Dear mhaze,

No it isn't a matter of "competing figures" no matter how much you try and rewrite this. It AHRC wasn't challenging the figures in the report at all, a report which clearly stated: "The number of perpetrators is small and there are some communities, it must be thought, where there are no problems at all."

Action on child abuse is supported by virtually everyone. The fact that Howard acted unilaterally and excessively due to an upcoming election is pretty well accepted.

This was shown by the lack of action on "poverty, housing shortages, unemployment" which was clearly identified in the report as being strong contributors to family disfunction.

It was treated almost exclusively as a law and order issue by Howard seeking votes. When you do that 6 days between the report coming out and enabling legislation might seem fine. It wasn't and the Intervention did not address the systemic disadvantage at the root cause of family disfunction in a number of these communities.

A Voice would provide some balance to electioneering parties seeking to use the extraordinary race powers in the Constitution for knee jerk political point scoring and instead attempt to make them justify their actions.

"The fact that Howard acted unilaterally ..."

I know you want to pretend otherwise, but he acted with support from the Labor NT government and the Labor opposition. Whatismore, the incoming Rudd Labor government continued the policy for several years.

'Unilaterally' - "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg

Dear mhaze,

Lol.

Well that is the pot calling the kettle black. Let's go through this slowly shall we because it seems you are struggling a little with the concept.

Websters has the definition of the word as "done or undertaken by one person or party".

Howard do not even consult his own bloody cabinet.

"In political terms, the Howard government faced little opposition to the Intervention. Cabinet was not consulted, and the government was able to take advantage of its Senate majority to push through the legislation.

With a federal election around the corner, Labor leader Kevin Rudd saw no electoral advantage in criticising the Intervention".

http://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-its-time-we-learned-the-lessons-from-the-failed-northern-territory-intervention-79198

"little opposition" does not mean it was a multilateral decision at all. Labor going through with Stage 3 tax cuts is an example. No one but you it seems would call that a multilaterally agreed action.

To be clear support after the fact or act does not mean it wasn't a unilateral act in the first place.

If you are still unclear let me know and I will step you though it further.

You can always tell when SR realises he's screwed up again....he starts concentrating on the semantics rather than the substance.

Dear mhaze,

Lol.

God forbid I go to the definition of the word to try and help you understand what unilateral means.

Look mate, you just can't take words and decide they mean something they don't. You tried and I quite rightly pulled you up. I was hoping this might be an educative moment for you but you seem intent on shooting the messenger.

Hopefully though, with a little luck, you will be a little more circumspect when using the word in the future.

I would have used the word "gullible" rather than sophisticated

From the outset, Pascoe said he set out to change the perception of Aboriginal people ...

his "evidence" was, at best, flimsy for his hypotheses

his extrapolation from a possible hypothesis to theory was an over-reach of credibility