leadership and management skills.

Former Wallaroo and Australian Women’s Rugby 7s player Selena Tranter will use her pathway scholarship to complete level two and three coach accreditation courses, professional development seminars and a mentoring program with an elite national level coach. Her goal is to coach the Australian Women’s Rugby 7s team at the 2013 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

‘Along with the ongoing support of the ARU this scholarship will allow me to attend national training camps as well as domestic and international competitions as a scholarship coach and provide me with the invaluable experience of learning from elite coaches within the ARU and other sports.’

Funding support this year for national and state organisations cover a range of sports – three football codes, netball, cycling, equestrian, hockey, disability sport, cricket, surf life saving, athletics, basketball, bowls and multi-sports. Individual grants and scholarships are even more diverse, covering 29 sports from archery, fencing and judo to touch football and yachting. A full list of recipients is set out below.

For some background on the Grants and Scholarships program, check out this GirlsGerms article: Government initiatives encourage female sports leaders

Organisation Grants

Australian Football

AFL NSW/ACT

Athletics

Athletics Australia

Ballarat Regional Athletics Centre

Basketball

Southern Districts Basketball Association

Bowls

Bowls Australia

Cricket

Wangaratta District Cricket Association

Cycling

BMX Australia

Disability Sport

Deaf Sports Australia

The Sporting Wheelies and Disabled Sport and Recreation Association Of Queensland

Equestrian

Equestrian Australia

The Pony Club Association of NSW

Equestrian Australia

Football

Sutherland Shire Football Referees Association

Hockey

Womensport NSW

Hockey Queensland inc

Multi Sport

Sport SA

Womensport and Recreation Tasmania

Aust Womensport & Rec Assoc

Netball

Netball Queensland

Rugby League

Northern Territory Rugby League

Surf Life Saving

Trigg Island Surf Club (change of name)

Surf Life Saving Tasmania

Individual Grants and Scholarships

Archery

Caroline Burgess (Charleville Field Archers)

Athletics

Nicole Boegman-Stewart (NSW Institute of Sport)

Australian Football

Fiona McLarty (AFL Qld)

Julia Price (AFL Qld)

Kim Coventry (Australian Football League)

Badminton

Susan Taylor (Badminton Australia)

Basketball

Sharin Milner (Broadmeadows Basketball Association)

Blind Sports

Hazel Hockley (Blind Sports Australia)

Bowls

Beverley Dowrick (Bowls ACT)

Patrizia Torelli (Bowls Australia)

Cricket

Jane Livesey (Cricket NSW)

Juhi Gupta (Cricket Australia)

Cycling

Monique Hanley (Cycling Victoria)

Disability Sport

Kim Bryan (Special Olympics Australia)

Equestrian

Lisa Teixeira (The Pony Club Association of NSW)

Fencing

Elleni Wellings (Australian Fencing Federation)

Football

Dianne Phemister (Australian National University Women’s Football Club)

Heather Reid (ACT Football Federation – Capital Football)

Janelle Todd (Milton Ulladulla Football Club/FNSW)

Lisa Gatt (Football Federation Australia)

Golf

Christy Collier (Golf NSW)

Serrin Cooper (Golf Victoria)

Gymnastics

Catherine Clark (Gymnastics Australia)

Elizabeth Cividin (South Coast Gymnastics Academy)

Hockey

Rebecca Sanders (Hockey NSW)

Judo

Michelle Matthews (Judo Victoria Inc.)

Multi Sport

Kirsten Thomson (NSW Institute of Sport)

Siobhan James (Australian University Sport)

Rowing

Pamela Hubert(Rowing Australia)

Rugby League

Jillian McRoberts (Victorian Rugby League Referees Association)

Rugby Union

Selena Tranter (Australian Rugby Union)

Sailing / Yachting

Meghan Andrew (Middle Harbour Yacht Club)

Softball

Bridget Cameron (Softball Australia)

Squash

Fiona Young (Squash Victoria)

Swimming

Anne Styles (Wellington Amateur Swimming Club Inc.)

