Aboriginal Sites and the Law

Well today I am going to talk about Aboriginal sites and the law, it is important to be aware of the fact that all Aboriginal sites in NSW are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act of 1974.

It is an offence to damage or destroy them, this includes collecting artefacts without the prior permission of the Director-General of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH). The penalties for harming an Aboriginal site which includes graffiti are up to $275,000 and 1 year’s imprisonment for individuals and as much as $1.1 million for corporations.

The most important bit of the legislation is what is known as “due diligence”, if someone is planning an activity that may disturb the ground or old growth trees, they must show that they have taken steps to avoid damaging or harming any Aboriginal site.

Therefore including a review of potential Aboriginal heritage issues will ensure the Aboriginal sites are not accidentally damaged and the people doing the work are not liable for prosecution. Carrying out a proper due diligence process provides a defence against prosecution if an Aboriginal heritage object is harmed during works.

The two pieces of legislation that most effect Aboriginal heritage management in NSW are:

• National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974

• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979

I feel it is good that we have these acts in place and steps are taken to protect Aboriginal sites, for too long Aboriginal sites were not considered important or worth protecting.

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Pain filled weekend, well it felt like it was

So last night I said to Tim what time do you get home from work tomorrow (today) I am sure as hell he said 2am which I knew wouldn’t be right so I said what time do you start the afternoon run, didn’t you say you had a split shift, his reply yeah I do I will get home around 10ish and leave again at 1ish and be home again by 4.15pm all this was said in a normal not a problem tone, however, if when I thought he said 2am I had said what or why so late he would have got into a mood about me not listening. Being a woman I use my brain and try and work out what was said and not what I heard, using a little common sense, or ask something else to try and figure out what was said and not just go “what” in a tone that pisses the other person off, which the men in my life do, meaning Tim and Dad and my baby brother Dave those men.

This morning I got pretty mad with Leo over nothing really, after I went off I calmed down and said sorry at first he wouldn’t talk to me but by the time we got to his school he was ok and gave me a hug and kiss goodbye. I think it was just because Blain and Leo were playing running around and making a lot of noise and just doing my head in.

Yesterday I was in so much pain it was the lower right hand side of my back, I could barely move due to the pain but I still cooked a full breakfast for the family, however, Tim said he wasn’t hungry and ate nothing and Natasha was a no show as is often the case. I was in so much pain that I threw the washing in the dryer instead of hanging it out on the line at one point Tim said why you got he dryer on when its not raining any more, I had to remind him that I was in a lot of pain and could hardly moved also said to him how often do I use the dryer over the clothes line, not very often that is how often and if he had been home I would have asked him to hang the clothes out but he wasn’t home he was out at Kathy’s place.

Anyway because I was in so much pain and could hardly move he said I was acting older then I was, yeah I was in a lot of pain back pain isn’t nice and if he had a lot of pain he would act the same.

Five Things Friday

Ok all don’t faint I am doing five things Friday again today I am going to start doing this post first thing on Friday morning I am up at 5am and should be able to find 5-10 minutes to do a quick post on a Friday morning, so here we go for this Friday.

10 not 5 serves of fruit and veg (what the hell)

Bras with a zipper instead of hooks and eyes

Mum home and improving

Mum needs a hip replacement as soon as possible according to specialist

Handwriting letters (because I am still low on ink)

In the news this week

Iceland’s president wants to ban pineapple of pizza, what the hell I like a good Hawaiian pizza it is a very popular pizza here down under. Also popular down under is beetroot on hamburgers, just saying.

Julie Bishop says there is goodwill between Australia and the States but like any politician she doesn’t say much uses a lot of words to say bugga all, she meet with the Vice President and Secretary of State, I wished they had asked her if she was happy meeting them and not the big cheese but they didn’t. I call him the big cheese because his skin colour often looks like the colour of cheese and of course mice like to nibble at cheese.

NASA has found seven new plants around a sun named TRAPPIST-1 and say that three of them could sustain life they are 40 light years from Earth so who knows we may not be alone, wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if we are not but who knows, not me that’s for sure.

There was a lot of talk about the Fair Work Commission getting set to announce the fate of penalty rates for hospitality and retail workers, it looks like the Sunday rate will go from double time to time & ½ or time and ¾ this is good news for employers not such good news for employees. The argument was made that the double time on Sunday was introduced at a time when people usually attended church on a Sunday and now not so much.

Also this morning they talked about self-serve checkouts and how so many people steal from the shops using them and I can see how easy it is to do that, usually if the person has a lot of items but what is frustrating is when you scan and item you place it in the bagging area and because it is a light object it doesn’t recognised the item and you have to get someone to come and fix the problem. I often use the self-serve checkouts they are faster and if I only have a few items there isn’t a problem.

Also in the news this week is the news that cannabis and cannabis oil has been legalised for people with diseases such as epilepsy, HIV and cancer about bloody time my brother and sister have said at times that they wonder if cannabis would help me with the tremors, not something I am interested in trying at this stage in my life.

