And we are off - Aboriginal leaders say $1 billion 'not sorry enough'

Garpal Gumnut · 28 January 2008

2020hindsight said:
some interesting reading about the recent intervention..

Yes mate, but if you quote references containing the letters or words "abc" or "womenfor..." its not going to have any credibility with people who make their own minds up on issues like this.

There is such a lack of rigour on the truth, and on quality (Pirsig) in this debate, that many folk steer away from it.

Poor poor bastards.
Poor children
Poor life
Poverty of leadership is one of the main problems

gg

baci · 28 January 2008

IFocus said:
Hi disarray

OK see your point but what’s the answer to the current situation with aboriginals?

I agree with disarray. How come the refugees from all the crap places want to go to the west if its so bad.

On the aboriginal solution, give Noel Pearson a go and get rid of the aboriginal industry and hangers on!

2020hindsight · 29 January 2008

Garpal Gumnut said:
Yes mate, but if you quote references containing the letters or words "abc" or "womenfor..." its not going to have any credibility with people who make their own minds up on issues like this.

There is such a lack of rigour on the truth, and on quality (Pirsig) in this debate, that many folk steer away from it.

Poor poor bastards.
Poor children
Poor life
Poverty of leadership is one of the main problems

gg

gg - if you're gonna label ALL abc as biassed, wow
you prefer ?? to abc? kkk lol?

to be honest that first link is just some uni student making some points - still they are in sync whith the third link which is based on Bennelong Society published reports. - feel free to check out Bennolong reports etc - conservative think tank etc.

How about Al Jazerrah? - lot of people out there refuse to believe anything in the western press any more "unless it's on Al Jazerrah, it has spin" sort of thing.

Speaking of which, here's an Al Jazerrah (101 East) report on the INtervention - early days thereof - spread over two youtubes. It is extremely fair - only problem in my books is that things didn't pan out as they say here, and damn all child molestation cases/charges resulting therefrom etc (although the govt happily took away the land and preferred "paternally dictating to" instead of "working with" etc. - and stealing cops from NSW and Qld Ab communities, just because the Fed and Territory govts had failed in NT! As if we could afford to spare any. For another day.

Julia, you will enjoy the lady in the second youtube who is at the coalface. - skip the first one if you don't want to see responsible Abs complaining they are being ignored

101 East- Aboriginal child abuse controversy- 12Jul07-Part 1

101 East- Aboriginal child abuse controversy- 12Jul07 Part 2

sam76 · 29 January 2008

taken from news.com.au re: "Sorry"

Yet more populist drivel from Krudd. I almost fell off my chair laughing when I heard him say there will be no compensation. This should be the defining moment of his career in displaying his utter incompetence, ignorance and arrogance. Anyone believing that there will be no compensation is deluding themselves, and the lawyers are salivating at the prospect of class actions and suits. Maybe this is Krudds way of stimulating the economy. Sorry to you diehards, but Kevin07 has done nothing to impress, just espouse more hot air and rhetoric by repackaging already existing policy and claiming as his own. Now lets all see the applications before the high court after Mc Sorry day and then we can join the chorus "Kevin07, Recession08".
Posted by: Blampa of Springfield 9:21am today
Comment 48 of 48

skint · 29 January 2008

Julia said:
1) Your analogy with 2020 flying his hang-glider through your window doesn't relate to the question of compensation for the Aborigines.
If he destroys (a) your window, and (b) your Sidney Nolan, then any subsequent action by you is between you and 2020. Not the taxpayers of Australia.

2) So I absolutely do not agree that what happens to any compensation which might be paid is irrelevant. Most Australians are going to be pretty damn unhappy about the thought that their tax dollars are funding more alcoholism, petrol sniffing, and drug addiction, and rightly so.

1) The plaintiffs in this instance are indigenous people taken from their homes and families. The defendant is the current Australian government. The Australian government is the legally responsible party for current and past governmental failings and transgressions. These cases are no different to governments being accountable in many ways including, for example, gross negligence in Health. I'm sure you can think of a swag of cases whereby governments have been held to account.
Having your kid taken away because of their skin colour (and skin colour alone) is not just negligent, its criminal. Its a sad day indeed when kidnapping is dismissed as 'policy of the day'. Try and imagine someone barging into your childhood home when you were young, and throwing you into the back of a vehicle, placing you in an institution, and more than likely never being able to see your family again. That may sound like emotive language, but that's pretty much how these events occured. I agree, the taxpayers in these situations are right to be aggrieved. The governments of the day acted appallingly, and now we're picking up the tab. Moral of the story? Be careful who you vote for.

