Hi Joe.

You continually ask others, particularly Steele and Foxy, to provide evidence of claims. But a couple of points; "it was never the law (at least in SA) that the Protector had superior rights to the mother" I'll accept that in essence, that was the law in SA, and probably elsewhere. Can you provide evidence that not withstanding that was the law, that in reality the likes of A.O. Neville in WA adhered strictly to the letter of the law. Did Neville see himself as the equal, and not the superior of Aboriginal mothers. Was there some kind of partnership of understanding between Neville and those mothers.

On what evidence did the Protector base his decision to remove a child, was it first hand evidence, or mostly hearsay. Can you attest that in every instance the reasoning was based on neglect.
"he points out that he has no power, or desire, to take children without a mother's consent, unless the child is grossly neglected, i.e. if the mother - or any parent - can't be found. If anything, he responded to requests from mothers to send her child to a Mission for schooling, that sort of thing."
Evidence please that what was claimed by the Protector in SA, did in fact apply to Neville in WA, or even the protector in SA for that matter. Not all coppers, or public servants always tell the truth. You want to preach about the events outlined in the entertaining movie Rabbit-Proof Fence, but swing form WA to SA in an attempt to prove your point. RPF, as I said before is an entertaining move, based to an unknown degree on fact, but it is nothing more, and should not be used as proof that people lie about these things. There was not much political will in the 1930's from politicians to see that Aboriginal rights, assuming they had any, were protected. Certainly there were no votes in spending money in what was a desperate economy at the time on Aboriginal welfare.

cont

cont

You also sarcastically claim people telling their story and "I don't mean some incredibly sincere and tearful speech by someone claiming, hand on heart, that it happened"
Yet whatever a government official said with "hand on heart" you accept as gospel

That's right, Nick. What's your point ? Why do so many people objet to Aboriginal kids getting an education ? And to Aboriginal parents wanting their kids to get a good education ?

As it happens, around 120,000 Indigenous people have attended university at one time or other, some in many courses My kids have been enrolled in (and graduated from) a total of about eight courses. Racists of all sorts need to get used to it. More than forty thousand have graduated, and currently there are nearly twenty thousand enrolled (of whom more than ten thousand will graduate).

I keep mentioning Mrs Mary Bennett, in WA. One thing I'm crooked on Neville for involves her: Mrs Bennett was a teacher at a Mission near Kalgoorlie, and she as in close touch with many people from the Western Desert. One family wanted their son to be enrolled at a school in Kalgoorlie, but Neville blocked it, on the excuse that 'full-bloods' should keep their culture, and ordered the family to return to the Desert. Mrs Bennett fought for the boy to be enrolled for some years, but (I think) Neville refused. I wonder where some of you compassionate people would line up: 'culture' or education ?

The great majority of Indigenous people, maybe 85 %, live in urban areas, cities and country towns. They need the skills to make it in those environments (well, of course, so do people out in remote areas, perhaps even more so): the smaller the community, the more people have to be multi-skilled, resourceful and versatile, to make them work. Think about it.

[TBC]

[continued]

Statistics can be tricky too. Take the 'Deaths in Custody' Royal Commission data. The Indigenous population makes up around 2.5 % of the total Australian population, but back in 1990 or so, 23 % of all prisoners. Of all deaths in custody, 22 % were Indigenous.

Trick question: what would you expect to be the 'equitable' proportion of deaths in custody which were Indigenous ?

23 %. No ! you may say: they make up only 2.5 % of the population, so only 2.5 %. So, what if only 1 % of prisoners were Indigenous, would you still expect 2.5 % ? Well, 1 %. Okay, so what if 80 % of prisoners were Indigenous: what would you expect ? 2.5 % ! Well, no, 80 %. It depends on the makeup of 'all prisoners', it has nothing to do with the proportion of the general population who are Indigenous, only the population of prisoners.

I'll try again: If there were almost no Indigenous prisoners, what would you expect ? A tiny proportion. Surely a proportion of deaths in custody which matched the proportion of people in custody ? If there were NO Indigenous prisoners, what would you expect ? If ALL prisoners were Indigenous, what would you expect ?

Actually, the Johnston Royal Commission knew all this before it even got going. So the Commission focused on improving monitoring conditions etc. for ALL prisoners, and good on them.

Think with your heart AND your head.

Joe

Joe
Joe wrote ". But you and I put together will never have the fifty-year experiences of Big Nana right on the coal-face, so to speak, as a nurse from one end of the Kimberley to the other. If you have data which contradicts what she says, one thing is for sure - you will know it is rubbish. As for some strange craving to take children away for no reason".

Big Nana wrote that kids were taken.
Big Nana writes in English.

Hi Paul,

I'm not in WA, so I don't have access to files over there, so I can only go by (a) evidence, or the lack of evidence, of the RPF story, and what evidence should be there but isn't; and (b) in parallel, what the Protector in SA was doing between 1836 and 1912 or so (the hundred-year rule means that, as an outsider, I can't get access to documents relating to the period after that date).

If you have evidence that the story reflects what actually happened, then I would be delighted to know it. But, as for what might be in those massive files in Perth, one can't prove what isn't there - it's up to anybody who claims that there IS evidence of Neville or anybody else in other States taking children for no reason, without their mother's consent, then let them find it. I'm suggesting that it may not exist.

When Alistair and I were working through the Letters and Annual Reports (around four thousand pages, all up), we were surprised at how few children came to the attention of the Protector - whose job, after all, was to protect mainly the kids, mainly the girls. Bearing in mind that the Department here had only one employee, the Protector, and even in WA, you could count the number of employees on one hand, I'm amazed how UN-disrupted family life was for Aboriginal people. Maybe many incidents didn't reach the attention of the Protector, but two or three cases each year seemed to be average, and usually they were resolved in ways which kept the family together.

[TBC]