Professor Fiona Stanley's Hawke Lecture on Aboriginal Community distress was reported on in Saturday's Age -Nov.7th.The Lecture link is www.unisa.edu.au/hawkecentre/ah/2008ahl_Stanley.asp

The effect on Communities of alcohol removal without support for the alcoholics and their communities she says is "inhumane"and "We would not do it to a dog".

As this great Australian says, white Governments constantly refuse to ask the Question WHY does this happen, this enormous burden of alcoholism, drug taking ,despair and violence in so many communities??

Alcoholics with a now medical need for alcohol or immediate rehabilitation support are walking away from their Communities and families and going to towns that don't want them and can't support them to play out scenes similar to the early press caricatures of Aboriginals bashing each other to death in an alcohol fuelled daze in Sydney Streets 200 years ago.

We white invaders have created this unholy disaster - we are responsible and must demand that the Federal and State Governments with our taxes, help Professor Stanley achieve a decent life and Health for the men ,the women and the children.

All Australians,as we continue to enjoy the spoils of conquest, must work hard to try to repair the wrecked Lives and Cultures of the First Australians.

Alcoholism is an illness. I fully agree with
Fiona Stanley that banning it without providing
any support is inhumane and it does not happen
in the white communities. To allow it to
happen in our Indigenous communities - we need
to ask -WHY?

Our politicians need to be held accountable -
as Fiona Stanley points out - the Aboriginal
communities are audited to death. Yet no one
asks the service providers to account for their
actions when they fall short.

This is neither fair nor just.

Something needs to be done.

Prevention is better than a cure.
We all know what is right and what is wrong.
This definitely sounds wrong.

Things must be put right. There are many lost souls out
there but there must be a cure. Both white and black have
come a long way since the Stone Age days. But what are
modern parents giving to their children of the eternal
values? We need answers - and simply banning alcohol -
is not going to work.

Sir Douglas Nicholls once said,

"You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys of a
piano; you can play some sort of tune on the black keys;
but for perfect harmony, you must use both."

I get the point, it is a terrific one.

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=507

" ... Under cover of racist myth, a new land grab in Australia
24 Oct 2008
In a report for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the deception behind the pretext for a "national emergency" declared by the Australian government in Aboriginal areas. A political cry of "save the children" can also mean the profits of uranium and toxic waste. ... "

..

" ... The facts are not in dispute. Thousands of black Australians never reach the age of 40. An entirely preventable disease, trachoma, blinds black children as epidemics of rheumatic fever ravage their communities. Suicide among the despairing young is common. No other developed country has such a record. A pervasive white myth, that Aborigines leach off the state, serves to conceal the disgrace that money the federal government says it spends on indigenous affairs actually goes towards opposing native land rights. In 2006, some A$3billion was underspent “or the result of creative accounting,” reported the Sydney Morning Herald. Like the children of apartheid, the Aboriginal children of Thamarrurr in the Northern Territory receive less than half the educational resources allotted to white children. ... "

" ... In 2005, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination described the racism of the Australian state .. John Howard .. they deployed arguments not dissimilar to those used by David Irving to promote Holocaust denial. ... "

..

" ... What the doctors found they already knew – children at risk from a spectrum of extreme poverty and the denial of resources in one of the world’s richest countries. Having let a few crumbs fall, Kevin Rudd has picked up where Howard left off. His indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Mackie, threatens to withdraw government support from remote communities that are “economically unviable”. The Northern Territory is the only region where Aborigines have comprehensive land rights, granted almost by accident 30 years ago. Here lies some of the world’s biggest deposits of uranium. Canberra wants to mine it and sell it. ..."

...

Excerpts from a good read.

