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The Forum > Article Comments > Let the market unchain indigenous communities > Comments

Let the market unchain indigenous communities : Comments

By Vladimir Vinokurov, published 8/9/2016

Warburton, for example, has received a $266,000 grant to open a hairdressing salon. A hairdresser opening their own shop or working door to door could achieve more with much less.

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' But for all the bleating about fresh vegetables, why not ? I wouldn't be surprised if there is not one anywhere in remote communities'

well Loudmouth for a short time in Wiluna they had a very fruitful garden. Problem they ran out of workers. The folk of Warbuton travel across to Alice Springs or down to Laverton/Kaloorlie so at times the community empties out. Unfortuntaly 40 degree temps and walk about don't make for good market gardens unless you employ a few whities to stay and water.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 8 September 2016 4:42:16 PM
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If it was for training? Then $266,000.00 would have been better spent, in my view, on a workshop that taught rudimentary metal work, welding, blacksmith, cabinet making, tiling, plastering, plumbing and competent wiring/electrical skills! And all the ancillary skills needed to build houses and repair existing dwellings!

Once folk can build and maintain their own villages, time enough to focus on cosmetic service industries? A nicely piled hairstyle is not going to keep the rain off your head, nor allow you to sleep in your own bed safe at night!

There's a lot of cart before the horse here, and typical of bean counters with no practical real world experience? Then there's the obligatory diesel engine and off world fuel bills!

Better we set up sewerage treatment plants that turned raw waste into fuel that could be consumed on site in ceramic fuel cells! Which in turn would allow light, night time study with laptops etc. And maybe, with the assistance of a few solar panels/battery walls, get some cottage industries going, making or processing stuff?

Needle craft, leather craft, whip and saddle making, dressmaking, spinning, dyeing, weaving. Some of which could be exported as finished products to nearby larger centres?

There was a time when most rural fuel stops carried hand sewn moccasins! And nice as comfortable slippers you could pad around the house in. Just not out there anymore?

Other practical stuff would include market gardening and food production? Most of which would be marketed via a locally owned and operated community store.

A few igloos and shade houses, would empower practical self help assistance? There could be a low care nursing home, which provided employment for a few younger members; helped by regular fly in and fly out training day clinics, Dental, and Doctor's? There's much more but you get the picture?

By the way and off topic, laptop is now repaired and doing duty once again. Five days to disinfect! Whew!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 8 September 2016 5:09:25 PM
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Obviously runner joe and I at the least have some first hand knowledge of how the practicality of Aboriginal enterprise works. Runner hit on a solution inadvertently by suggesting a mixture of whites and Aboriginals working on projects with practicle application and positive outcomes.

In my situation at the time in the NW of NSW, the closure of the CDEP floored working and successful enterprises in predominantly Aboriginal communities. God knows who was advising John Howard, but he got it totally wrong in closing the CDEP.

The working mixed race gangs from the area, worked harmoniously on market gardening and residential housing maintenance, wood carting to service pensioners particularly, in towns in the area.

Local (mostly Aboriginal) women were employed in administration and coordinating work gangs. Charges for services were kept within the economic capability of the clients, and all was sweet.

An obligation for mostly Aboriginal youth existed, to work on gangs for a set number of hours, for which they were paid an hourly rate, and enforced by Centrelink; TAFE was onboard to improve skills of the workers, and the application of a work ethic was learned over time.

The CDEP was an interconnected Aboriginal working enterprise: it worked well because this is how Aboriginal communities are normally connected to each other. Word of mouth, and who you are, not what you are!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 8 September 2016 5:29:02 PM
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Don't you blokes ever stop for a moment and think there must be more to the story? Or is that just a little too much work for the keyboard warriors? You really have become the chattering class haven't you?

The 'social change' hair salon in Warburton is the culmination of many years of work by a real character who goes by the name of Starlady Starlady and boy is she going to get you old farts in a lather, especially runner.

Here is a link to an ABC story done over 3 years ago;

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/07/09/3799232.htm

“Warburton has been one of the more challenging communities to work with, Star Lady said. She visits three or four times a year to run hairdressing and fashion workshops. Star Lady passes on practical hair dressing and beauty skills, but also works with organisations to promote healthy lifestyles and talk about drug and alcohol issues as well as sexual health.”

Here is Starlady's facebook page where she celebrates the news of the funding;

http://www.facebook.com/starlady.nungari/posts/906455559483323

I first learned about Starlady after seeing a 360 Degree documentary about her work a few years ago. It isn't available online but here is a link to the distributor with a short clip.

http://360degreefilms.com.au/productions/queen-of-the-desert/

Starlady's full on personality is admittedly a little confronting to start with but the way she interacts with the community soon wins you over.

I thoroughly welcome the funding. Starlady's efforts over many years have obviously been deemed to have had a positive impact and been able to engage youth in these communities where others have struggled. She should be proud of what she has initiated and I wish her and the Warburton community every success. Good on her.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Thursday, 8 September 2016 5:48:42 PM
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In all seriousness, I think these indigenous folk have to decide whether they want to be Australians or not. Being half pregnant is no longer an option.

Let's face it, to invest in a hairdressing salon, with just 800 people, less working than not, just does not pass the test. The bank would not lend the money, so why should the tax payer.

We need to dismantle these remote Indigenous communities, or at the very least, stop throwing money at them. If one chooses to live like an Aborigine, then go right ahead, hunt and gather all you like, but not at Centrelink.

The time has come for tough choices to be made, like it or not because we have wasted far too much and have far too many worthless causes to fund now and the cash cow has dried up.

Add the billions wasted on Indigenous issues to the billions on illegal arrivals, and its little wonder we cant fund our services.

Time to wake up folks.
Posted by rehctub, Friday, 9 September 2016 7:47:16 AM
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Hi Steele,

Long time no hear :) I guess, if someone dropped $ 260,000 in my lap, I would suddenly develop a full-on personality too. At that rate, I would hone up my skills as a mechanic, fireman, plumber, geologist, and brain surgeon.

$ 260,000 ? It would be cheaper to send a hairdresser from Kalgoorlie or Alice Springs by helicopter, weekly. As Butch says, for 800 people ?

I wonder what else one could get out of $ 260,000 - as well as a hairdresser's salon - at Warburton ?

Call me racist all you like but I used to say to my late wife, about her community's twelve thousand acres of good, drought-free country - that instead of winding it down and running a couple of hundred head of beef cattle, they could lease it out to a thousand Vietnamese who would have the entire 12,000 acres under some form or other of economic activity within a year.

One problem with a Cargo Cult is that there may be no way out of it. Why work ? Welfare. So why should kids bother to go to school ? Why look after your kids if there are enough social workers to do it for you ? As one bloke said to me, why water your yard and grow something like a lawn if the prickles will just come up too ? Yes, indeed: why put effort into anything ?

Does anybody remember Oscar Lewis's notion of a self-generating 'Culture of Poverty' ? I don't know about the 'Poverty' bit, but the intergenerational transmission of a 'Culture' certainly seems to get more entrenched, with each generation. Time for another look at Lewis, my kind of Marxist.

Meanwhile, statistics are no out on Indigenous higher education for 2015: commencements, enrolments and graduations all up by about eight per cent: bearing in mind that an Indigenous university-age age-group numbers about eleven thousand, six thousand commenced study last year; sixteen thousand were enrolled; 2,190 graduated. Total graduates now: about forty thousand.

No opportunities ? Poor bugger Black fella ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 9 September 2016 8:48:38 AM
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