[Onthebarricades] AUSTRALIA: Paramilitary invasion of Aboriginal land
Andy
ldxar1 at tesco.net
Wed Jun 27 09:30:42 PDT 2007
See also:
http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/142448.htm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/06/26/2003366917
There has been an emergency protest of 150 people in Hobart:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/44310
Protest planned in Brisbane:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/44014
Solidarity protest in New Zealand/Aotearoa - 2nd JULY
http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73248/index.php
Scroll to the bottom for a statement by the Mutijulu community, one of those affected.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/44306
Aboriginal leader denounces plan
http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73244/index.php
National Sorry Day Committee denounces plan
http://indyhack.blogspot.com/2007/06/elders-speak-out-over-military.html
Stolen Generations group denounces plan
http://www.australiansall.com.au/a-statement-from-the-stolen-generations-alliance/
Response from indigenous college professor:
http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/comment_results.chtml?filename_num=154957
Collective punishment against indigenous Australia - international boycott call
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/51228
See also:
http://www.socialistworker.org.au/online-features/howards-indigenous-plan-selective-cynical-and-racist/
http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/715/37127
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/sep-j23_prn.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6229628.stm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/44050
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/51230
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/51225
More links (thanks to GreenLeft_Discussion):
* Sam Watson condemn's Howard's racist attack on NT communities
<http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=663>
* Another tricky Howard ruse - Gregory Phillips, Age June 23
<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/06/22/1182019361459.html>
* BBC: Aboriginal abuse curbs 'racist'
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6229628.stm>
* Sam Watson, Michael Mansell & Nicole Watson slam Howard's racist plan
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/715/37127>
* ABC: Indigenous plan 'discriminatory'- anti-discrimination chief
<http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s1959822.htm>
* Mutitjulu leaders question need for 'occupation'
<http://www.nit.com.au/breakingNews/story.aspx?id=11671>
* International Herald Tribune - Aborigines threaten to ban tourists
from climbing Uluru in response to Howard's racist attack
<http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/26/asia/AS-GEN-Australia-Child-Abuse.php\
>
* National Indigenous Times writer Graham Ring attacks Howard's racist
plan
<http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your+say&subclass=general&sto\
ry_id=1011402&category=opinion>
* Judy Atkinson, director of the Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian
Peoples at the Southern Cross University, on Howard's 'emergency plan'
<http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/comment_results.chtml?filename_num=154957>
* Malcolm Fraser, Lowitja O'Donoghue & Brian Butler slam Howard's
'return to paternalism'
<http://www.australiansall.com.au/a-statement-from-the-stolen-generations-allian\
ce/>
Some comments on Infoshop:
Authored by: arf on Monday, June 25 2007 @ 11:47 AM PDT
Instead of giving the Aborigines what they wanted Howard has given neo-nazi skinheads what they want. For Howard and his govt to say that the Aborigines are degenerate perverts who cant even handle their beer is openly racist and evil. There are plenty of obnoxious yobs in England and Australia who get drunk and break the law but no one in power says they cant have alcohol. This is an outrageous double-standard.
PS: I now consider Australia to be a true dystopia as of June 25, 2007. It's official. If Australia wasnt dystopian before it sure is now.
[ Reply to This | # ]
Australia imposes draconian restrictions on Aboriginal communities
Authored by: Cam on Monday, June 25 2007 @ 08:28 PM PDT
No Australia became a dystopia in 1788 when invaders from Britain landed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=default&featureview=521
Howards military plan causing panic in Indigenous communitues
From the newswire: June 27, 2007
"...they think the army is coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them. The women and the kids are scared and they are running to the sand hills..."
Aboriginal and community groups are urging the Federal Government to rethink the "military plan" to end indigenous child abuse in the Northern Territory. The delegation from all states and territories call for Howard to consult with indigenous people on ways to tackle the root causes of the abuse rather than send in the troops. Michael Anderson, founder of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra and spokesman for the Gumilaroi nation in NSW and Queensland, says that Howard is a past master at finding an emotive matter to disguise his real agenda. READ MORE...
Mr Howard says he will abolish the Aboriginal permit system and mobilise extra police and defence forces into remote Indigenous communities. The Federal Government says it may compulsorily acquire as many as 70 Northern Territory Indigenous communities. Federal Police officers began arriving in the Northern Territory this week with other states to follow.
Aboriginal mothers in the NT are taking their children and fleeing into the sandhills because of fears the government will take them away. "They want to flee, to get out of there. That's the level of panic and fear that this has caused out in the communities. It's pretty draconian and drastic..."
Mutitjulu Elder Vince Forrester says the changes are unnecessary and are causing widespread fear in Central Australia. Police and the defence force are expected to be deployed to Mutitjulu next week and Mr Forrester says many Aboriginal mothers are taking their children into the sandhills because of fears the government will take them away.
Mutitjulu locals accuse the commonwealth of treating their community as a "political football", saying it should concentrate on health, education and social services instead of sending troops. They charge that government neglect had brought the situation to a crisis point. Vince Forrester said. "You don't bring an army into the community, this is just intimidation of the aboriginal community in the Northern Territory."Read more: Mutitjulu question "military occupation" of their small community
The dog of "white supremacy" returns to its vomit. The National Sorry Day Committee says there is now a real danger of the creation by the Howard government of another Stolen Generation.
http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=93268
Howards military plan causing panic in Indigenous communitues
by Elliot K - Perth Indymedia 2007-06-26 2:17 AM +0800
"...they think the army is coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them. The women and the kids are scared and they are running to the sand hills..."
June 26, 2007 - A group of 60 Aboriginal and community groups will deliver a letter to Prime Minister John Howard urging him to rethink his military plan to stamp out indigenous child abuse in the Northern Territory. The delegation from all states and territories call for Mr Howard to consult with indigenous people on ways to tackle the root causes of the abuse rather than send in the troops.
Mr Howard says he will abolish the Aboriginal permit system and mobilise extra police and defence forces into remote Indigenous communities. The Federal Government says it may compulsorily acquire as many as 70 Northern Territory Indigenous communities.
Aboriginal mothers in the NT are taking their children and fleeing into the sandhills because of fears the government will take them away...
Federal Police officers began arriving in the Northern Territory this week with other states to follow. The Federal Justice Minister David Johnston says the Prime Minister can force states to send officers to join the invasion.
Olga Havnen, a prominent Aboriginal leader in the Northern Territory, warned the intervention model announced by the government, could do more harm than good. "It's crazy stuff. I don't think people have thought through the unintentional consequences," said Ms Havnen, the deputy chief executive of the Northern Land Council. "People there are scared stiff," she told a corporate media source.
"They want to flee, to get out of there. That's the level of panic and fear that this has caused out in the communities." She said the plan for every child to have a compulsory health check was met with "shock and horror". "It's pretty draconian and drastic, one would have thought," Ms Havnen said.
Mutitjulu Elder Vince Forrester says the changes are unnecessary and are causing widespread fear in Central Australia. Police and the defence force are expected to be deployed to Mutitjulu next week and Mr Forrester says many Aboriginal mothers are taking their children into the sandhills because of fears the government will take them away.
The community says the Howard Government declared an emergency at the local health clinic more than two years ago. It says since then Mutitjulu has been without a doctor, has had health and youth programs cut and the council has been sacked. The leaders say community members must be consulted to ensure the success of any program.
Greens leader Bob Brown says years of inaction by Mr Howard have forced the Government into dangerous racial discrimination territory. "It is a pre-election push which is action on a scale that is absolutely not needed," he said.
Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett says it is an outrageous authoritarian crackdown, and he is outraged Mr Howard did not first consult the Indigenous communities. "If they aren't involved in developing the solutions, then the solutions aren't going to work," he said.
Mutitjulu locals accuse the commonwealth of treating their community as a "political football", saying it should concentrate on health, education and social services instead of sending troops.
They charge that government neglect had brought the situation to a crisis point. "We have been begging for an alcohol counsellor and a rehabilitation worker so that we can help alcoholics and substance abusers but those pleas have been ignored," they said.
"When your bringing armed forces into the communities obviously people's minds are going to start playing tricks on them," Vince Forrester said. "You don't bring an army into the community, this is just intimidation of the aboriginal community in the Northern Territory."
Mutitjulu resident Mario Giuseppe says the community is in "terror". "I thought the government was here to protect the women and children and they are scaring the living daylights out of them," he told the ABC. "This is bringing back a lot of memories and opening a lot of scars for these old people here, they are running to the hills and hiding."
Women were scared that police were being sent out to the community to take away their children, Mr Giuseppe said. "They think the army is coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them. The women and the kids are scared and they are running to the sand hills."
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who calls the measures "a throwback to paternalism," along with indigenous leader Lowitja O'Donoghue, also criticise the Commonwealth proposal. They say the Government measures show a lack of consultation and funding. "Without respect, without discussion and agreement it is difficult to see any measures working as effectively as we would all want..." they said. They pointed also to the disbanding of ATSIC, saying Australia was alone among the western democracies in not having elected representation for its indigenous people.
Mick Dodson, professor at ANU noted the Little Children are Sacred report had emphasised that "the majority of perpetrators in Aboriginal communities are non-indigenous men people who come into the communities to work".
The Federal Government has established a panel including WA magistrate Sue Gordon, the Australian Federal Police's Shane Castles, former Woolworths boss Roger Corbett and former AMA boss Bill Glasson. Mr Howard confirmed cabinet would soon extend the quarantining of welfare payments for Aboriginal people.
The West Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, says the action is an election-year stunt, declaring there was no doubt this was Howard's "new Tampa". WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan says he has no plans of sending officers to the Northern Territory. Mr O'Callaghan says police working in regional areas of Western Australia already have their hands full.
Professor George Williams from the University of NSW says it is the most significant takeover of territory power since self-government, and it highlights the paternalistic relationship between the Commonwealth and the NT. "We've never seen such extensive intervention, nor such an intervention that would affect so many people within the Territory," he said.
Aboriginal leaders in the territory want to know whether the Federal Government will provide the money needed for housing, education and health in remote areas. "If the Government does not provide the funds it will be seen to be playing politics with Aboriginal people's lives," said Tracker Tilmouth, a former head of the Central Land Council.
The Territory needs 4000 houses, at a cost of $1.4 billion. Even if Canberra put up the money it would be impossible to find workers and materials to build them immediately.
The need for schools is estimated at $60 million a year over 10 years just to provide teachers and facilities for school-age children if they all turned up for classes each day. A further $50 million a year for the next 10 years is needed to fix health services.
<http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/26/asia/AS-GEN-Australia-Child-Abuse.php\
>
Aborigines threaten to ban tourists from climbing Ayers Rock in government policy protest
The Associated PressPublished: June 25, 2007
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CANBERRA, Australia: The traditional owners of Ayers Rock threatened Tuesday to ban tourists from climbing Australia's iconic monolith, and other Aborigines accused the government of trying to roll back indigenous land rights with its plan to crack down on Outback child abuse.
Aboriginal leaders also said some families were fleeing their townships fearful that police and troops being deployed under the government's plan were coming to take their children away.
Prime Minister John Howard rejected criticism of his plan, saying it was interventionist but necessary to stop the child sexual abuse that a recent report concluded was rampant in Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory.
Officials said the first police and troops sent to restore order under the initial phase of the plan would arrive in a handful of communities on Wednesday.
Howard announced a strategy last week he said would protect children in impoverished Aboriginal settlements where substance abuse and violence are rife.
The government plans to ban alcohol and pornography in those communities and reduce welfare payments of parents who do not adequately care for their children. The strategy also demands mandatory medical checks of all children living on Aboriginal land for evidence of abuse.
One of the first townships to be subject to the plan is Mutitjulu, in the shadow of Ayers Rock, or Uluru, the red monolith in the central Australian desert that draws some 500,000 visitors a year. Media reports last year of child prostitution and of children trading sex for gasoline to sniff prompted the recent government inquiry.
Local families are terrified their children will be taken away under the new plan and are fleeing to the sand hills to avoid authorities, Mutitjulu elders said Tuesday.
"I thought the government was here to protect them. They're scaring the living daylights out of the kids and women," resident Mario Giuseppe said. "They think that the army's coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them take them away."
The fears expose a lingering wariness of child welfare authorities among Aborigines, many of whom are victims of now discredited government assimilation policies that lasted until the 1970s in which generations of indigenous children were forcibly sent to live with white Australian families.
Mutitjulu leader Vince Forrester said Uluru's traditional owners are also considering a civil disobedience campaign that would include a ban on climbing the rock.
"The tourist industry brings a lot of dollars into the territory and tourists all come to Uluru," Forrester told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "Obviously, civil disobedience can come in protest form."
The traditional owners have always been uneasy about anyone walking on Uluru, which they regard as a sacred site, and occasionally ban climbing at important ceremonial times such as funerals. However, thousands of tourists snake their way up the 340 meter (1,115 foot) -high rock each year anyway, pulling themselves up over a simple chain fence.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said there was no need for families to flee.
"It's a ridiculous thing for anyone to be doing and I don't believe they would be doing that unless someone had deliberately told them lies about what's occurring," Brough told the ABC.
Dozens of indigenous leaders and welfare workers signed an open letter to Howard, saying his strategy was overly punitive.
"Successfully tackling these problems requires sustainable solutions which must be worked out with the communities, not prescribed from Canberra," the letter said, calling for more funding for child protection and domestic violence support services, and more spending on housing, health and education.
Pat Turner, a spokeswoman for a central Australian Aboriginal group, criticized the part of Howard's plan that ends a permit system for non-traditional owners on Aboriginal-owned land.
"We believe that this government is using child sexual abuse as the Trojan horse to resume total control of our land," she told reporters.
Howard was unapologetic.
"What has to be understood now is that the old approach has not worked," he told reporters. "If we are to save generation of indigenous children from the most appalling abuse, we must intervene in the way that I have outlined and we will maintain our position very strongly."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/abor-j27_prn.shtml
Australia: Growing opposition to police-military takeover of Aboriginal communities
By Mike Head
27 June 2007
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Opposition is mounting within Aboriginal communities and among medical and welfare professionals toward the Howard government's plan to impose police-military control over about 70 indigenous communities across the Northern Territory.
As troops and police officers assemble in the central Australian city of Alice Springs, ready to move into the first five communities this week, local people and experts are warning that the takeover, supposedly aimed at halting sexual abuse of indigenous children, will only exacerbate the shocking social conditions facing the Northern Territory's Aboriginal population.
Last week, on the last day of parliament before the winter recess, Prime Minister John Howard suddenly announced a "national emergency" scheme to pour police and soldiers into townships and camps to enforce a series of punitive measures.
Welfare and family payments will be cut off if children miss school more than three days a term, or are considered neglected. Half of all payments will be stripped off all families, and replaced by food and clothing vouchers.
Children in "prescribed" zones will be forced to undergo medical checks, many of which will be carried out by military doctors. Possession of alcohol and X-rated pornography will be outlawed, with those breaching the bans likely to be hauled off to prison.
"Work for the dole" job programs under the Community Development Employment Program will be scrapped. They will be replaced by forced labour programs, to "marshall local workforces" to "clean up and repair" communities.
Communal land rights granted to Aboriginal communities since 1976 will be swept aside, through forced federal government acquisition, and community housing will be abolished, to make way for "market based rents and normal tenancy arrangements".
Any semblance of self-government will be overturned by scrapping the permit system that enables communities to restrict access to their lands, and installing "managers of all government business" to take command.
Customary law will be removed as a mitigating factor for sentencing and bail in criminal prosecutions, ensuring that many more indigenous people will be jailed. The Northern Territory already has the highest incarceration rate in Australia.
Social workers and indigenous MPs in the Northern Territory are being swamped with phone calls from local people wanting to know what will happen in their communities. Lesley Taylor, an experienced child abuse worker, said: "They are scared stiff ... This is creating very stressful environments that could lead to even more children being at risk."
Anger in Mutitjulu
Residents of the first township targeted for intervention, Mutitjulu, near the famous Uluru (Ayers Rock), have told journalists they are worried that authorities will take their children away, just as they did for many decades, until the early 1970s. Women and children are reportedly so terrified they are considering fleeing their homes.
Mutitjulu elder, Vince Forrester, said: "The community are bewildered. Why is there a military operation against the most poverty-stricken community members of Australia?" Forrester said residents were considering a civil disobedience campaign, in response to Howard's intervention, that would target tourism operators by preventing some half a million visitors each year from climbing Uluru.
Another resident, Mario Giuseppe, told ABC radio: "This community is in terror-the women and children. I thought the government was here to protect them. They are scaring the living daylights out of the kids and the women. They think the army is coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them to take them away." He accused Howard of "calling martial law on his own citizens."
Community members drafted a statement that condemns the government for treating them as a "political football," while starving them of health, housing, education and social services. The statement says the Howard government "declared an emergency at our community over two years ago-when they appointed an administrator to our health clinic-and since then we have been without a doctor, we have fewer health workers, our council has been sacked, and all our youth and health programs have been cut".
Under federal government control, the childcare centre was closed, and work programs, including rubbish clean-ups and the collection of wood to warm homes during cold desert nights, shut down. A kidney dialysis machine had been donated but not installed.
The statement raises a series of questions: "How do they propose keeping alcohol out of our community when we are 20 minutes away from a five-star hotel? ... What will happen to alcoholics when this ban is introduced? How will the government keep the grog runners out of our community without a permit system? ... Where is the money for all the essential services?"
At a town meeting yesterday in Mutitjulu, resident Harry Wilson gave voice to the widespread perception that Howard had seized on the child abuse issue in a bid to reverse his government's disastrous polling for the federal election due this year. Wilson compared the government's intervention to its false claims before the 2001 election that refugees aboard a sinking boat had thrown children into the sea. This time it was, "black children overboard ... this government is using these kids to win the election".
Howard made his announcement last week just six days after the Full Federal Court overruled the government's appointment of an administrator to Mutitjulu on the grounds that the community had been given only 24 hours notice. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough had earlier cut all funding for services provided by Mutitjulu's governing committee.
The Mutitjulu takeover is part of a wider land grab designed to disperse communities, particularly in financially lucrative tourism, mining and pastoral areas. Central Land Council head David Ross commented: "Under the smokescreen of helping children, the federal government is taking the opportunity to impose its ideological agenda in relation to Aboriginal land. The proposals seem to be a grab-bag of unrelated strategies aimed at a quick fix in a pre-election period."
