Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"I am not dishonest," the Prime Minister told the ABC 7.30 Report last night. Deja vu? Go back to 17/7/1973, Declaring that "I am not a crook," President Nixon vigorously defended his record in the Watergate case and said he had never profited from his public service. Howard will suffer the same fate as Nixon, a disgraced exit via losing his own seat and his Government.

From Today's Crikey ...

"Yesterday, News Limited papers broke news of a leaked report by Liberal Party pollster Mark Textor, warning that 'Honest John' was now perceived as ‘Old Dishonest John’. Textor had some advice.

The government needed to seize the agenda from the ALP and, according to press gallery scribe Malcolm Farr, it also needed to "emphasise that the Commonwealth was bailing out ineffective and inefficient states".

Textor’s report was delivered on

June 21.

Has no-one yet noticed that the federal government's ''emergency intervention'' in the Northern Territory was announced on the afternoon of

… you guessed it, June 21?"

"Two quotes to consider as the House of Representatives today casts a hasty eye over the 500-plus pages of legislative framework for the government's Northern Territory intervention:

This piece has been doing the email rounds for a while, and I've just got permission to publish.. It's by Jennifer Martiniello, a writer and academic of Arrernte, Chinese and Anglo descent. She is a former Deputy Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, and a current member of the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the ANU.

Howard's New Tampa - Aboriginal Children Overboard

Howard's new Tampa children overboard are our Aboriginal children.   The Little Children are Sacred report does not advocate physically and psychologically invasive examinations of Aboriginal children, which could only be carried out anally and vaginally. It does not recommend scrapping the permit system to enter Aboriginal lands, nor does it recommend taking over Aboriginal 'towns' by enforced leases. These latter two points in the Howard scheme hide the true reason for the Federal Government's use of the latest report for blatant political opportunism.

It has been an openly stated agenda that Howard wants to move Aboriginal people off their lands, and has made recent attempts to buy off Aboriginal people by offering them millions for agreeing to lease their lands to the Federal Government, e.g. Tiwi Islands and Tangentyere in Alice Springs.

There was also the statement by the Federal Government that it could not continue (?!) to provide essential services to remote communities, which raised an uproar of responses in the press. The focus on the sexual abuse of children is guaranteed to evoke the most emotive responses, and therefore command attention, just like the manipulation of the Tampa situation. But while the attention of the media and the public is being emotionally coerced, what is being sneaked in under the covers?

Two issues specifically - mining companies have applied for more exploration permits in the Northern Territory, the Jabiluka uranium mining operations at Kakadu have already hit the media because of the mining company's applications to the Government to significantly expand its operations, including establishing new mines at Coronation Hill, and another critical issue - nuclear waste. The Howard Government has already mooted that nuclear waste should be dumped in the Northern Territory, on Aboriginal lands.

Aboriginal traditional owners are absolutely opposed to this. We have a long history of deaths and illness from radiation, from the atomic tests at Woomera in the 1950s to the current high incidences of carcinomas in the community at Kakadu near the Jabiluka site. The main obstacle to the Federal Government's desired expansion of mining operations in the Northern Territory and nuclear waste dumping is, of course, the Aboriginal people who have occupancy of, and rights under the common law to, their traditional lands.

Following the stages of the Howard Government's usual modus operandi (defund, blame, eliminate), defunding of critical programs for remote Aboriginal community projects began in July 2004, with coerced changes to funding contracts, and monies for critically needed youth and health programs in remote areas being the first dollars to go.   Take Mutitjulu for example, which was notoriously profiled by the ABC's Lateline program. I say notorious because one of Senator Mal Brough's personal staffers was the so-called ex-youth worker interviewed on that program, and the content of that interview was laden with myths and mistruths. The staffer in question failed to appear when summoned before a Senate inquiry to explain and the Senator's office is yet to issue a statement.

When the community lodged a formal protest to Government, it was raided and their computers seized. But the program did show the effects of the Howard Government defunding of essential programs on that community, in particular the youth centre and health centre. The people at Mutitjulu also just happen to be the traditional owners of Uluru, one of this country's most lucrative tourist attractions.

The Howard Government would not like us to ask who benefits by the people of Mutitjulu being forced off their community. Under the amendments to Native Title made by the Howard Government, once Aboriginal people have left their traditional lands, forcibly or otherwise, their rights under the common law that every other Australian enjoys over their land are significantly impaired.

Progressive defunding of Aboriginal art centres has also begun, with a range of community art centres not having their funding renewed by DCITA in July 2005 and 2006 in the Northern Territory, from communities in Arnhemland to mid and southern Territory communities.   The art production facilitated by those Aboriginal art centres are the only means through which members of those communities can actually earn a living, as opposed to being on welfare. But then, dependent people are easier to control by means of that  dependency. The Howard Government's failed Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs) have also been the catalyst for further blame shifting and progressive defunding, take Wadeye for example.

Our Aboriginal communities are being squeezed further into dysfunction and disenfranchisement by carefully targeted political engineering, the systemic and ruthless roll-out of a planned agenda. It is no accident that Howard's scheme to address what he calls the urgency of the Little Children are Sacred report's 97 recommendations was trotted out so very quickly, and addresses so very few of those recommendations. It is sheer political opportunism to advance an already in motion agenda, and to score points in an election year. After all, The Little Children are Sacred report is not the first of such reports, nor are its findings and recommendations new. The Federal Government has had the 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997 and 2002 reports gathering dust and deliberate inaction on its shelves. Perhaps Mr Howard has been saving them up for a rainy election year?

