Little Children are Sacred
According to the following report John Howards Federal Government will now:-
1. Enact alcohol prohibition laws.
2. Ban non-violent sexual erotica that shows sex between consenting adults.
3. Tell people how they are to spend money.
4. Apply these “reforms” largely on the basis of peoples race.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/06/21/1182019253560.html
There is no getting past the fact that there is a real social problem motivating these “reforms”. That does not mean that they are wise or reasonable. They look somewhat like more of the same – paternalism.
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Yes this is a scary thing.
I’d be broadly behind these alleged emergency measures if I knew it was for short sunsetted bursts.
Like only six months max at a time.
Because they need to protect the kids on the one hand.
But on the other hand the bad effects of this sort of gross compulsion will manifest itself more and more over time.
It’s amusing to see the Democrats actually object to intrusive government for once
But didn’t the nation vote in 1967 for the federal government to be able to make laws exclusively for Aboriginal Australians?
The 1967 referendum included two reforms.
1. Include aborigines in the census.
2. Allow federal laws that discriminated between Aboriginies and other Australians.
The first was a significant and worthy reform. The latter was stupid. The common misconception that 1967 gave aboriginines the vote lead me to recently create a Wikipedia article on this issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_of_Australian_Aboriginals
If a bunch of white people was living way out in the donga where there were no jobs and few community services, reliant on welfare, drinking excessively and taking drugs, engaging in chronic domestic violence including sexually abusing children, the law would come down very hard.
They would be required to meet the work test to continue receiving welfare. Their children would be removed and placed in foster care until they had cleaned themselves up. They would be prosecuted for violence and sexual abuse. All but the most dim-witted would relocate so that, at the very least, they could meet the work test and continue to receive welfare. Those with a semblance of dignity would see that people with jobs had a better life and would be inclined to follow suit.
What is the difference here, apart from the fact that the aborigines are black?
I say end racial discrimination and treat aborigines like white people. Those who don’t want to join modern society can maintain their traditional lifestyle if they choose but without society’s modern assistance (eg welfare and alcohol). Just as they did prior to 1788.
David I agree. Although I think that abolishing the minimum wage would produce some scope for small scale economic activity in some of these areas so people could live a largely traditional lifestyle supplemented by low scale trade with the outside world. If you have to get out of bed to make a living then drinking yourself silly the night before becomes less viable.
The politicisation of policing and overly generous welfare is a soft tyranny – they have a lot of resources to waste with no repurcussions as to susbstance and child abuse.
Now it is entrenched generational welfare.
The main thing is to not artificially subsidise these communities to induce people to enter the job market. The federal government plan doesn’t do this but engages in heavy handed micromanagement and prohibition
If you left them alone, the high rates of child abuse would still go on, and that is unacceptable. We actually do need more police, for that specific problem. Perhaps Aborigines should be automatically conscripted into the police force, and assigned to non-kin communities! When their ‘term of service’ is up, they would know what steady employment was like, and what police have to go through.
Nicholas, you are right – child abuse is a very serious crime and it is a matter for the police, although there is a constant problem with prosecution due to lack of admissible evidence.
In a white community with a chronic problem they would prosecute a couple of high profile perpetrators in a “show trial” to shame them and create a new paradigm. They would also remove children from known or potential offenders while they remained at risk.
Even if the aborigines wanted to live on witchetty grubs and yams, that option is still available, with evidence still the main challenge.
I’m opposed to doing anything unilaterally and “by race”. Automatically conscripting aboriginals, for example. The concept is good, but if it’s good for the goose… then you get a situation like (Sweden’s?) compulsory national service. Which I’m actually in favour of, but that’s just me.
Personally I’m pretty opposed to this whole thing, much like anything else Howard’s done. It will be interesting to see how the opposition handles it. Rudd jumps up and says it’s wrong and Howard will just say he’s soft on child abuse. Rudd’s been pretty strong but “pro-child-abuse” isn’t exactly a winning election platform.
It’s impossible to ignore that there are genuine issues in these communities, but applying these draconian police state laws is not the answer.
I want to leave this comment with two quotes on this from our esteemed leader. Not the queen. The other pseudo-leader.
“The point should be made that . . . in the end we are prepared to apply the same principle to all sections of the Australian community,” Mr Howard said.
“What matters more, the Constitutional niceties, or the care and protection of young children?”
*leaves to throw up*
This legislation is highly racist and condesending.
I personally think this type of treatment has psychological ramifications.
I think some Aboriginals think society owes them. But most of the Aboriginals that were wronged in the past are now dead and unfortunately cannot be compensated.
Extra welfare payments and special legal treatment reinforce the incorrect belief that Aborigines have different rights to normal people.
The new legislation doesn’t overcome any of the difficulties involved in prosecuting sexual abuse. Rape will always be difficult to prosecute due to the need to prove consent. I imagine sexual abuse has its own set of challenges. But I agree with David’s assessment that a bunch of white people living in whoop whoop engaging in this type of behaviour would be treated differently.
David, there has recently been a high profile conviction for an Aboriginal leader. Geoff Clark (the former chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission). He was recently sentenced for leading some gang rapes.
Digging beyond the headlines there are some good measures in this.
1. Ending the permits system that essentially cuts off aboriginal communities from the outside world.
2. More police resources. Although this is neutralised by the new police job of rounding up drinkers and DVD voyeurs.
3. Ownership reforms.
4. Rental reforms.
5. A sunset clause on the alcohol prohibition.
Interesting that the same interference stemming from good intentions is being applied to the problem it created. Now that we have fixed them of living the natural life they developed, we just need to forcibly refine the results.
Still, no law or it’s enforcement can be too draconian when the precious children are at stake. Who knows, perhaps if we can prevent them from drinking we can get them reading. As long as it’s not books on Islam.
Few people would argue against the drastic need to deal with the abuses of children and other problems, but as a “constitutionalist” I question the method used to seek to achieve it.
For example, the States and Territorial Government had every right to legislate as to Aboriginals up to the 1967 referendum was held, however since then the Commonwealth of Australia only can legislate as to Aboriginals race within the framework of Subsection 51(xxvi) of the Constitution. It means that the Commonwealth of Australia neither can legislate within its sovereign powers within Section 122 of the Constitution as it lost that right by the 1967 referendum as much as the States did.
There is nothing to prevent States/Territories (so the commonwealth of Australia) to legislate as to matters dealing with children provided it is not a racial directed legislation but a general legislation directed at all children subject to sexual abuse, etc.
If the Commonwealth of Australia seeks to invoke its legislative powers within subsection 51(xxvi) then as the Framers of the Constitution made clear (see also my INSPECTOR-RIKATI® published books) then it must be regarding the entire race, and as such all people of that race will be subjected to that legislation.
Meaning, for example, that if the Commonwealth of Australia were to legislate against landholdings by Aboriginals, then it cannot just apply against Aboriginals in the Northern Territory but would affect any other Aboriginal regardless if they reside in Melbourne, Sydney, etc and regardless if they are a doctor/lawyer/judge/politician, etc.
Many people misunderstand how Subsection 51(xxvi) legislation applies, but for example the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, not being an act against a specific “coloured race” is in fact unconstitutional.
Personally, I do not accept that Aboriginal children are to be subjected to any special legislation where as other children likewise abused are not. We must protect all children in equal manner.
If we desire to deal with unlawful conduct by any person (not just Aboriginals) then we must ourselves ensure that the legislation is lawful in the first place, and not manipulate powers to use draconic laws upon Aboriginals and not against others.
The States/Territories have their sovereign powers to deal with welfare matters regarding children and it should be applied to all children regardless of their racial heritage!
One law for all people!
Wake up people!!!
John Howard just Declared ‘Martian Law’ in Aboriginal Communities…
oops, actually it is quite possible they have enacted Martian Law considering John Howard and his cronies live on another planet…
Wake up People!!!
John Howard just Declared ‘Martial Law’ in Aboriginal Communities…
Matt, im not entirely sure what you were getting at with your talk on military conscription.
However, being a descendent of the highest decorated soldier to ever serve with the British empire, and knowing many many people in the military, (the father of the 2nd in command in Afghanistan is a family friend).
I completely disagree with your views on conscription, Australia has one of the best defence forces in the world, there are things that contribute to this, such as the relatively small size, or the high level of training. But one of the biggest things that makes Australias military one of the best in the world, is that for the majority, everyone who is there is there by choice. They want to defend the Australian way of life and make a difference.
Changing this and bringing in people who dont want to, would only bring rise in the level of post traumatic stress in soldiers and the general bitching from hippies.
On the topic of this thread, Yes John Howard’s action is rascist and condescending, and personally i have no problem with that what so ever.
In my opinion, The Northern Territory government hasnt taken hard enough action to stop the problems in many Aborignal communities, and it is right, in every meaning of the word, for John Howard to do what he has done.
It is debatible as to wether the specific laws he enacted will make a huge difference, but as for imposing the laws, i believe he was right in doing so.
We really just need to enforce existing laws, rather than enact new ones specificly for members of certain racial groups.All of the matters of concern in this are already criminal offences, with the exception of alcohol abuse.
From a simplistic point of view, Howard needed a hot election issue, which he knew would creat a wedge in the community. After many years of such reports, which both State and Feds ignored, Howard took a decisive (dictatorial?) “something must be done” stand. It will have many in white middle classes saying “Yes, he showed great leadership, getting rid of grog and checking up on the children”. (as long as those w.m.c people can still have their grog and their children don’t have to be checked). They will be the ones who may vote Howard back in.
Then there will be the group of people who will see this as massive discrimination, too little too late policy and in the end perhaps a waste of money and police resources, which doesn’t address the real problems of remote Aboriginal communities. Those groups probably wouldn’t be voting for Howard anyway.
This has shades of Howard’s 1996 and 2002 gun buy backs which didn’t achieve any great good, but was seen by many, who were not affected, as “decisive and responsible leadership”.
Could this be Howard’s “Black Tampa”?
Pete, Are you saying that the same kind of situation exists in the white middle class that exists in remote Aboriginal communities? Of course you wouldnt, So why would those people need to have these same laws be forced upon them?
Instead of criticizing the motivation behind the laws, perhaps just see this as a positive step towards correcting the actions of the past.
Instead of criticizing the motivation behind the laws, perhaps just see this as a positive step towards correcting the actions of the past.
Spoken like a true Howard believer.
I wouldn’t matter if it was the best idea ever, John Hunt the Coward does not do things for their inherent merits. He’s had 12 years to prove that. He’s behind in the polls and needs a distraction.
And is it a positive step? It relies on lots of bureaucrats and police officers looking over the shoulders of a lot of people. That’s never been very effective before. You can lock up pedophiles and remove kids from risk without big brother tactics.
How do you lock up pedophiles and remove kids from risk? With big brother tactics! It would be like conducting a military operation without first conducting surveillance or gathering intelligence on the enemy.
How else are laws enforced without police officers watching over communities?
Exactly what is happening apart from their getting their arses kicked for not taking large enough steps in the past.
Ok, John Howard is doing this as a distraction. I believe this, I have no problem with it. But i would also say that, He is a politician, They tend to not be very influential when not in power and take steps to ensure they stay high in the polls. And if we had whoever you support in power, Im sure they would do exactly the same thing, No matter who is in power, it will happen, fact of life. And if you can kill 2 things with 1 stone, (Getting higher in the polls and taking steps to stop the problems in Aboriginal communities). They go ahead and do it!
I dont see the situation as being any different from the opposition leader saying he will… for instance, Saying he will cease ties with America, because of the strong public opinion towards ending ties with them, Even if he has supported relationships with America in the past.
(I am just trying to give a hypothetical example of political winds changing)
Perry; I have seen the problems first hand – try Boorooloola on a Thursday night after the cheques have arrived. It’ scary.
Believe me mate there is no simple solution while those communities exist in their present form. They seem like dormitory areas for people who rely totally on social security. There is nothing there apart from houses people and a couple of stores, one of which is the grog shop.
Take away the grog, and there is nothing. I was left with a feeling of despair for them, they are the closest thing I have seen to totaly lost souls.
Any solution to this problem has to rely on building some other form of social structure to take over from the current one,(well its not one). Any long term solution will have to come from within and will have to be based on something more constructive than welfare.
Look, I just dont have the answer, but it isn’t force. As I said before the current law is all that is needed to deal with the criminal aspects. The rest needs more than a quick political fix.
Perry – At the end of comment 17 you suggested that it was debatable whether these laws would make a difference but it was right to enact them. I suppose all laws are debatable but you seem to be supporting laws that reduce basic liberties without much interest in knowing whether they will do more good than harm. That seems grossly irresponsible. Without further qualification it is hard not to conclude that you merely support these laws because John Howard supports them.
Peter – your analogy with the gun ban has a lot of merit. Both are examples of legislation being hammered through in an air of crisis. And again some people are willing to support laws irrespective of whether they will ever achieve what their proponents claim.
Jim, Thanks for giving me some perspective on that, I had no idea it was such a two dimensional world for them. And i agree with you completely that it is just a beginning step and much construction of social services etc must follow. (If that is what you are saying).
Terje, Supporting laws that reduce basic liberties, I thought Aboriginals blamed the white man for bringing alcohol and drugs to this country, and have since ravaged their communities with them. So couldnt this be seen as the government doing what they have been asked to by Indigenous people? Let them live the way they did before?
Also, isnt the founding basis of Libetarianism- Freedom, under all circumstances unless it impinges on the freedom of others. With this, couldnt we argue that we are impinging on the rights of the adults in the community to protect the children?
And without some kind of body to regulate impingements on freedom, wouldnt we live in Anarchy? From what you were saying about me supporting a law that reduce basic liberties (Getting drunk and going with rape gangs to get meat), This liberty of yours sounds more like a might makes right anarchist society.
Perry – getting drunk and engaging in gang rapes is already criminal in all parts of Australia. Nobody here is arguing that gang rape should be decriminalised. Nobody here is even arguing that rape be decriminalised. You are defending the Howard legal reforms on a completely false basis.
My conscription comment was in reference to comment 8, and was in disagreement with conscription “by race” in principle. Though the conscription in this case was to police, not military.
The issue of compulsory national service is so far outside the realms of discussion here as to be not worth mentioning, though I will say in its defense that it works well in some countries.
Regarding other things you’ve said… *shudder*
You’re taking Terje’s comments way too far. By suggesting that he’s advocating some sort of lawless darwinian anarchistic society of violence… Extending the same exaggeration to your views says what you think should be done is all people should be constantly monitored for signs of incorrect behaviour and thought, and and promptly punished.
No one is advocating lawlessness here. We’re smarter than that. We know humanity’s basic nature can be a bad one and that there needs to be checks on that.
There’s a real danger with “protecting the children”. It’s an easy win. Sure, we need to take the alcohol off the aboriginals because we need to “protect the children”. We also need to ban all violent video games to protect the children. We need to ban pornography (not just among aboriginals, but in the wider community) as that contributes to pedophilic activity and we have to protect the children. In fact, we have to ban homosexuality. Quick. Protect the children.
Sure, this is a few steps beyond what we have here, but it’s not a long walk at all. We already have moral agendas being pushed to “protect the children”. Violent video games HAVE been banned to protect the children, despite the fact that the average gamer is 28.
The simple fact (opinion, I guess) is that the theft of civil liberties under the banner of “protecting the children” is NEVER appropriate. And the removal of liberties on the grounds of race is even less acceptable.
Next step is banning Jews from owning cars. To protect the children.
Sorry, that’s kind of absurd and extreme. But so is this law.
I am completely happy with the current policing system in my state (Tasmania).
I am not advocating constant monitoring of civilians as to keep them all in order, However, I do believe that there should be a strict system in place for the punishment and rehibilitation of people who behave in a unrespectful way to society.
In your argument about videogames etc, Yes some games should be kept away from children, children being from around 5-14. I would love to spend time arguing about teenagers, however, i still am one and i have witnessed first hand the effect that some movies and games have on young uneducated minds.
With sub cultures like “emos” on the rise, i believe it is important that there be restrictions for content shown to teenagers/children. I have seen some of my female friends be coerced by older men simply by appealing to their bleak views of existed, and fueling them.
It is extremely difficult to know the damage to society that young minds being filled with trash can produce.
History is filled with examples, Charles Manson and his followers for example. Marilyn Manson music is incredibly entertaining and i have a good laugh at his lyrics quite often, however, there are many people who take his music far too seriously and adopt it as a philosophy, who then engage in acts of suicide and other dangerous behaviour.
While i am aware that this is all pretty standard teenager and im not bitching about it, i am merely saying that it is a problem that needs to be addressed at some stage and that imo, education is the key.
If you don’t want conscription of Aborigines, what would give them a job? Their own communities haven’t done it so far, and I think regular employment would be better for the whole community. Do we give them ‘Affirmative Action’?
‘Sit-down money’? What do you recommend, and can you point to any examples of such practices anywhere?
Does anyone know how the government will determine whether it’s new actions are working?
I am highly sceptical that you can actually keep alcohol out of aboriginal communities for example. There is already a black market trade of porn, drugs etc.
Perry, Terje is right to question the efficacy of these laws. Personally I believe these measures are immoral. But even if they weren’t, will they work? and do the pros outweigh the cons?
I understand there is a problem of finding people to testify against child abusers in these communities. How do any of these laws solve that problem or protect abused children. Taking away alcohol, porn and creating more welfare conditions doesn’t protect children. Prosecuting child abusers protects kids.
People engaging in self destructive activity like excessive drinking are probably depressed. Enacting draconian laws that treat aboriginals like babies will worsen a depressed person’s bleak outlook on the world which in turn will lead to more self destructive behaviour. These laws could ultimately make things worse and it would be nice to see an article in the mainstream media investigate this possibility.
Perry maybe my comments will help you understand the libertarian perspective.
What goes into your mind is your responsibilty, not the governments. The government’s resposibility is to protect people from physical or property harm.
Perry personally I don’t think much of Marilyn Manson’s musical ability but the man himself is quite intelligent and has a fairly healthy philosophy on life. I’d say most fans realise this. But even if his music did promote suicide, should it be banned? Does your body belong to you or the state? Suicide may actually be warranted in some rare cases.
When people go out into the big bad world, many things influence them. But these are just influences. Ultimately the choice is yours and that’s what people need to be taught. Regulations do not achieve this because they do not teach people self responsibility. They deny people the option to behave responsibly.
Are you really worried about emos and video games?
Emo music is far less popular than heavy metal was in the 80s so I doubt “sub-cultures” are on the rise. We’ve had goths, punks, metal heads, ravers, etc etc. If they have fun, find an identity and make friends, good on them, are they hurting you?
Millions of people around the world play violent computer games. Maybe a handful of these gamers are violent in real life. Even less would be violent because of the computer game (perhaps those with a mental illness who can’t understand reality but are still able to play computer games).
Why should everyone suffer by banning them?
How does the actual act of playing a video game hurt anyone?
Why should innocent tax payers pay for the regulations, government departments etc?
How could the government possibly know what is good or bad for everyone?
What about substances that have both good and bad uses eg/ sniffing paint solvents, NO2 cannisters, various gases such as butane, even textas. Should we ban or regulate textas?
What if the valuable use of a substance isn’t realised yet?
Why employ people to regulate when they could be doing jobs of real value to society?
All this bureacracy slows down our societies economical and technological progress.
In addition, regulations usually don’t work. They cost us a lot of money only to create a black market and increased crime rates. For example alcohol consumption and murder rates rose during the alcohol prohibition years in the US. The rise in murder rate was significant.
It’s no one else’s fault you were born and as such other people shouldn’t be made to suffer by paying for regulating your individual vices/virtues.
That was actually very helpful, Thank you.
It answered the question i had been trying to find which was, Freedom gives self responsibility, but alot of people cant handle that self responsiblity so what is the answer, in the case of alot of social issues, people tend to blame society for not taking enough action, so is society to be held responsible for not taking action or is the individual to be responsible for his own actions?
Growing up with only the mainstream media to get information from, i had the opinion that it is our duty to do these things.
Although, with the freedom that Libetarians talk about, What happens to the people who… just dont want to participate in society and are perfectly happy to remain uneducated and naive?
Mormons for example?
As a note, i generally agree with most of the things that have been said, i am just being an advocate for other things. Mainly because when asked to describe my views i am questioned about welfare and education and other things that rely on self, and i dont really have an answer to those people.
I accept that it is self responsibility, but in the freedom that were talking about, people are free to become bums and never contribute anything, And while i respect peoples choices to make those decisions and i would happy risk my life for those people to make those decisions. i dont really agree with it or thing it is it a good thing.
By the way, Could somebody name the quote that i tried to reference in that last paragraph? It went along the lines of, I dont agree with your opinion but i will fight for your right to express it.
Oh, I think we can all agree that Mormons should be outlawed.
Joking.
And as for Aboriginal issues, I see you’re from Tasmania. I guess you guys had one long-term solution? (Moderated down for trolling)
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire
It’s widely attributed to him, but never seen in his writings, so it’s probably more “about” him than something he actually said.
Just on the topic of computer games (a passion of mine) I wasn’t referring to children at all. I wasn’t referring to teenagers. I was referring to adults. I believe the government should have classification systems to inform parents to make the right decisions for their children (which they do) but should never block any form of media outright from adults (which they also do).
I have no problem with children not being allowed to play adult games. I have a problem with ME not being allowed to play them! And I have a problem with “the children” being used to justify that. And this.
What happens to the people who want to remain naive and ill informed? They move to the US. Seriously, though, stupidity is a human right. No one has the right to make anyone “better” any more than to take their children away, etc. If you’re not harming anyone you should be left alone. If you’re REALLY dangerously stupid, you should probably be moved into management or politics.
No, Matt, they should be moved AWAY from management and politics- those fields are crowded with such people! They should be put into the army, as testers of new weapons. Their next of kin can then be informed that they died serving their country. Pushing up daisies could be their next task.
Perry – I don’t think it is a good thing for people to waste their life intoxicated on anything or to remain entirely idle. However we have imposed idle behaviour on low skilled communities in two ways:-
1. We criminalises low wage work.
2. We provide people with money if they are without work.
Coupled with poor policing of real criminal behaviour (ie rape) we end up with the social decay seen in some of these communities. The solution is to:-
1. Police real crimes (eg rape)
2. Decriminalise low wage work so the private sector can create jobs.
3. Turn off the welfare tap.
However these are not measures that I would apply in isolation to aboriginal communities. The same problems exist in pockets right across Australia and is not limited to specific racial groups (although no doubt more prevalent in some such groups).
Actually Perry, I know a few mormons, all good people, none eneducated, naive? well they seem to have more faith in human nature than I do, but then it could be me that is wrong. This is probably not the case as I am always right, well mostly.
One was the research director of the Progress Party, and a QC, and despite his profession was one of the most ethical and principled men I know.
Aborigional people may blame the white man for alcohol and drugs, however the pubs and pushers are around here too, but only I can choose whether I use their products or not, the same as them.
On page 12 of todays edition of The Australian there is an article by John Hirst called “The Myth of a new paternalism”. In it he blames the plight of aborigines in remote communities on libertarians. The article is introduced on the front page of the paper with the heading “Poisoned by white libertarians” along side a picture of an aboriginal child.
It is nice to know that libertarians are now on the lips of the mainstream media. Such a pity they are blaming us for the failed socialist policies of years past. Strange even that they attribute these policies to libertarians.
Just goes to show the general intelligence level of reportive journalists at the Australian.
How on earth can the treatment of Aborigines in Australia ever be called “libertarian”?
In what ways do they think we have failed Aboriginies?
Hah, who said this dopey idea wasn’t based on the even dopier idea of the noble savage?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21966257-7583,00.html
“Paternalism’s claim is to full control of someone else’s life. This is not what is contemplated here. If outsiders restore social order and run services, traditional leaders can get on with traditional business. When the men are drunk and the kids are sniffing petrol, traditional knowledge and ritual will not be passed on. This move will help preserve traditional culture.”
They have no traditional culture if they are so disaffected and rely on handouts.
“It is nice to know that libertarians are now on the lips of the mainstream media. Such a pity they are blaming us for the failed socialist policies of years past. Strange even that they attribute these policies to libertarians.”
No it is not. These conservative muppets have swallowed the far left line hook line and sinker and Gough Whitlam to them is a “libertarian”.
When Liberal and Libertarian are taken, what can we call ourselves?
What is so noble about savages? A noble primitive makes sense, but a noble savage sounds like an exercise in double-think!
And let’s not fall for the idea of preserving a culture simply because it exists. Evolution applies to cultures as well as species. Their culture should change from dying traditional to living modern.
One element of their culture, which I would strongly support, would be another language for Australia. Aborigines should get together and create an artificial Aboriginal language, which all Australians could learn as a second language. Many languages show similarities which suggest a common source in the past. A second tongue would help us to stay Australian in an increasingly-globalised world.
Mark, I suggested once before that we could call ourselves Agorophilists, since we prefer the free market to government initiatives. Our opponents would then be Agorophobiacs, suffering from a psychiatric condition!
I have taken the liberty of sending a letter to the editor on this, the content is as follows : -
Aborigines and “Libertarianism.”
John Hirst seems to be incredibly confused as to the meaning of the term ‘libertarian’. A Libertarian is a believer in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and social tolerance. Nothing in the Aboriginal policies past or present has anything to do with libertarian philosophy.
Libertarians do not believe in ethnic based policy for a start. The very idea of establishing welfare dependent communities is something they would treat with ridicule and contempt, and none would consider the ‘dole’ a right.
What is probably confusing Mr. Hirst is the tendency of the left to regard their ideas as ‘liberal’, not libertarian.
The difference between ‘leftist liberalism’ and libertarianism is that while both tend to support the concept of social tolerence, (libertarians more so) libertarians insist that such freedoms carry with them individual responsibility, something the left shuns.
Jim,
I also wrote them a letter. Essentially I said that libertarians did not build the welfare state and don’t defend it and that he must be thinking of social democrats or some such group.
Regards,
Terje.
Didn’t see your letters today in the Australian. I think the Australian is engaging in some kind of anti-libertarian conspiracy.
Tim R
Normally the Australian is the one paper more likely to print pro-libertarian articles. they have also printed pieces with some scepticism to Greenhouse propaganda, so this is probably a temporary aberration from the norm. We can certainly hope so! And one piece of commentary, which the editor never endorsed, cannot be taken as a sign of a conspiracy.
Nicholas,
I tend to agree. However it is not the first time I have seen the Oz falsly define “libertarian” and slag off the concept. Perhaps it is the left leaning “civil libertarians” they are targeting but I’m not entirely convinced. Given the libertarian outlook of Lachlan Murdoch you would think they would be better informed.
I suspect that the large and prominant front page headline, positioned at the right hand side of the top banner in the paper version, that referenced the article and was titled “Poisoned by white libertarians” and sat beside an emotive picture of an aboriginal child was indeed an editorial decision. I can’t see front page presentation not involving the editor.
Regards,
Terje.
Yeah I wasn’t seriously saying there was a conspiracy.
John Hirst’s email address is j.hirst@latrobe.edu.au if Terje or Jim are interested in notifying him of his embarrassing error.
Ideally the editor should be alerted to the slander as well because of the front page ad for John’s commentary “Poisoned by White Libertarians”.
I have taken Tim’s suggestion as Follows: -
John;
While the above article is generally well presented, I have to take issue with your use of the term Libertarians. While various political groups claim to be some name or other, and it gets confusing, libertarian is a clearly defined term. The only area where the term is used, that could relate to your article are those who refer to themselves as ‘civil libertarians’, who are not really libertarians at all but confine themselves to a very narrow band within the concept.
I have worked in these areas and am reasonably convinced that traditional values have been replaced by welfare dependency, and I feel that alcohol and substance abuse is a result of this. The criminality follows. Any solution to the problems have to get at the root cause.
I have written to the Editor as follows: -
Aborigines and “Libertarianism.”
John Hirst seems to be incredibly confused as to the meaning of the term ‘libertarian’. A Libertarian is a believer in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and social tolerance. Nothing in the Aboriginal policies past or present has anything to do with libertarian philosophy.
Libertarians do not believe in ethnic based policy for a start. The very idea of establishing welfare dependent communities is something they would treat with ridicule and contempt, and none would consider the ‘dole’ a right.
What is probably confusing Mr. Hirst is the tendency of the left to regard their ideas as ‘liberal’, not libertarian.
The difference between ‘leftist liberalism’ and libertarianism is that while both tend to support the concept of social tolerence, (libertarians more so) libertarians insist that such freedoms carry with them individual responsibility, something the left shuns.
Jim Fryar,
If you wish to see the attitudes of real libertarians, I suggest that you try; http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/little-children-are-sacred/
If you feel like contributing to this debate feel free.
Good move Jim. It makes sense to seek out such commentators and engage with them in a positive way.
Thanks Terje, I am hoping he takes it up.
Good work Jim
An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. – Adlai Stevenson
clearly many of the contributors the comments on this blog do not have the slightest clue as to what prompted this outrageous attempt by the Howard Government to jackboot its way into communities to fix a problem that has been know about and neglected for decades. Child abuse is a serious crime which leave the young victims which scars that time does not heal. The moment one suspects or knows that it is occurring action, appropriate action, needs to be taken. Sending soldiers, who are not trained to handle social problems like alcoholism and child sex abuse is a total nonsense and sure to have done more harm than good, to a community who from past history would be terrified of anyone in uniform. This is not about helping kids. If it was about helping kids the situation would not have been allowed to continue as long as it has done with no assistance to the community. The notion that a blanket ban on alcohol for six months, with no other support programs in place would be laughable if not for the fact that the victims here are children. It infuriates me to hear comments that suggest that Aboriginal women care for their children less than white women do. I am a Koori woman of the Bogan Community and the kinds of insinuations are profoundly offensive. One of your bloggers even went as far as to say that if Aboriginals did not want to live like ‘normal’ people they should not get any support.
Did anyone suggest medically checking all the Christian children when reports of systemic child abuse came to light in a number of institutions and communities. And let’s not forget John Howard’s mate, Peter Hollingworth, appointed to the position of Governor General on Howard’s recommendation to the Queen. He was forced to resign when it was discovered that he protected pedeophiles in his ministry, and even went on record as saying a 14 year old girl contributed to the abuse she received at the hands of an ordained minister.
Get real you people. This is about land grab, and the need for John Howard to distract you before an election as he did when he lied about the ‘Babies overboard’ the children and women of the Mutitjulu did not need you to rescue them, they needed someone to act, and do so before now with appropriate measures. This is a joke and no one in Aboriginal communities is laughing. Remember we have had 230 years of white people, and we just don’t trust you. And with good reason.
It seems like you think you are speaking for the wider Aboriginal community there Kate,
1. People really dont seem to understand the situation of sending soldiers, They are acting as police, period, and they are only being sent in this capacity because the problem simply requires too many police officers from other areas that are already undermanned. And, if your referring to the stolen generation when saying that a community from past history would be terrified of anyone in uniform. The people who removed the children from community’s were government officials, dressed in suits or police outfits, not military.
2. In Australia, we have a democracy, divided up into states, this was the responsiblity of the Nothern Territory government, only if the situation gets bad enough and not enough action is taken is the federal government allowed to step in, and im sure thats debatible as well, as democrats spoke out against the federal government overruling the state government the way they did.
3. The blanket ban is the precursor, you cant expect everything to happen at once and be implemented immediately, the only thing you can do is wait and see if the federal government makes good on their promise to build more assistance programs etc in indigenous communitys.
4. And personally i agree with the person who said that if they dont want to live “normally” as it was put, i dont agree at all with providing incentives for doing nothing, oh, and last i heard Aboriginals didnt have to prove that they were looking for work to keep getting their welfare checks. I agree with the providing of supports such as counseling etc, although giving people money for doing nothing, is not a good thing.
5. Child abuse in white communitys is taken very seriously, a family member of mine runs part of the public housing system in my state, and i know that it is dealt with swiftly and suitably, and the health checks arent only checking for child abuse, they are also checking for drug/alcohol abuse, malnourishment and general sickness.
“Get real you people” “We just dont trust you” etc, Im glad to see you have constructed a non bias and non generalising opinion of “us”.
And personally, i dont know why people think this is a land grab, the only things worth having “we” can already get my negotiating with communitys to mine the land etc. Lets face it, its a desert, Why would “we” want it
Kate,
I agree with many of your points. This is about a forced restructure of land tenure and I can appreciate that some might choose to characterise that as a “land grab”. Some aspects of these land reforms I see merit in, however I think that given time some of these communities would have found the will to try these reforms out for themselves. I don’t generally believe that the ends justifies the means.
Election fever is obviously a contributing factor but I also think there is a sense of benevolence amoungst the perpetrators. Peters earlier comparison with the gun laws in 1996 is relevant because it is a case of reforms being hammered through with a air of emotive urgency and little or no time for any mature community debate. Governments love to tell people what is good for them.
It does seem to be the case that they have backed away from compulsory medical examinations. And from what I can tell the army is not going to be dealing directly with the issue of abused children but will be providing support infrastructure.
You state that there is a lot of ignorance amoungst many of the comments here. As I see it there is only one cure for ignorance which is enlightenment. So if you feel that you have insights that will alter perspectives you should stick around and share them.
Regards,
Terje.
Kate reading your comments, I actually thought much of what you wrote was in agreement with the other comments.
Libertarians do not support government intervention full stop. Especially this latest round of intervention.
When the word “normal” people was used, it was used in the context of saying that all people should be treated the same and have the same rights. From your illustration of how Christian communities were treated differently, it seems you want the same thing.
Prohibition, restrictions and curfews etc do not tackle the underlying problem of prosecuting child abuse.
I personally think there’s a good chance things could get worse because of Howard’s plan.
I agree with you that this is about vote buying and politics.
Thank you those who read my comments and responded. I do not know if any of you are Aboriginal and therefore have had a lifetime of experience of knowing that the white man cannot save us. We do not need any White Knights in shining amour as Mal Borough seems to want to project himself to be. In fact Aboriginal people are sick and tired of being vilified by Mal Borough who is on record for such outrageous claims that our culture is barbaric, our men are child abusers and our women don’t care enough for our children not to protect them from abusers.
To understand the sinister truths behind this latest Govt initiative to ‘clean up’ Aboriginal communities one has to know the history of attempts by the Howard Govt to buy back Aboriginal lands. Why on earth would a Govt want land in the middle of no where? Well here are a couple of clues. In 2006 the Australian Govt signed a deal to export 20,000 tons of unranium to China. As it stands we are only mining 11,000 tons. The land the Govt wants has beneath its surface what he needs. Also there is a need to find areas for radioactive waste dumping.
The Northern Territory Land Council NLC have recently agreed to sell 1.5 square kilometres of land north of Tennants Creek for the handsome price of $11,000,000. These funds will be used to build much needed infrastructure for people in the area. But the rub is the land will be used as a dumping ground for radioactive waste over the next 50 years.
This has a similar ring to the scenario in the USA where the First Nation people got conned into selling land for glass beads, and to this day non-indigenous people laugh at their stupidity. Unfortunately the First Nation people of the USA were very new to the trickery of the white man who knew that to offer glass beads for land was tantamount to theft.
In today’s Australia Aboriginal people are not ignorant of the scheming of white Governments and the depth of treachery they will go to to take back land. They offer all kinds of seemingly attractive deals to help the communities build much needed housing, and other basic needs to bring their living conditions about that of a 3rd world country. Why? should Aboriginal people have to sell back land to get the same funding and support that is available to all other Australian communities? Dont forget at one time Aboriginal people were the caretakers of this whole continent, and we did a pretty good job of looking after it and ourselves.
