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The Forum > Article Comments > We are having a 'save the Aboriginal children' blitzkrieg > Comments

We are having a 'save the Aboriginal children' blitzkrieg : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 29/6/2007

Have Howard’s practical reconciliation policies failed?

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Hey FIGJAM Dan,

Show me your sources that back up you assertion that funding has not been cut.

From my recollection Health experts (such as the AMA) declared that there was an annual shortfall in Indigenous health of $460 million.

Annual means per year since Howard came to power (just in case you didn't understand what annual means)

This years' Federal Budget coughed up a paltry $30 million of additional funding annually to be spent on indigenous health over the next four years.

Over to you, cough up your primary research or stop misguiding other posters here with what is essentially your right wing and racist rationalisations about the fiscal and fidiciary responsibilkties of your beloved Howard government.
Posted by Rainier, Sunday, 1 July 2007 3:15:41 PM
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Dan, I don’t understand why else Howard is targeting the Northern Territory aboriginals when there are more urgent needs elsewhere?

Armed forces are armed forces are armed forces - how else does one describe troops in camouflage and weapons?

And funding has not been provided in full –I'm sure I read somewhere that Aboriginal communities are getting only 70% of the funding of what the rest of Australia are getting and that the funding is simply not reaching the communities.

As an immigrant I did not grow up in Australia, but my simple view is that Aboriginals were doing fine before white settlement for about 50,000 years and that their cultures were mainly based on community and respect- something we could have learned from rather than destroy it.

The white arrivals, who disrespected them and ripped their communities apart, have obviously done great damage.
If we genuinely feel sorry for the damage done to aboriginal communities, then we need to correct it.
That’s life- in any relationship, if you have hurt someone or messed up a relationship and feel regret, you do everything you can to make it right.

It’s that simple: you did wrong, you admit it, you say sorry, you correct it by listening and assisting in developing plans and solutions WITH indigenous people, not FOR them. You have no vested interest in any solutions, you are AT THEIR SERVICE.
It’s disrespectful to take action without their consent.

Anyway, I’m going to email Minister Brough mal.brough.mp@aph.gov.au to tell him that it’s admirable that the govt finally decided to protect children, but that Aboriginal people have the right to participate in development of plans. I hope that others will voice their opinion also by writing to him or to other involved MP’s.
Posted by Celivia, Sunday, 1 July 2007 3:29:43 PM
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Rainier,

You kind of miss a bigger point and that is that there is so much of a cultural and development gap between Aboriginals and white Australians that there is no handy economic or cultural tool that will easily bridge the gap between the two. As I explained before, many things have been tried before (removing potentially at-risk kids from communities, building houses for them out of taxpayers' money etc) which have all had big problems associated with them. This points to the fact that there's something much bigger going on in the background. I would simply suggest to you that most Aboriginals still have a tribal mindset and that is why they are where they are. Given that situation, it wouldn't matter if Abraham Lincoln was our PM instead of John Howard, he wouldn't be able to solve the problem either.

I agree with another contributor who said that the problems Aboriginals have, are linked to the fact that they don't have jobs. But holding down a job requires discipline, education and development. These have to be worked for, something that doesn't come natural to the tribal mindset. So, if any job scheme is going to work, it will have to be done in some sort of sheltered workshop (to start with) within the Aboriginal communities themselves. There's no way any remote Aboriginal has got a hope of hopping on a plane and getting a job in one of the regional cities, for instance.
Posted by RobP, Sunday, 1 July 2007 3:35:32 PM
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RobP,

Your Darwinian /anthropological /mentaliism explanation conveniently obsolves any cause to racism, whether historical, political or economic. I suspect you don't seek to make this kind of 'quasi scientific' analysis but it inherently reflects the kind of "mindset" that justified the removal of Aboriginal and the drafting of laws that regulated and control Aboriginal people.

You speak about tribalism, what about the history of removal of whole tribes together in one mission, reserve, gulag.

Indeed what about the white tribalism you can witness here where many purport to know something about Aboriginal people without every really engaging with one. (besides myself)
Posted by Rainier, Sunday, 1 July 2007 6:43:34 PM
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Yes - attack Howard. Attack - whites. Attack those who want to initiate some change. And above all attacks anyone who dares to ask the one question that no one has asked. What are all these 'so-called' Indigenous leaders actually are up to - what is their real agenda?

The only answer I can see - to keep their people in poverty, addicted and abused. Huh, Why?

Don't tell me Indigenious love andf respect their elders - they don't. Don't tell me they look after the kids - they don't. Kids and elders are manipulated by the real power leaders in Aboriginal communities - for their own ends. I've lived it and seen it. Yet, these so-called leaders cry for still more 'consultations' - a delaying mechanisim that ensures nothing get's done and thereby maintains their power remains uncallenged.

Australia is dealing with Black Terrorism which is just as real as using bombs and guns - kids and elders are their weapons of choice.
Posted by rivergum, Monday, 2 July 2007 8:41:36 AM
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I get no joy in saying my ALP has achieved very little in this area.
Not that conservatives have done better.
Any one who thinks Aboriginals have done their best is lieing to themselves.
A fact of life education and accountability are tools we all must use to fix this decades old problem Australia wide.
Not just child molestation but neglect and abuse.
John Howard will not get extra votes here ,he can do only one thing for Conservative Australians leave now.
But he at least is focusing on a problem we Australians have ignored for too long.
Posted by Belly, Monday, 2 July 2007 9:26:00 AM
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