And of course Mr Howard's scheme targets only Aboriginal communities, despite the fact that the findings specifically state that non- Aboriginal men, that is, white men, are a significant proportion of the offenders, who are black-marketeering in petrol and alcohol to gain access to Aboriginal children. What measures is the Howard Government going to take about non-Aboriginal sex offenders, pornographers, substance traffickers and the like? Nothing according to the measures announced, but then, they're not Aboriginal and they don't live on the Aboriginal communities where their victims live.

So who are the real victims here, the silenced victims of John Howard's scheme? Aboriginal children, of course, who will be subject to physically and psychologically invasive medical examinations, irrespective of their home and family circumstances, and who will deal with the mental and emotional fall-out from that? Aboriginal men, too, who become the silenced scapegoats, painted by default by John Howard as all being drunken, child-raping monsters. Perhaps the fact that almost every picture shown of Aboriginal men in the media these days shows them drunk, with a slab, cask or bottle under their arms leads Mr Howard to expect that one to pass unchallenged, irrespective of the fact that statistics show that only 15% of Aboriginal people drink alcohol, socially or otherwise, compared to around 87% of non-Aboriginal Australians. The greater majority of Aboriginal men are good, decent people. Perhaps the media would like to rethink its portrayals of Aboriginal men? How about some photos of the other alcoholics, you know, the white ones. There's more of them.

And what of our communities? The Howard Government also hasn't mentioned that the majority of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory are already dry communities, decided and enforced by those communities. But then that would spoil the picture Mr Howard wants to paint of our Aboriginal communities. Other large communities, such as Daly River, have controlled the situation by only having alcohol available from the community's club and enforce a strict four can limit. Also forgotten in the current politically opportunistic furore is the fact that Aboriginal communities around Tennant Creek and Katherine have been lobbying Governments and town councils for decades to restrict the sale of alcohol on Thursdays, when Aboriginal community people come to town for supplies. So far their pleas have been rejected. Nothing in Mr Howard's plan to facilitate that, either. Or about the control of alcohol when those people, once forced off the communities into the towns, bring their problems with them, child abuse or alcoholism and all the rest. Of course that would make access to Aboriginal children a lot easier for white offenders, they won't have to go so far to find a victim.

One last word on focus of attention. In the famous Redfern Address, the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating asked perhaps the most important question for all Australians to consider. He said 'We failed to ask the most basic of questions. We failed to ask - What if this were done to us?'  What if this were done to us - to Mr and Mrs Average Australian, to our schools, youth centres, health centres, access to medical care, communities, homes, children, grandchildren?

After all, current national health reports from a wide range of health organisations name sexual abuse of non-Indigenous Australian children as a crisis area in need of urgent attention. And the numbers of victims are higher. National reports into mainstream domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse also call for urgent action, again the issues are at crisis level, and the numbers of victims and abusers are far higher than in the Little Children are Sacred report. None of the recommendations in all of those hundreds of national health reports recommend compulsory sexual health tests for every Australian child under sixteen. Not one of them recommends that a viable solution is closing down youth and health programs, in fact they all advocate that more are needed. None recommend that the victims' or the offenders' communities and homes should be surrendered to the Federal Government and put under compulsory lease agreements, and none advocate processes which would lead to either the victims or the abusers losing their rights under common law to their property as measure to control or remedy the occurrence of abuse. Would the Howard Government even dare to contemplate such as that? I think not. It would be un-Australian, and the Government it would expect immediate legal repercussions on the grounds of impairment of human rights, extinguishment of rights under common law, discrimination, and a raft of other constitutional issues. Besides, Mr and Mrs Average Australian don't, for the most part, live on top of uranium and mineral deposits or future nuclear waste dumps.

But seriously, the most critical question for all Australians to ask themselves in the lead up to this year's Federal Election is just that - What if it were done to us? With full acknowledgment of what has already been done to workers, trade unions, student unions, public primary, secondary and tertiary education, elderly care, palliative care, medicare, crisis health care, nurses, teachers, multicultural affairs, migrant groups, women, child care, small businesses and artsworkers, among the many, through the exercise of policies of social engineering and fear, your answer at the polling booth may just determine whether it will be done to you, or continue to be done to you. As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald 25th June, the Howard Government last week used the military to seize control of 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, which are now under military occupation. This is not Israel and Palestine. The Northern Territory is not Gaza or the West Bank. This is Australia - but is it the Australia you thought you lived in? Walk in our shoes, Aboriginal Australia's, and ask yourselves, what would it be like to have this done to us? And then, walk with us.

John Howard announced his national emergency policy with the pledge to recall Parliament during the winter break, around July 22, to pass the necessary laws. Didn't happen. Has the emergency passed?

The Wife and I have been on the road to Queensland for the last seven days.

As one courageous journalist commented – “Howard can talk 19 to the dozen without saying one thing he really believes in”.

I have often thought of the media situation in Howard's Australia since 1998, when IMHO, he sold his soul and his country. Who says crime doesn't pay?