"Trojan horse"
About 50 community, church and indigenous groups yesterday issued an open letter to Howard and Brough, protesting against the military plan and asking the government to start consulting indigenous people. They called for the development of a long-term plan that strengthens families and communities and addresses the underlying causes of abuse, such as unemployment, overcrowding and poor education.
Pat Turner, the former chief executive of the now-disbanded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, said: "We believe that this government is using child sexual abuse as the Trojan horse to resume total control of our lands." Turner said there was no evidence to suggest scrapping the permit system for indigenous land would lead to improvements in children's health. "We are totally against tying serious social need to our hard-fought land ownership and land tenure," she said.
Others who signed the letter of protest include former indigenous affairs officials Mick Dodson and Lowitja O'Donoghue, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, the Central Land Council, the Australian Council of Social Services, Anglicare Australia and the National Council of Churches.
One of the letter's signatories, Anglicare Australia's chief executive, Dr Ray Cleary, asked why it had taken so long for the federal government "to recognise something that the wisdom and experience of agencies like ours have been saying for 20 years".
Likewise, support organisations that have spent years lobbying the federal and territory governments for more alcohol-related funds and services, questioned the imposition of blanket bans. Tennant Creek's Anyinginyi Health general manager Barbara Shaw said services were needed to support heavy drinkers and their families.
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms could include the shakes, depression and, sometimes, fits. In severe cases, withdrawal could be fatal. "(We must) look at the causes of alcoholism, like overcrowding, where 15 people live in one house, people living below the poverty line, people who have no work."
Indigenous Doctors' Association president Dr Mark Wenitong raised concerns about the compulsory health checks. He said doctors would not perform an examination on any child under the age of 16 unless a parent had given consent. He warned that sexual abuse check-ups by doctors not familiar with indigenous people could scare patients.
"[I'm] particularly thinking of an eight-year-old girl being examined by a male doctor for trauma-vaginal trauma and things like that. That's a real issue and that really needs to be thought through in detail, not to mention the fact that we just don't have the medical work force currently."
The doctor shortage flows from the systemic under-funding of indigenous health services by successive federal, state and territory governments. Members of the Close the Gap coalition are calling for an additional $460 million per year to be allocated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health programs as a first step toward rectifying the large "gap" between the funding of indigenous and other health services.
Far from filling the "gap," the government's plan contains no spending on health care, or any of the other essential services long denied to remote communities, notably schools and housing. While it was launched on the pretext of responding to a Northern Territory government report, "Little Children are Sacred", which found evidence of widespread child sexual abuse, the military takeover ignores the report's recommendations. Instead, Howard has seized on the social distress and breakdown caused by decades of deprivation to impose measures that serve his "free market" agenda.
Dorothy Scott, the director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, and an expert adviser to the Northern Territory child abuse inquiry, said the prospect of such mandatory checks left her "lost for words". It demonstrated, she said, the "lack of child protection expertise" in the government's response to the Little Children are Sacred report. Professor Scott said the inquiry made 97 recommendations but mandatory checks for sexual abuse was not one of them.
Other critics pointed out that cutting off welfare payments for school non-attendance punished indigenous families for the chronic under-resourcing of education. The Northern Territory report noted that "even if all Aboriginal children turned up at their local schools, there would not be enough teachers, classrooms and resources for them". It also condemned governments for failing to meet previous recommendations for guaranteed access to play centres and pre-schools for all children in the three- to five-year age group.
In a ham-fisted bid to counter the rising criticism, and intimidate opponents, Brough yesterday accused those who had spoken out of "very typical scaremongering, standover bully-boy tactics and lies" to cause panic in indigenous communities. His comments constitute an accurate description of the Howard government's own modus operandi.
Labor leader backs Howard's agenda
The intervention will be overseen by an "implementation taskforce", which will monitor indigenous communities, nominate those to be "prescribed" for takeover, and appoint local government business managers. The government's appointees to the taskforce are highly revealing. They include former Woolworths chief executive Roger Corbett, who presided over record profits at the supermarket chain, which relies heavily on paying low wages to its young checkout operators and shelf stackers. Brough said Corbett would be a valuable contributor, "from his business perspective and his logistics perspective".
Also included is former senior Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer Shane Castles, who will lead the work of the taskforce on the ground. Castles's last assignment was heading the police contingent of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), a colonial-style takeover of the small South Pacific state in 2003. Last year, the Solomon Islands government effectively dismissed Castles for his active part in a series of Australian provocations aimed at destabilising it.
Howard's own department head, Peter Shergold, has also been appointed, along with two members of his handpicked National Indigenous Council, Western Australian magistrate Sue Gordon and Roman Catholic school principal Miriam Rose Baumann.
Far from attacking this wholesale assault on the democratic rights and living conditions of the most vulnerable and oppressed layers of the Australian working class, the Labor "opposition" is stepping up its collaboration. On Sunday, Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd declared that if a Labor government were elected he would establish a bipartisan "national war cabinet" to direct the fight against Aboriginal child abuse in remote communities. Yesterday he called on all Labor state and territory leaders to fully cooperate with Howard.
Rudd also announced Labor would spend $200 million over four years on the recruitment of 500 new AFP officers. As well as being deployed in the Northern Territory, the new officers would meet the "growing demands" placed on the force. Just last September, Howard announced the doubling of the AFP's "international deployment group" to 1,200, and the formation of a heavily-armed, 150-strong riot squad.
Labor's indigenous affairs spokesperson Jenny Macklin followed suit by backing a plan put forward by Aboriginal lawyer Noel Pearson to extend Howard's welfare cutoff measures to Queensland's Cape York Aboriginal communities. Macklin said Labor had long supported tying welfare payments to school attendance and the proper care of children. Her comments came after Howard and Brough announced their intention to make the Northern Territory scheme a prototype for stripping welfare entitlements from working class families across the country.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2109494,00.html
Aboriginal abuse plan denounced as racist
· Howard stands by radical response to inquiry report
· Questions over alcohol ban and medical exams
Barbara McMahon in Sydney
Saturday June 23, 2007
Guardian
The Australian prime minister, John Howard, confronted a furious response yesterday to his radical plans to deal with alcoholism and child abuse in indigenous communities, as the Aboriginal question threatened to grow into a major issue ahead of a general election.
