“Indigenous people voted in large numbers for the Labor Party because they believed Kevin Rudd when he said he would create a national representative body before the last election.”

And, like others who put their faith in Rudd the Dud, what fools they were! Anyone who thought that Rudd was going to do anymore than say ‘sorry’ is a real dunce. And, anybody who talks about the 2020 Summit, previous Summits or any Summits to come, is head of the dunces.

The blather about the Minister’s qualifications – supposedly indicating that they make her far too smart ignore what Stephen Hagan wants – brings up the question of Mr. Hagan’s own qualifications and why they don’t help him to realise that Summits, Government promises and what he wants all count for nothing.

Stephan Hagan wastes a lot of words and includes a lot of irrelevances in his harangue to ask what we all know about ATSIC and why it should never be repeated.

Lazy Leigh lies lethargic longing for lost legacy. Lightweight Leigh left lamenting.

Good article Stephen.

Another thing Hagan seems not to realise - in a democracy it's just not on for any groups to 'govern' themselves separately from everybody else.

As for his comment on Macklin not believing (rightly) that aborigines can govern themselves, we only need to think about the infamous ATSIC and and the state of the remote camps to know that she is right.

Definition:

New ATSIC, New trough for dark snouts.

A woman under male supervision, explaining to a community with an tradition of women's and men's business, that a Parliament, convened under a Constitution which prohibits women's legislatures, prohibits indigenous legislatures, is truly bizarre.

Negotiations should resume when Australia's Constitution is reformed to provide a rational basis from which to proceed

I would of thought that any organisation that limited membership by ethnicity would be a racist organisation.
Every adult Australian has an obligation to attend a polling place and have their name crossed off every time there is a Federal ,State or LGA election so the argument that Aboriginals are denied their democratic right is false.
I think the proposition of a separate indigenous council should be put to all Australians before we start dividing up the country to different pressure groups.
In fact there is an argument that the various land councils should now be self sufficient and self funding with all the land resources that they are now responsible for.
Every other Australian is expected to pull their own weight in this society.
I dont often agree with Minister Macklin but in this she is on the right track to avoid division in this country by having a seperate "native" council.
After all, we are all native to Earth and not just native to a particular geographical area.

OK Stephen Hagan can quote Aristotle

: “Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal”.

Seems Hagan not understand the quote...

Hagan calls for people NOT to be equally free, rather for each person to have their rights and or responsibilities qualified on the grounds of their deemed race.

Hagan is a part of the problem, NOT the solution.

Getting Hagan & co, all so busy going in wrong direction, to alter course likely will help a lot.

Hagan suggest need for discourse, whilst fails to respond to critical comment.

Hagan & co can go create their ATSIC version#2009 any time they want, and can collect together enough followers.

It is up to Hagan and followers.

Any time you like Hagan you can go incorporate under Australias NON-racist Corporations Act

Oh a problem, Hagan can not find enough followers willing to join with him to do it themselves through an option available to all Australians.

Off you can trot Hagan, go demonstrate your RACIST tendencies and register under the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act.

Or is the problem Hagan & co are unable to find enough followers willing to join together and do it themselves ?

No, Hagan could do this all on his own.

So the problem is Hagan wants the public purse to pay for his desires, Hagan is so committed to this approach he is not prepared to spend a few dollars he has available to him, someone else must pay...

Nothing stops the creation of another ATSIC - or other name, apart from Hagan & co's desires to drink constantly from the public purse.

Sadly Hagan is locked into "victim culture", and we know "victim culture" is not the solution... we have watched 30 years of "victim culture" busily ruining the lives of so many... hence the Macklin not wanting to continue the wrong way...

.

First Australians have every right to govern themselves when the governance non-indigenous peoples impose, as with the restriction on legislative control imposed on ATSIC, is so profoundly insufficient.

The Constitution of Australia isn't that good that it should be promoted with blind allegience.

Absent provision for women's legislatures and a women's jurisdiction at law, the women's business of indigenous organisational behaviour, its a misogynist farce that keeps women, including Ms Macklin, under perpetual male supervision.

Little dik Brudder wrote "I would of thought that any organisation that limited membership by ethnicity would be a racist organisation"

Yes true, the development of Australian political parties and federation were founded on white only membership. Citizenship was limited to white only Australians. WHAT a RACIST approach to establishing nationhood!

As for Hagan's latest offering, i really can't understand what he's on about. The consultations and recommendations have yet to be developed. So this whole piece appears to be simply a rant for the sake of it.

It raises the question of whether Hagan believes that Indigenous represenation can only be auspiced by government?

Sadly i think its in the affirmative

I guess one of the central issues is that of equity vs equality. Equality is easiest to understand. If we have a "new ATSIC", then we need a commission for each other ethnic group. If we have legislatures specific to women, then we must have legislatures specific to men. One for left-handed people, one for right-handed people. One for low income earners, one for high income earners, and so on. A Rudd-esque series of talkfests, none with the clout to achieve much, because they have opposing interests at heart.

The concept of equity, on the other hand, recognises that sometimes some people need more help, more money, more time, more in general in order to achieve equal outcomes. It's like schools: special ed kids get more funding per student, a better teacher/student ratio and so on so that they can achieve the same standard of education.

Perhaps indigenous Australians do need to be treated differently in order to achieve the same standards of living. Yes, there are aboriginal people who have done very well for themselves. But it can't be denied that many indigenous Australians are lagging behind and may need a new approach to bridge that gap. Whether the new approach is a separate commission, self-governance, extra money, less money, or the theft of their offspring is not for me to say. But I would say with no hesitation that the system that worked for me is not working for the many indigenous families living just up the road from me.

"Perhaps indigenous Australians do need to be treated differently in order to achieve the same standards of living."

Intergenerational poverty is the result of being treated negatively different.

This simple fact appears to evade the thinking of those who deny the racist history of persecution that still resonates throught many families and communities.

If indigenous people were to wait for the natural tides of liberal democracy and conseiousness to reach a level of understanding that would result in a desire to make major changes that attend to the disparaties that created the original legal and political inequalty that now exists, they would be waiting another 200 years.

But instead, what we regularly witness attributes defect and inadequacy to the malignant nature of Aboriginal poverty, injustice, slum life, and racial difficulties. The stigma that marks the victim
and accounts for his victimization as an acquired stigma, a stigma of social, rather than genetic in origin.

But the stigma, the defect, the fatal differences - though derived in the past from environmental forces - is still located within the victim...It is a brilliant ideology for justifying a perverse form of social action designed to change, not society, as one might expect, but rather society's victim.

Hello to all, I just want to say a lot of departments and corporations have used and abused government money, some don’t even have the right skills or qualifications, so lets not just target ATSIC but then again, Government need to blame someone. Government set ATSIC up to fail. The Government were given numerous reports and recommendations from ATSIC to help our indigenous people but listened with deaf ears and if they didn’t give indigenous people the run around and have them justify everything all the time maybe they would have got things done. The only thing ATSIC did was give indigenous people a voice and a sense of unity, something that is lacking at the moment.