I think Peter Tucker should have left off at: "One is that voters make their vote choice based on the few issues that dominate their thoughts on voting day."

The media and politicians squealing about "another Tampa" and the technical claptrap discussed by Peter Tucker don't know - or care - why the average Joe votes the way he does.

My biggest concern this election will be the nincampoop now squatting in my electrorate; right party, but a personal dud.

Interesting - Peter Tucker. But I am pretty amazed that anyone would think that Howard's action regarding the aborigines was ever intended as an election winner. At least - not in the sense that he thought it would win votes.
Still - it could win some - even lefties would acknowledge that Howard did a good thing, way back, on gun control. They might see this as a caring action - taking control of the aborigines for their own good, etc. Meanwhile his red-neck supporters will be happy about the police/military crackdown approach.

But - it shouldn't be an election-loser for Howard. It will reassure his backers, the mining companies, the nuclear lobby, (and his beloved George W Bush). - that Howard is staying on track with his agenda for them. In one swoop, Howard denigrates the entire aboriginal society, including the vocal anti-nuclear aborigines, while he quiettly guts the Aboriginal Land Rights Act - continuing his push for the nuclear industry and international waste dumping.

Howard knows that the two election things that matter are: fear and greed. He just works them both alternately - interest rates - border control- interest rates - terrorism and so on.....
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

ChristineMac

You can't continue dishonestly trying to scare people with such inaccurate nonsense about Howard's proposals and expect to retain any credibility yourself.

Exactly how is Howard "quietly gutting the Aboriginal Land Rights Act"?

The Brough proposals for changing the NT Land Rights Act do not amount to its gutting. Some aspects are retrograde, stupid, opportunistic - but they do not amount to "gutting", which implies killing or annihilating it.

Certainly taking temporary - 5 year - sub-leases (with provision for compensation to the owners for disturbance of the land) over the tiny proportion of Aboriginal land on which the remote towns are located to enable development of infrastructure does not amount to destruction or gutting of land rights.

Such inaccuracy and intemperate language brings you down to the same level as the worst of the Liberals/Nationals and the Hansonites with their dishoneswt scare campaigns about many things Indigenous.

You can't criticise them for manufacturing fear tactics and then do the same thing yourself and think that you can maintain any credibility.

Howard and Co has never directly gutted anything. He first opens the gate a little and attacks at a later date. He is now attempting to open the gate.

If he remains in power, the gutting will come later. His history has shown that he does not believe voters have to know before an election was his goals are.

Yes I do believe he does not support land rights for the Aboriginals. If I remember he fought hard to weaken it when he first came into power.

Mr. Howard has a long memory and does not like unfinished business.

I would also look at any other policy battles he lost in the last 11 years with care. He will be looking to make amends that will not be in most of our interests.

I suggest the action was in part motivated by the need for a bit of housekeeping prior to the election. True, it is not a vote winner at this stage, but if nothing was done there was the possibility of some drift away from the coalition on polling day. It doesn't take many 'small' drifts to add up to real numbers.

However it is still a long way to the election and Aceh-type photos of troops carrying infants to safety, fixing water pumps and making tea for happy little family units would be in the pipeline. Such front page photos, demonstrating as they would some hope for the future for indigenous people and relief for the greater population from worry about rioting activists, would bolster Howard's image as a strong, practical leader who is prepared to make tough decisions. As much as I don't like it, my fellow Australians adore a leader who is more dictatorial - even a bit of a tyrant - who can make decisions for them and relieve them of the bother of having to participate in politics.

There are other benefits for Howard. For instance, Howard has put a lot of effort into celebrating the military (as conservatives are wont to do) and busywork for them plus the windfall lift in pays that a bit of tourism brings, makes their voting block certain for the government.

Aside from any electoral advantage I sense that through incursions into 'tribal' land, Howard is also laying down some foundations for his pro-nuke backers who need a toehold somewhere.

I ernestly hope some good will come of the intervention, however it is up to the media and informed people to ensure that Howard's resolve is not lost.

I see the HREOC has not changed its attitudes, but is maintaining the sexist and feminist attitudes held by the previous Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

The term “women and children” is used a number of times in this article, but the tem is sexist and feminist, and designed to alienate men and separate them from their families and from their children.

This alienation and separation of men from families has been very successful, and nearly 25% of fathers presently in our society only see their children occasionally, or never see their children at all.

The idea that it is only aboriginal men that abuse their children is incorrect. The last double murder carried out in an aboriginal community has resulted in a woman being charged with the murder of a child and of another woman.

However “women and children” are not going to solve the problems in aboriginal communities. 50% of the children are boys who will grow up to be men, and the alienation of men from families will eventually lead to many more problems further down the track.

The experience in a number of negro communities in the US eventually resulted in programs to get people married. More married couples in the community helped to stabilise families and stabilise the community. So those programs were designed to bring men into families and into the community and not to alienate them.

But the feminist attitudes of organisations such as the HREOC will lead to men being alienated and removed from families. The attitudes of organisations such as the HREOC are a backward step.

HRS: "The idea that it is only aboriginal men that abuse their children is incorrect."

Yes, it's well established that a minority of non-Aboriginal men abuse their children (and other people's children) too.

"The experience in a number of negro communities in the US eventually resulted in programs to get people married."

I don't suppose you have any idea how racist a comment that is. Why is this relevant to Aboriginal communities in Australia? Because both they and "negroes" (sic.) are 'black'?

CJ Morgan,

It seems that I posted to the wrong article and my comments were meant for the article by the HREOC. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6069

But one of my children has ¼ aboriginal blood, and I don’t think I could be classed as racist. The statistics of negro communities in the US and the statistics of aboriginal communities in Australia are very similar, and they are similar in other communities where the same thing happens.

What was found in the US was that low rates of employment combined with low rates of marriage created a whole range of social problems. Problems such as drug taking or domestic violence were secondary, or resulted from the main problems.

The repeated use of the term “women and children” by the HREOC in their article is feminist and sexist as it alienates aboriginal men in those communities and is likely to overlook the real problems occurring in those communities.

HRS: "But one of my children has ¼ aboriginal blood, and I don’t think I could be classed as racist. The statistics of negro communities in the US and the statistics of aboriginal communities in Australia are very similar, and they are similar in other communities where the same thing happens."

Given your use of the term 'negro', I'm surprised you don't refer to your child as a 'quadroon'. Also, if you're going to claim the authority of statistics, you should not only state what it is that they describe, but also provide a source for them.

For example, what "same thing happens" and in which communities? Please provide the statistics that are so "similar", together with information on what it is that they measure.

Yes, I've always wonder what a full blooded white Australian looks like or how one defines purity of blood quantum for such mythical beings. Is John Howard a full blood?

HRS, lots of "white people" have children of 'mixed heritage'...does this mean they are not racist? Not in my books. You probably brag to everyone that this is evidence of your virtues - don't you? (ie drop it into the conversations here and there, like your child is a specie of dog?) Racism is much more complex than you imagine it to be.

Rainier,
You speak as though you dont think aboriginies or negroes are racist only white people. I think the truth is that all races are racist when it comes to favouring their own race over others.
That means that every body in the world is racist. That is they feel more comfortable among their own race. It feels uncomfortable if you are the only white or black person in a cafe totally filled with Japanese,and you can sense their unease at your presence as well.

This is not to single out the Japanese,this is true of any person of any race who finds themselves the only one of a different race in the middle of a huge group of another race. This is because we are all racist and thats just the way it is. To say otherwise is to deny what is true.

Why would anyone use children being sexually abused for political gain?

It isn't Howard doing this, as like the Tampa - it's the left.

This is occuring as the shameless left don't see non-whites as human, just Aboriginals - stuck in their little cultural package for all eternity, to be looked at like some sort of zoo creature.

Leftists experience multiculturalism when they go to a restaurant on a Friday night, although when they get food poisioning, they choose not to see that as cultural.

For some at a party the other night in Melbourne, where thirty 'youths' crashed it - stabbing people with swords(read racist Asians) multiculturalism is a nightmare.

I have no doubt that the left will be seen as the Nazi's of our time.

Leaders like Noel Pearson are already starting to see this. I hope that makes some of you leftist racists tremble!

Pearson goes wrong by thinking the left has goodwill, that their 'socialist' attitudes towards Aborginies - which he rightly blames for the mess, weren't intentional.

Cowards who would rather walk over a bridge and sign a 'sorry' book than demand safety for abused kids away from their tribal value system don't have goodwill.