2) Comments such as "Australians are going to be pretty damn unhappy about the thought that their tax dollars are (going to be: sic) funding more alcoholism, petrol sniffing, and drug addiction" are redneck, ill-informed and unproductive ravings. They assume , for a start, that Aborigines are an homogenous mob. Obviously, substance dependence is a large problem for indigenous people as a group. However, even if we inflate the figures to 50% dependence, that leaves an enormous number of people that have been tainted with your brush. I wonder how the problems started?

Julia · 29 January 2008

skint said:
1) The plaintiffs in this instance are indigenous people taken from their homes and families. The defendant is the current Australian government. The Australian government is the legally responsible party for current and past governmental failings and transgressions. These cases are no different to governments being accountable in many ways including, for example, gross negligence in Health. I'm sure you can think of a swag of cases whereby governments have been held to account.
Having your kid taken away because of their skin colour (and skin colour alone) is not just negligent, its criminal. Its a sad day indeed when kidnapping is dismissed as 'policy of the day'. Try and imagine someone barging into your childhood home when you were young, and throwing you into the back of a vehicle, placing you in an institution, and more than likely never being able to see your family again. That may sound like emotive language, but that's pretty much how these events occured. I agree, the taxpayers in these situations are right to be aggrieved. The governments of the day acted appallingly, and now we're picking up the tab. Moral of the story? Be careful who you vote for.

2) Comments such as "Australians are going to be pretty damn unhappy about the thought that their tax dollars are (going to be: sic) funding more alcoholism, petrol sniffing, and drug addiction" are redneck, ill-informed and unproductive ravings. They assume , for a start, that Aborigines are an homogenous mob. Obviously, substance dependence is a large problem for indigenous people as a group. However, even if we inflate the figures to 50% dependence, that leaves an enormous number of people that have been tainted with your brush. I wonder how the problems started?

You are being very selective in what you quote from what I have said.
If you are being unreasonably emotive in presenting your view, and I am over-generalising, then I guess we are about even, huh.
Don't see any point in persisting with this argument.
I will just reiterate that I would be very unhappy to see cash payments being made. I have, however, already said (which you chose to leave out) that I'd be very happy to subsidise costs for education, boarding school, travel etc.
Ditto for health care.

Skint, you should leave insults out of this. Because you disagree with something I have said, you have no cause to describe me as rednecked.
I have not at any stage directed any personal insults towards you or anyone else on this forum with whom I have disagreed. It's a poor debater who feels the need to attack the person rather than the argument.

bunyip · 30 January 2008

skint said:
Talk about a rose-coloured glasses view of history. Manning Clark, eat your heart out! For example, many of the children were placed in orphanages and treated hideously. I had an aboriginal friend who was removed from here mother without consent. In her adoptive white family, she was repeatedly raped as a young girl and also physically abused. Was she better off? As a young bloke, I lived in the Territory and spent some time working as a jackeroo with many Aborigines. They were very much considered to be second class citizens. You don't fix a community by further dividing it.

I feel truly sorry for your aboriginal friend who was subjected to sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her adoptive white family.
But your question of "Was she better off"?, seems to suggest that she would have been spared this kind of treatment if she was left with her aboriginal family. Maybe she would have been, but then on the other hand, maybe not. Sexual assault, alcoholism, substance addiction, violence etc wasn't as widely documented back then in aboriginal communities as it is now, but it existed, nevertheless.
In white society she received benefits she wouldn't have had if she'd stayed with her aboriginal community - education being one of those benefits.
The same goes for the kids you mentioned who were mistreated in orphanages. Yes, orphanages of that era handed out some pretty harsh treatment to children, no question about it, most notorious among them being those run by Catholic nuns and priests. Floggings for the slightest misdemeanour, even sexual assault in some cases, and little if any traces of love and affection and understanding. Black or white, it didn't matter, if you were a kid in an orphanage back in those days then chances are that you did it hard.
But the kids in aboriginal communities did it hard too, and were and still are subject to all manner of hideous treatment. One of the differences between aboriginal community kids and orphanage kids is that the orphanage kids received healthcare and education, were clothed and fed properly, and were generally prepared for life in the broader community. The same can't be said for the kids in aboriginal communities.