Courtney Allison-Young (Swimming Australia)

Jade Richards (Birkdale Breakers’ Swim Club)

Peta Lyn Goodsell (Western Sprint Swimming Club)

Kerrie Hammett (Synchronized Swimming Australia Inc.)

Tennis

Heather Apps (Tennis NSW, Northern Inland Academy of Sport, North West Tennis)

Karen Clydesdale (Tennis Australia)

Touch Football

Dianne Worters (Queensland Touch Association)

Triathlon

Joelie Chisholm (Triathlon Australia)

Volleyball

Vicky Denner (Womensport Queensland Association Inc.)

The long time diplomat and senior public servant takes up her role this month (August), adding to her impressive resume. Her public service career began in the early 1980s with the Public Service Board and then the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. From 1991 she held a number of positions with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Her time as Senior Public Information Officer in Belgrade (1991-94) coincided with the brutal Bosnian War and she faced a similar humanitarian crisis in Kosovo in 1999 as the UNHCR’s Public Advocacy Officer. She joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 2001 and continued her media liaison/spokesperson roles with the department – most recently as the Executive Director and Commissioner General in charge of the Australia Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

Sachs was Australia’s Ambassador for Lebanon from March 2006 to August 2009 and her expertise was particularly vital in July 2006 as she oversaw more than 5,000 Australians evacuated from Beirut on rescue ships and bus conveys. Devoting time in her first three months on the job to meet key political, military and security people and other diplomats as well as getting an understanding of the country’s terrain was crucial to the successful evacuation.

‘The effort I had put in in those early days paid off enormously,’ she explained in a 2008 interview with Expat Women. ‘For 34 long days I and my staff worked 20-hour days, often without electricity, accompanied by the daily sounds of the bombings just a few kilometres away from our homes and the embassy. And at the end of this turbulent time, we were proudly able to say we achieved the safe evacuation of Australians.’

Multicultural women’s experiences in Australia:

Australian Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Alliance (AIRWA) will prepare an online video and print advertising campaign to address the adversity immigrant and refugee women face as they integrate into Australian society.

Impacts and opportunities of new media technologies for feminism:

EqualityRights Alliance (ERA) will assess the impact of new technologies and communication on young women. It will also develop a website for young women to share views, connect with the women’s movement and gain access to mentoring.

Gender appropriate economic responses to natural disasters:

Economic Security for Women (eS4W) will examine disaster affected areas in Queensland and Victoria and identify some gendered approaches to address the economic empowerment needs of women affected by natural disasters.

Empowering rural women to lead their community in the implementation of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children:

National Rural Women’s Coalition and Network (NRWCN) and Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) will develop a toolkit and guide to support rural women so they can implement the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The resources will focus on working to change underlying causes to prevent violence before it occurs.

Developing disaster resilient rural communities:

National Rural Women’s Coalition and Network (NRWCN) will develop a toolkit and manual to support women in rural, regional and remote communities to undertake leadership roles in disaster preparation.

Superannuation issues for Indigenous women:

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA) will consult with Indigenous women, government and industry stakeholders to examine superannuation issues for Indigenous women.

Check out the earlier GirlsGerms story about the National Women’s Alliances.

Each year the NAIDOC Awards are presented in ten categories. The other 2011 awardees alongside Terri Janke, Carolyn Briggs and Robyn Djunginy were Ned Cheedy (Lifetime Achievement), Eldridge Mosby (Male Elder), Lester-Irabinna Rigney (Scholar), Preston Campbell (Sportsperson), Joshua Toomey (Apprentice) and Kell Weigel (Youth) as well as the Warru Recovery Team for the Caring for Country award.

Terri Janke – Person of the Year

Meriam Mir and Wuthathi woman Terri Janke is a Sydney solicitor specialising in Indigenous intellectual property, cultural heritage, media and business law. Her strong advocacy of intellectual property protection for Indigenous artists and her service on numerous Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations’ boards has earned her this year’s NAIDOC Person of the Year award.