Is warms my heart as an Aboriginal woman that none of the bloggers came back at me with the kind of vile racial insults I have had to endure since the Howard Govt decided to disregard the recommendation in the Children are Sacred report and ‘do it his way’. The news papers here and overseas have depicted Aboriginal people as subhuman monsters. Not much new there, that is exactly how we have been portrayed for over 230 years, and there has been a willingness on the part of too many non-Aboriginals to fan the flames of the lies and misrepresentation of my people and culture, as opposed to a willingness to understand the problem and work together toward fixing them.
Someone made the comment that Aboriginals should not get paid for doing nothing, let me ask you did you pay ANY Aboriginal for the land your house sits on? You paid someone who stole the land from the Aboriginal people and did not even offer a box of beads. If Australia was to fund every Aboriginal man, woman and child from now until doomsday, to a level that kept all of us living in decent housing, it would still not repay what has been taken and the human suffering inflicted on my people since 1788 which continues to this very day.
Over 100,000 Aboriginal Children were taken from their families between 1906 and 1973, and placed in institutions and fosters homes, where they suffered unspeakable abuse. John Howard’s Govt has refused to even apologise. Only a very few of the 54 recommendations in the Bringing them Home report have been implemented to help the victims who are now adults. Severely damaged individuals who were just thrown back in communities with no coping skills and no support.
If all a person has known is violence and abuse we know that there is a better than average chance they will become abusers unless treated. NO excuses here for child abuse. However, John Howard has known about these problems for the whole of his 4 terms in office and has done nothing. Meanwhile children have continued to be abused, and many women have been bashed to death trying to protect their kids.
I am getting old now and my time on this land is in the shadows, so I may not live to see a reconciled Australia, as this latest stunt by the Howard Govt has done much to exacerbate the problems rather than solve anything. Excuse this old granny for being a tad cynical that he has done so in an election year.
Malcolm Frazer predicted that Howard would pull a race card prior to the election as he did in 2002 with the babies overboard lies that depicted decent Muslim refugees as monsters tossing their children into the sea. He has pulled a race card alright, and it is backfiring on him. Kate.
You should send that into the newspapers Kate
Tim, If I say anything that touches even ONE person, time at the keyboard is time well spent. The situation in the NT is a tragedy that was avoidable. John Howard was right about one thing. When he likened this tragedy to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In the final analysis of that comedy of errors it was clear that New Orleans went under because the levies broke. The blame games raged for days while old people drowned in their beds, and the worst that human nature has to offer ran amok. They knew the levies were in disrepair, they knew the Hurricane was coming. The only only difference in the analogy between the situation in the NT and that in NO, is the greater number of deaths and displacement of citizens in NO. The level of bureaucratic incompetence and attempts to drop-kick a political field goal are paralleled.
Kate;
Thankyou for responding.
I have said before that Aboriginal policy has in the main been a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. I think that, not always but mostly they intended to do some good, although in retrospect many of those policies have been wrong, rediculous, and usually paternalistic.
As I have said above, I just don’t have an answer, and perhaps you can help us here. I think that to some extent one of our problems is that we just don’t understand your culture, which is probably part of your peoples state of mind, even where the outward signs of that culture have disappeared, can you help us?
Should we perhaps be looking toward some form of local industry, in which you use the land for some form of income production while maintaining some form of traditional lifestyle, allowing elders to regain their influence?
Perhaps that is silly? What direction should we be looking in? Is Noel Pearson right or wrong, he seems to be looking in areas outside the square, past policies have been found in.
Kate – do you think all white people are tricky or is it just that some people are tricky? I’ve met my share of tricky black people but I try not to deal in such racial generalities.
All Australians can have their land confiscated if the government decides it wants the minerals below the surface. Aboriginies are not unique in this regard. See the following article I wrote some time ago:-
http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/mineral-rights/
And this is not some abstract concept. I know white people who have had their land taken from them by the government so a mining company could dig holes.
Kate – I’d be interested to hear what you think of Noel Pearson?
Thank you, one and all for your response. Firstly, I hope that my previous comments have answered some questions, as they seem to have prompted more, for which I am grateful.
Jim, you feel that one of the problems is that non-Aboriginal people do not understand our culture. That is true in many cases. And bear in mind each Aboriginal
Nation and clan has specific cultural differences including language and laws.There are even variations concerning the ‘creation’ or Dreamtime stories. So to understand all may require a great deal of dedication and study.
To understand the problems facing Aboriginal people one does not need to have a grasp of ‘culture’. One needs only to understand that basic human rights are the inalienable right of all people, and not something that is earned on point system for good behaviour.
At the time of Federation my people were specifically excluded from the census. Which meant we were NOT citizens of Australia and not protected by the Constitution.
It was thought that we were a dying race.
A great deal of my early years were spent near the township of Brewarrina in far west NSW. In the 1960′s it was an apartheid town. White lines were painted onto shop floors. White fella’s to the front were served first. Non-Aboriginal Australians cannot even conceive of this kind of discrimination in their own country. This is NOT a whine, it is just how it was, not that long ago.
We cannot right all the wrongs of the past 230 years in one or two generations. In the words of Archie Roach, “All we need is time, for the healing to begin”. Time, and understanding that bridges of trust need to be built.
If you have come to help me, I say go away. I can help myself. If your liberation is caught up in mine let’s talk. Do not make decisions for me that effect my life without consultation.
One need look no further than the story of Albert Namatjira to understand what being an Aboriginal meant in the last century. No matter how talented or successful one happened to be, laws prevented Aboriginal people from even owning a piece of the land of their Ancestors. Non-Aboriginal Australians cannot even conceive of such a notion.
Perry, I trust you have since done some independent research that will have determined that my comment regarding the latest initiative by the Government is many faceted and pertains more to rolling back Native Land titles, for financial gain and fulfilling international trade agreements, than any heartfelt need by John Howard to ‘help the children’. Why would ‘we’ want the land? You asked, I hope that issue in now more clear in your mind.
As to my opinion of Noel Pearson. I do not know him personally. Mr. Pearson, sometimes conveys the impression that he feels he is the ONLY reasonable voice for Aboriginal people, when some of what he says, in my opinion, is a load of old cobblers. However, I believe that Noel Pearson is a man dedicated to improving conditions for Aboriginal people. One can’t please all of the people all of the time.
If the Howard Govt had listened more closely to what Noel Pearson has said, he would have appreciated that the advances of the people on the Northern Peninsular are the result of many years in the planning and implementation. Support programs were put in place before drastic measures were taken to arrest the problems of drug and alcohol addiction. The fear of God was not put into people that caused women and children to run into the freezing desert.
Terje, thank you for the link concerning the Governments right to compel people to sell their land if it is deemed that it sits on mineral rich deposits. To my knowledge the Govt cannot force people off their land without compensation. This law however does NOT apply to Native Land title. The concept of selling land is foreign to Aboriginal people. Land is DIVINE, Land is sacred. Like our children it can’t be bought and sold. This is ONE aspect of our culture that non-Aboriginal people do need to grasp.
Aboriginal residents of Alice Springs town camps told the Northern Territory Govt to ‘bugger-off’ when they offered to pay $60 million in return for handing over control of their housing to the Government. This was the second time the Tangentyere Land Council refused to be bullied. Funds have been allocated to help improve conditions in the town camps and they should not be conditional upon the people handing over control to anyone. Mr. Mal Borough said that he was “deeply hurt’ by the decision. Well I say good for the Tanentyere people for standing their ground. It is outrageous that Aboriginal people are expected to hand over control to Governments in return for funding that has been allocated for distribution. Mal Borough tried to justify his attempts at blackmail the community by saying “you have no idea how difficult it is when you have witnessed the things that I have witnessed and the stories that I know about the fact that only a matter of a few weeks ago another woman was brutally murdered”. Women are being brutally raped and murdered right across this country, is anyone talking about taking control of the communities where this occurs?
When he couldn’t get his own way Mal Boroughs spat the dummy in spectacular style and took his bat and ball and went home. Saying that The $60 million will now go to another needy community. So much for caring about the plight of women.
There has been much discussion concerning Aboriginal children learning English. This is a great idea if kids are to leave communities and try and make their way in the ‘big smoke’. Not all want to do that. And why should they be required to do so? Why do Aboriginal children have to live what has been referred to as ‘normal’ lives? Which translated is live like non-Aboriginal Australians. I am all for the preservation of our culture, teach OUR languages to non-Aboriginal children, teach them OUR culture, so they develop some respect and understanding. Many progressive schools are doing that, but some things don’t change. Each year Australia celebrates Australia Day, I wonder how many Australians even know the name of the traditional land owners of what is now called the Sydney Port Jackson area? Very few as they were wiped out within three years of the invasion, and never included in the history taught in schools. Remember? Australia was Terra Nullius.
Many non-Aboriginal Australians have an irrational fear of Aboriginals advancing. They think we blame them for the sins of the past and want some kind of reparations. While I think that is absolutely appropriate for the survivors of the Stolen Generation, which was Australia’s Holocaust, I don’t want your money or your land. We are getting back all the land we can prove we occupied prior to the invasion. There have been vast improvements in the access to better education than there was when I was growing up. There is a long way to go, and all we want is a FAIR GO. We do not need your Government taking control of our lives. We have been there done that, and we all have the T-shirts. There is a long history of total incompetence and inaction concerning what is ‘good’ for our people. Only Aboriginal people KNOW what is good for them. We are neither stupid nor incapable of running our lives. We are needing to make adjustments from being persona non gratis, but we will get there, in time.
Australian Aboriginals were the PURE Libertarians we took care of ourselves for 48,000 years without the need of governments. Maybe we can teach the whitefellas a thing or two ***SMILES*** Kate.
Kate, I dont know where your getting your information about rapes and murders in white communities, but my family happens to be good friends with a high ranking police officer in our area, and your lucky if there is a murder every year in Tasmania, rapes…. maybe once every 6 months or so. It is not as common as you are making it sound.
And im sorry if this is offensive, but its the truth. My college english classes tried to do a course on a book called, “Wonderlands”. And the teacher went on about how great a story it was and how it represented the struggle between Aboriginals and white people, and not one person listened. I go to a quaker school, and not a single person could care about the story of Aboriginal land etc.
And having grown up in a capitalistic society, i honestly cant begin to understand where your coming from, and to me the Libertarian idea is capitalistic.
“Capitalism is creative destruction, a perpetual cycle of destroying the old, less efficient product or service or system, and replacing it with new, more efficient ones. Governments that allow the existance of capitalism, which tears down weaker and less efficient businesses, will survive and thrive. Governments that put up walls to protect the less efficient will fall behind.”- Dr Schumpeter
Terge, in response to your question “do you think all white people are tricky?” Let me say that I am a mixed blood Aboriginal, which means that although I am Aboriginal I have some white ancestry, which is Irish in origin. I identify with my Aboriginal heritage rather than the European, because I was raised by traditional women. I have met blackfellas I would not give you two bob for and others for whom I would lay down my life. Same with Non-Aboriginals I know. Blackfella, Whitefella, Yellafella. All that matters is that one is a Goodfella.
Kate – glad to know that you see goodfellas on all sides. And thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I like your suggestion that Australian Aboriginals were libertarians. I think that there is perhaps something in that. They certainly didn’t have central government on the scale we endure today, and even in tribal terms my understanding is that the decision making process was quite distributed.
What is your view of the welfare state? Do you view welfare a basic human right? What are the rights of taxpayers?
Perry, it is irrelevant whether or not you have a friend who is a high ranking police officer in Tasmania. The link below will give you the stats of reported rapes across 66 countries worldwide. Reported rapes in Australia were 15468 in 2006. That is 42 rapes EVERY DAY, or 1.75 EVERY HOUR! Do the math you will see that per capita of population Australia ranks 3rd highest in the world, behind South Africa and Seychelles. Does this surprise you? it does not surprise me in the least.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap-crime-rapes
As to your comment about students in your English class not caring enough to even listen to the stories of the struggles of Aboriginal people in Tasmania, I have to tell you that this does not surprise me either. After all why should a group of privileged kids, Quakers even, care about the genocide of the original caretakers of the land your school is built upon? After all that is history, who cares? Excuse me for saying so but that is breathtaking arrogance, and profound ignorance of which I would not be proud if I were you.
Perry please save me the platitudes from people like Dr.Schumpeter, who with some research appears to be a notable academic, writer and thinker, and a glowing example of the age old adage “Those who can DO, those who cant TEACH”
Colonialism, driven by CAPITALISM has been the scourge of this planet. MIGHT is NOT always RIGHT. When you can come up with a more efficient Boomerang than that which my people invented more than 10,000 years ago, let’s talk. When you can point me in the direction of more efficient fish farming than the Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps (Baiames Ngunnhu)that fed thousands of people in the area for centuries before the Chinese and Ancient Egyptians even walked the earth, you might convince me that getting rid of the old and replacing it with the new, or in this case trading traditional ways for whiteman’s capitalism, is the way to go.
Frankly, I am interested in HOW being a Quaker works with what seems to be your ‘worship ‘ of capitalist ideologies. Hardly in keeping with the ‘plainness’ and austerity associates with being a member of the ‘friendly’ society. Perhaps you may care to educate me on that issue.
Kate.
Capitalism may have funded colonialism and clothed it’s soldiers but capitalism is a system based on freedom. There is no “MIGHT makes RIGHT” within the philosophy of capitalism.
An analogy might be that a fishing rod may feed a warrior but fishing rods are not the reason we have wars.
Terje, I come from a culture that did not accumulate property or possessions. Land was not bought or sold, and if you needed to go anywhere, you went on Shanks Pony, in other words you walked. We had very structured laws and mores to maintain order and manage our resources. Poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and certainly child abuse was NOT part of our culture. Men did slap their women around, but that went both ways. There were many hen-pecked Aboriginal men, and my advice would be never to get into a fight with Aboriginal women, we fight like blokes.
With regard to welfare, I am pleased that I live in a country that has social welfare programs in place that help the less fortunate in our society. In my culture we did not need Centrelink. Everyone had a job to do. The men hunted and the women gathered, and everything was shared. NO ONE went hungry. But all of that was shattered with the arrival of the whitemen, who put up fences to stop the natural migration of traditional hunting grounds, and completely destroyed the traditional way of life for hundreds of tribes. Have you ever seen Norman Tindale’s Indigenous Map of Australia? It shows the territories of the 760 language groups that were said to have occupied this continent at the time of the invasion. But I digress. Welfare? Yes, I think welfare is a good thing as modern societies are no longer tribal in nature and have the every man for himself attitude.
I don’t believe that all men are created equal, some need a bit of a shoulder to lean on and not because they are lazy and don’t want to work. Some have unforeseen circumstances, accidents or ill health, that leave them unable to take care of themselves. In my culture there would have been no question that these people would have been taken care of by the wider community. In my culture the medicine man or woman, knew all the bush remedies to maintain good health and restore people to health as required. It was free, it came from the earth and the sea. Today we have Medicare, and I think Medicare is probably the most important program delivered to the citizens of Australia since Federation. The health of Australians is paramount to having a healthy society.
We have safe guards in place to discourage welfare cheats, the penalties are high and only the most greedy and foolish among us would take risks that could lead to a conviction and/or a goal term.
If you are really asking do I think that Aboriginal people ought to get welfare and not have to even look for work I have mixed feelings on that.
We have three distinct groups of Aboriginals. Those who have left traditional lands, those who were forcibly removed from traditional lands, those who have chosen to stay. All of these groups have one thing in common they all came from a society and culture which left alone could have continued to support all of them without anyone needing to put on a suit and ties and go to work. What bliss! So how does one deal with this is a modern world where greedy capitalist insist EVERYONE works, to pay taxes that feed their incompetent Governments? Good question and not one easily resolved.
Charlie Perkins referred to welfare as ‘sit down money’ and the curse of our people. One part of me agrees, and says giving people money for doing nothing kills incentive to do anything. Another part says that for over 70 years Aboriginal people as a collective were not entitled to any welfare payments at all. Not even the aged pension, which was available to all Non-Aboriginal people so if some wanted to get paid for sitting on their bum after years of struggling to survive below the poverty line, who could blame them.
I have never drawn a welfare cheque in my life, in fact by the time I had children I was a wealthy women, and quite proud of the fact that I did not need child support payments, and never applied. But I do not resent the fact that other women and men supporting children may need a little extra help.
People seem to have NO problem with the money our Governments squandering on Wars we have no business being in.
We have approximately 104,000 homeless people in Australia. A large number of which are families, and women and children fleeing domestic violence. The plight of these people would be even more grim if a percentage of our tax dollars did not got toward giving them some assistance.
Capitalism has screwed up the world. So I say that as a result of that the HAVES should help the HAVE NOTS, and shut the whining.
Terje, I could not disagree more that Capitalism represents freedom. Mortgages, credit cards, and the commercialism that drives Capitalism has enslaved people. Kate.
As an American who visited OZ in the 1980′s and saw the stocks of ‘DARKIE’ toothpaste on the store shelves (with a cartoon caricature Aboriginal with big lips on the box), I am not surprised that some in Austrailia have a problem with seeing Aboriginals as ‘equals’. Racial Predjudice is drummed into people almost from birth and is difficult to overcome – even by those who see the error of it.
I can imagine the outrage among the white citizens of any Austrailian Terroritory if THEIR children were required to submit their private parts to the inspection of an Aboriginal Doctor. How difficult is it to understand the outrage of parents told that they must comply with this outrageous order ?
Here in the US, as screwed up as we are, the concept of ‘Probable Cause’ is still in effect (for now, at least). A child can NOT be required to submit to that sort of inspection WITHOUT some fairly good reason to suspoect that such abuse is actually happening. To require that an entire population submit without cause or specific suspicion is appalling and (to me) appears to be most blatantly RACIST. Alcohol does not turn people into child molesters any more than a vow of celibacy(sp?) turns a priest into one. I cannot imagine that the percentage of child molesters among Aboriginals would be much different than that of any other race.
It seems pretty clear to me that all of Howards gyrations are only a sleight-of-hand trick to steal uranium-rich land from the rightful ‘owners’ of that land. The US government used (and still uses) similar techniques to deprive our own Aboriginals of their rights and property.
Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong and what Howard is doing is just plain Wrong. I ‘have no dog in this fight’ . . . but, until we all as Human Beings come to RESPECT each other as such these sorts of problems will continue to plague us all . . .
Kate, That was my point about my going to a Quaker school and nobody there careing in the slightest. I agree with you that it is very sad.
And while i go to a Quaker school, I am not a Quaker, they just run the best private school in Tasmania. It is quite interesting really how a group of people like that can still preach their values while charging 15k a year to attend their school. And there are only 2 real Quakers in the entire place, You just cant win.
And as for your comment on capitalism, Terje could give you a much better answer but in my opinion.
Right wing capitalism, and Libertarianism, is very much about self responsibility, You dont “have” to buy a product just because its marketed to you, It is wrong to sue Mcdonalds because they “made” you fat. You made the personal decision to engage/buy/whatever in their product, and it is upon the person to seek out any information that may be needed, failing that, they might be able to notice that they are gaining 40kg. Credit Cards, if used the right way are a good thing, It is not a good thing when you go out and spend money you dont have in any way shape or form.
As for mortgages, Well, There are many ways of buying property without actually spending money, but that gets into corporate law etc. The smaller idea would be to bring yourself to a position of savings / investment capital so that you can just buy a house outright for yourself.
And as for your graphs, I think it is a load of huuey.
I am not seeing an of the African countries anywhere near the top and i can guarantee you that there would be far more in any of those countries than the industrialised modern ones.
This graph speaks more about women’s ability to speak up about what has happened to them than anything else.
I would hate to think what the rape/murder rate would be if Rwanda had been included on that graph.
Or the Congo etc.
And you talk about Capitalism like we worship it. And i guess some people do, but is that any different from people worshipping god? God is just an idea, so is money. and Materialism gives alot of people meaning to their lives. I have to problem with that, In an age where worshipping god really wont get you anywhere, i agree with them.
Sorry, my point about the graph was that the estimated unreported rapes would be very interesting, Especially in muslim countries where women and generally killed to death for reporting a rape.
Kate,
You made a lot of relevant points. We do disagree on several things but I’m pleased to say we agree on an awful lot. I do have a problem with the Iraq war if that is the war you refer to. I think it was a waste of blood and treasure although more so for the Americans than us. I was never a supporter although I do believe that many supporters were well intentioned and hoped that in removing a brutal dictator they would make way for democracy. Of course good intentions are what paves the road to hell.
Capitalism is an emotive word and you appear to be using it in a very loose way. Perhaps I will avoid it for a moment and return to it later because I believe that we are probably working by different definitions.
Clearly we seem to agree on something called property rights. If you own property others should not arbitrarily take it from you. I agree that historically that is what happened in Australia to the Aboriginals although the experience and it’s interpretation was very much complicated by the huge cultural gap that existed in terms of notions of ownership. In New Zealand the natives appear to me to have coped better with European colonialism essentially because the Maoris had similar notions of owning and defending land as the Europeans. I can’t undo the legacy of history and I won’t carry guilt for what others did, however I think like all nations ours has a history that includes tragedies and injustices (not just for Aboriginals).
Do we agree that people own their bodies and their property? That they are entitled to use both without interference from others so long as they continue to respect the right of others to control their own bodies and their own property? And that government whilst granted the legal right to use violence against criminals or invaders in order to defend peoples most basic rights should not in turn be used as a proxy through which the majority plunders the property, person or labour of any peaceful person?
Or do we instead believe that the strong must control the weak. That the minority must yield up what they own to the majority. And if you have too much then I may use government to take some for me?
Regards,
Terje.
Kate,
A while back, I proposed the idea that the Commonwealth could initiate practical reconciliation by issuing compensation money for lands lost to an Aboriginal tribe, one tribe per year, a ‘buy-back’ scheme. This might take years, but it would do some good. How would you, and other Aborigines, feel about that?
And I also think that all Australians need a second language. English is becoming the world’s language, and Aboriginal languages across this land shown similarities which suggest either descent from a common parent tongue, or diffusion of good words across the land. This suggests that we could recreate an Australia-wide Aboriginal language, a second tongue for all Australians. Or we could create such a tongue.
Any thoughts on the subject?
Nicholas – your question was directed to Kate but let me just say I don’t think the compensation scheme you propose is practical. Who gets compensated for Tasmania? And must I also pay for the things my Viking ancestors stole in the 12th and 13th century? I agree with most aspects of native title but not with what you propose.
Terje, contrary to myth, some Tasmanians still claim ancestry from the original tribes. Those people could be compensated, if their claims are proved. (DNA from blood, etc.)
Also, there is something wrong with the Recent Comments column. I contributed some comments, but ‘refresh’ did nothing to the list. It’s not just ego, but there might be systemic failures elsewhere, as well.
Tasmanian aboriginies are white, doesnt mean that they dont support their heritage.
I am an Aboriginal Canadian. I have been reading these posts for quite some time. I appreciate the comments from people who seem to think they should have some say in how Aboriginal issues are dealt with.
There are so many parallels between the colonial history of Australia and Canada, many post-colonial theorists argue that there was a template the English used to steal land and resources wherever they went. It was methodical, cruel and racist, the project of colonialism.
Now people on this board seem to be of the view that many of the crimes committed against Indigenous peoples are in the past. This is far from the truth. My people are still suffering from the ills inflicted on us from the white invaders. I myself am a victim of the genocide that happened in Canada. I am in my thirties! I was taken from my people, the Inuit, by the Canadian government. An inquest into this practice resulted in a Canadian judge naming this practice of stealing children, now known as the “sixties scoop” as genocide.
This is just ONE of the policies used to destroy Natives in Canada.
Many other policies have left harmful scars that won’t be repaired in this generation or the next.
So when I see settlers talking about the “Native problem” it leaves me thinking that the only post-colonial practice that seeks to mend our people must come from within our cultures.
It would do both Canadians and Australians a world of good to give an ear to Aboriginal peoples, there is alot to be learned.
Thank you Kate for sharing your insight, I think it was badly needed on this site.
Perry, thank you I am pleased you clarified the point about the students at your school, and distance yourself from that kind of blatant bigotry. I would be pleased to know more about the stories the teacher was telling that she thought were interesting and what in particular did you gain from the lesson?
Perry the BIG pieces of machinery that drive capitalism are the banks and stock exchanges. It is all well and good to say don’t spend more than you earn, but credit cards have made it possible for people to live above their means and many do. That is a form of modern enslavement the bank owns you until you clear the debt. As for saving to buy a home, and paying cash. Repayments for a loan for even a modest home is stretched out over a 20 25 year period. Taking a mortgage to purchase rather than rent property makes sense, however, be that as it may it still enslaves the lender for the term of the debt.
I gave you a graph from a credible source that showed reported rapes in 66 countries. I was not trying to make the case that there were more or less rapes in other countries, in particular the Middle East or Africa. My sole point for giving you that information was to demonstrate that the number of reported rapes in Australia IS significant and spreads right across the spectrum of our secular society. Whether you like the facts or not is inconsequential.
Perry, we in the west are in no position of high moral ground when it comes to domestic violence and the number of women killed by husbands, lovers and total strangers. Let, the Muslim women take care of their own problems, they are quite capable of doing so. We have created enough death and destruction in their country right now, that we appear just a tad hypocritical to even suggest that we care about women being stoned to death.
With respect Perry it was you that provided the quote from Dr. Schumpter, which I presumed you put forward as the paradigm to which we should all aspire to, which is to embrace capitalism as the only way to go.
Perry like most non-indigenous people one talks to you seem to be almost totally uninformed about the issues that confront indigenous people today. With access to a computer there is little to no excuse I could afford to that except complacency and a disinterest in knowing the facts of a matter. I hope that some of the information I have provided in previous postings has enlightened you on some issues, and better yet encourages you to seek more information. Kate.
Dennis, thank you for your understanding and empathy for a situation that continues to prevail in my country. Aboriginal people have many fronts to fight in our struggle for respect. We do not seek to be like Non-Aboriginals we are proud of who we are and that we have survived, albeit in greatly reduced numbers. Our culture is alive and well in many parts of Australia. Our people are well represented right across the spectrum of high achievers, both academically, in the Arts, and of course in sport, where my people excel. We are having some problems, which are NOT part of our culture, that need addressing. But, they need addressing with appropriate action and programs. Trying to bully us and treat us like cattle is not going to work. We have had 200 years of that. Kate.
Just wondering, Has there been a successful intigration of indigenous people into a culture that took over anywhere in the world to date?
Terje, We do seem to be on the same page on a number of points. Firstly, let me say that as a woman who at one time was the c0-owner of a substantial company in Australia I do not decry Capitalism. I prefer it to everything being run by the State, ANY State. I am not a Communist or a Socialist. My traditional culture however is VERY close in structure to that of Socialism, but only in so far as EVERYTHING is shared among the community. If I have 2 shirts and you have none, I would give you one of my shirts, with no thought of payment in return.
With regard to your comment that other groups in Australia have suffered some for of discrimination. That is very true. I am a child of the 1950′s and I saw first hand the way new immigrants to this country were treated. And Chinese Australians who had been in this country since the Gold Rush were also excluded from the Constitution.
“There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one’s native land.” – Euripides 431 B.C.
Terje, as to each person having absolute control over their own body, I agree to the extent that providing a person is not recklessly endangering another, he/she can kill themselves if they like. I am pro-abortion for women who deem it necessary for the quality of their life and the potential life of the fetus.
I DO NOT agree that the strong should control the weak. I believe that there is a moral obligation in societies for the strong to HELP the less fortunate. We even have homeless dog shelters, and yet some people will resent providing housing for people who simply can’t provide it for themselves. Kate.
The fact that Aboriginals and Inuits were forcibly taken their homes, “stolen generations” is appalling and wrong. It shows how westerners or white people did not (and still don’t) understand some of the basics of what is right and wrong and also shows how we live in flawed societies. These incidents were major crimes and should have been or where applicable, be compensated for.
True capitalism (something that doesn’t currently exist anywhere in the world) does not involve force and is therefore not criminal. In fact it’s natural human behaviour stemming from our primate roots. If you watch primate animals, they operate on the “if I scratch your back, you will scratch mine principle”. They work in teams to find food etc. Capitalism is simply an extension of this. Free trade. Our society often doesn’t work by this principle. We are controlled, regulated and are not free to operate as we wish. We do not have full property rights and protections.
The libertarian ideal is that no one else is to blame for your existence and therefore you have to take responsibility for you and your family’s life. This is why libertarians are anti-welfare. They do not support a system that forces some people into paying for the well being of others simply because they happen to have been born. Luckily humans are naturally good willed and charitable. Again, this stems from our animal instincts. Look how big charities are even when the government takes over half of our money away through tax.
Nicholas, There is no such thing as a ‘common’ language among Aboriginals. Many language groups cannot speak to each other. The first Europeans to take down Aboriginal language were members of Cook’s party in 1770. Several members took down word lists from the Guugu Yimidhirr. Cook’s party saw a variety of large marsupials and elicited the name from the Guugu Yimidhirr ~ ‘ganurru’ which was recored as Kangaroo.
It has since been determined that ‘ganurru’ means “I don’t know”. There are many quite amusing stories about Aboriginal names taken into common use by the Whitefella’s but perhaps one of the most amusing is the naming of the Moomba Festival in Melbourne. When the Commanderks of Melbourne were asked to name the Festival. They said “MOOMBA, it means let’s get together and have fun”. It was adopted and used to this day. It actually means “Up your bum”.
Nicholas, Aboriginals no more need Australians to create a single common language for communication than the Europeans do. Could you imagine French speaking people adopting a separate language? Hardly likely. If you wish to communicate with non-English speaking French people you better get yourself along to Francias classes.
There are approximately 230 different Aboriginal language groups in Australia. Why should anyone of them learn another language? The only additional language that it would be advantageous to learn would be English, if they wish to leave their community and work in the larger towns or cities.
If you wish to be able to communicate with any particular language group then you would need to learn that specific language. There are many Aboriginal language courses being run in Universities around Australia. And to my knowledge there is NO commonality between any Aboriginal language and English.
Now to the Tasmanian Aboriginals. The attempt of the genocide of the Tasmanian Aboriginals was almost total, and Truganni was the last Full-Tribal woman to die according to history. However, there are approximately 16,000 Aboriginals living in Tasmania today spread over two communities the Lia Pootah and Palawa People. No amount of money can repay these people what was taken from then. You see Nicholas what whitemen DO NOT understand is that you cannot separate LAND and COUNTRY from Aboriginal CULTURE. To the whitefellas LAND is a COMMODITY. What’s done is done and the ONLY Aboriginals who are having land returned to them are those who can prove they occupied the land prior to the invasion. What annoys me is that MANY, in fact TOO many Non-Aboriginals even begrudge paying welfare to Aboriginals, they perceive us to be lazy drunks standing there with our hand out. Whitefellas cut the legs out from under many Aboriginal people and then complain because they need to walk with crutches.
In October 2006 a small group of Tasmanian Aboriginals who are survivors of the stolen generation we not only given an ‘apology’ from the Tasmanian Govt, they were given $5 million, to be shared among the group (125 people) to help rebuilt their shattered lives. Roughly $40,000 each, the price of a nice car, for years of institutionalized abuse and separation from home and the destruction of culture. However, it is MORE than another State of Federal Govt has done. Kate .
Mitsuk, if you changed ‘a template the English used’ to ‘a template all Europeans used’, you’d be spot-on. The Spanish, and the Portuguese, and the french, and the Dutch, all had similar policies.
And the places they disrupted were such paradises! Phillip Adams would have us believe that all was light and harmony amongst all Australian aboriginal tribes, that their spears and knives were for surgery, and that their shields were not used to fight in wars amongst themselves (because they didn’t have wars), but as umbrellas and sunshields. Things like the quaint practice of ‘pointing the bone’ were misunderstood, we know now it simply meant being fired! Everybody is more enlightened now, of course.
The above paragraph was not meant to be taken literally, but there seems to be a lot of exaggeration on both sides of this debate. My dictionary defines ‘genocide’ as the planned killing of a racial or national group. Even though those children were being taken away from their parants and culture, they weren’t being sterilised, nor were they killed. Perhaps a different term is needed. ‘Culticide’, the attempt to wipe out a culture?
Kate, I am sure that Aboriginals, like most tribal societies would have been very good at sharing. But this is very different to socialism. In a tribal society, you are not actually forced to share. Sure, if you didn’t, everyone would look down on you and think you’re an idiot, but you are not forced. Even if everybody in the tribe did tell you to give away your shirt, you could always get up and leave the tribe, join another, or start another or try to survive on your own.
It makes logical sense to share because one day you may need something yourself (when you get old for example). And it’s a good way to make friends. It makes you feel good. etc
Socialism is not like this. You do not get a choice on who you share with. Everything you own is the property of the government. If you do not give your possessions away to the government, you would be summoned to go to court. If you kept refusing, eventually you’d be thrown in jail. And you can never walk away.
Unlike a sharing system which encourages people to provide goods to share with. Socialism actually encourages people not to provide goods because these goods will be forcibly confiscated. The less you do, the more you get per amount of work. This is what I mean by our society encouraging irresponsibility.
I think that although these ideas are very simple, most people in our society don’t understand them. The government is very good at disguising their criminal acts and has been doing it for centuries. In fact they have even fooled themselves. Like Terje said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Perry: You said that Tasmanian Aboriginals are WHITE. Colour has NOTHING to do with being Aboriginal. And as it happens MANY Tasmanian Aboriginals are BROWN rather than white.
To the best of my knowledge there are no examples around the world where the invaders assimilated with the culture of the people they invaded. And if I may say so, for you to use the word ‘successful’ suggests that you think that for a country to roll over and completely adopt the culture of the invader would mean ‘success’. I feel the opposite. For a culture to survive the brutality of an invading force and retain their culture is a triumph. Kate.
Tim, with respect, in Aboriginal culture sharing what we have is so entrenched that it would not even occur to a person NOT to share what they have. This was how poor Albert Namatjira came to go to gaol. He was made an honorary Citizen of Australia in 1957, and as such he could buy alcohol. He was arrested ‘sharing’ a bottle of beer with a cousin, and was sent to goal for doing so. He died two years later a broken man.
It is admirable that you have so much regard and trust in modern societies to take care of each other, unfortunately, I don’t share that optimism. If this were the case we would NEVER see homeless people on the street. We have 104,000 homeless people, and MANY more millions that have a roof over their head. Kate.
Tim, as for someone in tribal life simply leaving his tribe and joining another, that would NOT have happened either. There were VERY strict laws about whom a person could even talk to. The freedom to just go wandering around and making camp where you liked on another tribes land did not happen.
Mitsuk, I am smiling at the use of the expression “post-colonial theorists” There most certainly is a parallel between the attempt of the genocide of your people and mine. And although you may never hear it from your Government I am sorry, that this cruel and callous world, for motives of greed, took you from the warmth of your natural mother, and from your heartland.
My people and yours have much wisdom to share with the non-Aboriginal people of our respective countries, but unfortunately the ignorance that we face is evidenced in many of the comments on this board. I know that these, presumably young people, mean well and are not meaning to give offense. I am also heartened by many of the voices that are asking ‘What can we do?’. As you know we cannot tell any person how to follow their own conscience. Very nice to hear from a sister in Canada. Kate.
Fair enough. But from the limited research I’ve done, I don’t think that’s how many nomadic people from other parts of the world operated.
Tim, I have NO evidence that any Govt at anytime had the BEST interests of the people at heart. The possible exception being the introduction of the universal health care program we call Medicare.
I have much evidence that successive Australian Governments had policies and laws that were NOT well intentioned. For Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal people alike. Kate.