They are nothing but middle-class leftist white bigots.

Only last year a case in the NT displayed the cultural values that some tribes live under, when a paedophile who raped a girl used the defence that it was his culture, that he committed no crime as he 'owned' her.

Great value system! I can see why the Muslim bigot Keysar Trad sees Aboriginal culture akin to Islamic values!

Yet this is the madness leftists want to preserve, seeing it as cultural genocide if we get rid of it.

It is racist to say that Aboriginies should live that way because they always have.

It's interesting leftists hold this opinion given they are screaming for us to accept refugees fleeing non-western cultural values!

Bizarre contradiction.

Sharkfin,

It is insane that many think only whites can be racist, and this is in fact proof that those who think that way are racist.

Why?

Because they think white people are so far above others that a white can't be the victim of racism.

This despite racial bashings, racially motivated pack rapes of 'Aussie sluts' by middle-eastern Anglophobes.

The Sunni/Shiite massacres are partly based on race.

The Arab Muslim Janjaweed gangs pack-raping black women before they slit their throats is racism.

The murder of ethnic minorities all over the Islamic world is racism.

In fact, only white countries have laws that state all of it's citizens are equal.

In places like Iran, even Japan, ethnic minorities can't hold certain jobs, buy land, and so on.

Probably the worst racism in the middle-east is against Israel, and Palestinians.

While Muslims openly on every channel preach the genocide of Israeli's, Islamic countries keep Palestinian refugees in camps, not allowing them to integrate as citizens, buy land, work in the cities, and so on.

They have been in such camps for over fifty years, and are only still alive because the west funds the camps.

Ethnic youth form gangs based on ethnicity is an example of racism.

That Muslims didn't sack Hilali or protest shows the vast majority are racist.

Arranged marriages are racism.

When geneticists look at races they notice that Europeans have mixed the most - which is why we have different coloured hair, eyes, skin types, and so on.

It is those who only marry their own tribe that are racist.

In this regard, Lebanese Muslims top the chart according to a study done through Monash University by Professor Bob Birrell.

Don't ever let people tell you only whites are racist.

Whites are the only who aren't!

Our countries are multicultural, we allow non-whites to hold any job, although none join the SES, police, fire brigade - again, because they are racist.

HRS

I was curious to learn that one of your children has "¼ aboriginal blood". Are you sure the tests were done accurately? There's nothing so dangerous as miscegenation.

I know it's not for me to interfere with what I'm sure is an otherwise wonderful family, but I was just wondering whether a blood transfusion might help. You could choose, perhaps to go all the way with white blood - there's a bit of it about. Or, you could go the other way and give the child a complete tankfull of Indigenous blood.

But you wouldn't want your child to be like a "negro" would you, so you'd only choose white blood, eh?

But another tip, HRS. Marry the child off quick and get it a job real quick. As you say:
"What was found in the US was that low rates of employment combined with low rates of marriage created a whole range of social problems."

And I think you hit a big nail right on the head with that stuff about repeated use of the term “women and children” in the HREOC article. As you say, it's feminist and sexist because "it alienates aboriginal men in those communities and is likely to overlook the real problems occurring in those communities".

So there's another great solution, HRS. Don't mention those ugly feminists words "women and children" in any future report. Even if it's about w and c, I'm sure we can get HREOC to find a way of disguising that.

Nice to talk to you HRS. I'll talk to you again next full moon.

Sharkfin, i was wonder who would pop up (again) to put forward that old favourite.

While you cant claim Blacks practice in the same form as you do and continue to do so the facts are that the end result is quite different.

As you are reading this you are standing on stolen land, land that was stolen on the basis and justification of white racism.

Racism is about power and privilidge.

I know you don't want to believe what I've just said and have more power than my to decide this than i have.

So to end this little dialogue, yes acts of racism can happen both ways and they do. But the significant difference is the end result.

Ie, you are simply a product of your own ignorance about your own white privilidge! You don't have to think about what it means to be white everyday and thats what white priviledge - having the power to determine what is and what is not racist.

Get it?

Sharkfin, i was wonder who would pop up (again) to put forward that old favourite.

While you cant claim Blacks practice in the same form as you do and continue to do so the facts are that the end result is quite different.

As you are reading this you are standing on stolen land, land that was stolen on the basis and justification of white racism.

Racism is about power and privilidge.

