"In the Northern Territory’s great expanse known as Utopia, people live without sanitation, running water, rubbish collection, decent housing and decent health."

John, at Book Book a mere 40kms from Wagga Wagga, we receive none of these services either.

One spleen, vented.

Anything else you'd like to get off your chest about this vile nation? Like Germaine Greer, you only appear to see Australia in one light and like her, are at your best when criticising.

Thanks so much, we do enjoy people dropping in and telling us what we do wrong, any suggestions by the way on solving these problems, undoing the many wrongs, any creative thoughts on helping us out of our clearly dismal state?

I'm sure you feel better now, please feel free to visit again anytime and pour scorn on us.

Not a hint of strategic or policy analysis. No recognition of the key role played by Australian indigenous leaders. No assessment of progress. Just the usual tirade.

"Wolf!" "Wolf!" - you can hardly blame us if we're not listening any more, John.

*sigh*

John actually makes a couple of good points here, but the sneering tone of the piece renders it completely unconvincing.

Plus, those preposterous comments about Australia's Empire are just over the top.

It's articles like these that justify the assertion that the left are a bunch of intellectual snobs who hate Australia.

This bloke knows he has a ready market, amoung the bleeding hearts, for this kind of cr4p. You wouldn't use him in your compost bin, would you? He'd turn the entire contents rancid.

With what's wrong with him, I think the only cure would be large, daily doses of epsom salts. Even then, it might take a month to clear so much of it.

Simon, I live only 53 Kms from the Brisbane CBD, The only one we get is rubbish collection. That's because they decided to close our tip, & a few of us believe, they needed even more rubbish to fill the council seats.

There are 850 houses in my area, & like me, the only thing they got, for their $1500 rates last year, was 3 hours of mobile library, 48 times.

Pilger would be the miser who squeezes the last drop of political juice from a very squashed lemon.

His outlandish suggestion that the anonymous federal government employee seems to be some kind of grand conspiracy (implied) is ludicrous.

http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=7733

The lateline timeline is quite helpful in showing how mean spirited Pilger is, and the whole piece again underlines his total lack of viable alternative.

He just wants to daMMMMMage.

I've NEVER read anything from Pilger which is positive. NEVER have I read "and here is how I'll fix it" nope.. just same old same old THEY ARE ALLLL IN IT and destroying, killing, planning, etc.. can't even be bothered saying any more..

Pilger is irrelevant.

Pilger is a type of moral Nanny of that odd British phenomenon, the Aristocratic Left, who flying First Class, condescends to drop in on us misguided colonials with boring regularity.

Still bills himself as Australian - his visitations are fleeting, thank God.

There is one good thing though. True Aussies, Clive James and Dame Edna, remain in Britain as a type of REVENGE :) on all Poms for harbouring Pilger.

Pete

AH! These readers don't know a true journalist when they read one because they are so brain washed by the generally impotent Australian media.
To suggest Pilger is irrelevant just shows your own ignorance. He is getting published all over the world and is one of the most important voices on international affairs.
We are lucky to have him. But then, it is always those who are unable to come up with their own substantial viewpoints that merely attack others.
Well done John - thanks for your insight and the appropriate criticisms of the worst aspects of Australian politics and indigenous affairs. Please, keep telling the world all about it.

Excellent article, John. I for one appreciate an intelligent and critical view from someone who is outside and looking in. You've made clear to me links and connections I've never picked up as a long time resident from within.

I wondered at the time about the Darwin to Adelaide railway. It seemed so out of character for a government loathe to spend money on any infrastructure at all, let alone rail. I've also wondered about the timing of our East Timor 'peace mission'. Why then, after turning a blind eye for so long? Now I know.

Interesting to note the number of posters who have criticised John for pointing out problems and failing to offer solutions. Yet they themselves have railed at the perceived failings of his arguments, and not one of them has produced any methodical rebuttal or evidence to disprove a single point he's made.

Hasbeen

"There are 850 houses in my area, & like me, the only thing they got, for their $1500 rates last year, was 3 hours of mobile library, 48 times."

You should take advantage of the mobile library. Might broaden your outlook.