Kate, my idea for a common language was based on the reality that many endings are similar. ‘-lu’, or ‘-ru’ is a subject marker, and ‘-na’ is a common object marker. the subject is usually the first noun in an English sentence, and the object is usually the first noun after the verb. It was not I who made this observation, but various people who have studied many Aboriginal languages.
I propose a new language because an Australia-wide language which is based on Aboriginal words would enhance all Aborigines (or so I believe). And because English is becoming the world’s language, so another language uniquely connected to Australia would be useful for all Australians.
Tim, Australian Aboriginals were NOT Nomadic. They did travel to other places for Corroborees, but they went back to traditional lands after the celebration. Kate.
Kate we see these homeless people with our current set up. Government intervention is the problem, we don’t need more of it. Libertarians are saying that if things were taken out of the hands of the government, there’d be less homeless people on the street.
Because resources would be more fairly and efficiently used and distributed, there’d be more to go around.
Because there’d be less people involved in useless bureacratic jobs, there’d be more people improving society.
One of the reasons for selfish behaviour is because we are all forced to compete for access to government looted tax money. It’s how our society is set up. But even so people are so willing to be charitable, they will still donate to charities even though they have over half of their money taken away. And they are prepared to be forced into donating to charity. (the government donates a lot of money to charity). The richest people in the world, donate the most moeny to charity. eg/ Bill Gates.
By nomadic, I meant hunter gatherer. Nomadic tribes don’t necessarily keep going in one direction for ever. They cover land depending on the seasons. And are not agricultural societies.
Nicholas, I appreciate that your intentions may be good and based on a desire to ‘enhance’ Aboriginals. But as I said there are about 230 Aboriginal languages that are uniquely connected to Australia that are being spoken across the country. I see no need for another ‘common’ language other then English. It would be very useful to Aboriginal communities where English is currently a second language to provide bi-lingual teachers to teach English to Higher School Certificate standard. Aboriginal people do not need a common language to validate or enhance them and I cannot see something of that kind having any useful purpose. Aboriginals that already speak their own language will continue to do so, which will mean in total Australia will have 232 languages. Kate.
Kate you cannot say Aboriginals never left tribes if there are about 230 different Aboriginal languages. At some point groups would have separated.
Tim this is where I come to a dead-end with the Libertarian ideology, when you said “The libertarian ideal is that no one else is to blame for your existence and therefore you have to take responsibility for you and your family’s life.” Tim, we have talked of Government policies that have resulted in whole communities and lives being fractured with disastrous consequences to the victims. We have heard from an Inuit woman, a victim of Canada’s Stolen Children. I have told you of the laws in this country that excluded Aboriginal people from basic human rights for opportunities to succeed that have only been repealed in relatively recent times. These realities have created POVERTY. How do Libertarians propose to deal with the people living in poverty? Take away the welfare nets and expect the good hearted people of Australian to take care of the less fortunate? NO thank you. Like I said, if that kind of charity prevailed in our society there would not be ONE child sleeping on the street tonight. Kate.
Kate,
Your shirt analogy does not really constitute socialism. If my neighbours asked me for a cup of sugar or to mind the kids whilst they run an urgent errand then I would (and frequently have). Commerce depends on people trading things but community is built by the giving of gifts. Government intervention in the way of tax and spend interferes with commerce and lessens the practical reasons for community. It is a double edged poison.
Even if Aboriginal society did involve coercion and was socialism it involved people that new eachother personally and could readily recount their shared history. Socialism can works reasonably well on the scale of family and tribal group. Once we start dealing with strangers capitalism is the best way to build a civilised and just society. However I would not wish to be in a society where trade completely replaced family and community at the local level. Not that I think capitalism is a threat.
In modern times people can walk away from small communal groups. They can’t walk away from big central government which is why the latter concerns me far more than the former.
Regards,
Terje.
Tim you were suggesting that if someone in tribal life did not like the way his tribe functioned he was free to leave and join another tribe. I say that was not practiced. Women left tribes to marry into other Tribes, because they were NOT allowed to marry into their own. That is a different matter. The mother taught HER language to her children, as well as the language of the tribe she married into. MANY Aboriginals are already bi-lingual because of this. There is a common misconception that there in A SINGLE Aboriginal language spoken by all and that is not the case.
Tejre, I have no idea how anything I have said leads you to think that I lean toward socialism, to the contrary. I did say that Aboriginal traditional way of life has some commonality with Socialism.
Kate,
1. Blaming free enterprise is just wrong. Colonialism was based as much on mercantilism as it was on free trade.
2. No you can’t choose into where you are born. But you would expect 40 years of citizenship to have helped nearly all Aboriginals. The reality is in the past 40 years, there has been economic disadvantage. Libertarians seek to remove Government imposed disadvantage. We accept there isn’t a quick fix and want to implement long term structural policies. The core of this is equal economic treatment.
3. As for land rights, they should be resolved as quickly as possible. A land grab is not the way to do it. Setting up a separate land rights court with a limitation (say five years) on initiating proceedings is a good idea.
Firstly, I object to the word genocide being used.
Rwanda, was a genocide, the Balkans, was a good example of a genocide, the gassing of Kurds in the north of Iraq, was a genocide.
“My people and yours have much wisdom to share with the non-Aboriginal people of our respective countries, but unfortunately the ignorance that we face is evidenced in many of the comments on this board.”
- Sorry, im not trying to cause offence, But this just reminds me of those arrogant 70′s ex druggies who think that they possess some kind of righteous holy guided wisdom.
Yes that is an excellent display of ignorance, But ive just ran into too many old people who talk like that. and never make any sense.
Not saying that you dont make sense Kate, Just using it as an elaboration of the kind of people i hear talking like that, in their mistic voice.
Kate,
I am not overly interested in labeling people however I have inferred to some extent that you lean towards socialism. I have inferred this because you state that capitalism is not about freedom which from my point of view seems totally incorrect. You refer to credit cards and morgages as enslaving people. You do appear to use some of the rhetoric of a socialist but I don’t know you well enought to really say with any confidence what your principles are.
Regards,
Terje.
p.s. The following is always fun: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
Kate
Like I said, if that kind of charity prevailed in our society there would not be ONE child sleeping on the street tonight. Kate.
Really? This is Noel Pearson’s take on the value of charity to his community in Cape York,
‘In particular, those members of the progressive middle class who are involved in the so-called helping industries contribute most to the misery of those whom they believe they are helping.’
Perry you can object ALL you like to the use of the word GENOCIDE to describe what has happened to Australian Aboriginals since the invasion of 1788.
The Eora people who were the original caretakers of the land around around Sydney were completely WIPED out with in the first three years. That was GENOCIDE. Before the invasion there were 750 language groups across this continent, at the end of the 21st Century there were 200 remaining and many of those in danger of extinction. That IS GENOCIDE. I am not going to chose nice tidy little words to appease any preference on your part not the face facts. In your State of Tasmania there was not an Aboriginal, of full blood left, after the death of Truganni in 1876. THAT WAS GENOCIDE. census.
Perry my usage of the world ‘ignorance’ to describe a lack of knowledge of many on this board concerning Aboriginal history, was not meant as an insult. The word ignorance was used in its literal context to describe one that is “lacking knowledge,” and does not infer any other meaning.
Perry I am a senior citizen no denying that, but I certainly do not feel like any wise old sage who shakes her head in bemusement of the young nipper. ***SMILES*** I hope to learn as much from listening to you as I hope I may send the other way.
Pommygrante: Yes really. I am not prone to say things I don’t mean. I do not speak for and on behalf of Noel Pearson and have nothing to comment on what he says.
Mark: as I said what do you propose to do with the poverty that has already been created? And I am not isolating this to Aboriginal communities. There are plenty of Non-Aboriginal people who find themselves in dire straits, through NO fault of their own. Life sometimes just deals people a bad hand.
Terje, I have no issue with Capitalism, and free enterprise, except to repeat it is the reason poverty exists, in my opinion. However, as flawed as it may be, and given that I can’t wind the clock back 230 years it is the better of all the ideological options on the table. However, I am vehemently opposed to the removal of welfare safety nets for people, because life is NOT a level playing field. At the risk of sounding a tad racist here white man’s culture does not have a history of charitable good will toward ALL men and women. Certainly there are charitable organizations that have made a life and death difference to many desperate people. But to think we can trust modern man, with his dog eat dog attitude, to take care of the less fortunate, I do not trust that they will. The Australian Aboriginals did not have any Govt looking out for us for 200 years, I did not see non-Aboriginal people in any force making the plight of Aboriginals more bearable. Where was the charity when my people were dying in the street, and infant mortality rates were many many times greater than Non-Aboriginal Australians?
Don’t worry Kate, even Adam Smith remarked
[businessmen]
“seldom meet together, even for merriment or diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices”.
Of course people choose to worry about those warnings of Adam Smith. People have a hard time accepting:
“The entire history of mankind, is, in any case, nothing but the prolonged fight to the death for the prizes of universal prestige and absolute power.”
Camus, the Rebel.
Capitalism is not a sufficient and necessary condition for freedom. It helps it a great deal but then the quest for freedom began long before Adam Smith.
Capitalism, socialism, words thrown about with reckless abandon. How come no-one talks about pragmatism?
In case you’re interested, various studies strongly indicate that racism is innate. There was even a study which found that when perceiving faces one of the first things we do is identify racial and ethnic characteristics. Of course all this is largely unconscious, which is why racism is so difficult to eradicate.
Actually white culture isn’t so bad on the racism front. There are other cultures far more racist.
Now these are inconvenient truths:
Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism.
199
In a highly competitive environment, peple weighed down by a concern for others are liable to do less well than those who are free of moral scruples. In this way, social values undergo what may be described as a process of adverse natural selection. The unscrupulous come out on top. This is one of hte most disturbing aspects of the global capitalist system.”
So how many CEOs have been jailed lately????
I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals… My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live… Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish (Dawkins, 1989, p. 2-3).
Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene (New ed.). Oxford; New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press.
That is, it is a fallacy to create ethics from science. Separate worlds but don’t tell the Spencerians that. Some people actually think that human beings are progressing towards some grand future. We are: extinction. It is almost inevitable. Oh and by the way, the underlying fundamental assumption of The Selfish Gene is now up for grabs. One protein one gene, natural selection acting on single genes (sometimes yes) but the emerging picture is so much more complex than that. Wait for it … it turns out that genetic replication may have a great deal to do with genes acting in unison. That is, selection pressure may act on the not just single genes but on sets of genes. This evolves into a combinatorial explosion which sort of makes funny all those claims that we can genetically engineer this and that and know what will happen. We can tinker at the edges, that’s about it. No attack on Dawkins here, the SG was written in 1976, when no-one knew better empirically but many geneticists knew in their souls that the existing model could not be right.
And for all those who think evolution is about survival of the fittest stop and think dumbos: the rise of multicellular life would have impossible if cells didn’t learn to co-operate.
Kate,
I can’t see how or why you regard capitalism as being the reason poverty exists. This seems like a most fanciful claim. Perhaps you can explain how you rationalise this outlook.
Genocide is generally defined as a deliberate act of extermination directed towards an ethnic or racial group. The Eora people were not wiped out because the British decided to deliberately kill them on mass. Primarily the Eora were killed by European diseases that the British brought with them and by the British changing the landscape? What happened was tragic but it does not seem at all accurate to use the word genocide.
Regards,
Terje.
And for all those who think evolution is about survival of the fittest stop and think dumbos: the rise of multicellular life would have impossible if cells didn’t learn to co-operate.
They didn’t learn anything, DS. They evolved to cooperate. That’s not what we’re talking about when we’re talking about conscious racism.
Terje, as I said there were 750 language groups before the invasion and 200 at the end of the 21st Century. You may call that what you like, we call it Genocide.
Well if it’s just a matter of personal preference you can call it Kermit or Harold or anything you like.
However if we use words according to the way they are defined I don’t think the term genocide applies. Using the word genocide to describe something that was not genocide is as reckless as describing the state of New Holland in 1788 as terra nullius.
I find it difficult to agree with any of the policies of Australian governments, state governments, before that the Colonial administrations and before that the British government, before that the English monarchs, before that the Anglo tribes and before that the neanderthal heavies that beat their competitors.
In recent history, my heritage is directly attributable to the policies of Nazi Germany. If Germany hadn’t invaded Holland, my Dutch grandfather would never have found himself in Fremantle fighting the Japanese for the Royal Dutch Navy and never met my grandmother. I condemn the actions of Germany, but my very existence is beholden to Hitler’s ambition. I, like you, am an exile by birth along one arm of my ancestory, in a foreign nation with foreign traditions and a foreign tongue. The persecution of my personal family history is so great that I have no idea how to properly pronounce my own surname nor speak the language of my ancestors.
Four generations ago, my great grandparents on my Dutch side were illiterate, peasant fisherpeople, who had their livelihood compromised by the Dutch government’s policy of land reclamation, throwing the fisheries into chaos and forcing them fisherman into going further out to find the fish that sustained them, a hazardous exercise that claimed many.
Fortunately, I don’t dwell on the past crimes commited against my ancestors and were lucky enough that my grandfather ended up in Australia where with hard work, some good fortune, my family and I have built successful lives, putting the past wrongs done to us by local and foreign governments behind us and look to the future.
One day I hope Aboriginal people will embrace the opportunities Australia and our open society provides each and every Australian regardless of their race, religion or creed, only limited by the resources available to them through accident of the birth, both inherited attributes and wealth.
The state who have commited these crimes against Aboriginal peoples in both its past and present incantations is not the source of Aboriginal salvation. To look to the state for solution, to take its ill gotten coin in the form of welfare, healthcare and education, makes you beholden to its whims. If Aboriginals turned their backs on the welfare state, the Australian government would be hardpressed to justify intervention.
Free yourselves, take responsibility for yourself, and you free yourself as much as possible from the evils of the state.
Brendan – be thankful it’s just your surname you have trouble with and not your first name.
Kate, I realise that ostracism from a community is a very rare event. It’s a powerful motivator to want to function in a group. And practise in sharing and trading in order to survive.
There were thousands of Aboriginal tribes in Australia and 230 different languages. They must have broken apart at some stages. Usually this would have been due to availability of resources but I’m speculating that if a crime or disagreement was severe enough, people could have been forced to leave tribes or run away from the tribe. I realise that leaving a community is an absolute last resort. So I apologize for not explaining myself clearer. But I still think this is a different system to socialism.
I also realise that Aboriginal people would automatically share things without thinking twice about it, I’m just trying to describe the society structure. Just like people vote in a democracy now without thinking about it. I’m trying to analyse the social structure because I think small hunter gatherer groups of humans around the world often lived in societies that were pretty close to libertarian type systems.
Kate,
I don’t understand how you can blame capitalism when imperialsim was a mix of capitalism, mercantilism, militarism and misguided racial supremacy and even misguided Christian charity.
Why do I think Aboriginals are worse off? Since Federation Aboriginals have had less economic rights than whites. Henry Reynolds suggests Aboriginals would have been better off if Australia never Federated and were simply subjects of the British Crown. There was no right to legislate for Aboriginals (or any race for that matter) until Federation.
Effectively, many have been locked out of capitalism, but then given a seperate unconditional welfare system with a layer of conditional welfare rights. This second layer is being grafted on to the rest of society now with the Baby Bonus etc.
Yes life does deal people a bad hand. There are two approaches to deal with poverty by charity, private philanthropy or welfare. Welfare is flawed because it is not based on amelioration of poverty, but socialist ideas like equality of incomes. There are also strucutral reasons for poverty. The fact is that many Government policies make Australians worse off. Past and current policies make Aboriginals more worse off generally than the rest of society.
Removing income taxes, regressive taxes like tariffs, conditional welfare and wage regulation will in the long run ameliorate poverty. As for remote Aboriginal communities, part of the solution is to grant transferrable, personal rights over land, along with actually settling outstanding claims.
Terje, I am presuming that you are an Australian, and therefore ought to be aware that although the history is not taught in mainstream education there were MANY MANY incidents where the white settlers went out on what was called “ABO” hunts. Here is a link that will show you the extent that Aboriginal people were hunted and killed, sometimes for nothing more than stealing chickens to feed their starving families after the white settlers has run them off their traditional lands.
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-massacres-of-indigenous-australians-1
Terje, PLEASE do not try to sanitise my history by being semantic.
There MOST definitely was genocide in this country regarding the Aboriginals, and it is an undeniable historical fact.
The Myall Massacre was mass murder and the genocide of a community, and by NO means an isolated incident. The attitude of the invaders, in the main was to enslave the Aborginals who were used, along with convicts, to build roads, and mine quarries, to build sandstone structures like the Parramatta and Maitland prisons. It is interesting that the first bulidings constructed in the new colony were prisons.
Dead Soul, the Democrat lover and major campaign contributor, George Soros has an incorrect version of morality. eg/ I’m sure he thinks such things as self sacrifice as moral virtues when they are usually not. Also, aren’t you and he are assuming that we live in a capitalist society. But this is obviously not the case when we have tarriffs, subsidies, laws that favour some businesses over others, political lobbying, mountains of business regulations, and many government services etc. If George Soros had his way this would increase. Easy for him to say when he’s already rich.
In addition your definition of selfishness is incorrect in my opinion. If we take selfishness to be “acting in one’s best interest”, then you would treat others with the utmost respect because it benefits you.
Without selfishness, there would be no voluntary cooperation.
The typical use of the word selfishness is more accurately expressed by the words arrogance and or ignorance, and self destructive behaviour.
DS,
Free enterprise relies on cooperation. Have you ever entered into a contract?
The competition is between who you have a choice in cooperating with.
HELLO!!!! Is there anyone here that is going to tell me how we are going to deal with the poverty that already exists? If welfare if removed from these people, especially the elderly and the sick, HOW are they to survive?
“Genocide is undeniable”…
In Tasmania I wholeheartedly agree. The Black Line etc. You don’t need to be wiped out to be a victim of genocide.
Events like Myall Creek were not systematic but widespread. I don’t know if there is a word to describe something like that.
That said, I would accpet genocide up to the early 20th century but not an invasion. There was a widespread if not systematic attempt to kill off Aboriginals or their culture. I don’t count the missions, stations and assimialtion, it was misguided and did not intend to destroy culture overtly. However, describing hundreds of thousands of individual settlements as one invasion doesn’t seem accurate.
Everyone probably has a different opinion on settlement/invasion and if there was a genocide.
What actually matters is that everyone agrees that i) Terra Nullius was wrong, legally and factually, ii) Aboriginals were mistreated on a widespread basis and organised murder was sporadic but recurrent, iii) State sanctioned genocide did exist, even if the widespread ill treatment did not amount to genocide, iv) the States control of Aboriginals was disasterous, even if well intentioned.
Where libertarians probably differ is in that Aboriginals were probably better if we never Federated and that since 1967, there has been a degree of economic disadvantage as Aboriginals have been locked out of market participation.
Kate,
There are many ways in which poverty can be dealt with. First of all, I said that welfare should be unconditional, and all conditional welfare is bad (because it leads to perverse incentives).
Anyway, poverty has more than one cause. Entrenched, generational poverty needs something significant to change it, generally cultural change. An increase in permament income is another factor.
So there are four ways:
1. Make welfare unconditional and remove poverty traps, in addition to removing labour market restrictions.
2. Gifting of shares in public corporations and cash for publicly owned land and non corporatisable business assets. 2. is potentially a way to end any need for welfare.
3. Remove conditional welfare. Conditional welfare can be tied to a whole community and may have the result of subsidising remoteness that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
4. Cut personal tax rates so more can be given to charity. The evidence on this is quite convincing.
terje, I only have to look back 230 years and look at my country today to see how capitalism has created poverty. Before the settlers came to this country with an attitude of LAND and PROPERTY ownership, poverty, unemployment, and homelessness did not exist.
In my mind it is a “fanciful” notion to think that we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. We have to deal with WHAT IS. The world is a great big complex mess of globalised capitalism, gone mad. As for Governments ever fixing problems, I agree that Governments create problems.
The first British Government of colonial Australia did not have the good sense to realise that all the food the colony needed to survive was all around them. The Aboriginals were so fit and healthy the place known as Manly got its name from the observation of the stature of the Aboriginal men who met Arthur Philip on the beach. Instead of ‘co-operating’ with the blackfellas and finding out HOW they maintained such fitness and brimming good health. The white invaders dropped like flies with scurry and were on the verge of starvation, because they were too arrogant to see the Aboriginal people as HUMAN, and never imagined that food that my ancestors ate would also be suitable for their consumption.
Philip’s officers wanted large parcels of land but considered it beneath them to ‘farm’ the land. Before he left England Philip said “In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves,” Well that kind of buggered the soft handed young naval officers. As a result scurvy broke out, and in October 1788 Phillip had to send Sirius to Cape Town for supplies, and strict rationing was introduced, with thefts of food punished by hanging. Such was the level of incompetence of the FIRST Government in this country and it has continued to go down hill ever since. Today we have MORE enslaved people than Philip could ever have imagined possible.
I dont know where you get this notion of there being no slaves in Australia.
The place was intended as a penal colony.
Mark, I read this “There are many ways in which poverty can be dealt with. First of all, I said that welfare should be unconditional, and all conditional welfare is bad (because it leads to perverse incentives).” And thought I had found a Soulmate. ***SMILES*** Then I got the the part where you said “4. Cut personal tax rates so more can be given to charity. The evidence on this is quite convincing.” and I thought maybe not.
The only condition that ought to be placed on a person receiving welfare is proof that it is needed. To the best of my knowledge Centrelink does not hand out welfare to people who do not fit the criteria of the numerous assistance programs that are available. I say keep that safety net there for those who need it, and many do. Life can be a bitch.
Mark I am at a loss as to where you live to have formed a the belief that if people get tax cuts they will donate more to charity. This is similar to the propositions coming from President Bush these days, when he says that giving tax cuts to the poor will enable them to buy health insurance. They won’t. They will use the extra income to feed their kids.
I am glad that I live in a country that has a universal health care program with the option for people to take private health insurance if they chose to do so. This is one good thing that a (Labour) Government delivered to this country and it has made a huge difference to the health of our people as a whole.
Australians are big hearted charitable people when called upon to help others. The donation from Australia to the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami demonstrated this, as did the more recent devastation caused by Cyclone Kevin in Queensland. When Aussies are in strife, other Aussies get out and help them to put out fires and get to high ground during the floods. Then after the fires have been extinguished and the flood waters have subsided people go back to their lives and the poverty spread across the country continues as before. Is this because people expect Government to take care of the needy? That it is not their job to do so, after all that is why they pay taxes. Or is it because they are all flat out taking care of their own, and working two jobs to keep a roof over their head? I suspect that it is the latter.
Perry, if you read my comments again you will see that the notion of NO SLAVES was not mine, but rather a quote from Arthur Philip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Phillip
Nicholas, I am sure it Mitsuk from Canada reads your comment No 90.) “Even though those children were being taken away from their parants and culture, they weren’t being sterilised, nor were they killed. Perhaps a different term is needed. ‘Culticide’, the attempt to wipe out a culture?” I am sure she will come back to you and be prepared for a very sharp tongue lashing.
As an Aboriginal Australian I am reasonably well informed regarding injustices to other Aboriginal people around the world. There is a kind of camaraderie that comes from a shared history. Perhaps before Mitsuk spots your remarks you may like to view this video, which is both heartbreaking and informative.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&q=unrepentant
Kate – I certainly agree that there were masacres and “ABO” hunts. I just question the extent to which this was a systematic policy as opposed to frontier lawlessness and opportunism. However I don’t seek to deny that the outcome for aboriginines was tragic. I don’t have any historical agenda.
And just for the record I am an Australian. However my parents were immigrants.
Kate,
The more well off give more when income tax rates are lower, and this is shown across very long time periods in Australia and America. Philanthropy rates are expected to increase as income rises, but before the imposition of US income taxes, even with lower real wages, the proportion given in the US was higher than it is now, strongly suggesting high personal taxation creates less opportunity and incentive to give. The evidence is quite persuasive.
If poor people across the nation (urban, rural or isolated communities) have more money on food or whatever they need, is that bad anyway?
As for Medicare – it isn’t genuine health insurance. It is a loss subsidising scheme. If that is your goal, this should be dealt directly through the welfare system or a voucher type scheme. This isn’t ideological but application of some high handed theory (Arrow Debreu theorem). More interestingly, the price for something comparable to top cover in Australia, health insurance in the US is comparable to what someone pays for US Medicare through FICA taxes.
Instead of asking how are we going to deal with poverty that exists? (and assuming welfare is helpful) We should ask, does welfare solve the problem of the poverty that exists?
Since we are currently all forced to pay taxes for welfare, does it work?
My parents were forced out of their country (Zimbabwe) with nothing. But they never took welfare. I have a friend who arrived here on a boat (as a refugee) from Vietnam after the government stole his family’s factory. But his family never took welfare.
I disagree with rewarding need. Rewarding need encourages people to be needy like seen in communist countries where productivity always drops. Why get a job and get taxed if you earn the same amount not having a job.
Dependence on welfare often locks people into a viscous cycle which they and their children seem doomed to repeat indefinitely. Welfare errodes your self respect and pride, and usually results in resentment of yourself and therefore others. Welfare effectively ensures we continue poverty instead of solving it.
Welfare is at best a band-aid temperorary solution. But some people live on it for their whole lives. Millions of people in Australia are on welfare (many university students for example). How does someone going to uni deserve welfare?
When I finished uni, I never accepted welfare. I worked three basic labour type jobs until I found a more suitable job. I picked up golf balls, did stocktaking and picked fruit. And even though it’s not much of a big deal, I’m still proud of this. However I have some friends that went straight on welfare and are still on it now years later.
Do Aboriginals in Arnhem land or other communities have enough land to live traditionally? Aboriginals used to live off the land without money. If that’s what many of them want to do, are they able to do so? Do you think Aboriginals living traditionally need welfare?
Kate, re “Little children are sacred”
What do you think should be done about abuse of children? And about the violence in the towns in general?
And how about an intra-tribal Treaty? The tribes did not live in harmony before we arrived , but were constantly fighting amongst themselves, and trying to wipe out other tribes. My source for this is “The red Chief”, by Ion L. Idriess, who was told about an earlier tribal hero, still remembered amongst local tribesmen, who had stopped his own tribe from being wiped out by their enemies. Maybe the tribes could say sorry to each other first, and formally conclude peace amongst themselves first, and set an example for us to follow.
Nicholas, re your comment No 90. It is doubtful from the way you speak that you have even a basic understanding of how Aboriginal life was structured prior to the invasion. You imagine that we were ‘savages’ running around killing each other with spears and knives. Certainly, people did have disputes and killed each other, however, the disputes were NOT over land and possessions. One could be speared for disrespecting another tribes land and mores, and if a man raped ANY woman it was a DEATH SENTENCE carried out immediately. Sexual abuse of children was unheard and if it had occurred the death of the perpetrator and perhaps the whole of his family, as it would have been deemed that anyone committing such an unspeakable act would have to have come from ‘poisoned blood’
There was nothing quaint about the practice of ‘pointing the bone’ the victim often died. I cannot even begin to comprehend where you go the information that ‘pointing the bone’ was to ‘fire’ someone. Fire someone in what capacity, from a job? Please explain.
Kate, in Australian society, to be boned is to be fired. It is a colloquial expression, meaning that your career dies. NonAborigines don’t believe that pointing the bone can kill people; if it did, you’d still have all of Australia, and everyone would know that sorcery actually worked.
Terje, the massacres of Aboriginals and other causes such as sickness and starvation, after the theft of traditional land, all contributed to the loss of approximately 500 tribes. Was it deliberate? Was this the intention of Governments? There is MUCH evidence to show that successive Governments of Australia going back to the Colonial ruled Governments and coming forward, completely disregarded the basic human rights of Aboriginal people. Although the massacres were horrific, what occurred after Federation was no better. As I have said and it is common knowledge now Aboriginals were not even considered worth counting in the Census until after the Referendum of 1967.
From the late 1800′s Australia had a WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY, how did they expect to implement such a policy and encourage the survival of Aboriginal people? Assimilation POLICES intended to BREED out the blackfella were put into effect. The MOST devastating, and a crime against humanity that ONLY one state (Tasmania) in Australia has owned up to, was the LAW that allowed for the removal of Aborginal children. If you have not read the Bringing them Home Report, I commend it to you and here is a link from Trinity College for your convenience.
http://www.trinity.wa.edu.au/plduffyrc/indig/stolen.htm
Nicholas, this is what you said 90.) “Things like the quaint practice of ‘pointing the bone’ were misunderstood, we know now it simply meant being fired! Everybody is more enlightened now, of course.”
There is NO misunderstanding among my people about what ‘pointing the bone’ means, or its effectiveness and it had NOTHING to do with being fired. Or are you being facetious? and I am missing your sense of humour?
There are some other ‘quaint’ colloquialisms concerning ‘boning’ that also have nothing to do with the Aboriginal culture. ***SMILES***
Nicholas: Your comment 140.) “Little children are sacred”
What do you think should be done about abuse of children? And about the violence in the towns in general?
And how about an intra-tribal Treaty?
Nicholas this seems to be a presumption on your part that child abuse is ‘cultural’ it is not. Child abuse is a learned behaviour, the same with other forms of violence and it spread right across Australian society. If we are serious about stopping child abuse let’s talk about programs that will protect ALL children.
I am not an expert in the field of Child Protection, but I don’t think one has to be to accept that the first thing that has to happen is that the child MUST have someone they can trust to talk about the problem. Very often another family remember even a MOTHER is not the right person to speak with. I have had a lot of experience growing up where I witnessed a great deal of domestic violence and child sexual abuse. Not in Aboriginal communities but in the White neighborhoods of the girls I went to school with. I grew up without a father around but, there were many other males, uncles, brothers all of whom were very protective of me. And as a teenager too protective for my liking. But I was better placed than MOST of my Non-Aboriginal friends, whose fathers were drunken abusers. The mothers of these girls MUST have known what was happening and did not report the abuse to police. WHY? For the same reason that the Christian churches swept their incidents of child sex abuse under the rug. They did not want the SHAME that comes with exposing such a wicked crime.
So how do we protect children? Bring in the military and ban alcohol for six months? That is what our current Govt thought would work. As I said I am not an expert in this field, and because of that I would consult the people who are. That is the FIRST thing John Howard ought have done. He had the Little Children are Sacred Report and all of the recommendations contained in that report. I have read the report and there is no recommendation to bring in the Military, place a blanket ban on alcohol, with no support programs in place. And medically test ALL Aboriginal children for sexual abuse. That latter being a blatantly racist approach.
Even without expertise in this field, I can tell you that the FIRST thing I would have proposed is to remove the KNOWN offenders, and believe me the community would KNOW who they were without sticking their fingers into the private parts of children. Next I would have provided shelters and counselors to whom children and battered wives could run for help. I would have introduced drug and alcohol rehab programs for those in need. I would have conferred with Elders of the community, if I were specifically dealing with Aboriginal communities, to set up a program where people who were drunks and drug users who refused to undergo treatment, did have their welfare payments garnished to make sure that there was money available to feed their families. I would have encouraged the Elders to follow the example of other Aboriginal communities and BAN alcohol. With heavy fines imposed on people who violated that prohibition. As did a policeman in the Cape last week who was caught having grog delivered to the general store in a ‘dry community’. He said it went to the wrong address. Postal services don’t usually deliver parcels to the wrong address, they take them to the address shown on the parcel.
To effectively deal with child abuse, in my opinion one must is first remove the abuser. Not punish the child. Provide a SAFE place for the mother and child to go to. Not scare the crap out of them, making them flee into the freezing cold desert as the Howard Govt has just done to the Mutitjulu people.
Kate, I watch ‘The Chaser’, and they often use the term ‘boning’ to mean ‘being fired’. I have to assume that we have different styles of humour. I said that paragraph was not to be taken literally, and that was not a joke.
Some people don’t get my humour. I am a new breed of comedian- a sit-down comedian. As soon as I stand up to tell a joke, everyone tells me to sit down.
In fact, Kate, I have an Aboriginal name. I once showed my magical tricks to some aborigines in Redfern, and they spontaneously called out, “Wattaninny! Wattaninny!!” That must be Aboriginal for ‘Great Act’! It’s a name I’ll always treasure.
Kate and Nicholas:
I would like to take you to the UN Convention on Genocide. Most people do not understand what constitutes genocide.
This is a direct quote from the UNHCR website:
“Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”
As you can see, genocide just does not include physical violence. It includes practices that seek to destroy cultures such as the removal of children and placing them in a culture foreign to them, if it is meant to change who they are.
This is what happened to me. I would also like to refer you all to a Repatriation Report by Native Child and Family Services of Toronto. In this report, the authors researched repatriation of Indigenous children both in Canada and Australia. It is lengthy but an educational read.
http://www.nativechild.org/uploads/Repatriation_Report.pdf
There seems to be alot of misinformation and ignorance surrounding the mistreatment of Natives.
In Article 2 of the UN Convention on Genocide, those practices were all used on Natives in Canada. So, it is my goal to have this term to be used in Canada, Genocide or Holocaust to describe what was done to my people. I am in my 30s but I will NEVER heal, I will NEVER be the person I was born to be.
Thanks for this discussion and the opportunity to share information. Well done KATE!
Mitsuk, THANK YOU! As you know both your people and mine can tick all of the boxes on what constitutes genocide according the Article 42, from the UN Convention on Genocide.
Mitsuk I agree somethings simply CANNOT be healed, the best we can do is make sure they are not repeated. Until our respective countries come to a place where they acknowledge the wrongs of the past, and deal humanely with the consquences of our history, we will never see improvement or reconciliation. Saying ‘sorry’ is NOT enough, as at this stage we can’t even get that. Instead we get people who want to argue semantics against the facts.
My Government almost wound the clock back 50 years with its recent jackboot initiatives that have done a great deal of harm.
Nicholas. HAHAHAHA…When a Aboriginal says “Ga daiy Gubb” you may have a problem. Ga daiy = penis and Gubb (Gabba) is whitefella. Derived from a time when Aboriginals reported to the Governor, or gubbanor.
Kate,
Lets propose this, a reform that will give Aboriginals ownership of their land and the potential to earn income from it to sustain themselves. I realise that land ownership is not part of Aboriginal tradition, but the paradigm has shifted, and it must be accomodated. People have done this for ever and their is nothing to suggest that Aboriginals cannot do so as well. You might not like it, but poverty and indignity is all that rewards stuborbness.
The reform I am suggesting is to convert Native Title as it exists into Freehold Title and modify Freehold Title to include ownership of mineral rights to your land. For Aboriginals that have no traditional attachment to land due to displacement or past wrongs, crown land unclaimed by other Aboriginal tribes could be substituted.
From this land, you may earn income, either through exploitation yourself or by leasing the land to others, say miners or pastoralists. You may even put your own caveats on the leases, demanding Aboriginal employment, continued access to sacred sites, improved infrastructure, schooling. Mining companies bend over backwards to accomodate state and federal government “owners”, there is no reason to believe that they would not also bend over backwards to accomodate Aboriginal owners.
The income earnt from such activities could either be individualised by the issuing of shares to individual Aboriginals, or collectivised as in a charity that provides income and social services to Aboriginal communities. Such a charity could make your own policies regarding Aboriginals that seek to live traditionally or those that seek to integrate. Free grants or income dependent loans could be given to Aboriginals to fund education, housing or infrastructure improvements. The important idea is that you would control your land and be responsible for your own welfare.
I like the shares idea personally. Give individuals as much responsibility for themselves. Let them decide how they want to live. It has worked for other peoples in other places and times, it can work for Aboriginals.