As Julia has pointed out, Noel Pearson, himself an aboriginal, has stated that the now adults who were removed as children have by and large grown into responsible adults with a sound work ethic.

Skint, you've stated that "You don't fix a community by further dividing it." Well on that point at least, I agree with you. But was that the objective of the relocation policy, were they really trying to 'fix a community'? I don't believe so. As I see it they were just trying to get kids out of a situation that was considered unsatisfactory by the government, and place them in a different environment to hopefully give them better chances of leading worthwhile lives. The policy was never an attempt to tackle the underlying problems of these communities.
Right now in this country we have a similar policy in operation that removes kids from family environments that are considered by the authorities to be unsuitable for children. And where do the authorities place these kids? Why, they're placed with foster families and adoptive parents, just like many of those half caste kids back in the stolen generation days. Some would say that these kids are 'kidnapped', since they're removed from their families against their parents will in most cases, forcibly if necessary.
Now, is this really such a bad thing, to take a child out of an unsatisfactory situation and place him or her in what is considered a better situation so that he or she has some reasonable chances of a decent upbringing. I don't hear any complaints about it from the general community.
Example......... A couple I know, unable to conceive a child of their own, adopted a baby boy from Ethiopia, and two years later, another boy, this time a white Australian. The little Australian boy was 18 months old when they adopted him, and had already been in hospital four times with broken bones as a result of violence from his parents, both of whom were alcoholics and junkies.
Only a lunatic would suggest that this child was 'kidnapped', that it was outrageous, wrong, immoral, to remove him from that abusive environment and place him instead with people who would look after him and care for him properly.
Did the removal of that little boy 'further divide' his family? Too right it did - all of a sudden the family is broken up, the parents are childless, and they probably won't see their child again. Did the removal of that child fix the problems of that family? Not a chance.....nor was it intended to. The focus was, quite rightly, on the needs of the child, not on the problems of his family. Just as it was in the stolen generation issue.
Did the removal of that little boy, and his placement with his new family, fix his problems and give him a chance for a better life. Yes of course it did. And what will the end result be? Unknown at this stage, but quite likely the kid will turn out OK and will take his place as a productive and decent member of society, just as most of the stolen generation have turned out OK and have become responsible people.
What would the boys future have been if he'd been left with his violent, drunken, drug-soaked parents? Almost certainly, he'd have turned out the same way himself.
What would the future of those removed aboriginal children have been if they were left with their impoverished, uneducated, and in some cases violent and drunken communities. Almost certainly, they'd have turned out the same way themselves.
How would it go down these days if community services or whichever government department is responsible for looking after the best interests of children, were to step in and remove some of those children from aboriginal communities where problems are rife and kids are really suffering, and place them in foster care with carefully screened and selected foster families? Not necessarily white families either, they could be Indian or Chinese or pretty much any race as long as they were decent people who embraced Australian values.
How do you think that would be received?
I'd suggest there would be public outcry. Yet, pretty much the same thing is happening throughout society wherever kids are getting beating, abused, raped, neglected etc, and the public embrace it as sensible policy, which I believe it is.

Julia · 2 February 2008

Here is one of Noel Pearson's comments about welfare. These remarks can, imo, be equally applied to black and white in many instances.
..................................................................................................
When welfare is a curse
By Noel Pearson
The Age 23 April 2004

Centrelink is a major contributor to the drug problems of Aborigines.

Bob Collins, the co-ordinator appointed by the Rann Labor Government in South Australia to tackle the problems in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, has cut to the chase: automatic and unconditional welfare payments must end to encourage young indigenous people to seek work.

Rather than just alluding to problems of "welfare dependency", "boredom", "hopelessness" and so on, Collins says unconditional welfare payments are a problem "that's got to be addressed at the Commonwealth level".

That is, we can't just all agree that passive welfare is a problem, we have to do something about it.

John Howard and Mark Latham: you know Collins is right. Your challenge is to decide how this piece of public policy is to be structured.