Photo Wednesday/Mum & Dad

Reality Shows No Bloody Way Give Me A Good Pretend Show Instead

Ok I don’t watch reality tv shows because they are so fake and whenever I see an add for The Real Housewives no matter what city they are in, I get annoyed I am a real housewife, they are so fake.

I just don’t see the point in these shows, maybe they are entertaining to some people just not me. I have never seen any of the Survivor shows or I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

Now I do watch The Great British Bake Off and The Great Australian Bake Off but they are the only two shows I watch.

Generally I like a good make believe show, now some people may say that they are fake shows just like reality shows but reality shows are fake shows pretending to be real, pretend shows are just that pretend. You can lose your self in them for an hour or so, just like you can a movie, I also don’t mind shows that a loosely based on fact, you know a show that is about something that really happened but you know that it isn’t exactly how it happened things have been changed and spiced up to make it more entertaining but still kinda true.

I generally don’t like to see a movie or tv show based or inspired by a book, if I have read the book first because the show isn’t the same as the book. I have read many of the Murdoch Mysteries and the characters in the book are nothing like the ones on the tv show and I love the show and the way the characters are in the show over the way they are in the books. Of course I saw the show before reading the books.

Let’s talk about news shows, generally I can give them a miss, there was at time watching the evening news was a must and it still is but I usually only watch the first 15 minutes then you have half and hour of sport followed by the weather which I like to watch so maybe 20 minutes out of the hour long news is watched.

Of a morning I watch Sunrise a morning news and entertainment show but only about 15 minutes of that is fresh news they they just keep repeating themselves over and over for the rest of the time. I like to know what is happening in the country and world.

Random Stuff

Good afternoon all, I have had a busy weekend, in fact hardly had time to use the computer since around 8ish on Saturday morning, this morning I managed to read and comment on about 30ish blogs and then I had to take Leo to school and then to the shops to return something Jessica bought and to get bread. Soon I will have to leave and go get Leo from school then I have to take him to bowling it is the last day of bowling and I have to remember to give him a half a tablet of his medication before we go as last week I forgot and he was jumping all over the furniture and wouldn’t settle down.

Yesterday we went over to Kathy’s for Summer’s birthday we gave her a bride doll which she seemed to love it’s eyes open and shut which Summer likes as she likes to think of her dolls going to sleep at night.

I made a potato bake for the party and cooked up 500grams of bacon and Kathy cooked up some snags and Michael’s mum made the birthday cake a rainbow cake with pink icing, it was nice.

Also yesterday morning Tim, Leo and I went to the shops I needed bacon for the party and a new iron, on Wednesday while I was ironing Tim’s work shirts the iron just stopped working I was ironing the shirt and the iron wasn’t heating up.

Today I managed to iron all his work shirts and work pants as well as one of my shirts, as well as two shirts I bought for Jessica a few months back. I had bought her 4 white shirts out of the 3 shirts 2 she wanted one she didn’t want which I have placed in my gift box and will give it to someone at some point as a gift.

Kathy was telling us yesterday that Michael got 9& ½ hours of work on Friday he needs to complete 20 hours of unpaid work as part of his training, I think it is wrong that people often need to do x amount of unpaid work as part of their training, 20 hours isn’t that bad but I know of some people who have had to do as much as 120 hours of unpaid work as part of their training.

You also know what I don’t understand how people can go around borrowing money over and over again, if you have to borrow money each week you need to look again at your budget and make changes so the money you have lasts. Look at what running around you are doing in your car if you are borrowing money for fuel maybe you need to stop going some places and no I do not think it is easy but it is something you have to do, if you seem to be running out of food try reducing the amount of processed foods you know the type that you just shove in the oven or microwave as home-made from scratch may be cheaper and better for you. The always borrowing money never lets you get a head just my thought, I have rarely borrowed money from anyone, it isn’t something I do.

Lastly before I go mum may or may not be going home today she was still waiting for the doctor to turn up to see her when we spoke at 1.15pm she wants to go home she feels much better in herself and wants her own bed and bathroom but we will see.

About my mum

Hello everyone as you may have noticed I didn’t do a post yesterday, it was one of those days when things seemed to get away from me, after taking Leo to school I called in to pick up a form mum wanted me to hand into the RTA now called Service NSW, it went from being called the RTA to being the RMS and now is Service NSW and some of you are thinking ok Jo-Anne but what is this place, well it is the place well RTA stood for Roads Transport Authority so it is where you go for your licence and many other things. The form mum wanted me to hand in was her yearly medical form that has to be filled in because she is diabetic. When I handed the form in I was told mum’s licence had been suspended because she was late handing in the form but it is all sorted out now and the licence is no longer suspended. The woman at the RTA said it was all good as mum hadn’t been driving anyway, which she hasn’t but how did the woman at the RTA know that………….

Anyway when I got to mum’s my sister Sandra was outside she said she was thinking about calling the ambos again as mum wasn’t good but the nurse was due there by 9am and she thought we would see what the nurse thought but she was pretty sure a trip to hospital would be in order.

Well I go in and mum says “hi Jo” I asked if she knew why I was there, she said yes and then said her urine was on the cupboard and I had to take it to the office at Dawson’s school both me and Sandra started to laugh and I said I didn’t think the school wanted her pee. She then said she knew that and I was there for…………….I had to remind her why I was there.