If you don’t like the idea of exploiting the land to earn an income, let me suggest to you that in accepting welfare from the state you are endorsing the coercive exploitation of others people. Not faceless corporations, but flesh and blood people. The welfare cheques Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals cash are paid for out of the hard labour of others. Individuals who earn an income are having part of that income confiscated to pay for the welfare that those with little of no income accept.
You may even feel that this exploitation is justice, justice for 230 years of occupation. But who is paying? The government officials that turned a blind eye to the excesses of colonial settlers? The clergymen who thought that it would be a good idea to bring Christ to the bush? The 18th century adventurers who explored Australia for European monarchs? No. People who are in Australia through the accident of their birth or through the design of immigration. The justice that is being sort is not from the perpetrators but from their ancestors and others completely unrelated to them.
Aboriginals can even continue to live in collectives if that is w
Terje;
This post has gone well, congratulations.
‘Abo Hunting’
My Great Grandfather spent a great deal of time with the Aboriginees as a child and remembered such parties, he was asked by them on occasions which direction the ‘darkies’ were in,and took great pride in misdirecting them.
Kate;
“To understand the problems facing Aboriginal people one does not need to have a grasp of ‘culture’. One needs only to understand that basic human rights are the inalienable right of all people, and not something that is earned on point system for good behaviour.”
Of course you are right, I shouldn’t need reminding of that.
Oop, should have deleted that last line.
Kate:
There has been some goodwill built up between the Canadian government and Natives. But that is very fragile. There was an organization set up in Canada by the Federal Government recently to address the over 900 outstanding land claims by Natives. For those who do not know, these are claims to have lands returned to Natives illegally taken by Canada.
On June 29th, there was a National Day of Action by Natives to protest these issues and others that need addressing. Colonialism is/ was a nasty project in racism. I have seen comments that it was about trade on this discussion board. I beg to differ, and in fact, most post-colonial theorists like Ania Loomba, Aime Cesaire and others would agree with me. They argue that it was wholesale robbery, racism and oppression. Raw materials would leave the colonies and the finished made product would return to be sold to the Natives, with all profits being funnelled back to the European colonial power! How dare anyone even suggest that colonialism in anyway benefited ANY NATIVE ANYWHERE!!
In fact, colonialism gave rise to capitalism internationally. Europe would not have industrialized but for colonialism! Another important note to ponder for those settlers of these colonies, Europeans colonized 85% of the world and changed the face of it forever.
Those of us who have lived under colonialism need to have our voices heard. Academics in post-structuralism are revisiting history and giving Indigenous peoples a voice, it is long overdue.
I would hope that some on this board will do some research and read some of the aforementioned authors.
I would also like to refer people to this site which highlights the crimes against Natives through the residential school system in Canada. Natives were not allowed to not send their children to these church-run schools where our children were abused mentally, physically and sexually.
This is also a practice in genocide as outlined in UN Convention’s article 2.
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-692/disasters_tragedies/residential_schools/
Mitsuk,
The vast majority of trade was between European and former North American colonies. Trade between the rich nations and themselves benefited all and assisted in the industrialisation of Europe and America. India may have been the gem in the crown of British Imperialism, but its overall importance to the industrialisation of Britain is much less important than Britain’s trade with France and Germany. To claim that without colonialism and imperialism, industrialisation would never have happened is nonsense. Consider Spain and Portugal, they went from the most powerful of colonial powers to being the basketcases of Europe. Imperialism didn’t do their long term wealth any good. In a lot of ways the peasants of Brazil were as well off as the peasants of Portugal, right up to the 20th century.
There is no doubt that colonialism had both negative AND positive effects on the peoples of the colonised lands. Industrialised processes in Britain did cause unemployment amongst weavers in India, but India did inherit the best rail network in Asia and a liberal democratic tradition that will see India eventually overtake China as the most important economy in the world (in the long term).
“There has been some goodwill built up between the Canadian government and Natives. But that is very fragile. There was an organization set up in Canada by the Federal Government recently to address the over 900 outstanding land claims by Natives. For those who do not know, these are claims to have lands returned to Natives illegally taken by Canada.”
That’s what we should do here, settle things ASAP. Uncertainty scares the crap out of pastoralists and miners, and deprives some Aboriginals of an income.
I think a separate Federal Court should be created with a limitation on time to lodge claims.
BRENDAN:
This is your quote: “The vast majority of trade was between European and former North American colonies. Trade between the rich nations and themselves benefited all and assisted in the industrialisation of Europe and America. India may have been the gem in the crown of British Imperialism, but its overall importance to the industrialisation of Britain is much less important than Britain’s trade with France and Germany. To claim that without colonialism and imperialism, industrialisation would never have happened is nonsense.”
The former North American colonies? North America is still occupied, that is how us Indigenous peoples see it! To describe the pillaging of Native lands as TRADE is ludicrous. What are you talking about INDIA for, as if somehow INDIA was the only nation that Europeans invaded and robbed lol. As I said before, Europeans invaded and colonized 85% of the world. I am correct in my assertion that Europe WOULD NOT have industrialized BUT FOR colonialism and the raping of Indigenous lands all over.
I have studied this issue at length. I suggest you pick up the book Colonlialism/ Post Colonialism by Ania Loomba, that is a good start so that you scrape the surface on this topic lol.
Mark:
This is your quote “I think a separate Federal Court should be created with a limitation on time to lodge claims.” WHY?
In Canada, some of our land claims filed by Natives are hundreds of years old lol. If we had kept going at the same rate the Federal Government was going at settling these claims, we would be waiting another 300 years.
The problem isn’t with Natives filing them, it is with the Federal Government’s response and inability to deal with the claims. They are stalling, because they don’t want to settle the claims.
I don’t understand why you would want some kind of time limit on land claims.
Kate – if you get a chance I’d be interested in any comments you may have in regards to the LDP welfare policy:-
http://ldp.org.au/federal/policies/welfare.html
Mitsuk, India was merely an example. I could also point out that Singapore has a higher living standard than nearby Thailand, or Hong Kong compared to mainland China. In the Americas pre-European contact, indigineous peoples fought and displaced each other, Aztecs, Incans colonised lands around them, supplanting local hierarchies. Displacement of peoples by expanding civilisations has been a feature of human history everywhere. Identifying European expansion as being special if only because of its scope is appealing to victimhood, a dead-end route IMHO.
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes is an excellent expose on why colonialisation was not key to the industrialisation of Britain. Simply pointed out that Germany got into the colonial game very late and at a point in time when they were already surpassing Britain industrially and the failures of colonial powers like Portugal and Spain to industrialise are prime examples of the failure to demonstrate a link between colonialism and industrialisation. Just because Britain’s empire and its industrial revolution were coincident is not proof enough. Tennis balls are round and they can be yellow, but all yellow things are not round and nor are they tennis balls.
The United States ceased being a colony when they declared their independence. But that is besides the point, trade with the Americas was still minor when Adam Smith wrote of the benefits of specialisation in the pin making industry in 1776.
Colonialisms benefits went to a very select few, men with connections, men with ambition and a sense of adventure. The initial trade was very significant for those individuals and their families, but less so for the greater peoples in the lands they originated. To blame common people and their descendents (and make them pay) for the colonial policies of the nobility, the rulers, the adventurers, the Church, is a very harsh and in my opinion unfair assessment of colonialism. Your ancestors and yourself may have suffered at the hands of government policy, but is it not the government who is the wrongdoer, not the people who only descended from those who name the government did its work in?
“I don’t understand why you would want some kind of time limit on land claims.”
Because undecided title causes a net loss for society. Aboriginals cannot use the land, nor can anyone else.
Note bureaucratic *incompetence* (or more cynically, malice), judicial findings are binding and are based on the legality of claims, not their political viability. Hence why I would want a federal court second only to the High Court (so parallel to the rest of the Federal Court system) to deal with the claims.
Brendan your comments 151.) With respect, you really are a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ regarding Aboriginal Affairs, my I suggest you let your fingers do the walking and go to your Google search engine, and look up Native Land Title, Indigenous Land Fund or any number of sites that will inform you about what is happening concerning Aboriginal Affairs. You comments made me chuckle somewhat. I thought “here we go, another non-Aboriginal person who thinks he has found to Rosetta Stone to working with Aboriginals.” Brendan as I said in earlier posting WE DONT NEED YOU TO RESCUE US, we are quite capable of taking care of ourselves and for the main part do a pretty good job. We do have communities in crisis, but a small number compared the the greater number who are managing their affairs ON THEIR land very well. Perhaps you could Google, the Wonnarua Nation, you will see that Rio Tinto pays the Wonnarua rent. It is all under control Brendan, it is a long time since my people walked this land naked and free. Many of us have educations now and do not need people who don’t have the first CLUE about our culture telling us how we ought to do things.
Brendan, Just one more thing, you talk as if you think that ALL Aboriginal people are living on welfare, and have some resentment that your hard earned dollars are making a contribution toward that. Let me presume that you currently own a property that you paid $500,000 a modest amount if you live in Sydney. If you lived on Sydney you’d have paid in the order of $5 million as an entry figure. Are you with me Brendan, that is the value of MODEST land values in Sydney NSW. The Eora people received NOTHING for the land that was stolen, and now you are sniffling because some blackfellas might get a trifling welfare cheque of what? $300.00 per week?
Well how about YOU hand back the land that was stolen, and we’ll all be happy? How about that for a proposition?
Terje, here is a posting from Brendan Halfweeg No.150
“If you don’t like the idea of exploiting the land to earn an income, let me suggest to you that in accepting welfare from the state you are endorsing the coercive exploitation of others people. Not faceless corporations, but flesh and blood people. The welfare cheques Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals cash are paid for out of the hard labour of others. Individuals who earn an income are having part of that income confiscated to pay for the welfare that those with little of no income accept.”
This supports my assertion that we cannot rely on the charity and goodwill of fellow Australians to take care of the less fortunate.
Brendan, I have just gone back and revisited some of your previous posting that I had previously glossed over as I was involved in discussions with other people on the board. But I have to say you really are a CLOWN, and if Aboriginal people around the world were not still suffering the effects of Colonial/Imperialism one might even laugh at some of your conjectures, which have no basis in reality. Please enlighten about the BENEFITS to my people derived from the Colonial invasion, start at 1788 and come forward, I am patient, I will wait for the list.
“WE DONT NEED YOU TO RESCUE US”
Believe me, you agree with us on more than you disagree with us on.
Essentially we want rule of law and to remove statute imposed economic disadvantage.
“Please enlighten about the BENEFITS to my people derived from the Colonial invasion, start at 1788 and come forward, I am patient, I will wait for the list.”
You may have suffered net costs. But in calculating these costs you have the advantages of being a citizen of a 1st world country. The costs were obviously very high.
Now ideally Australia would have been integrated into the rest of the world peacefully and with the permission of native peoples, while at the same time those native to the land would be given access to technology and a 1st world economy.
Only the latter happened, and not quite yet (i.e, imposed disadvantages). To say the costs outweighed the benefits may be true, but to say this means the benefits are non-existent because history didn’t turn out the way we would have liked to with our 21st century values is untrue and probably very pessimistic.
Mark, are you suggesting that living in a culture where people did not have to work and pay taxes, where food was abundant, and good health was maintained to the degree that NONE of our people has cancer, syphilis, or the common cold, was in anyway inferior to the way people in my country live today? That is rather insulting if I may say so. If I could wind back the clock I would believe me. I see NO real advantages for all the suffering these so called ‘advances’ in modern technology have brought. Australia has the 3rd highest incident of rape among 66 countries where stats were recorded. In my culture rape was PUNISHABLE by death, that is how much my people revered their women.
What the Colonial invaders did in Australia was land in PARADISE and for the next 230 years turn it into a 1st World cesspit of crime and corruption. Create poverty, alcohol/drung addiction and homelessness that did not exist
before.
For the first 19 years of my life I was NOT a citizen of Australia at all. My grandmother and her mother died without EVER being citizens and therefor have access to the basic human right afforded ALL non-Aboriginal Australians. I have ALWAYS been Aboriginal and a citizen of the Bogan Community.
So PLEASE! DO NOT try to tell Aboriginal people that ANYTHING good has come from the invasion. We are in YOUR world now but NOT of our chosing. And trust me YOUR world is NOT better than what we had.
MARK:
This is your quote:
“Essentially we want rule of law and to remove statute imposed economic disadvantage.”
Kate addressed some of the other issues, but I have to respond to this one.
That ONE statement says to me that your epistemological standpoint is EURO-AUSTRALIAN. Those laws that you promote were created by and for the benefit of WHITES.
This demonstrates to me the gulf between Aboriginals and whites. Whites seem to think that THEIR WAY IS THE ONLY WAY. This is our main problem, even NOW!
So take off your glasses and try to think what it would be like to be Aboriginal living under an occupation.
Mark, for many Aboriginal Australians it is a case of ‘got a lemon? Make lemonade’ We are doing our best to live in the modern world and retain a culture that is the OLDEST in the world. Unlike fish and humans, which President George Bush once said could co-exist, Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal people can co-exist peacefully. But understand this we don’t want to be like YOU, we are who we are. As the Palestinians DO NOT wish to be part of Israel. They are the indigenous people of Palestine. Same parallel here.
Ok, moving on from how great your life was before, yes we messed it up for you, you have disease etc now, lets move on. Or you could sit here and get angry about the pain the whiteman has inflicted on you. Or move on with your life and try to make it better for yourselves in the present.
And personally, i would love for aborigines to make decisions about themselves, however it doesnt seem that they do. Everything in Aboriginal culture comes down to local elders, there is no central organisation, all decisions are decided by a village by village basis, if there is a serious problem and the elders decide not to deal with it, (Or the elders are part of the problem), then nothing gets done and the problem remains for several generations.
And it doesnt particularly matter how you delt with sex offenders back in the good old days, what matters is how you deal with them now. And your not dealing with them, Is this an example of how the village elders are involved?,the state government did nothing either. The federal government has done something and most of what we see is carrying on and winging,
And if your world was so much better, Live in it now! From what i have seen, most of your people couldnt or wouldnt want to. they are too weak to break their dependency on alcohol or drugs or welfare.
Perry, I was wondering how long it would take for your INNATE racism toward BLACK people to shine through. I knew it was there from previous postings. You are a WILLFULLY ignorant young person, who has NO respect for yourself to be attending a school that preaches one thing and does another. Little wonder that your thinking is disjointed.
Also you have NO idea whatsoever about Aboriginal issues beyond what you may read in the mainstream newspapers, which have an agenda to to sensationalism, and never let facts get in the way of a good story.
Let me give you a little personal history Perry that you might like to ruminate upon. It is about a young Aboriginal girl who left school at the legal leaving age of 14 years and 10 months, because her income was needed to help support aged grandparents who were not eligible for the aged pension, because they were NOT citizens of Australia. Her grandparents died, and because the girl was still a minor, the Child Welfare Department was going to take her into ‘care’. In other words put her into an institution until they could find a nice family who needed a free live-in house keeper or some pedophile wanted a new toy. She did the only thing any smart person would to, she ran. She lied about her age and got a job in a factory, where she earned enough money to support herself. She never drank alcohol, or took drugs. She was spotted by the head Chemist at the factory who realised this kid was smarter that the average process worker, she was promoted to a job in the Laboratory. She did feel flash walking around the factory in her all important white lab jacket, taking samples from the production line. Non-Aboriginal girls in the factory resented the fact that the Aboriginal girl worked in the lab. They were quite nasty in fact, but the Aboriginal girl could handle herself, after all she had been an Aboriginal growing up in a whiteman’s world all her life. The girl enrolled into a technical college and for four nights a week after work she went to classes. She studied on the weekend. For four years all she did was work and study. She obtained the NSW School Leaving Certificate, and went on to graduate with a Certificate in Biological Sciences. Then she undertook further study and walked away with a BA in Business Management with a Marketing major.
By the time this girl was 26 she was the National Sales Manager of one of the most successful companies in Australia. She was SO confident she no longer straightened her curly hair, she had a natural ‘Afro’ at a time when her Non-Aboriginal sisters were paying a fortune at the hairdressers. By the time this women was 38, she was the CEO of the most successful company in her industry. Oh boy she had power and kicked some serious arse. She did all of this while raising two great kids. One of whom captained a touring Rugby League team, and another who is currently doing a rerun of a play she wrote which played in the Sydney Opera House. Such was the impact of this performance the daughter was invited to go to Japan to join a very respected performing arts company. This story scratches the surface of what that little homeless, orphaned Aboriginal girl, who never pulled a welfare cheque in her life achieved against ALL the odds. This is what Aboriginal people are capable of, and this girls story is NOT unique. MANY Aboriginal people, with NONE of the advantages of a rich white kids whose parents can afford $15,000 to send them to school have been HIGH achievers.
Incidently, did I fail to mention that the little Aboriginal girl, was able to afford to send her daughter to a private school? Frensham, the most expensive girl’s school in the Southern Hemisphere, with fees around $25,000 PA, with all the added extras. So Perry when you grow up, and with ALL the advantages you have had from birth and have a bio of achievements that come close the that little Aboriginal girl come back and talk to me, and tell me HOW my people are incapable of taking care of ourselves.
Aboriginal people are not better or worse at taking care of themselves as Non-Aboriginal people, the vast difference is we have people like you who think you are superior and have to tell us how to manage our lives. We do have incompetent people entrusted with community management, and so too have Non-Aboriginal communities. We have seen WHOLE Municipal Councils dismissed for nepotism and corruption.
I gave you the stats of rapes across this country. Australia is in 3rd place behind Sth Africa and the Seychelles. With Aboriginal Australians making up less that 2% of the population of 21,000,000 I suggest that you clean up your own house.
What i said is not rascist, just like i dont believe it is rascist to say that Jewish people bring up the holocaust too much, Or just how its not anti- semetic to say that Israel overreacted in Lebanon.
And upon hearing that, i think it is excellent that you did it, you are a shining example of people being the best they can be. I think more people should be like you, but the sad fact is that many people, Aboriginal and white, cant realise their full potential for whatever reason.
As a side not, im not rich, My family is extremely middle class. My family just made decisions and didnt want to send me to a place that teaches you how to be an employee.
But really, im glad that you did so well for yourself, i think it is absolutely excellent. However it doesnt remove the fact that most of the Aboriginal seems unwilling to break out of the cycle of poverty. Which is only backed up by your telling us about how you dont want to do it our way.
And to me, those stats mean nothing, it only shows how free of persecution women feel about admitting that they have been raped and seek recourse for it.
As i said earlier, your lucky if there is a rape every 5 or so months in Tasmania.
And if i had my way, i would institue some kind of capital punishment for sex crimes. So vote for me and we wont have any more problems :p.
Perry, I am not a advocate for capital punishment. It is state sanctioned murder and our legal system is too flawed to rely on the guilty being punished. If this country had had capital punishment in 1982, Lindy Chamberlaine would be dead. If ONE innocent person dies, as a result of a flawed legal system it is ONE too many.
Perry, Tasmania is a beautiful place, glorious in fact. I have travelled around the ‘Apple Isle’ many times. It was always like stepping back in time, to a place where gentlemen tipped their hats and opened doors for ladies. Tasmanians do seem to have more regard for each other generally that other states in Australia. You also how to lowest record road deaths.
However, the facts are what they are, rape in Australia has ALWAYS been a part of the WHITE culture and now that my people have been in part assimilated into your culture we also have unacceptable high incidents of rape and abuse of children. But instead of simply killing the perpetrators we should look for the root causes and try to nip it in the bud. Rape will never be wiped from cultures, it is about POWER and DOMINANCE. There is NO cure except raising kids that grow up not to feel threatened by women and seek to control them.
Perry, where your comments cross the line and become racist is when you say thing like this “From what i have seen, most of your people couldnt or wouldnt want to. they are too weak to break their dependency on alcohol or drugs or welfare.”
Perry you are a school student, you live in a state in Australia that has 16,000 Aboriginals in total and therefor we may assume that your exposure to Aboriginal communities is VERY limited. Are you aware that the NSW Aboriginal Land Council is officially back in business? Are you even aware of the role the NSWALC plays in Aboriginal affairs? From the way you speak I doubt that you do.
Perry, when you stereotype people and group them as you have done in your post No. 171 you are racist. A racist is one who thinks he is better than another person, based on a difference of colour or culture. You seem to think that YOU way is the best way. The problems Aboriginal people are facing today come from the contamination of your culture into mine.
Perry if you think ANYTHING the Federal Govt did was intended to help the Mutitjulu, or has in fact done anything to arrest the problem, them you know very little about the problem and what is needed to fix it.
Perry: Amendment to last post. I meant the contamination of my culture by yours. Alcohol, drugs, unemployment, homelessness, rape and child abuse are from YOUR culture NOT mine.
Kate;
I am not sure of Terje’s experience in the area, however his material is always well researched.
I on the other hand grew from childhood with first hand information on some at least of the wrongs that were perpetrated, from a man who cared enough, to record the local language in the early part of last century, so that it would not be lost. Zacks Dictionary, is the name however I am not sure where it is kept, or whether it is generally available.
It is quite possible that the name has been changed, by academics since it fell into their hands to something more scientific.
I have also worked extensively in many of those areas with higher Aboriginal populations, and understand the desolation that exists there.
Some of the people I worked with got great laughs at the “bloody drunken Coons”, and so on, I on the other hand felt only sadness, and a sense of loss as to what could be done to alleviate the situation. Those attitudes will always exist while people exist who feel the need to be superior to someone else.
Hopefully, the numbers of those people will decline. When I have worked on Aboriginal land I have the rule, respect and get respect back. I have never had a problem.
Kate, when we have someone as articulate, perceptive, and as knowledgeable as yourself, on this site it would be a shame to let the discussion degenerate into a debate on grievances, as it appears to be becoming. Your peoples grievances are burned into your soul, I understand that, you will speak of them, I accept that. You are right to raise them, and all of the arguments on statistics by some of the people here will change nothing.
As a group of mainly libertarians with the hope of political representation however, we need to find a way to resolve the situation that the Aboriginal people are in. As a libertarian, I feel certain that we would want a genuine solution, not a way to make it look like it and get it off the front pages.
My feelings are that we should be looking for ways to provide the circumstances, or to create an environment, which will allow the Aboriginal people to resolve things from within. Perhaps you could offer suggestions as to whether this is right, or if not then what.
Jim, I have been around the block too many times to allow anyone to direct my life or my conversation. I thank you for your concern that I may be allowing the debate to degenerate into one which exchanges grievances. For my part I am not going to allow that to happen. I was merely needing to deal with the comments of two bloggers, whom I felt could use a little enlightenment regarding how NOT to speak to Aboriginal people when talking about Aboriginal Issues. For the most part we will not even discuss these issues with people who show a disrespect for us as a people and demonstrate a disregard for our culture. This would prove to be so anywhere in the world, and yet some people in this country feel that Aboriginal people need others to think and speak for them, we do not.
Jim, my feelings regarding ALL contentious issues that arise in any sphere of our lives is that the problems are resolved from within. And it starts within each individual person.
I confess to knowing about as much of your Libertarianism as could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Save the fact that you do not believe in central Governments. As I have said in earlier postings, I am not sure that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. However, I applaud any party that seeks to deliver a better system of community management than the options currently on offer.
I shall sit back now and listen to any and all of the Libertarians on the blog who will be kind enough to advance my education.
I have enjoyed this blog very much, and I am pleased that you feel I have been a worthwhile contributor.
Perry: You said; As a side not, im not rich, My family is extremely middle class. My family just made decisions and didnt want to send me to a place that teaches you how to be an employee.
Perry I am unfamiliar with the curriculum at a Quaker School and how it varies from other schools to the degree they don’t teach you how to be an employee.
If I may leave you with a little insight that has come from having been both and employee in my life and an employer of over 3500 people. You will never be a successful business person, at least not in an enterprise that requires planning, organising and motivating people, if you never take your turn as an ‘employee’. And you will never win the respect of the people you employ if they get the impression that you think you are better than they are because you are the ‘employer’.
Every school teaches you to an employee, it is not singular to quakers.
Read the Rich Dad Poor Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki if you want to learn more.
A brief overview should be on the internet somewhere.
Perry: I am confused or you are. You said:
As a side not, im not rich, My family is extremely middle class. My family just made decisions and didnt want to send me to a place that teaches you how to be an employee.
The operative words here being “didn’t want to send me to a place that teaches you how to be an employee”
Now drink your Milo and go to bed dear, I am getting impatient with your petulance.
Lol, Lovely girl ^_^
What i should have added to the statement was, Private schools still teach you to be an employee, but less so than public schools.
I am not sure where this fits in at all, And if your growing impatient with my petulance, stop getting me to answer questions.
If you stop asking questions i will go troll on another thread and hopefully not be made to look so ignorant ^_^.
Perry, say goodnight to Aunty Kate, I have better things to do with my time than play games with recalcitrant children.
Perry;
Kate’s point was valid as you didn’t make yourself clear. From long experience in the workforce, I can assure you that attitude means everything when dealing with employees, a them and us attitude will bet you what you want, but not as willingly or as efficiently as mutual respect.
Over the years I have had a lot of experience in dealing with people, from recruiting a guy the local cop suggested ‘would benefit’ from being out of town for a while,to negotiating with the sort of guys who appear in the business or financial pages of the papers.
One thing remains constant though, I dislike working on jobs run by arrogant pricks. My feelings of course don’t matter to them, but when I like the people I am doing the work for, I try harder to overcome any problems and ensure that they get the best.
Trust me mate you have yet to make Kate look ignorant.
Kate; I was worried after your reply that you were leaving the thread, I am glad that you are still here.I was not implying that you had allowed it to degenerate, I just feel that it has, not because of you, but because people want to debate them with you.
Terje and I in particular, and others really want you to contribute as your advice is valuable to us.
My comment wasnt ment as being arrogant, Just from the books ive read about it and the people i have talked to, there is a huge difference in the capacity needed to work for someone and what is needed to run a business, Most of the people who have tought me about business divide it into quadrants, as is demonstrated by Robert Kiyosaki. The E quadrant- Employee. The SE quadrant- Self employed. And the B and I quadrants- Business and investor.
Generally the lessons tought in school are based off of industrial age ideas, go to school, study hard and get a safe secure job. We are now in the industrial age where generally, the less physical work you do and the more mental work you do then the more money you will generate. Google, Youtube, Amazon.com, Dell computers, The people who started these companies all had an idea, and persued the idea, and are now among the richest people in the world.
I want to get an education which will benefit me most in the information age, which generally is provided by private schools these days. My comment had nothing to do with being arrogant.
Jim, read my comment again, i said nothing about Kate looking ignorant. And made no wish upon her to leave.
Jim, thank you, I have not left the thread, I am very pleased to have found a thread where intelligent people are debating with a degree of civility that is almost nonexistence in chatrooms. Expect perhaps for one that I moderate and keep some semblance of order and decorum.
I have sent the link of this blog to many of the people who come to my room, as it is essentially a political debate and I know that they would find this blog very interesting. Two people known to me Mitsuk from Canada and Dennis from the USA I see have already been here. I hope that others will do so.
You don’t get rid of me that easily. ***smile****
Perry: I doubt very much that ANY school can teach you the entrepreneurial skills required to innovate, and market a company to the success of say Google. Or Microsoft for that matter.
If I may recommend two excellent books to you. Mark H McCormack’s “What they Dont teach you at Harvard Business School” When you have finished that get hold of a copy of William Oncken JR’s Managing Management Time. There is NOTHING contained in these books that you will learn at ANY school, but they are lessons you need to learn to be successful in ANY kind of business enterprise.
“That ONE statement says to me that your epistemological standpoint is EURO-AUSTRALIAN. Those laws that you promote were created by and for the benefit of WHITES.
This demonstrates to me the gulf between Aboriginals and whites. Whites seem to think that THEIR WAY IS THE ONLY WAY. This is our main problem, even NOW!
So take off your glasses and try to think what it would be like to be Aboriginal living under an occupation.”
1. I was born here. I am not occupying anything. Do you want white Canadians to leave? Is an Aboriginal owner of real property occupying his own land then?
2. Aboriginals, like the rest of society should be able to choose a lifestyle they wish, as long as they don’t demand to be subsidised (like everyone else too). This isn’t a “do it my way” etc approach. The reality is economic welfare is severely hampered by our current situation. What you or anyone else does with new found prosperity is up to you, or anyone else.
3. My epistemology if I have any is secular and individualist. How does that disadvantage Aboriginals?
“Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal people can co-exist peacefully.”
4. I am sure there are plenty of Aboriginals and non Aboriginals who utterly disagree.
“But understand this we don’t want to be like YOU, we are who we are.”
5. Right. An objective of libertarianism is individual sovereignty. Have that and you can control your destiny. That is at the core of what I want to see with respect to a long term policy of removing economic disadvantages.
Thankyou very much Kate, i really appreciate your advice and i will go and do some reading.
Mark, the first half of your posting is in response to commments from Mitsuk of Canada, so I shall leave it for her to reply.
4 & 5 are in response to some of my previous posts.
As I said previously Aboriginal people had 200 years of being persona non gratis, and it is in relatively recent history that we have even been given a chance go forward and strive for better living conditions, health and education. Many of our communities had reached a level of despair by the early 1970′s that alcoholism and other substance abuse was widespread. And although we obtained ‘citizenship’ after the 1967 Referendum conditions for Aboriginal people did not improve markedly. Many non-Aboriginals were angry and resentful that we did not want to ‘assimilate’ and become replicas of them. They did not understand the pride we have in being who we are. Certainly, many people with Aboriginal heritage and white skin did choose to blend in with white communities, after all life was much easier for those who did so. But many others did not.
After WW2 hundreds of thousands of men came back from the war with shattered bodies and fractured lives. They were not expected to pick themselves up and dust themselves of and get back into society without missing a beat. No one in this country begrudges a returned soldier all the help and support they deserve for their service to their country. They were provided with medical care, war service homes, and military pensions on retirement. Wives of ex-servicemen who did not make it home to their family were taken care of with War Widows pensions.
Aboriginals have served their country since the Boer War. WW1, WW2, Korea, Malaya and Vietnam. Yet when many were at war their children were taken, and when they returned they were not entitled to any pensions, war service or anything else. Aboriginal families had to take care of their own. Those who did not have families lived in parks and under bridges. Where was the charity of other Australians? There are many stories of Aboriginal ex-service men being turned away from Veteran’s hospitals.
Now you are trying to tell me that by some miraculous metamorphosis, that will come about by reducing taxes and taking away welfare safety nets, the wider community will donate MORE to charity and this will be distributed to the needy. I say BULL! I see NO evidence of that ever having happened.
Certainly people donate more to charity when economies are flush with money, chiefly because donations over $2.00 are tax deductible. Large corporations can look all touchy feely and concerned for the kiddies in Ethiopia, but I doubt if they would donate WITHOUT the tax break. That Charities even had to put an incentive on donations says a lot for modern man.
Welfare has become a crutch for some of my people. When you legs have been cut from underneath you a crutch is necessary. Anyone who has anything to do with social programs and Centrelink would know that they do not just hand out money to ANYONE who does not fit the criteria of need. And I say if fellow Australians NEED our help they should get it without having to beg.
Perry, you are most welcome, you will enjoy both of the books I recommended they are humorous and have some invaluable wisdom, from men who could not on DO but could also TEACH.
Perry, correction, “men who could not ONLY DO but could also TEACH”
Kate,
I’m so glad you think I’m a CLOWN and then congratulate everyone else on their civility.
My assertion was not that indigenous people hadn’t suffered, but that the colonialism that caused their suffering was not as important to the industrialisation of Europe as Mitsuk stated.
The difference between Rio Tinto paying land rent to aboriginals and them paying royalties for the minerals below the ground that they extract is enormous. If land owners, Aboriginal or otherwise, owned the mineral rights of their land, then everyone would be better off. Present government policy has granted Aboriginal special native title rights over land. This is no way as secure in common law as Freehold title. On the whim of the next government, Native Title could be abolished, if only because the numbers of people affected would be small. Changes to the status of Freehold Title by legislation is much harder because of the precedence of Common Law protection. By pursuing freehold title over your land, you would essentially be getting the de facto support of all landowners, since any state intervention in your freehold title would affect their title as well. Your land would be your land and you wouldn’t need to rely on the support of a friendly government to protect it.
This is a reform I think will benefit all Australians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike.
regards,
Brendan
Kate,
Ten years ago the federal government cost us A$8437 per capita (adjusted to 2007 dollars). That was a lot to spend on federal government, however it now costs us A$11310 per capita with very little additional benefit to show for all the extra spending. If when elected in 1996 the Howard government had maintained spending in real per capita terms they would have been able to nearly abolished income tax by now.
See: http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/howard-govt-costs-34-more-than-keating-govt/
High taxing and high spending governments are not merely a problem for commerce. They are also a problem for civil society. They centralise and displace traditional decision making that otherwise fosters a sense of control and independence within peoples lives. Every dollar in the governments budget is a dollar less in the budget of individuals within our communities. In fact give the dead weight loss of taxation it is probably more accurate to say that every dollar in the governments budget represents $1.60 less in the budget of individuals within our communities.
Also whilst I am not a Keynesian I think Keynes essentially got it right when he said:-
Keynes was alluding to what later became called the Laffer curve. I’d call it the Uluru curve if it were up to me because I think that the postcard image of Uluru typifies the shape that the laffer curve assumes in most societies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
A large slice of what we pay in tax in Australia is churned back to the same taxpayers as welfare. People who don’t need welfare receive it. This generates some ridiculous disincentives with people often finding that if they earn an extra dollar they only get to keep 30 cents. Last year (2005-06) I was in the position of being allowed to keep only 30 cents out of every extra dollar I earned. I’m not hard up but it is a very frustrating living within a system that asks you to sit down.
I don’t agree with your assessment that society won’t look after the needy except via welfare. You said yourself that in traditional Aboriginal culture people looked out for eachother. So you have already accepted that such a society is possible. And historically this is pretty much true of most communities prior to the advent of the welfare state. Although of course either way a lot depends on peoples circumstances and capacity.
There are people in society that genuinely need help and support. However government funded welfare in Australia long since stopped being about helping those few people and has moved up market so that every man and his dog is in receipt of some handout. The big corporations as well. Not to mention the rent seeking behaviour of the entire welfare industry.
I don’t find myself in much disagreement with what you have had to say here about Australian Aborigines. I think they (like most Australians) are quite capable of dealing with problems within their various communities and they don’t in general need central government explaining how they should look after themselves and eachother or imposing solutions invented in Canberra. To the extent that we do need government (in spite of it’s merits I’m not an anarchist) it should follow the principles of subsiduarity. We should have less government at the centre.
Regards,
Terje.
Regarding #195. My understanding is that few empires (such as the British empire) have every proved very profitable. They are usually expensive to run and are a drain on the resources of the ruling nation. However because those resources are coerced from the people via taxation the government of the ruling nation need not concern itself overly with the return on investment. As such it can conquer and colonize with little regard for anybody and sell the whole deal under the banner of national pride. Of course some individual corporations will make a profit out of their governments empire building practices and will be willing to argue in defence of the subsidy.
Kate,
When I made the comment about Aborigines needing to make peace with all other aborigines, I wasn’t kidding. And I do think that a united artificial language, based on genuine aboriginal words, would help. A few years ago some people tried to use the word Koori for all aborigines, but some people objected to what they took to be a tribal name.
Such tribalism won’t help advance aborigines.
Kate,
two of your statements seem to contradict each other. You seem to approve of the tribal death penalty for rape, and also don’t support capital punishment!