He definitely bought the corporation's media to begin with but, I seem to remember that with the introduction of his sedition laws, some of the minor media complained and the Fairfax CEO had a private meeting with the spiteful little schoolboy.

I have not changed my opinion that, since Howard gained the Senate, he has legislated to remove any opposition to his dictatorial power, including that which would make all independent media outlets sit up and take notice.

(And with the usual charisma of a footballer's knee – Ruddock said it's ok if what is said is in “good faith”! Fair dinkum.)

I seem to remember two comments that actually came from the MSM called “There will be no independent media if Howard has his way” and “The Right to Know”?

However, wasn't the Fairfax CEO appointed to the ABC? And Howard went to the U.S. to check his move with Murdoch?

Nevertheless, whatever the moves and counter-moves may have been, there is no doubt that the venal MSM is once again protecting Howard and his moronic robots.

The unfortunate truth for the Australian people is that the ABC and SBS are being “pushed” into pushing the Howard wheelbarrow – especially Chris Ulman.

The more Howard tries to destroy the Constitution, its spirit and its intent, the more he shows his fascist intentions. Check with “A Fascist Australia”.

The Australian people – even with the best intentions, cannot win the Senate majority at the next election. However, we can give ourselves a solid return to freedom in the House of Representatives by electing the Australian Labor Party.

Whilst the Liberal/Nationalist Coalition would still have Senate checks and balances over a victorious Australian Labor Party, the opposite would be true if the Howard fascists were to win in the Lower House again.

Think and reason for our future.

NE OUBLIE.

It is worth recalling that a large-scale unregulated movement to towns associated with the Pastoral Award decision in the late 1960s led to many of the social ills that remain in NT town camps. In the present policy climate of uncertainty we run the risk of repeating this migratory effect at a higher level and amplifying the marginalisation of indigenous people that lies at the very heart of social dysfunction.

Only last year, Gary Johns, head of the conservative and influential Bennelong Society, warned the Government that policy changes would spark a move away from remote communities, creating problems in north Australian towns. Rather than encourage rural decline and prepare for a refugee influx, as Johns predicted, serious action needs to be taken to address investment backlogs in education, housing, health and economic development in townships and outstations in the Aboriginal-owned hinterland.

Such investment is essential to avert the likelihood of people moving once again from rural poverty to far more extreme poverty in urban slum dwelling situations. Evidence suggests that a potential socioeconomic disaster may well emerge.

Unintended consequences of policy on the run need to be avoided at all costs by more considered policy-making.

Says ,Jon Altman director and John Taylor  deputy director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University.

Having lived in Darwin and Cairns, I drive by these town camps nearly everyday. I have seen the squalid conditions of the people who live in them. The town camps will overflow with people fleeing from Howard's Jackboots. Why does Brough think he knows better than people like Jon Altman?  

 

It has taken some time but some very serious Indigenous players are asking some of the hard questions.

Tonight, here with Ms Bev Manton ... note in particular some of her comments about Noel Pearson.

Russell Darroch

I came across an interesting article while reading one of Margo's links -  it is by Malcolm Mackerras, June 10, 2003, AFR.

(I think Scott and I are still at a loss about links - even my old shipmate John Pratt has no trouble with it at all).

The relevant parts I would like to record are as follows:

Howard flies constitutional kite.

Over the past 30 years John Howard has always been the Liberal Party's candidate for Bennelong at federal general elections.  So what?  Not much, except this.  Over that same period of 30 years there have been 15 proposed constitutional reforms unsuccessfully placed before the Australian people.

So Howard's record is a smidgin more reformist than that of the
Australian people but markedly more conservative than his fellow politicians.  Suddenly this conservative politician takes the road to Damascus (sorry, a flight to Adelaide) and we witness a Alpine conversion with Howard proposing radical constitutional reform.

Richard:   Ernest, for copyright reasons I can't publish an extract as large as that which you've provided.  Send the link in a NFP comment and I'll put it in.  If you care to leave an email address I might be able to help you out.

COMMENT:  A brilliant and spot on analysis.  I wonder if Malcolm still has a job?

This prediction clearly explains how the advice Howard receives from his foreign Corporations - Military or otherwise - maintains control of the spiteful little schoolboy.

MARGO : Could this type of truth and clever reasoning be made into another thread?

A STAFF shortage gripping Cairns Child and Youth Mental Health Services means it will soon have just eight people to treat its 956 clients. 

The shortage has forced clinicians to cut some services and there are fears the problem will increase pressure on staff and drive morale down.

Two child psychiatrists, a registrar, two forensic clinicians and five general clinicians man the Abbott St facility but two of the clinicians will leave in coming weeks.

"It is hard to attract mental health clinicians to come anywhere in Queensland and Australia," Cairns Integrated Mental Health Service executive director Kevin Freele said.

Lack of staff is already causing regional areas of Queensland to cut back on child and youth mental health services. Where are all the support workers going to come from? Lack of funding and lack of foresight has caused the problem. Howard and his mates have no answers. 

Yep, right Jenny, just wash aside 60,000 years of history as if it is of no account.    That's nice of us isn't it?

While we maunder on about the graves in Gallipolli, another nation that we illegally invaded and committed mass murder in.   While we snivel on about the Kokoda Track, and the Somme and all our glorious "wars", the so-called forging of our nation we should simply deny 60,000 years of real history.

