Dear runner, 

You said;"Secondly your notion that I apologise for something I know little or nothing about is ludicrous."

Yet you felt you knew enough about the incidents in Northam to demand the Australian Aboriginal community take responsibility for them.

Do you really need more enlightening?

Okay then here is a little more on your fellow Christian Mr Coleman. He has form on sucking on this particular teat. While he was a Hillsong as the CEO he stripped from the Aboriginal grant money 80 grand a year for himself, over 80 grand to set up his office and paid over 300 grand to his fellow Hillsong Christians in salaries all the while distributing less than $18,000 dollars to those for whom the money was earmarked.

"The Government has admitted that Hillsong Emerge chief Leigh Coleman received $80,000 of federal indigenous development funds to top up his salary, despite having only indirect involvement in the projects."

"It also paid Hillsong Emerge $82,500 to fit out its office in the Sydney suburb of Redfern. Mr Coleman uses the office to run the Christian Business Directory, which touts for advertising worth up to $2000 an item."

"The vast majority of the funds went to employing Hillsong Emerge staff, including $315,000 to cover the salaries of seven workers in Redfern."

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/news/2006/june/aust6jun06.html

My take is that this rorter knew what a good earner this was so he left Hillsong to have another crack at it. Obviously he wasn't going to make the same mistake so paid out more in funds but attempted to save money by only employing one field worker. He is obviously a smooth talker because he got the big mining companies to chip in as well.

Now runner are you and your fellow Christians going to take responsibility for Hillsong and Mr Coleman's disgusting behavior or are you happy to be seen as totally hypocritical?

csteele,

Do you suddenly believe in absolutes? Wow I thought you had previously gone against much of what the Scriptures say and now you are happy to judge another by what standards? I notice you continue to divert from the topic because you are in denial of the problems that have been raised on this topic. If you want to start a thread on Mr Coleman do so but stop avoiding the obvious issues with indigeneous youth and the lack of leadership from the aboriginal elders and parents.

btw csteele
I find it hilarous that the article you posted said that these allegations were made by the NSW Labour party. Has their ever been a more corrupt party in Australia? Have you heard of Mr Thompson, csteele, or are you just cherry picking to satisfy your blindness of indigeneous youth issues?

Hi CSteele,

Far be it for me as an atheist and a Marxist to come to the defence of Runner, but your red herring is probably bigger and smellier than that 15-metre whale-shark recently caught off Pakistan. What you say may be true, but it has nothing to do with the topic.

And as an Aboriginal friend keeps saying to me, 'Reconciliation starts with the truth'. Warts and all. Sections of Aboriginal society are in deep trouble, and it does nobody any good to deny that. There is, after all, a Gap, between the living conditions, behaviours and lifestyles of most non-Indigenous people and many Indigenous people on the one hand, and many other Indigenous people on the other.

The whole truth, and nothing BUT the truth: this is ultimately how justice is served, no lies, no scams, no exaggerations, no cover-ups - and no sliding off the issues. A true cause doesn't need any of those.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

The part of the initial post I felt needed challenging was the notion that the rest of the Aboriginal community needed to take responsibility for the actions of a few and yet there was no need to examine policies of government (whiteys in runner's eyes).

Am I going about this in a ham fisted manner? Possibly. But we all need to take responsibility for afflicted communities. We have two families in a depressed suburb near us who have been going at it hammer and tongs for years with similar violence occurring. Better intervention strategies and law enforcement visibility has defused the situation markedly.

Similarly we all need to take responsibility for Mr Coleman's actions by demanding of government answers as to why he was able to access aboriginal funds to enrich himself after being found wanting when he was with 
Hillsong.

Is there a role for the Northam Aboriginal community to intervene in the dispute between the families? Of course! But it is far less their responsibility than it is the responsibility of the families concerned and the agencies involved.

Is there a role for the Fundamentalist Christian community in Australia to take a stand when Christian charities stand accused of rorting funds for the disadvantaged? Again of course. But the rest of us need to also take responsibility by demanding our authorities act.

To return to the incident first quoted by runner. We know of the injuries suffered by Mr Redman but what of the injuries suffered by the aboriginal lad in the first assault? Are the charges that have been laid only on the indigenous participants? If the lad had gone to the police after the initial assault what would have been the outcome? Would he and his family have seen a timely and adequate response from the authorities? If that expectation is not there then the option of exacting swift justice becomes inviting.

Anyway I take you point and will try and ignore it is runner I am dealing with and endevour to make my case a little more elegantly in the future.

Hi CSteele,

Yes, I fully agree with you, that catastrophes and disasters originating in the Aboriginal community should not be the sole responsibility of other Aboriginal people to resolve and remedy. 'Rescuers' and 'helpers' should come from across the entire Australian community: there are plenty of white social workers who would love to wallow in such tragedies.

But for all that, Aboriginal people as individuals and families, like anybody else (can I say that ? Or are they so incredibly unique, sui generis, and free from such mundane rules) should be responsible for themselves - parents should take responsibility for their kids, as minors and dependents, and for their own actions as well. They can't keep blaming EBU* forever, they're not kids themselves.

Yes, it can be great fun, busting up someone or going around smashing every window in a house, or kicking in doors and wall panels - I've been very tempted myself sometimes. But I know I would have had to pay for any damage I caused, and a single person can do a phenomenal amount of damage in a very short time. A group of kids can demolish an entire house in a night. Great fun ! But great expense to service providers, and eventually to the entire community.

Aboriginal people now have opportunities that weren't available thirty and forty years ago, and people can't pretend any longer that there aren't. Every university would be happy to take more Indigenous students, if they applied and could get through the pre-testing. TAFE colleges seem to have very generous entry provisions. The initiatives of Forrest and Generation One have opened up more than fifty thousand potential jobs for Indigenous people. So there they are - go for it.

Cheers,

Joe


* Everybody but us.