Presumably Mr Pilger would prefer Australia BE someone's sphere of influence rather than having one of it's own?

Unfortunately, Mr Pilger just demonstrates his naivity of history (or his malicious ignoring of it) where (If he looked further than GLW) he would find that all nation states exist on the basis of alliances, influence and mutual backcratching.

The emptiness of his arguments are clearly demonstrated by his continual whining about this or that so called inustice, yet (as one poster commented) he might flit from country to country first class in planes which were paid for by the exploitation of the very people he is whining about.

The same applies to his place of residence (Unless he actually has no home, and lives under an aboriginal style Humpy each night)

The same applies to the level of security which he enjoys as he gnashes his teeth and hurls verbal rocks at those he despises.

The idea that a responsible government would NOT take mineral exploitation into consideration when granting a rail licence is absurd.

SOMEone always has to foot the bill for building and maintaining such things, and unless Mr Pilger wants to share some of his own wealth to do so, he should shut up.

The must blatantly empty gong aspect of all that Pilger writes is that he implies that there exists a body of people out there, who will simply "get it right/do it right/ do it unselfishly/look after all equally/bring in the socialist millenial utopia/ and on it goes"

TOTally forgetting that such things have never worked, will never work, and can never work.
Such misguided people bolster their mirage like hopes by clinging to the idea that "Oh..but we have not had true socialism yet..so you cannot say it has failed"
... which of course is total rot and rubbish. The REASON it has not been seen is the reason it will never be.. "people" .. human nature..

sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
Gal 5:19

Bronwyn, I broadened my outlook with a bit of travel. I've lived, & worked with Aussue locals in places you have never even dreamed of, let alone heard of.

I've also lived with locals in PNG, the Solomons, & many of the Pacific islands. Great people, & lots of fun, all of them, except when they have been brainwashed into believing how badly we have abused them.

I have found, most our locals, & the islanders, who have never seen a cow, have bl@@dy good bull s##t detectors, & would run a con artist like Pilger out of town, quick time.

One word of advice about libraries love, when you sit down to read most of the rubbish in them, the thing you are most likely to broaden is your back side. This won't help you understand how the world works, it just makes it harder to get out of the chair.

Good on John Pilger. Australian governments are gaining an ignominious reputation for suppressing vital information, to which the public are entitled.

"Australia's Right to Know" Report, found 500 pieces of legislation and at least 1,000 court suppression orders restricting media reporting.

Australia has 355 laws with specific secrecy provisions, covering not only security and gaming but also wool, livestock, food and grain.

And an additional study, conducted by Boshra Yazahmeidi and Professor D’Arcy Holman from the University of WA, surveyed 302 academics in 17 institutions across Australia, who reported experiencing or witnessing 142 cases of suppression.

Both State and Federal Governments were found to frequently suppress embarrassing or damaging public health information by threatening academics, refusing funding and even tenure.

About one in ten events related to environmental health problems – toxic chemicals in the environment, exposure to infection risks, etc. Other events related to indigenous health and environmental issues.

Dr Maarten Stapper, a principal research scientist, worked for CSIRO for 23 years and is an expert on soil health which, he says, is the key to better crops.

Last year he told The Sunday Age that senior CSIRO management bullied and harassed him and tried to gag his criticisms of GM crops. He left in March after his position with CSIRO's plant industry division was made redundant.

Yet another report, commissioned by major media groups, said information that was once routinely released to the public was now being either withheld, censored or manipulated to avoid media exposure.

A request for documents about the effect of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef involved 538 hours of "decision making time" at a cost of A$12,718.

A two-year request for information on a politician's travel was abandoned when a newspaper was quoted a fee of A$1.25 million -- a cost related to contacting everyone the politician met.

Hasbeen

You state:

"Bronwyn, I broadened my outlook with a bit of travel. I've lived, & worked with Aussue (sic) locals in places you have never even dreamed of, let alone heard of."

How would you know that Hasbeen?

Wow Polycarp - your last paragraph shows you've been pretty busy this weekend. Was it fun? I'm surprised you had time to post with all that debauchery, but I suppose you had to come up for air and tell someone about it. Perhaps it would be safer to pace yourself - say one a week?