I know you don't want to believe what I've just said and have more power than my to decide this than i have.

So to end this little dialogue, yes acts of racism can happen both ways and they do. But the significant difference is the end result.

Ie, you are simply a product of your own ignorance about your own white privilidge! You don't have to think about what it means to be white everyday and thats what white priviledge IS - having the power to determine what is and what is not racist.

Get it?

When I was in the US for a few months a while ago I was alarmed to realise that people filling in all sorts of forms had to state their 'race'. Why should any government be allowed to request this sort of information? How does one define one's own race?

I remember, as a politically aware person growing up in Australia in the middle of last century, that no one seemed to know what race our family belonged to. Then someone suggested 'Caucasian' which I thought this was strange, as I'd never heard that term before.

In fact, I've never been asked what race I belong to, and for that I'm glad to be Australian.

Having to declare one's race should be made illegal in every country in the world.

"Leftists experience multiculturalism when they go to a restaurant on a Friday night, although when they get food poisoning, they choose not to see that as cultural". (Quote:Benjamin)

You poor sod! You've been given a real flogging with the Aryan purity/neo-con stick haven't you?

Rainer,
It seems that it is politically incorrect to say that someone has “aboriginal blood”, or to say the word “negro”, but you refer to children as “dogs”. Having known some other university lecturers, I’m not surprised at all that you think of children in that way, but I don’t think of children in that way.

The term “Aboriginal-Australians” could be trialled, similar to African-Americans. In fact both groups are becoming very similar, as many Aboriginals are now urban and have very little relationship to the land, similar to the African-American.

Various statistics of the Aboriginal-Australian communities and the African-American communities are also very similar. Higher rates of poverty, higher rates of imprisonment, and higher rates of violence (particularly black on black violence). In fact, most of the harm being carried out on aborigines is being carried out by themselves, or by other aborigines.

Prove me wrong if you can.

Because these statistics are so similar, it leads me to believe that land rights or saying “sorry” will have minimal consequence for the Aboriginal-Australian. The future of the Aboriginal-Australian is mostly urbane, but their future can already be seen in many African-American communities unless things change.

C.J Morgan,
As well as higher rates of poverty, imprisonment and violence, what has become noticeable within African-American communities is a major decrease in marriage rates over the last few decades, together with a major increase in out of wedlock births (from 25% in 1965 to 70% in 2006).

This may seem to be a feminist ideal or a feminist heaven, but it has lead to large scale welfare dependency, an epidemic of fatherless children, and an ongoing poverty cycle that then feeds back into the violence and imprisonment.

You can also have a look at some of the programs being undertaken in the US to get more African-Americans married and employed, and then wonder if similar programs should be implemented in Australia for the Aboriginal-Australian, for their own sake.

http://www1.hamiltonproject.org/comm/events/20061128.htm

I suppose we should be grateful to HRS for providing a link in support of his claims. However, the document it links to provides no actual statistics - rather, it links to a transcript of a panel discussion about marriage in African-American families. Nowhere does it mention "negroes", nor indeed Aborigines.

If we are supposed infer that this discussion is relevant to an article about Aboriginal policy in Australia, then HRS will need to do better than that. For example, we have been given no evidence at all that marriage rates have fallen among Aboriginal people - if this is indeed the case, then HRS should some actual evidence.

HRS has also failed to show why it is that this American discussion is relevant to the subject of this thread. Hint to HRS: have a look for some similar discussions about conditions in Native American communities if you want to find parallels in that country. Your assumption that statistics pertaining to African Americans are relevant to Australian Aborigines still smacks of racism to me.

And what on earth do HRS's snipes about women, children and feminism have to do with the subject of this thread?

CJ Morgan

The point of the exercise is to show that the situation of the Aboriginal Australian has more to do with social systems than with politics.

If you dig a bit deeper into the “panel discussion” you will see that they are discussing a major study on marriage amongst various communities in the US, and if you want to see the future of the Aboriginal Australian, than you can look at the African American. Right now they are almost identical in many ways.

Both are mostly urban, both have high rates of unemployment, both have low rates of marriage, and both have high rates of welfare dependency and poverty.

There shouldn’t be calls for saying "sorry". The main call should be to “get a job and get married”.

Kevin Rudd may well observe that Howard's likening of the crisis to the debacle of Hurricane Katrina may well be on the money .