Right dear?

And Eliot, Ramsey is not always wrong, and Latham has been proved to have been correct on almost everything he said.

Interest rates did go up 4 times, housing affordability is the worst in history, Bush is a dangerous maniac, Iraq was and is a disaster, the forest policy was pure genius and now Tassie is going to be polluted further with dioxins in the pulp mill, they got no money to protect the old growth forests and not one job got saved.

Free health care for the elderly was excellent and look what the Howard lot have done - we have old people living in underfunded and understaffed second rate nursing homes.

Latham's crime was to have a vision that the Murdoch hacks didn't like.

Thanks Mary J for the link to the Alan Ramsey editorial in the Herald:

It tells precisely what the Government is up to under the cover of the Prime Minister's professed social conscience for the welfare of little black children, an issue ignored, abused or misused by white Australia for two centuries.

I don't mean to be picky, but isn't Alam Ramsey the genius who, four days before the last Federal Elections, announced a Latham victory because Mark "had all the answers" and pronounced John Howard "clearly worried" by the polling trends or something?

I mean, this was at a time when even Mark Latham was beginning to fear he was about to be thrashed, no?

I may be mistaken about that (but I think it was Ramsey), but anyone who reduces something like the current panic over Aboriginal child abuse to an "explanation" that simple is almost certainly going to be off Mark again, excuse the pun.

I don't for a moment imagine what John Howard is supposedly trying to do with the remote Aboriginal communities has a bat's chance of working.

In fact, I don't think anyone has a hope of "fixing" the supposed "problems" in question, because I'm fairly sure nobody really understands what the supposed problems are, and I'm also fairly sure the ideologically driven response of the government to the issue of child abuse in Aboriginal communities cannot be reduced to simplistic, just-so conspiracy theories like the "land grab" theory.

Otherwise, why would people like Noel Pearson be supporting the intervention?

Also, I doubt that merely reiterating clichés about "consulting", "dialogue" and "cultural awareness" is likely to resolve issues that possibly have more to do with irreversible cultural impacts endured by a traditional society being more or less steam-rollered by global, industrial commercial culture.

If the "land grab" theory proves baseless, those vesting so much rhetorical energy in it will have few alternative means at their disposal when having to address the sort of intractable social impacts and outcomes that have given rise to the moral panic that is now gripping the Federal Liberal Party.

The CAO is a peak Aboriginal body representing organisations such as CAAMA Radio, the Central Land Council, and the Aboriginal Congress in Alice Springs.

The CAO's Graeme Smith says community confusion is rife as the federal Government seeks to clarify its position on health checks for children and other issues.

"He [Mr Brough] said on one hand he's going to ban porn, ban substance abuse, ban alcohol from communities for six months and then the next couple of days he turns around and says, hang on maybe wet canteens is the way to go," he said.

"I mean, this is just policy on the run."

Mr Brough is creating confusion in aboriginal communities: one day it's no grog next day it's wet canteens. The whole idea of a military solution to a problem created by lack of funding is ludicrous. No planning went into this federal takeover. Howard and Brough have no new ideas, no extra police, no extra doctors, no extra teachers, no extra welfare workers, no new schools, no new hospitals, no new houses. Just a lot of hot air and empty promises. All this is about is a pathetic attempt to hang on to power.

The aboriginal social structure is over 60,000 years old while ours is about a minute old.   In their culture things are based on kinships, and communal ownership.   Thing is though the land "owns" them and not the other way around as we run things.

The land is the most important thing in the world to the tribes and their various dreamings are in the land.    WE just want to buy a chunk of dirt and build a MacMansion on it and never share.

See?   Now I for one would never in a million years consider that any white arrogant bastard had the right to over ride 60,000 years of culture and dreamings that worked perfectly well before a bunch of criminals and their jailors came and stole it from them.

 

Jenny - thanks for you response. There are times that people should agree to disagree.

Mary J - loved Ramsey's piece today also - he doesn't mince words.  

I spotted a piece in the Australain the other day and meant to put it up

"Welfare cuts unless kids' health checked"

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21998422-29277,00.html

FEDERAL Health Minister Tony Abbott has raised the possibility of cutting off welfare payments to indigenous parents who refuse to allow their children's health to be checked

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/give-me-land-lots-of--oops-wrong-lyrics/2007/07/06/1183351452270.html

 

If there is a god I hope she loves and protects Alan Ramsey for many a long day more for this wonderful belling of the cat.

I hate John Howard and his heathen toadies more passionately each passing day.

Marian Wilkinson is in town giving a series of talks at the Festival of Ideas - she read part of a statement made by Sondous Ismael after all her beautiful girls had drowned on SIEVX and made us all cry.

Just made us remember how much Howard loves children.

To see them go to www.sievx.com

Jenny, I have been following the thread of this discussion and I am well aware that people do like to point score. I have been with Webdiary either posting or lurking since the beginning days at the SMH and I am well aware of what  goes on. It was not my intention to point score and I can see by your post that you didn’t think I was doing so. Rather I was responding to your overall attitudes on a range of issues, one being equality. Rather than mix in with other's disagreements I should have used another quote from your posts. Perhaps the following would have been more appropriate:

Yep. Two systems for two sets of peoples. Time all Australians had the same rights, privileges and rules governing their lives I say.  And I think that is what Howard might just have in mind here.