Dear John.
Good to read you doing what OzIntellectuals do well.
What you don't mention is the fact that our system is utterly corrupted with the same games of hate being applied to everyone in this country or anyone else we deal with, who doesn't have a solid bank account and the means to employ a team of lawyers.
Let's make that plain - some of us peasants may use their last credits to employ lawyers.
Their sort always get fleeced and inevitably lose in court.

Litigant's money has to be big money - enough to buy 'counsel' off and keep them suppled with booze, mistresses, or whatever they fancy through the inevitable state funded appeals process.
Even then it helps if your desired outcome also suits your 'legal friend''s agenda.
The same old saw since well before 1788.

To continue addressing your reasoning -
ETimor, Timor Leste, civil fashion, could be run with a Qld Shire Council with a couple of years experience under the belt.
The infrastructure there isn't that far behind what we endure in regional Queensland.
Except most Aussies don't go about assassinating Shire Chairmen.

A bit of a phase shift might have Mr Pilger realising that Southern Australians are emigrating to Northern regions and existing under bridges or under canvas. The resources boom hasn't helped them any more than it has helped ordinary people in E Timor.

Hidden Empire?
No. Hidden hate - hidden, carefully disguised contempt for any form of decency.

Mr Pilger, what an unintelligent and paranoid rant full of innuendo and smear but with little fact. Looks like the article was cut and pasted from numerous collected newspaper articles with little logic to link the ideas. One paragraph begins with Ramos-Horta and ends up talking about underweight Aboriginal children.

Perhaps Pilger should ask his mate Hugo Chavez why the poverty rates in oil rich Venezuela have apparently not fallen rather than accuse Australia of resource misuse.

I usually enjoy Pilger's polemical rants, and this one is no exception. What I like particularly are the furious responses he elicits from his targets, who invariably resemble ants when a brick is dropped on their nest.

Of course, as in this case, it's because Pilger's analysis is usually pretty close to the mark. It's utterly unsurprising that many of his subjects aren't very happy with his depiction of them.

Who says that Pilger likes to slag Australia? What rubbish!

Some of his best and most positive writing is about his emotional ties to the land of his birth – especially Sydney’s eastern suburbs where he grew up.

As Jimmy560 says, ‘He is getting published all over the world and is one of the most important voices on international affairs.’ Yet he is still largely shunned by the mainstream Australian media. That is our loss.

And hardly surprising. Throughout his long and distinguished career, Pilger has refused to kowtow to the smug Australian narrative about a bunch of boys in the bush turning an empty but bountiful land into the jewel of the southern hemisphere.

If there were any justice, he would be a household name in Australia. But there isn’t, so HE isn’t.

I at least commend OLO for adding him to its stable of contributors.

I'd have thought that there was nothing HIDDEN about this at all. Howard was extremely overt in all the areas Pilger mentions. And the new sheriff, the Milky Bar Kid aint very different. I'd suggest that Pilger's examples with E Timor, Afghanistan, NG and The Solomans, and in the NT have the motive to help as well as 'our' self interest.

Pilger forgets (if he ever knew) that Lateline was approached by members of the Mutitjulu Womens Council who wanted to expose the activities of pedophiles in that community. Hardly an anonymous smear campaign.

BTW, doesn't Rudds use of "arsenal of freedom" have a horribly Orwellian ring to it?

I'm afraid Palimpsest that you'll have to back up your claims, because:

(a) There is no "Mutitjulu Womens Council"

(b) Nobody invited Lateline to Mutitjulu http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/news/2006/september/smh16sep06.html

(c) The women were furious and "expressed shock and bewilderment at the ABC's portrayal of Mutitjulu and distress at the damage to their community's reputation."

I can't say I'm much of a fan of Pilger, as I find him a biased polemicist. BUT in this case he has summed up the situation correctly.