Born in Cairns, Queensland, she has family connections to the Torres Strait Islands and Cape York Peninsula. She was admitted to practice in the High Court and the NSW Supreme Court and in 2000 established her own law firm (Terri Janke and Company). She is the Board of Tourism Australia’s only Indigenous director and is also a member of the Indigenous Tourism Industry Advisory Panel and the NAB Indigenous Advisory Group. In 2008 she was an invited delegate at the Prime Minister’s Australia 2020 Summit and her previous board roles have included the Bangarra Dance Theatre, Museum of Contemporary Art and Collections Council of Australia. She is currently writing her second book and completing a PhD at the Australian National University.

Earlier this year Janke presented the biennial Mabo Oration (previous speakers include Noel Pearson and Tom Calma). The oration is named in honour of Eddie Mabo, whose successful native title case changed the assumptions of the Terra Nullius doctrine (that the land belonged to no-one until it was occupied by European settlers so Indigenous laws and ownership were inconsequential). As she explained in her oration, he was a significant figure in her early career. As a law student in 1987 she came across the injustice of the doctrine in her property law textbook and was unimpressed. She left law school shortly after that with her degree unfinished. It was only after the Mabo case decision (in 1992) and the subsequent human rights recognition he and others received that she returned to university to finish her law degree.

‘To me the case was a story of strength, personal sacrifices for a collective cause, and a story of connections and culture,’ she said. The case also provided the background to her own novel, Butterfly Song, which was published in 2005: ‘The novel allowed me to explore the impact of the case entwined with my own personal journey as a law student and a Torres Strait Islander.’

The Mabo case has also influenced her advocacy for protecting Indigineous knowledge and culture.

‘Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights are Indigenous peoples’ rights to their heritage. Heritage includes the tangible and intangible heritage that is passed on through generation to generation pertaining to Indigenous peoples, and is all part of expression of their identity.’

The full text of Terri Janke’s Mabo oration can be found here.

Carolyn Briggs – Female Elder of the Year

Boon wurrung elder Aunty Carolyn Briggs’ long-time involvement in cultural preservation and promotion has seen her recognised as a ‘keeper of the history and genealogies of her people’ – recognised in her Female Elder of the Year award. She established Australia’s first Aboriginal child care centre and for several years ran a Melbourne restaurant (Tjanabi) which specialised in contemporary Aboriginal food  as a way to promote her local culture. She is CEO of youth cultural heritage centre, the Boon wurrung Foundation and  is a member of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. She is also a director of the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages and Culture Corporation.

The Boon wurrung language group is part of the Kulin Nation from the Port Phillip region around Melbourne. As a senior elder Aunty Briggs is often invited to share traditional stories and perform Welcome to Country ceremonies at community events and official engagements. Her desire to record her traditional language in oral and written form have now led her to study language and linguistics.

Robyn Djunginy – Artist of the Year

Fibre artist and painter Robyn Djunginy is best known for her woven bottle artworks. Inspired by the shape of Italian Chianti bottles her works represent ‘happy times and celebrations for black and white people the same’, the artist says. She comes from an artistic family – her father Ngulmarmar and brothers George Milpurrurru and Charlie Djurritjini are also artists – and she draws on the water goanna and honey ancestor connections of her mother’s group heritage (the Marangu Djinang). Djunginy’s art has been exhibited across Australia and in the US over almost thirty years and her collections reside in many of the country’s major galleries – including Canberra’s National Gallery, Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Victoria. She also sits on the Bula’Bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation’s board.

A little NAIDOC history…

NAIDOC Week has its origins in the Aboriginal rights groups’ Australia Day boycotts and Day of Mourning protests of the 1920s and 1930s, when activists protested over Indigenous Australians’ status and treatment within government and the community. On the first Day of Mourning – on Australia Day 1938 – over 1,000 people attended the congress that followed a protest march through Sydney’s streets. William Cooper led a deputation to present then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons with a proposed national policy for Aboriginal people, which was rejected.