What do you think should be the punishment for rapists? My version of libertarianism would entail people being obliged to pay for any and all hospital bills, as well as trauma counselling for the victim. Over to you…
Nicholas, the word Koori, simply means MAN. And no, I do not think that another ‘artificial language’ or pidgin-English is needed to advance Aboriginals. Many Aboriginals already speak pidgin-english to communicate with language groups with whom they do not share a common language. Language is not just about words spoke. Aboriginal languages have been developed over thousands of years. While many of the semantic distinctions made in Aboriginal languages are similar to those in Europeans tongues, there are a number of ingenious contrasts that relate directly to the physical and social aspects of life in Aboriginal community. Some of the languages in Central Australia have extensive series of pronouns which depend on the kin relationship to the person referred to. There are three different ways of saying “you two” depending on whether one is talking about two sisters, a father-child relationship or a mother and daughter. So you see language in not just about using words for communication it is linked to culture and social structure. There was a time when Aboriginal people were whipped for speaking their own language and because of this any suggestion that the language of their clan be replaced with any kind of ‘artificial language’ would most probably be laughed, at and rightly so. Think about it Nicholas, it is highly desirable for young Aboriginal children to learn to speak English fluently , while maintaining the language of their particular clan. How many non-Aboriginals do you know that speak 3 languages? And which is the language they use most commonly in Australia? I imagine that it is English.
I do not believe it ought to be compulsory for ANY Aboriginal person to be compelled to even learn English. English is a second language to many people in remote areas and only useful to them if they wish to live and work among English speaking people. I believe that any Aboriginals wishing to remain on tribal land and live closer to their own traditional way off life should also be able to do so. The invading colonialist governments took away the means for my people to support themselves on their own land and as far as I am concerned we can bloody well support the people who do not want to be like white men and live in towns and cities. Like I said in an earlier post if today’s Australians had to pay to keep every man woman and child, around 400,000 Aboriginals, at a level where they maintained a healthy life style, and had proper housing, it would still go no where near to compensating for the losses of the past 230 years. And it does not wash with me when people say “I came here as an immigrant, I didn’t steal any land” Well all Australians other that Aboriginals came here as immigrants at one time or another, and today they enjoy all of the benefits of living on land that was stolen. And please don’t anyone give me the to ‘the victor go the spoils’. Aboriginal people NEVER surrendered, or signed treaties.
Blending out two cultures is definitely a challenge, but I can assure you that you will get an uprising, if you try to pigeon hole us, and insist that we assimilate. This is OUR land, get over it. We will retain our culture and take full advantage of the fact that we now have access to education. Education is and always has been the key to advancement of any civilisation.
Nicholas, with regard to what you perceive as a contradiction regarding tribal law that administered the death penalty to rapists and my stand against capital punishment. I never said I agreed with the tribal custom, I merely said that is how it was. And as the tribe did not have goals with high walls and rapists are almost always repeat offenders, they dealt with them swiftly and permanently. A women was not even allowed to marry within her tribe, to be raped by a man in her clan had to be become pregnant was a terrible fate for both mother and child so the punishment for rape was death. I no more agree with all of the customs in my culture as I am sure you don’t agree with every aspect of yours.
Nicholas, you asked what do I think is an appropriate punishment for rape. The rape of anyone is a brutal violation of a persons most sacred self. In many cases depending on the age of the victim it does permanent damage. The penalties ought to be the same as those metered our for murder. 25 to life. The rapist should be compelled to pay victim compensation for all medical bills and ongoing counseling.
Sentences for rape in this country were WAY too lenient for WAY too long. Most rapes still go unreported, as more often than not to the woman’s moral character goes on trial, and it ought not to. NO is NO, regardless of the woman’s perceived or proven moral character.
In my opinion the justice system in this country is not fair, we need harsher penalties for rapists etc. I know a person who works in public housing and the stories i have heard about what goes on in Australia is disgusting. Fathers beating their wives and then moving on to beat and molest the daughters.
One of the things i have heard it attributed to was the fact that it has been so long since the heard has been culled in Australia.
In the early part of the century we had the first world war, this wiped out large groups of the poor, and then we had some kind of disease after that, and then world war 2, in which large amounts of the poorer people of Australia died. But since then we have had no serious cullings.
Apparently America fixes this problem by making war in Iraq and Afghanistan, they recruit from the ghetto’s and the people go and die.
Terje, I am afraid I have to stand my ground on the belief that in TODAY’S Australia people will not look out for each other in anyway akin to the tribal traditions of my people of 230 years ago. Those days are gone.
The main reason for this is the racial and ethnic mix of people, and sadly a still largely xenophobic society, that fears and therefor dislikes anyone different.
Terje, I can tell you stories about trying to get tables in no less than four restaurants with some of my very dark skinned family members, only to be told that the restaurants were full. And that was in Leichhardt and the restaurants were Italian. How soon today’s Italians have forgotten how badly treated they were when they came to this country. I could tell you how when hailing a taxi on the street, the lighter skinned members of the family have to stand apart from the darker skinned brothers and sisters, to get a taxi to stop. So please, you will not convince me that replacing welfare with charity will help all but a few. If people are concerned about someone getting through the cracks and claiming a benefit for which they have no entitlement, tighten up the controls.
Personally, I think that this country can wear the small number of social security cheats out there who, are being detected and charged, we cannot afford to see our fellow Australians living in parks and under bridges, and starving for the want of being able to afford a meal. The Karma that that would bring down upon us a country makes me shiver.
I just wanted to make a general observation about the way I have seen this discussion happening.
It is perplexing to me that non-Aboriginal Australians should seem to think that they have a say in how Aboriginal problems are solved.
Another issue that must be addressed is… why should Aboriginal people have to abide by any laws constructed by white men for the benefit of white men?
I see two worlds colliding here. There is a hegemonic ideology that is being used by non-Aboriginal Australians.
If non-Aboriginal people cannot even see that the white way isn’t the only way to see the world, then I don’t know why this discussion is taking place.
We must come to an understanding that Indigenous cultures are different than white cultures. Our ways are as valid as any other way. We must be given that respect if we are going to get anywhere.
Mitsuk,
When Aboriginals accept payments in the form of welfare from the state and the state is a democracy, non-Aboriginals will demand to have a say in the way the welfare is administered. If you don’t want to be beholden to the state, don’t take its money. Simple as that.
You have to be more specific when you talk about laws that benefit “the white man”. As far as I am aware, the only legislation in Australia that specifically deals with a ethnic group is Aboriginal. All other laws apply equally to all Australians. I disagree that the state should legislate specifically for any ethnic group.
The cultures clashed a long time ago, on egroup of people displaced another. We can recognise that that had tragic consequences, but we can’t continue living in the past.
No, culture is not relative. There are universal truths that even Kate has acknowledged in her denial to endorse tribal justice as being appropriate. Just as I would condemn stoning to death of Islamic women for adultery, that is not relative, it is absolute. Ways of life are only valid insofar as they recognise and respect the right of individuals to not be subjected to coercion. That is my line in the sand.
Feel free to live your lives the way you want to, I wish for the same treatment. Where we must interact, those interactions should be voluntary. Civil society has a place for all, so long as they respect and grant the same to their fellow citizens.
Brendan, Like Mitsuk I am growing weary of trying to discuss these issues with some very closed minds. Closed to the facts that not ALL Aboriginal people were displaced our culture is alive still. Given that means for the people who prefer to stay in culture has been stripped from them, it is ENTIRELY appropriate that Non-Aboriginal Australians who enjoy the privilege of living on land that was stolen from them should have to pay SOMETHING in compensation. we do not get reparations. Many Aboriginals, like myself do not live a traditional way of life anymore, we live in White communities. But, I treasure the ability to return to country and see my culture flourishing, the children healthy and singing, and learning language dance, and Dreamtime stories. And the art of Digeridoo making, and painting. Bush medicine and all the rich and beautiful things that make up the oldest culture on the earth. We predate the ancient Eygptions by tens of thousands of years, and we are still here. We must know a thing or two about survival. And you blow-ins think you can tell us what we need, and how we should live, and we need an ‘artificial language’. We do not need ANYTHING artificial. Like I said in earlier posts you may not have personally stolen the land your home sits on but SOMEONE did. So if a portion of the taxes you pay is allocated to the welfare of Aboriginals until more can come through and be educated to help our people CO-EXIST with Non Aboriginals well TOO BAD! Live with it. Your Govts took our land, and took our children. 100,000 Aboriginals were not only displaced they were involuntarily removed from their mothers and their culture, and brutalised in the most unthinkable ways, and we are NOT talking 200 years ago. As you heard Mitsuk say she is a ‘taken child’ and she is only in her 30′s. I know many young Aboriginal people in their 20′s who were removed from mother and country. Brendan, this country has NOT even apologised for that crime against humanity. Earlier in this blog I gave you links to the Bringing them Home Report, have you even bothered to read that material? I suspect that you haven’t.
Furthermore, I didn’t say that tribal law was INAPPROPRIATE, it was VERY appropriate given the circumstances at the time. As I am sure that children with serious physical deformities would not have been encouraged to survive. In today’s world we allow very severely disabled babies to live so that doctors can use them as guinea pigs to advance modern science.
Brendan Aboriginals make up only 2% of this country, and not all of them are on welfare, so we are hardly a drain on the coffers. Did you read this Sundays’ Sydney papers? There was an uproar among non-Aboriginal communities at the proposal by the Govt to extend their initiatives concerning Aboriginals to truants across the country, for the purpose of withholding welfare payments. Schools are refusing to hand over records to the govt so they can determine school attendance. Yet Aboriginal women were expected to hand over their kids to be examined for sexual abuse, without even a shred of evidence that it was happening. They modified this in the light of community outrage but that was the initial proposal.
And I have to say I am trying very hard to contain my wrath at your breathtakingly arrogant remark, “if you don’t want to be beholden to the state, don’t take its money’. Yes, I can see you would be a fabulous advertisement for any Libertarian to put forward as a candidate.
Kate,
Get off of your high horse, Aboriginals are just Australians whose ancestors wre displaced. Some were affected more than others, some are able to live more closely to the way their ancestors did. That is fine by me. How many times do I have to repeat myself????
Welfare is not reparations. I advocate allocating land as freehold title to Aboriginals as recognition of their connection to the land updated to ownership for the new paradigm that exists. For Aboriginals who can’t prove a connection to their land, unclaimed crown land could be substituted and use that land to earn a living.
You seem to think I want to run Aboriginal policy, I don’t. I don’t want there to be any Aborignal specific policy. Look after your own selves, that would suit me to a t. Just don’t ask for sit down money from me and then get the Australian government to strong arm it out of my pay packet.
If land was returned as free title to all Aboriginals, traditional and non-traditional, then what would the need for welfare be? Traditional Aboriginals could live on their land as they please and non-traditional Aboriginals could earn income from freehold title land as do other Australians.
I am not a paternalist and neither is libertarianism a paternalist creed.
I don’t advocate forcing you to learn an ertificial language or even English for that matter. We are much closer than you think on many issues. I would love to see empowered BAorignals living the way they want to, with no interference from the state, that would be awesome. Out major difference is that you seem to advocate punishing current Australians for the policies of those who came before them. I disagree with you wholeheartedly.
Back to the original post, see what happens when the state opens the paternalist door to one group, other conservatives start clambering to censor everyone…
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22042967-601,00.html
I really hate governments that feel they know best for us.
Mitsuk;
”It is perplexing to me that non-Aboriginal Australians should seem to think that they have a say in how Aboriginal problems are solved”.
I believe that the government of Australia represents or should represent the whole of Australia, essentially as one people. The Aboriginal population is one of many elements of this population.
Where an element of that population has a problem, there is generally a strong wish within the community at large to help. Normally for some reason in the case of an ‘Aboriginal problem’, they take the easy way out by letting the government look after it. I believe that in retrospect, passing the referendum question to allow the federal government to legislate specific laws applying to Aboriginal people was probably a mistake. Citizenship yes Legislation no.
A great deal of the problem is caused in my opinion by the separation of the Aboriginal community from the rest of us in the past by non-citizenship and since, by being separated by being a legislatively different group.
I also believe that a significant part of the problem is that there is the tendency among politicians to see the problem as theirs instead of that of the Aboriginal people. They tend after the appropriate point scoring exercise, to try to find a way of making it go away while making them look good.
The problems have in the past been caused by a miss-guided and tragic altruistic attitude, which has manifested itself in paternalism tainted with arrogance.
Only the Aboriginal people can solve the actual problems of the Aboriginal people, but there is a role for the rest of the Australian people, in establishing the goodwill and creating equitable circumstances in which they can do this.
It is a great thing for us that Kate has cared enough to come onto our site in that in disagreeing with us on some matters she gives us a better perspective on just what the problem is.
As a fan of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy I am reminded of the statement that the answer can’t be understood because the people don’t know what the Question is.
Brendan, Don’t even get me started on the inequities in the Justice system that are weighted very strongly AGAINST Aboriginals. I am sure you have heard of TJ Hickey, the 17 year old kid chased by coppers in Redfern, he had not committed any crime, and they hounded him until he panicked and hit a spiked metal fence. His death and the whitewashing by investigators spark the Redfern riots. The name Mulrunji Doomergee ought to mean something to you also, he was kicked to death by a policemen on Palm Island. In spite of the Coroner finding that his injuried were consistent with a savage beating it took three years to get Sgt Chris Hurley charged with manslaughter, and he walked from court a free man last month. Mulrunji Doomergee’s death sparked the Pal Island riots.
And then there is the premeditated murder of Errol Wyles the 15 year old Aboriginal boy who was run down by a whiteman Scott Hasenkamp in 2003. There were about 30 witnesses who saw Hasenkamp hunt Error, swerving and chasing him finally running him over twice. Hasenkamp had bragged that he was going to kill Errol and get away with it. Hasenkamp had an uncle or two in Queensland police force. Well he did get away with murder. He was charged with a TRAFFIC OFFENSE and served 8 weeks before being released to work on a farm for a further 13 months. Had the race table been turned Errol would never have spent another day of freedom. So, please, don’t come to me saying that black fellas in this country get favorable treatment when it comes to the law. My brother is one of the founder members of ISJA the Indigenous Social Justice Assoc, that brought the black deaths in custody into focus. Their monthly magazine Djadi Dugarang (Talk Loud-Talk Strong) is the source of my information concerning the murder of Errol Wyles.
Kate,
I don’t understand what your point is. I don’t advocate police violence or injustice and would support any private campaign to reduce discrimination in public institutions.
It is for the very reason that public institutions are merely made up of individuals with their own flawed human nature that I advocate smaller government. Minimise the government, minimise the number of fools with power over you.
I could point out lots of non-Aboriginal miscarriages of justice, but what would be the point. All miscarriage of justice is wrong. This is not a pissing contest to see who is the biggest victim, as my sarcastic post earlier regarding my own personal family history attempted hamfistedly to show.
Jim I have NO idea where you go the information that the 1967 Referendum had anything to do with creating some kind of separatist legislation for Aboriginals. That was NOT the purpose of the Referendum, nor was it the outcome. The only time we have one Law for the Blackfella and one for the Whitefella is this country is highlighted in the posting I left from Brendan No. 211.
Jim, I very pleased that the time I am allocating to participating on this thread is appreciated and that my words are not falling on deaf ears.
Did you notice the total lack of reporting in this week’s mainstream papers regarding a matter John Howard said was a National emergency on the scale of Hurricane Katrina? Interesting don’t you think? John Howard’s stunt was so transparent, and not only to Aboriginals.
Democrat Senator Andrew Murray who has spent his long parliamentary career campaigning for the welfare of children and was the force behind three reports into child abuse on Indigenous children, British child migrants, and the tens of thousand who grew up in institutions. Murray’s shattering revelations and prescient warnings of a child abuse crisis were dismissed by the Howard Govt. Senator Murray’s experience and knowledge of generational child abuse in Australian is vast and invaluable, yet there was no one beating down his door to consult him. Now in an election year child abuse is flavour of the month. Senator Murray’s reports are gathering dust. The recommendations in the reports were to apologise for the sins of the past and recognise that abuse begets abuse unless Govts heed and acknowledge the problem.
Jim you said: “Normally for some reason in the case of an ‘Aboriginal problem’, they take the easy way out by letting the government look after it.” If you were to subscribe to the National Indigenous Times, or the Koori Mail newspapers you would read about the amazing strides forward Aboriginal communities are making right across the country. All you get in mainstream media are the bad news stories, targeting the smallest population of Aboriginals on the mainland, who just happen to occupy land the Govt wants back. Your assertions that Aboriginals hand over their affairs to Govt is absolutely erroneous. As you will have read in earlier posts communities in the NT who have lost funding BECAUSE they won’t hand over control to the Govt.
Jim, although I do not speak for all Aboriginal people I can say that I know what the question is from a personal perspective. “When is the Australian Govt going to apologise for the wrongs of the past so the bridges to reconciliation can be built. When are Non-Aboriginal people going to wake up that most Aboriginal people do not want welfare dependency but some have been so terribly and irreparably damaged they will NEVER heal or recover. We have a duty and an obligation to help them. Aboriginal communities right across the country are working on youth programs that provide better opportunities for education and employment, these are the keys for reducing welfare dependency. But nothing happens overnight. It has only been 40 years since the blackfella was thought to be nothing more than a no hoper, not worth the effort. Sadly, some still think like that.
Kate,
There are serious problems with the current state of government welfare. I have already indicated that I am an advocate for the LDP policy position on welfare which we hope to take to the next federal election. Your response appears to be that there is nothing wrong with the existing system that can’t be fixed with better fraud detection. Fraud detection is no bad thing but it does nothing to address high EMTRs, the wastefulness of churn and the dead weight loss of taxation. In my view these problems have nothing to do with race. Australian taxpayers and Australian welfare recipients come in all colours. And it is not a class issue because the system creates problems for both recipients of welfare and taxpayers, and many people are both at the same time. And certainly within many families there are taxpayers and welfare recipients (often within the same household). You seem to be arguing against the complete abolition of welfare which is fine. However I’m not trying to argue a case for abolition of welfare, I’ve merely argued for significant fundamental reform.
To address high EMTRs and the associated destruction of incentive we need to deal with the compounded effect of simultaneously taxing welfare and means testing welfare. We can make a start on this by lifting the tax free threshold. The LDP advocates a $30k tax free threshold.
To address unemployment of the unskilled and low skilled (and the associated social exclusion) we need to abolish the minimum wage and replace it with a minimum income. The LDP proposes a negative income tax to supplement earned income where people earn below $30k per annum (with a higher level for those with dependent children).
To address the paternalism within the welfare system we need to integrate welfare and taxation so that people move smoothly from being supported by the system to being net contributors based on personal incentive rather than large numbers of people being categoriesed crudely and then hounded by Centrelink. The LDP policy abolishes the mentality of trying to herd people off welfare with a stick and replaces it with an integrated system that provides incentives for both employers and low skilled workers so that they are no longer prohibited from creating pathways for eachother.
By all means please continue to make a case for government funded welfare to support those in society that truely need supporting. However please don’t close your eyes to the problems that do exist within our welfare system. And please (this is a request) don’t insist that the level of fraternity in our society is static and that we can’t hope to do better.
Regards,
Terje.
Kate,
The 1967 ammendment to Section 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution was made specifically to enable the federal government to pass special laws for Aboriginals.
All the other Abroginal lead programmes you speak of are exactly what I would like to see more of. The only exception I have to them is that they are state funded. Everyone would be better off if they were self funded, either through donations or through income earnt from Aboriginal owned land.
It is not just Aboriginal funding I’d prefer to see abolished, it would be arts funding, ABC and SBS funding, any other special interest groups. Let people make their case for charity, charitable monies earnt through campaigning may well be targetted for efficiently and effectively than carte blanche government funding. Scarcity of resources will do that to an organisation.
The 1967 referendum included two reforms.
The first reform was that Aboriginies be included in the census. This was a logical and essential reform.
The second reform altered Section 51(xxvi) of the constitution to allow the federal government to make special laws with regards to Aboriginies. It does not say that these special laws should be to the advantage or to the disadvantage of Aboriginies it just says that federal laws that are specific to Aboriginals may be created. This amendment was the wrong decision and Section 51(xxvi) should have been (and still should be) repealed entirely. It’s very existance is a residual of an era which gave us the white Australia policy and racial segregation.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1967_(Aboriginals)
Nobody here is claiming otherwise but it should be stated that 1967 was not about the right to vote. However the 1960s were. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_of_Australian_Aboriginals
Brendan, This may come as a huge awakening to you but MANY Aboriginal people even reject the notion that they are Australian. Instead they see themselves as citizens of their own Nation, the Wonnarua, the Wiradjiri as so on. There is a push to get Koori Passports. To many Aboriginals this is still a land under occupation and they are fighting for soverienty. I imagine that sounds silly to you. But think about it. This country has the oldest known culture in the world going back 48,000 years. Did you think that 230 years of occupation would cause us to surrender? After all the Irish didn’t. For 500 hundred years the fight in Ireland against British occupation continued and has only been reconciled this year.
In the early colony Australian Aboriginals under the leadership of Pemulway, waged a 12 year war against the invaders. Pemulway was wounded three times before he was captured and killed. His head was severed and is still sitting in a museum in Edinburgh, in Scotland. In the Hunter Valley the Wonnarua nation waged a 20 year war that almost wiped out the Gringai clan. Only 212 remain today. In more modern times we have not resorted to violence, save burning down the odd cop-shop in protest of gross injustice, and we have not sent suicide bombers into crowded market places to make our point, but we have been under occupation for over 230 years. We have suffered profound human rights violations and dispossession not unlike that being experienced in the Middle East with the occupation of Palestine by Israel.
So are you beginning to see the arrogance of some of the comments on this thread? I know that the postings are not meant to give offense. It is just that the understanding of the situation from an Aboriginal persons perspective is profoundly inept.
Is a Koori passport a passport for a man?
Kate,
You’ve told us a lot of things about how Aboriginals are victims and about how they have a great sense of injustice and dispossession because of the actions of past and present government policy. You have told us little of how you see some of the problems faced by Aboriginals being relieved except more of the same.
My claim is that more of the same will simply exacerbate some of the problems and make Aboriginals even further beholden to the whims of the government of the day. Politics is politics and money is power. The electorate do have a natural sympathy towards Aboriginals and are frustrated by stories of alcoholism, domestic abuse and sexual abuse, particularly of children. The thinking of the average person is along the lines of “It is our tax dollars, we deserve a say in how they’re spent”. Howard is an adept politician who has jumped on this as a wedge issue, no doubt. But he can only do so because the state has a role in the funding of Aboriginal communities. This is what I mean when I say welfare recipients leave themselves beholden to the state lest they have their welfare taken away. It is very paternalistic and one of the pitfalls of the welfare state. Saying it is wrong won’t take away the incentives for politicians to interfere.
You state that it is a land grab, well, so it may be, I don’t know what the motivations of the government are and I don’t agree with their current tactic. If warfare is politics by other means, what message is being portrayed when Howard sends the troops into the NT?
I doubt that the current intervention will achieve much, except perhaps a few convictions of child abusers and profits for a few porn and alcohol traffickers. The long term problems of the communities involved won’t be dealt with. They can only be dealt with when Aboriginals take full responsibility for themselves and not look to welfare for recompense for past and present wrongs. The role of welfare, if it has a role at all, should be to assist people getting off of the welfare, not condemning them to a lifetime of handouts dependency.
It is all very tragic, but you seem to have more interest in telling us how we don’t understand your people’s special position. Well, let me tell you, most people only have room for so much tragedy, and beyond that they get tired and start blaming the downtrodden, even resenting them. Good will diminishes and both sides butt heads more than they address the structural problems that bought both parties to the state they are in.
For the well heeled, this is not so much a problem, they have good jobs and houses, but for the downtrodden, it is in their interest to not appeal to victimhood, but appeal to positive ideas. Banging on about injustice makes people just want to be left alone. People don’t want to be told they are occupiers, interlopers, colonisers, that makes them feel bad. Most people consider themselves good people and don’t navel gaze about what their ancestors did and don’t think they are personal invaders. Once they stop believing the message they stop believing the messenger, and if the messenger doesn’t stop, that is when vilification begins. That is human nature, and a sense of injustice and tragedy won’t overcome it.
Brendan, you have not UNDERSTOOD a word I have said. I am wasting my time even discussing this with you,
Kate: It is very likely the aborigines were not the original human inhabitants of Australia. There is quite good evidence in the Kimberley to that effect.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving descendants of those prior inhabitants. Which means the aborigines were quite likely responsible for genocide.
That makes your comments profoundly arrogant and hypocritical.
David at 221:
You’re probably right, don’t know about the Kimberley find but would be interested in references. Digs at Kow Swamp revealed two morpohologically different hominids. Fair enough, hard to really know from so few bones but there is other evidence that I won’t mention here. What about the Tasmanian Aborigines, evidence suggests they were distinctly different from the mainland aborigines. My belief is that the Tas aborigines were driven off the mainland by the current aborigines, only the rising sea levels saving them because that cut off Tasmania.
“original inhabitants” “rights”, what can these mean to a people so downtrodden they can’t give their children breakfast? Seeking to explain a peoples’ plight by reference to their past is fraught with peril, too many possible interretations, endless revisionism, grist for the academic mill that will do bugger all to help the aborigines of today.
We have far too much encouraged aborigines to think about their past when we must be helping them to look towards the future of their children. Ruminating about the past leads to apathy, depression, and possible drug addiction. No point thinking about something you can’t change.
David, Aboriginal oral traditions which describe the origin of Australia from ancient times are frequently dramatic. involving great beings and amazing events, however, they do contain the essence of truth. The legends when distilled create a story of the origins of man in Australia and of the Australian landscape as it is today of which much can be substantiated by scientific investigation. The ancient racial memory of a people whose traditions and culture remained largely unaltered for thousands of years. Aboriginal people have lived on the Australian continent for an extraordinary length of time. Why the first people came and who they were, is lost in the eons of time. Stone age tools found in Australia at various sites dated to the Pleistocene era, suggest however that Aboriginals may be connected to the island South-East Asian peoples. There is no evidence regarding a genocide in Australia PRIOR to the arrival of the British Colonialists. So where is the arrogance and hypocrisy? This is HISTORIAL fact. There is plenty of evidence at the genocide of Aboriginal culture. Hundreds of tribe are now extinct and they did NOT all die of influenza and smallpot! Although too many non-Aboriginal people still want to deny this history, it does not change the facts.
David,
can you point us to any blogs to support that comment about prior inhabitants?
That would not mitigate her point, that we have the chance to act in a better way. And I haven’t forgotten that Kate sidestepped my comment about tribes fighting each other to the death- are they now offering compensation to each other because of historical wrongs?
Also, I am torn two ways. I do think that we have one government over all of Australia- if we didn’t, we would soon have other powers trying to take us over piecemeal, and the lot of the Aborigines would be even harder than it is (as would all our lots). But, my preference as a libertarian is for small governments, with local councils forming the most powerful unit, something like the Swiss Confederation. So I see some libertarian benefit to her idea of local sovereignty.
Nicholas – Wikipedia has a basic intro to the Kimberley paintings that suggest pre-aboriginal inhabitants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradshaws There are other sources as well if you are interested.
Re Kate’s comments:
There is no evidence regarding a genocide in Australia PRIOR to the arrival of the British Colonialists. So where is the arrogance and hypocrisy? This is HISTORIAL fact.
Lack of evidence does not amount to a fact, historical or otherwise. Not all genocides leave evidence. I am not suggesting one genocide legitimises another, but you can’t claim moral superiority when you are also potentially guilty.
There is plenty of evidence at the genocide of Aboriginal culture. Hundreds of tribe are now extinct and they did NOT all die of influenza and smallpot!
You should read more by Keith Windshuttle. Evidence of genocide, meaning the systematic elimination of a population, cannot be found. There were unconnected individual acts of destruction.
If you regard evidence for genocide by Europeans to be a lack of alternative explanation for disappearance of tribes, then the disappearance of the original inhabitants must be similarly explained.
By the way Kate, if prior inhabitancy leads to a superior claim on Australia, do you believe descendants of arrivals on the First Fleet have a superior claim over recent Muslim arrivals?
David,
There were Muslims in Australia from quite early (mid/late 19th century). The Afghan camel train drivers in Western Australia were Islamic and there are instances of Afghanis marrying into Aboriginal tribes and converting them to Islam. There were also Muslim Malay pearl divers in WA as well who married into local mixed race communities.
I think it is quite racist to suggest that any one racial group has a higher moral claim to the place. If you were born here then you have every right to reside here. My ancestors did not harm anybody in Australia, my kids are without blame for any past injustices. If there was to be a separate Koori nation in our midst I wouldn’t be overly tolerant of it if the criteria for citizenship was racial. I’m not overly wedded to federation or central government but I see little likelyhood of Australia being dismantled. So long as Australia exists as a nation I think it should be one law for all people with as much power pushed out to regional government and to individual citizens as is possible.
Nicholas…I shall respond to you firstly by saying I did not sidestep your question regarding Aboriginals having been war like and killed each other. I do not deny that there were inter-tribal disputes that resulted in pitched battles. However, the disputes would NEVER have been over land, no would land have been confiscated and occupied after any dispute. Nicholas many Aboriginal Nations are pushing for self -determination, and it would be a marvelous thing if is were achievable. And I imagine that is scares the crap out of govts, as our culture does operate without a central govt and the need for welfare.
David, why do you single out Muslims as recent arrivals when 25% of Australians today were born overseas, and Muslims by NO means make up 25% of our population. In fact I believe there are only about 600,000 Muslims in Australia. We should expect more, and we should welcome them with open arms, afterall didn’t we invade two Muslim countries in the past five years, creating millions of refugees? Let’s see how kind and generous Australians will be to open their hearts to people whose country we devastated.
David, Aboriginal people are not ruminating about past injustices, or don’t you read the newspapers?
So Kate, you can categorically say that Aboriginals have never clashed over access to fresh water, hunting grounds, fishing areas or spiritual sites?
nd I imagine that is scares the crap out of govts, as our culture does operate without a central govt and the need for welfare.
For a culture that operates without the need for welfare it’s members seem to consume a bloody lot of it. Or are you honestly acknowledging the damage welfare has done to indigenous Australia and believe we should dramatically cut it back as part of self determination?
DAvid, you need to acquaint yourself with the MABO High Court challenge that Australia was not Terra Nullius in 1788. This landmark victory was the turning point for Aboriginals reclaiming land that was always ours in the first place. It is not a matter of ‘prior’ inhabitancy concerning Aboriginals is it about land that was occupied prior to the invasion and has been occupied continuously since. This is NOT debatable!
Neither is the GENOCIDE of Australian Aboriginals and I am fully acquainted with the work of Mr. Windschuttle. Let me give you the United Nations definition of what constitutes genocide.
I would like to take you to the UN Convention on Genocide. Most people do not understand what constitutes genocide.
This is a direct quote from the UNHCR website:
“Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”
Now let me give you the Bringing Them Home Report:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/stolen_children/index.html
Add this to your reading:
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-massacres-of-indigenous-australians-1
David until this country OWNS up to its history and deals HUMANELY with the consequences of that history we will forever be a country divided.
Brendan, I can tell you that in all my studies of my culture I have no evidence that people killed each other over water and fishing rights. I do have evidence the the contrary however and leave this with you to ponder.
“Forty thousand years before the ancient Chinese or Egyptians systematically practiced harvesting fish for food, the Ngemba people ( of Brewarrina) were already applying advanced engineering, physics and knowledge of water ecology and animal migration to create farming enterprises, or fish traps (Baiames Ngunnhu). The Ngemba people were facing famine after a major drought had dried the river. Baiame, a creation being who saw their plight, designed a gift for the Ngemba – an intricate series of fish traps in the dry river bed. Baiame then showed the old men of the Ngemba how to call the rain through dance and song. Days of rain followed and filled the rive course, flooding Baiame’s net and bringing with it thousands of fish. The old men rushed to block the entry of the stone traps, herding fish through the pens. Baiame instructed that although the Ngemba people were to be custodians of the fishery, maintenance and use of the traps should be shared with other tribes in the area.
Over time, the Ngemba people studied fish migration in relation to season and river flows to apply innovative new methods of working the fish traps more efficiently and to ensure that the river was not over fished. Neighbouring tribes were invited to the fish traps to join in great corroborees, initiation ceremonies, and meetings for trade and barter.
Such was the success of the fish traps (Baiames Ngunnhu) Brewarrina became a gathering point for Aborigines from all over the area. In her book Old Days, Old Ways, Dame Mary Gilmore records: “two of my uncles said they once witnessed what they reckoned were five thousand blacks assembled (at Brewarrina), and people who were older said that before the massacres began there were even larger gatherings.”
Let me just highlight a small section of Dame Mary Gilmores records in case you missed it “Before the massacres began” and she was not talking about blackfellas massacring each other!
Kate, call it genocide all you want, I don’t think anyone on thise board disagrees that the European settlement of Australia had terrible consequences for the indigenous peoples inhabiting the land, you say genocide, I say tragedy. You’ll never get me to agree to using the word genocide to describe what happened, nor will you get many fellow Australians.
Saying sorry won’t stop alcoholism, domestic or sexual abuse, it won’t give Aboriginals freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish from a secure economic base. That is what I want, saying I don’t understand the plight or history of Aboriginals doesn’t make it wrong for me to want them to have better futures. I don’t need to understand the entire history of a group of downtrodden people to see possible solutions. Even if I did know of every single settler massacre of a local tribe or child taken from its mother, how would that help me formulate ideas about how to give Aboriginals greater control over their current lives?
What is it exactly you are trying to achieve by continuously pointing to the past?
Tejre, you said ” I think it is quite racist to suggest that any one racial group has a higher moral claim to the place. If you were born here then you have every right to reside here. My ancestors did not harm anybody in Australia, my kids are without blame for any past injustices.”
Racism exists where one group of people believe they are superior to another based on skin colour or ethnicity. Aboriginals do not make a ‘high moral’ claim to their sovereign right to this land. They have an ABSOLUTE right, and land that Aboriginal people are able to prove they occupied prior to the invasion is being returned, and rightfully so. No Aboriginal that I know is saying ‘get out of our country’ But ALL of us are saying give us a FAIR GO.
And if you think we get a fair go, then open your eyes wider. It would serve many in here WELL to get the National Indigenous Times and/or the Koori mail to keep informed of what is really happening in Aboriginal communities across the country. MANY of them are NOT welfare dependent as many in here seem to think. There are many Non-Indigenous enclaves in Australia that welfare dependent residents where child abuse, rape, drug and alcohol addiction and high crimes rates are out of control. Do we see the Australian Govt jackbooting their way into those communities?
Terje, I appreciate that you came to this country from somewhere else, and your children were born here and had nothing to do with the past injustices. However, to stick your head in the sand and say, “we are not responsible” does not make the problem go away. Regardless of what you say, and I have repeated it many times now on this thread that is must be pissing people off, but I do not really care if people can’t handle the truth. ALL of you are standing on stolen land. And many of you are crying like babies because a small number of Australians, and Aboriginal Australia with only 400,000 people in total it is a small number, need more time to HEAL, and recover. And more importantly we need to replace the system of racist white supremacy that has prevailed and replace it with a system of justice. Programs are in place, great strides forward are being made in many communities. But when we have a Govt that withholds much needed funding for infrastructure because Aboriginal people will not hand back control of land we are going backwards in many ways.
And when 61% of this country can support a clearly racist agenda of the Howard Govt, we have not progressed far at all.
Brendan I have put MANY postings on this thread that deal with injustices that are still being experienced TODAY. You seem to want to start up some new political movement that will racially change the way we do things in this country, and heaven knows we could certainly use a better system.
However, you inherit a situation, not of your making, but nevertheless existing where the injustices to Aboriginal Australia are continuing. And for me or ANY other thinking person to take your movement seriously I would want to know what you would do about that situation.
terje, you said: If there was to be a separate Koori nation in our midst I wouldn’t be overly tolerant of it if the criteria for citizenship was racial. I’m not overly wedded to federation or central government but I see little likelyhood of Australia being dismantled.
What you are failing to comprehend here is that there are MANY Aboriginals Nations across Australia. I for instance am a citizen of the Wonnarua Nation, although I spent a great deal of my life connected to the Bogan Community, where my mother was born. Which is similar to saying I am French, but I lived in Italy.
The invaders of this country made it ONE Nation, with a central Govt. My people had hundreds of smaller nations that were self Governed. No one wants to put non-indigenous Australians into the sea. This is a great big land, we can live in harmony. But Non-Indigenous Australians need to develop a respect for my people and our culture. We DO have MORE right to be here than you, regardless of where you have come from.
As I have said in earlier postings I am Aboriginal of mixed blood so half on my heritage is connected to yours. But my heart and my spirit belong to this land.
I said it sometime back in this thread but let me repeat it, as I feel it is important. “We do not need you to rescue us. If you have come to help me, I say leave, I can help myself. If your liberation is caught up in my freedom we can talk”
Kate,
I was born in Australia. Australia was the country I was born in. I am an Australian. On my birth certificate it shows my place of birth as Australia. I have stated this earlier in the discussion in direct response to an earlier comment by you. And I had no choise in being born here. In fact I had no choise in being born at all. However I was born in Australia for better or for worse.
I have no fundamental problem with native title. My comment was in response to suggestions that some people want a separate Koori nations with passports etc. I am not at all sympathetic to the idea of creating a nation where citizenship is based on race. This is irrespective of whether it is a Koori nation excluding whites or a Caucasian nation excluding Asians or a Norweigen nation excluding Turks. However I have no fundamental problem with native title.
Saying that “I am not responsible” for massacres that occured before I was born would not be a case of sticking my head in the sand. It is merely a fact. It is not a fact that I have laboured but so long as you wish to suggest otherwise let me be very clear. It is a fact that I am not responsible for the massacre of any person at any time or in any place. Innocent your honor. Not guilty. It was also never within my capacity to hinder those aboriginal massacres because I wasn’t here at the time. Just to be specific I am also not responsible for the deaths inflicted during World War II, the failed economic policies that caused the great depression or the fall of the Roman empire. And I had nothing to do with the Spanish Inquistion (even though I come from Christian stock) or the the Salem Witch Trials (even though I am male). And whilst my Ancestors probably raped woman and looted parts of Britian it wasn’t my fault.
Of course I’m happy to be a part of any contemporary bridge building exercise. I would like to live in a harmonious society where people treat other people with respect.
Did I mention already that I have no fundamental problem with self determination or native title?
Regards,
Terje.
Kate,
I accept that our system of government is a product of past British policy and European culture. However with all due respect I categorically reject the assertion that you have more right to live on this large island than I do.
Regards,
Terje.
I agree that this point is important. It does not need repeating for my sake but I see no harm in repeating it. Let me also say that if your liberation is caught up in my freedom we can talk. So where do we find common ground?
Kate, I’ve already stated some ideas and I’d appreciate your assessment of them. But I can rehash for you:
1. Convert native title to freehold title.
2. Grant unclaimed crown land as freehold title to dispossessed Aboriginals no longer able to demonstrate traditional links to the land.
3. Grant mineral rights to all land holders.
At the moment the state owns the minerals under the land any Australian owns. This means that the state is the primary stakeholder when it comes to negotiating access to minerals, not the owner of the land. This puts all landowners at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating with mining companies.
I realise that Aboriginal communities are already in commercial arrangements with mining companies, but freehold title combined with ownership of mineral rights would place Aboriginals in the box seat and not the sideshow. At the moment, all the state needs do is legislate and Native Title land rights can be compromised. This can still happen with Freehold Title of course, but it is less likely to because a majority of voters would be affected by any change of status of their freehold land.
So, Freehold Title would at the very least grant Aboriginals more secure rights over their land and if combined with ownership of the mineral rights, a stronger negotiating position and income stream from mining companies.
This leads me to a less popular idea in many circles, but an idea that has some merit:
4. End current welfare arrangements for all Australians.
5. Use a negative tax rate combined with high tax free threshold to guarantee all Australians with a minimum income irrespective of background and not subject to extensive administration. A fuller description can be found on the LDP website:
http://www.ldp.org.au/federal/policies/tax.html
Public institutional racism is not compatible with an open, liberal democratic society. Private racism has its own costs to both the racist and those being discriminated against. However, outside of demanding zero tolerance of public institutional racism, I do not believe that the law is the best weapon against private racism.
Racism is stupid, but it is still simply another expression of free speech and an exercise of property rights. I can’t compromise on these two principles because of the importance I see in them for ensuring all of our freedoms and prosperity. I can refuse to shop at racist shops and I can refuse to have business with racists though, and so can other likeminded Australians.
Another little idea that I’ve thought about more is the ending of defamation and libel laws. An ending to these laws would make it easier to name and shame racists by private campaigners. At the moment you have to tread carefully around such laws, it can be very difficult to prove racism in a court when being sued for libel or defamation.
Private property rights and mineral rights will mean that Aboriginals will have an economic base to overcome the disadvantages of racism and past injustices. Nothing buys equality like a big fat bank balance.
I didn’t really want to weigh into this discussion – it is interesting reading though I feel we’re a little sidetracked at present – I don’t think an aboriginal search for self determination is in fundamental conflict with any libertarian values, but we’ll have to disagree about supporting the welfare system as currently practiced.
However, just to perpetuate the sidetrack we are on now, perhaps Kate could tell us how aboriginal tribes, if they didn’t fight, dealt with population pressures and conflict for scarce resources. Technologial advaces such as the aquaculture she mentions (and I believe there was extensive eel farming somewhere down near the NSW/Vic border?) certainly allow an increase in population numbers in the short run, but if we’re talking about 60,000 years they had to be losing most of their population increase somehow – actual warfare for resources or ritualised warfare to kill off excess mouths, or devastating drought/famine that regularly winnowed large numbers.
We can have the morality we can afford. It is affluence created by western liberal-democratic market-based economies that creates the opportunity to moralise about the genocide of european colonisation. We have the technological advances to soak up our population increases comfortably. In a battle for resources to feed the starving, the weak are swept aside by the strong and no-one
worries about the morality of their actions. Witness all of human history. Only when we were rich did we even invent the concept of genocide. Previously it was normal survival.
I don’t want that to be an apology for genocide. I am a product of modern morality and think it wrong, in Australia or Darfur. But arguably less wrong the poorer the society. (Arguable in the sense that I’ve just argued it). As usual, I’m rambling a little, just putting some of my thoughts at the previous discussion down in writing, rather then arguing a coherent thesis.
Getting back on track, I’d like to hear how people envisage self governing aboriginal communities functioning. It could certainly be achieved through a widespread reformation of the federation and creation of dozens of small states to replace current states and local government areas, combined with the devolving of much federal power to the new states. Some of these areas would be predominantly aboriginal. Obviously we wouldn’t support the creation of a race based apartheid system. But geographical boundaries that held a majority of aboriginal people wouldn’t present an issue. Mineral wealth if well invested could fund remote states. And there would be an opportunity through competitive federalism to trial community/tribal based systems. Personally, I suspect these wouldn’t work and people would leave for prosperity in other market orientated states, but I stand to be proven wrong.
And obviously, when I say side track we are now on, I don’t refer to posts on track posted wile I was writing mine…
Tim,
One measure I’d take would be to transfer the power to determine minimum wage rates from central government and give it to local communities. A minimum wage of $13 per hour may make some sense in an area where the unemployment rate is 2% but it makes no sense in an area where the unemployment rate is 60%+.
Legally you could can create low paid jobs for low skilled workers in China and still maybe make a living in the process. However you can’t legally make similar jobs in remote Australia unless you wish to send yourself broke.
And rates of taxation would also be better determined at the local level. If an aboriginal community wanted to create a tax holiday to attract skilled specialists (eg doctors) or businesses then they should have more power to determine such things at the local community level.
Self determination means determining things for yourself. Big central government means Canberra determing things for you, and spending your money for you. However I don’t want self determination merely for communities that are mostly black. I want more self determination for all Australian communities.
Regards,
Terje.
Terje, with respect you lived in a country where for over 200 years citizenship WAS based on race, and Aboriginal people were excluded. You need to try and comprehend the deep and lasting scars that has left on the psyche of the survivors, people like myself, who remember an APARTHIED Australia not that long ago and see evidence of its emergence.
Terje, whether or not you support separate Aboriginal Nations and Koori Passports is totally irrelevant, both exist. And the latter is entirely appropriate for Aboriginal people who have remained connected to their culture and wish to be recognised as citizens of their nation. In the same way that perhaps your parents may have retained their nationality. They may have subsequently have taken Australian citizenship and obtained an Australian passport. What you are missing here is Australian Aboriginals did not immigrate from anywhere. This is OUR land and always has been. And had we had the fire power we may have even repelled the invaders.
In New Zealand this week Maori MP Hone Hariwina called John Howard a “racist bastard”. He compared Mr Howard’s move in the Northern Territory, with its mineral wealth, to United States President George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, allegedly to control oil. A similar move in New Zealand would be met with violence from the Maori community.
“If they tried this up north, we’d be out with guns. It wouldn’t happen.
There seems to be this prevailing attitude that Aboriginal people have to assimilate with non-Aboriginal people. We don’t.
Read what former orthodox Rabbi Joseph Gutnick has to say. He draws parallels between the persecution of Aboriginals to the Holocaust of the Jews in WW2. Does anyone tell the Jews to get over it and ‘MOVE ALONG’?
http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/uploads/approved/adt-NUWS20061011.103540/public/08Chapter7.pdf
The fact that you were born her, does not negate the fact that your parents immigrated to a country, where the land of the indigenous people was stolen, and basic human rights were denied for 200 years and continue to this day. Under the Howard Govt we have seen a retrogression back to a time when Governments just marched into communities and took children. No one is asking you are your family to feel guilty. But if Non Aboriginal Australians really want to resolve the conflicts, they DO need to try and understand, the history, the culture and the present day oppression and ongoing injustice. Telling Aboriginals to ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ does not wash when the situation no better than it was 50 years ago with regard to how the wider Australian community views us, and the way Govts completely disregard ouor basic human rights. Former Prime Minster Paul Keating summed it up the best, when he said “We (the wider Australian community) failed to ask the most basic question. We failed to ask: What if this was done to us?”
Brendan, we cannot wipe-out private racism, because that is what it is private. In my opinion individuals do not have to like each other, and they are free hate each other if they wish. In Australia we have racial vilification laws and anti-discrimination laws that prevent, hate speech, particularly over public broadcasting networks, and makes it hard for employers to discriminate on race, religion, gender or sexual preferences.
Individual racism in not the problem. The problem is and always has been, the white racist LAWS of this country and the discrimination and marginalizing of Aboriginal people that is continuing to this day.
Kate, you’ve misunderstood my position. When referring to private racism, I was talking about the factory owner that refuses to employ Aboriginals, or the restaurant who won’t serve Asians, or the taxi driver who won’t pick up Arabs. My point is that they are merely exercising their right as property owners to control access to their property, just as the permit system that operated on Aboriginal land controlled access. Racism whereby people don’t want to associate with certain groups socially is just one side of private racism.
I do agree though that the state should be as equal in the treatment of all citizens as possible, but this is something that could be incorporated in the constitution along the lines of “The parliament shall not pass legislation that is specifically designed to be to the benefit or the detriment of any particularly race, religion or creed”.
I really disagree that anti-discrimination laws are just or in the spirit of the principle of liberty. People and private organisations should be free to discriminate, such as the gay pub that was given permission to discriminate against heterosexuals. Sometimes discrimination is stupid, such as racism, sometimes it is acceptable, such as discriminating against short basketball players. Discrimination is simply an extension of private choice which equal opportunity cannot fix.
Which “white only” laws are you talking about? Please give examples. I, and others, have already stated that we are opposed to all race specific legislation and are opposed to the clause in the constitution that allows it and was modified in the 1967 referendum to enable those race specific laws to be extended to Aboriginals.
I accept that you may harbour deep emotional scars due to past injustices. And I’m not telling Jews or Aboriginies to “get over it” or move along. And I’m not telling anybody to assimilate. I’m merely asserting my right to live in Australia. I’m am refusing to accept that me or my kids have a lesser right to reside here.
I have made a load of points about how I would reform welfare, taxation and wage laws and move economic decision making to the local level. In other words practical initiatives to foster “self determination” at the community level by reducing “government determination” at the national level. Thus far you merely repeat cliches back at me and argue against positions that I have not even taken.
I really would appreciate if you could deal with some of the more specific issues I have raised.
1. Should local communities determine the minimum wage or should Canberra?
2. Should local communities determine how much tax locals pay or should Canberra?
3. Should local communities determine the distribution of welfare funds or should Canberra?
Do you support self determination on these issues? If not then why not?
4. Should section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution be abolished?
It is interesting you pick the Jews as an example on both sides of the debate, arguing at once that it is OK for them to accentuate the genocide that was inflicted upon them, but earlier you were critical of them displacing the Palestinians, reclaiming territory that they had been displaced from 2000 years earlier by the policies of the Roman Empire. Do you think that the Jews reclaiming land that their ancestors were displaced from is just to the relatively recent interlopers the Palestinians who had benefited from the policies of the Roman Empire? Is it just to persecute the living for benefiting from decisions made by others in the past? Whose land is it and who has been persecuted?
Brendan, the conflict in Palestine and Israel has NOTHING to do with Jews returning to the promised land. I separate Zionism from Judasism. And according to the Torah, the Jews cannot return to the promised land until the Messiah returns and to the best of my knowledge we have not seen the Rapture. Jesus was a Philistine (Palestinian) He was Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews were banished by GOD, not the Romans.
The Jews that were sent to Israel in 1947 were European or Ashkenazim Jews and NOT Semites or Arab Jews that are indigenous to the region.
I gave you Dr.Joseph Gutnick’s comments to demonstrate the parallels he sees between the plight of the Aboriginals and that which was suffered by the Jews of Europe during WW2. Where my opinions differ from Dr. Gutnick, it that I empathise MORE with the plight of the Palestinians. Their country was invaded, with no regard for them. Their homes have been bulldozed. Unemployment is at around 75%. Millions of displaced and homeless Palestinians live in camps, under appalling conditions that is a breeding ground for human depravity. Are you starting to see the parallel here between Aboriginals and Palestinians? I stand out like the proverbial canine genitalia to me. As Dr. Gutnick said “Aboriginals don’t blow up buses” and Hone Hariwina MP of New Zealand said if their government tried the stunts of the Howard government, their be an ‘armed’ Maori uprising.
The white racist supremacists Governments have not progressed from the behaviour of their colonial ancestors.
I would no more want to see Non-Aboriginal Australians pushed out or ‘their’ country, as I would like to see today’s Israeli’s born after 1948, and who have worked hard to make a decent life for their families, pushed out if Palestine. But the country they occupy is on Palestinian land, and that is NOT debatable. Therefore the original ‘caretakers’ of both Australia and Palestine deserve better than apartheid laws and 3rd world conditions to raise their kids.
Aboriginal history is completely different to the Palestinians.
Tha Palestinians were given a share in partitioned land. The treatment of Palestinians by Jordan was highly questionable. Palestine has various foreign regimes using its plight as an excuse for ongoing terrorist campaigns in Israel and Lebanon because of a pan Islamist ideology.
The Maori siutation is different again. There was a war. There was a treaty. In fact, the Maoris are favoured by laws which resemble hereditary rule, given they have guaranteed representation in Parliament.
You keep on saying that John Howard is a very poor administrator, but what is wrong? We think he intervenes too much whilst leaving Aboriginals with worthless assets. What is your opinion on what policy will have the best long term prospects for prosperity? Just slamming Australian laws as “white and racist” pretty much means you reject the status quo and any reform except for partition with Anglo dominated Australia, but you’ve also complained about taking away a safety net. Those last two issues probably would lead to a reliance on sit down welfare for any remote community.
In other words Kate, please be more specific as to where you think John Howard, Rudd or Australian libertarians have got it wrong.
Terje, no one will ever heal the scars of the past injustices to Aboriginal people, no more then the Jews will ever forget their persecution. My resentment and frustration comes from the continuance of discrimination. Governments that think it is OK the violate the rights of Aboriginals, and initiate programs that WOULD cause an uproar if tried in Non-Aboriginal communities.
You have asked me to respond on ‘specifics’ like taxation and welfare reform. It was apparent to me from the outset of this thread that I was talking to people who were almost entirely ignorant to Aboriginal culture, land rights, and self determination issues. I have never been one to put the cart before the horse. One cannot even begin to set programs and governance for people where one is ignorant to the needs of those people. And I have already said, we do not need ANY political party, Liberal, Labour, Libertarian or anyone else setting any guide lines for us. Our land is occupied by invaders, we can’t wind the clock back. The capacity of my people to ‘self-govern’ was stripped away. Out culture was fractured. We are regrouping, and we need time to repair the damage of legislative dispossession. If today’s Australians, and don’t forget Aboriginals pay taxes too, have a portion of their tax dollars channeled into welfare programs to help communities that still need help, that is a very small price to pay for the joy you all have of living in this great land.
Many Aboriginal communities are striving for self determination, and welfare programs will not be part of that plan. But then our culture has not been so fractured that we have forgotten how to take care of the less fortunate and the aged population, which in the wider Australian communities are ‘invisible’ to many people.
Who should collect and administer taxation? Who should take care of the less fortunate? From a traditional perspective, that would be each community and Land Council. But we are no longer and island of 760 individual nations, all taking care of our own business. Australia is now part of the big globalised mess and I am intrigued to understand how Libertarianism sits with issues of foreign policies, international trade etc.
Kate,
I think this warning comes too late, but I’ll give it anyway- many libertarians, like myself, are allergic to the words ‘United Nations’, and it’s abbreviation ‘UN’.
Too often, UN committees, such as Human rights, are taken over by human rights abuser countries. The only thing you then hear from them is how Israel is the cause of ALL the trouble in the world, and they never castigate Cuba or Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe.
So the best way to make a point here is to leave the UN out of the comment, if you can.
Does anyone tell the Jews to get over it and ‘MOVE ALONG’?
No one needs to. They’ve done exactly that better than probably anyone else in history.
Kate,
You asked earlier if my liberation was tied up with your freedom and if so then lets talk. I believe that no community (black, white or green) can have self determination over things that are determined by someone else. To have self determination over land you need to own it. If somebody else controls your land then in matters of land you have no self determination. Likewise with income, time etc. If the central government dictates how and on what the product of your labour is expended then you automatically have less self determination.
Libertarianism is about self determination for individuals. It is about a persons life being and end in it’s own right and not a means to somebody elses ends. In so far as we do use other people as a means then we should only do so with concent. Government does not ask individuals for concent but rather it uses coercion. This coercion can sometimes be justified but libertarians believe that those times are relatively rare and that they require a high burden of proof.
However there is also within libertarianism a strong tradition of beleiving in the self determination of communities. Subsiduarity is the idea that government should occur at the most local level possible with individual sovereinty being the default starting point for libertarians. And if something needs to be governed using coercion (ie force of law) then best to do this locally and allow people to vote with their feet. If a local council wants to ban booze then that is far better than a national government banning booze. When the latter happens then as a nation we have self determination but as individuals and as communities we do not. The same goes for drug prohibition etc.
Libertarians disagree amoungst themselves on lots of things. However they basically all agree on the principle of starting with a presumption of individual freedom and on where the burden of evidence should lay in over riding that freedom. Such a philosophy requires an attitude of tolerance because other free people will choose lives quite differently from each of us. I don’t take drugs, play with guns, live in a shack in the bush, belong to a commune, have sex with men or sell my body for sex, however I fully respect other peoples right to do these things so long as they don’t in the process use coersion or violence to interfere with other people or other peoples property.
Libertarians also tend to take a hash view of criminals (those that do use violence or coersion against others) and many see huge parallels between what governments do and organised crime. However most libertarians are not anarchists and they do believe in the utility of limited government. Those that are anarchists don’t believe in a world without rules or without the use of force to protect peoples basic rights but believe that institutions other than government can deliver these things. I’m not personally an anarchist but I do find some of them to be quite intelligent and creative in their proposed alternatives.
Many libertarians (but by no means all) take a very active interest in the intersection between economics and government regulation. Mark Hill, who is in this discussion with us, is an economist and is one of the most well read libertarian economists that I have met.
Like many left wingers libertarians care a great deal about civil liberties. You will find them speaking in favour of equality for gays and sexual and racial equality. However like right wingers libertarians care a great deal about economic freedom and personal responsibility. You will find them speaking in favour of free markets and low taxes. And where they will agree with the left wingers that you should be free to smoke weed they won’t agree with the left wingers when it comes to governments using taxpayers money to pay for peoples lifestyles mistakes. It’s your life and you own the product of your choices for better or for worse.
Whether your quest for liberation is tied up with mine is in part for you to decide.
Regards,
Terje.
Ouch. Sorry about the spelling.
Kate,
One more thing. I wrote the article under which we are now having this discussion. My point in writing the article was because like you I believe that there should be an uproar over the move by Canberra to impose social controls on aboriginal communities. Controls that as you rightly point out would not be tolerated if applied across the board. The democratic majority seems to be showing a significant disregard for the freedom of a minority group. So on this much we agree.
Regards,
Terje.
Kate, it is interesting that you feel in a position to tell Jews whether their land is the promised land. Many current Aboriginals are no longer 100% genetically Aboriginal, some are hardly 50%, some much lower. If the genetic heritage of European Jews who have intermarried over 2 millennia matters. All Jews can trace their cultural roots to modern day Israel, whether they are genetically linked to the original Jews or not.
God didn’t bannish the Jews, the Roman Empire did. Some Jews may see the Roman Empire doing God’s work, but it was real men making real decisions that dispersed them. To deny this is to deny FACT. They saw them as a potential threat to their administration of the Levant and to prevent the re-emergence of the Jewish nation of Judea. They did it through slavery and eventually the Jews spread themselves naturally through the Roman Empire, which generally believed in freedom of movement for its citizens.
Kate, again you’ve fallen into a trap of arguing for self determination and not setting up changes for economic reform but simply accepting welfare as a solution.
Aoriginal culture does not mean Aboriginals cannot own their land, or such welfare reforms or land reforms discussed above cannot happen. Those who wish to remain traditional can be live as their ancestors did, not owning land, but know that it cannot be dispossed of them. Those who are no longer traditional can earn rental and other income from their land. The existence of a culture which pre dates Blackstone’s commentaries is not a reason to reject any reform. The only logical conclusion is to reject virtually all Anglo Australian law, even if it is de jure the law. But again allowing some people to live traditionally would remedy this somewhat.
So you get either some form of compensation or a return to pre white settlement. What you get depends on how far removed you are from your ancestor’s culture. Why won’t that help to remove the damage done by mistreatment?
Why must land be communalised? Why shouldn’t individual Aboriginals be able to sell off their share of freehold fee simple land?
As for international affairs, libertarians want unrestricted free trade, more open borders and military action based on substanive or clear and present grounds for self defence.
In selling off land, it would probably be selling of a share in a controlling entity which would hold some of the assets held by the language group.
I think long term transferable leases offer most of the benefits of freehold whilst dealing with concerns about maintaining a long term cultural affinity with the land. However I think it is an idea that local aboriginal communities should decide on for themselves.
Terje, do you agree with the idea that freehold title should include mineral rights to that land? If so, long term leases won’t confer mineral rights to the leasee and won’t give them the same level of protection under common law.
As for the problem of whether individual Aboriginals are able to transfer their title, I agree with you. It should be up to the individual communities or land councils. It is a difficult issue to be resolved for sure, with much potential for conflict with common law and company law. Ideally, land would simply be owned by individuals, but this may be impractical for community land. It is a problem that can only be resolved by the individuals within the communities involved.
Freehold title should include mineral rights. Native title probably should also however I have not given it extensive thought.
***SMILES*** it seems I am the only female in this dog fight. LOL. Oh my you boys have been busy hitting the balls back to me today. I shall get a coffee, and try to answer all of you in turn. If I miss a point it is NOT because I don’t want to answer, it is because I have been at the key board all day and ready to drop. But let me say I am finding the discussion stimulating, and provocative.
You are a persistent soul Kate, typically the sort of person that gets things done providing they don’t get too addicted to blogging.
You will note that what everyone here, including myself, are proposing what are essentially white man solutions to an aboriginal problem. The libertarians on this forum think the problems of aborigines will be solved through their own ideological preferences. There is some truth to that but the real probem here is that there is no room left in much of the world for people to do their own thing, let alone create their own culture; otherwise libertarians would have packed up their bags and set their little utopia long ago.
I do think it will ever possible to preserve aboriginal culture and from my perspective that isn’t a problem because I don’t even like the concept “culture”. I do not identify myself as an Australian what I care about is how people behave not where they come from. I hate it when people talk about Australian identity and all that stuff.
The sad truth is aborigines must learn to live in this world because like the rest of us they have no choice in the matter. There is nowhere to go.
“Integration” may be a dirty word amongst aborigines but perhaps they can learn from some libertarians and others who hold to belief contrary to the status quo. They live in the world and tolerate the contradictions. I suspect aborigines must now deal with this question head on: “What is best for our children: preserving our culture or preparing them for the world “out there”?
If something solves a problem it is a solution. If it does not solve a problem then it is not a solution. I don’t know if there is much merit in ascribing racial qualities to solutions. If a spear helps a black person catch dinner I am sure that it would just as readily help a white person who faced the same challenge. Although of course the cultural equivalent of Nash equilibrium combined with cultural legacies means that some solutions fit more readily in some cultures. Which is why the Americans drive on the right hand side of the road and the British drive on the left.
Mark, Discussions on Palestinian/Israel conflict deserves its own blog. Personally, I believe until the Palestine/Israel problem is resolved there will be no peace in the Middle East. I have only one comment to make from your post in that regard and that it to correct an error. Palestine, was ALWAYS where it is. It was Palestine that was partitioned in order to create the state of Israel. The British has no more right to steal Palestinian land than they had the right to steal the land of my people. But as I said that is another whole blog unto its self.
Mark, Rudd is yet to prove himself regarding Aboriginal affairs, and he is being way too quiet on the current issues for my liking. The Libetarians, at least those I have met in this blog, are at best very vague about Aboriginal affairs. I have asked people how would Libertarians deal with Indigenous issues and some have been quick to come back with all manner of cleverly worded policy proposals, but not ONE of you has said what every Aboriginal person wants and needs to hear. That is, “TELL US WHAT YOU NEED”. Instead people are too quick to tell what they think we need, with absolutely no consultation or comprehension of our cultural differences. I hear people talking as if they think that Aboriginal people are ONE group all with the same needs. That is not so. Aboriginal people are very diverse. I have repeated myself in here many times concerning the number of tribes still surviving in Australia today. They amount to around 230. All of these tribes are unique. They all have specific cultural and social needs and therefor need to be dealt with on an individual basis. And the MOST important thing to remember is no Aboriginal community wants you to do anything for them without consultation. Someone in here tonight has gone as far as to suggested that our ‘culture’ is on the way out and we need to get into the modern world or perish. I say RUBBISH! And in my opinion to even make such an assertion demonstrates how very ignorant the person is who made it. The reason my people have survived is because we have held onto our cultural values. The waters have become contaminated with drugs and alcohol, and many communities are making the correction. Can you even conceive of a Non-Aboriginal community with high drug and alcohol dependency banning the booze and drugs? Well that is happening in MANY Aboriginal communities.
For too long Aboriginal people were invisible in this country. The Government was happy to throw money at the problem, without proper programs in place that provided the necessary support and incentives to stay at school and get a good job. Housing and health issues have seen appalling neglect. In 2007 Aboriginal people are starting the ‘trust’ their thinking again and as a result of that we are making good progress in many communities, where the best of our two cultures meet, with a shared respect.
Some communities are in crisis, but nevertheless they still represent the smaller number of the Aboriginal population. And the problems exist because of years of neglect.
Someone said “where had Howard gone wrong”. Well concerning Aboriginal Affairs the question should be where has he ever got it right. The 61% of the people polled who support John Howard’s latest initiative are a blot on the intelligence of this country. John Howard demonstrated how much he cared for kids, when he sent families of refugees to detention centers where they languished for 6 and 7 years, until Human Rights watch advocates stepped in.
Anyone with eyes and ears could see where Howard got it wrong. He ignored ALL of the 93 recommendations in the Little Children are Sacred Report. He used Noel Pearson’s comments as some kind of validation for what he planned, without realizing that Noel Pearson does NOT speak for all Aboriginals, he can only speak for his own people. John Howard took a sledge hammer, and a box of band-aids to try and fix a situation that needs effective programs put in place. He ignored the advice of experts in the field of child abuse, and had no consultation with Aboriginal communities. John Howard had an agenda, and he achieved it. He got his name on the lips of all Australians, that is great ‘politicking’ in an election year.
Brendan, that you are even talking in blood quantum to describe Aboriginals tells me once again, I am wasting my time talking to you. But I shall give you this to ponder. For a person to obtain a Confirmation of Aboriginality they must meet this criteria.
1.) They must be able to prove Aboriginal ancestry.
2.) They must identify with a particular Aboriginal community.
3.) They must be recognized and accepted as being Aboriginal by that community.
Because of the removal of children from their mothers, there are MANY people with a higher “blood quantum” of Aboriginal blood than I have, and yet because they were removed from their people and culture and raised in white society, they cannot get a Confirmation of Aboriginality, as they don’t meet the other criteria. How is that for a cruel irony?
Michael, the Jewish people of Europe suffered unspeakable horrors, but they have not moved on. They have built Holocaust Memorials all over the world. Survivors of the suvivors still receive reparations from the Germany people who had NOTHING to do with the persecution and killing of their grandparents. The Palestinians had their land partitioned, and were invaded by Europeans who were NOT at all accommodating to their need to be shown some respect and decency in their own country. Today Isael is being condemned as an aparthied state, by people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela both of whom know aparthied when they see it. The Jews have a catch phrase “NEVER AGAIN” and although I condemn the treatment of Israeli’s toward the Palestinians I do understand why Jewish people NEVER want the world to forget what happened to them. Incidentally, the vast majority of people in Israel are atheists and not practicing Jews. What is more Torah Jews do not support the state of Israel for the reasons I gave earlier, the Messiah has not returned.
We had an informal discussion on Israel here a while ago. My views start at comment 26 at the following discussion.
http://alsblog.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/an-introduction-of-sorts/
Essentially I took Kates position and things got colourful for a while.
Kate, Israel and Palestine are destabilised by outsiders such as Iranian backed Hamas and Syrian backed Hezbollah. I can’t see a parallell.
I don’t know what you need. I don’t see the point in asking because every person, and of course in ach Aboriginal community is different. I think doing it this way is just a smaller version of a blanket approach. Instead we’d prefer people to choose for themselves.
Yes – we agree Howard got it wrong. Now since you want to be asked, what would you like to be done?
If people need houses they should build houses. Why does that need require government involvement?
Personally I would abolish the Aboriginal affairs portfolio along with section 51 (xxvi) of the constitution. If you have an Aboriginal affairs portfolio then you don’t get self determination you get government meddling.
Hey Terje, I actually agree with Kate and yourself, the creation of Israel was unjust, I was just interested to see whether kate could see any parallels between the Jews suffering genocide and wanting their own homeland to her position of Aboriginals claiming genocide and wanting their own Koori nation. Having said that, citizenship of Israel is not purely determined by race or religion, their are multiple races given the diaspora of the Jewish people and their are Christian and Muslim Israeli citizens.
The Law or Return does however make becoming a citizen of Israel vastly simpler if you are Jewish.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/8/Acquisition%20of%20Israeli%20Nationality
I would hasten to add that in terms of religious tolerance Israel is way ahead of most of it’s near neighbours.
Brendan, As you may have already gathered I am not a political animal, although I do keep and ear to the ground about what is going on around me. My interest in this whole discussion is from a humanitarian and human rights advocate.
I do have a great deal of empathy and compassion for the holocaust of the Jewish people in WW2, however, that does NOT extend to agreeing that to take land from the Palestinians, bulldoze homes and generally behave like the NAZI’s many fled from is acceptable.
Here is a link that will tell you what Archbishop Desmond Tutu thought when he visited the Holy Land in 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm
I had the enormous honour and privilege to participate in an interview with His Eminence last May. I was able to put this question to him “Supposing that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict ended today and the Israelis were compelled to comply with UN Resolution 242 and leave the occupied territories, how does the healing for the Palestinians begin?”
His Eminence replied,”One cannot heal these wounds, they cut too deep. All one can do is try not to let the pain of past suffering impede the road forward” That was exactly the answer I expected, and it is one I leave with you to ponder.
Brendan, You gave your postion away completely when you said.
“the Jews suffering genocide” to the “Aboriginals claiming genocide” You are clearly in denial about the genocide of Aboriginal people and probably for the same reason Holocaust deniers take their position. And if you are a Libertarian I can assure you you have done nothing to engender confidence in me to ever take your party seriously. It is a long road from denial to an apology, and you are too far down the road of the former.
Now let’s go to the question of Aboriginals having the temerity to want their own nations. Let me enlighten you to the fact that many Aboriginal Nations still exist. They existed BEFORE the invasion of the whiteman, and they never ceded. So we are not asking for anything. As for asking for land, we are not asking that either. We are winning challenges in the courts to have stolen land returned. The creation of Israel on stolen Palestinian land is a parallel to the invasion of Australia.
Tejre, Israel is an apartheid country. Black Jews from Ethiopia are being refused entry to Universities. Here is a link from C.A.R.D. Citizens Against Racial Discrimination that will give you a Jewish woman’s take on the racial and ethnic discrimination in Israel today.
http://card.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/fighting-racism-in-israel/
A person from anywhere in the world can get citizenship in Israel by simply claiming to be Jewish. I had to obtain a Confirmation of Aboriginality, in order to have my book published as an Indigenous writer in Australia. How ironic is that?
Is it as simple as claiming to be Jewish or do they need to have it confirmed?
Well gentlemen, my time visiting your blog has come to an end. I came in to discuss the Little Children are Sacred report and the appalling mishandling of that tragedy by the Howard Govt. I have enjoyed the banter, I learned more about Libertarians than I knew before I came, and I hope that I left some of you with a better understanding from an Aboriginal persons perspective and experience.
Let me close by saying, we are ALL Australians, some of us are from different NATIONS within Australia, but I believe we all share a common goal, which is to strive for freedom for all people to manage their own lives and communities. If anyone can find me a time machine I would take us all back to a time not that long ago, 230 years in fact, when this country thrived without the need for central government. Which if you think about it, is one of the reason your Government does not want to see Aboriginal people succeed, we pose a threat to their survival.
I agree that Aboriginals who were wronged (including the many that are now dead) should be officially apologised to. And where applicable compensated for wrongs. In some cases this may extend to the children of victims as well.
But do you think this will magically make things better for the Aboriginal people. Shouldn’t they be getting on with their lives in the meantime.
They’ll still be treated differently under the law.
Aboriginals are made to look like a different set of people by the law. They get special treatment in many areas, which in my opinion legitimizes racist attitudes. It doesn’t help Aboriginal people, it insults them. For example, they get more welfare payments, prefferential job, housing and university placements etc.
It’s good to see a few Aboriginals complaining about the latest government intervention but it has to apply to all aspects of government treatment. It would be good to see an Aboriginal person stand up and complain about “special” treatment in all areas.
I saw a poll on ABC news two nights ago saying 61% of Australians support the current government intervention, and only 23% disapprove. Thankfully on this blog 100% of people disapprove.
In my opinion this shows how the difference in legal treatment over the years has made people accept Aboriginals are inherently different (ie made people more racist) without them even knowing.
Kate,
I hope you will be back at some point in the future and that some of the other topics discussed here might catch your interest. I have enjoyed this discussion. It is good to be challenged.
Regards,
Terje.
Terje, I popped back in just to say thank you to you in particular for starting this thread of discussion. When I saw Tim R’s comment.
I cannot leave this thread with the last comment concerning Aboriginal people being completely inaccurate. Tim R, would you please provide me with links and evidence of the claims you have made in this regard. Thank you.
Brendan, keep on telling the truth. If the Aborigines had suffered genocide, there’d be no aborigines now!
Kate, congratulations on not using the UN any more, but I will still believe that Australia is one nation, until all land and local councils become independent cantons. Ideally, all Australians, of whatever origin, should have the same rights.
The poll was shown on ABC news on Tuesday night. I’m not sure of the source sorry. But found this, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22047027-601,00.html
It was shortly followed by a poll showing John Howard’s 2 party preferred rating is now only 1 point behind Kevin Rudd’s. And the news story was linking the two saying Howard’s interference in the Northern Territory communities was the reason for his increase in popularity.
Nicholas, I find your last remark as offensive as a Jewish person would find a holocaust denier to be.
Tim, I was not asking you to prove the poll taken recently, I am asking you to substantiate your claim that Aboriginal people get ‘special’ treatment, with regard to employment, housing, welfare and the law. Thank you.
Nicholas, I do not need to refer to anything but my own oral history concerning the genocide of Aboriginal people. What you are STILL failing to see is that Aboriginal people are NOT ONE group. We were many nations. In fact 760 tribes at the time of the invasion. Today we are 230 tribes. The 530 tribes that are now extinct DID NOT DIE OF NATURAL CAUSES!
Kate, where do you get you figure of 760 tribes from? This is the only blog on which that figure has appeared. In no.72 you mention a Language Chart by Norman Tindale. Is that the same as a nation? In England, each shire has a different accent, and they shade into each other. However, a slightly different way of speaking is not seen as a different nation.
And ’230′ years? Captain Cook was not the first to discover Australia, but he claimed it all for the Crown on August 19, 1770. Arthur Phillip settled in Sydney Cove in 1788, which is 219 years ago.
And if you did go back 230 years, what could you have told them that they would have believed? Could you have warned them? Would they have thought you were an insane woman? Whatever time you are in is a tough time, unless you’re in the upper classes.
Re- Genocide vs Holocaust. I have always thought of the Holocaust as a government-planned murder of a race, and we have evidence that the government of Germany planned and carried it out. I do not think our Governments deliberately planned to murder any aborigine (where are the poison-gas showers?), though they may have been indifferent to their fate, and they may have let settlers get away with murders.
Look at the bottom line in any government job advertisment. “Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders are encouraged to apply”. This directly implies that Aboriginals will be treated prefferentially.
When I went to university they had an Aboriginal affairs department. I’m sure it’s still there. They offer tax payer funded scholarships specifically for Aboriginals.
I have a good Aboriginal friend that I went to uni with. His tertiary entrance rank was lower than the level required for our degree, but he was allocated a place based on the fact he is half Aboriginal. In addition he found it easy to defer his exams using this office.
The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA) has separate policies for indigenous people. This politically correct approach is in my opinion effectively classing Aboriginals as being “different” or “special” simply by existing in a government form.
Here’s a couple of links at random, http://www.indigenous.gov.au/prog_serv.html http://www.iba.gov.au/
but it’s not hard to find many others.
As I stated earlier, it’s my opinion that “affirmative action” policies such as used around the world are actually detrimental to indigenous people. While some politicians comes across as being caring and makes a cushy job for themselves, indigenous people suffer. Unfortunately most people don’t realise that politically correct equal opportunity legislation is simply more disguised injustice.
For example, if an Aboriginal gets a government job, in the back of people’s minds they are thinking that he/she only got the job because of his race. This is a terrible thing because the Aboriginal person probably deserves the job but the legislation (claiming to help the indigenous) actually place a stigma on that person in the workplace.
My parents were forced to flee their home country losing all their savings and superannuation. Injustice is common.
Here’s an international example, the “black economic empowerment” legislation in South Africa. De Beers sold 26% of their company to a black owned company but only to comply with government regulations. Again, people are thinking, they only get to own the company because they are black. And that racist attitude is a direct result of the legislation. So this is how legislation disguised as being helpful actually creates more racism in the community.
As the situation for indigenous people usually gets worse or doesn’t improve, it’s pretty obvious these policies don’t work and never have in Australia or anywhere.
The only way to force equality on people is to bring everyone down to the same level. The government can’t make jobs or money from nothing. They are well intentioned but are lying when they say they can.
Libertarians want equality of human rights, not the ridiculous utopia of equality in all areas. Just look at the disaster communist countries become, with lower life expectancies, drug addiction problems, higher child mortality rates, lower productivity etc.
Kate, libertarians do not have the answers or the policies to solve Aboriginal problems, and neither does any government. You keep saying that Aboriginals want to take control and are taking control of their own lives and communities. That is something that is entirely in keeping with libertarian ideals. Where we diverge is in the idea that Aboriginies need state financial assistance to fix their problems.
In so far as governments do provide people with services it should be based on classifications such as uneducated, poor, sick, or alone. It should not be based on criteria such as black, jewish, female or hetrosexual. In other words it should be based on criteria that any of us may qualify for if circumstances beyond our control changed. Although even then governments intervention and the associated coersion should always be a last resort after other institutions such as personal initiative, family, community, church, trade union or private charity have proven inadequate.
Nicholas, Holocaust simply means ‘death by fire’. And this is where many challenges are made to the manner in which so many Jewish people were exterminated in WW2. Personally, I don’t believe that is important. Millions died,an undeniable fact. Some people even contend that it was not the intention of the NAZI to wipe out all of the Jews and that the so called extermination camps were really ‘labor Camps.’ Millions died in these camps from disease, starvation and unthinkable cruelty. Survivors of the holocaust have made sure that the world NEVER forgets.
It saddens me greatly to hear Australians ‘denying’ the genocide of Aboriginal people when there is a plethora of evidence to attest that it happened. It is estimated that there were over 2 million Aboriginals across this land prior to the invasion, but no one can really know the number. When the first Census that included Aboriginals was taken there were little more than 250,000. I gave you and extract from the memoirs of Dame Mary Gilmore, where she said “That before the massacres started, thousands of Aboriginals gathered at the Brewarrina fish traps”
I take the correction on the years that have transpired since the 1788 invasion, it is only just shy of 220 years, not 230, a repeated typo, and also not 217 as claimed by you. The time is irrelevant, the history of genocide is indisputable.
Tim, here aer some links to government funded special programsfor other ethnic minorities in this country.
CHINESE/AUSTRALIANS:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/acc/annual_reports/ar_1998_99/exchanges.html
VIETNAMESE AUSTRALIANS:
http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/pressrel.nsf/9d5fbaf4a8688b284a2566ef00010cd9/385b74dbffd63afd4a25671b000409d1!OpenDocument&Click=
To name just two.
All you have shown me is that their are specific departments within our Govt that deal with Indigenous Affairs. And that is appropriate. We have a whole different criteria, and cultural sensitivities, to those of non-Aboriginal Australians. What I asked you to show me and you have not done so is where we get ‘special’ treatment. You mentioned scholarships for Uni Students. Scholarships are available for ALL students in Australia who can demonstrate that their education will be impeded if they do not acquire some financial support. I have a daughter at UTS, she is Aboriginal, she does not get any ‘special’ treatment. She has a growing debt like every other student. She can claim Abstudy as opposed to AustStudy, the ONLY difference in the two, is that Abstudy is NOT means tested, as it is understood that MOST Aboriginal kids going into University are not from well healed families, who could afford to support them. My daughter gets exactly the same amount of money, as her friends on AustStudy. The reason my daughter claimed Abstudy as opposed to AustStudy was because she identies with her culture.
Now, as to your assertion that all jobs listed for positions within the Govt sector that have a line at the bottom inviting applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders implies they will get preferential treatment is almost laughable. It implies nothing of the kind. It merely lets Aboriginal and TI’s know that they will not be discriminated against. Whilst there are separate ‘policies’ for Aboriginal people, that take into account our cultural needs, there is NO difference in the amount MONEY with regard to welfare payments, or student allowances. There is NO difference in the amount of assistance an aged or disabled Aboriginal pensioner receives, compared to a Non-Aboriginal. There are Aboriginal people in the camps outside Alice Springs who are living 17 to a house due to housing shortages. Where is the preferential treatment in that?
Kate, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on whether the tragedies that devastated the Aboriginal peoples constituted genocide or not. It really is a small point if we both agree that what happened was tragic and has left a bitter legacy for todays Aboriginals. Please, build a Aboriginal genocide memorial if you wish and can raise the funds for it.
The past is gone, the future awaits. What ideas do you have for making life better for all Australians?
Brendan, There are MILLIONS of non-Aboriginal people on welfare in this country, and yet the conversation here is targeting Aboriginals as being the malingerers. Why is that?
Governments have NEVER fixed the problems facing Aboriginals. In fact they have created them. We have many fractured lives and communities who are still suffering the effects of legislative dispossession, and it is entirely appropriate in my mind that the govt of this country caused those problems and the Non-Aboriginal people sat back and allowed it to happen. Many even contributed. Aboriginals have been fighting governments for decades for millions of dollars of unpaid wages, that unscrupulous employers held in ‘trust’ and never paid to Aboriginal people for work they did.
Now I better leave this blog before I really unleash the anger and disgust I am feeling to hear the comments coming from some of you people. If you represent ANY group of who ever hope to lead this country, I hope you fail. You deserve to fail. You are among some of the MOST ignorant people I have ever met when it comes to understanding what is happening right under your nose concerning Aboriginal people.
Kate,
Special treatment might not be the correct term. Not being treated equally is perhaps more appropriate, especially when it comes to non-means tested welfare. Aboriginals are not treated equally if they are not subject to the same rules and laws as other Australians.
I don’t think you’ll get any libertarian arguing for government funding of Chinese or Vietnamese programmes either. These are just as wrong as federally funded Aboriginal programmes for exactly the same reasons. People should not be forced to pay for the decisions, choices and accident of birth* of others.
* by accident of birth, I mean it is not someone else’s responsibility for the circumstances (race, health, wealth etc.) of your birth other than your parents.
Kate,
I don’t agree that welfare recipients are maligners, simply that they are reacting rationally to the perverse incentives that welfare and especially passive welfare provide. These perverse incentives may be unintended consequences of policies designed to help people, but to ignore them is to not an option when assessing government policy.
The reason this thread is concentrating on Aboriginal welfare problems is that this is athread on Aboriginal problems and state intervention to assist them. If you search past threads, you’ll find plenty of arguments against welfare of all types for all Australians. I can list a few that I am completely opposed to:
- unemployment benefits
- sole parent pensions
- pensions
- first home owner grants
- baby bonus
- child care allowance
- state education
- state healthcare
- arts funding
So don’t worry, I discriminate equally against all forms of welfare, but I do not blame the recipients even if I can recognise the problems that welfare creates for them.
You forgot corporate welfare.
Brendan, I am sorry but you, and perhaps the other Libertarians in here, completely naive. I have lived through a time when because there was no contraception, abortion was illegal, and their was no support programs for young unmarried women, nearly 100,000 NON-Aboriginal girls surrendered their children for adoption. The pain this caused to both mother and child was profound and lasting. So please do not try to convince me that your plan to abolish support for these programs with an expectation that the ‘charity’ of your communities will replace those support programs. THEY WON’T. Get real and bring your policies in line with realities.
Few libertarians support the criminalisation of abortion. Policies should not be brought into line with a reality that is caused by poor policies. The poor policies should be revoked.
Kate, we are at impasse then. Libertarians will not endorse welfare, they may endure it, they may even seek best worst forms of welfare, but at their heart of hearts, all libertarians see welfare as the enemy of a free people, Aboriginals and Non-Aboriginals alike.
You may have lived through a period of discrimination against unmarried mothers, but do you think that is the case now? I would have thought that today we live in a society very tolerant of single parents, so much so that in our desire to accomodate them, we have created a welfare system that “rewards” naive young women from perhaps deprived backgrounds with a lifetime of housing and income support, not thinking twice that children bought up in such a situation have less likelihood of success, and may well be thrown back into the same vicious cycle of benefit dependency.
Surely seeing some of the worse off Aboriginal communities you must have witnessed non-traditional Aborignials for who unemployment and a lack of opportunity are now generational legacies? Is it their fault that the easy solution of welfare dependancy and non-means tested welfare and no-questioned-asked income support look like the best option in a sea of discrimination? I don’t think so.
I don’t deny that Aboriginals face many hurdles in overcoming two centuries of history and discrimination, by giving Aboriginals the option of the non-challenging life as welfare dependents, they can avoid their peoples new and unfortunate situation and not achieve independence and self-respect.
This is not to say that some Aboriginals are able to overcome their disadvantages, but to recognise their superhuman skills in negotiating their way out of an abyss. Welfare is a chain around the necks of all recipients, tempting theminto unfulfilling lives and condemning their children to the same fate.
And as Terje pointed out, I forgot corporate welfare!
That should be “least worst forms” not “best worst”.
Abstudy as oppossed to Austudy is special treatment, you defined this yourself. And my friends Abstudy payments were higher that Austudy at that time. I’m not sure if this is still the case.
It’s common knowledge that indigenous people are treated differently by the law.
The scholarships for indigenous people far outweigh those for non-indigenous considering the proportion of indigenous students. I haven’t even heard of scholarships for poor white people. And many university scholarships are privately funded or funded through donations and not forced on the tax payer.
Also, I don’t see why the government should build houses in the middle of nowhere for Aboriginals. I thought they wanted to live traditionally.
Can you blame the public for thinking Aboriginals want, “to have their cake and eat it too”.
I stand by my statement that affirmative action and equal opportunity type laws are a massive injustice to indigenous people.
My comment in 290 correctly said 219, not 217, years, though an average of 220 years should be acceptable to all. I will still only use genocide to mean a Government-planned killing of races and genes, and will use massacres and mass-murder for other types of killings.
I was born in Britain, and my own ancestors suffered from a horrendous class system that sought to relegate people to places and jobs for life. We fought for improvements, and moved on, and can now forget about the past, and look to the future.
As a libertarian, I support your idea of lots of autonomous regions and councils, with Australia more a confederation than a united system. But I start from the idea that individual land-owners should be absolute, and then we would have the local road-owning entity, called the Shire or council, and these could send delegates to any bigger entities.
Good luck, and I hope you write to us again on any issue you want to!
Hello Gentlemen, I saw this article and thought it may give you something to ponder. It demonstrates better than anything I could express, what LAND and COUNTRY means to Aboriginal people. Somethings are just not for sale at any price.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/07/13/1183833772710.html
Opps..sorry fellas, that ought to have read “Some things are just not for sale at any price” Sometimes, my brain to keyboard skills malfunction.
All the article is really saying is that Mr Lee has a very high price which is beyond what anybody is willing or able to pay. So what? If he owns the land that is his perogative.
A free market does not mean we must value what we own in the same manner that other people value what they own or might value what we own. It just means that we can part with our property as we see fit. If Mr Lee does not wish to sell his property or have it mined then that is a personal decision entirely compatible with a free market.
But it is absurd to say that Mr Lee should receive welfare. Like everyone else, he should have to liquidate his assets if he is hard up before he can get welfare. Otherwise we will end up subsidising the nation’s wealthiest mineral owner.
I can’t imagine giving Lang Hancock centrelink cheques!
Mark – I actually think that means testing and assets testing welfare is rather counter productive. In so far as we should have government funded welfare it should be low and universal. Although if welfare is targeted at something specific such as unemployment then I think a work test is fair enough.
The article that Kate mensions also gets commented on in passing at the following blog article:-
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=3008
With respect to a negative income tax like the LDP’s 30/30 plan you are quite correct.
Means testing become irrelevant under a NIT. Mr Lee of course has a income stream and high wealth from the natural beauty of his land.
Over the years, the Elders have been requesting help in dealing with many issues and have recieved very little aid. The whole of the aboriginal nation are not paedophiles nor should they be tainted this way, what I have read and seen is this blanket categorisation and very few people who are clear headed.
Howards goverments push in the NT Aboriginal Lands:
- sent in Military against its civilians
- taken away land from it’s native title owners, will pay ‘rent’ and give it back in 5 years but by Howards own words can’t gurantee the goverment will give it all back
-I notice in the Weekend Australian that a small tribe in the NT have offered to store nuclear waste on their land. However they have very little land.
- permit system was set up by the Aboriginal people (not the goverment) who wanted say on who was entering, drilling and prospecting on their land
-has closed/withdrawn and reduced funding for many initiatives over the last 10 years which were designed to give the people a start in business, enterprise and self determination
-none of the truly difference making recommendations in the Little Children are Sacred report have been implemented or are to be implemented
-debate between Febveral Minister and a director of a support organisation, made it clear that it will not take billions to fix this, the minister was qutie proud to say that they are spending 10s of millions only and most of it is for it’s operational staff. (paraphrased from radio interview), this means that the 10′s of millions being spent on this push is not going into shelter, counselling for the kids, education, health etc but for to feed and house the militiary being sent in.
- laughably, I heard it said by a Federal Minisater that it’s okay to scrap the permit system since it did not help reduce the sexual abuse. considering that has never ever been it’s function, I’m amused by the illogical arguement to scrap it and the amount of people are wisely nodding their heads.
Well said. The above is why although some communities clearly have rule of law problems, we (libertarians) think it is largely short term, wasteful and most probably a vote buying exercise.
The permit scheme is being abolished for townships and the relevant access roads. It is not being aboished on open land and prospectors etc will still be unable to access that land without a permit. And peoples homes are subject to normal rights of ownership. Personally I think ring fencing communities is folly and I have little problem with the permit scheme being ended. We don’t allow gated communities to exclude public access to public areas anywhere else in the country.
“We don’t allow gated communities to exclude public access to public areas anywhere else in the country.”
Public area in a gated community would be communal to that community, not “public” yes?
I am of the view if these are the definitions, then it should be allowed.
Mark – An example that favours your side of the argument would be Perisher Blue Ski Resort. You need a permit to enter the Kosciusko National Park and the village is in the middle of the National park. Although anybody can get the permit by merely paying the relevant fee.
I’ll have to give this issue some more thought.
I’m not sure it does. It is more like the townspeople and visitors have an easement.
Question; Have any of you every been to or lived on a community??? met and Arrernte, Warlpiri, Pitjantjatara or any Aboriginal person?? only one person i have seen comment here seems to have (Mentioned borrolola. i am a “white” person, but i have spent eight on a community and four years in Alice Springs. i feel that when are all little more infromed on the subject maybe then you should come back and comment. they say ingnorance is bliss but reading all your comments i think that it is obvious that ingnorance is just that…
How does not knowing someone make you ignorant when we agree on many of the issues discussed? I don’t know Kate but she does agree with us on a lot.
Big deal.
I am not ignorant of Roman history, despite never have met a Roman. Likewise there are many Aboriginals in the greater community and some towns in regional Australia have had similar problems, not the same extent as the remote cimmunities have now, in the past.
Sylvie, I noticed that you never made any comment yourself. What do you think the problems are, and what do you think the solutions might be?
And this is a blog to discuss ideas. If you have any ideas, put them here! We might respond.
I know several Aboriginals one of whom was a nurse in a community for a few months, but how is this relevant to the comment that it’s the governments job to protect human rights not be paternalistc?
In addition, the logic of the comment is false. Do you need to jump off a cliff in order to understsand gravity? To understand government injustice there are examples everywhere relating to similar concepts such as land ownership laws, social liberties etc.
To say that you need to live in an indigenous community to gain an insight into how the government should treat Aboriginals implies that the government should treat them differently. Different legal treatment based on race is racism, to which libertarians are against, but I’m not so sure about Slyvie.
I grew up around Aborignial communities near Tullamore, Dubbo and Cowra. Probably my main contact was through school but that’s not to say we didn’t play together on an irregular basis. My wife did the same and her father was a policeman at Dubbo and all over NSW, who for many years had extensive daily dealings with the Aboriginal community.
From all of that neither of us feel we saw the wonderful, good side of indigenous Australia that some people talk about. At least not within what you would describe as an indigenous community. The best thing about the Aboriginal personality was that it could be easy going if their was no drink involved. But on the whole I would say it was a community with a lot of problems brought on by themselves.
I would say the concept of property rights is a real problem, and I don’t care about all the rubbish about communal ownership. They’ll kick the footy with you all afternoon and then steal your stuff on the way home.The reason they never seem to be able to own anything, and everything gets trashed, is because they have no sense of property rights.
When Sylvie says she is a white person who lived on a community I wonder what form that took. Was she really living amongst the community? Would they even let her? I lived in Townsville a couple of years ago and there were some people who worked on Palm Island (teachers, community workers and tradesmen). They all espoused how wonderful the community was in that stand-offish surreal way that people crap on with. But no one lived out there. They flew in and out every day. Although they wouldn’t admit it, it was too dangerous for them to stay there in this wonderful community. The facts are the facts, people crap on about their wonderful ‘insider’ experiences, but what you see really is what you get.
Hello gentlemen, it is a while since I have popped in to see if you are all behaving yourselves. ***SMILES***
Michael, I am an Aboriginal woman, a citizen of the Wonnarua Nation, the Gringai Clan. I was born in 1950 for the first 23 years my life I was not even a citizen of the Land of my ancestors. I have had to live with and struggle with the consequences legislative dispossession that stripped the capacity of my people, those that were not massacred, to be able to support their families in a traditional way.
Raping our women was a sport, and as a result many women were banished from their tribes as they were carrying children with ‘tainted blood’ My Great-great mother was a young woman who suffered this fate. Forced to go and live in the ‘Gubba’s’ world Aboriginal women had to be very resourceful. I was fortunate, that my Granny was a very strong woman.
In 1901, Australia, became a Federation and in doing so drew up a Constitution, that excluded Aboriginal people from having ANY citizenship rights. Do you understand what that meant? Think about it. On top of this massacres were still occuring, and people could actually obtain licences to go ABBO hunting. Between 1906 and 1975 over 100,000 children of mixed blood, half-castes as we were called, were taken from our mothers arms and sent to institutions, or to work on farms as free slave labour. The heart rendering stories of this suffering is well documented in the Bringing them Home Report. In 1967, Australia had a pang of conscience that Australian Aboriginals ought to be given the same citizenship right afforded to all other Australians. This was very big of the Australian people, who for 67 years since Federation really did not give a stuff. Australian Aboriginals fought in 2 world wars, I personally lost a brother at the Battle of Long Tan. My other brother was conscripted in 1969 and came home wounded. When he was released from Concord Repat, we went to the local RSL to have a drink to celebrate. My brother who has very dark skin was refused abmission.
No member of my family EVER pulled a welfare cheque in this country. But the time we were eligible for ANY kind of social security, such as aged pensions, all the old people in my family were dead. I had been taken out of school when I was 14 to support them but in spite of that I am the former owner of one of Australia’s most successful companies. I sold my interests in 1995 and have since them used my personal resources and skills to help young people in my community strive toward a better life, which does NOT require them to ASSIMILATE. We do not have to assimilate into your culture, we have our own. I shall refrain from name dropping and not mention the well known success stories.
I don’t have any sob story to tell, other than the usual apartheid experiences in rural NSW, and being picked up by the throat when I was 8 and tossed to the back of a class room, and told “half-caste bastards sit at the back” Oh I forgot the time I was gang raped by three non-indigenous males who wanted a bit of ‘virgin black satin’ I was 13. There was no point in a black kid reporting a rape. So my brother handed out a bit of tribal justice and put all of these men into hospital.
However, many Aboriginal people have horrific physical and emotional scars, the result of having been used as sex toys by the Christian Brothers and tossed back into society with NO coping skills and NO support.
For the passed 220 years, and until ONLY very recent times Aboriginal people lived on the outskirts of towns in sub human conditions, one would not want to see a dog live in. Unemployment, inadequate housing, almost non-existent education opportunites in some communities, plus abject poverty, leads to a completely demoralised society, with no incentive to get out of a position of hopelessness. The Mutitjulu people are one of many Aboriginal communities that continue to experience these appalling conditions.
Mark, I grew up in Rural NSW, I am fully aware of the camps at Dubbo and other towns. I am also aware of the attitude that has prevailed toward Aboriginal ALL MY LIFE. It people know that society has a low expectation of them, very often that is what you will get. These are not excuses, they are valid explanations for the behaviour you have witnessed. The police in rural NSW earned their nickname of PIG. In Queensland they let coppers bash Aboriginal men to death and walk free. In Townsville the son of a policemen deliberately ran over and killed a 17 year old boy and was charged with a traffic offense. These are NOT isolated cases.
We have had to endure the humiliation of late of people saying that child sex abuse is cultural. It is not. We have also had to endure insults that our women have just allowed this abuse of their children. Another lie. Here is a link that will show you the gross ignorance white men have had of our culture which allowed a vile rapist to walk free, and a young girl was denied the justice and protection her community sought for her.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1126
We have had to endure profound injustices over a very long period of time, and don’t get me started on the latest attempt by the Howard Govt to use the suffering of Aboriginal children as an election ploy on the one hand and a Trojan Horse on the other to reclaim uranium rich land. Read, back to item 55.) of this tread if you want my views and other facts of that matter.
So, please, Mr. Privileged Non-Aboriginal person who has not walked a day in a blackfella’s shoes think twice before you judge so harshly a people and a situation that is the product of decades of chronic neglect of people who had everything stolen from them and were not even offered a box of beads!
It is going to take MORE time for the healing, and the restoration of PRIDE among my people, but we are getting there. There are MORE good news stories than you would imagine. The story I posted concerning Jeff Lee, shows that SOME people cannot be bought. And BTW, to the people on the tread that said Jeff Lee should not get welfare. Well in clearly you did not read the whole article, because Jeff Lee has a JOB.
This may give enough to ponder. And this comes not from a person who has not just lived and worked in Aboriginal communities, I can trace my bloodline back before the white invasion. And as far as I am concerned ALL of you Non-Aboriginal people are living on stolen land. Bleat all you like about that, it is a fact. We are trying to patch up the walking wounded. If you get your gear stolen on the way home from football from people who may just envy the car you drive, and the advantages you had from birth, well perhaps you may spare a thought for what was stolen from them.
KATE.
Kate;
You said in one of your previous comments that you were old. Born in 1950 makes you a young ‘chick’.
Hey Kate, good to have you back.
If you get your gear stolen on the way home from football from people who may just envy the car you drive, and the advantages you had from birth, well perhaps you may spare a thought for what was stolen from them.
When you talk about the advantages I had from birth, I’m not really sure what they were. I guess I was white, healthy, male and not retarded or disabled. But if you are comparing me to an indigenous person I think a lot of those benefits were balanced by the government support available to indigenous people. I’m not denying that I had a thousand times more opportunity than a child born into famine and civil war in Sudan. But I don’t think indigenous Australians are in this category.
I grew up living in a caravan, raised for a majority of the time by my single mother. For a couple of years from 5 to 7, and all of my high school years, I lived in fibro shack on the outskirts of Sydney, although I will admit a lot of people around me lived in caravans and sheds. Until I left high school all of my clothing came from St Vincent De Paul and similar charities. I used to come home from school and fold garbage bags into packaging so mum and I could eat. Mum worked as a house cleaner, and in Sydney we used to grow and sell vegetables. I can remember when we first hit Sydney, when I was five, and we had a problem: we didn’t have pots or blankets (my father had just left again). For a brief period I had bag hessian as a bed spread. When you talk about the car I we drove, it was a badly beaten up F-100 ute (which is still in a shed out at Cowra and I’m gonna fix it one day!) . I don’t think it made a lot of people envious. At various times we couldn’t afford to get dental work done, and I can remember how embarrassed my mother was with her teeth, which upsets me to this day since she’s had to get dentures and I think it might have been able to be prevented. I don’t recall being particularly hungry, but I look at old photos and think shit, I was scrawny.
Wherever we went we were treated as ‘trailer trash’. This still amazes me to this day because we were decent, hard working and lived lawfully (except for my father, he was criminal!), we were just poor. Partially due to my father, but I think a lot more to do with the area in which we lived, we couldn’t get the police to assist us when my mother was being stalked by a psycho. Eventually we caught him hiding near the front door and my mother confronted him with a carving knife. Some of my more horrific memories are my father beating up my mother quite severely. Nowhere in my younger life, and I mean nowhere, did a community accept us or support us. Right through high school we were treated as rubbish. There were three sub-communities in my area and I was in the lowest one. I was a good student, but that didn’t even elevate me into the group of the coal miners sons, there were keen to protect their own. I belonged with the first generation immigrants: lowest of low. But there was nothing wrong with us, we were just poor.
I am the first person within my family to go to university (I have an aunty that went to teachers college, but I think from my generation back she’s probably the only other tertiary educated one). With my first attempt at university I realised I couldn’t afford to live at any decent standard. Throughout 1993/1994 I worked below award wages to get a start, in a variety of jobs but primarily as a security guard on construction sites.
I don’t feel any affinity to any of those people I grew up around, I don’t look back on my childhood as happy one, and I can confidently say that both my mother had to bust our guts to get where were we are now. You say you were an ‘owner of one of Australia’s most successful companies’. I’m just happy to have made it into the ranks of the middle class by 34. I think it’s a bit rich that you would open a sentence to me with ‘So, please, Mr. Privileged Non-Aboriginal person who has not walked a day in a blackfella’s shoes think twice before you judge so harshly a people…………... I lived in the same area, caught the same bus, went to the same schools, had the same level of support from the law (though you guys got a lot more attention!), and probably had around the same income as the indigenous community I grew up with. I didn’t take anything from you, I didn’t steal your land and I didn’t deny your rights. I don’t deny some people had it rough, and to some extent I consider myself in that category, but I consider you and I as equals, neither of us as victims or deserving of special treatment. I don’t care if you don’t want to integrate or want nothing to do with white culture, and I don’t expect you to have anything to do with it. Simply equal rights under law and control over our own lives. If we can work together we will, if not, let’s go our own ways peacefully.
Kate,
You seem to be taking offence and intentionally innocuous statements.
1. Some smart alec joins the discussion late and I tell them their name dropping is irrelevant. It wasn’t you.
2. I never intended to say that “Jeff Lee is a welfare recipient and is undeserving and shouldn’t get welfare”. I commented on the point that i) he can earn income from other ways than selling mining rights through his land ii) notwithstanding a change to non means tested welfare, asset rich, cash poor native title holders shouldn’t get welfare anyway. However, I assumed he got income from elsewhere. Furthermore, traditional land holders wouldn’t need welfare.
3. We’re not judging anyone. We acknowledge the past injustices, how Federation made Aboriginals worse off and that there is some due compensation. Personally, I think this process should be fast tracked. We’re cynical of the whole current exercise. We just think there are long term economic policies that need to be implemented.
4. There is not much that can be done about emotional damage.
5. Watch what you say about Sgt Hurley. He was acquitted on a lack of evidence. The flipside of this is the death of the boys in Townsville seems highly suspect.
Jim. So you were paying attention to detail in previous postings. I shall remember that. **SMILES*** Kate.
Mark: I don’t recall mentioning Sgt Chris Hurley at all. Lack of evidence does not mean that a person is not guilty it just means a lack of evidence to convict. Mulrunji Doomegee’s injuries were not consistent with a fall down stairs, as concluded by the Coroner. So I shall leave that one there, and refer you to the report on the ‘Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’
http://www.unolympics.com/humanrights/blackdeaths.shtml report.
I did not even see you comment concerning name dropping, so there was no dig at you. I was merely saying that I would refrain from doing so.
Economic policies have been implemented. Funds have been allocated to improve the infrastructure in Aboriginal communities. You don’t seem to get it yet. The Federal Govt does not want to see any improvement in remote Aboriginal communities. It wants the land back for Uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal. As I have said time and time again on this thread, some of you folk are hopelessly ill informed. The next time you pick up a copy of The Australian or the BRW, you may like to spend a few extra bob and get a copy of the National Indigenous Times.
Kate.
1. I was wrong. The jury did find him not guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
2. Economic policy can mean a lot of things. The Soviets had economic policies. But we want GOOD economic policy.
3. If the Government is not concerned with Aboriginal welfare, I believe it has little to do with a land grab and more with getting votes.
Mark: As I said, a regular perusal of the National Indigenous Times will put us both on the same page concerning the many and varied reasons why the Howard govt pulled the stunt in the NT. One thing we do agree on. The Howard govt does not give a toss about kids. We all remember the women and children stranded and suffering in the Tampa affair. We all know about the children locked behind the razor wire of detention centres for years.
Michael: I wrote a reply to your posting 327, but for some weird reason when I submit it refused to do so. Let me see if this goes through.
Michael, Firstly, let me apologise. Two wrongs do not make a right. However, your comment concerning having gear stolen after a football match struck me as racial stereotyping, and I take personal exception to that. My sons played football; in fact one of them captained a touring Rugby side. He is NOT a thief. There are plenty of non-Aboriginal people who will kill you for a few dollars to feed an addiction.
The account of your childhood struggles was interesting. I knew many poor immigrant children with similar experiences. I saw first hand how cruel this country was to the DP’s (displaced persons) from Europe in the 1950′s. I also know the stories of the Stolen Generation and those of the non-Aboriginal children sent from the UK and placed into institutions where they were brutalised, sodomised and raped. Compared to their childhood, yours was a luxury! You had a mother, who did her best for you, you had white skin, you were healthy. That put you ahead of 100,000′s kids in Australia. You were called “trailer trash’ because you were poor, and that was truly awful and a side to this country I detest. People who judge others by where they live and what school they went to. But, Michael, regardless of the hardship and difficulties in your life, you have never walked a single day in the shoes of the blackfellas of this country.
Michael, both you and I, and dare I say millions of other people, rose above the poverty into which we were born. The difference between us is that I don’t kid myself that not having a dark skin was an asset. I never hidden my Aboriginality, and it has often infuriated me that people have challenged my Aboriginality because I don’t have BLACK skin. My brothers however, were both dark skinned and trust me Michael that was a disadvantage in this country you will never be able to relate to.
You say that all you want is “simply equal rights under the law and control over our own lives” Here! Here! that is the right of every Australian. But in many Aboriginal communities that remains an ongoing struggle.
We have our share of welfare bludgers, child abusers, rapists, and thieves and so too do many non-Aboriginal communities. We don’t see the federal government taking initiatives that involve trampling the basic human rights of the wider community to fix the problems. Yet 61% of this country said it thought it was acceptable to do ‘take control’ in Aboriginal communities.
Aboriginal people are regaining a pride in being Aboriginal. We are working toward a degree of autonomy and self determination that will free us of the yoke of welfare. However, we still have many communities where we need to deal humanely with the consequences of past policies.
This country cut the legs out from under people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike, and then complain because they need a crutch.
With regard to your comment that I do not desire to a part of “Western culture” I shall leave you with a quote from the Mahatma Ghandi when he was asked what he thought of Western culture. “Western culture? Yes, it would be a good idea.”
