The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Howard's 'Hansonism in trousers' policy > Comments

Howard's 'Hansonism in trousers' policy : Comments

By Gavin Mooney, published 31/5/2006

Aboriginal violence must be sorted out by Aboriginal people.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
The author says that Aboriginal violence must be sorted out by Aboriginal people. I take it that he rejects the Aboriginal industry constructed by 'whitey'. Why then does 'whitey' feature in his 10-point rescue plan? Is the author not patronising in his rescue mission?
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 10:35:50 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gavin said "indeed it will be the death of Aboriginal culture if not questioned by the Australian people as a whole."

This begs the question "So?". Cultures have come and gone, as surely as Western Culture has come, and will enevitably go.

Graham says that "any solutions to Aboriginal problems must come from Aboriginal people" yet contradicts this by saying that "adequate funds should be made available over a period of at least 10 years to allow these solutions to be implemented".

Time to stop flogging the dead horse and let those cultures that have succumbed to Darwinian natural selection and let them rest in peace.
Posted by Narcissist, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 10:58:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The author says that "White Australia has continued to believe those journalists who lie about the supposed fortunes that have been and are being spent by governments on Aboriginal health and well-being".

Well, I worked in ATSIC for several years, at a time when its budget was $1.3 billion per annum. That is around $3,000 every year for each Indigenous man, woman and child in Australia.

Some lie.
Posted by jeremy29, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 11:24:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gavin Mooney opens by saying, in essence, that few indigenous Australians have tried to elevate themselves from their past, and that we white Australians are not interested. Agreed.

He then pulls out the old one about treating (investigating by the media) the symptoms, not the cause; but he rejects the invocation of “Coombes-driven socialism” which is the very cause of the problems now becoming more widely discussed.

There was probably no evil intent in the apartheid-like separate development idea dreamed up by Coombes, and instigated by Gough Whitlam. But it was just a dream that has turned into a nightmare. The idea that a small group of people could live in isolation in the 20th century and beyond was doomed to failure, as “experts” are only now coming to realise and admit. Joe Blow always knew it. White Australians, years ago, said, “What’s the point in even thinking about it?”, and lost interest.

Mr. Mooney also rejects the idea of treating everyone, black and white, the same. He claims it is unequal and not fair.

Perhaps he would care to explain why it is that ONLY aboriginal Australians who have assimilated and been treated the same as everyone else have prospered and been able to share in the benefits available in wider society? These people are getting a “fair go” because they wanted it and went looking. They didn’t want to live in isolated camps, trying to replicate some old white man’s vision of the Noble Savage.

Gavin tries to convince us that there is no place in aboriginal culture for the violence against women and children occurring in isolated camps. Has he tried convincing the aboriginal perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse of this? Has he considered that the isolation and idleness of these camps might have something to do with the obvious violence and child abuse?

Like the Coombe/Whitlam dream, Gavin’s plan would fail. Indigenous Australians must assimilate (with help) and camps must be closed down so that aborigines can be individuals like the rest of us, and not held back by stone-age culture.
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 12:33:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Another from the failed idea of Aboriginal self policing. This is exactly what has led to the present day outing of the terrible things done to Aboriginals by Aboriginals.
The only way to give women and children the protection they so desperately need is to bring them under the shelter of the same law that shelters the rest of us.
To keep them in isolation only ensures that the defenceless ones will go on being so abused and the cycle will go on and on.
Time to bring the Aboriginals into this modern age and it is only by education, education that will eventually do that very thing.
Posted by mickijo, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 2:19:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gavin is to be congratulated for continuing to fight the uphill battle against the racism and ignorance of our dominant society. This has now been significantly worsened by today's amendments to the federal legislation concerning native title. These have detracted from the communal nature of traditional Aboriginal land ownership that is so intricately bound up with the laws and customs of non-dispossessed communities. It is a pity that the distinctions between the two different types of communities and of land tenures (their communal and our individual) is not understood - resulting in inappropriate payments of federal welfare to individual Aborigines instead of to each community as a whole. One consequence of this misapprehension has been Noel Pearson's "welfare trap"; to which we can add the abolition of ATSIC, and refusals to ban leaded petrol and alcohol. And now we seek to punish the victims rather than the perpetrators of these abuses. Nowadays, the word used to describe these policies of 'assimilate or die a cultural death' is ethnocide. barbh.
Posted by barb h, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 3:26:01 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gavin will perhaps reflect on the tone of comments to date (excepting Barbh)and those that followed his contribution about a year ago on 'the threat to aboriginal culture - assimilate or worse'.
It probably goes to show how the horrors revealed by a NT prosecutor can quickly bring out the hand wringing impatience of many that seemingly so little progress has followed so much money. I don't exclude myself from this apparent despair. I think his ten point plan is a constructive attempt and ought to get a start at this Brough sponsored ministerial meeting that Claire Martin doesn't want to bother with. To save time and hasten a solution perhaps Mooney's ten point program could be run somewhere and compared with whatever other plans that might get up as a result of Brough's action elsewhere.
Posted by jup, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 10:18:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Jeremy it costs $2900 a day to lock up a two year old Iraqi child in Port Augusta for the crime of being brought to Australia by her mum, dad and three siblings. It costs the same for her parents and siblings.

Now compare that to $3,000 per year each for aboriginal people in Australia and have a good long think about your position.

Our GDP is one trillion dollars - what is the percentage of that granted for health care for the first people do you think and why do you address them as "them" as if they are not "us" so they don't count?

$60 per week per person is not a drop in the bucket - we spent $3 billion locking up innocent men, women and kids in the Pacific and here - $1-2 million per person out in the Pacific - and then had to either let them out or bring them to Australia anyway.

We should have spent that money on aboriginal housing and training to build the houses for the aborigines by the aborigines. They are not a sub-human species you know.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Thursday, 1 June 2006 2:24:06 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Jeremy29 -well said.
I for one would be interested in hearing any more information you have on this and related issues.
So much of what is posted is just a parroting of the political correct lines of the day.People like you, who have worked with/in such groups as ATSIC need to speak-up more often.
Posted by Horus, Saturday, 3 June 2006 5:57:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I would disagree with this article on the basis of the situations described in the media being the product of the behaviours of aboriginal people against one another. The authorities dont want to interfere with these places, indeed, they'd probably cop some abuse. In effect, the places are run by aboriginals already.
Self worth of the individual is the key, to have something worthwhile to do and some challenges and rewards. These things simply dont come from handouts and busy work.
I could of course say that the reason for my lack of success in life must be traced back to the potato famine in Ireland because of my ancestry but that would be B.S.
Posted by The all seeing omnipotent voice of reason, Saturday, 3 June 2006 6:17:34 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy