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The Forum > Article Comments > Assessing Australia's humanitarian assistance and development aid program 2007-2013 > Comments

Assessing Australia's humanitarian assistance and development aid program 2007-2013 : Comments

By Tim Costello, published 1/11/2013

The series of backward steps by both Labor and the Coalition sends a very negative message to the global community.

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Jayb,

Laziness can be connected with not being paid for services provided especially when Western people are seen being paid say 20 times more. e.g
The general wage for local SI people is A.$1.70 per hour while Australian accountancy employees there might be getting A.$25 plus per hour.

In contrast I see local SI people carrying 6 metre lengths of 150 x 50 hardwood for nearly a mile out of the bush to coastal canoes that get home after dark and unloaded in rain or wind.
I see the people walk or paddle for hours to get to their garden and then again to return, some stay out because of distance, then carry huge loads of potatoes or coconuts back home.
I see women sitting and bending for hours scrubbing the washing just about every second day.
I see men drive canoes for 6 hours one way and 6 back in whatever weather they encounter.
I see SI people spending time with their kids while our people use money for after school care.

Alcohol affects and destroys many people, worldwide. However Western people brought it to the region so surely they should help a little with the impact and consequences. From considerable experience in the Aus outback I can assure you alcohol is the fundamental problem with Aboriginals.

SI people and I also are not asking for a hand out for free. Notice I have asked Mr Costello to use his phone or keyboard to speak with PM Abbott or whoever.
In school I was taught money is like marbles, you have to have some marbles to play with and trade/swap.
SI and many other people worldwide are missing enough money system marbles, know what I mean.

Tim will not come forward into online debate about missing aid but he surely must come forward to PM Abbott. OLO has my email, as does Mr Abbott.

PM Abbott has reduced aid dollars but would he also reduce real aid assistance? Say to consider relevant circumstances and opportunities and to then put a proposal to the UN?

Why not?
Posted by JF Aus, Monday, 4 November 2013 5:24:00 PM
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SF: The general wage for local SI people is A.$1.70 per hour while Australian accountancy employees there might be getting A.$25 plus per hour.

That's right. The difference is the economic standard. SI can live on $A1.70/hr in SI, so can Australians if they ate & lived in local conditions. It's the same everywhere where Australia gives Aid. You cannot compare living standards. I know the Ad's say to Australians, "Imagine only being payed $A1.70 an hour." & Australians fall for the line because they only look at their own circumstance in Australia. The Ad's saying, "Imagine your house being washed away in the flood." & Australian look around at their 4 bedroom, 2 Lounges, etc. without thinking that these people live in a 1 room straw house on a sapling frame.

SF: I see local SI people carrying 6 metre lengths of 150 x 50 hardwood for nearly a mile out of the bush to coastal canoes that get home after dark and unloaded in rain or wind.

Yes & they've been doing that since about 500 AD when they first came to SI. It's THEIR normal life. You can't do a comparison with an Australian way of life.

SF: Alcohol affects and destroys many people, worldwide.

Yes, of course it does. Do you suggest that the be a prohibition put on SI for the Locals? Of course not. I don't know what the answer is there. We tried Prohibition & the PC do-gooder crowd got involved & had it stopped. Now our people are destroying themselves again. Sad isn't it.
cont.
Posted by Jayb, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 9:22:23 AM
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cont.
Actually, I blame the Christian Missionary/Charity groups for these people's plight. They use a ploy that has been used successfully since the 12th. Century. They find a group of people that have been living healthily & happy for thousands of years & convert them to Christianity. They all die of diseases they have never encounter before. They leave their land & property to the Churches/Charities who sell it to Businesses who treat the locals like slaves. They end up with no land, no possessions & no life.

Isn't that right. Rev. Tim. No word from you yet Tim. Why is that?
Posted by Jayb, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 9:22:54 AM
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Sorry JF Aus, you've got that all wrong, although I'm not sure lazy is the right description. It may be a different attitude, & different requirements.

I have seen many highly productive plantations given to the villages become virtually unworkable in a very short time, as the villages would not keep the places clear, when not being paid by a "boss" to do it.

Google earth the places, & many plantations have totally disappeared into the bush. Air strips have disappeared in the same way, leaving no emergency access, once the white man left.

The people just don't see the advantage in many things we value, so don't do these things well. Although often excellent employees, they are not good managers, or entrepreneur.

We would have done them a great service if we had stayed running the places, until the people started to kick us out. Retiring gracefully, before they were ready for self government is just another stupid thing Whitlam did, causing problems for everyone in PNG, with it being a catalyst for the same mistakes in other places.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 4:13:15 PM
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Hasbeen,

Let’s see if I have got it all wrong. No need for sorry, nop egg on my face because I am there 6 months of the year.
Anyway put my reply to the test.

I am not sure lazy is the word either, sensible might be more appropriate. Different attitude perhaps. But let’s see here.

What you have apparently not seen is how these islanders cannot live off income from coconuts alone, especially when their seafood supply is devastated causing unrest and coups.
At the same time world inflation was rampant and the price fell out of copra, and these clever people decide it’s not viable to keep clearing under the trees because they don’t get paid for it.
On top of that many coconut trees are becoming less productive due to old age.

About 5 years ago I saw a man who took 1 month to collect andcarry out and husk and dry 40 bags of copra that he then transported by canoe to Noro from Rendova at a cost of SBD.$350 for petrol, and he got SBD.$700 for the 40 bags.
At the time SBD.$5.00 was about A.$1.00. i.e. A.$70.00 profit for one month of paid work, while gathering food and firewood to stay alive.

Hasbeen, do you have any idea how much hard work it takes to collect and carry enough coconuts for 40 bags copra? And how heavy one bag of copra is? Like 130 kg each.

The airstrips were for developed nation world war.
Canoes can run in any weather day or night.
The bigger airstrips remain in excellent condition, Munda just resurfaced by tiny New Zealand, not Aus. Gizo a new hospital by Japan, not Aus. Nothing seen/visible there by Aus.

Continued………..
Posted by JF Aus, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 6:21:21 PM
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cont’d………

Solomon Islanders run their own country but they are impacted by nutrient pollution and foreign fishing fleets and fish factory ships, from developed nations.

SI is not getting good advice. Aus is not advising islanders about impact of nutrient pollution-devastated ocean food web nurseries and feeding grounds, devastation that yesterday had a tractor and mechanical beach sand-sieve picking up hundreds of starved dead mutton birds off the Pacific Ocean coast of Aus. And still the situation is being gagged, suppressed, kept quiet.
Major media is deceiving Aus people with news the mutton bird mortality is natural, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever it is natural, it’s quite the opposite.
Such mass mortality is evidence of a serious crisis in ocean ecosystems that involves collapse of affordable world food sustainability. But watch spin doctored news about CO2 nonsense instead, eh.

Not many Aus people are good managers or entrepreneurs and nor can they build sea going ships with a chainsaw. Or manage rivers, bays, icon coral reefs, ocean ecosystems.

Aus does not really have self-government, our economy is dependent on the big developed nations such as the US and UK.

We left the Pacific Islands because coconut oil was replaced by synthetic oil and value/profit dropped completely out of copra. We are in SI now trying to milk wealth out alluvial gold by using cyanide. And I am pro mining, but be sensible.

I think money donated in times of crises should get to the impacted people’s bank account direct deposit via computerised fingerprint of face recognition, with online photo of loss or damage.
Not impossible at all.
Posted by JF Aus, Tuesday, 5 November 2013 6:22:30 PM
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