Just so your under no misconceptions I grew up with the first generation immigrants because they filled the poorest areas. I didn’t have any of their struggles in terms of getting here being an umpteenth generation Aussie. My family didn’t move upwards with the rest of society for various reasons, caught in a poverty cycle, primarily because they were unable to get education or training. What amazes me is how willingly people I would have considered my fellow peers in life were willing to trample us down and treat us like shit. But water under the bridge.
My creed now is very much that if you have rule of law and control over your own life, you can work your way out. The indigenous comparison for me is the Noel Pearson attitude. He obviously loves his people, but knows they have to think it out then work their way out of their problems. I think he’s got the correct philosophy.
With regards to Ghandi, it’s difficult to argue someone of that stature, but I think there’s plenty in Western culture of value, just like in other cultures. But I insist on us being a free country and everyone if free to choose the culture they want to live within.
Not to slaughter any sacred cows, but Ghandhi was a racist. He grew up in South Africa and detested the local native African people. His early South African writings compared Africans to little more than animals.
In addition, he endorsed the Indian caste system, systematic discrimination based solely on birth.
His is not a philosophy that I would choose to adopt for Australia.
Micheal: We are definitely on the same page on many issues. Notwithstanding that I do not agree with everything Noel Pearson says. He is not an Aboriginal leader and not even an Elder. I don’t doubt that Mr.Pearson has good intentions, but what needs to be understood here is that Aboriginal people are not ONE people. We are many different Nations with many and varied languages and tribal traditions. What Noel Pearson may say concerning the ‘deep water’ people on the Cape does not apply to the ‘red dirt’ people of the Pitjatjarra.
Where we all agree is that NO ONE can go forward if someone else has control over your life.
The reasons you have identified as to why you got caught in a cycle of poverty can also be applied to Aboriginal people. And many like myself have broken that cycle by doing what you have done. Which was to recognise that getting an education is the way out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Michael, I simply do not believe that all people are born equal, some people simply do not have the ability, for a variety of reasons, to do what is necessary to go to University or study for some other kind of skills training that will enhance employment opportunities. In todays world the job opportunities for unskilled workers is greatly diminished. There are only so many jobs available. This is one of the reasons for unemployment. What do we do with the people who don’t have the mental capability to get an education, and end up unemployed?
Brendan, When Ghandi went to England wearing his familiar loin cloth Winston Churchill would not shake his hand.
And let me remind you that you live in a country that is one of the most racist, xenophobic countires on the planet. It is only in later part of the last century that the White Australia policy was abolished.
Kate, you can remind me of whatever you like, but glib quotes from historical celebrities like Gandhi don’t cut it as informed debate. Churchill said and did a lot of things, including masterminding Gallipoli in the Great War and then trying his best to prevent Australian troops returning from the Middle East during WWII when Japan threatened our north. He and Roosevelt betrayed Poland at Yalta and condemned millions of East and Central Europeans to living under the yolk of the Soviets for half a century. There is no love lost for Mr Churchill in my backyard.
Are you trying to insult me when you raise other people’s past and present racism because I am of European stock? I’m not a racist, and if you are trying to smear me by association of sharing a skin colour with other racists isn’t going to work. Racists suck, full stop.
Either you are talking to us as equals wanting good government policy for all Australians, or you are just trying to get the wind up some people who don’t engage in ‘sorry’ politics.
“And let me remind you that you live in a country that is one of the most racist, xenophobic countires on the planet.”
Oh bullshit.
Iran has declared nuclear annihlation of Israel – because it can and they are Jewish.
Australia has a chequered past, but does not hold that title.
Brendan, you misread my entirely, it is not my intention to TRY to insult anyone. If I were to reach a point in any discussion where I felt a need to insult someone I would walk away. There is nothing to be achieved trading insults.
Mark, I gather from you previous postings that you are not a member of any ethnic or racial minority in this country. So with respect you have NO experience being on the receiving end of the racism and xenophobia that is widespread across Australia.
And if you are going to quote Armadinejad, please be honest with that quote. He never called for the annihilation of Israel. He said, that the state of Israel needs rubbed off be wiped off the map. In other words a ONE state solution. Which does not call for the annihilation of the people. Israel was created in a location that has put it continuously at odds with the indigenous people (Palestinians) of the region. Israel, is an APARTHEID, rogue state, that has refused to comply with UN RES 242, to leave the occupied territories captured in the six day war of 1967. Making Palestine a country that has experienced the longest, and most brutal military occupation in modern history.
Please tell my which country Iran has invaded and occupied in the past 60 years. Which country has Iran dropped bombs onto and killed thousands of civilians. How many homes has Iran bulldozed in another country, and run over peaceful protesters (Rachel Corrie)?
Whilst I do not support the suicide bomber of Palestine, when that is all you have to fight your enemy with, you will use it. The last suicide bomber in Palestine was a 57 year old grandmother, who had lost her home,and her family to the Israel guns and bulldozers. She was not looking to go to Allah and get 72 virgins. She was a women driven to desperation.
I am not a fan of Armadinejad, but Israel is at the core of much of the unrest in the Middle East. Until that conflict is resolved there will be NO peace in the Middle East, and therefore NO peace in the world.
Kate,
So, then how does some Australians being racist negate the argument that Gandhi was also racist? Why bring it up at all? Racism is something that blights all humans and is not just a white European affliction. Pointing out that racism exists hardly contributes to good government policy. Understanding the feelings of those affected by racism also doesn’t somehow give anyone insight into good government policy either.
In fact, government policy should be as impersonal as possible, insofaras the effects of policy cannot be predicted on the basis of a known set of attributes. All people should be equal as far as the state is concerned, and the effects of legislation should not be felt on one group of individuals any more than another group. This is why I am opposed to race based legislation and welfare. Negative discrimination is still discrimination.
If we are to submit to monopoly on coercion that the state has, then the heavy hand of the state should land on a person not because of what they are (their attributes gifted by fate), but should be determined by who they are (their own personal choices).
Mark, are you aware that there are about 30,000 Jewish Iranians? There are also MANY Iraqi Jews. The conflict in the Middle East is not about religion. It is about OCCUPATION and OPPRESSION. It is about POWER and CONTROL and the stealing of resources. Western countries (America in particular) want control of the resources in the Middle East, after all it was for that VERY reason that the USA supported the partitioning of Palestine for the creation of Israel in 1948.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/israel/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=1945-06-16&documentid=63&collectionid=ROI&pagenumber=1
1. Majorities are not the subject of racism?
This is just fallacious.
2. Ahmadinejad wants a one state, peaceful solution?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1601413,00.html
“Iran’s new president created a sense of outrage in the west yesterday by describing Israel as a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the face of the earth”. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is more hardline than his predecessor, told students in Tehran that a new wave of Palestinian attacks would be enough to finish off Israel.”
*He said: “Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury, [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognises the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.” He was addressing a conference titled The World Without Zionism.*
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/14/world/main1499824.shtml
“Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a “rotten, dried tree” that will be annihilated by “one storm.”
Opening of a conference on supporting the Palestinians, Ahmadinejad fired a series of verbal shots at Israel, saying it was a “permanent threat” to the Middle East that will “soon” be liberated, and questioning the validity of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews in World War II.”
I have severe doubts as to the cordiality of his concern with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflcit.
3. Iran has nothing to do with war?
Iran funds and arms Hezbollah and Iraqi insurgents.
Now, somewhere in that is disagreement with a policy of economic liberalisation and choice in social affairs. Where?
Brendan, I only quoted Ghandi insofar as his comment concerning Western Culture being “a good idea.” I am aware of the class system that operates in India. From the Brahma’s (highest class) to the lowly Untouchables. It is NOT possible for a person to be racist against one’s own people. Racism is based on the belief that one person is superior to another based on skin colour.
You said: “Understanding the feelings of those affected by racism also doesn’t somehow give anyone insight into good government policy either.”
I disagree. In todays multicultural societies understanding the feelings of those affected by racism is integral to the foundation of policies that do not discriminate against any group of people.
Ever heard of the phrase “self hating Jew”?
Reinhardt Heydrich did awful damage on people of German ancestry and Jewish *ancestry*. He thought one was superior to the other, even though he was or thought he was both.
Mark: Please give me better sources for the interpretation of Fasi, than CNN. I have many friends in the Middle East, and also in Israel. Even Israeli’s are fed up with their Govt’s policies concerning Israel.
Iran, did indeed help Hezbollah in June/July 2005 when Israel lied about two kidnapped soldiers. Which were in fact two soldiers captured in a village two kilometers inside Lebanon’s border. The world condemned Israel for its disproportionate use of force in that incident. has it not been for the support of Iran many more innocent Lebanese people would have been killed.
As for Iraqi ‘insurgents.’ The coalition of the killing the USA, UK and Australia invaded Iraq illegally. We are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There were NO WMD’s, the was NO threat from Iraq. Insurgents are people trying to ‘repel invaders’ If our country was invaded I too would become an insurgent. We have killed 100,000′s Iraqis, and created MILLIONS of refugees in a country that DID nothing to us. SHAME SHAME.
Mark: Jews are NOT a race. Judaism is a religion.
Mark: Minority groups DO NOT get much voice in policy making. Certainly a minority group, and individuals within that group can practice racism. But racist WHITE supremacy can only be practiced by white people, and in this country they have been the policy makers since 1901, and if you like going back to January 26, 1788, when they were a minority group with more powerful weapons.
Kate,
The Gandhi thing is an aside, his racism was against black Africans when he was living in South Africa.
In todays multicultural society, tolerance rather than understanding is more important. However tolerance ends at others intolerance. I don’t have to understand Aboriginal culture or history in order to respect Aboriginal’s right to continue with their traditions.
In the same way I do not have to understand fundametalist Christian beliefs in order to live side by side harmoniously with them, even if part of their creed condemn’s my heathen soul to damnation. The point my tolerance ends is when people like fundamentalist Christians wish me to act on their beliefs. The state provides the avenue for this, and could manifest itself through pro-family policies that discriminate against the childless, or government grants to Christian charities, or proposals to make stem cell research or abortion illegal.
In the same way, I think it would be immoral to ask a fundamentalist Christian opposed to stem cell research to fund through taxation CSIRO research that he didn’t support.
Do you, or do you not agree that the state should be as impartial as possible when it comes to the enacting and implementation of law?
Kate,
*race*
CNN and guardian are hardly right wing outlets with an “agenda”
What right does Iran have in killing coalition soldiers trying to rebuild Iraq?
Minorities don’t have much of a say? That is a democracy for you. As Ayn Rand would say the smallest minority is the individual. We have to look out for individual rights.
Mark: *RACE*….Yes Jews ARE NOT A RACE.
“What right does Iran have in killing coalition soldiers trying to rebuild Iraq?”
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
We ILLEGALLY invaded Iraq, we have killed over 650,000 innocent people. We have created 4 million refugees,we have left DU (depleted uranium) on the ground that has a half life of a billion years. Below is a link to show what DU is doing to the newborns in Iraq. BE WARNED! Graphic photos.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUL20060122&articleId=1777
We have destroyed the infrastructure on an entire country, and you ask “what right does Iran have in killing coalition soldiers trying to rebuild Iraq”
That is bloody laughable!
Coalition soldiers are being used to protect PRIVATE contractors from the Haliburton and Carlise Group which have made billions from the devastation in Iraq. American soldiers particularly, have run amok, raping and killing young Iraqi women, some as young as 14, and massacring whole families to conceal the crime. Here is another link. Warning graphic description of horrendous crime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5253160.stm
We can than our lucky stars that the Muslim people in this country and the USA have shown humbling control in the face of these injustices. We can be EVEN more thankful that Russia and China were not particularly interested in helping Iraq as it served their purpose to be rid of Saddam Hussien and leave the door open for Iran to do what it has done. Which was absolutely predictable to anyone who has kept a close eye on Middle Eastern politics in the past 60 years.
Iran has taken Iraq. America has NO option but to leave. America is ONLY in Iraq now while they play out the blame game at home, and of course there is still money to be made.
If we had attacked a country that did have WMD’s and the capability to hit back, we would have been counting our dead civilians. How dare those Iraq’s try to repel the invaders? What you mean they don’t like seeing their children raped and murdered? How unreasonable of them. And how dare Iran get involved? Iran, is not involved because of any love of Arabs. But they are involved, and we (Aust, UK, USA) are responsible. WE STARTED TO WHOLE BLOODY CATASTROPHE!
If Israel, or the USA attacks Iran, and if Australia is involved in anyway, MAKE NO MISTAKE we will be at war with Russia and China. China in particular signed a mutual protection agreement with Iran in 2006. Do you KNOW what that means? It means exactly what it says.
Mark, you have a computer, there is NO excuse for you being so profoundly ill informed about the Middle East conflict. I can excuse the ignorance toward Aboriginal people, we don’t have the capacity to take us into WW3.
“Mark: *RACE*….Yes Jews ARE NOT A RACE.”
Well yeah. What do you think the inverted commas and asteriks meant? Of course religion is not genetically passed down the line. But the Nazis believed so.
No, are YOU serious? Iran has a right to arm and train insurgents to kill our soldiers because you dispute the legality of the war? The problems and wake of nation building justify Iranian subversion and murder?
But I am profiundly misinformed?
I see you have used the term “Muslim people”.
Iraq is Iraqi, not exclusively Muslim, made up of three or four main ethnicities.
Quite a few are glad to see the end of the regime.
Can you verify your death toll or refugees?
Still – how did this come up? Aboriginals and the Midddle East have vastly different problems and histories.
Brendan:
You said: “In todays multicultural society, tolerance rather than understanding is more important. However tolerance ends at others intolerance. I don’t have to understand Aboriginal culture or history in order to respect Aboriginal’s right to continue with their traditions.”
Firstly, please let me correct something that is VERY impolite. Aboriginal people are referred to as either Koori’s, Murri’s, Wonnarau’s, Wiradjiri’s.. etc, or as a collective Aboriginal or Indigenous PEOPLE. To call us “Aboriginal’s” gives offense.
News flash! Aboriginal people DO NOT need you to be TOLERANT or even UNDERSTAND our right to continue our culture, we will continue to do so without either.
What Aboriginal people DO need is for the same laws that apply to and protect your basic human rights are also applied to Aboriginal people. When you can point me to a non-Aboriginal community where all children under 16 years of age are being put into a bed while a doctor does a little invasive probing, to check for sexual abuse, I will know that is happening. When you can point me to a non-Aboriginal community that has had to sign over control of their land to Govt, to get the money to build schools, and hospitals, I ‘ll know that is happening.
Meanwhile, take your ‘tolerance’ and ‘understanding’ and stick it where the sun does not shine!
Mark: I can see that I am either talking to a very young person who was not around during the Vietnam conflict to see the glaring similarities with “corporate warmongering” then to what is happening in the Middle East today. Or, you are an older person, who has never bothered to look at that history and still believes it was about stopping the spread of Communism.
Vietnam was about RUBBER. The Middle East is about OIL. Same bad guys. The USA and Australia. In the Vietnam conflict China was in the background helping the Vietcong, not because they particularly liked the Vietnamese. In fact Mao, and Ho Chi Minh, wanted to bring Democracy to Vietnam, and was even using the USA Constitution as the model for the proposed Vietnamese Constitution. China did exactly what Iran is doing today and for the same reasons. America has repeated its own pathetic history perfectly.
I used the term “Muslim” because I don’t beat around the bush. Islam was targeted, by this country and the USA concerning Iraq. Even going so far as to coin the oxymoron “Islamofacist”. I am fully aware that Saddam Hussien’s Govt was secular. He was a Baathist, and not a member of any fundamentalist Islamic group. BUT, how many people in Australia and the USA understand that? Not the majority that is for sure. Muslim people have been vilified and demonised, and I say that in the face of that they have show humbling restraint.
Mark, the parallels of what is happening in the Middle East and the colonial invaders of the past are glaringly obvious.
And the blue print that was used 300 years ago is being followed to the letter today. The only difference being the aggressors have more destructive weapons, and the people being invaded are being slaughtered in there 100,000′s. The invaded are fighting back with anything that have, which includes suicide bombings. Not a new tactic of war, the Kamikaze pilots went to their death in spectacular style taking the odd shiploads of enemy seamen with them.
Nothing is NEW under the sun. It is SAME OLD SHIT, different time in history.
I could swamp you with links of stats regarding the casualties in Iraq, and none of them will be completely accurate, as the USA have not thought enough of the people they have killed to conduct a reliable body count. But Lancet group have compiled a report that says over 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died. This figure is considered ‘conservative’ by some other sources.
With regard to the “4 million Iraqi refugees,” simply put that into your web browser and you will get numerous links, here is one for your convenience.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2458880.ece
Mark, Saddam Hussein was a brutal man, but he did a far better job of looking after Iraq and Iraqi people than we have managed to achieve with our meddling. But we had a motive. Corporate greed. We did not have to kill 600,000 innocent people and destroy a country, leaving it unable to defend its self, in order to remove ONE man. We did what we did to try and take control of Iraq’s resources. We did not count on Iran stepping in. That was blinding arrogance.
Iran does not fear the might of the USA, it has allies that keep the insanity from Washington in check, for the moment.
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
Mark: Correction to post 357, para 2. Should read “Mao hated Ho Chi Minh”
Mark: Yes, I do agree that the law makers should not take ANY particular race, religion or ethnicity into account when enacting laws.
Brendan: Sorry, the last post was in response to your question in that regard.
Kate,
No matter your position on Iraq, it doesn’t justify Iranian subversion and murder. This is pointless to argue against.
How does this or the Palestinian position relate to Aboriginals? Have Aboriginals had a civil war between extremists and moderates?
Iraq is a good example of why capital punishment is a bad idea. If we hadn’t hung Saddam we’d be asking him to take over the reins again. At least Saddam could keep them under some sort of control and he did a much better job in keeping Iraq a functioning state than we have or ever will.
The US has called its own bluff. Before Irag people trembled at the sound of the US, now they laugh. Now everyone knows what most military strategists have always known: armies can invade, armies must not occupy.
Kate,
You live in a simplistic world where the west is always the villain, and only ever does anything for evil reasons. The United States of America is full of war-mongerers, and only works for dollars, etc.
WAKE UP!!!!! The Dreamtime is over!!!!
When the Americans supported South Vietnam against North Vietnam, they really did believe that Communism was a force to be fought against, as Evil. And who doesn’t agree with that? Communism was a crappy system that produced squalor, not splendour. The Soviets promoted Atheism, antagonising anyone who believes in a spiritual dimension. Americans are Theists, whatever their church. And when they invaded Iraq, with our help, they would really have believed that Democracy would help everyone. They have to- if they ever stopped believing in Democracy, then the whole history of the United States would have been wrong, from the Revolution onwards. So your belief that’s it’s only ever about money is a shallow one, not in accord with the facts, or not including these other facts.
Mark: Please give me what you think is justification for invading Iraq and killing 100,000′s of people.
The parallels between the invasion and occupation of Palestine is almost identical to the history of the invasion and occupation of Australia. If you don’t see that you are blinkered to the historical facts and realities.
I did not support the Iraq war on practical terms. Saddam may have been illegitimate and bloody, but it was never going to have a net benefit and was a distraction from fighting the Taliban and al Qaida.
Does that then justify Syrian and Iranian intervention to kill our soldiers and Iraqi civilians when they don’t care about the plight of the Iraqis?
Clearly not.
How is Palestine “just like” the Aboriginals? Plese enlighten me.
NIcholas: I was wondering where you had gone.
Firstly, I live in the same world as you Nicholas and the only difference between us is you have a ‘political’ agenda and I don’t. Your agenda blocks the free flow of information that does not sit well with what you are trying to achieve. People like me are a spanner in your works, because we don’t believe the propaganda spewed out by the USA, and Australia, when they want to shore up support to invade countries and try to steal resources. Let me say this slowly, so you understand. The invasion in Vietnam had NOTHING to do with stopping the spread of Communism. If you think about that for even a minute you’d see how ridiculous that is. American LOST in Vietnam. Did that cause Communism to spread?
Nicholas you have shown me that your ignorance is more profound than I imagined it to be, even from previous postings. To say to me “Wake up! The Dreamtime is over” Has send you to limbo as far as I am concerned. I refuse to wast my time even communicating with people who are so disrespectful. Do you realise that what you said is tantamount to saying to a Christian, “screw your Bible” or to a Muslim, “screw your Q’uran”. Please do not bother responding to any of my comments in the future until you apologise, and in future show me due respect.
Mark: I am going to presume that you are not trying to to be offensive by continuing to address my people as Aboriginals. I shall accept that you may have not seen my comment to Brendan.
“Firstly, please let me correct something that is VERY impolite. Aboriginal people are referred to as either Koori’s, Murri’s, Wonnarau’s, Wiradjiri’s.. etc, or as a collective Aboriginal or Indigenous PEOPLE. To call us “Aboriginal’s” gives offense.”
You asked: “How is Palestine “just like” the Aboriginals? Plese enlighten me.”
Australia was invaded by Britain in 1788 when it was seeking to expand the Empire. The newcomers, did not even try to assimilate with the indigenous people, learn the language or respect the culture and spiritual beliefs. The put up fences and killed anyone who trespassed. Bit by bit they encroached further onto indigenous land, they created poverty and pushed people into camps.
Palestine was invaded by the British in 1948, when it needed somewhere to put the displaced Jewish people after WW2. The newcomers did not even try to assimilate with the indigenous people, learn the language or respect the culture and spiritual beliefs. The put up fences and killed anyone who trespassed. Bit by bit they encroached further onto indigenous land, they created poverty and pushed people into camps.
Do you see the similarities?
No.
Because they both never happened like in the above. Your example of Australia is fairly accurate, Palestine, no.
Do the indigenous people of Australia fight a proxy war for foreign powers while at the same time make legitimate claims for political freedom and a single seperate State?
Hey Kate, I’m glad you agree with me, but I fail to see the point of telling someone who agrees that the federal government’s paternalism is wrong to stuff their tolerance and understanding up their arse and then expect respect.
You can stuff your respect up your collective proverbial for all I care.
Mark, you may like to take a look at some of these links, and tell my how you see the brutal occupation any different to what you know was the invasion of this country 220 years ago.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3981406756866553772
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa_WFZyN2l8&NR
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-carter8dec08,0,7999232.story?coll=la-home-commentary
http://www.inminds.co.uk/jews-of-iraq.html
Brendan, As I said, we are done. Do not bother to respond to my posts, and I shall do the same. You do not have the first clue about anything I have said concerning how Aboriginal people feel out non-Aboriginal people using words like ‘tolerance’ to us.
No – and I don’t think you haven’t been hard done by.
Some of those sites were unashamedly anti-Israel.
Israelis and Palestinians have a right to self determination. There is no turning back the clock. The influence of Syria and Iran only poisons progress.
Very few Aboriginals (as you said last time) want secession.
Were not proposing much other than equality before the law, general economic reform and expedient and just granting of land rights where such an arrangement still holds validity.
Mark,
I agree with you, but I can’t see the handout culture ending anytime soon. All Australians are addicted to welfare, black, white, yellow, all Australians. Fundamental change to the powers of the Commonwealth would be required for any libertarian ideas to take hold. Fear of self-reliance keeps people in the skirts of the nanny-state. Getting Australians of off the state tit is the biggest hurdle to small government.
Unfortunately, past injustice cannot be resolved, ever. There is little point in actually trying to resolve them, there is more to be gained from trying to build a state in which such state-sponsered injustice is much less likely, that racism and other problems faced by Aboriginal people are personal problems attributable to individual personal fault. An injustice the result of someone’s ignorance is much preferable to an injustice the result of state coercion, even if the effects are much the same. The difference being, you have choice in not being subject to individual stupidity, you have little choice in being subject to state ignorance.
Libertarians tend to look to the future, or we try to, which is one reason we have such trouble with people like Kate.
I am not going to apologise, since I honestly think Kate is wrong, and she does not respect differences of opinion.
I am also glad that someone is doing something to help the Aboriginal children, and I don’t think it’s just a grab for Uranium, though that may be part of the mixed motives that lead to it.
As for America in Vietnam, that WAS a crusade for democracy and the American way of life, because Americans are great missionaries for their cause- America! Whilst losing the war didn’t lead to all of Asia becoming Communist, no-one could have known that beforehand, and Laos and Cambodia DID become Communist- remember Pol Pot? If the Americans wanted Rubber, they could have just traded with Malaysia, then under British control.
And if they wanted oil, they would have been glad to have Saddam in charge of Iraq- his futile war against Iran meant he needed money for war materials, and he only had oil to trade. And the Saudies have been letting the Americans take their oil for knock-down prices for years.
As for Kate not talking to me any more, after I’ve stopped crying, I’ll go and find some new friends. How could you, Kate?! After all I’ve (never) done for you!!
They could have just tapped strategic reserves in Alaska, Colorado, Canadian tar sands and the gulf of Mexico and possibly could have doubled current supply for a minimal cost.
The ANWAR reserve has enough to fill half of current supply.
Number of barrels pumped out of Iraq since the war’s start?
Libertarian policy recomendations being taken on board by some centralian Aboriginal communities
http://www.cis.org.au/main/indigenous%20media%20release.html
A HAND UP, NOT A HANDOUT, FOR AN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
On Wednesday 2 May, Northern Territory Administrator His Honour Mr Ted Egan AO will open an Art Centre and Women’s Centre in the remote indigenous community of Baniyala in East Arnhem Land. But these are no ordinary community centres: these structures were built by the community for the community, with technical and financial support only from the private sector.
The centres are a first step toward achieving mainstream living standards for the approximately 150 people of Baniyala. Established and emerging artists will be able to learn, work and generate income from art sales. Women will be able to provide nutrition and learning programs for the community’s children, and care for the community’s elders.
Two years ago, Baniyala’s leader and renowned artist Djambawa Marawili told the Centre for Independent Studies magazine Policy, ‘We need an economic base for our community… We want to work with our hands and our minds.’ But he lamented, ‘My people have been training for all these years but they have not learnt skills.’
What Marawili did have was a vision for Baniyala. Part of that vision was an Art Centre and a Women’s Centre. But he wanted a hand up, not a handout. ‘We would like to have our own people to help design and build the centre,’ Marawili said.
Now the young men of Baniyala have built the centres, with the skilled supervision of Rotary Sydney Cove and the kind funding principally of Macquarie Bank Foundation. Rotary Sydney Cove member Andy Buttfield, who led the project, said: ‘Rotary is not doing the work, but providing training so the community can learn to do it for themselves. We are there to help individual community members help themselves.’
CIS Executive Director, Greg Lindsay AO, said: ‘It is enlightening to hear about a community that wants to take responsibility for their own development. When representatives from Baniyala first approached CIS, they had recognised similarities between Professor Helen Hughes’ work on the problems facing third-world Pacific nations and their own community, and they were keen to change all that.’
‘Stage one of the Baniyala renewal project has been about creating opportunities for non-welfare income and employment but for stage two the community needs proper education and health,’ Buttfield said. ‘They want a fully-fledged primary school that is open every day. They want a qualified resident teacher to teach their children English, maths, science and history. And that requires a house for a resident teacher to be built this year by the community – if funding is available. They are very supportive of a mobile dental clinic initiative that also will start this year.’
Many remote indigenous communities experience Third World living standards. It is hoped that this well managed and supported project will not only lift Baniyala’s living standards, but also act as a model for other communities who want a hand up.
All media enquiries:
Kirsten Storry
Ph: 02 9438 4377
Email: kstorry@cis.org.au
Web: http://www.cis.org.au
What does Helen Hughes have to say on the issue?
https://www.sslcis.org/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=101
“In Lands of Shame, Helen Hughes pins much of the blame for the failures of the last 30 years on the policies developed by HC ‘Nugget’ Coombs. She says the Coombs ‘homelands experiment’ has failed, and she outlines a raft of reforms that are urgently needed to turn things around.”
That sounds like a good initiative, hopefully the mainstream media will report this and do so positively.
I remember reading an article in the SA Advertiser about a year ago about an Aboriginal art dealer “exploiting” Aboriginal artists from a community because he was making money by selling paintings he routinely purchased from the community overseas (obviously he had to cover his costs of distribution, advertisment and logistics).
Even though he was providing what I believe was the only source of outside income for the community (apart from welfare), he was made out to be dodgy and exploitative.
On an unrelated topic, I was very dissapointed to hear yesterday that Kava has now been banned from importation into Australia. This was apparently one of the measures to tackle child abuse in Northern territory indigenous communities.
This mild relaxant is much much less potent than alcohol/petrol/any other illicit drug I can think of and is particularly popular among peaceful law abiding pacific islander Australians such as Tongans.
In Adelaide we have a business called the “Kava Hut” in the city where you can go have a cup of Kava, and chill out in a small pacific island themed pub. But I imagine they must be closing down now.
This is a ridiculous situation and yet another abuse by the government.
I bet there will soon be a host of questionable biochem research into the chances of kava making you more psychotic etc…
Tim: When an art dealer purchases a painting from Aboriginal artists for as little as $100.00 knowing that in the overseas market that painting will fetch over $100,000 THAT IS BLOODY WELL EXPLOITIVE!
Since when does an art dealer know the price a painting will fetch at an auction?
It is not exploitative. Clearly the painter will get a much higher price for their next artwork. Unless the artist agrees that the dealer doesn’t have to tell them the price, and they haven’t agreed to a commission scheme.
I think you’ll find this is how most art works, the first work an artist sells commercially is generally pizza money but the dealer makes a killing. Everything else they sell after that is caviar money, or more.
How much do you think the NGA bought Blue Poles for, and what is it worth now?
Art is also high risk, so a large premium is demanded.
And more to the point, if there is an opportunity out there for a 100,000% profit at little risk, why isn’t everyone doing it? I’m not greedy – tell me where this is actually going on and I promise I’ll pay the local artists $1000 a painting. Hell – $2000.
MARK: HAHAHAHAHA…..Clearly you no nothing about how Art is traded. Of course an Art Dealer knows who much a particular painting will fetch, give or take $10,000 on a painting valued at $100,000 painting.
All paintings are valued to a reasonable estimate of what they are likely to fetch at auction at a given time.
In an industry worth about $300 million a year, only $50 million goes back to indigenous artists, according to Rupert Myer’s comprehensive 2002 report for the Federal Government on the visual arts and crafts.
So where does the rest go?
Right. So after a $90 000 – $110 000 sale, the income of the artist doesn’t increase?
http://www.cvacinquiry.dcita.gov.au/issue/issuespaperpart3.html#_toc524950227
Contemorary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry
The Market
The market for Australian art and craft works is supplied by a number of different types of businesses: commercial art galleries/ dealers, auction houses, other merchants such as department stores and tourist enterprises, and directly from the artist themselves.
There are no data available on the total value of artwork sold in Australia. However, in 1999 approximately $69 million of art was sold in Australian auctions�of which the majority is assumed to be secondary sales (Furphy 2000). The value of art sold through commercial galleries in 1999�2000 was $218 million, of which $111 million were secondary sales (ABS 2001b).
Between 1990 and 1999 the value of artworks sold at auction in Australia increased by around 300 per cent, with most of the increase coming from works by non-Indigenous, Australian artists. Auction sales of works by Indigenous Australian artists showed the biggest proportional increase over that period, however, rising from $169 000 in 1990 to $4.7 million in 1999�an almost 30-fold increase. (ABS 2001b).
At June 2000 there were 514 commercial galleries operating in Australia (ABS 2001b), including 31 Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander art centres. For the purposes of the survey, a commercial art gallery was defined as a business whose primary activity is the display and sale of works of art. The total value of artwork sold was $218 million in 1999�2000. Commercial galleries and art centres sold $35.6 million of Indigenous artworks.
With regard to visits to art galleries, an ABS survey indicated that 3.16 million people, equal to 21.2 per cent of the Australian population, visited an art galley at least once in the 12 months to April 1999 (ABS 1999).”
I don’t know where you are pulling your figures from Kate.
Mark, the air around Kate is thin- that is where she gets the figures from. I wonder what figures from fat air are like? Could fat air be causing obesity?
Kate, the artist could always sell the painting overseas themselves if they want to and keep all the profits. So if they think they are getting exploited, then why don’t they do this? Or a group of indigenous artists could get together and start a distribution company. All you need is a computer and an ABN.
But I suspect artists don’t really think they are getting exploited. Maybe your typical envious left wing idealist who has an agenda to make problems where none exist will claim it’s exploitation. But that is because they are ignorant. It makes for a good news story and plays on society’s unecessary feelings of guilt but that’s about it.
Artists need distributors, promoters, advertising, and often need someone to loan them money to set themselves up, etc. There’s nothing exploitative about this.
Art is a high risk business. Look at the music industry where 99% of all originals bands lose money and never get famous. I don’t believe there is an instance where a dealer paid $100 for an indigenous painting, then was able to straight away sell it for $100,000. But even if this has happened, it would be extremely rare.
The reason I don’t think this happens is because when I visited Alice Springs, Aboriginal art was everywhere and it wasn’t that expensive.
Like every single business ever, the artist always has the responsibility to negotiate the best price for their products to whomever they sell it to.
Or would you like indigenous artists to be treated as special or inferior by the law in regards to art sales?
i like to play piano a nd a good rapper
Kate,
You referred to a Mulrunji. The surname you gave was his surname while alive. Mulrunji was his name when deceased pursuant to indigenous spiritual belief. The combination is an error that reflected neither his proper living name nor his proper deceased name.
Mulrunji was clearly not kicked to death by a policeman. Even the Coroner held in her report that kicking was ruled out by the medical evidence. She found that the prisoner who claimed that Hurley punched Mulrunji in the head and then kicked him did witness punching but was mistaken and the punching was to the body.
You say that in spite of her finding that his injuries were consistent with a savage beating it took 3 years to have Hurley charged with manslaughter and he walked away a free man from the trial. Firstly, it took 3 years because the matter was thoroughly investigated and the DPP, reportedly on the advice of a retired judge with recent criminal law experience, concluded that there was insufficient evidence of death and even opined it was a tragic accident. In any other case that would have been the end of it. Likewise the CMC concluded that there was insufficient evidence. It only went to trial at all because the media campaigned, protests were held, and the government intervened. Hurley was singled out in the judicial process. The coroner had no authority to make a determination as to whether or not there was sufficient evidence of Hurley’s criminality to send him to trial. That is the role of the DPP. Secondly, what does it tell you that the jury let Hurley walk away a free man after considering the evidence? Would you consider the possibility that the trial by media reached a different conclusion than that reached by a consideration of the evidence?
In that case a lack of evidence most definitely meant not guilty. The lengthy investigation involving 2 sets of police investigators, 2 post mortems, 2 coroners albeit with one not going the distance, consideration by the DPP, consideration by the CMC, a hired gun ex judge, and a trial costing $7 million failed to find evidence of wrongdoing by Hurley. A private investigator also was involved. Everything but 6 or 7 seconds was well witnessed or on video tape (the watchhouse didn’t have one in the general area but there was one in the cells). The witness during the 6 or 7 seconds (other than Hurley) made damaging claims some proven false, others unlikely and none that on the face of it could explain the death. For the record the prosecution witness pathologist who examined the body admitted at trial that he couldn’t rule out punching but it was unlikely as there was no indication of it.
You stated that Mulrunji’s injuries were not consistent with a fall down stairs, as concluded by the coroner. However if you actually read the coroner’s report, you would know that all the medical experts involved concurred that the injuries were consistent with such a fall particularly considering 2m tall (115kg) Hurley appeared to fall on top of 74kg Mulrunji according to the view of one witness and later surmised by Hurley. Hurley naturally didn’t remember ever last detail of the fall particularly after just being punched in the head by Mulrunji but concluded that it must have gone that way.
With respect, that is an extremely poor example.