We can keep talking about welfare reform, but the time for reform that will turn around the social disaster in remote Aboriginal communities is now.

We will not get on top of the serious problem of substance abuse without confronting the issue of unconditional payments to able-bodied people.

The measures taken by Peter Beattie in Queensland to limit the supply of alcohol are a necessary part of the solution. Beattie has had the courage to tackle the hard question that is within the state's policy domain.

But if we don't tackle unconditional money supply, our progress will stall.

Money to purchase grog and drugs, and idle time to use them, are the key factors that must be confronted, in addition to supply. This is the Commonwealth's policy domain.

A host of counter-arguments will be immediately raised against Collins's bottom line, such as the lack of jobs in remote areas.

Yet in most remote communities there are scores of jobs manned by non-indigenous people, many of them not requiring particular expertise or expertise that could not be readily attained by local people.

How is it that we are unable to convert the more than $2 billion allocated by the Commonwealth to indigenous programmes into jobs performed by indigenous people?

The answer is that there is no firm bottom line in the welfare system that young indigenous people enter as they approach adulthood. As long as that system does not say "there is no alternative to work, education and training", all the youth programs and interventions will come to very little.

There needs to be both help and hassle.

At present the welfare system provides unconditional income support to young people once they leave school. It immediately provides an easy option to young people: you don't have to undertake further education or gain skills or work, because you will receive an income regardless.

This path of least resistance becomes the road well-travelled. Young people have free money to purchase grog, cannabis and other substances. They soon become addicted. Thereafter the welfare system pays for their addiction.

A major contributor to the weekly drug habits of young Australians is Centrelink.

This may be an outrageous thing to say, but it is the truth.

If we want to ameliorate the tragic situation that Bob Collins is talking about in remote indigenous communities, then we have to end unconditional welfare payments.

The Federal Government has talked the talk on welfare reform, and a program was devised around "Community Participation Agreements", but nothing has emerged after four years. I do not know of one CPA being implemented in any community across the country.

The Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services has given us strong support on the help side of income-support reform. It has worked with us, in partnership with the Westpac Bank, to implement Family Income Management facilities for families to budget their income.

But another reform on the hassle side of income support, which we in Cape York Peninsula have attempted to pursue, has gone nowhere. Too many of the "mutual obligation" and "shared responsibility" policies skirt around the real needs, and the mainstream bureaucracies end up putting off reform for another day.

Bob Collins's suggestions appear self-evident against the background of social collapse in central Australia. Unfortunately, indigenous welfare reform is hostage to the lack of progress in mainstream welfare reform.

But if Australia is truly empathetic to the waste and suffering of young indigenous people, and of those who love them, then we must take Bob Collins's plain advice as the starting point.

Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, a joint initiative of Griffith University and regional organisations in Cape York Peninsula.

bunyip · 2 February 2008

Julia said:
Here is one of Noel Pearson's comments about welfare. These remarks can, imo, be equally applied to black and white in many instances.
..................................................................................................
When welfare is a curse
By Noel Pearson
The Age 23 April 2004

No wonder Noel Pearson has the utmost respect of many people, myself included.

But I'm sure his proposed reforms are not received with enthusiasm by those who just love the idea of getting free money to spend in whatever way they choose, while at the same time they abhor the thought of having to do an honest days work to earn it.

And yes Julia - I agree - his comments could equally be applied to black and white in many cases.

I'd like to see Noel go into politics one day......then we might see real progress towards solving the problems of aboriginal communities.

2020hindsight · 2 February 2008

Julia said:
Here is one of Noel Pearson's comments about welfare. These remarks can, imo, be equally applied to black and white in many instances.
..................................................................................................
When welfare is a curse
By Noel Pearson
The Age 23 April 2004

Centrelink is a major contributor to the drug problems of Aborigines.

Bob Collins, the co-ordinator appointed by the Rann Labor Government in South Australia to tackle the problems in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, has cut to the chase: automatic and unconditional welfare payments must end to encourage young indigenous people to seek work.

.... But if Australia is truly empathetic to the waste and suffering of young indigenous people, and of those who love them, then we must take Bob Collins's plain advice as the starting point.

Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, a joint initiative of Griffith University and regional organisations in Cape York Peninsula.