It will never be easy ,talking of this problem I expect yet again to be branded raciest but these are my thoughts.
Talking of invasion, blaming every thing on whites, is no start to fixing a problem we just must fix.
Much of the birth of the sadness we see today came from Church's trying to destroy the very culture of these people.
Much of the stolen generation was at the hands of those Church's.
I will never side with those who saw the NT thing as unneeded.
We had to act.
I take a very much hands on approach to Aboriginal training and employment.
Driving hundreds of klms for just two on site trainees when help is needed.
I am hurt every time some one falls out and walks away from the only job they ever had or may have.
And that happens more often than not.
Success comes far more often if an elder is involved not a well meaning but uniformed professional.
So I think well meaning fools do more harm than good trainers should come from within the community not outside.
And drinking?
White alcoholics exist and we do not do anything for them do we?
Giant problem but we must find answers blaming non alcoholics is not an answer.

Belly says,
"Blaming non alcoholics is not the answer". You are right - that will produce nothing - blame those whose paid work is to ensure All Australians receive a fair share of benefits from exploiting the wealth of the country.

What I am saying and I believe professor Stanley is saying is that those in all goverments with the power and money [some who could be alcoholics anyway], don't care enough to address the problems of those alcoholics and drug takers that have their supply of alcohol taken away without support and that is a disgrace .

White alcoholics have a huge amount of support networks available in towns and cities if they want them . Several I know have responsible jobs and often with the help of their wives working, support their families, albeit with some problems.

Who would be game to take their grog away ??

It is a Racist act done to the weakest and most defenceless in our so called modern and progressive society .

As The Professor reports in her Western Australia - now probably the richest state in Australia, Aboriginal men die at average age 47 - yes, not the 57 as seen as the still grossly low average for Australia.

There are some moves afoot by the mining industry to expose young Aboriginal people to work in this field . As I write my Aboriginal family in Broome has a daughter and her friends off for a week's bus tour of opportunities available .

No doubt the Companies will give the Traditional owners the holes back .

As DreamOn says the underspending on Aboriginal Health needs to be exposed .

In our small town in Victoria the problem of no doctors was addressed by paying them a lot more money. We have an African , Fijjian and an Egyptian doctor all settled in . One has adopted a local footy team .

A serious recruiting effort with huge sums of the money evidently available would work .

Non-performance and apathy by Governments in Aboriginal Health is inexcusable.

Excellent point made.

Further to the story, it is within my own experience to know that many Aboriginal alcohol over-consumers in remote indigenous settlements, suffer from the micro-bacteria giardia in their guts. Giardia is not able to be gotten rid of, and definitely causes a dramatic worsening of any stomache cramping associated with detoxification. A person might only need to be experiencing slight biologically driven desire for alcohol, for the giardia bacteria to effectively prevent a detoxification from happening successfully without medication. Medicated withdrawal is readily available in the big cities, so why not in the bush?

I have the giardia bacteria myself through contact with remote communities, so know that it can only worsen the need for medical care while enduring detoxification. It is not normally active after the first bout of illness it causes, but can flare up whenever the digestive system, and particularly the liver, are under pressure. The stomache cramps are the worst of it.

In addition to that, it is also my experience that Aboriginal men living here in Brisbane, whom have formerly been incarcerated, find that their detoxification is manageable except for the bowel disturbances caused by sodomy perpetrated against them in the prisons. Perhaps prisons in NT are not so awful, but 100% of Aboriginal men from other states, whom I know, and know of, and whom have been incarcerated, have also been sodomised. The acts of sodomy conducted in prison are done often for the purpose of causing drug dependence whilst in prison, which only makes it harder to detoxify once released. This is just another medical fact which needs to be taken into consideration in respect of how to manage removal of alcohol from indigenous communities.

Putting together those two facts from my previous post, it is interesting to notice, that the incidence of Giardia bacteria present in remote communities, is enabling of preventing the constipation caused by the abuse which prison officals are allowing to happen inside the prisons. Perhaps once the medical world realises the extent of Giardia, and how contagious it is, more of the alcohol over-consumers, might receive the medication they need for a successful detoxification.