The protest day became an annual event from 1940 – known as Aborigines Day - and was held on the Sunday before Australia Day. In 1955 it moved to the first Sunday in July and became a celebration of Aboriginal culture as well as a protest day. The National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) was responsible for organising the remembrance day. In 1975 the day was extended to a full week and by 1991 the name was expanded to reflect the distinct cultural histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, becoming the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC).

For a more detailed history and other information, go to the NAIDOC website.

Photos: (centre right) Person of the Year Terri Janke; (centre left) Female Elder of the Year Carolyn Briggs [images courtesy of NAIDOC Committee - photographs by Wayne Quilliam]

The defending champions had to make up a six-goal difference at half time and a change of defenders (Laura Geitz for Susan Fuhrmann) and shooters (Caitlin Bassett for Catherine Cox) recovered the deficit within five minutes of the third quarter. The teams remained close for the second half and at 46-all continued the scoring see-saw through the two seven-minute periods of extra time. A missed New Zealand goal inside the final minute gave the Australians the final play which ended in Bassett’s championship winning goal. Goaler Natalie Medhurst was named Player of the Match.

Australia was unbeaten throughout its world championship campaign having defeated Samoa (81-23), Northern Ireland (75-33) and – with a tournament highest score and biggest margin – Sri Lanka (97-20) in the pool rounds and taking preliminary finals wins over Malawi (58-44) and Jamaica (82-46) before its finals victory over New Zealand.

Trans-Tasman rivalry

Australia played its first international netball match in Melbourne in 1938, defeating New Zealand 40-11 and beginning decades of dominance over the sport (known in those days as women’s basketball) and their trans-Tasman rivals. Since that first game the two teams have played each other 103 times. Australia has won 61, New Zealand 40 and they have drawn twice.

There have been 13 World Netball Championships (played every four years) since the competition began in 1963. Australia and New Zealand have placed in the top two in ten of those tournaments with Australia winning seven outright and as joint winners (with New Zealand and Trinidad & Tobago) in 1979 when the tournament was still played as a round-robin without finals.

The close match results began at the first world championship tournament in August 1963. Eleven teams played in the round-robin style tournament in Eastbourne, England. In the tournament-deciding match Australia defeated New Zealand 37-36. In 1999, a final-second goal from Australia won them the world championship from New Zealand (42-41) and four years later New Zealand took the title with a two-goal win over Australia (49-47).

The two teams have also contested every Commonwealth Games gold medal since netball was introduced in 1998 and the four finals have been decided by an average of three goals (each team has won gold twice). Both the 2002 and 2010 finals went into double overtime (Australia won the first 57-55 and New Zealand the second 66-64).

Photos: (top) Australia’s Diamonds – the new World Netball Champions; (centre) Player of the Match Natalie Medhurst shoots for goal – Images (c) David Callow/Netball Australia)

Late last year the government launched its 24-hour 1800RESPECT confidential telephone service to provide all-day, every-day access to professionally qualified specialist counsellors and social workers who can provide counselling, information and referrals to relevant services. The service is free from landlines (some call charges may apply from mobile phones) and is intended to help individuals access support services following abuse.

Since October it has averaged 185 calls a week, a statistic Minister for the Status of Women Kate Ellis says is ‘a sobering reminder that there is demand for this sort of service out in the community.’

’The more options we offer for victims of violence in the home, the more likely it is that people will get the help they need.’

The new website includes an online type-in chat facility where people can deal with a counsellor directly in a ‘one-to-one’ situation. Counsellors can answer questions, access information about relevant services and offer support and advice about next steps. Neither the telephone or web service are intended to provide emergency help and people in those situations are directed to ring 000 for assistance.

More information about the 1800RESPECT service, including helpful FAQs, is available on the website.

You can also read an earlier GIrlsGerms story on the 1800RESPECT phoneline service.