Indigenous leaders representing 75 communities in the territory arrived in Canberra last night in a last-minute bid to tell the Government of their concerns about the legislation but have been unable to see the Minister for…

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/give-me-land-lots-of-133-oops-wrong-lyrics/2007/07/06/1183351452270.html

A damned shame that there are so few journos of Ramsey's calibre.

the road to surfdom is reporting howard focusing on other easy targets.

muslims and welfare.

. . . perhaps am being naive. But would you rather have this issue on the agenda or off it?

Naturally something should be done with all urgency. Unfortunately Howard is unlikely to take up the offers of those such as Mick Dodson and make this a bipartisan effort. Those…

Left & Right have played their parts in the past. I fear the problem is still one of Black vs White.

I'm just saying the LCAS report seemed well written and holistic/comprehensive, and I'm not inclined to dismiss it unless I've seen good reason to. If the problem is as serious…

In both stated cases they are still occupied by the military and will be in at least the mid term – if not the foreseeable future.

For all the good they have done (and some good may come from Howies wee…

When was the last military intervention that worked to liberate the resident population?

Solomons? Timor? Those motorists snowed in on the Desert road a couple of years back?

Alan Ramsey has what is probably the longest memory in the Canberra press gallery:

__Howard's national emergency is a political one.
He has an election to win. The genuine national emergency he is hiding behind is the one his…

Left & Right have played their parts in the past. I fear the problem is still one of Black vs White.

This is military intervention in peoples lands and lives. All within the Federal State of Australia.

I fear the real goal has more to do with the competition of…

Howard remains determined. Beside him is Noel Pearson, a respected Aboriginal activist whose tough-love proposals for his tribal lands on Cape York Peninsula provided the model for intervention in the Northern Territory.

"The people who are nay-saying any type of intervention…

Aboriginal people have been crying out for action on this front for many years. They have been calling on bi-partisan support and action across the political spectrum. Finally, we have a Federal Government with the principled support of the Federal Opposition giving the issue the "designated, urgent national significance"…

the "got the vote in 67" meme is a myth.

From a strictly legal viewpoint, sure – but there are plenty of Australians alive today who recall the referendum of 1967 as being the watershed, and widespread aboriginal voting didn't take place until after that date.

http://www.naa.gov.au/fsheets/fs150.html

all that happened was that the feds were able to legislate about aboriginal people. prior to that the states handled aboriginal affairs themselves.

almost all of the injustices again aboriginal people were conducted by state agencies, not…

. . . active legislative discrimination (from the Federal Government) was only possible after 1967 – not before.

No doubt you'll also be able to invoke Terra Nullius in order to demonstrate that aboriginals never existed. Weasel words on stilts.

I haven't read the whole report yet, but I'm encouraged…

I haven't read the whole report yet, but I'm encouraged to hear that the Australian state and federal governments are taking action on this, whatever their motives may be.…

Gerrymander has nothing on this little beauty. Your point is a nonsense.

http://fadar.aec.gov.au/_content/when/history/ab_vote.htm

Have you judged bouts for Don King?

1967 Indigenous Australians got the vote.

...

I quite agree.

I don't.

What actually happened in 1967 was that the Federal Goverment gained the power to make laws specific to Indigenous Australians (a power they didn't previously have), and their numbers were included in the reckoning of Parliamentary seats, etc.…

1967 Indigenous Australians got the vote.

127 years of active legisative descrimination by removing basic human dignity has a price

I quite agree.

But as Pilger hgas pointed out, modern Australia was born through the staggering brutality of the penal system.

OTOH, Steven Carden's new book New Zealand Unleashed makes…

Might be worth looking at time-lines though.
1840 Maori where enfranchised with the rights of British subjects – so the let the debate begin here.
1967 Indigenous Australians got the vote.

127 years of active legisative descrimination by…

Cook already had Tasman's charts of NZ, Western Australia and Van Diemen's Land. He came here expecting to…

Amongst other things. I'm not saying they were soft and lame. Colonists wasted everyone, the world over, taking every cheap advantage they could.

Michael, I'm talking about scale, not individual anecdotes. Yes there were a few organised battles with the Aboriginals in which, by…

Also, just giving my blood pressure a work-out, as any conversation involving Howards political strategies is wont to do.

Che, I think we are possibly arguing about the same thing.

shit! are we arguing! i figured that we were just iterating the situation for the benefit of those without our expertise!

you know, feeding the lurkers.

it's kind of the only way i can justify using this particular pc…

clark was a piece of work, but atsic was being gutted by the feds well before geoff took the reins.

Thats what I mean by Clark giving the Rodent the excuse he wanted.

rl, i agree, there is indigenous tourism. but there is a long way to go before aboriginal people stop being locked out. in cairns they round up anyone aboriginal and drop them a number of km outside town. in this day and age.

Che, I think we are possibly arguing…

it was organisationally sloppy, a bit nepotistic, and had a shitty brand. but if that's the benchmark for closing a public agency there's plenty of those world-wide...

perhaps we could call it atsic. sigh.

