I am a descendant of the Guringai, Gadigal, Wiradjuri and Dharug peoples of NSW. I have a PhD in Management from the University of Newcastle where I am a full-time staff member. I am a staunch unionist in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and I am passionate about Aboriginal issues — especially in employment and education.
2016 Australian federal election
I have been an active unionist for more than 20 years and joined my first union as a high school student. I’ve held a number of elected delegate roles in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) including as branch president at the University of New South Wales between 2006 and 2010 and on the union’s National Executive from 2010–12.
I am a First Nations activist, poet and playwright from the Kunja Clan of the Bidjara Peoples of south-west Queensland. I’ve worked for many years in Aboriginal education and was a founder of the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning. I now work in prisoner rehabilitation and I am a member of the Australian Services Union.
The Walyalup-Fremantle branch of the Socialist Alliance is pleased to announce that Chris Jenkins will be its candidate for Fremantle in the coming federal election.
Ken Canning, lead Senate candidate for Socialist Alliance in the federal election asks if the Daily Telegraph seriously thinks Aboriginal people laid out the red carpet for James Cook?
Aboriginal activist and writer Ken Canning will head the Socialist Alliance NSW Senate ticket in the coming federal election. "I've joined this election campaign to build a people's movement".
Socialist Alliance's 2016 Federal Election Platform: Australia is a wealthy country, but the reality is that 60% of that wealth is in the hands of the richest 20%, while the poorest 20% own virtually nothing. We need a radically different future!
Liberal and Labor politicians, who govern for the big corporations at the expense of people, have overseen decades of cutbacks to social services, privatisations and attacks on our democratic rights.
The neoliberal consensus has meant that our public health and education systems have been starved of funds and semi-privatised. It has also meant that our working lives are less secure and our work rights have been undermined.
All this has made Australia a harsher, more unsustainable and unequal society.
Some of these Liberal politicians must think that the rest of us are stupid. Take NSW Premier Mike Baird, the always-smiling poster boy for this deeply right-wing party, whose latest pitch for raising the GST from 10% to 15% is a politician's promise that he would spend the proceeds on health and education.
Real self-determination will require radical changes in current approaches that largely fail the First Peoples: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities themselves should be at the forefront of driving these changes.