To have the same rights, privileges and rules for everyone would seem on the surface a wonderful idea but we are not all born or develop into being equal. Sadly this will never be the case, some are born deaf or blind or both, some with physically disabilities, and everyone can have such things befall them during their life times. Some are born into a society who finds that the colour their skin is a sign that they are less than equal and they struggle throughout their lives with a crippling disadvantage due to this. This is why it is up governments to help equal things out, they give blind people pensions as well as others with disabilities, both physical and intellectual. They give young children protection from sever sentencing for serious crimes, recognizing that at a tender age they are not as responsible for their action as an adult. And even in the case of an adult it is by case by case depending our circumstances of background and advantage, which is why many people are against mandatory sentencing, as this is a one size fits all attitude.  

Good governance should recognize that the world is a far more complex place and to use  the simple notion that all people are equal and the same rules and rights for all would cause more discrimination not less.

Jenny

So advocating one set or rules, the same privileges and the same rights for all Australians is garbage is it Damian? So presumably then you believe some groups should be afforded less rights, less privileges and operate under a different set of rules. Well to me that smacks of discrimination which is worse than garbage..

Jenny this is not discrimination it is helping to elevate people in our society who are stuck down at the bottom.  The concept of a level playing field is just that, a concept. In reality we live in a society that has a structure and there are two main structures in our western democracies, the diamond shape and the pyramid.  The diamond shape sits with the pointy bit on the bottom where the least amount of people are, the bulk of the population are in the middle, the middle class, and a small amount are at the flat piece on the top.

The pyramid shape has the bulk of the population on the bottom, a small middle class that are always in danger of slipping down and the ruling class at the top point.

Once a person finds themselves on a level in a structure it is very hard to move around, to go up, which is why the notion assisting people through education and welfare came about.  The best shape for a fair society is the diamond shape, a strong middle class society, which Australia was very close too, but now it is well advanced to pear shaped and heading for the pyramid.

I have just returned from the "Sisters Inside" conference held in Darwin, which brings together women from all over Australia and internationally to work in solidarity with women in prison. A local indigenous woman greeted us with the words "welcome to the Occupied Territory"..........

The unanimous conclusion was that the Government's intervention would not only fail but be counterproductive in terms of addressing child abuse and family violence. The Government's taskforce is providing women in remote communities — who have limited access to telephones, no access to vehicles, no haven in the form of community centres or women's houses and who are many hours' drive from assistance — with advice that family violence is bad and a phone number to ring in case help or further advice is needed. If it weren't so tragic, it would be funny.......

 

The use of the military, combined with Government lies and propaganda in that instance, reframed a humanitarian crisis into a matter of national security. In 2007, indigenous people are the unwilling actors in the latest law-and-order morality play.

Associate Professor Jude McCulloch is the head of criminology at Monash University.

A five-year-old child was killed and a three-year-old is being flown to a Brisbane hospital after a double stabbing at Cherbourg in the South Burnett early this morning.

The ambulance service says it was called to the Indigenous community around 4:00am after receiving reports of at least five stabbings.

A five-year-old child was found dead at the scene and the three-year-old was being flown to Brisbane Hospital for emergency treatment.

Two other children have been treated for stabbing injuries at the Cherbourg Hospital.

Police are questioning a 23-year-old woman over the fatal stabbing.

Professor Jude McCulloch says that the government's intervention will be counterproductive in addressing child abuse and family violence. As this mornings tragedy at Cherbourg shows, taking police from one state to another is not a solution. There is a desperate need in all communities, the problem has been caused by lack of funding. It is the Howard government that has cut back on funding and now we are seeing the results. We must work in consultation with the indigenous women.

 

 

Anthony Mundine was at the Art Gallery of NSW tonight as part of its "Arts of Islam" program, for art after hours. There was a swarm of interest amongst the crowd (very few of whom looked like sports fans) and so I will assume at least someone in the media will cover it, however a few comments he made had resonance. He spoke eloquently but idiomatically. He said that Indigenous people are, statistically, at the "bottom of the triangle" and that he felt the government wanted to keep them there. He said they were "Killing us psychologically" and that the solution to the problems involved teaching Indigenous kids their language and culture and to be proud of themselves. He said Indigenous problems are often mental with - and this was a rather sad revelation - people growing up and still not feeling equal. He says he has never smoked, taken drugs or alcohol and that he tries to keep a smile on his face and make time for young people. He attributes his success to will power.

The real revelation was Hetti Perkins, an Indigenous woman that interviewed him, and, curator of the "One Sun, One Moon" exhibition. She brought out influences on him, which I had guessed but am glad to see affirmed, like Mohammed Ali and Malcolm X. She also noted that from her experience. Indigenous kids in remote areas look up to Mundine. He is of course, not Malcolm X but nevertheless he is a proud, conspicuously self-confident Aboriginal man and people like him are needed.

Some idiot tried to advertise a conspiracy theory website by shouting, after the interview. I wont encourage this nonsense by citing the web address.

The "Arts of Islam" exhibition itself was comparable to a similarly titled collection in the Louvre. The pieces are beautiful in their own right but it is impossible to seperate something like this from the political context. Whilst art can soften hearts, the weakness of any such exhibition is that it places Islam in an historical context, and, can make it appear as if it has remained static in modern times. I would have liked to have seen some contemporary Islamic art in contrast, but, this probably isn't the place for it. The supplementary events by the gallery, with a series of talks by contemporary Muslim individuals of note (it would be wrong to call them "leaders"), and a series of new wave Iranian cinema, are excellent. I cannot fault the Art Gallery of NSW on this effort.

On the way home I was reading Ellison's "The Invisible Man" - there is a scene where a young black activist resorts to dangling a "Sambo" puppet on a string for the white onlookers, for money. He runs from police, resists arrest, and then is shot dead. The narrator, who isn't named in the work, struggles to find meaning in his death. I was reminded of TJ Hickey in Redfern, and, the Palm Island riots. It made me fear that the measures by the government might provoke resistance, and, meaningless death. If you start to make discriminatory laws against an already angry people, then try to enforce it over them, after they have grown accustomed to living that way, I think it might provoke a violent response. Every now and then I see these kinds of potential narratives and panic, thinking maybe I can do or say something to stop it - but of course, no-one is listening to someone like me.

But they might listen to someone like Anthony Mundine. I was talking about leaders before and I think he understands real leadership, at a grass-roots level. It is not about being stronger than others, or beating others, it is about teaching people that they have their own strength.

Jenny, councils are elected bodies at a local level. You can't erect a mailbox without the local citizenry getting up in arms - they are not arbitrary law-makers. Under the 99-year lease the Tiwi islanders ceded control of their lands to a Commonwealth entity. I don't think it is appropriate or equal for a Commonwealth entity to be micro-managing local communities, and, I am uncertain as to how much influence local communities have in and over the administrator (It is always easier to find bad news than good news, so perhaps something was worked out). Nevertheless Mal Brough recently declared Indigenous administrators to be an obstacle, which I think is typical of the governments contempt for other authorities.

The government linked the take-up of 99 year leases with school funding (on the grounds that this was necessary for private investment). These people have no bargaining power, and, the government has shown that it is simply not willing to negotiate. It used the crisis in housing and infrastructure as leverage to gain control over such communities.

On the other hand, I learn that the Tiwi islands have the highest suicide rate per capita in Australia. Building the school is important. The legal details seem scarcely important in the face of immediate problems. I am hoping these can be dealt with later, possibly under a future Labor government. There are real and important questions about succession and other such rights. I don't even think the leases are coherent, in a legal or normative sense. I can't see how they can have any affect on "home ownership", unless there is another instrument in place that grants individual people the right of fee simple ownership over their own property.

The long-term purpose of government policy appears to be to want to impose financial obligations on to Indigenous people. The "dream" of home ownership is a dream because it is deferred. The purpose is to force people to work, no matter how artificial or pointless that work is, over the greater period of their lives. Leisure from wealth seems to lead some people in to excess - Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton as much as any remote welfare community.

Out of a nation of twenty-one million only a very small – indeed, tiny – percentage work in the mining industry. As a shareholder Jenny, you make money rather than actually earn money – someone else does that; you merely profit by it; so, no, you don’t actually contribute anything back into the wealth of the country or as a community as a whole, you simply exchange the money that someone else has earned for you for goods and services that someone else has provided. The money you earn, as against the money you make, on the other hand, is a contribution to the wealth of this nation and its economy.

 
If wealth is found on the lands owned by Aboriginal people than they should have that wealth to dispose of as they please. If they wish to sub-contract to Western Mining or Santos
the job of digging it up or pumping it out or whatever, then that should be up to them.

You say: “As for those who owns the minerals under the earth. I say the Australian people as a whole, whether it be under our land, or the neighbour's,” I wonder if you would be of the same opinion if it happened to be on your piece of land that vast mineral wealth was found!

You go on to say: “Yep. Two systems for two sets of peoples. Time all Australians had the same rights, privileges and rules governing their lives I say.” 

 
Sounds like the same sort of garbage that Pauline Hanson used to come out with.

 
You reckon: “And I think that is what Howard might just have in mind here”. I think not. What Howard has in mind is simply to take away the rights of the Aboriginal peoples to have a say in what can or can’t be done with their land – let alone give them any chance to profit by the wealth that may be discovered there.

 Subtitle: just another effing outrage.

-=*=-

Just how bad was/is it? I heard the other day, that there were about 150mio sheep (now down to 100mio, say). And yet the squatter called out the troupers to pursue a hungry swaggy. And so he (the swaggy) died. How (bloody!) typical.

-=*=-

And now Howard is sending the troupers to confiscate[1] traditional owners'[5] defining assets.

-=*=-

In order to inveigle[2] the sheoples®' votes. Well, more fool them - if they fall for it - again.

-=*end*=-

PS - aka the sting in the tail. 'They' - the kleptocracy, and their (slimy!) running-dogs - tell us we live in a democracy. What pure, unadulterated b**ls**t! Recall my 'democratic covenant,' the responsibility of all representatives towards their constituents; that they should represent the will of the majority, while protecting the interests of any minority. To which is added "And don't do anything I wouldn't do!" It is perfectly clear, that Howard&Co do not represent us, we the sheople, in any meaningful way; rather, they are the filthily-willing handmaidens of the mining industry, among other such (criminal!) rip-off masters. Recall also, that these same handmaidens lied us into an illegal war now turned brutal occupation; just how many 'pink-mist' slaughtered - in the name of oil theft? The Oh, so obvious implication is that they will stop at nothing, there is no low to which they'll not stoop, they'll recoil from no crime no matter how heinous.

(IMHO!) 'They' - the kleptocracy, won't hesitate to send the troupers out against us, we the sheople - if they think there's a quid in it. (Don't make a wave!)

-=*=-

Ref(s): [1] MAL BROUGH:

«Kerry, ... We are talking about compulsorily acquiring land, ...»

[7.30/Mal Brough talks ... about the intervention plan]

[2] inveigle v. (-ling) (foll. by into, or to + infin.) entice; persuade by guile.  inveiglement n. [Anglo-French from French aveugler to blind] [POD]

[3] squatocracy (n., skwot-ock-ra-see) Families or individuals who have occupied their rural land for several generations and developed an un-Australian sense of social superiority, authority and entitlement. [Strine]

[4] gormley (n./adj., gawm-lee) Discriminatory term used by squatocracy (see below) in reference to people of lesser socio-economic standing, or otherwise regarded as inferior to themselves, for example an abandoned wife keeping her family together on welfare payments. Used as a noun: "he is such a gormley", and as an adjective: "they are a gormley family". (gormley slumley n./adj., more extreme form of the same thing). [ibid.]

[5] traditional owners (n., trah-dish-shon-ull oh-nah-s) Wry euphemism for Australia's indigenous population, used by some rural types who are either mindful or resentful of the Aboriginal people's successful reclamation of some of their sacred sites, traditional lands and hunting grounds. [ibid.]

Jenny, from what I have read it is clear that the government strongly supports the implementation of 99 year leases, as per the Tiwi islanders. HREOC criticised the lease as being produced without proper consultation with the communities. So did the National Indigenous Times. The only explanation for this besides self-interest is sloth.

"If traditional owners sign 99-year leases they will be relinquishing control over their townships. A government ‘administrator’ will be responsible for issuing leases and approving business proposals and infrastructure development. This will remove Indigenous autonomy over local community development." - Native Title Report, 2006 HREOC

The central purpose of such leases is to allow businesses security of tenure so that they will invest in such areas, and, as the theory goes, create jobs for Indigenous people. My concern is that over time, under such leases, the government will continue in its sloth to dismiss consultation with Indigenous people and start making decisions based on what it thinks best - which will be based, as usual, on ideologically-driven initiatives. Then, over time,  my fear is that, in their sloth, the government will start to make decisions based on the "National interest".

What needs to be negotiated after this five year period (or, ideally during the five year period) is a right to veto sub-leasing and assignment under the leasing instrument. The government rejected alternative propsals by the Nguiu Indigenous people. I was open-minded about this at first but I am becoming more cynical, the more I learn. What Howard is offering Indigenous people is centralised bureaucratic control - exactly what every report says is not needed.

 Subtitle: all your nightmares rolled ind'a one.

-=*=-

I suppose it might fit the squataucracy's 'mindset' - in a vacuous-viciously back-handed sort'a way - that what is denied them, should also be denied the boongs. Doubly so, in fact.

-=*=-

I refer, of course, to mineral rights.

-=*=-

It must'a been a work of genius - to have included mineral rights into Mabo - or whatever/wherever, but now, see Johnny run...

-=*=-

If the above is simply too cryptic, this: we the sheople are already being toadally® ripped-off by the so-called 'guardians' of our mineral rights, now we're about to experience 'equality under the law' with our dark brothers - martial law, as enforced by Howard's (suffer the little children) mineral-thief protection mafia.

-=*=-

«MAL BROUGH: Kerry, ... We are talking about compulsorily acquiring land, ...»

[7.30/ Report Mal Brough talks ... about the intervention plan]

I have never believed that Howard has won these past four elections on his ability as an intelligent Politician or as a person who has the best interests of the Australian people in his aims and actions thereto.

His 30 year history as a politician has shown that he was indeed a spiteful little schoolboy who had ambitions to be one of the world's elite.  And as we have seen - at any cost.

Behind his career rise in 1996, there have been obvious signs of U.S. involvement, especially by their nation under-mining specialists, the infamous CIA.  IMHO they were searching for a corrupt and egotistic politician with "delusions of grandeur" and they found that in  Howard.

The CIA is "credited" with some of the most heinous crimes in the world since WW 11.  And this is continuing unabated.

The latest "let's be honest" spin by the U.S. is the CIA "coming clean" with the world.  Fair dinkum.

The unwarranted and completely undemocratic interference in our federal politics since 1998 has been so obvious that even the Murdoch media couldn't hide it.

With an ever increasing "swelled head" Howard is becoming more and more dangerous to the Australian nation. I even believe now that he thinks he is manipulating America and not the reverse. [His attack on Obama]

I admit to some scepticism when the Australian Labor Party leader, Kevin Rudd, argued that Howard was a "risk to national security".  I now believe that without reservation.

The disgraceful and blatant un-professional behaviour of Bush's previous ambassador to Australia, Scheiffer, and major people of his  Administration was clear and open in the 2004 debacle.

Now we have another supposed diplomat Ambassador to Australia doing the same thing - on Channel 10's Meet the Press.

The title of the "Australian Labor Party" has never had such an important meaning.

NE OUBLIE.