Which brings us back to the odious Mr Clark, who I believe did just as much damage to indigenous rights as anyone, by confirming the prejudice of the masses and giving the Rodent the excuse to close down ATSIC.

otherwise,

If Howie was serious (and we…

Good point on the Maori Warden.
If Howie was serious (and we all know he's not) a community based structure with resources to take on the community as a whole is a great start.

Like most good ideas it's been thought of before – over and over and over again,…

I agree, a witch hunt for pedophiles and abusers is not the answer. It will cause great fear. Sure, do justice when it's found necessary, but going after injustice in the form Howard is proposing is creating another injustice.

Expect to see selected 'abusers' identified and publicly vilified, just as…

Good point on the Maori Warden.
If Howie was serious (and we all know he's not) a community based structure with resources to take on the community as a whole is a great start.

Being locked out of the tourism industry is pretty shocking

Neil/Che, this is a bit strong. I'm not claiming that its anywhere near perfect, but I think tourism as an industry per se is far more open to indigenous ownership and participation than probably any other industry in Australia.

Check…

If only that were held true.

The movie "The Grey Zone" has a wee scene that addresses a portion of a community not wanting to go on. Those who…

Oh ... I was expecting this

I don't know how many jobs it provides, but the money must be pretty good.

True, but mining is capital intensive with comparatively few jobs. Some mining money does get back to aboriginal land owners, I'm not sure how much but undoubtably less than what they should get, but that…

I don't believe that it's any exaggeration to describe Keith Windschuttle, Howard's favourite historian, as morally equivalent to a holocaust denier.

he is a denier.

his argument is, "i can't find clear evidence of said massacres, therefore they never happened. those aborigines must have died of the vapours".

this ignores…

There was no need to overtly kill Maori due to disease and deprivation…

I do think the Aboriginals were treated worse, either through their own weakness or greater cruelty in the invaders of the time. Or both, more likely.

Weakness being numerical inferiority, perhaps?
Whatever Ben, overall I'd pretty much agree. It's hard to live and travel in Australia for any length of…

"Ben you are sooo wrong on this point:

"Such wholesale oppression didn't happen here, at least not nearly to the same scale."

Can I recommend popping along to your local marea and having a wee chat on the issue. "

I'm not saying the Maori did not…

Aboriginal people across the continent adopted the dingo as a companion animal, using it to assist with hunting and for warmth on cold nights. (The terms "two-dog night" and "three-dog…

definitely a riding crop is in order, wot.

yes – I've often said, "good community development starts with a good uniform". But I may be a hopeless idealist.

As for alternative solutions, one that springs to mind is looking at what works in functional indigenous Australian communities (they do exist).

hmmm.. can we ride into town with one of those alterative solutions and have the media get it on film?

does it have a snappy uniform? i think…

Work creates wealth, and a sense of purpose, and of a better future. Which creates communities. Who set and enforce norms. By themselves.

James, I agree with you too a point but, ultimately, it's more complicated than that.

Firstly, there's work and there's work. My own job maintains my current…

I thought it was awful to be honest; gratuitious violence overdone, spoiling a plot with potential.

Shame, I rate Nick Cave as a musician.

All I claim is that paid work tends (many other things being equal) to make it easier to be happy, well-adjusted people.

Can I broaden this a little bit and say income=choices ?

To be fair, people all over the world make a dollar by controlling and charging access to…

To be fair, people all over the world make a dollar by controlling and charging access to their holy places.

true. but, it doesn't cost anything to visit uluru. the local people have some kind of nominal traditional ownership, but it's mostly ceremonial.

there's also a big sign at the…

And what is this"viable export industry" based around ? Encouraging tourists to trample on the mana of the local people by climbing all over their sacred mountain, Uluru.

Fucking awesome.

To be fair, people all over the world make a dollar by controlling and charging access to their holy places.

Encouraging tourists to trample on the mana of the local people

Hmm, didn't express myself well enough then. No, I'm not trying to defend that particular practice. I was trying to respond to someone mispresenting me as saying that working there would be morally improving for the locals. All I…

As others in this thread have pointed out better than me, viable export industries are hard to create in the outback. If it's an irrigated oasis that pulls in the punters, so be it.

What it is matters less than who owns it and who makes the money out of…

I'm wondering if mining and farming could provide enough employment in remote areas. I know mining doesn't provide many jobs.

I don't know how many jobs it provides, but the money must be pretty good. Couple of (early to mid-twenties) guys I play sports with are working over there in…

and i'm not interesting in any pissing contest on treatment of indigenous people by respective colonists. many parts of australian history are a complete disgrace. but for the grace of god (tm) it could just as well have happened here.

The experience here was different, even though the colonising power…

So james are you saying that the suburban oasis that Che describes as in: "the place is a complete disconnect from the reality of the deep desert" should dictate social norms to people that live in the desert 100 meters from that reality.

As others in this thread have pointed…

The light bulb for the film went on just before the beginning of the rise of Pauline Hanson. I thought that the whole idea of Hansonism and native title and "reconciliation" would loom larger in the film than it does.…

Damned depressing film.

