Bjelke-Petersen expelled Fred Hollows from Queensland

'Sir' Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The man for whom our former Premier, Peter Beattie, thought it was a good idea to give a taxpayer-funded state funeral and build a memorial statue as an homage. From the Brisbane Times:

The book, Beyond Sandy Blight, launched in Canberra last week, gives an inside account of how, in the 1970s, the then-Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had Professor Hollows and his team expelled from the state.


Their crime? They were helping Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders get on the electoral roll so they could vote.

Dr Pat Rebgetz slams situation in Wadeye

Yikes. It's amazing that a situation like that could exist in Australia...

First Australians on SBS

You can see tonight's episode in full on the SBS mini site. Check out the links on the right of the page too.

First of all, never trust the British. Duh.

Second, it was a bit disappointing to hear Aboriginal history told by Indigenous Australians using only European sources. I was expecting more oral history and archaeological evidence etc. I though I'd get to hear more about how they lived before Europeans and hear about the colonisation from their point of view. I think that could have been improved on.

On the plus side it was interesting to contrast the evidence of the massacres that occurred with the John Howard/Keith Windschuttle denial. It really is in the same league as being a holocaust denier. Except holocaust deniers can be sent to prison in some countries.

Also that chick who was going on about lost opportunities for peace between Europeans and Indigenous Australians is totally clueless about European colonial MO. Colonists always show up poor, desperate and hungry. They depend on the inhabitants of the colony to be to support them and help them thrive, until they get strong enough to either exterminate the inhabitants or, if they are deemed to have commercial value, subjugate them instead. There is never any real intention of living on an equal footing with native inhabitants.

Pushers in planes

We are treated to so many horror stories of rampant alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities that it takes a lot for one to stand out. This one does.

But it, like all the others, fails to ask how the mercenaries who fly in the grog to feed the addictions and the misery, are allowed to get away with what they do. The people who supply grog to these communities should be named and shamed, and any liquor licenses they possess revoked for life. They are the filthiest of drug pushers and should be treated as such.

Greater protection for dugongs needed

From The Australian:

Aboriginal leaders are calling for controls on indigenous hunting in response to mounting scientific evidence that the targeting of dugongs and turtles is not sustainable.

A new study suggests that dugongs in the Torres Strait and northern Great Barrier Reef are under threat because of hunting. Previous reports indicated that populations of green turtles in the same region had also been been sharply reduced.

The debate over indigenous hunting has been ignited by a move by Japan to accuse Canberra of hypocrisy for leading the charge against its whaling while condoning the harvesting of dugongs.

Modelling for a new study commissioned by the federal Environment Department's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility was based on surveys of dugong populations over the past 20 years. The modelling concludes that the killing of more than 100 to 200 dugongs a year in the Torres Strait is not sustainable.

Previous surveys indicated between 1000 and 1200 dugongs were killed in the Torres Strait every year.

While Japan are totally missing the point, that it's not like Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people are jumping in boats and sailing half way around the world, far, far outside Australia's territorial waters, to kill an endangered animal, I've got to say that I don't feel that 'traditional' hunting encompasses going out in a motorboat and shooting a dugong in the head with a rifle, or even using something like a spear-gun. Not comfortable with that at all, and clearly it's not sustainable. That's not to say that there aren't bigger issues, like the loss of seagrass habitat that the dugongs rely on for food, but hunting them with motorboats and guns while they're endangered isn't going to help things, and doesn't really jibe with the idea of sustainability that was so important to traditional indigenous lifestyles before white people came along and fucked things up. I don't think hunting endangered animals with guns should be allowed at all.

Bad move, Jenny

The message Jenny Macklin sent by choosing to spend the night aboard a $680 per night boat in preference to the local $90 per-night guesthouse on her visit to Aurakun sends a message that basically says "Your community is so shit that I wouldn't even spend a single night there". In fact, according to The Australian, she only spent 4 hours there.

Macklin claims that her intent in spending the night aboard the boat was "to support a local business" (presumably the local guesthouse is owned by some foreign tycoon?), but that really rings hollow.

I'm not suggesting that The Australian doesn't have ulterior motives in the way it's reporting Macklin's visit, seeing as the paper is known for being overtly anti-ALP, but honestly: Macklin shouldn't have made it so damn easy for them. Australia's MPs need to get over themselves, and if they're visiting a community then they shouldn't be thinking themselves too good to spend a single night there. If it's so bad then what about the poor bastards who have to live there all year round? Labor should make a point of differentiating themselves from the Howard government and keep themselves respectable. Otherwise what's next? Commandeering RAAF jets for private beach holidays?

I should also say something else that struck me when I looked up the business that operates the boat and runs tours of the Aurukun wetlands: damn those tours look good. If I had a holiday and a few grand to spare I would go there in a heartbeat.

Sorry day is Nelson's disgrace

First of all- happy Sorry Day, everyone.

I'm sorry too. Sorry that I got to hear Brendan Nelson's speech on the radio this morning right after Kevin Rudd's. Ugh. I usually get annoyed when a loud vehicle shows up in our driveway and sits there making noise, but when a carpet-cleaning van showed up this morning I was thanking my lucky stars for their generator drowning out Brendan Nelson's speech. God. What a loser.

Here are some of the bits I got to hear:

It is one of two cultures; one ancient, proud and celebrating its deep bond with this land for some 50,000 years. The other, no less proud, arrived here with little more than visionary hope deeply rooted in gritty determination to build an Australian nation; not only for its early settlers and indigenous peoples, but those who would increasingly come from all parts of the world.

Firstly, none of the first settlers arrived here with a 'gritty determination to build an Australian nation'. The English who didn't arrive here as convicts were intent on building a colony, another outpost of the British Empire. The next big step in our history as a nation will be ridding ourselves of those ties.

And not a single person who settled here wanted to 'build an Australian nation' for aboriginal people- are you kidding me? They were viewed as savages, as wildlife, and essentially treated as such until 1967.

As for the thought that these 'nation building' forefathers of ours pictured a multicultural paradise filled with people from 'all parts of the world'- utter fucking bullshit. Explain the Lambing Flat Massacre, and the NSW government's response (which was to effectively ban Chinese immigration). Explain the fucking White Australia policy. Why was John Howard so preoccupied with the teaching of history in Australian schools when it's clear that the only history his former ministers are familiar with is of the Keith Windschuttle school? I suppose that was exactly the point- Howard's mission was this kind of propaganda:

In brutally harsh conditions, from the small number of early British settlers, our non-indigenous ancestors have given us a nation the envy of any in the world. But Aboriginal Australians made involuntary sacrifices, different but no less important, to make possible the economic and social development of our modern Australia.

Magic Bellybutton picked up on this one too. What Brendan Nelson is saying is that the abuse of aboriginal people, the theft of aboriginal children, was necessary in order to make Australia a good place to live. That if it hadn't happened, somehow we'd be worse off. What the fuck? As Gam said when I pointed it out- "That's like saying in order to build an autobahn it's necessary to burn a few Jews". Despicable doesn't even begin to describe what poured forth from Brendan Nelson's mouth on this momentous day.

Though disputed in motive and detail and with varying recollections of events by others, the removal of Aboriginal children began.

Translation: "Anyone who says they were stolen is a fucking liar. They were 'removed', not stolen, and because I and others of my ilk dispute the intentions, this disproves the stories of everyone in the Stolen Generation as well as their family members".

But in saying we are sorry - and deeply so - we remind ourselves that each generation lives in ignorance of the long term consequences of its decisions and actions. Even when motivated by inherent humanity and decency to reach out to the dispossessed in extreme adversity, our actions can have unintended outcomes. As such, many decent Australians are hurt by accusations of theft in relation to their good intentions.

Translation: "Everything that was done was done with the best of intentions. Aboriginal people were a miserable bunch until we came along, and don't you forget it."

I'd also like to ask a question: If 'we', meaning Australians alive today, aren't responsible for the actions of people who took part in the theft of children from their families, how can 'many decent Australians' be wounded by 'accusations of theft in relation to their good intentions'? Does 'their good intentions' mean they actually took part in stealing children? We've been told repeatedly that it's all in the past, that today's Australians aren't responsible, that we have nothing to be sorry for, so how can these 'decent Australians' be so defensive about their actions? Brain explosion impending...