So the nurse turns up and took her temp and blood pressure and asked some questions and tested her urine and said mum had a UTI and than she rang the doctor and it was decided that she needed to go to hospital. When told that mum said NO she wasn’t going she could be treated at home and the nurse touched mums arm and in a gentle voice that it wasn’t an option she had to go to hospital.

Sandra went with her to the hospital with mum and stayed there all day with her, mum isn’t happy but she knows she needs to be where she can get better faster at hospital she is getting very strong antibiotics via a drip can’t do that at home.

So once again Sandra has stepped up and been the one to care for mum and my brother Dave is doing a fair bit too, me and Jeannie and Sue not so much but Jeannie works and Sue is busy with her family and me well I am just useless. Well that is how I feel.

After I take Leo to school today I am going to go over and see mum last time she was in hospital I didn’t visit her as I didn’t have a car and it was school holidays and I had young children each day but I will go today.

History of Australian Aboriginals/Shelters

Ok today I am going to tell you a little more about different Aboriginal sites and shelters, starting with Middens.

Middens are shell mounds built up over hundreds of years as a result of countless meals of shellfish. They are found along ocean coasts, estuaries, rivers and inland lakes, and primarily contain mature specimens of edible shellfish species. They may also contain pieces of clay, bird, fish and animal teeth and bones, camp-fire charcoal, stone flakes and the remains of tools. Less commonly found in middens are remains from human burials.

Middens differ immensely in shape and size, from a few shells scattered on the surface, to deposits that are metres thick and buried beneath vegetation. Middens are the most common and most visible Aboriginal site along the Australian coast.

Natural shell deposits can be differentiated from middens because they consist of mature and immature, edible and inedible shellfish and would contain no large amounts of charcoal or stone tools. Wave action would also have sifted the shells into layers, with the larger ones at the top and the smaller ones at the bottom.

There are shelters with art, these are clearly defined by either stencil art or charcoal. Stencils are produced by mixing ochre in the mouth into a wet paste, then spraying it over the object to be stencilled onto the wall of the shelter. This method was used throughout Australia, and if the shelter is protected from the elements, then the artwork will still be visible. Other forms of artwork include ochre paintings, as well as charcoal drawings and etchings, although stencil art was the most common method.

A single artefact depicts an isolated find. These can be verified by identifying the stone and sourcing its origin, or verifying the manufacturing scars on the artefact. The isolated find can be a flaked stone, core or any finished implement. Raw materials most commonly used are chert, silcrete, and mudstones, while larger axe heads are usually made from river rocks or iron stone materials. Although isolated finds are generally artefacts found on their own, they often imply other artefacts will be present in associated deposit nearby

Day 3 of Port Macquarie and Home again

Well I am home again, and last night I slept pretty good, in my own bed with the air conditioner going all night and the ceiling fan on as well. Although as I was going to bed last night I realised that I had left my Cpap machine in the caravan and Tim had to drive to my parents place to get it for me.

So onto my last holiday post.

Well here I am at the end of day three in Port Macquarie, our last day here and the temps have been around 38°c all day and I am sitting in my shorts and bra most of the afternoon due to how hot it has been.

Usually a 2lt bottle of soft drink will last me a whole day but by lunch time I had drank it all and this afternoon I said to Tim, do you remember where Aldi was he said there is no Aldi here and I would have to go to Coles. He said he would go with me so I would not get lost because I have no sense of direction and alone I would end up lost.

So we get in the car and just down the road from the park was Aldi, he said there’s Aldi and I said well I would have found my way there and back without any problem.

We bought some bottle water and a slab of Coke Zero and returned to the park we bought some other stuff as well because who goes to a shop a only buys what they go for and nothing else.

We went to the Pancake Place for breakfast and after breakfast we went for a drive and came across some markets and stopped and went for a wonder around the stalls and I found a bride doll that I bought for Summer for her birthday in a couple of weeks. I was lucky I had my walking stick with me as I wouldn’t have managed to walk very far if I had not had it. I was in a lot of pain as it was by the time I got back to the car with my back and feet.

I am so over this heat, mum was telling me at her house today it was 42°c outside and 31°c in the loungeroom with the air con going, dad wasn’t able to walk down the hallway from the loungeroom to the toilet without being out of breathe and suffering a lot from the heat.

Mum was unwell for while she couldn’t eat lunch and was feeling sick and shivering she was that cold and wanted dad to take her temperature for her but he wouldn’t don’t know why he just wouldn’t anyway she went to her bedroom and Dawson heard her crying and went to see what was wrong and after seeing her said do you want me to ring Aunty Sandy, mum said yes and so he did.

Sandy went straight up and rang Dave as well and as it turned out Dave was in the area and he went to mums as well. Sandy took her temperature and it was 39.8°c so not good should be between 36-36.5°c, Sandy but mum to bed turned the air con on in her room even though mum was cold Sandy said they needed to bring her fever down. After sleeping for a couple of hours mum was feeling better not great but better.