TAC

"... assimilation, taking children from their families, the White Australia Policy and the introduction of previously unknown diseases etc did not have a lasting effect on indigenous Australians which we still see to this day."

I don't think anyone here disputes this. What seems to be the problem is the ineffective programs set in place by those who benefit financially; ineffective programs which perpetuate problems. Despite all the tearful "mea culpa" expression of "sorry," have the circumstances of our indigenous populations improved in any meaningful ways?

Yes, apartheid is alive in Australia.

When John Pilger visited Alice Springs in 1969 large areas of land outside Alice Springs were held in trusts for "Traditional Owners", many still living the old way.

Commonwealth's own Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) 1976 Act transferred both ownership and management to "representative" delegates for "Traditional Owners", they control the corporate "Land Trusts" which hold title to the land.

The Commonwealth consistently uses the ALR(NT) to promote, practice and defend racism and apartheid policies.

Why attack the Commonwealth or NT government for the shoddy housing conditions in these communities, or in Alice Springs sub-urbs ?

These lands with titles held by corporate Land Trusts and similar.

John Pilger with fellow travelers refuse to call these corporate Land Trusts to account for their refusal to provide tenants with basic leases, their refusal to maintain housing, their refusal to spend some of their millions to build new houses.

These corporate Land Trusts with their Commonwealth appointed property agent "Land Councils" remain clearly responsible for shoddy housing, deplorable living conditions, and failed development - as can not obtain basic leases.

Other landlords so behaving are called to account in court, but not these...

Commonwealth, States and Territories continue policy which qualifies the rights and responsibilities of Australians using "race".

Commonwealth still purports to hold and exercise an authority to impose racist, apartheid policies upon Australians.

Such disrespect for Australians who in their 1967 Referenda were acknowledged as seeking to extinguish any and all authority claimed to legitimize exactly such racist, apartheid practices

John Pilger ...

My opinion is that John Pilger is a self-serving hit and run merchant.

Has anyone been able to engage in serious debate with this man.

" .... taking children from their families ...."

Danielle,

Well, yes, I do dispute this: apart from the case of Bruce Trevorrow here in SA - which was illegally done, in SA law - there have been no other cases proven anywhere in Australia. Anywhere. From the little research that I've done, I would conclude that the rate - and reasons - for taking Indigenous children into care have been similar to those for non-Indigenous children since 1840, around 5 %, and for understandable causes such as mother dying, father dying, family break-down or destitution and blatant neglect.

Throughout history, various groups have been accused of stealing children, Jews, Gypsies, the Catholic church, it's one of the most gut-wrenching accusations that can be made.

But evidence is something else: in SA, according to the school records from one major Mission, covering the period 1880 to 1966, out of eight hundred ids ever enrolled, barely a dozen seem to have been strangers, orphans, foundlings, whatever, taken TO the Mission School, and fewer than fifty children were ever put into care AWAY FROM the Mission, and almost all came back within a year or so and eventually married other Indigenous people. So much for turning indigenous people into white people (who the hell ever dreamed that one up?). In that time, forty mothers died, mostly in child-birth, leaving 140 children of school-age.

But if you know of any cases of children taken away from functioning families, from living mothers, just let us know :)

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info

The removal of children, mostly those of mixed heritage, was common in most parts of Australia. That is why Kevin Rudd apologised to the 'Stolen Generations'. In New South Wales the Aboriginal Protection Board used powers of the Aboriginal Protection Act 1915 to remove children and have them trained as servants. It was mostly girls reaching puberty although boys were also removed and put into 'apprenticeships'. The rationale was to get them used to the ways of the white people and assimilate them into white society.

In reality many of the girls suffered sexual abuse and often got pregnant. They were rarely allowed to keep their babies. There was also the case that none of them were paid the allowance due to them. The documentary 'Lousy Little Sixpence' is informative on that. As is the Rosalind Kidd book 'Trustees on Trial – Recovering the Stolen Wages' and Anna Haebich's 'Broken Circles'. John Maynard also covers a great deal of the NSW situation in his book 'Fight for Liberty and Freedom – The Origins of Australian Political Activism'.

To claim children were not removed from their families, other than for 'welfare' reasons, is to show a complete ignorance of what really went on...particularly in NSW, Qld and WA.

Hi minotaur,

Until the fifties, compulsory schooling lasted only until a child was fourteen, less in rural areas if a child was more than a certain distance from a school. So children, including Indigenous children, working from fourteen was nothing unusual. My grand-dad was working at nine, back in the 1880s. Well into the twentieth century, farm kids didn't even have to go to school at all, they worked on their families' farms, sun-up to sun-down.

So Indigenous girls of fourteen going out to work on stations was nothing particularly dreadful. In fact, my wife went out in the sixties, when she was fifteen, to work on a sheep station. She would have been surprised to hear that she was part of a 'stolen generation'. And the chances of getting pregnant were not so high there, the station lessee's wife usually saw to that.

As for being 'assimilated', such children were usually well and truly already on that road, they could speak English, they had had some education, their parents - as often as not - wanted their girls, especially, placed more out of harm's way and into what was considered, for girls, more secure employment. After all, what were the employment options for working-class girls at that time, and until well after the Second World War ? Not factory work, it didn't exist for women. Seamstresses maybe, and if they were lucky, or more middle-class, careers as teachers or nurses.

Of course, kids were put into care for 'welfare' reasons: do you think life was all sweetness and light back then ? Single mothers had to either put their kids into care or battle like buggery to keep them and raise them, there was no single mother's benefit until 1971 or so.

In fact, in relation to Indigenous people, I've come to consider that 'Protection' meant mainly 'Protection of young, unmarried girls', even on Missions and government settlements, as well as for the elderly.

Apart from hearsay, do you have any evidence otherwise ?

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info