Luckily that's all I had the misfortune of hearing, thanks to the arrival of the carpet-cleaners, as I could feel my blood pressure rising and that's not a good thing first thing in the morning. I was very happy to see later in video footage on the SMH that many people booed Brendan Nelson's speech, and a couple of Kevin Rudd's staff as well as hundreds of other people turned their back on him during his speech. Brendan Nelson and the other Libs (those who actually showed up, that is) whined like a little bitch in response. I was not, however, very happy to see that Rudd is forcing them to write to Nelson to apologise. Nelson deserves nothing. I don't hear talk of him forcing Wilson Tuckey to make a formal apology for shouting out the lord's prayer and then stomping out of the lower house before the apology was read. In fact, what Brendan Nelson said in response to that was "The important thing for us is to respect difference of opinion."

What a disgrace the Liberals are.

Fuck you, Brendan Nelson.

Sorry

I'm glad John Howard refused to say sorry. The 11 years of arsehole-ish policy and colonial mentality have made Sorry Day exponentially more valuable, and the fact that the apology isn't being dragged out of the mouth of someone whose tongue was planted up the Queen of England's arse for 11 years gives it a dignity it wouldn't have had coming from Howard. Now, it really means something.

The occasion of the official apology to the Stolen Generation is a really important piece of Australian history, and therefore I think it's important that it goes on this blog. Here is the wording of what Kevin Rudd will say in parliament tomorrow:

"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."

I did hear on the radio this morning that no Indigenous leaders will be permitted to address parliament tomorrow because of some 'rule' preventing non-parliamentarians (or something) from taking the floor. Bob Brown was quoted as pointing out how hypocritical this was given that we've had foreign heads of state, including, to our everlasting disgrace, US president George W Bush. I hope that's not true, because if it is it's a real shame. If there ever was an occasion that demanded it, this would be it.

Howard's $398.5m serenade to Bush

The Lancet has produced another article attacking the Howard government for its appalling record on indigenous health. This is the third such piece in the Lancet this year. That might sound like overkill until you look at the extent of the neglect of the problems by John Howard an a succession of health and indigenous affairs ministers over the past 11 years.

Take, for instance, the much-trumpeted $100 million allocated to indigenous health a couple of months ago. $100 million is a lot of money, so that must be great, right?

Until you look at the amount of money that John Howard and his government spent last year on overseas operations by the Australian army (the name 'defence force' would be a misnomer given the way our troops have been used, unless the word 'defence' were taken to mean defending George Bush's rear end):

$842.5 million dollars. That's $1 billion minus roughly the cost of John Howard's taxpayer-funded WorkChoices ads, if you like.

Half this amount, $398.5 million, was spent in Iraq over last year alone.

Notice that these aren't the sort of spending promises trumpeted by Howard as he trudges around the country trying to scrape up support for his unpopular government.

Imagine what Australia could have achieved with $398.5 million if John Howard hadn't been so desperate to be George Bush's figleaf. In this age of boasting about record surpluses, the Howard government has left indigenous communities to rot. They are plagued by preventable diseases and a lack of access to services. Howard's record is a blight on Australia and its reputation, and deservedly so. Remember, that $398.5 million is the cost of Australia's participation in George Bush's war on Iraq for last year alone.

John Howard has today refused to even consider increasing Australia's overseas aid commitments to match those proposed by the Labor party, saying that we need to spend that money tackling problems at home. WTF? Where were sentiments like that when he was spending hundreds of millions of dollars keeping Australian troops in Iraq?

Insincerity personified

John Howard tonight announced his plan to hold a referendum to incorporate into the constitution a formal recognition of the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians as the first inhabitants of this country.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute Mr Howard promised to hold the referendum within 18 months of the election - if the Coalition is returned to office - which would incorporate a Statement of Reconciliation into the Constitution's preamble.

Mr Howard acknowledges he has often "struggled" with the issue of reconciliation during his time as prime minister.

No shit, although 'struggle' isn't the word I'd use to describe an attitude that has essentially involved the man sticking his middle finger up at indigenous Australians every time they stick their head up to express an opinion for the past decade.

