Politicians almost by definition are liars, is not a new idea.

Usually politicians try NOT to lie about facts, because facts are easier to prove or disprove.

Politicians regularly lie about what motivates them to do something.

Lies from politcians about what motivates them are not important, for who cares why they are doing something, whether they provide results both sort and agreed to by community is what counts.

Really who cares whether John Howard lies his motivates to act on these issues, that he is acting is what counts.

Who is our community ?

Some certainly want us all divided by racial identification, wh

Polpak, are you the full quid?

Rainier, you might be surprised to find that there would be a large number of people who would support such a move against the Catholic Church!

In addition, if the govt came to me and said that it suspected my children had been abused, and that they wanted to examine them, I wouldnt hesitate to agree (with the condition that it was by a female doctor for the girls, and that I was present to calm the children and make sure that no further abuses were made). The protection of my children is paramount, and if there was the slightest suggestion of a problem I would want it cleared up straight away.

I think that there has been reasonable attention brought to bear on the white miners (etc) that have been responsible for some of the abuse. It has certainly hit the media (and therefore would be in the minds of the pollies). Any of these individuals should be dealt with the harshest way possible. But the same punishment should be meted out to the black men who are found to be guilty of the same crimes. No difference.

The problem is that SOMETHING needs to be done. The status quo has not been working. What Howard is doing might not be the 100% best way to go, but it is a start that is better than none. The problems can be ironed out along the way (there is likely to be a high degree of public scrutiny given the coming election, so voters will be paying attention)

Rainer

The one thing that we can agree on is that if their is any organisation harbouring paedophiles they should be dealt with. This includes the catholic or any other church. Your scathing attack on Mr Pearson seems very unreasonable.

Mr Pearson is not entirely in favour of what's going on here either. For somebody so awfully clever he wasn't clever enough to anticipate how Howard would make use of his brilliant ideas.

Mr Pearson has been supporting a law and order crackdown in indigenous communities for years, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that his crackdown might cost those communities their hard won land rights. There's uranium in them thar remote communities and, happily for Howard and his mining mates, there are abused black kids walking all over it.

Mr Pearson made a mistake when he chose to cosy up to Mr Howard, and deep down in his well-intentioned little Aboriginal soul he knows it. He's been clobbering on about the unintended consequences of lefty ideology, but it looks very much as though he's run full tilt into some unintended consequences of his own.

Mr Pearson has pointed out, quite rightly, the damage that white guilt has caused - that whites who feel responsible for black misery have caused even more black misery. It's true that endless charity has only served to make Aborigines more dependent and more helpless.

Mr Pearson, unfortunately, did not adequately understand the nature of that white guilt. He failed to see that white guilt was all that stood between the helplessness of charity and the helplessness of the brutality he's about to witness.

Mr Pearson is an intelligent and articulate man, and here's hoping he's intelligent and articulate enough to back flip when the occasion warrants. His ongoing concern has been the preservation of indigenous peoples and indigenous cultures, and more power to him for that.

Unfortunately for Mr Pearson, Mr Howard may be interested in rescuing the kiddies, but he has no interest in their future as indigenous people with indigenous culture living on indigenous land.

Mr Pearson's idea of Aboriginality is a living, breathing thing which should continue that way. Mr Howard's idea of Aboriginality is a nice exhibition in a museum somewhere, sponsored by BHP.

Meanwhile back at Mutijulu....
A man known as Ginger was named by the women of Mutijulu as a perpetrator of child abuse in the Lateline expose some months ago. Shortly after this, these same women were forced by the men, Ginger amongst them, to pay reparation to the men. Ginger still lives in the community.