Sure ,This speech is typical of almost all of his speeches as discussed previously. Passive Welfare is a negative (hence get em jobs - not like Brough did recently taking away the few jobs they did have in some areas)

http://www.cyi.org.au/speeches.aspx

by the way , I doubt that Noel P would be quoting Bob Collins these days - since he died in controversial circumstances under a cloud of sexual abuse charges.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/natio...ob-collins-dies/2007/09/21/1189881731099.html
Former Northern Territory senator and federal Labor minister Bob Collins has died at the age of 61, just days before he was due to face court on child sex abuse charges.

btw also , this is one of tfhe few if not the only reference he makes to stolen generation in all those speeches...
http://www.cyi.org.au/speeches.aspx

Dr Charles Perkins Memorial Oration
ON THE HUMAN RIGHT TO MISERY, MASS INCARCERATION AND EARLY DEATH
Noel Pearson, McLaurin Hall, The University of Sydney, 25 October 2001

When Aden Ridgeway was asked by the Sydney Morning Herald about the most important issues in what is commonly referred to as "reconciliation", he answered mandatory sentencing, deaths in custody and the stolen generation. These are a correct identification of the end results of bad policy, but with respect, these are not the issues of the most strategic importance for handling our current disaster. We must instead face passive welfare and substance abuse epidemics as the critical issues – because it is these problems which cause Aboriginal people to enter the criminal justice system and which produce even more damaged generations of Aboriginal people. It is unfortunate that these end result issues become the predominant policy diversions and attract our quasiradical attentions and energies.

He's also happy to be controversial

Hopevale Speech: Friday 12th May
Signing of Agreement between Commonwealth Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough and Hopevale Community Council.

“Thank you very much to the traditional owners for welcoming us here. I am in the controversy business, unfortunately. It would be so much easier not to be in the controversy business. I could only take on those things and say those things and only argue those things that people readily support, and I have done that in my time. If I were here to say that Aboriginal people should be free from discrimination, we would all support that, there would be no controversy. If I were here to say that Aboriginal people should have their land and be respected in relation to their land, there would be little controversy. If I were here to say that Aboriginal people should recover the wages stolen from them by Government, there would be no controversy. If I were here to say that Aboriginal people’s rights and entitlements should be respected by government, there’d be no argument. I’d be a hero. People would pat me on the back, and I’ve had many pats on the back for doing those very things.

“But my hard message is one that angers, that distresses, that annoys, that upsets. But I can’t apologise for it, because I have some messages about the very Hope Vale that I’m proud of too. I’m proud of this place and I love this place, and I love the people. There’re no people on the face of this planet whom I love more dearly than the people of my hometown. But I can’t say things that are going to make everybody happy, because there’re some things that we all have to challenge each other about. There’re some things we all have to challenge each other about. And I don’t retreat while kids are suffering. And I’m not going to let the carpet be swept over kids not getting the right treatment from their parents.

But in summary I think he'd be happy if both Stolen Generation AND the Ab conditions were addressed.

Also mentioned on Pearson’s website (Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership) is a school project:-

I like those phrases / points :-
"be driven by principle, remember that it is not who is right, but what is right"
"Admit error quickly"
"Practice empathy"
"Be committed to your responsibilities"

Sounds like we could all take his advice, blacks and whites, if you ask me.

2020hindsight · 2 February 2008

btw , that powerpoint presentation ends with a photo of Tania Major with some of the kids

Speaking of (young) Aussie of the Year. (2007)

PS obviously this is atypical of the entire continent.

How about we tackle BOTH the conditions and some of the causes? Even Noel Pearson (who may not necessarily answer for Abs in Redfern or NT or Bangerup or Pilbara etc ) might agree that it isn’t so silly to treat (one of the) causes as well as the symptoms.

Wysiwyg · 26 December 2016

First of all I'd like to say I love the true Aboriginal and would not harm them in any way but I am wondering about the "default" to Aboriginal by Caucasian mixes who then go on to claim invasion by Europeans. I want Aboriginal people to have the opportunity to move forward with the rest of the human beings on this planet. No one "owns" Australia, we live here and we want to live together with good people.

And we are off - Aboriginal leaders say $1 billion 'not sorry enough'

Garpal Gumnut

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baci

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sam76

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Julia

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bunyip

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