Prediction: Tomorrow night Howard plans to announce his support for gay marriage, as well as his engagement and impending marriage to Bob Brown, leader of the Greens.

Clearly, the sky is blue.

In other news, the Howard government's public dental coverage is shithouse.

Tony Abbott earlier this week on the Howard government's decision to finally spend money on tackling some of the shocking health problems facing Aboriginal communities:

"Clearly, there is a real problem with ear, nose and throat, chest infections, tummy bugs and dental treatment, and that's what this money is going to provide," he told ABC radio.

"Some of the work that is needed can't be done in the communities with the existing resources...

... and clearly people have haven't been telling them this for the past 11 years. It's like the Howard government have only just realised that Aboriginal people exist. Except they haven't- they came to power in part thanks to their 'The Abos will steal all your backyards' scare campaign in 1996. So fuck off, Tony. You're 11 years too late. Labor couldn't possibly do a worse job of Aboriginal health than the Howard government has.

Spending up is hard to do

Looks like the Liberal Party have hoarded up all the money they should have been spending on the problems in aboriginal communities over the last 11 years and are spending it all at once in what just happens to be an election year. At this rate they've announced almost as much funding targeted at aboriginal health as they've spent on self-promoting, taxpayer-funded advertising over the past 11 years. Pity about the small matter of stealing back the progress won on landrights over the past decade or two...

I think the idea behind scrapping the CDEP, which was a sort of local 'work for the dole' scheme that enabled people to continue to live in their communities and do work there, the government's move to make people to look for real jobs in order to receive welfare is designed to force them out of smaller communities so the government won't have to spend money in them.

Indigenous leaders continue to doubt the money spent as part of the intervention will make any long-term positive changes.

Olga Havnen, a co-ordinator of the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory, said the group had not been consulted about the spending, despite producing its own policy paper after the intervention was announced in June.

"[The Government] is not interested in talking to us because there's a view we either know nothing or that we have a fixed agenda," Ms Havnen said.

It's hard to criticise the federal government for finally announcing spending in this area instead of stroking its huge pile of taxpayers' money and speaking of 'my precious' 'my surplus', but there's no getting away from the fact they've ignored the problems in aboriginal communities as they worsened over the past decade of neglect and they're only doing this now because it's an election year. God knows we have every right to be cynical about Howard's motives at this point in time.

"Why do they hate us?"

"Bugger the kids, I'm about to lose my seat!"

The Howard government is just about to launch yet another taxpayer-funded advertising campaign promoting its response (huh? What response?) to climate change. Government funded ads on Workchoices are appearing every goddamned ad break on SBS, along with those doom-filled ads funded by big and small businesses- to the extent where I wonder whether there'll be any room left for any ads not spruiking the Howard government by the time the election is called.

But what the fuck do they think they're doing splashing $23 million of taxpayers' money on another Howard-promoting ad when they could be spending it on, oh I don't know, eradicating entirely preventable ear infections in small children living in aboriginal communities?

The incidence of ear infections in Aboriginal communities was the worst in the world and a national shame, he said.

"What we have found in all Aboriginal communities is that close to 100 per cent of Aboriginal children have ear infections by three months of age and in Caucasian children you almost never see them starting so young.

"This is heart breaking for us as it can be easily addressed but we don't have the funds nor a commitment from either the federal Labor or Liberal parties, and that just isn't good enough in the 21st century."

Ear infections could lead to deafness, meaning that child sufferers would be slow learners and this could lead to significant behavioural problems, such as truancy, unemployment, idleness and substance abuse, Dr Perry said.

"It also, through poverty, leads to other long-term and serious health problems such as diabetes and heart disease."

One of the main reasons for the spread of ear infections in Aboriginal communities was the significant overcrowding in living conditions, with an average of 9.5 people living in one house, compared with 3.5 in Caucasian communities.

The cost of treating the problem was about 10 million a year in the Northern Territory alone - to provide upgraded primary health care facilities, preventing skin and eye disease, and supplying adequate fresh food and water.

Let's see... Howard government spends $2 billion of taxpayers' money on ads during its decade in office... that's 200 years' worth of funding for ear health. So... we could spend taxpayer dollars on an important child health problem or... ah fuck em, let's blow the lot on another advertising campaign in a last-ditch attempt to tell the Australian public just how fantastic John Howard is and how he's totally not a climate change sceptic.

TSI studies 'diary entry'

Koiki Mabo

Thought I'd better do this post now rather than stewing over today's lecture for a while, as I have an assignment for food microbiology to work on and I'll likely forget to do this week's entry if I put it off.

We didn't have a guest lecturer today. Instead, we watched an old ABC documentary from the late 1990's (this might be it) on Eddie Koiki Mabo and how he won the first Native Title. The doco was made after he died, and included interviews with some of his family members.

I guess I 'knew' about a lot of the racist system that aboriginal and TSI people lived under (that's not to say they don't now, but the system is somewhat different), but it's always confronting to be reminded of them. Some notes I made after the doco:

- Mabo was exiled to the mainland when he was 16 years old for having a romantic relationship with a girl. Such contact was forbidden, and the sexes were generally segregated. People needed permission from the 'protector' in order to marry [A book I've been reading by Jeremy Beckett states that people could even be jailed or given corporal punishmen for extramarital relationships].

- His wife, Bonita Mabo, related how when they travelled anywhere they would be refused accommodation at hotels etc because they were black, and were forced to camp out at train stations and other outdoors locations. I couldn't help thinking that whites who saw them doing that probably had the hide to tut tut about how uncivilised it was to sleep rough at a train station.

- This has been a recurring theme in this course so far- the importance of organised labour. The history of workers' rights in the TSI is worth a whole post in itself, but I noted from the video that the unions and the communist party in Australia were the first 'mainstream' groups to demand equal pay and equal rights for aboriginal and TSI people. Of course, Mabo was immediately pegged as a dreaded Commie for having anything to do with people who wanted equal rights and fair pay, so he was spied upon and stalked by the Queensland government's 'Special Branch'.

- After he had been on the mainland for 15 years and raised a family, Mabo's (adoptive) father on Mer became ill. Because the old man had never met his grandchildren, Mabo wanted to take his family back to meet him. Because they weren't white, they had to apply for the Protector's permission to travel to Mer. Permission was refused, probably because they thought he was a dirty commie come to put ideas of equal rights into TS Islanders' heads. Mabo's father died without having seen his son again, or meeting his grandchildren.

- As you might expect, this little episode of government-sanctioned cruelty fired him up just a bit.

- The rest, with regard to Native Title, is history (and still evolving, thanks to John Howard's recent move to abolish Native Title in areas of the Northern Territory). One more bit of the documentary I found interesting was Mabo's role in setting up Australia's first black community school in Racistville Townsville, where Islander kids got taught language and culture as well as the usual stuff. I think that sounds like a great idea- I tried googling to find out if the school still exists, but I doubt it does, which is a shame. I suppose white kids could have gone to the school if they'd wanted (like other community/foreign language schools in Australia), but given that it was in Townsville I suppose no white person would have sent their kids there.

Bonita Mabo

UPDATE: Here's an excerpt from an interview I found with the late Bonita Mabo, not pertaining so much to land rights, but it's still relevant, especially considering the Howard government's plan to make 'history' compulsory in schools. Whose history?

The main thing is to go around and talk to people and educate them on our people and how they were treated when they were brought out here. They're saying Captain Cook was a good guy. Bull! That's not what our grandparents told us and that's what a lot of our people are against.

I actually remember learning in Aboriginal Studies in high school about the way Australia kidnapped people from the South Sea Islands to bring to Australia to slave in the cane fields. What I didn't learn was that many were forcibly repatriated upon the advent of the White Australia policy. Also note that it wasn't history in which I learned that first fact. 'History' as it was taught at my high school involved learning about Gallipoli and how many sheep some eggheaded englishman called John MacArthur owned.

And another quote from Bonita Mabo on why she enjoyed her visit to Vanuatu (where her ancestors were from):

The people are so friendly and you feel part of it. [They are] all happy faces over there and more welcoming, especially to us. It makes you sad because people don't want to get close to black people [in Australia].

Does Beaconsfield ring a bell?

The Tabo family.

This relates to an incident last year about which I posted a link to Lisa's blog, given that she was the first (only?) blogger I read that picked up on the subject. I followed up with a short post a week later.