Anybody living in a city can walk into a health food shop and buy Ayurvedic herbs which help tobacco detoxification, and Aborigines, like everybody else, ought to be able to access the substances which enable detoxification, where ever any alcohol or other drugs are supplied.

This site is incapible of receiving the meat of the word so I will try to give it as milk instead . Pre 1986 my way of handling my mind when it got overactive was to drink alcohol until I passed out In 86 I recieved Jesus as my Lord And Saviour through confession and the waters of baptism . Within 24 Hours God spoke to me and told never to drink alcahol or smoke cigarettes again and I never have . About 10 years later while visiting a cargo ship from overseas I was offered alcahol and cigarettes from other countrys and I refused . The Lord told me that I was free to chose but it would not be so easy to giveup a second time .
My sister HAD a DISEASE called alcoholism and her catholic priest took her to AA where she listened to the speakers and confessed her
disease of alcaholism dependancy and vowed always to Maintain an alcahol free position with the help of a higher power and life membership in AA which she has taken very seriously . She has helped countless others through AA and never relapsed .
I exchanged my sin for a robe of righteousness from Jesus and my sin was cast into the sea of forgetfullness and is remembered no more and has no power over me Because that is what I BELIEVE .
My sister IS a reformed Alcaholic and has to battle daily to resist temptation BECAUSE that is what she believes .
God gave man free will to believe what ever he choses . It is an individual choice .

Richie 10,
In a perfect world we would have that perfect knowledge but unfortunately [or other ], we base our decisions or actions on what we AND others believe, coupled with those organic automatic, biological impulses and responses that make us human.

These literally decide our next move or thought .

The Life influences on Prof. Stanley's suffering Aboriginal friends are many and conflicting. Not all are helpfull in healthy decision making and action .

We should never lay blame on them .

Dear Kartya Jim,
Love has to be the key to every thing we do and as the song says Jesus is the source of it all. I have a mate from Palm Island who is an alcaholic and while he was with me in our household and sober you couldn't have got a more gentle man but when he went back to metho and orange softdrink it breaks my heart to see the damage he inflicted on himself. I know it is a big problem but I also know Jesus is the only answer to get rid of the problem or you have to resist temtation daily . You can suppress a problem but when the season is right it rears its ugly head again . Jesus came for the sick and the lost not the perfect because they have no need for a saviour. He came because he first loved us. And when we reach out to him he lifts us out of the mess.

“All Australians,as we continue to enjoy the spoils of conquest, must work hard to try to repair the wrecked Lives and Cultures of the First Australians.”

I suppose notion like

“personal accountability” and
“personal responsibility”

must be values which are alien to aboriginal culture

As for the “spoils of conquest”,
Like the Normans versus the Anglo Saxons and Celts before them….

the time for a state of continued pity and inexhaustible excuses is past.

Belly:
Do I take it from your post that you serve one community only, and that you can speak the lingo (and variants) as well?
If so, tell me (somehow) where you live, and I will send you DVD's at my cost,of a program which can help and applied by/to people of all creed, colour and religion and is very fast acting, without drugs I should add. If you could use it to teach one person in each community, and you look back one year later you will see the improvement. It is and should be a free service.

Col Rouge says,
" Like the Normans versus the Anglo Saxons and Celts before them" .

Fair go Col ,Is this is your lame and archaic excuse to withhold help to those most in need ?

Donald McGauchie of the National Farmers Federation talked about his Scotish background and their history in the same way to excuse the NFF's and Howard Government's disgracefull behavior in "overturning" the High Court's WIK Native Title decision, by bringing in new legislation with their 10 point scam .

It won't wash Col- time and Ideals have moved on for most people .

Just look at Obama's Election if you need proof .

kartiya jim, “Fair go Col ,Is this is your lame and archaic excuse to withhold help to those most in need ?”

it is not an excuse, more an observation.

It is the same as asking the question, for all the aid and all the technology and support which has been pumped into Africa, why is Africa still a social and economic basket case?