Jenny Hume reckons: “The tax, royalties or other income derived from either mining or any other government use of indigenous land should go into national revenue and the indigenous people should be entitled to benefit from that revenue in the same way as all Australians.  With the budget surpluses we have priority should be given to meeting the needs of the poor and disadvantaged in this country, be they white or black.”

 
Firstly, Australia is the only country which doesn’t allow its indigenous peoples the rights to the mineral wealth that discovered in the lands that are theirs. In both Canada and the US, where oil or minerals are found on lands that belong to the indigenous peoples then it is theirs. If they wish to pump it out or dig it then it is up it up to them. Secondly, the benefits from mining revenue do not benefit ‘all Australians’; they only benefit the shareholders and those that happen to work in the industry.

 

Budget surpluses is a different matter entirely

PF Journey says:

John Howard is making a blatant grab for Aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory  using the abuse of Aboriginal children as an excuse. Howard is using a heavy-handed approach to Aboriginal child abuse in order to create the impression for the benefit of the Australian voter that he is a caring and benevolent leader. He is, of course, nothing of the sort.

 
Howard has had eleven years to sort the problem out but now, all of a sudden, it’s a ‘national emergency’ situation.

 
Well, it’s a ‘national emergency’ situation alright; it looks very much like Howard may lose the next election! That’s the only ‘national emergency’ that Howard is concerned about – that and the fact that by calling it a ‘national emergency’ is the only instrument the Commonwealth has of taking control of the Aboriginal lands in the territories. It also seems that his mates in the mining industry, already on a roll with the resources boom, are casting their eyes towards bits of real estate that belong to the Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory.

 
Howard’s strategy is simple and transparent. He knows that the Australian people could not knock anyone for attempting to solve the problem of Aboriginal child abuse. He will and, indeed, has accused detractors of his program of wanting to do nothing about Aboriginal child abuse. By linking Aboriginal land rights and Aboriginal child abuse Howard has almost succeeded in convincing the Australian voter that solving the problem of Aboriginal child abuse overrides and is far more important than the issue of Aboriginal land rights. However, what the average dumb and gullible Australian voter fails to realise is that Aboriginal child abuse has absolutely nothing to do with Aboriginal land rights except inasmuch that Howard has made the solving of the Aboriginal child abuse problem contingent on changes to Aboriginal land rights by saying that the only way that conditions in the Aboriginal communities can improve, thus relieving some of the problems that give rise to Aboriginal child abuse, is by taking control of the land rights of the communities. This is complete nonsense and is a blatant first step in the eventual control of all Aboriginal lands that have mining potential.

 
I am sure that if Webdiarists were to take the time to read the seven page report regarding the enquiry into Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006, written by Professor Jon Altman of the Center for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the ANU whose advice was sought on the matter, then Webdiarists would quickly realise that there is indeed, another agenda that Howard is pursuing and that the issue of Aboriginal child abuse is merely a cover for that agenda.

In my work as a sexual assault lawyer in suburban Melbourne, I have encountered the kinds of abuse detailed in the Little Children report. I've heard unimaginable stories of child suffering at the hands of abusers: tales of small babies being sexually abused, of young children being forced to engage in sexual acts too heinous to repeat here.

These child victims are not the remote, indigenous "others" of the Little Children report. They live here, among us all, in urban and rural areas. They live in well-kept houses and in broken down ones, in leafy-green suburbs and in less-affluent areas. They go to private and public schools and they are white, as well as black.

Kate Seear is a former joint co-ordinator of the Springvale Monash Legal Service's Sexual Assault legal clinic.

 The Howard raid on the aboriginal communities of the NT is slur on our indigenous population. Child abuse is not confined to  these communities. Howard will take resources away from our population centres, where I believe more children are at risk of child abuse. The problem is national and more funding needs to go into support services across the country. Howards action is racist and a knee jerk reaction to cronic underfunding from Federal and State governments.

Seems to me, at this late stage of the weekend with all sorts of comments in from various media sources now in,  that  we were hoaxed, as early commenters Kerr and Shepherd observed. All the emotionalising histrionics of last week, so exquisitely depicted in a Canberra Times Pryor cartoon ( don't bother going there online, they've only got a flickery add where the cartoon should be), was just a smokescreen for the  Great Land Takeover and Dole rippoff ; 2007. 

Margo, thanks for the many insights.

Am gloomy and stunned,  not so much by the scale or the nastiness alone, but the two combined.

Bruff and  Howard.

Phew!!

ALP gained 4% and now leads 55/45.    67% don't care about the unions, and almost no-one believes Howard about Aboriginal kids.

Wait for tomorrow too as more of my big story breaks all over us.

84 of the 247 cases of wrongful detention have been Australian citizens or residents so far.  4 reports tomorrow.

And Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to bite with mass murders in both nations continuing and stupid people like Barry Cohen daring to call the millions of Australian's who dissent "people who support the notion of aboriginal people as the noble savage".

Anyone here call someone like Lowitja O'Donohue a noble savage?   Anyone?

Alan Curran - let us get this clear once and for all.  In 1996 John Howard took aboriginal health and education services away from ATSIC and the states.    Then he cut almost half the funding.

Clear now?  Then he disbanded ATSIC 3 years ago while promising the aboriginal people they could have another elected body.   Which they don't have.