"Something must be done" we need to "stop talking and start acting". I am sure we will hear more, along with criticising any critic as a do nothing no goodnik tree hugging lesbian etc .h

That has always seemed to me to be the sort of half-arsed solution - don't do something well considered and planned, for God sakes just do somtheing even if it won't and can't work.

It is legitimate to criticise what will be another failed attempt at "solving the Aboriginal problem." It is the same "problem" we have been trying to "solve" for 200 years. We used to just kill them now we kill them with "kindness".

Sending in the troops to sort out the pesky natives may resonate to the racist ratbags who inhabit our mariginal electorates but it is a Black and Gold bandaid for a deep arterial bleed.

Why is the Government treating its own citizens like they are in Sumatra, dropping aid on them, sending medical teams and the like ?At least when they dropped aid in Sumatra they consulted with the locals and asked them for their involvement and support.

American Indians have casinos, our natives have isolated communities with no jobs, businesses or prospects of anything other than make work solutions. Seems to me the real problem is we have been paying people to sit around in places where there is simply no future.

The writer a human rights lawyer? When does she start to practise? Out from the depths creep the critics. The critics who scream if drug dealers get caught, who would rather see little children go on suffering for years rather than see their own dirty ideology ignored.
Go check to see if Hicks is being treated nicely mate and leave Howard to do his duty.
Or go find a proper job!

Politicians slow to act

The Federal Government is rightly being criticised for being slow in taking any action, let alone the draconian step of sending in the troops, to limit sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities.

Three years ago, A Fatal Conjunction: Two Laws Two Cultures by Joan Kimm [ISBN 1 86287 509 X The Federation Press, Sydney, 2004] reported on the “tolerated violence” of a girl-child being “prepared” by several men for her promised marriage to a man possibly 50 years older than she was at the time. My review of the book for the United Nations Association of Australia’s national publication, Unity, was sent to all federal MPs and Senators, and to many state politicians in all states and territories.

Joan Kimm is meticulous and unflinching in setting out the routine patterns of traditional violence and abuse as dealt with by two sets of laws: traditional Aboriginal law and the law of the general population. She illustrates how Australian courts have often given more weight to a defence of cultural or traditional behaviour than to the suffering of women including girls


It is ironic that Australia should lecture other countries about human rights when, as far as Aboriginal communities are concerned, it has ignored or even breached several international conventions to which it is party including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Ian Mathews
Garran, ACT


Ian Mathews AM, 4 Stone Place, Garran, ACT 2503 ph 6282 4025 former editor of UNity, and former editor of The Canberra Times. <ian.mathews7@bigpond.com>

Jocelyn

Given there are a number of posters here who have decided the issue is all the fault of 'feminists', I can only assume who JH and MB have been hanging out with prior to the announcement of these measures, and after they've finished with the Indigenous communities, whose children they are next targeting to 'rescue'.

RObert

Years ago I worked for an Australian company that sent workers to a remote area in Asia for several months at a time while an engineering project was taking place.

One of the workers told me that they would acquire a 'pay wife' while they were there. The villagers would bring young girls who would live with the foreign workers for several months ... cooking, cleaning for, and sleeping with the workers, for a sum to be paid to the father.

Liz, I can accept the idea that some of the problem of sexual abuse may be from miners but pretty much everything I've heard on the topic suggests that most of the harm is associated with social issues within the communities. Real issues which need addressing.

What I've heard about the issue may be wrong - I'll be interested to see what others have to say about that.

What does concern me is the idea that attention get shifted from the real issues. If miners are the problem then that needs to be made clear at all levels but I suspect they are a fringe issue.

The real debate should be about the best means to turn around the social ills within the communities. I tend to favor the empowerment model more than the interventionist model but have not seen how that can work without a strong core group within each community.

I was just listening to a segment on Ch 10 about changes at Cherburg (not sure of the spelling) and the work that has been done there in recent years to stem the tide of sexual abuse and DV. Apparently a group within the community who said "Enough is enough" and started working to change things. For that to work the community had to own the problem.

I'm hoping that Howards strategy works to give a breathing space to put in place better long term solutions.

R0bert

After struggling through the maze of sophistry and cant, I think I've got the gist, i.e. that the shameful abuse of children in indigenous communities in N.T. is wholly and solely Howard's fault (dating back to his stint as Fraser's Treasurer) and his plan is a cynical election ploy and an abuse of human rights.

But I'm sure she really does care.