Opponents accused Mr Howard of seizing on the issue to boost his re-election chances after he announced a ban on alcohol and pornography, and compulsory medical checks for some Aboriginal children in parts of northern Australia blighted by appalling social conditions.
But the government showed no signs of climbing down yesterday, announcing that extra police would be deployed in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory from next week, with the Australian Defence Force providing logistical support. The first officers will be based in Mutitjulu, near Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock), to stamp out the use of alcohol and drugs, and gather evidence about the abuse of women and children.
The indigenous affairs minister, Malcolm Brough, said: "We'll be able to make a practical and real difference to that community."
The measures, which followed a major report last week that highlighted the chronic mistreatment of children in some communities, have in effect reversed a decade of allowing Aboriginal communities to largely govern themselves.
As well as the ban on alcohol and pornography, school attendance will be enforced and restrictions put on welfare payments so parents spend their money on food and not on a "river of grog", as the report's co-author, Pat Anderson, an Aboriginal health specialist, put it. Indigenous communities will in effect come under federal authority for the next five years.
But politicians claimed the prime minister was merely trying to look good in the run-up to the general election. Alan Carpenter, premier of Western Australia, said: "If he thinks it's an emergency, one could ask the question: why hasn't he done anything about it in the last 11 years? This is designed to create an issue for Mr Howard to run on."
Peter Beattie, premier of Queensland, also called the six-month ban on alcohol a "silly gimmick". He said Aboriginal parents should be involved in any plans to improve social conditions in townships. "Let's not become savages in this; we need to involve the community," he said.
There are serious questions about some of the measures. The Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance - Northern Territory said compulsory medical checks on indigenous children were racist and were causing anguish to parents. The Australian Medical Association said there were "nowhere near enough doctors" in the Northern Territory to conduct medical checks for an estimated 23,000 children.
The drinks industry has called the alcohol ban "an administrative nightmare" and said it would not stop problem drinkers from getting alcohol. Community health workers have asked what treatment would be made available for sexual abuse victims or people forced off alcohol. Doubts have also been raised about the ability of local prisons to cope with a possible influx of Aboriginal prisoners in already full jails.
However, Kevin Rudd, leader of the opposition Labor party, dismissed suggestions that the plan was a political stunt and said he would work with the government on a "positive, non-partisan basis".
Mr Howard was standing his ground. "We've been too timid in the past about interfering," he said. "I'll be slammed for taking away people's rights but frankly I don't care about that."
Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory have largely refused to comment so far, saying their councils would issue a considered response in due course. In Brisbane yesterday, demonstrators protesting about the acquittal of a police officer charged with the death of an Aboriginal man in custody condemned interference in Aboriginal affairs.
The statistics
Australia's 460,000 Aborigines make up about 2% of its 20m population. They are consistently the country's most disadvantaged group, with far higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic violence. Alcohol causes the death of an Aborigine every 38 hours. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who together make up about 2.5% of Australia's population, live on average 17 years less than their fellow citizens. The average life expectancy for Aboriginal men is 59, compared with 77 for non-indigenous males, according to a 2006 report by the Australian institute of health and welfare. An indigenous Australian is 11 times more likely to be in prison than a non-indigenous Australian, and is almost three times more likely to be unemployed.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/44306
Mutujulu statement on the military occupation of their community
Leaders of the Mutitjulu community today questioned the need for a
military occupation of their small community
We welcome any real support for indigenous health and welfare and even
two police will assist, but the Howard Government declared an emergency
at our community over two years ago - when they appointed an
administrator to our health clinic - and since then we have been without
a doctor, we have less health workers, our council has been sacked all
our youth and health programmes have been cut.
We have no CEO and limited social and health services. The government
has known about our overcrowding problem for at least 10 years and
they've done nothing about it.
How do they propose keeping alcohol out of our community when we are 20
minutes away from 5 star hotel? Will they ban blacks from Yulara? We
have been begging for an alcohol counsellor and a rehabilitation worker
so that we can help alcoholics and substance abusers but those pleas
have been ignored. What will happen to alcoholics when this ban is
introduced? How will the government keep the grog runners out of our
community without a permit system?
We have tried to put forward projects to make our community economically
sustainable - like a simple coffee cart at the sunrise locations - but
the government refuses to even consider them.
There is money set aside from the Jimmy Little foundation for a kidney
dialysis machine at Mutitjulu, but National Parks won't let us have it.
That would create jobs and improve indigenous health but they just keep
stonewalling us. If there is an emergency, why won't Mal Brough fast
track our kidney dialysis machine?
Some commentators have made much of the cluster of sexually transmitted
diseases identified at our health clinic. People need to understand that
Mutitjulu Health Clinic (now effectively closed) is a regional clinic
and patients come from as far away as WA and SA; so to identify a
cluster here is meaningless without seeing the confidential patient data.
The fact that we hold this community together with no money, no help, no
doctor and no government support is a miracle. Any community, black or
white would struggle if they were denied the most basic resources.
Police and the Military are fine for logistics and coordination but
healthcare, youth services, education and basic housing are more
essential. Any programme must involve the people on the ground or it
won't work. For example who will interpret for the military?
Our women and children are scared about being forcibly examined; surely
there is a need to build trust. Even the doctors say they are reluctant
to examine a young child without a parent's permission. Of course any
child that is vulnerable or at risk should be immediately protected but
a wholesale intrusion into our women and children's privacy is a
violation of our human and sacred rights.
Where is the money for all the essential services? We need long term
financial and political commitment to provide the infrastructure and
planning for our community. There is an urgent need for 10's of millions
of dollars to do what needs to be done. Will Mr Brough give us a
commitment beyond the police and military?
The commonwealth needs to work with us to put health and social
services, housing and education in place rather than treating Mutitjulu
as a political football.
But we need to set the record straight:
* There is no evidence of any fraud or mismanagement at Mutitjulu - we
have had an administration for 12 months that found nothing
* Mal Brough and his predecessor have been in control of our community
for at least 12 months and we have gone backwards in services
* We have successfully eradicated petrol sniffing from our community in
conjunction with government authorities and oil companies
* We have thrown suspected paedophiles out of our community using the
permit system which our government now seeks take away from us.