Johnj, stand corrected on the detail, should have checked against a faltering memory. 21 June 2006 a senior law woman from NPY lands,Mantatjara Wilson and Jane Lloyd of the NPY Women's Council appeared on Lateline describing goings on at Mutitjulu, along with an anonymous Social worker and others. Mutitjulu is within and part of the NPY lands and part of the NPY women's council.

The anonymous youth worker Pilger refers to to support his claims of a smear campaign just happened to be an aboriginal who had worked at Mutitjulu, and had previously been threatened by thugs after giving testimony in another case, hence his desire for anonymity. And the following year a Mutitjulu man was charged with stalking him.

I did not suggest that Lateline was invited to the rock, but said that Mutitjulu women had gone to Lateline. Cultural sensitivities dictated that these women of the NPY had to pay reparations to the menfolk for their expose.

It is now on the record that paedophile activities in the region were known about by authorities for many years without action. There is an awful lot of arse covering going on.

Another great article from John Pilger.

As I have written elsewhere, the Australian empire is built on an alliance with the imperialism of a dominant power. At the moment that is the US, but its ongoing decline may see us possibly shift camps. While unlikely it is a possibility. Our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is an insurance policy aimed at gaining US support for our own imperialist muscle flexing and/or adventures in the region,(Solomon Islands, East Timor, PNG, Vanuatu, Indonesia etc) and to impose our power on the weaker states, to warn possible competitors we are top dog, and to show China we have a very very strong military friend.

This is not the rantings of the mad left. Alan Stretton (the hero of Darwin and former head of our military) wrote recently in the Canberra Times that our [politicians were sacrificing young Australians for the false security and alliance with the US brings.

Our imperialism abroad mirrors our colonialism at home. The NT intervention was never about sexual abuse. It was about overturning land rights and other minor gains Aborigines have made in the last 30 years of struggle, using the same logic of paternalism that saw the stolen generation come about.

No wonder the Racial Discrimination Act had to be amended to exclude the intervention from its ambit becuase clearly the actions taken are discriminatory on the basis of race.

The US and Canada have reduced the gap between life expectancy for indigenous and non-indigenous citizens. Why can't we as a a nation do the same?

More Pilger please.

Ah yes Palimpsest, the "anonymous youth worker" (called Greg Andrews actually), who wasn't a youth worker at all and had never lived at Mutitjulu (though he had co-ordinated a program there), who just happened to be working in Mal Brough's office....

I was interested that you mentioned NPY Women's Council in your post as I have a friend who used to work with them. I visited Alice Springs a few months ago and asked her what she thought about the intervention. After she stopped swearing (which took a while) she said is was "just a bunch of bureaucrats flying up from Canberra and driving around in Landcruisers" and a colossal waste of money.

"It is now on the record that paedophile activities in the region were known about by authorities for many years without action. There is an awful lot of arse covering going on." I'm not aware of a single pedophile charge arising out of the intervention. Meanwhile there's been plenty of evidence of rampant STDs (and other preventable diseases), poor nutrition, inadequate housing, contaminated water supplies etc etc. But of course, these don't make good tabloid fodder do they?

Mr Pilger's comments, are obviously overboard, from any perspective of understanding what the Prescribed Area People's have been working towards acheiving over the past months building toward the convergence in Alice during the previous eight days. He seems to be almost goading the politicians into becoming quite as fully conscious of their devastating work as the fears we all try to combat, might push us into. Yet his way of influencing the rest of the media, has a different pattern in it, to the pattern of Aboriginal and Indigenous Australian culture. Perhaps his approach is realistic, in that among those white fellows of this modern world, how the media tends to condition most white Australian's brains, might need the sort of mockery of government which he is using, just so as to facilitate that he might find a way to get stronger media attention for the issues at stake. The media needs some sort of shock into realising that the entirity of white Australia can not longer afford to ignore the real lives of Indigenous minorities all over the world, but most particularly here in our own country. Perhaps Mr Pilger has hit the nail on the head with the kind of shock which white Australian readers needed. And if he has not, then I am quite sure that he is capable of being made to realise how his approach is being swallowed by all of us. I reckon we need to let him figure out for himself how to attract more media attention to the issues, even if none of us might like him for it in the end, at least he is a prominent media personality who won't shy from sticking his neck out to report Aboriginal matter. If he wants to do it in a way that promotes his own personality at the same time, that's his own problem to work out.

Please read the public statment made by the women who live in prescribed areas, from the prescribed area people's alliance, who met on Monday 29th. It is now available at http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com

For readers not familiar with what a prescribed area is, it is an area of residence, in which all Aboriginal families are required to comply with the conditions of the federal govt's emergency intervention legislation.

I want to ask all Australians the question: Whose emergency is this any way, because perhaps it always has been a white people's emergency of the realisation that this nation has to turn around and start to listen to indigenous land care knowledge.

CJ says:

"Pilger's analysis is usually pretty close to the mark."

errr.. which mark ? the only mark I can see is "All have sinned" and continue to do so. He simply narrates the foibles of the human heart but arrogantly and in complete error..he seems to imply that there are those among the unregenerate who would actually do a better or more honest job.
He provides zero 'hope' or foundation for optimism, he provides zero answer to the root cause "The heart is evil and desperately wicked..who can know it"..

The reasons of course are that Pilger is (surprisingly to some of his supporters) ..'human'.. he is also (like all of us) sinful...his mind is operating on the natural carnal unrenewed level of Nichodemus who asked "How can a man be born again" but Mr Pilger appears not yet to have asked that question of our Lord... When he does, he will see the answer "That which is born of the flesh is flesh..and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit".

Like Pilger.. Nichodemus was a learned man, but Jesus says the same thing to him as to Nichodemus "You are a teacher of Israel, yet you do not understand these things?"
The result of his (Pilgers) operating level is the incessent and carnal output (or more accurately 'put downs') such as we read here in his article.

CANDIDE.. you read my posts :) I'm touched.

Johnj, my contention is not whether or not the intervention has worked or not, that's another argument. I disagreed with Pilgers para where he maintains that the Lateline expose was a smear and a distraction. Pilger says 'the source' was discredited by the NT Chief Minister. There were 6 sources on the show, including the 2 aforementioned. Does the fact that Clare Martin knew of and had failed to act on Greg Andrews claims 18m earlier not tell you something?

Anyway Pilger is just factually wrong in this paragraph.

I too have a friend at the coalface, still working in the NPY lands who is at best cautiously optimistic that good will come of it all. They have had to set aside their purist Leftist sentiments because the situation had become so dire.

I think we need to be very careful about adopting the "white man's burden" approach in analysing the intervention. Every colonialist or imperialist invasion is justified by saying were are making the conquered safe, better off etc. They never are since that is not the reason for the invasion.

I understand John Pilger may be speaking at Marxism 2009, organised by Socialist Alternative over Easter 2009 (which I believe is early April next year.) Details will be available from Socialist Alternative closer to the date. (See www.sa.org.au).

If he does speak, he will of course be speaking in his role as one of the great left wing journalists of our time.

And to those who have been berating him (unfairly in my opinion) all I can say is stick to the force fed Janet Albrechtsen diet. Unfortunately such a diet only worsens mental constipation.

By all means, disagree with Pilger's assessments, but please provide some facts to show us where he is wrong or present some contrary evidence of your own.

A "not-in-front-of-the-children" denial is not an argument.

Dissent is both the privilege and the responsibility of everybody living in a so-called Democratic society and this is what Pilger does.If you don’t see a problem with what he says then say why.

If you just look the other way and don’t speak out about injustice you are giving it your defacto approval and if you approve of it there is no need for politicians to ever change it and it remains in place.

To simply dismiss such things without just cause demonstrates that you believe your personal right to ignorance is greater than the rights of those who suffer needlessly. If the drunkard next door beats his wife every night, then turning up the volume on the TV so you can’t hear it isn’t really a solution but it may make your evening more enjoyable and hey, he may stop by himself eventually anyway.

Funny how it’s those who claim to know The Truth that are the ones most uncomfortable about hearing it, always ready to justify it and even less interested in doing anything about it.

Yep, the truth hurts.
John Pilger for Prime Minister.

Thank you Wobbles, rache and barfenzie. I was beginning to think OLO was dominated by the supporters of collapsing capitalism.