Also, Aboriginal people do not all look the way New Zealanders might expect them to look – many are relatively fair-skinned as a result of European or other ancestry, but still identify strongly as Aboriginal.

this was pretty much my experience. i travelled a lot throughout victoria doing interviews with…

"Such wholesale oppression didn't happen here, at least not nearly to the same scale."

Can I recommend popping along to your local marea and having a wee chat on the issue.

The Parihaka Peace Festival is worth the visit – get tired…

I met and talked with Michael Fay, he was a very nice man and a gracious host, but...

Ah touche, I didn't mean it quite like that, but true, the devil sometimes wears the best clothes, no?

the only work is in... you guessed it, mining and farming.

I'm wondering if mining and farming could provide enough employment in remote areas. I know mining doesn't provide many jobs.

Work creates wealth, and a sense of purpose, and of a better future. Which creates communities. Who set and…

I've got to say, while he enjoyed a reputation as being a firebrand and political shit-stirrer,…

and richard, there is nothing to trust about howard.

the man has no integrity whatsoever. the litany of lies leading up to several elections is proof of that.

The Noel Pearson = Allan Duff comparison is not a bad one

Erm, I'll just correct myself here, having reflected on some of Mr Duff's more controversial statements over the years.

FitzGerald 1862 "He castigated the land confiscation policy as an 'enormous crime', opposed colonisation by military settlers and called for the withdrawal of British troops."…

Belich notes that this lack of interest in the marvels of Western superiority is a trait for which Aboriginals 'have never been forgiven.'

he's not the only one. a guy called m.f. christie wrote a history of aboriginal – colonist interaction in the 1800s (victoria was colonised from 1835 onwards).…

Never once in five years did I meet an aboriginal in the corporate world I inhabited.

Well, you may well be right Ben, but my own anecdotal experiences were slightly different, having worked in the Australian tourism industry for over a decade, I can vouch for at least that industry…

I don't see how walking in and out of that to work each day, would resolve sexual abuse anyway.

Work creates wealth, and a sense of purpose, and of a better future. Which creates communities. Who set and enforce norms. By themselves.

Yes, abuse – of all sorts – still…

I think a better description might be "traumatized and depressed person""

Um, no, the people I saw were bums. It's a fairly accurate description for people who sleep on the street and beg for money, then spend it on grog. Perhaps they became bums by being traumatized and…

Ewan, I agree. I lived there too, and there was a great deal of dismay at their own establishment, and a far greater level…

another example of economic issues is uluru (ayers rock). there's a place near uluru called yulara that is the main tourist resort within an easy drive.…

Australians are not all rednecked bigots, and some New Zealanders could do with being less smug and self-satisfied about their supposed superiority over their Australian cousins.

3+ cheers for that. As James Belich and others have amply demonstrated, this country couldn't have been colonised without the active co-operation of a…

Re economic development for…

Howard deserves critical/sceptical/conditional support at present rather than falling back on all too easy demonisation.

I'd suggest that 'all too easy demonisation' is exactly what Howard is practising against remote aboriginal communities. As for 'coming down on MEN who exploit children', Howard has shown little interest in curbing the activities…

At least with Iraq the…

Is there a reason why economic development seems so weirdly absent from aboriginal policy? It's one thing to make benefits conditional: but how about jobs?

one issue is that economic development is drawn away from aboriginal people.

howard legislated to undermine aboriginal rights to negotiate with mining companies over resources…

Putting a teacher and a police barracks into each community isn't the same as development. How about the really hard task, finding a way to link rural & indigenous people into the world economy?

When Australia figures out a development policy for the outback, then it may earn the right to…

Putting a teacher and a police barracks into each community isn't the same as development. How about the really hard task, finding a way to link rural & indigenous people…

Both Labour govts of NSW and Queensland have poor records on aboriginal issues.

That seems to be true, and it is probably also true that failure at state level made federal action necessary. There's another dark irony in NSW Labor's case: its (white) former aboriginal affairs minister is up on…

And yet, it seems clear enough that something big had to be done. Whether Howard's government is doing the right something, and with what motivation, remains to be seen.

I agree. Howard deserves critical/sceptical/conditional support at present rather than falling back on all too easy demonisation. These issues do run…

And the 'solution' to that problem is to come down hard on brown people in the name of 'helping kids' in order to win support from a racist electorate, without…

Is the problem 'child abuse', or is the problem despair through years of second class citizenship and persecution?

If the Federal Government wants to look at solutions to 'the problem' then they need to take a long…

Australian Human Rights Commission initial response. Appears pleased something is being done, but why this?

they can't go marching in like cowboys. They've got to go marching in with humility, with support, not with arrogance

If people could do things like that then The Iraq war would have been over by now.

So it it because humility is considered synonymous with weakness? The alternative (in…

Yes, things are bad in many of these communities, but the causes are far deeper than this sort of idiotic response can deal with.

Lovely country Australia, just a shame about…