* We will work constructively with any government, State, Territory or
Federal that wants to help aboriginal people.
http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73244/index.php
Howard's NT plans will "demoralise Aborigines"
Author
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Date Created
a.. 26 Jun 2007
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Date Edited
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Goodooga, northwest NSW, 25 June 2007 - - The spokesman for 16 Aboriginal tribes says the Howard government's seizure of Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory will further demoralise communities of people who no longer understand pride and dignity because it was taken away from them a long time ago.
Michael Anderson, the only surviving founder of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra and elected spokesman for the Gumilaroi nation in northwest NSW and southwest Queensland, writes in a media release that Howard is a past master at finding an emotive matter to disguise his real agenda.
"The Australian voting public cannot permit itself to believe that this is in the 'best interest' of the Aboriginal people, in particular the children.
"The Australian community cannot accept what is planned and what has been said as gospel. The people of Australia must ask questions and not accept the spins blindly. Wake up Australia."
Anderson writes that Howard's intentions re-visit the 1930s assimilation policy.
"This was the ploy in 1937 when the Australian government convened a national conference of the Aboriginal Protectors from each of the Australian states which decided that the 'best interest' of the Aboriginal people was to assimilate them into the Australian community, forcing us to have the same beliefs and customs as all other Australians.
"Think hard, this move by this little man is nothing but a snow job for another agenda. The real agenda is what was said in that 1937 conference. We, the Australian governments, cannot permit the Northern Territory to be overpopulated by half-castes.
"The governments in the 1930s said children had to be taken away from their parents because the influence of their own communities was immoral and they were in danger of abuse and neglect, but the real agenda then was to de-Aboriginalise them. It is about to happen again."
Anderson's statement in full follows below. He can be reached at landline 02 68296355, mobile 04272 92 492, fax 02 68296375, ngurampaa (at) bigpond.com.au.
MEDIA RELEASE
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Goodooga, northwest NSW, 25 June 2007
Wake up Australia. This is a re-visit to the 1930s assimilation policy. The Australian voting public cannot permit itself to believe that this is in the "best interest" of the Aboriginal people, in particular the children.
This was the ploy in 1937 when the Australian government convened a national conference of the Aboriginal Protectors from each of the Australian States which decided that the "best interest" of the Aboriginal people was to assimilate them into the Australian community, forcing us to have the same beliefs and customs as all other Australians.
Think hard, this move by this little man is nothing but a snow job for another agenda. The real agenda is what was said in that 1937 conference. We, the Australian governments cannot permit the Northern Territory to be overpopulated by half-castes.
In the 1970s the Black Power players argued that what we experienced down here in the south with the expansion of the white male population in the grazing industry will also happen to the people of the Northern Territory.
What the sheep industry brought to the west of NSW and southwest Queensland, the mining industry and service industries are now bringing to the people of those isolated communities in the Northern Territory: white men looking for the young and innocent, and with the aid of alcohol and drugs the people are sitting ducks just as we experienced down here. The governments in the 1930s said children had to be taken away from their parents because the influence of their own communities was immoral and they were in danger of abuse and neglect, but the real agenda then was to de-Aboriginalise them. It is about to happen again.
Read the report that triggered this knee-jerk emotive and political response. No one condones abuse of any kind but the report does not come right out and say it but between the lines the white men of influence are also held responsible for an unknown amount of the child abuse. And let us not overlook the negative influences the mines may be having as well. Maybe the workers need to be policed not our people. By opening up the reserves to people without the need for permits gives more people access than already exists.
Our people are like fish in a bowl. No way out and nowhere to go. Give our people access to their traditional lands and build their communities with the same amenities as all other Australians with the correct infrastructures. The Report does not say that this is a law and order issue, it is a social issue that will not be addressed by massive numbers of police and army.
John Howard must retract and refrain from his chosen course. This is not right and we all know it. He is a past master at finding an emotive matter to disguise his real agenda. What he is about to do will further demoralise communities of people who no longer understand pride and dignity because this was taken away from us a long time ago. The Australian community cannot accept what is planned and what has been said as gospel. The people of Australia must ask questions and not accept the spins blindly.
What if what is being done to us was planned for you, what would your response be? Just for one minute try and put yourself in my people's shoes, would you agree to this?
Child abuse is acceptable to no one, but what John Howard is doing is also wrong. He argues that Aboriginal customary law has not worked - that is because white law will not let it work.
What John Howard has done here is to criminalise all Aboriginal men and the Australian public knows nothing else. This is not acceptable in a democratic country where law and order is the main theme. Are my people to forget their right to fairness and due process?
Now we have John Howard arguing that he has the constitutional powers to pass laws for any race for whom he deems it necessary, but it seems it is always against the people and not for the people.
John Howard would be better served by making it possible to repatriate our people to their traditional homelands instead of maintaining a program forcing us to live in country where we are already refugees. I do hope that he does not repeat the NSW failed resettlement program of the 1970s for the people of the communities in the Northern Territory.
I appeal to my people and the fair-minded Australian public, DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN. Let us address the real issues, government neglect to de-colonising Aboriginal people and to establish programs that address the horror of the past. Our people still think that we must do it the white way and that does not compute for many. Our history is being obliterated and wiped from our memories. We are always asked to forget about the past but white Australia has monuments to their past and clubs whose motto it is to not forget. From the past we learn but Aboriginal people do not have this right, and white Australia will never learn because the truth is being hidden.
We could not control and manage our own affairs because the government bureaucrats had too much power and control. We had to do things the way they wanted. The truth is not being told here and the public cannot permit the perpetuation of lies and denial.
If John Howard is fair dinkum then let's have a Royal Commission into the administration of Aboriginal affairs and let my people have their say about what is the truth. Why not, Mr Howard, maybe you and the rest of Australia can learn what is really going on instead of blaming the victim of Australia's brutal treatment of my people.
http://indyhack.blogspot.com/2007/06/elders-speak-out-over-military.html
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Elders speak out: "the dog of white supremacy returns to its vomit"
The dog of "white supremacy" returns to its vomit. In a media statement on the 26th June the National Sorry Day Committee says there is now a real danger of the creation by the Howard government of another Stolen Generation.
"We are deeply concerned about the policy being articulated by the Prime Minister, and being implemented the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, for Federal Government 'emergency measures' relating to Aboriginal child safety within Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory," say the Committee in a statement. The NSDC is the long established premier National Advocate for the Stolen Generations.
MEDIA RELEASE 26 June 2007
It is with great sorrow that the National Sorry Day Committee condemns the Howard Government's cherry picking of recommendations of previous Royal Commissions and National and State Inquiries into Aboriginal Affairs concerning the state of Indigenous Health, Education, Child Safety and Family Support with a complete disregard for the Human Rights of Indigenous Australia in the pursuit of an inadequate response to a decade of Federal Government neglect in the Indigenous Affairs portfolio.
The National Sorry Day Committee expresses its strong regret, and with the greatest of reproach, that this blind disregard for the Human Rights of Indigenous Australia continues to be the shameful reality under the Howard Government's continuation of a destructive policy in Indigenous Affairs.
We call on the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, to address the following facts:
- there are the 339 Recommendations from the Deaths in Custody Report, released in 1990.
- there are the 54 Recommendations from Bringing Them Home Report, released in 1997.
- now there are another 97 Recommendations from the Little Children are Sacred Report, released in June 2007. This makes a grand a total of 490 recommendations.
It is agreed amongst commentators that most of the earlier 393 recommendations until June 2007 either have been absolutely ignored, or implemented in an ineffectual manner through inadequate funding, limited resources and insufficient service providers and staff.
The 54 Recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report, released in 1997 have been stonewalled for the ten years in which John Howard has led this nation.
There is still no apology.
Were the Howard Government to have initiated responsible action based on these recommendations, including a national apology, then the issues facing the Stolen Generations and the consequential trans-generational issues which now so damagingly impact on all Aboriginal communities would have been addressed, and some definite positive change to the Human Rights and the living conditions of all Aboriginal people, and especially Aboriginal children, would have been brought about by now.
Instead Prime Minister Howard has refused any adequate response to the recommendations from the Bringing Them Home Report report, with the ongoing damage to human lives we see today.
The current realisation by the Federal Government of this National Emergency is a manifestation of the decade of inadequate Child Protection by the Federal Government in Indigenous communities.
However, and quite reprehensively, Prime Minister Howard is using this tragic reality to deflect public attention away from the fact that it has been his government that has consistently denied the affected Aboriginal children any adequate access to their basic human rights in: health, housing, education, personal security, safety and well being.
But more than that, and in the absence of a genuine national apology from him for his involvement in fostering these vicious circumstances afflicting Aboriginal people across Australia, the Prime Minister is proving himself patently to be insincere.
He knows that he has much to answer for his own neglect and indifference to Aboriginal people.
Both during his time in the Fraser Government as the Nation's Treasurer and now as the Nation's Prime Minister, John Howard has had the power and the financial capacity under the constitution to remove, alleviate and redress the deprivation and chronically deteriorated living conditions Aboriginal children, their families and communities have had to endure, especially under Liberal administration.
The Little Children are Sacred Report thoroughly examines the issue of Aboriginal child sexual abuse.
The report recognises the issue as one of urgent national significance, recommending that both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments establish an immediate collaborative partnership with a Memorandum of Understanding to specifically address the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse.
Most significantly, the report asserts it is critical that both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.
Recommendations 4, 5, 40 a, b
4. That the government develop a Child Impact Analysis for all major policy and practice proposals across Government.
5. That the government develop a whole of- government approach in respect of child sexual abuse. Protocols should be developed as a matter of urgency to enhance information sharing between agencies and the development of a coordinated approach in which all agencies acknowledge a responsibility for child protection.. The approach might build on the work of the Strategic Management Group and Child Abuse Taskforce but needs to extend well beyond those initiatives.
40. That the Northern Territory Government work with the Australian Government in consultation with Aboriginal communities to:
a. develop a comprehensive long-term strategy to build a strong and equitable core service platform in Aboriginal communities, to address the underlying risk factors for child sexual abuse and to develop functional communities in which children are safe
b. through this strategy, address the delivery of core educational and Primary Health Care (PHC) services to Aboriginal people including home visitation and early years services (see Chapter on Health).
We call on the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, to provide the Australian people with justifiable answers at a minimum to the following pressing questions that arise from the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred Report:
- What consultations and plans have been made in regard to this newest policy for reform that will ensure that it is implemented with and not against the Indigenous population?
- What assistance and support if any is there in the areas of detoxification, rehabilitation, counselling, and education?
- What resources and services are there to support Indigenous people once these changes are made?
- How will people be assisted safely to come off their alcohol or substance addiction?
- Where are the rehabilitation services to be established and to what degree will they be effective?
- Where are the trauma counselling and support services for families to be instituted?
But there is another question that cannot be suppressed regarding the motives behind John Howard's sweeping policy and the significance of the timing to impose such a draconian plan on the run and without prior departmental analysis and comprehensive costings, which relates to the influence it will have on the polls and voting in the next federal election:
- Have the opinion polls scared John Howard to the point where he is scrambling to influence votes with the Race Card, at the expense of Australia's Aboriginal Community?
With one of the first Aboriginal communities targeted for the immediate introduction of Australia's armed forces in a support role with conscripted police enforcement from all around the country being Mutitjulu Community (a dry Community) at the base of Uluru, not only just Aboriginal people are seeing this as proof of the intention to use "Martial Law".
Mutitjulu Community is one of the many Aboriginal Communities that have been directly affected by Deaths in Custody, previous Government Removal Policies and continual trans-generational abuse and neglect through government policy and control.
There are three significant interrelated events that have occurred in the Northern Territory since June 15, 2007 and which are of substantial concern to the National Sorry Day Committee:
1) The public release on 15 June 2007 of the Northern Territory Government's report from its Board of Inquiry into Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse.
2) The winning by Mutitjulu Community of its Federal Court challenge to the appointment of a Perth-based administrator by the Federal Government. This means that the community's former governing committee will soon resume its role. In 2006 the Registrar had given only one day's notice, after the federal government said the community's funding would cease unless an administrator was appointed. The federal appeal court judges said that: "There was no evidence of any particular threatened unlawful or imprudent transaction on the part of the (Mutitjulu) Corporation that needed to be urgently prevented".
3) The Howard Government's announcement of a new policy of intended measures against the Indigenous communities through out the Northern Territory claiming it to be "in the best interest of the children".
Highly respected Mutitjulu Elder and Stolen Generations Survivor, Bob Randall, producer of the newly released film Kanyini, revealed to the National Sorry Day Committee that following the accusations presented on ABC TV's Lateline in July 2006 by a staffer in the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough's, office that members of the Mutitjulu Community were sexually abusing and prostituting children, a full investigation by both local and territory police found nothing to substantiate the accusations. There have been no arrests nor have any charges been brought against any of the 95 community members.
Bob Randall further identified that since the policy of self-determination came into practice in the Mutitjulu Community back in 1972, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs removed the staff that were then working there and have starved the community of the competent staff and resources that the community needed to operate effectively. Instead, the government left untrained people to take over.
Over the last decade the Howard Government has further withdrawn and reduced funding and resources, with a total neglect of the basic needs of the Community, which was then forced into an unnecessarily bureaucratic form of over-administration and is now being bullied into signing 99 year lease agreements.
The plight of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory expresses the plight of all Indigenous Australians who have been crying out for initiatives and actions that the Howard Government has and continues to ignore.
The 1967 Referendum may have recognised Aboriginal people as Citizens of Australia to be counted in the Census, but in reality the present Government's attitude and intent is to continue to enact the "white" culturally dominated Liberal view of administration in disguise for the same old racist implementation of the life threatening and soul destroying manipulation of Indigenous Australian's basic human needs that had characterised the federal view of the constitution up to 1967.
This current policy to undertake the drastic measures imposed by the Prime Minister, comes from the same racist and draconian political manoeuvres of past governments stretching back beyond federation that encompass the forceful displacement of Indigenous people using the Policies of Forced Removal of Aboriginal Child as they were progressively implemented under the equally inhumane and discredited Policies of Martial Law, Protection, Assimilation, Integration and now Absorption.
All of these policies fomented and implemented national acts of Genocide and it appears the intent for the dog of "white supremacy" to return to its vomit is relentless.
The National Sorry Day Committee is horrified that the Prime Minister is apparently intent on unashamedly and deliberately using Aboriginal children in the same way that past governments, through the Removal Policies that created the Stolen Generations, used Aboriginal children to control the lives, lands and rights of Indigenous Australia.
The National Sorry Day Committee calls upon each right thinking and fair-minded Australians with a sense of just decency to assume the responsibility to prevent such an outrage from happening again.
Helen Moran - Indigenous Co-Chair - 0413 246 470
Tiffany McComsey Non-Indigenous Co-Chair - 0412 391 746
ABC REPORT: AFP team arrives in NT for Indigenous plan
http://www.australiansall.com.au/a-statement-from-the-stolen-generations-alliance/
Statement from the Stolen Generations AllianceMalcolm Fraser Lowitja O'Donoghue Brian Butler
Elected leadership from specific regions could establish Aboriginal councils with responsibilities to their own communities. Those councils could elect a representative to a national body to advise governments more broadly. This is just one suggestion of a framework that might work.
The Prime Minister has declared a state of emergency in the Northern Territory to introduce arbitrary measures for Aboriginal Australians. While we must all hope that any measures introduced will assist Aborigines achieve their rightful place within the Australian community, a place that recognises their own history and culture, we must at the same time ask how the Government has come to this point?
The Government has been in power for over 10 years. Over that time there have been many reports about the dire effects of alcohol and substance abuse affecting Aboriginal communities. Thirty years ago Aboriginal communities, on their own account and with the support of their people, did not allow anyone to bring alcohol into those communities. Over many decades there has been awareness of the damage that alcohol can do - and that awareness has been not least amongst Aboriginal leadership.
These latest measures have been introduced without any overt sign that there has been consultation with Aboriginal leadership or with Aboriginal elders from different communities. Without respect, without discussion and agreement it is difficult to see any measures working as effectively as we would all want. And there are other elements significantly lacking in this latest statement.
Two of the greatest needs for Aboriginal communities, especially in remote communities, are improved health and better access to education. There is a health component to the Government's current program but primary healthcare at the very least needs to be available on a continuous basis. Better availability of health care is needed for all communities and much better availability of education for all Aboriginal children - an education that gives some hope for a future, that there will be jobs, there will be respect and the promise of the 1967 referendum fulfilled.
Despite popular perceptions, funds provided for both Aboriginal education and Aboriginal health are far less than they should have been, far less generous than policies adopted by the Canadian Government and far more paternal in their application in recent times. Surely a return to paternalism is regressive.
One telling statistic is that there are fewer Aboriginal students at Australian universities today than there were when this Government came to office. Quite apart from adequately providing the common and ordinary services which most of us take for granted, the Government has said that if people want to live on remote communities it will not provide services. Is that a policy of starve them out? Take the example of School of the Air. That was a remarkable initiative for remote white communities. Is that the end of our enterprise?
ATSIC did not meet the high expectations many had of it but its abolition, supported by the Labor Party, further eroded hope and belief in the future for many Aboriginal Australians. ATSIC by no means distinguished itself but it could have been very substantially reformed. Elected leadership from specific regions could establish Aboriginal councils with responsibilities to their own communities. Those councils could elect a representative to a national body to advise governments more broadly. This is just one suggestion of a framework that might work.
Instead today there is an appointed advisory council, a throw back to past years, to past paternalism which assumed superiority of government and its instruments. That approach did not work then.
We believe we are the only western democracy with a significant indigenous minority that has no elected representation of any kind. Trachoma, the leading cause of blindness worldwide, is entirely a disease of third-world countries - except for Australia where it is the scourge of remote Aboriginal communities. Our governments pretend to be generous with aid to the third world. There is a third world living within Australia, to Australia's shame.
We can be pleased that the Government accepts there is an emergency which requires action. But their first step needs to be a broad-based approach based upon respect, upon self esteem and on the recognition of a real partnership.
Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser Prof Lowitja O'Donoghue Mr Brian Butler Co-Patron Co-Patron Chairman
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