As I understand it, there had been no Government attention paid for years to the engineering experts that reported that urgent work and large amounts of money needed to be spent on the levee walls that protected the disadvantaged communities involved . In short it was a disaster waiting to happen .

George W sends in the troops.

Sound familiar ?

NT child abuse figures 'not a stand out'

Posted Fri Jul 6, 2007 5:36pm AEST

The co-author of a Commonwealth commissioned child protection report says sex abuse figures for Indigenous children in the Northern Territory are among the lowest in Australia.

Diedre Penhaligon from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirmed Indigenous children in suburban Victoria are more at risk than those in the Territory.

Ms Penhaligan says over the last few years the number of child sex abuse reports has risen across Australia, but says the Territory figures are not a stand-out.

"It's certainly possible that the Northern Territory may have been maybe a bit unfairly targeted compared to other jurisdictions," she said.

"It's a problem in every jurisdiction."

"If we look at the Northern Territory about 4 per cent of all substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect were for sexual abuse in Indigenous children.

"But for other children, that is people who haven't identified as being Indigenous, it is actually 9 per cent and that's a pretty consistent finding across all the jurisdictions."

Earlier, a Melbourne University Professor claimed child-sex abuse was five-times more prevalent in Melbourne suburbs.

HRS, try as you have, the politically correct arguement does not work with me.

What i am refering to is that the history of racism in this country as it relates to my people (and myself) has been informed by quantum blood physics that were scientifically wrong. Race is a socially constructed idea that you are well and truly blind to.

Have a blood test and tell me which globules of DNA are white.

As for you accusing me of calling my own people dogs - have another read of my post HRS and you will see that i was inferring that you obviously like to brag to all and sundry that one of your children has Indigenous heritage like its something you own, something that valorises your creditial to speak on behalf of Aboriginal people.

You have no such qualifications at all.

I hope all your children begin to understand what a horrible narrow minded redneck you are. (assuming they don't now)

Rainer,

There was persecution of the Aboriginal Australians in the past. There was also persecution of the convicts by the English, and the English were persecuted by the Norwegian Vikings, and also persecuted by the Romans. There was also persecution of the Catholics by the Church of England, and persecution of the Protestants by the Catholics and so on. The Aboriginal Australian is not alone in being persecuted by any means.

I have always been suspicious of the figures for child abuse for indigenous children, and I became even more suspicious when the HREOC became involved.

It is also alarming that child abuse rates are higher in the suburbs that in rural areas, because the future for the Aboriginal Australian is likely to be in the suburbs. This is just like the African American.

Read up on the current situation of the African American, and you can see the quite likely future for the Aboriginal Australian. But to avoid that future they should get a job and get married.

GINX,

Aryan purity?

If you can't tell from my post that I am against racism, you are utterly insane!

I don't blame you, the education system and all - but I'm in my twenties so I went through it during the worst part, so no, you've no excuse!

I forgive you.

It may be hard to understand, although it shouldn't be if one can think, the ONLY cultures that aren't racist are the NW Europeans.

Even our genes tell you that! Aryan supremacy! Whites are mongrels! We mixed more than anyone!

Read my post again. And again if you need to. Arranged marriages are racist, think about it. I will only marry you because you're of my tribe. Some f... may try to argue it's 'traditional' but it IS racism.

As is forming a gang based on ethnicity.

That I believe whites don't have the same herd mentality that non-whites do (we can't form packs of fifty) doesn't make me racist, simply observant.

How many 'white' gangs have you seen? Bikies? They aren't based on race.

Just think and you will see it.

Think about how insane it is for that Maori politician in N.Z to say Howard is a 'racist bastard' given he is actually in a political party based on race! The Maori Party.

Really, you must see it? If you can't you are racist.

If you can't, it means you hold non-whites to a lesser standard, because we don't tolerate an 'Anglo' party do we? Nor should we, as that would be racist.

It's sad that I don't make sense to you, but I will never back away from the fact that it is non-white cultures that are inherently racist, which is easily proven.

You can't prove the reverse. We have no institutions here that discriminate by race, apart from positive discrimination regarding our indigeneous.

It's time to wake up, or move along. Within five years leftists will be labelled the racists they are.

Even leaders like Noel Pearson have started to identify the 'left' as the problem regarding Aboriginals.