One of the lecturers for my Torres Strait Islander Studies subject recently sent the students two papers. Here is an excerpt from the first- it makes some very interesting points:

On 19 May 2006, Prime Minister John Howard held a reception for Russell and Webb at Parliament House in Canberra. It should go without saying that no reception was held for the Tabos. Howard gave a speech in which he held up the two miners as a mirror for the nation.
They embody, he said:

All of the things that we pride ourselves on as distinctively Australian characteristics at work- we saw guts, we saw resilience, we saw courage, we saw strength, enormous endurance.

(ABC News Online, 2006b)

Almost three weeks earlier, on 10 May, Inspector Russell Rhodes of the Queensland police, paid tribute to the Tabos:

‘They have tremendous resilience, these people’, Insp. Rhodes said. ‘They’re experienced sea people and they have a tremendous determination to survive’.
(Age, 2006)

Certainly Rhodes is a lowly police inspector and Howard is Australia’s prime minister but Howard has never commented publicly on the Tabos’ story so it has been left to Rhodes to present Australia’s tribute. Howard uses the inclusive ‘we’; we Australians. Who are ‘we’ here? Rhodes gives ‘them’ the same qualities that Howard suggests typify Australians, most obviously both Howard and Rhodes use resilience as a descriptor, but for Rhodes ‘they’ are not a part of ‘us’.

We, it seems, are suspicious of them and their stories. On 10 May, under the headline, ’22 days at sea’, the Brisbane Courier Mail published the first of three reports on the Tabos’ rescue. The account begins by telling readers that the three Torres Strait Islanders were ‘purportedly missing at sea for 22 days’. In spite of the fact that we know from other reports that the men went missing on 17 April and that a search was instituted and called off after a week, the Courier Mail suggests a lack of credibility in the men’s story by writing that they ‘told police last night they had been at sea since April 17’. Later, the article becomes more forthright saying that, ‘it’s believed some authorities doubt the claims of the men’. While making this aspersion the article carefully hedges by not identifying which ‘authorities’, which means that the claim cannot be checked, and by implying a degree of doubt in the claim.

From Jon Stratton's 'Two rescues, one history: Everyday racism in Australia', Social Identities, Vol. 12, No. 6, November 2006, pp. 657-681.

Little Children are Sacred, when it's convenient.

In my Torres Strait Islander Studies class on Wednesday, our Koori lecturer/course coordinator sat down and gave us a lengthy spiel on various things, including the way aboriginal people and issues are treated in the media, and John Howard's send-in-the-army 'intervention plan' to make a grab for native title land tackle child sex abuse in aboriginal communities. A lot of what he says reflects what Gam has said on the matter- the fact that the mainstream Australian community isn't concerned with the Howard government sending in the army to aboriginal communities because they see aboriginal people as being somehow different from themselves; less human, less able to look after themselves. They don't believe it could ever happen to them.

But what really stuck with me was his account of when he was living with his family in a small aboriginal community (I'm not sure where) and the white manager of the general store, an English guy in his 50s, went up on charges of abusing young girls in the community. His own daughter, who was 14 at the time charges were finally laid, had a friend who was one of the victims. The daughter gave evidence as a witness at the trial. She was then cross-examined by the barrister engaged by the paedophile. Many of the questions did not pertain to her evidence but to her 'moral proclivities', such as whether she ever engaged in sexual intercourse or dressed provocatively- the same sort of questions that rape victims are routinely bombarded with in the Australian 'justice' system. The same sort of approach that Magic Bellybutton has documented from time to time on her blog. But we're not even talking about the victim here- we're talking about a witness, a child who, because she was female was subjected to attempts to attack her credibility based purely on the way she may or may not have dressed or behaved. What was at stake in this child's evidence against a paedophile who abused her friend was not her truthfulness but whether she dressed in short skirts.

So much for 'little children are sacred'. 'Little children are all potential whores' seems to be an approach Howard and co are perfectly ok with. After all, that's not the bit that makes the papers so it's not going to win him any elections...