Pilger is a great journalist whose humanity and insights into the workings of the world are outstanding. His writing is first class and he asks the questions that the apologists for capitalism hate. So most of the right ( those defenders of discredited neo-liberalism), instead of addressing the issues, resort to abuse.

In the past this might have been enough for propaganda purposes.

But now that the very ideology associated with profit before people is under attack because of the self-evident failures or problems of capitalism, abuse of those who question, criticise and dissent clearly no longer passes muster with many people.

Many want to know what the hell is going on, and why. Pilger is a person who can help us understand the hidden realities and terrors underlying banalities like the war on terror and spreading "freedom" and of course the failed let the market rule approach. This must now include the failed Keynesianism that is coming back into vogue (eg infrastructure projects, Wall St bailouts etc.) Neither neo-liberalism nor Keynesianism address the crisis of profitability, a crisis inherent to capitalism.

As Marx said "All that is solid melts into air."

As one of my comrades said last night to me, before he flies off to London to collect the prestigious Deutscher prize in November for his book Henryk Grossman and the recovery of Marxism, there have been two major political/economic events in his life - the downfall of Stalinism in Europe and the present economic crisis, an economic crisis that as he points out is not just financial but goes to the very heart of the system - profit and the fact that profit rates in major developed countries are low and the massive attacks on workers and their living standards has not changed that.

The task of the Left must be, as Pilger does, patiently explain the real issues to working people and expose the carcass of rotting ideas that its apologists argue and fester in.

Passy “As Marx said "All that is solid melts into air."”

And like Marx himself said “I am not a Marxist.”

So I guess that was just his way of distancing himself from his preaching.

(at least it shows more sense them those who continue to idolize his failed theories a century and a half after his demise).

As to Pilger, he dines out well by being a professional poop peddler.

Thanks Col Rouge.

You just prove my point about the right having only abuse in its arsenal.

Give me Pilger over Albrechtsen any day.

Passy “Thanks Col Rouge.

You just prove my point about the right having only abuse in its arsenal.”

Really… try

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7864&page=0

the left wing swill had a field day, rolling in the own feces.

Regarding “Give me Pilger over Albrechtsen any day.”

Well my values support the right of free speech and expression for everyone.

It is the left who are so intent on universal equality and conformity, as seen through the control of the press and media under communism (the goal of socialism).

It is the left who demand to limit the right of individuals to express a view contrary to their own.

It is the left who demand to control education and deny people the right of choice over how their children will be educated.

And there is nothing more abusive than denying individual expression, because when that has been eliminated, there is no point to anything else.

Your humbug quotient in on the rise Passy

Thanks again Col Rouge.

Marx made his comment in response to certain groups who claimed to be marxist yet did not understand his basic ideas, and engaged in crude determinism. So it is important to put quotes, indeed analysis, in context.

That is what Pilger does. He exposes and reports on that which the mainstream media leave unsaid. Those who live on a diet of the AFR or the Daily Telegraph (one low brow bourgeois rubbish and the other high brow bourgeois rubbish in the guise of giving working families what they want) will of course find Pilger very different for a simple reason. He tells the truth, not defends the system.

I think that is one reason the internet poses a threat to newspapers. People can participate in "news" and comment on it freely on the net; indeed they can put forward their ideas and mould them based on responses. They are free of and from the satanic mills of the The Australian or the SMH or the Age or the AFR or the Tele or the Herald Sun.

Well said Passy

The newspapers are realising that people's blogs are growing in importance (as is On Line Opinion).

We no longer need to view the people of other continents or religions through the commercial/political reality of the mainstream media. We can talk to people overseas directly even if they are Russians, or Pakistani Army Officers or Indian nuclear weapons specialists.

We bloggers can specialise in important subjects, unfetted by the need to sell newspapers or commercials, or be answerable to government bosses.

And we bloggers can provide, or highlight, information sources to those cruising the net that used to be denied the public or most public servants.

Enlightened journalists are now utilising this information.

The is something that transcends Left or Right labels. This is truly Information Liberation - with no bosses.

Peter Coates