Punter57: 'Support the Feds or allow the previous state of affairs to go on.' Howard's way and no other? Agree with Howard or support child abuse, eh?

This advice addressed to the PM fell off a truck.

1. Don't intervene until the eleventh year of your reign - preferably on the way to your fifth election.

2. Describe the situation as a ‘national emergency’ and on TV let the man of steel be seen to have a heart of gold - crocodile tears for the wasted childhood of Indigenous children.

3. Select one report only after many other reports saying the same thing have been filed away. Call it confirmation of what you've known for a long time. Get your man to say it's part of their culture.

4. Praise that report effusively; say it has credibility because of wide consultation with Indigenous people; but don't tolerate any further consultation.

5. Endorse the report as the basis of your intervention but ignore its authors and, above all, ignore all of its recommendations. That way, you confirm that you are a man of action with no need of other people's ideas.

6. Insist that your intervention can only proceed if the Racial Discrimination Act is set aside because otherwise that intervention will be unlawful, and it's important that your unlawful acts be lawful.

7. Tackle child abuse by abolishing Aboriginal employment programs and then quarantine chunks of their Centrelink payments. Let it be understood that Aboriginal people are not capable of making good decisions - not like us.

8. Change the laws to allow the Commonwealth to take over Indigenous township leases and scrap the Aboriginal land permit system. Vigorously deny all claims that it’s collateral opportunity for big white business, but don’t explain why you need the land.

9. Offer Aboriginal people only "a reasonable amount" of compensation in return for losing control of their land, but under no circumstances offer compensation on "just terms" as required by the constitution.

10. Try to maintain enthusiasm until the election...after that, wait and see if anyone is still interested.

Get it yet, Punter?
 
 
 
 

FrankGol. This will be my last post on this issue.

The govt has been intervening in aboriginal affairs since Day 1. In March 1996 it ordered an immediate halt to all CDEP programmes in the NT pending an audit of the Communities. Following this, the govt began moving toward (among other things) abolishing ABTIC and encouraging greater self-reliance through "practical reconciliation". It also rejected the "Bringing Them Home" Report in a major effort to prevent the mentality of victimhood making further inroads into the Aboriginal Psyche. You may recall that Noel Pearson called the Fed Govt "rascist scum" due to these (then) unwelcome initiatives. These are the iniatives you believe only started in Howard's Eleventh Year, Frank.

Numerous Communities are totally disfunctional as a result of NT Govt indifference and all types of "spoiling" tactics employed by various powerful lobby groups. But finally, enough is enough.

Your 4th Point is the crucial one Frank, in that you, like so many others (which you have denied) want MORE chit-chat instead of action.When you say "consultation with indigenous people" do you intend to consult with the community leaders who are suspected of being the perpetrators/enablers of most of the problems. When the cops are about to bust a drug-ring should they first ask the dealers how they would like the cops to act? When a bashed woman is asked what should be done, should the "basher" be asked his opinion too, or just allowed to stand threateningly in the corner to derail the whole process?

Last chance for you to understand CDEP programmes Frank. If, say, there are 100 people on Newstart, receiving $250 per week. This is $25,000. If the community chooses to switch to CDEPs, the CDEP co-ordinator will receive about $30,000 per week to pay the participants according to the work done (extra money for materials is forwarded). This means the co-ordinator decides who gets what. If his/her 5 mates get $5000 each and the 95 non-mates get $50 each, then that's the $30,000 spent!! Is this how you see it being better, Frank?

OK. Bye for now. Cheers

punter57 goes on the attack in response to my claim that the Howard Government has done nothing of any consequence in Indigenous Affairs until the eleventh year of its reign.

“The govt has been intervening in aboriginal affairs since Day 1,” he boldly asserts.

He then gives this exhaustive list of Government interventions:

1. In March 1996 the Government ordered an immediate halt to all CDEP programmes in the NT pending an audit of the Communities.

2. Following this, the Government began moving toward (among other things) abolishing ABTIC [sic] and encouraging greater self-reliance through "practical reconciliation".

3. It also rejected the "Bringing Them Home" Report.

Thus punter57 makes his case: “These are the iniatives [sic] you believe only started in Howard's Eleventh Year, Frank.”

So, the Howard Government has (1) halted, (2) abolished and (3) rejected. Halted, abolished and rejected. Yes but what did it DO for Indigenous people?

punter57 says: “This will be my last post on this issue.

As Shakespeare’s Francisco said: ‘For this relief much thanks.’ (Hamlet)

Compliments and commendations (again) to Frankgol for his never ending patience and generosity in attempting to educate the knuckle draggers in this forum. I would have reached for the base ball bat long ago.

To be honest, I'm less interested in the niceties of the legal and moral aspects of the federal government's changes to NT aboriginal land titles than in what Ms Clarke would like to suggest are her solutions to the terrible problems afflicting many Indigenous people in Australia.

I have to admit, however, that the government hasn't given me any confidence that it knows what long-term solutions it is proposing, even though it's started down the right track by seeking to drastically reduce the amount of alcohol consumed in these communities and the resulting physical and sexual abuses imposed on women and children by drunken men.

Well argued FrankGol.

Sorry Punter57 your arguement is full of holes. The sad truth is that many of the swinging voting minority may agree with your views on Indigenous affairs.

I think the 'intervention' is more of an interference to enact land related desires. Did you mob know that Australia is one of the few countries that tried to stop the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the UN. Funny that they want to help us locally but are arguing againsts our human rights internationally.

What next?