Little Children Are Expendable

Black dollars go everywhere but to blacks

Joel Gibson and Debra Jopson
August 21, 2007

HUNDREDS of millions of dollars which the Federal Government says it has spent on indigenous affairs have never been spent, have been used to benefit all Australians or have gone towards opposing Aboriginal native title claims.

A significant portion of the money the Government says it has spent since 2000 - which has risen annually and reached $3 billion last year alone - was either underspent or the result of creative accounting, a Herald investigation has found.

Over the past six years, at least $30 million of the money the Government promoted as being for Aborigines was used to oppose native title and compensation claims. Spending figures have also been bloated by money spent on services that benefit everyone - such as medical centres - but the money is nevertheless described specifically as the "black dollar".

Last financial year, for example, almost $50 million of the federal spending on indigenous people was for legal aid, which the courts have recognised as a right under common law. The $500,000 estimated to be the cost of Family Court disputes involving Aborigines has also been counted.

SMH

Scumbags. Little Children Are Sacred eh? Howard would eat his mother's liver for a 5 percent bounce.

UPDATE: Apparently Brough is pilfering mining royalties paid to an Aboriginal trust to fund a swimming pool for the general public, against the wishes of the Aboriginal advisory committee.

Obsessed With Porn

Strangely preoccupied with certain things...

THE porn industry has denied that its mail-order product is fuelling problems in the Northern Territory as calls grow to have the supply of X-rated material restricted across Australia.

The chief executive of the Eros Foundation, the adult industry's peak lobby group, Fiona Patten, said the ACT's legal pornography industry was unlikely to be part of the problem in the Northern Territory.

As the federal Government moved to restrict the circulation of X-rated pornography in the Northern Territory as part of its crackdown on indigenous child abuse, Ms Patton said only 144 orders were received from the Territory by the largest mail and internet order company last year.

The stance has enraged former Nationals leader John Anderson, who says it is "mind-boggling" that the industry and the ACT Government claimed pornography was not causing harm.

"What these people who march across bridges in urban areas need to do is think about what Noel Pearson says: ask the children whether they want some paternalism when they are cowering under the tables," he said.

Ms Patten said the largest of two main companies made $17,000 from sales -- which could include material other than pornographic films or magazines -- to the Northern Territory last year.

The 144 orders to the Territory last year compared with 4686 for NSW, 4057 for Queensland, 2336 for South Australia, 949 for Tasmania, 3292 for Victoria and 5950 for Western Australia.

She said some of the orders were for multiple DVDs.

Ms Patten said reports that pornographic films were being watched "all day" in some indigenous communities probably referred to adult channels freely available via satellite TV, which she said featured R-rated rather than X-rated material.

The Howard Government is looking at ending the Northern Territory's liberal censorship laws, which allow for the sale of X-rated material. It is also looking at restricting the supply of similar material out of the ACT, which has a large mail-order business.

The Australian, caution: rots brain if read enough.

So what does it take to order porn through the mail?

1) Internet access. They don't send out catalogues, you need to log on to their websites and order there. You also need a computer.

2) A credit card. You gotta pay for your porn.

3) A fixed address. Duh.

4) At least $24.

Once your porn arrives you have to watch it.

1) A TV

2) A DVD player

3) A place to use both.

I'm having some real trouble with the idea of people living 20 to a house with no electricity accomplishing this. Something tells me that very few of those 144 orders to the NT went anywhere out of Darwin.

On the other hand there's probably plenty of porn readily available right there. Fine publications such as Kerry Packer's The Picture is readily available at newsagents, petrol stations and convenience stores countrywide. It (usually) doesn't even come wrapped in plastic. Within its glossy pages you can read about:

"Gemma's super smoo",

"Sisters doing it to themselves"

and a "mother daughter strip off".

It costs around $3 to buy. Of course it's a nice little earner for PBL, through ACP, being "Australia´s biggest-selling men´s magazine, boasting audit figures that dwarf all others in the field." We all know that internet adult retailers don't support the Libs anyway. I wouldn't expect to see it on the ban list or featuring in John Anderson's loopy rants. A man who 7 years ago was saying things like:

"Community opinion against a treaty will harden as people learn more about what it would contain and I am concerned that continuing advocacy for such a document will do real harm to reconciliation," Mr Anderson said.