For all the aid and preferential treatment which has been heaped upon aborigines, in comparison to the welfare available to non-aborigines, why do they remain a social and economic basket case?

The ‘lameness’ is not in what you suggest is my “excuse’. The ‘lameness’ is in the inability of aboriginals to stand on their own feet (metaphor intended).

As for "fair go", how much more affirmative benefits are needed to give aborigines a "fair go"?

“It won't wash Col- time and Ideals have moved on for most people”

The idea that “time and ideals have moved on for most people” is something which aboriginals, who are constantly carping for a state of existence and land rights which prevailed before Captain Cooke arrived, should seriously consider.

Or do you think ‘moving on’ means some ‘renaissance’ of the dreamtime?

If so, what do you intend to do with the 20+ million non-aboriginals who make up what Australia is today?

The sooner aboriginals accept the fact that the first fleet has not only landed but its children have prevailed in populating this land, the sooner aboriginals will be able to move forward themselves.


“Just look at Obama's Election if you need proof .”

Obama has been elected more because the American voters are punishing themselves and the Republicans for the shortcomings of GWB and the age of John McCain, not because of some fundamental shift in US politics.

Dear Kartya Jim,
I have many brothers and sisters in Christ of all nations, races, and creeds. We meet together in many different places and have fellowship with our father and one another with love.
Love covers a multitude of diferences and we don't major on our diferences. As we have fellowship and get to know one another with grace for others always not patronising we learn that we have much more in common then we have diferences.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a life time. If money and ownership was the answer we would see a far diferent world. You can only sell your house once then it is no longer yours to sell. Until we accept the fact that we have a very temperal hold on this world and are just the caretakers not the owner we will continue to bark up the wrong tree.
Read Jesus parable of the vinvard starting at Matthew 21- 33 . Most people on this site on both sides seem have a very narrow point of view and if we hadn't have had men of vision in the past this place would have been still uninhabited
I will finish on a lighter note, an athiest was having dialog with God about ownership of the soil and God told him to make his own .

Col Rouge,
When one considers the social disadvantages, including lack of services that Aboriginal people endure, we whites would have to spend a whole lot more to get Aboriginal people a reasonable level of housing and health .

We continually underspend on health, welfare and transport when one compares their levels of dissadvantage and you then complain they are not going ahead .

Your Darwinian Theory of Evolution for Aboriginal People trying to live in an alien white world, is a cheap "do nothing" position that I believe is indefensible.

...and as for Americans "punishing themselves " by electing Obama that defies logic .

I suggest that the minority that DIDN'T vote for him are the ostriches .

They will quickly head out into the mountains and shoot something to make themselves feel a bit better.

Dear kartija jim,

I'd like to quote from the book by
Henry Reynolds, "Why Weren't We told?"

"Much has changed in the thirty-four years
since I walked across the tarmac in Townsville
airport into the close embrace of a humid
tropical night...

... The great majority of the Indigenous families
which settled in Townsville in the 1960s and 1970s
have been successful in the difficult and linked
tasks of living in a city ... Many families are
still poor and struggle to make ends meet, but others
have established themselves securely in the community.

The educational standards of the young people are
far higher than those of their parents who grew up
on remote settlements or cattle stations. They have
had longer and better schooling.

Hundreds of Indigenous students from all over North
Queensland have passed successfully through the
university and what was the Townsville College of
Advanced Education before amalgamations in 1983.

Many local Indigenous organisations - schools, medical
and legal services, a media company and radio station,
housing cooperatives, cultural societies - have sprung
up in the last generations. Some have failed, but others
have been highly successful..."

This indicates that things are changing
and much has been achieved. It seems
that tolerance and understanding have broadened out.

What I don't understand is the attitude of some people,
who wouldn't dream of criticizing the huge amounts of
aid that the government continues to provide
to white communities, yet
when it comes to providing aid to our Indigenous people,
it's suddenly seen as a 'problem?'

Why?

cont'd

I agree with you regarding Barack Obama.