"A treaty must be removed from the agenda or Aboriginal leaders risk dividing the nation in an acrimonious debate about issues that should not be on the agenda if we are serious about improving the lot of indigenous Australians."

Who now all of a sudden cares so very much about Indigenous Australians, especially relieving them of the onerous burden of their land rights. So much for the party of 'individual freedom and personal responsibility'. More like a pack of land grabbing, nanny state, agrarian bolsheviks.

"Little children are sacred"

I've been thinking over John Howard's weekend declaration of a 'national emergency' in remote aboriginal communities. While I read about the issues facing aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia when they appear in the media (more often in the British media than in Australian, it seems), and touch on it occasionally in the course of assignments for uni (usually from a community health-nutrition perspective), I haven't done any significant amount of study on aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues and I'm largely coming from a position of ignorance; this despite the fact it's one of the areas I'm interested in studying further and perhaps working in some day.

Speaking from my position of relative ignorance, however, my gut feeling is that John Howard is pulling an election stunt. He's been in power for over a decade, and the appalling conditions in remote aboriginal communities have been largely ignored by his government. I received some insight into the lack of willingness of politicians to speak the 'A-word' when I read Mark Latham's The Latham Diaries a year or two ago; in it, Latham essentially says that no politician wants to mention aboriginal people unless it's in the context of dog-whistle politics and abo-bashing and stirring up community 'outroige' about how much money is spent on them. Perhaps John Howard has detected a change in the wind and is trying to get one up on Labor and the Greens by being seen 'doing something'.

With regard to the plan to quarantine welfare payments to ensure they're spent on food and other necessities for recipients' children, I've mentioned before that I don't give a rat's arse about whether an action constitutes 'paternalism' when inaction results in harm to a child. But I'm talking about individuals. On a collective level, once applied to a certain group of people and only those people, ignoring the fact that the exact same problem exists in other groups to which the measures are not being applied, it's racist. I don't think it's racist or paternalistic to insist that money received from the government to care for a child be spent on the child. In fact, I think it's a good thing that the plan looks like being extended to all welfare recipients, not just aboriginal families. Not applying the same standard to all families in receipt of welfare payments would be racist, not to mention downright stupid.

When it comes to spending money on food, however, I have heard no mention on how the Howard government plans to improve access to food in aboriginal and TSI communities. There are huge problems with higher food prices and lack of availability of healthy food choices in these communities, and Howard's Great White Plan for the Black Man doesn't appear to have any measures in store to address these problems. Nor does it appear to have any measures in store to address the issue of massive overcrowding in housing in remote aboriginal communities.

With regard to the ban on the sale of alcohol in aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, and the prospect of problem drinkers merely shifting to the city, where alcohol will remain available, I'd like to know why John Howard didn't just ban all sales of alcohol in the Northern Territory. If the situation really does constitute a 'national emergency', surely white people can do without their grog until the emergency is cleared up? Of course, no matter how great the problem, John Howard is never going to restrict white peoples' access to alcohol, let alone in an election year. This despite the fact that anyone, black or white, who simply can't cope without alcohol for any length of time by definition has a problem with the drug. Alcohol is most certainly not just an aboriginal problem. In fact, from what I recall of some recent reading on the dietary differences between Australians of different socioeconomic groups, the phenomenon in aboriginal communities of a low percentage of people who actually drink alcohol, but very high levels of excessive alcohol consumption among those who do, is something reflected among people of lower socioeconomic groups in Australia regardless of ethnicity.

It should also be noted that the liquor outlets in and around aboriginal communities had to be approved by government in the first place (state or territory government, I presume, but I could be wrong). These approvals were granted even in the face of the long-standing problem of alcohol abuse. These outlets were profiting from the misery created in the community by the problems associated with excessive drinking, and no-one cared. Why were they even approved?

Summary of the report

Full report (via BBC)

Other posts on this topic (I don't necessarily agree with everything said on this topic, but all the posters have something worthwhile to say):

Mikey 1 & 2

Anonymous Lefty (a much more comprehensive look at Howard's proposals)


Miss Politics

Harry Clarke (an articulate look at the problem from a non-left perspective)

Larry (sums it up in a succinct and rather humourous manner)