The Americans chose an election that was all
about the politics of hope instead of the
politics of cynicism. They chose to elect
a President not by the colour of his skin but
by the content of his character.

As Barack Obama told the people,
"America, this is our moment. This is our time.
Our time to turn the page of the policies of the past."

John McCain lost because he simply didn't get it.

kartiya jim “Your Darwinian Theory of Evolution for Aboriginal People trying to live in an alien white world, is a cheap "do nothing" position that I believe is indefensible.

...and as for Americans "punishing themselves " by electing Obama that defies logic .

I suggest that the minority that DIDN'T vote for him are the ostriches .”

“Darwin” as a theory is still valid, largely because it can stand up to being contested

As for “Do Nothing”.. I did not suggest that at all.

I did observe the welfare support extended to aborigines is well in excess of the welfare and offer extended to non-aborigines and the “Do Anything” should not be so racially excessive but in parallel with that used to support other non-aboriginal Majority of Australians.

As for being supposedly “indefensible”,

Consider it so “defended”.

As for the “minority that DIDN’T vote for him”…
that minority was 46%, carrying 21 states, of the voting US electorate, a 7 % differential, with 52.7% carrying 28 states, voting for Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008

and that is a pretty substantial “minority” who you have arbitrarily condemned as “Ostriches”

and that is smaller than the 10% differential Reagan (republican) 50.7% carrying 44 states kicked Carter (democrat) 41% carrying 6 states, out of the white house in 1980
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980

I would suggest you moderate your polemic denigration of voters, based purely on your own biased judgment of an election you are not qualified to participate in.

Col,

..And I thank the good Lord for That !

kartiya jim "Col,

..And I thank the good Lord for That !"

mmmmm.... strange.....

I would say that is interesting except...

you fail to qualify exactly what you were thanking God Almighty for.....

the significant minority who voted for McCain/Palin

or

my observation to your polemic retardation.

kartiya jim
Thank you for opening this thread. I seem to recall from reading other posts you have some first hand knowledge of some of these areas.

Its a pity the work started by Mal wasnt followed through.
Welfare has destroyed many proud person living in the regional areas.
There are capable aboriginal people with the skills to kick of uni ag projects plants small good value adding which could be owned and operated by aboriginal people.
They are not all lazy and you only need look at the Murrys to see that.
The problem is Governments have always kept control over the land for agriculture mining and other projects that were eared marked for their buddies.

We have got aboriginal people sitting on stations but they cant do anything with anybody regarding building factories or anything else because its tied up in red tape.

Its nice to know your still out there making polite informed comments. Your efforts are appreciated.

To PALE,
Thanks; we shall soldier on if the cause is just.

kartiya jim,

No thank You . I just hope we can do something before it too late.
There is a worrying growing trend with some aboriginal organisations not to work with white people.
Of course you would be aware that in poor areas of any country thats in itself can be a area to breed trouble.
Not so long ago a programe we had been working on was taken over by new leaders.
The offer to them was the place was to be purchased for them FOR THEM.
A uni and Ag school and too many things to list were offered with support from the Government etc

Nobody bothered to get back to us. We couldnt understand it.

Finally the person told us nobody wanted to work with the whites regardless of what was being offered.
I am not talking bush area either.

In short if we dont get to the main stream and allow them to opertate a Biz or whatever under their own powers this country s going to be a mess IMOP.

Many aboriginals have diverted to Islam.
Yeh sure I know people will say I am being racist but I am not.
I have been watching this for a while now.

Mind you WHO could blame them after the way our Government have failed to respect them. We send more aid overseas than our own. Discusting. Who could blame them for being bitter.

AND if they are drunk who allowed them the grog.
Stinks

There are PLENTY of good aboriginal people who are capable of helping to turn things around BUT the Government needs to be honest.

Sure they got their land back in many cases BUT they are not allowed to add buildings etc
I respect the fact very much you cared enough to open this important thread.

PS Next time you do fishing near old Jaws take Col with you:)